Kristoffer Pauly
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Loopshard - Chapter 122
🕑 Added 2025-11-17 02:53:39 +0000 UTC-Previous Chapter-
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This chapter ended up kind of long.
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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Two
Adam was following Sarah as she walked up the spiralling ramp towards Alepheria’s Study, when he suddenly realised he hadn’t asked about her patron quest for the Stage.
“You said you didn’t know,” she replied when he mentioned it.
“I don’t remember us talking about it,” Adam remarked.
Sarah paused. “I really thought Kate was a nice person when I first met her… I thought she was my friend. But now I wonder if that was all just because of her power.”
Adam nodded.
I do think she had a friendly personality first time I met her in the Tavern, but that just made her boon from the Masked Courtesan that much more dangerous. A natural charm mixed with a magical one is a terrifying combination.
But I don’t think I can tell Sarah that, since she might just think that I am protecting Kate, and it benefits me more if my horrible actions under her spell are entirely pinned on her.
“I hate this,” Sarah went on. “This game is changing us in ways we don’t fully understand. I wonder if I will be able to trust anyone from here on.”
“If you’re worried about anyone else with the power that Kate had, then look at their eyes. If they are worshipping the Masked Courtesan their eyes will glow orange-red.”
Sarah lowered her head. “Why can’t everyone just work together?”
Adam frowned.
I get what she means, but I don’t think such a thing is possible, especially not with the way the Trials are designed. And human nature being what it is, it would be naïve to assume cooperation is always going to work out.
“What was it you had to find?” Adam asked, trying to at least help her as much as he could in the moment, but failing to remember what Beck’s quest object had been when they’d talked about it in his fourth loop.
“The embers of a Mana Flame,” she replied.
“You should be able to make something like that, shouldn’t you?” Adam replied.
“How?”
“Doesn’t your evolution let you absorb elements? You could absorb the energy from the core of one of the mana hoarders.”
“And then what? I cannot make flames come out of my staff,” she said.
“What if you use the Sun Flare spell?” he asked. “You should be able to channel it through your staff rather than your hand.”
“I’ve never… I didn’t think it was possible.”
“Let’s try it when we find some wood for you to burn,” Adam said.
Sarah nodded. She seemed a bit relieved they might find a way for her to complete her quest.
Given that I’m considering using Morrligt in the future, I’d also like to know how to do this quest, since it doesn’t seem straight-forward.
When they walked past the last floor that Adam had cleared out before the ritual chamber, an announcement came.
< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >
< Destroyed the Library >
“There we go,” Adam said. “Which other objectives have you completed?”
“I got a notification for the Tower Crawler, and I was there for the Cell Warden and the destruction of the Laboratorium, but I didn’t participate in either.”
“I think if you saw the notifications for their completion, then you should still receive Points.”
“That’s good to know,” she replied.
As they reached the floor with the ritual chamber she stopped briefly and Adam knew she’d received the announcement to ‘complete the ritual’.
“Do you want to join me for this one?” he asked her.
“What are you going to do?” she asked sceptically, noticing the two things he’d left near the door: the heavy chunk of metal that’d been the mimic’s head and the large Nightwing Heart.
“I’m going to summon and defeat a demon,” he told her truthfully.
“I’d like to just leave,” she said, and Adam couldn’t fault her for that.
“There should be wood in there we can burn to get you your quest object,” he said. “Wait here.”
He scooped up the two things he’d left by the door and went into the chamber, placing them inside and searching through the ritual ingredients for a few pieces of wood. He spent two minutes touching each piece to figure out if they would burn differently than normal, but it all just seemed to be ordinary timber.
When he came back out, Sarah was leaning on her staff.
“I was worried you might try and get me to fight the demon with you, after all,” she remarked jokingly.
“I found some random bits of wood,” he said. “I figured I would just build a little bonfire and then you can light it up.”
“What about the Mana core? I don’t have any,” she replied, looking into the sack she’d been carrying with her.
“I’ve got a core,” he told her, scooping one out from his backpack. He didn’t actually remember looting them, which was uncomfortable.
“What do you want in exchange?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” he replied. If he had wanted the Relics she carried, he would already have taken them, and doing an unfair trade now would just make him feel bad.
Sarah took the core from him and immediately pulled the blue Mana inside it into herself. As far as Adam understood, it was pure Mana and not some elemental variant, which seemed to be what was required for a Mana Flame.
