Anti-Hero: Journey Of Fear

As I swung my flame blade around me the fluids and organs slowly boiled away emitting a noxious cloud. I stabbed out piercing more holes in the monster's exoskeleton letting in air I stabbed up and a wall broke between the various sections of this massive bug. Fluids and unidentifiable pieces of bug guts rained down on me.

I kept slashing above me even as the world continued to tilt. Thankfully the fluids and bug guts cushioned me as the monster slammed into the ground. My right arm twisted and I felt a sharp pain, but refused to let go of my flame blade. It was my lifeline and I wasn't letting it go. I changed it over to my left hand and worked to cut my way free. I finally managed to cut away a slab of exoskeleton along the side causing what fluids were left to rush out over the ground.

I hobbled out of the massive corpse. A trail of green gunk behind me as I moved away. Blood from my right foot continued to leak out over the ground. I let myself fall to the ground in exhaustion. The Dexterity buff had worn off and my SP and dropped below zero into the negatives. My HP was slowly dropping down as well.

At least it was just part of my foot and not my leg. While pirates were great, I really didn't want a peg leg. I pushed out a chunk of something out of my mouth with my tongue and felt it slide down my cheek. Thank god the smell wasn't that bad.

Tor and the rest of the team rushed over. I saw Three holding up the severed part of my foot. "That was badass." Tor said with a slight smile.

"Yeah, right arm is broken I think. Got negative SP."

"Alright, Two carry him back up the mountain. One collect his weapons. I don't want to stick around here." I was tempted to object, but I was too exhausted to care. It took a while but we finally made it back up to the top of the mountain my HP was dipping below one thousand when they got to work. Without any MP the only thing they could do was wash me off and then brace my arm and bandage my foot.

I passed out and woke up as it as the sun was setting. I saw Tor working on the stew. "Uggg." I g.r.o.a.n.e.d out. My entire body felt raw and ached. I wanted to turn down the pain factor from a hundred percent more than ever at that very moment.

"Welcome back." Tor said. She pressed a canteen up to my mouth and helped me take a drink. "That was impressive by the way."

"Huh, yeah." I said with a sigh.

"Good news or bad news?"

"Good news."

"I think we may be able to save your foot, Three's idea actually."

"Really?" I perked up at bit at that.

"That's the bad news. There was only one way to keep your foot alive with what we had…." She trailed off and looked off to the side. I couldn't recall the last time I had seen Tor pensive.

"What is it?"

"Three want to show Kenji your idea." Tor said. Three came into the hut and walked over to the bed. I saw my foot in his hand. I blinked and then blinked again.

"You grafted my foot onto the old man?"

"Yeah you like it? I was inspired by your work of taking the monsters into your own being and passing that along." All I could do was stare at my foot attached with raw flesh to a pulsating heart. "It is a bit tricky to make sure the old man doesn't grow back around it, but yeah."

"Three….good job. Thanks." He beamed at me.

"No problem, great job taking that boss down. I would never have thought about jumping inside of it….so inspired." Three wandered off in a daze.

"Is he going to be okay?" I asked Tor.

"I think he is in love with you, in a fan boy kind of way." Tor said. I didn't know what to say about that. "So One and Two are looking over the corpse they should be back fairly soon." Tor went back to the stew as I lay there in silence.

"Hey, were back." One said.

"You could help me." Two called out.

"Boss man is up. Shit, can't believe you killed that thing." One said.

"Impressive, thanks." Two added.

"Aww, so touching. Wash up that bug gunk and let's eat." Tor said. Everyone was soon sitting on the stone floor in the hut while I lay on the only bed. My SP was still in the negatives, which was crippling me.

"So we searched that corpse and burned what we could." One said as we ate stew. Tor was giving me spoonful's of stew as I lay there. "We managed to get the blades, those things seem like fairly good metal. That was it." One said.

"The bugs seem to be dispersing and not massing, which is the good news." Two said.

"Alright, I need to meditate all night if I am going to have a chance of putting his foot back on. So each of you will take a turn at watch." After the stew I dosed off thinking about how the chunks of meat in the stew could actually be part of my foot.

The next morning I woke up. Tor was sitting against the bed. "Hey." I whispered.

"Your up, I managed to recover a hundred and sixty MP over the night. I think I have a crick in my back." She got up and stretched. "Ahhhhhh, much better. Three you up?" She shouted out.

