I ran.

  The bridges blurred beneath my feet, their loose forms resembling faces more and more. The air pressed against my body, as if trying to massage me into non-existence.

  The Chompers were dropping in from everywhere. Some dropped from bridges above my head. Others materialized straight from the empty air ahead of me.

  One crashed down beside me, its stubby legs popping out mid-bounce, jagged jaws snapping open like a bear trap. I swatted it away with New Arm, shattering it into crystalline dust and setting it adrift in the strange realm’s air.

  Five more took its place, rushing me from behind.

  Then there were the winged ones–just like the chompers, except in place of legs, they had weird little wings. Jagged, geometric, and non-uniform, they flapped like glass trying to catch the wind. They zig-zagged, jerking too high, then plummeting too low, moving with no logic–they made better strides when they chomped at the air. It was like they were consuming the space in front of them to get closer to me.

  A flying chomper came out of its formation spinning like a rifle round, and smashed into my shoulder as I was fighting off another two. I grunted, nearly tripping as its body bounced off me and reformed midair. Another clipped my side, its whirling mouth snapping at my ribs before I slapped it away. A stinging heat traced thin lines along my arm—shallow cuts, just enough to hurt, but not enough to drain my HP.

  I snatched one by the wings and swung it around, smashing another of the land-bound ones. Crystal dust whirling around me, I swung New Arm like a whip and smashed the rest.

  They weren’t strong. They didn’t need to be. These were swarm-type enemies. They just needed to slow me down and overwhelm me in one spot.

  More of them burst into existence—it was so many at once. For a moment, it looked like reality itself had grown teeth. I pivoted hard, nearly slipping off the bridge—

  —and the river below shifted.

  My stomach twisted. I wished I hadn’t caught sight of that substance reacting to me.

  The “not-liquid” coiled below, like something was entering the scene from that primordial vortex. My premonition was right. From the center, something surged upward.

  Wait! Not upward. Toward me.

  Their forms never stayed stable, but they held out just long enough for me to acknowledge their forms. A stretched-out hand, too long at the wrist. A torso unraveling at the edges. A head with a blurred-out face, mouth half-formed in a scream. They were an ever-growing mound of incomplete humanoids reaching for me.

  Sounds of chomps intensifying around me, I ripped my gaze away.

  The chompers used those few seconds to their advantage.

  One slammed into the side of my face. Another clipped my leg—my knee buckled, balance shot. I caught myself a second too late.

  My foot hit nothing.

  The bridge had collapsed. I thought I was done. I thought I’d have to fight a mound of misshapen things.

  Instead, I slammed onto the next bridge, just far enough down to hurt for a moment before HP kicked in.

  I shuddered as I lifted my body. For a second, there was a screaming face but no, it was just a trick of the eyes.

  I focused on the path ahead. My legs screamed, but I tucked and rolled, feeling more than hearing the chompers raining down behind me.

  I pushed off, sprinting again, swiping at whatever dropped, flew, or lunged. More bridges came into focus ahead. Were they always there, just blending into the background?

  The sky hummed. Fireflies signaled. The crystals rang. More dark red gaps tore into space.

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  A whisper blew past my ear like a breeze. "Where the hell am I?"

  “Go to hell!” I yelled back.

  I ran and jumped over a fleshy mound. God Arm in hand, I fired at the landbound chompers. Blasted the one flying over my head into crystal dust and blasted a whole line of them rushing up to me. I kept it up until the moment a dialog popped up in my vision to tell me that I was out of shots for the day.

  “Shit!” I yelled, God Arm vanishing, and a chomper leaping onto me.

  Its mouth clamped around New Arm. I swung and smashed it against the floor. Quickly, I rolled onto my feet and ran down the bridge.

  Flying chompers descended from above, but these were easy to aim at and whack away now. They couldn’t handle a single swipe from New Arm. Thirteen descended on me, and thirteen died without me breaking the combo.

  A fat one rushed from ahead, having risen from the bridge. I jumped and stomped, Level Flicker aiding in the destruction of the pudgy chomper.

  I bounced onward and realized a little too late that I had landed on a circular mass with an enemy waiting for me. This enemy was crystalline, but humanoid, with blades for hands and a very sleek, insect-like, segmented body.

  It’s arms went up, as did my own.

  Suddenly, it was like the world had been tilted toward its side. My balance was off—my ears told me that I was supposed to be falling to the side, into that empty space that flanked the platform, but my feet remained planted.

  The enemy seized that moment of disorientation. It got within an arm’s swing of me, and attacked.

  Its arm weapon cut through the air. I reacted just in time to back up, and only suffered a shallow cut across the forehead.