As she absorbed the energy with the ability from the Element Tamer evolution that preceded Elemental Avatar, Adam saw how her body was filled with that blue light thanks to his cowl, but most of it quickly flowed back out into her staff. It left some lingering spots of energy inside of her, no doubt thanks to the Avatar evolution, but most of the Mana lit up her staff. The two times he’d seen Sarah use the Sun Flare spell, it had been fired from her right palm, but this time she held her staff in that hand.
She aimed the tip of her weapon towards the little pile that Adam had made with the various bits of wood, and then her staff glowed a bright ocean-blue before launching a fireball made of that same colour. It zipped through the air and struck the wood, immediately setting it on fire.
Adam wasn’t sure if he could only see it because of his cowl or not, but the flame that came off the wood was blue like the energy that’d been inside the crystallised mana core.
That has to have done it, he thought.
But how is anyone supposed to do that without being either a Spellcaster who picked a specific evolution or someone who found the Mage Aspirant’s Cowl?
After the flames quickly died down, they both went over to inspect the smouldering remains.
Sarah picked up one of the embers.
< < Quest Object > >
< Mana Ember — The ember of a flame fuelled by pure mana >
“How did you know that would work?” Sarah asked as she placed the ember into her sack full of Relics. It had somehow not burnt her hand, which was peculiar.
“My friend has the same evolutions as you,” he replied.
“Does he also worship Morrligt?”
“No, he picked Messimer. The appraisal skill he gives is supposed to be quite useful.”
“Why did Kate think you worshipped Messimer?” Sarah immediately asked.
“Because I lied to her. I didn’t trust her.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” he asked.
“You’re different than when you were under Kate’s spell. Like night and day. I can tell you’re hiding a lot of secrets.”
“I am indeed a man of mystery,” he joked, but Sarah didn’t budge.
“How are you able to be so relaxed in this Stage? I’ve never been more terrified. It’s like you know everything that’s going to happen.”
Adam smiled wistfully. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Now, let’s get you to the exit.”
Sarah laid her hand on the painting of the Floating Sea of Gold and was absorbed into it, vanishing from sight.
Adam let out a deep sigh.
He grabbed the Navigator’s Telescope from where it was used to hold up the table with all the painting supplies on it, and collapsed it into a flat disc that was easier to carry.
< < Secret Relic Obtained > >
< Navigator’s Telescope (Uncommon) — Peer into the horizon of gold and find what your heart desires >
This time I’ll find out whatever is at the end of the trail this shows when I combine it with the Golden Map.
Adam left the cliff and returned to the tower through the floating doorway of Alepheria’s Study.
Once he was back inside he flew down to the ritual chamber and went through the metal door.
The tome about summonings that I absorbed didn’t mention much about what kind of creature a Corruption Demon is, he mused as he collected the ingredients for the ritual off to the side of the centre where the three obsidian pedestals awaited in the red sand.
I also have no idea what it would reward. Maybe something affliction-related?
Perhaps there’s a Blood Demon or something? Summoning that would be useful for my build. I should’ve asked the Flayed Lady.
The Gluttony Demon I could summon instead might give me something related to eating. That could perhaps work well with the Beast, if I selected a setup based around the Monster evolution.
Thanks to the lesson from the Flayed Lady, Adam no longer felt disgusted about the idea that he could eat his enemies to gain their strength. After all, such a thing was nothing compared to shaping his own flesh.
I think I’ll just summon the Corruption Demon.
Since I know where it’s going to appear, I can prepare for its arrival with traps.
Adam considered the First Strike Earrings.
What is the likelihood that the first attack will kill it? he wondered.
He shook his head.
50% bonus Damage on the first hit isn’t worth it if it doesn’t kill, since I’ll be fighting the rest of the time with 20% less Damage.
Adam unequipped the earrings and put them in his backpack, then he mended the holes in his earlobes using flesh magic. It came so naturally to him already that he didn’t even realise he did it.
Over the next 20 minutes, Adam laid dozens of traps all around the space, drawing upon his blood, the spidersilk, and flesh which could also be shaped into spell patterns, though it was awkward since he had to make limbs for it to be effective. Fortunately, the ritual chamber had a few things that he discovered that he could use as magical material, such as pots and vessels with various types of blood, as well as bits of flesh, much of it aged and spoiled. The latter included the creepy skinned face that James had been tasked with finding during Adam’s last visit.