The rest of the team came inside with Three in the lead. The heart was still gripped in his hand with my foot attached. "Ok since this only a reattachment of a living limb it shouldn't be too bad. One take off the bandages, Three free up his foot from…from the heart. Two hold him down." Tor ordered everyone about.

Two straddled my c.h.e.s.t and put his hands on my arms. He was also blocking my line of sight, I honestly didn't want to see this. "Oh Onciontituts, rebind this man's foot, life to life, flesh to flesh, let it knit and be whole once more so that he may walk again." I felt a sharp pain and then it felt as if my leg was on fire.

"AHHHHHH!" I screamed. The pain went straight through me like an inferno. I couldn't pay attention to what people were saying around me as the pain overwhelmed me.

I woke up to see Tor standing over me. "Don't be such a big baby. It was only a flesh wound."

"How bad is it?" I asked, not daring to try and take a look.

"Well….there were some side effects….." Tor said looking to the side.

"What do you mean side effects?" I asked. "TOR I SWEAR YOU BETTER ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW!" I shouted. I tried to sit up but my body was still too exhausted. She didn't say anything but got behind me and helped me sit up. I as my head came up I was greeted by an odd sight. Where my foot had been there was now a three pronged foot, that was a dark shade of green. I had seen it before somewhere.

"The best we can figure out is that you had a side effect or the wound wasn't cleaned." Tor said. I saw how the green scales of my foot appeared to blend in with my skin around my ankle. "Shoes may be a bit tricky." I tried to move my foot and all three prongs began flexing.

"Screens!" I said.

Tactics-5 MAX

Advanced Tactics-1

Mental Defense-3

Fear Aura-4

Army of One-10 MAX

Slayer of the Swarm Lord-1 MAX

You have killed the king bug

+10 Fate

+5% Constitution

+5% Dexterity

Ichor Blood Corruption-5 MAX

The purified blood of a bug flows through your veins

+10 Fate

+25% Physical Resistance

-25% Endurance

I read off the last two newly acquired statuses to Tor. "Well we know you have demonic blood corruption, so something purified it. Notice that there are no negative effects and the positive one is small."

"Yeah, oh god, I am part bug." I pulled the sheet off, but thankfully it was only my foot that had been affected.

"Your eyes are orange." I wished I had a mirror right then. "I also healed your arm and hands, but there doesn't appear to be anything going on with them."

"So what happened?" I looked at my foot.

"Well, you started screaming and it seemed like the spell wasn't taking hold. Then all of a sudden your old foot that kind of half together at this point begins to slide apart and then this emerged. The flesh that fell off burned up in some flames."

"…."

"So honestly I have no idea what is going on. I could have purified it, this place could have, maybe your demonic blood corruption burned the bad parts away, we just have no way of knowing and you get a tri-foot." I flexed my foot at that. It felt weird. I had no idea how my brain was processing a tri-foot.

"I noticed one bad thing, on a scale of one to ten this is an epic twenty of bad." I said. Tor just looked at me. "That was the king bug, what about the queen bug?" I asked.

"Aren't bugs normally centered around a queen. Oh….not good."

"Yeah, but I can't do shit right now."

"Let me get you some more stew and help you outside, you probably need to take a piss." I blushed a bit at that and mumbled my thanks. I spent the rest of the day sitting against the dome structure watching as One and Two worked to separate the blades from the chitin. Three came over with a grin.

"Glad to see you are up."

"Yeah, you look like you have a question."

"Well I wanted to ask for your blood."

"What for?"

"Well I overheard you and Tor talking. You passed on the demonic blood so I was thinking that I could get some of this as well."

"Get everyone over here, I am only doing this once." Three nodded and raced off. I was almost used to the mound of pulsating flesh in his hand at this point. Everyone came over and I explained things. Tor refused, but One, Two, and Three all accepted. In the end they all got ichor blood corruption level two which came with some Fate and ten percent physical resistance. I wasn't convinced the endurance loss was worth it, but they chose to go ahead with this. Two also gained demonic blood corruption level one.

We rested the remainder of the day as my SP slowly recovered and I worked with One and Two to help me with walking. Tor and Three were meditating in preparation for tomorrow. The problem with having a foot that isn't a foot, but three spikey prongs is that I lost the innate sense of balance and movement I had trained.

