Nightmare Realm Summoner

Twisting snakes of red and purple smoke greeted Alex with their ruddy glow as he stumbled into the Mirrorlands. He could still hear his heart pounding in his ears. Faint pops prickled throughout his body as the micro-fractures in his bones repaired themselves with the aid of Princess’ magic, drawing a faint stream of magic from his already dwindling reserves.

He threw a glance at the portal beside them. It was already starting to close. They’d gotten lucky — no Riftwarped monster had been drawn to their arrival. That was good. He wasn’t sure if they’d been in the right shape to handle another fight quite yet.

Mite flopped straight down to the ground and promptly let out a pained groan. His puppet stood over him. With its cloak completely soaked through from Valley Ford’s water, it was considerably more apparent that it was not a human.

Its wet cloak stuck to its body, revealing impossibly spindly limbs and jagged protrusions. The cloth had torn in several spots to reveal silvery-gray components hidden beneath it, but the hood had somehow managed to not only survive but remain over the puppet’s head.

Alex still couldn’t get a good look at the thing’s face no matter how hard he tried.

”That was terrible. Thank god you had a get out of jail free card,” Mite said, his voice muffled by the ground. ”You guys definitely left some stuff out. What the fuck was all that? It was fucking crazy! Like, holy shit! The ocean nearly murdered us and an evil sludge monster shows up from the fucking ground to save us? Then a giant comes out of the sky? Like Seriously? What the hell?”

”Pro tip,” Alex said as he braced his hands against his knees and caught his breath. ”The more you swear, the less effective it is. Save it for the right time and it’ll hit way harder.”

”What are you, my dad?”

”No. Just someone who has a sense of appreciation for good timing.”

”I’ll keep that in mind,” Mite said. His face was still muffled from the ground pressing up against his cheek, but he rolled over slightly to squint at Alex out of one eye. ”Where… are we?”

”The Mirrorlands,” Alex replied. ”You can think of it as the dumping grounds between realities. Valley Ford can’t follow us—”

”Alex?” Claire asked.

”Yeah?”

Claire pointed over his shoulder, her pale fast cast in shifting lights from the glowing mist far overhead.

Alex turned. Then he froze as all the blood drained from his face as he realized the reason why there hadn’t been a Riftwarped monster waiting to greet them upon their arrival in the Mirrorlands.

Looming in the sky above them were what have been thousands of purple rifts. They were so far that the crackle of energy dancing between them was inscrutable, but Alex’s attention was far more focused on the air in front of them.

The body of an enormous, giant floated in the air far above them amongst the streamers of mist. Its smooth, glossy skin almost resembled the night sky. Arcs of energy danced across its body whenever the buzzing energy touched it.

Only portions of it were visible from beneath the clouds, but from what little Alex could make out, the monster must have been the size of a city. It had a single hand extended, reaching through a positively massive portal. Beyond it, Alex could just barely make out Valley Ford.

Shimmering, deep red letters danced in the air before Alex’s eyes to identify the monster. They needn’t have bothered. He knew exactly what it was.

Void Goliath (???)

It technically shouldn’t have been a surprise. Some rational, distant part of Alex’s brain pointed out that he really should have expected this. It wasn’t like things just popped up out of nowhere.

The Mirrorlands were the pathway between worlds. It only made logical sense for the monster to be here.

But logic wasn’t exactly the primary thing ruling Alex’s thoughts right now. If it had been, he would have started running. Anyone — sane or not — would have. There wasn’t even any challenge to be gleaned from something like this. Trying to go up against the Void Goliath couldn’t even be properly called a fight.

It could probably fall asleep for a week while he did his absolute best to kill it and he wouldn’t even be able to give it the equivalent of a paper cut. Even enormous wouldn’t have been an accurate word to describe the monster.

Gargantuan might have come close, but even that felt like an understatement. An existence this size was incomprehensible. Alex was pretty sure that several laws of physics had to have been broken by something this big, but he wasn’t about to take that matter up with the giant.

”Fuck,” Alex breathed.

Mite pushed himself upright to stare up at the Void Goliath. His eyes were so wide that the whites threatened to swallow his irises entirely. For a second all three of them stared wordlessly into the sky.

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

”You know what?” Mite asked, swallowing heavily. ”I think I see what you mean about the cursing at the right time bit. Can we leave now?”

Alex couldn’t pull his eyes away from the scene before him. He watched, unaware that his lips had pulled slightly apart, as the Goliath’s hand extended through the portal toward Valley Ford.

That’s the city of a really powerful Outworlder family. It had to have been equipped with a ton of really powerful defenses. I’m sure they were holding back a lot of their strength to avoid pissing off the System or something, but now that their lives are on the line, won’t they use it?

This could be my best chance to see just how powerful a town can really be.

He could just barely make out Invictus standing on the walls of the town. An ocean of empowered water swirled around him, brilliant shimmers of blue energy swirling within it like a thunderstorm had been trapped within it.