With all the traps prepared, Adam went down to one of the creature floors below, specifically the one with the weird sea-urchin monstrosities, gathering enough flesh to fill him to capacity, and then he returned to the ritual chamber.
I don’t think I’ll be more ready than this, he considered as he looked around at how full of traps the space was. He’d even hung some of them suspended in the air vertically.
Using one of his floating limbs, this one shaped into a double-jointed scaled arm with six long fingers capped with talons, he carefully lifted the ritual ingredients onto the obsidian pedestals in the middle of the room, making sure not to disturb any of the traps.
With the Nightwing’s heart, a ceramic bowl of water, and a pile of salt on separate pedestals, Adam stepped back to the hallway that led out of the chamber. The Spidersilk Needle was ready in his hand, but he had decided to only use it if his traps and floating limbs didn’t work.
And if none of them work, then I may just have to book it for the exit.
I shouldn’t let it get close, since I’m sure a Corruption Demon has a lot of nasty tricks up its sleeve.
After he’d placed the items for the ritual, nothing happened for a moment.
Then suddenly a red pillar of light came down through the chimney-like hole in the ceiling. It engulfed the summoning ingredients and red sand in the centre of the chamber.
< < Secret Optional Stage Objective > >
< Defeat the summoned Corruption Demon >
It worked.
Adam tensed up. Since he didn’t know what to expect, he was prepared for anything.
As the light died away, a humanoid entity was revealed. It stood upon a bubbling patch of black muddy soil that filled the room with the heady reek of crude oil, which was at once sweet and rotten. The creature was covered in pristine white plates that had been organically shaped into some vague approximation of a muscular humanoid figure. The torso segment was one whole piece, but the legs, arms, neck, and face were all separate plates. Visible in the gaps between the plates was an oily black substance like living tar, and two horns of the material sprouted from behind the pristine mask the creature wore. It even had a thin whip-like tail flopped on the ground behind it, also made of the tar substance. The armour looked like a shell made to keep all the tar confined, but the demon’s head was only covered by the mask on the front, and it had been shaped into a closed-eyed and peaceful expression, though the mouth was too wide.
The mask shifted in Adam’s direction. Then an oily smoke-like curtain of Mana poured out from its body and everything in a five metre radius around the demon started to rapidly bubble and decay. It was a corrupting aura and it was spreading outward at a steady pace, threatening to cover the entire chamber within seconds.
Adam didn’t waste a moment and ran out through the hallway.
The second he shut the door behind him, all of his traps went off at the same time, making him doubly glad to have gotten out.
Adam wasn’t sure how many of his traps had survived the demon’s aura, but the sounds and impacts created by them all was enough to shake the tower around him.
He moved away from the door as the aura spread out of the chamber, turning the metal door to rusted scrap and making the wooden floor curl up as it instantly blackened and decayed.
The demon emerged, but almost all of its white shell was gone.
In the middle of its torso was a large white core, just like that of a slime.
Adam flung two of his three flesh-shaped arms towards it, but they predictably turned to rotten sludge the moment they entered the creature’s orbit.
But he had expected as much and no sooner had his two floating limbs turned to mush than he fired the Spidersilk Needle right through the briefly-obscuring curtain they created in front of the demon.
A sound like a crack forming in a pane of glass rang out through the floor, echoing up and down the tower and returning back to his ears a couple of seconds later.
The aura stopped its steady advance, and the Corruption Demon didn’t move another step further.
< < Secret Objective Complete > >
< Defeated the summoned Corruption Demon >
The demon’s body collapsed in on itself, the magic keeping its humanoid shape intact faltering along with the shattered core.
Where it died, its sludge-like body burned through the already-decayed wooden floor, spilling down through the tower and no doubt doing a lot of structural damage on the way to the bottom.
That could’ve been really bad.
It was probably a good thing Sarah already left.
From where its corpse had burnt through the floor appeared a chest made of the same sludge-like substance, hovering impossibly over the metre-wide hole.
“Is it safe for me to step onto where its aura corrupted everything?” he asked the Eye.
[I cannot say.]
Adam sighed.
For a second I thought this stupid cube was actually useful.
I guess I’ll just use my flesh magic to check.