One prong jutted out the back while the other two were angled at the front at a hundred twenty degrees from the back prong. Each one ended in a small metal spike and the bottom of my foot had a spike as well that could compress slightly up into my heel. The prongs were like toes, I couldn't control them individually. They could grip or un-grip.

So I spent the day walking back and forth and working to develop the control I needed. At the end of the day I had a light practice spar with Two, but my clawed foot had a wider surface area but better balance and grip which kept throwing me off.

I woke up the following day with my SP full and my HP around half. The idea would be to do a light assessment towards the larger trees and possible village. While I was getting the hang of my foot, it was slow and frustrating. I couldn't practice in my atrium like I had done with everything else since there were no tri-feet programs. There were tri-d.i.c.k programs, furry programs, and a combination of the two but everything had human shaped feet.

We stopped at the first battle sight. Most of the ichor and gunk had been washed away last night during the light rain. We pressed on into the forest and found the crumbling carcass of the Swarm Lord. It looked smaller than I remembered, but it had probably caved in a bit since its fluids had been trained out during One and Two's necropsy.

We continued onwards but didn't encounter a single bug or even a lizard. "Maybe they all died?" One said.

"No, I bet they got a massive debuff when their leader died especially since I think it was mind controlling them." I replied. I stumbled over a tree branch but Two managed to grab me before I fell on my face. "Thanks."

"No problem." We stopped at a couple of hours before mid-day and turned around. The fact that the forest was so quiet was eerily disturbing. It made me honestly wonder where all the bugs had gone. We trudged back up the mountain and got back to the shelter as it was getting dark.

"So you hear the news. Some players are trying to build an airship." One said.

"The way the monsters attack technology that will have every flying thing after it." Two said.

"I wonder if blood can be used a fuel." We ignored Three.

"The problem is that the moment you build one, everyone and their mother are going to be after it. I am sure someone is working on teleportation or portal magic." Tor said.

"It would be a nice way to travel. Just fly to the tower in the desert rather than walking all the way there. I really don't want to have to fight sand worms." I said.

"Why don't you like sand worms?" One asked.

"So back when I was a kid they came out with the Dune remake. I went with my older sister to see it. Let me just say that giant worms traveling through the sand did not leave me with a good impression."

"I bet someone was scared." One said.

"Yes I was scared. I was seven at the time and the creatures were terrifying. I honestly do not want to fight any kind of sandworm."

"That was a good movie." Two said.

"I liked the way they all fought with knives." Three said.

"You should watch some more classics, like Star Wars Ten. Best lightsaber duels ever." Tor said.

"I want a lightsaber, cut through anything." I replied.

"Well you would need three flame enchantments, durability, heat, vacuum for around the blade so it doesn't spray fire everywhere, and a final one to pull in oxygen from the air and funnel it into the blade." Three said. "What? I have been asking around about enchantments and there was a forum discussion on lightsabers."

"Seven enchantments, that is probably pricey." I said.

"The issue is not so much the price but the power requirements, skill to carve on the necessary runes, and it is such a small space. To make a seven enchantment item is considered a once in a lifetime achievement."

"No lightsabers then, woe is me. At least I have good old flame sword." We spent another night up on the mountain peak. The following morning we packed up all our gear and set off, we most likely weren't going to be returning.

We reached our stopping point from yesterday and pushed onwards. It was much easier going downhill than up. I was also starting to get the hang of my new foot. I wouldn't trust it in combat, but hopefully I wouldn't make an idiot out of myself. We came out to the coast and proceeded east towards what we presumed was the village.

We definitely didn't want to chance attacking it from the forest. An open space would be far better to coordinate against a swarm. "Hey everyone, I finally got it." Three explained his new skill.

Blood Drain-1

Like a milkshake

LvL 1: 20% HP/MP/SP taken from blood, -10% SP

"I guess that makes you a blood mage. I wonder what the skill tree for this is like." I said.

"The SP thing is going to be an issue." Two said.

"Hmmm, well I bet that at the higher levels I get awesome vampire powers so not to worry." Three said in response.

"Oh god, sparkly vampires. I swear if you start to sparkle I am going to gut you and then feed you your own intestines. Understand?" Tor said.

"Yes." Three looked a bit worried at that which was a testament to how angry Tor looked.

