Who knows.

Not thinking about the correlation between these things and vampires anymore, John went over to the heaping mountain of bodies. The thing was disgusting and something that John wouldn’t likely forget any time soon. In between the amorphous flesh were multiple faces, looking at John and groaning, “Save us…”. He wanted to run out of the room, leave this thing behind and not bother with it anymore, but Observe told him otherwise:

Blood Bag (x5)
Mutated and cursed people that are held by the Mutants to produce fresh blood.

These things couldn’t move, they could barely talk, they were simply there to feed these mutants… This was horrible… John looked at one of the faces and said with a brittle voice, “How?”

“Release us from this pain…”

That was an obvious plea… They wanted him to euthanize them. They wanted to die. And he could very well understand why. Even if these things didn’t actually exist and were simply something that was created in his Barrier and would cease to exist once he destroyed it. But this thing was simply created to feel agony (or simulate feeling it) and to be food for others.

So John took his spear and jammed it into the center of the pile. With a relieved sigh, the pile vanished from existence.

Bonus Objective:
Rescue Bloodbags: 5/20

With shaking hands John stood up and repeated the words, “They’re not real, they have no life ****,” over and over again to remind him that these weren’t actually people; no one had to endure this kind of pain in actuality.

He then left the room and looked over the structure from the window he had kicked the Mutants out of. Below him was something like a courtyard, spanning quite an area. Down there, Kim and Kaen were fighting back to back against a horde of the Mutants. It didn’t seem like they had too much problem taking solitary ones out, but the sheer mass of them was concerning.

He had to do something!

Now Playing: Angelspit - Kill Kitty (Kmfdm Remix)

That song pretty much described his mood right now; he just wanted to kill these things and be done with this Barrier.

Taking a running start, he jumped out of the window and used Flash Step to close the distance between him and the mob below.

Flash Step, Lv. 7, Propelling Flash Step reduces Mana cost of the following movement-based skill by 50%.

Nice! So he now had some way to combo sequence some of the stuff together to save mana.

Directly using his newfound synergy, John propelled himself further towards the mob of mutants. He knew that he didn’t really have anything to properly fight bigger mobs of enemies, but maybe him taking out one or two would provide enough reprieve for Kim and Kaen so that they could destroy the rest.

Using another Propelling Flash Step above the group, he used the momentum and speed to Charge in to the group, hoping that it would hit multiple enemies.

Enemy unaware! 2x Damage!
Charge applied! 2.5x Damage!
Physical Damage Multiplier: 5x

55 DMG (Area Damage, 50% reduced) + 90 DMG (Light) + 10 DMG (Fire)

50 DMG (Area Damage, 50% reduced) + 90 DMG (Light) + 10 DMG (Fire)

60 DMG (Area Damage, 50% reduced) + 90 DMG (Light) + 10 DMG (Fire)

40 DMG (Area Damage, 50% reduced) + 90 DMG (Light) + 10 DMG (Fire)

Four kills, that was better than he had expected!

But, he was standing in the middle of at least double that amount now, and now he had to dodge like hell. Using his *Flash Step to get enough distance was the first reaction, but not quick enough to avoid two attacks.

-36 HP

-47 HP

New Status: Bleeding 5

FUCK was the only word going through John’s mind at that moment. Difficulty 200% wasn’t kidding when it said double the damage! If he hadn’t gotten the increased HP through the Endurance threshold, then he would be toast now… he really had to watch out not to get killed… Maybe he should stick to ‘rescuing’ those Bloodbags? That sounded like a less dangerous idea that would provide him with more rewards. John kept moving on to another open window, barreling into the darkened room and taking out the single sentry that was standing in there.

Enemies remaining: 65

Yup, getting 60% kills was out of the question anyway by now. So he should stick to the Bloodbags.

Rescue Bloodbags: 9/20

Huh, so someone else also killed one of them, and it actually counted towards his progression? That one was a group objective apparently. Would the others benefit from the EXP boost the same way he would? Probably not, seeing as how they didn’t seem to have any EXP bar. But, they would likely get the Rare drop! So it wasn’t all too bad.

Inside the room that he just cleared out was another Bloodbag, made out of three people according to his Observe. He quickly released them from their pain before moving on to find the next pile and small group of enemies that he could take out. He checked on Kim and the dragon girl again, and the courtyard they had been in was empty now, meaning that they had likely taken out the rest of the enemies quickly after his distraction maneuver.

Now that they were actually inside the metal fortress, it was a lot smaller than it had seemed from the outside. Apparently, a lot of the space to the back of the construct was filled with big halls overflowing with even more scrap, likely as some sort of storage to keep the stuff somewhat safe from environmental wear.