The limb still had scales from when he’d initially constructed it, but he transformed it into something more closely resembling his own limbs to make sure that anything that could harm him would also damage it.
Then he slowly floated it across the boundary where the aura had stopped its expansion.
Adam kept it there for a moment before pushing it further across the floor.
Nothing happened, but he didn’t want to tempt fate if it was some slow-acting corruption.
He used the magical limb to open the sludge chest and a single Relic appeared, just like when they’d defeated the Bumblebee last time.
God, that Relic was awful, he recalled, remembering how him and James had been nearly incapacitated by the pollen clouds that kept appearing around Gladwyn.
The item that appeared from the chest was a large piece of the pristine-white plate armour shell that the demon had worn. He pulled it towards himself and dumped it on the floor outside the ring of decay made by the aura.
< < Relic > >
< Body of Corruption (Epic) — Increases affliction effectiveness on yourself by 50% | All afflictions suffered by the wearer are radiated outwards in a 5-meter radius >
That is really quite strong, but I’m not sure how to use it right now.
Although maybe…
Adam frowned.
Bleed is an affliction. If I put this on and then cause myself to bleed, then everyone around me would start bleeding too…
I haven’t tested it yet, but I should be able to just pull my own blood back into my body to negate the effect of bleeding I suffer.
In theory at least…
If I had the Beckoning Crimson spell memorised, then it would be super useful.
He put the folded-up suit of white plate armour into his backpack for now.
I’m running out of space again.
With all of the objectives done, Adam flew back down through the tower, avoiding the cascade of rot that followed the dripping mass of the defeated demon’s body. He was searching for Mikhail’s missing corpse, since he wanted to pick up the Blue Shard sword he would’ve dropped.
However, after going through every chamber and even the basement, Adam came up empty-handed.
Instead of heading for the exit, he gathered up as much material as he could from the Cell Warden boss in the basement, and then he flew out of the tower.
He spent the next hour hunting down the bone creepers that clung to the building’s crooked roof on the outside, as well as the few scattered in the forest around the clearing. At the end he’d killed 14 of them, which he knew was a good chunk of Points thanks to the Hardmode bonus.
Additionally, he’d found a quest objective at the top of the tower inside a bird’s nest.
< < Quest Object > >
< Time-Frozen Egg — The egg of a Slug Dragon that has been locked inside a moment in time to prevent its destruction >
This is what Emelia was looking for. She probably didn’t find it because she didn’t look outside the tower.
I wonder if there are other quest objects outside.
Along with the egg, Adam had also collected the Resistant Organ from the basement, which was required for the Guardian’s quest. The eye from the lab was gone along with the fire, and the face that’d been inside the ritual room had gone into making Adam’s traps, but that was fine.
He didn’t really know why he was collecting these things, but since he was also still carrying around the mimic’s metallic chunk of a head, after discovering it had survived the corrupting aura of the demon, he figured he might as well get as many as he could.
That thought eventually led him to the top of the tower, when 7 hours remained in the Stage.
< < Quest Object > >
< Dimensional Splinter — A tiny fragment of a dimensional core, yet powerful enough to maintain the reality-warping nature of the Crooked Tower >
When the Tower Crawler absorbed this last time and turned into Alepheria’s Avatar, it didn’t make the tower collapse, so I should be fine to remove it.
I think…
Adam stared into the glass sphere raised up from the floor of the strange room hidden at the top of the tower. The fingernail-sized splinter floated inside it.
He couldn’t help but remember Gladwyn’s words.
‘It’ll kill us all,’ he told me.
I wonder how he knew, or maybe he didn’t know and that’s why he was worried.
Though I suppose the description does make it seem that way.
Adam broke open the sphere with two of his floating limbs and then reached into the middle of it to grab the splinter.
Before his fingers could close around it, the splinter just vanished.
“What the fuck was that?”
[That is not supposed to happen.]
Adam blinked.
“What did you just say?”
[The Quest Object vanished from this dimension. That is not supposed to happen.]
The tower began to shake.
Okay, time to get the fuck out of here.
Adam flew back down through the middle of the floors as fast as he could while the stones of the tower shook violently around him and waves rolled through the wooden planks of each landing.
When he made it to the portal door of Alepheria’s Study, nothing happened when he tried to walk through. It was simply a blank wall on the other side.
The portal is gone!