"Just be careful, sure you can recharge but blood isn't meant to be drunk. Also some creature's would be a poor choice and don't just bite down on anything. Just keep us updated." I told Three.

"Yeah, you got it." He then glommed onto the heart like it was a treat and s.u.c.k.e.d at it as we walked along.

"Up ahead those trees are larger and there is a large cloud of bugs. See all those dots." Two pointed out. There was a massive swarm circling over the trees. "Shit, ok. First let's gather up a bunch of wood and find a strong spot to defend ourselves. Then we start a fire and pull a bunch of the bugs and kill them tomorrow morning. We keep going until we pull the queen and then kill it. Three and Tor you keep meditating. The rest of us will gather up the wood once we find a place to make our stand."

We found two large boulders that formed a natural tunnel. It would be perfect, since the bugs could only come at us from two directions. We passed a slightly uneasy night with no incident. At dawn we were ready. We started the fire going at the rear entrance and all the wood we had gathered quickly caused the fire to grow and light the surrounding trees.

Soon bugs were swarming everywhere and we began to kill any that tried to get into our little enclosed canyon. With three of us guarding the one entrance it was fairly easy to switch out so none of us became too exhausted. As the fire began to spread away from the back Two pushed all the wood we had saved up with us out the back causing fire to block off the rear entrance once more.

By nightfall we must have killed a couple hundred bugs. Thankfully the fire had spread around to the front and consumed most of the corpses. Tor and Three took most of the watch that night since they had spent all day meditating. The following morning we emerged to a charred landscape with hundreds of crisped bugs. The appeared to pop and the fluid and guts would evaporate while the exoskeleton would be left behind charred and crumbling.

The fire had spread outwards and consumed pretty much everything for about a mile all around our position. We advanced through the landscape towards the massive trees in the distance. A bug or two came by and then flew off. We reached the large trees and saw the ruins of various houses near their bases and bug sacs up in the trees. "We burn this. Eyes around and keep watch above." I began using my fire sword to ignite the base of each three one by one while everyone else kept a lookout.

Once we had set fire to three trees we retreated and the massive trees went up in pillars of flames. I heard the popping of the egg sacs as the heat caused them to explode. We watched from the beach as the fire swept through the ruined village and then into the nearby forest where it began to give out. Some bugs buzzed around a bit before flying off. We tried to spot where they were headed but lost them through the haze of smoke.

As afternoon came we went into the charred ruined village. The houses had been made of stone, so had weathered things fairly well. Despite this they looked old and worn. The tree roots often went in-between the stones and had clearly pushed a few in their growth. That meant these burnt out trees were younger than the stones. It made me wonder how old that old man really was.

"Look a tunnel." One pointed out. In the center of the village there was a large gaping tunnel that led underground. We all looked at each other. We had full SP but it was getting dark.

"Let's make camp back at our last spot and then head down tomorrow. They probably have other holes leading to the surface and we could use as much light as possible." We returned to the rock canyon and spent another uneasy night.

The following morning we returned to the hole and started down. I had Tor carry my flame sword since she would act as the center of the group. If I was dashing all over it would disrupt our entire party formation. We came across more egg sacs and killed them. That was when we came to side tunnels.

"Let's collapse them. This is the largest tunnel and the queen or egg layer is probably at the bottom. I don't want things popping out behind us." We got to work Tor and Three kept watch out in the tunnel as we broke apart the packed ceiling causing the side tunnel to cave in. The tricky part is when we came to a tunnel directly above us.

"It twists to the side about ten feet up from the entrance. I will collapse it up there. Two and One give me a boost. The main tunnel was only seven feet tall so it was easy enough for them to boost me up. I then used the protruding roots to make my way up ready to jump down if I was attacked. There was nothing so I sealed off the tunnel were it twisted and we continued on.

After traveling about a quarter of a mile in a slow descent we came to a large cavern. In the center was a massive bug with a huge sac. As the light from Nus' Awakening lit up the cave I saw hundreds of bugs that looked like miniature Swarm Lords. For now they appeared to be ignoring us as we were at one of a number of entrances to the large chamber.

"There, in the ceiling." Two whispered. We looked up and on a small stalactite was a metal box with blue runes engraved upon it. It appeared to me wedged into the rock and directly over the queen bug. That ruined my idea of causing a cave in.

"Observe, observe."

