The Jester of Apocalypse

Nothing but two white lights peeked through the heavy armor the golem was wearing. Despite being fashioned out of scales, bendy parts, and numerous pieces, the armor was surprisingly fashioned out of a single, uninterrupted piece of metal.

It strode through the dark hallways, unhindered by the lack of light.

Its smooth movements could be confused with the actions of a regular human. There was no jaggedness to its stride. It was a smooth, forward, almost confident walk.

Growl.

A monster peered from behind one of the walls of the hallway. The golem immediately got into a battle stance and rushed at it. Once it revealed its full body, it was clearly some form of abominid, but it wasn’t too abominal.

It was merely horrifying. The creature had the rough shape and posture of a wolf, but there was no fur on its surface. Only obsidian bristle, dripping with black ichor.

It jumped on the golem, prepared to bite its head off.

However…

The golem’s hand suddenly sprouted a shimmering protrusion, a sword, one that it swung at the abominid. The creature was instantly decapitated, and its heavy body struck the golem.

Yet, it didn’t budge. The golem remained unmoving despite the heavy weight that had just slammed into it as it sprouted another protrusion. A hook that it attached to the monster’s corpse as it dragged it away to the pit.

Down the hallways it went, leaving a trail of ichor behind it, and eventually, it reached the large room. If the golem had a sense of smell, it would belch at the horrific stench coming from within.

But it didn’t. So, its only reaction to the horrid room was to throw another corpse onto the pile.

It turned around, yet again delving into the depths of the hallways. On its way, it encountered several of its brethren. Upon exchanging a shimmering touch of their fingers, both the golems acquired slightly more information on how to move, scout, and fight more efficiently.

Without a greeting, they parted ways and continued scouting through the hallways.

***

The purple slime, or rather, Neave’s avatar, bounced through the inner corridors of the Falken Fortress. After a short trip, he made it to the outer wall. There, he encountered a small hole, one that he promptly shoved his slimy body into.

It led into a tunnel that traveled through the wall. It was a straight tube, encompassing the entire wall, all the way around. There were no other entrances or exits besides the one he had crawled into, but those weren’t why the tunnel was here.

Neave focused, and the body fired through the tunnel at insane speeds. He focused on the senses of the slime body. It could sense the flow of energy, and mere walls weren’t a barrier to its sight.

He could see a faint outline of the entire maze that resided just outside the wall, and as he made yet another trip around it, ensuring nothing unusual was happening outside, the slime left through the same hole it had entered through, and Neave unsummoned it.

Back in his main body, Neave found himself in the main chamber.

He turned and looked at the glass shrub. It had been a while since they’d seen the puppet, and Neave assumed it had been destroyed somewhere. However, no matter how many he built again, the shrub simply didn’t take control of them.

Neave’s initial reaction was to assume that it couldn’t, yet, as he examined the body of the plant through the senses of the slime, he noticed something strange.

The plant seemed to be creating an entirely new body, all on its own.

For a while already, Neave could not sense the glass shrub's cultivation. It had used the same trick as he did to hide it, and not even he could see past it.

He resummoned to slime to take another look at the glass body. It was moving. Quite a bit more than it had been before.

Was it about to… Hatch?

Neave wasn’t sure whether this was really just another avatar or perhaps some form of child. Either way, it was exciting news, so he hopped to the teleporter.

Soon enough, he found himself standing before five small domes of spirit.

Without any hesitation, he smashed them apart to reveal the people within. Every smash was followed by an outpouring of liquid spirit, a frightened yelp, and curses.

Neave had discovered a new way to boost their cultivation speed. It was quite simple. All he had to do was dunk them into liquid spirit.

Cultivators didn't need air to breathe at the bronze path and beyond. Neave didn’t need air either, but that was due to his absurd combination of spirit powers, nullifying the need.

Still, being fully submerged in liquid with your lungs filled to the brim wasn’t a comfortable experience. They got used to it eventually, however, and it paid off.

All of them had already reached the second step of the platinum path.

Neave wasn’t sure how long they had been here, but it was clear that it had been a while. His appearance hadn’t changed much, in no small part because he intentionally kept it from changing, but the others had shown a noticeable difference in looks.

Marven didn’t look much different, but he had still changed slightly. His body looked sleeker, and he somehow looked even younger now.

Dukean looked a lot… Meaner. His face had morphed a bit to look slightly more mature, and that resulted in a rather frightening effect.

Gabrias looked slightly less ugly now. His slightly large nose and lips had shrunk slightly, and his eyes shone brighter. His black hair was quite a bit shinier now as well. He had also grown slightly taller than before.

Hunter looked twenty years older. His rough, immature form had been chiseled away, and now, he looked like some warmongerer. His face was extremely muscular, and his jaw was very pronounced.

Harel looked… Frankly, she looked dangerous. There was a sharpness to her looks, and her facial features were rather cold. She was clearly quite muscular, as well. Her entire body looked forged in iron and stone, and there was no doubt it was at least as hard.

It took them a while to recover from the scare, as they all spent a long time meditating.

Finally, Dukean asked, “Are the demons coming!?”

Neave rolled his eyes, “No, silly, follow me!”

They all got up and followed Neave as he led them to the teleportation platform.

The platform lit up, and they found themselves in the main chamber in moments.

“It's about to hatch!” Neave declared dramatically, which earned him a flat look from the others.

Marven spoke up, “Neave… What is?”

Neave only smiled as he pointed at the glass shrub, “That is.”

Seconds later, one of the obsidian tiles was kicked up, and from beneath it, a creature began crawling out.

Instantly, everyone but Neave adopted a combat stance, ready to fight. He waved them down, however, and instructed them to wait.