  Being in reach of it, thankfully, meant that it was in reach of me. I jabbed and left a fist-sized hole in its torso.

  The creature crumbled a moment later into a pile of red stones, the world righting itself when it did.

  I picked a few of the stones up like they were drops and prepared to run when my head suddenly throbbed.

  A sharp, wrong pressure swelled in my skull. Something was trying to force itself out, and would rupture my skull like a balloon if it had to.

  I stumbled, clutching my head. My vision warped, the ground below my feet looked to be made of 100 anguished faces. My ears rang, and it only intensified until—

  My HP dropped by one. A wet pop, echoed, and something fell from me, taking all the pain with me.

  I stared.

  A little round thing wobbled on the bridge beside my foot. It was no taller than my knee, pudgy, vaguely humanoid, and trembling. Its body looked squishy, like firm gelatin, but its skin was the same red shade as the stone platform beneath us.

  It cracked its eyes open–the most clear blue eyes. The clearest blue eyes, in the highest definition, stuck on a pudgy, featureless body.

  A creeping horror crawled through my being. It was just so wrong.

  The pudgy thing wobbled upright, its tiny hands clutched against its round belly. It took a careful, nervous step back. Then another.

  Pudgy thing was scared of me.

  I took a step toward it. It turned and ran down the next bridge, and toward the humanoid waiting on the next mass.

  Chompers rose between it and me. They charged into the mass I was standing on.

  I gripped my wrist and ran toward them. With laser-guided intention, I mode-changed into New Sword, and tore through the crowd, leaving a storm of crystal in my wake. The blade bits blasted everything in my sight as I approached the next landmass.

  Crystal humanoid in front of me, I leaped. The little pudgy one escaped between its legs as the humanoid prepared to intercept. The blasts of blade bits threw it off balance immediately and I brought New Sword down, cutting through it.

  “I’m going home.”

  My eyes tracked the pudgy thing. It was running toward the edge, where another of the humanoids was climbing onto the mass.

  It was sleeker than the first, still insect-like, but taller—its segmented arms snapped forward like whips, its bladed hands twitching, ready.

  I braced myself for a battle—then saw the pudgy one scramble toward it faster than before.

  I moved toward it, sensing that something annoying was about to happen.

  Then the world tilted again, and I lost my balance, fearing I was about to fall. I growled, angry at my stupid reflexes.

  The humanoid’s arm flickered—it was a clean strike. But it didn’t attack me.

  It had slashed straight through the pudgy one.

  The little creature shrieked as the humanoid brought it to its head.

  It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t long. Just a single, quick, horrible cry that was ended when the humanoid crushed the pudgy one like a rotten fruit in a visegrip.

  The pudgy one’s juices ran down the humanoid’s arm. It only took a moment to realize that there was way too much liquid for a thing of that size. With a life of its own, the red juice covered the humanoid.

  Its silhouette began to look familiar. And then, when it raised its head, it had the pudgy one’s eyes.

  The world righted itself again. I got on my feet, angrier than before.

  “That’s a shit copy of me,” I said from behind clamped teeth, vein throbbing along my forehead.

  ? Escape a Shadow Beast’s grasp.

  ? Drink fresh water.

  ? Eat a Strobe Berry.

  ? Discover the Laughing Passage.

  ? Kill a Shadow Beast.

  ? Discover a Trial Terminal.

  ? Activate a Trial Terminal.

  ? Visit a foreign settlement.

  ? Activate a Nascent Terminal.

  ? Extinguish a Torch of Preserving Shadows.

  ? Gain a God Arm.

  ? Kill 10 Shadow Beasts (6/10).

  ? Discover 10 Hidden Treasures (2/10).

  ? Punch 10 types of Shadow Beasts (3/10).

  ? Gain a Core Key.

  ? Catch sight of a fairy.

  ? Cook a Cool Water Leech.

  ? Claim victory in a Trial.

  ? Defeat a Husk.

  ? Defeat 10 Husks (7/10).

  ? Punch 10 types of Husks (6/10).

  ? Steal a settlement’s blessings.

  ? Enjoy a dish of a foreign settlement’s local specialty.

  ? Discover a Hidden Passage between settlements.

  ? Scale a wall, natural or otherwise, that is greater than 50 feet tall.

  ? Slay a White Phantom Monkey.

  ? Slay a Mushroom Boar.

  ? Eat a Gigas Berry

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  ? 3 more until a chocolate bar is had.

  [?] Awaiting First Review... So excited. Will definitely need the chocolate bar.

  [Marticus] is STILL actively stabilizing the author's mental health.

  ? If Marticus disappears, Set might suddenly fall victim to falling rocks.