Swarm Queen

LvL: 57

Strongest Stat: Charisma

HP: 5021

MP: 12021

SP: 2131

Swarm Drone

LvL: 96

Strongest Stat: Dexterity

HP: 20123

MP: 121

SP: 8028

We retreated and I shared my observations. "Shit, I bet you the moment we poke the queen or go for that cube those drones will swarm." One whispered.

"I don't know what we can do. There has to be at least two hundred of them, more in the tunnels. You see the way they were carrying the eggs around. So let's say four hundred." Tor said.

"You are missing something. They have low MP and are called drones. We need to take out the queen in one shot and we can then mop them up. Three how is your MP?"

"About half, but I don't think I can kill it in one attack. Not at the distance to the queen from the tunnel entrance."

"I can use my skill conceal presence to get across." I said.

"It only works when you aren't moving and are holding your breath." Tor said.

"It's the only way. I am not leaving that cube, if we can kill the queen then we should win."

"Kenji, this is suicide. We don't know if the drones will give up once the queen in gone. They might all go crazy." She was right, it was insane and reckless. I really wanted it though.

"Any ideas?"

"We get a circular boulder and push it into this tunnel. Since we closed off all the side entrances it should shoot out the bottom and into the queen. At least if the drones go nuts we should be far enough away."

"That's actually really clever. Okay time to retreat." I said.

As we climbed up the tunnel One said, "So is that our motto. Time to retreat?"

"We are the team Anti-Heroes of course. Fighting a losing battle is stupid." Three said.

"I wish I could see when the boulder hits the queen. That is going to be a monster of a mess." One said.

"You man a mess of a monster." Tor countered.

We left the tunnel and began searching for large boulder that was round. Thankfully whatever had dug the tunnel had placed a couple of larger boulder near the entrance. We found one but there were extrusions. I used my flame blade to slowly melt it into a spherical shape. While it was waiting to cool I had a brilliant idea. "Let's find another one while we wait. If one is good two is better." We found a second boulder and melted it into a spherical shape. It was a bit smaller than the first but thankfully that would make it easier to move.

Once the first boulder was cool we rolled it over to the entrance it was a bit past by mid-day by this time. We pushed the boulder into the tunnel and it started to slowly roll along.

"How long do we wait?" One asked.

"A while, the whole point is to stay back. Let's move away from the entrance in case they come pouring out." Tor said. As we retreated towards the beach we felt a tremor through the ground. I checked my experience.

"I got credit for a bunch of them."

"Let's wait a bit at the beach and then head back." We had some water and some raw vegetables Tor had taken from the old man's garden. We then went back and rolled the second boulder into position. We caught our breaths and then pushed it into the tunnel and followed after it.

It crushed a number of drones as it barreled through the large twisting corridor. I let the others finish off the ones that were still alive as we followed the path of carnage. There was a loud boom and dirt rained from the ceiling. When we reached the main chamber it was a mess. The first boulder had plowed through the queen and into the far wall causing a small cave-in on the far side of the chamber.

The queen's guts had been spread in a long trail of purple and green ooze. I could see a number of egg sacs as well. She apparently had not died from the attack right away but crawled for a bit and then perished. This meant that when the second boulder came through it had torn through a new location and made an even bigger mess.

"Kill the drones, save your MP." I said. We immediately began to get to work on killing off the drones. Most of them were standing around doing nothing so it was fairly easy to remove their heads. The experience was amazing. I was pushed up to level eighty six and was able to raise my base Dexterity up to one hundred thirty two.

With the drones wiped out I began looking at a way to get the cube. "This sucks." I muttered since there was no way to get twenty feet up in the air and I didn't want to have Three blow the cube down to us. It was valuable, and after killing all these bugs I wasn't about to damage my prize.

***

6996: I call hax!

TheLordBreckley: The monster inside is finally revealed

GODHAXLOL: BUGGY!

Rawr21: That boss kill was awesome, Rain of Ichor indeed

Ramponator: How did he become part bug? I know people have tried merging themselves but…

UltimataSecret: I did hear about someone who was part bulb out in the forest near Breckley

Beetlejuice: My mommy!

FallenGod: Is it me or is the average intelligence around here dropping

TidalWave: It is all you

6996: Can I be part Octopus. I really would like the tentacles

Ramponator: For what, hentai?

***