He didn’t question it, as the bricks tumbled out of the walls around him, and flew all the way to the bottom of the tower, letting himself basically fall most of the way down before zooming out through the open gate.
Once he was outside, he realised that the tower had shrunk significantly, becoming the actual size it should have been, based on the number of floors.
He flew up into the air to gain a better perspective of his surroundings.
The only way I can get out of here now is if I find wherever that cliff with the painting is located.
Adam went as high into the air as he could, but he didn’t spot anything that looked like a cliff.
I might have fucked myself…
Since he didn’t know what else to do, he picked the direction opposite from where the Sanctuary lay and then started to fly as fast as he could.
After only a couple of minutes, he realised that he was being foolish.
The words of the Tome Keeper echoed in his mind.
‘Though the worlds you visit may seem like a game to you, they are as real as you and me, and the answer to your question lies in this fact.’
He hadn’t been referring to this scenario, but Adam understood the wisdom in it as he turned around and headed for the Elphin Sanctuary.
Once he arrived he asked around for the directions to the cliff with the painting. To his surprise, it ended up being one of the children that played by the giant tree that had the answer.
“The adults call it the Cliff of Mourning, but they said they couldn’t go there ever since the witch moved in.”
“And which direction is it? Northeast like the tower?”
“No, no, it’s southeast. But it’s far. They say it takes two days by carriage.”
Fuuuuck!
“Thanks, kiddo,” he told the boy, handing him one of his crystallised mana cores like he’d promised.
Then he took off, flying as fast as he could towards the southeast. The wind whipped at his face since he stayed quite high in the air to avoid missing the cliff when it came into view, and the world was slowly darkening as the sun set in the horizon.
[45 minutes remain,] the Eye told Adam as he landed on the grass in front of Alepheria’s painting.
He’d almost missed it, even though the massive body of water beyond the cliff should’ve been obvious.
The world had gotten completely dark, but thanks to the sun having set, he could appreciate the magic inside the painting a lot more. It danced and spun before the sight of his cowl.
Despite the fact that his body was shivering from the cold and his hair was permanently stuck in a weird slicked-back hairstyle from the intense wind, Adam felt a fire burn inside him as he walked up to the painting and placed his hand on it.
< < Stage Complete > >
< Tallying Score >
< < Score > >
< 23 Hours 17 Minutes Completion Time >
< 2 Players survived 400 Points >
< 2 Players slain 2000 Points >
< 20 Elites slain 4000 Points >
< — — — >
< Defeated the summoned Corruption Demon 4500 Points >
< Main Objective Completion 2500 Points >
< Defeated the Tower Crawler 2000 Points >
< Defeated the Cell Warden 1500 Points >
< Destroyed the Laboratorium 1000 Points >
< Destroyed the Library 750 Points >
< — — — >
< 1500 Point Most Valuable Player Bonus added >
< 1500 Point Secret Boss Bonus added >
< 1500 Point Defender Bonus added >
< 1000 Point Flawless Bonus added >
< 800 Point All Objectives Bonus added >
< 800 Point Eradication Bonus added >
< 450 Point All Secrets Bonus added >
< 300 Point Plunderer Bonus added >
< — — — >
< 0 Damage Received >
< 26500 Points Awarded >
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EDIT: I forgot to account for the Tower Crawler bonus, so the original Point total was 2000 Points short.
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Comments
Schuh
Adam may be able to pick up the cursed sword without going berserk by containing the curse in his blood.
Kristoffer Pauly
Let's say you have 12 traps. If each trap deals 100 damage, you would deal 1200 damage. With the earrings, the first trap would deal 150 damage, but the other 11 would deal 80, which is 1030 damage. Since he has confirmed that stacking spells doesn't make them count as one "hit", this is the kind of math that would dictate his damage. Of course, as you point out, if it means that he can kill it much faster, then it's worth using. But the problem is he doesn't know enough to make that kind of decision, so it's meant to be him playing it safe if it ends up a protracted fight.
Benw8888
“50% bonus Damage on the first hit isn’t worth it if it doesn’t kill, since I’ll be fighting the rest of the time with 20% less Damage.” Not true, if he would deal at least 28% (2/7ths) of the boss’s health in his first strike without the earrings, then it’s worth it to use them. This is because you deal an extra 14% health, equivalent to the amount of health lost on the future strikes dealing the remaining 58%