Soon enough, a shimmering, transparent humanoid crawled out. It looked like an androgynous human of glass, flickering with rainbow colors. It had thin strands of hair flowing down its shoulders, and its eyes shone with beautiful light.

It opened its mouth and… Whistled. After fumbling with its throat for a while, producing all kinds of ear-grating noises, it managed to replicate something akin to a human voice.

And then, it spoke, “Hello.”

The others all started in shock, and Neave rushed forward, hugging the creature, “Shrubby! You’re all grown up now!”

The others realized what Neave meant and gaped in shock. That was the glass shrub!?

It wrestled Neave off its body and said, “Please, Master, refer to me as Xurbon.”

Neave nodded, “I see, I see, Shurbon, that is a fitting name!”

It frowned, “No, my name is Xurbon.”

“That’s what I said!”

The creature frowned and sighed deeply. Looking around the room, it soon spotted the others. The moment it did, it lunged toward Gabrias.

The others had to restrain themselves as they realized it was lunging in for a hug.

Neave gaped at the sight, jaw hanging comically wide open, “What the fuck!?” Then he turned around with a mock hurt expression and tearfully continued, “You shook me off, yet you go hug him… Whatever! Do as you please!”

The tall man looked down at the glass creature, hugging him in a rather delicate hug, and he nodded, seemingly instantly understanding what was happening.

Dukean scoffed, “I swear, this man has some sort of supernatural sense of what that thing is feeling.”

That earned him an angry glance from the shrub.

Harel stepped forward and shook Xurbon’s hand, “Hello! Thank you for protecting us this whole time!”

It smiled back at her and nodded in turn.

Marven stood awkwardly to the side, uncertain how to feel about this situation. This creature was something Neave had created in a sense. It could even be said that it was a child to him, sort of. Did that make him a grandparent?

Well, he already was a grandparent. Strictly speaking, he was already a great great great great great grandparent, and that was just one connection he was aware of.

Heavens knew how many generations of people had spawned from him.

His musing was interrupted as the creature bowed to him respectfully, “Greetings, Grandmaster.”

Upon hearing this, Neave broke into laughter, “Bahahahahahahaha! You idiot! Marven is my disciple. You should greet him as a brother, not as a superior!”

It nodded, “I see. Greetings, Brother.” It bowed again.

Marven didn’t know which of those two was more awkward to receive.

Neave walked up to Xurbon and slapped its back, “I am surprised that you’re so… Mature! You’ve always been so petty and jealous!”

Xurbon winced upon hearing that and awkwardly turned away, “I am… I have to admit I am not very proud of that period of my life.”

Hunter stepped forward at that moment, “Well, worry not. People are allowed to change and should always strive to be a better version of themselves.”

That earned him an utterly confused look from everyone else.

“...What? Did I say something strange?”

They continued their talk with the glass shrub, enthusiastically asking it countless questions.

Truth be told, they were all thrilled to have another person with them now. The nightmare realm was a lonely place, and one could only spend so long with the same people before they got utterly bored of their presence.

Dukean didn’t bother to ask it many questions.

Marven asked a couple of things, but the questions felt forced, as if they were coming from a sense of responsibility to ask rather than genuine curiosity.

Gabrias asked it surprisingly delicate questions. He inquired about its comfort, whether anything bothered it, how it felt, etc.

Harel’s questions seemed to be directed mostly at how it killed monsters.

And finally, Neave was like a researcher, asking it countless questions about the nature of its existence, how it handled its power, why it could do the things it did, how it seemed to know so much about human behavior, and so on.

Even Dukean shot him a nasty glance after asking a particularly existential-crisis-inducing question.

Eventually, Xurbon spoke again, “Ah! I remembered something important I have to tell you.”

Neave raised an eyebrow, “What is it?”

It adopted a severe expression, and a hint of hostility flashed in its eye, “Dark things lurk at the borders of my influence.”

***

Sateron sat on the ground, hyperventilating. His heart was stuck in a perpetually hastened state, and he looked slightly ill.

For a diamond path cultivator to look slightly ill was the same as someone on the golden path being at death’s door.

Countless dead golems surrounded him, and he hugged his own body, hoping to bring at least a bit of warmth to his heart.

Make a life!? Life for myself!? Here!?

He looked around and yet again faced the endless darkness around him. His gaze instantly averted back to the ground. Sateron couldn’t bare to look at the shadows any longer.

This was no place for a human being. There was no home or life to be had here. This was death. A dark, cold realm of suffering.

Hell.

While he had blown him off without hesitation, if Neave appeared again, he would jump into his arms and beg him to take him.

The sheer desire for human contact he had was overflowing. Despite seeing her only once and barely even focusing on her at all, he was confident that he had a crush on the woman that had been with them.

No, he could even say he loved her dearly. The depths of depravity he had reached were so great that he would be pleased if someone even spat on him, let alone talked to him.

Astrador was right. A fate worse than death had been waiting for him in this darkness. Now, he wanted to return. Even if Astrador killed him, he was willing to receive the sweet release of death.

He was so, so tired.

Just as he was about to get up, he sensed another monster creeping closer. However, looking at it, he realized it wasn’t a monster.

It was a demon.

Immediately he lunged at it, readying his fist to finish the fight. As his titanic strike landed on the demon's raised hand, he was instantly stopped.

The demon looked slightly injured, but it was far from being in pieces, as Sateron had expected.

Then he got a closer look at it. It didn’t look nearly as… Monstrous as the other demons he had seen. It looked almost human. There was no hair on its head, but its face was virtually… Normal.

Perhaps his sense of normality was skewed, but the black eyes, nose, and regular-sized mouth uncannily resembled a human. Pushing his hesitation aside, Sateron readied himself for another strike, just as he did…

It spoke, “Now, now, now… Relax, Sateron…”

“... I am merely here to have a talk.”