Alex could feel the pressure from the intensity of the magic from where he stood — he just wasn’t sure if that pressure came from the Void Goliath or Valley Ford’s defenses. With the size of the portal connecting the Mirrorlands to 274-50, it could have been either of them.

Invictus thrust his hands up. All the water above Valley Ford exploded upward in an airborne tsunami. It slammed into the Void Goliath’s hand with a brilliant crash loud enough to echo through even the Mirrorlands.

Alex’s body instinctively tightened. It sounded like a god had taken a hammer to the earth itself. If he’d been any closer to the explosion, his eardrums probably would have burst on the spot. The immense force behind the crashing water was incredible.

It’s a good thing Invictus didn’t think we were a real threat. That attack must have cost a ton of energy, but we would have been turned to paste the instant that much magic hit us, defenses or not. Holy shit.

For a moment, Valley Ford’s water swallowed the Goliath’s arm entirely. It raced up into the portal, pouring through it and scattering into the Mirrorlands in shimmering drops. Alex raised a hand as the water pattered down all around them.

He squinted through it, waiting for the Goliath to flinch or pull back.

A hit like that had to have at least hurt—

The water cleared.

”Oh,” Claire said weakly.

The Goliath’s arm hadn’t so much as budged from its course. It continued on its ponderous path down toward the city, an inevitable end that could not be denied no matter how hard those beneath it struggled.

Water roared as Invictus pulled it back to himself. It sprayed through the air around Valley Ford as he flung it forward once more. A shimmering blue dome exploded through the air above the city, burning with energy so bright that it threatened to scald Alex’s eyes from his skull.

It was a valiant effort.

It was pointless.

The Void Goliath’s hand continued on.

Valley Ford’s defensive dome shattered like sugar glass.

Alex tensed in preparation for the colission, but he mistimed it. The monster was so huge that its movements were impossible to properly read. Its hand connected with the city a whole two seconds after Alex had mentally prepared for it.

There was an echoing boom. A deep rumble rolled through the air and the ground of 274-50 bucked as a shockwave raced out from the city.

It wasn’t the explosive force of a massive explosion or a sudden, immense impact. It was the grinding, ponderous crunch of a trash compactor crushing everything within its jaws to rubble.

And in the wake of that horrible noise… there was nothing but silence.

The Goliath flattened Valley Ford in a single blow.

Alex stared on in slack-jawed disbelief. He’d been certain that the Great Tide would have been able to do something. They should have at least had a way to fight back. To stall the monster’s advance, if only for a little.

But there hadn’t even been a fight. All of Invictus’ efforts looked more like a childish protest than anything else.

Alex had lost sight of Invictus in the final moments of the city. There was a good chance he’d managed to dodge out of the way or run, but that didn’t change the fate of the city. It was gone. Wiped from the map completely and utterly.

Twisting golden letters sliced through the air before Alex’s eyes.

Title Fragment Acquired.

Cataclysm: Granted to one whose actions have directly caused the complete and utter destruction of a Town on the Global Leaderboards.

Your standing on one leaderboard has been updated.

If there had been any doubt about if any part of Valley Ford had survived, that System message quashed it completely.

”So that’s what happens when your Disruptor gets destroyed and you use power the System doesn’t permit you to,” Claire said. She swallowed heavily. ”Never let it be said that it doesn’t punish those who fail to abide by its rules. Guess that’s the risk of trying to cheat.”

Alex didn’t even want to think about how many people had just gotten killed. He had no problem with killing to survive and grow stronger — but there had been innocent survivors in Valley Ford. People who had just been taking up residence in the town. Ones who had nothing to do with the Great Tide.

He might not have been the one to kill them, but even the System had made it abundantly clear their blood rested on his shoulders. Queasiness built in his stomach. Alex clenched his teeth and pushed it down.

This had never been his intention. It had been Invictus and the Great Tide who had used a Disruptor to cheat the System and show up on 274-50. He hadn’t been the one who killed them. Innocent lives had been lost, but beating himself up over that would accomplish absolutely nothing.

He had lives of his own that he planned to save. The people in his own town — and the ones that would join it in the future. Alex had absolutely no delusions about being a hero. He wasn’t one, but there were still people relying on him.

I’ll let myself think about this when we aren’t anywhere near that… thing. If it decides it doesn’t like the look of us when it’s done pulling its arm out of that portal, there won’t be a damn thing we can do about it.

”Come on,” Alex said, ripping his gaze from the Goliath. ”We need to get back. Now. I don’t know how long we have until the Region Boss wakes up. Every minute counts.”

”Region Boss?” Mite asked, scrambling to his feet and looking from Alex to the Goliath. ”You’re trying to fight a Region Boss? You know where one is?”

”We’ve got a fair bit to fill you in on,” Claire said as they set off, all sending glances over their shoulders at the Goliath. The monster was so big that the steps they took barely even seemed to change the distance between them.

”I really should have argued for more hazard pay,” Mite muttered.