Kwang and Wotan were clearing houses in tandem as they encountered John. After the shaman took out another enemy with a weirdly natural shaped arrow, they both looked at John, “Can you tell us what these things are? Their way of living seems highly repulsive. Thank the gods that they are not real…”

John nodded his head and quickly explained, “Apparently, they are mutated vampires. Their skin is thick enough to survive in the light, but they are still **** to light if it pierces their skin. They seem to have lost any fangs or teeth, so they have to drink Blood packs extracted from these flesh piles they call ‘Bloodbags’. It’s really gross; I had no idea my powers could create something this disgusting.”

Out of a shadow in the room, Magoi and Hannah appeared, and Magoi spoke up, “Quite the assumption you have there, young man. But one I have to agree with. These mutated beings are indeed some sort of vampire. I have no way of determining which species of vampire, but that’s not that important.”

Slightly confused, John had to ask, “What do you mean ‘species of vampire’? Isn’t a vampire a vampire?” to which Magoi simply shook his head.

“That’s incorrect. Thanks to the properties of the Abyss, there is no universal ‘vampire’ as we see it in movies, just like there is no one species of werebeasts and ghosts. To go over every species would be difficult and nigh impossible, but to give you an overview of some of the species of vampires: there are those Walachian vampires, hailing in some capacity from Vlad the Impaler, then there are the ones coming from central Asia, South America, Africa, and more modern varieties like corrupted blood mages and cursed men. The possibilities are endless. Just as in theory, the Abyss is endless.”

John was about to ask something else as Kaen burst into the room, looking quite confused, “What are you doing?!? Less talking, more punching!” And then she already left the room again, leaving a dumbfounded group of people behind.

The two older men took the sentiment to heart and left with a chuckle, on to fight some more Mutants. Meanwhile, John turned to Magoi, “So, what’s your evaluation of this Barrier? I’m curious...”

Magoi then took out the same twenty-sided crystal that he had used in the last Barrier, “Well, seeing this Barrier, I have to concur with the previous statement of Ms. Sterling. Your powers are quite impressive, concerning even, in their span for the fact that you have them for some days. This kind of Barrier with actual enemies, that have this kind of strength is quite fascinating. Also, the fact that you have created a scenario that hasn’t been documented yet is surprising. It either means that this has some kind of clairvoyant properties or that your creativity is so high that you can create scenarios that combine multiple popular genres. The Barrier itself is surprising in its size and complexity, but it lacks detail in multiple aspects.”

Now, this was a bit confusing to John, “What do you mean ‘details’? It looks pretty detailed to me…”

The shadow mage then took John to the closest window overlooking the metallic structures. She then said, “Look outside, do you see anything there that is not related to these mutants?” Looking outside, John saw exactly three things: the metallic structures of the fortress, some lingering Mutants, and a jumping Kaen planting her fist in the face of one of the creatures.

It then hit John. There was no other plant life, no other small animal, nothing that wasn’t related to the objectives. Thinking back to the other Barriers, the monastery was a lot more detailed in its structure and its plant life, but it was a lot smaller than the size of this wasteland. The underwater dome was bigger than both of these Barriers and had even fewer details that weren’t some mechanic to use against the robots. “I think I get what you mean. There is nothing in terms of animals or plant life unrelated to the Mutants. Even in a wasteland such as this one, there would be some kind of mutated mice running around or some other critter, at the very least some insects… But I think this directly relates to the size of the Barrier. The bigger I make it, the fewer details are there.”

Hannah nodded with wide eyes, “Good catch. Yeah… this is probably linked to the size of the Barrier and the Mana you put in it. If you make it too big, it becomes unstable and less detailed, the smaller you make it, the more details and stability you have in it. Huh… I actually didn’t think you’d get it this quickly. Maybe you’re not actually as dumb as you look,” and for the first time since he met her this afternoon, he saw a smile on her face. It was a nice smile, and it instantly put one on John’s face as well.

“Well, seeing as how Intelligence is my biggest stat, I would expect to be somewhat smart. But, my smartness also tells me that we should keep moving and that we should kill some more of the Bloodbags.”

The goth looked at him with a confused look, “You mean those flesh piles? I already killed one of those… even if they’re not real, they creeped me right the fuck out… Like some Lovecraftian body horror… Ugh… but why should we kill those?”

“To get some bonus loot and some more experience.”

“Yes, about that,” Magoi interjected, “that is probably the most fascinating and concerning ability of yours. While I can’t see them, Hannah tells me that the dying enemies leave things behind, items like pieces of leather or some blood red orbs. This shouldn’t be possible; these creatures have no life ****, as Wotan said, and they leave no body behind, yet they leave some things behind that are purely magical in their properties. This is something that should not be possible. And yet it is… We will need to study this in more detail at a later time.”

As John wanted to answer, a piercing screech and a pop-up interrupted him.

All Enemies destroyed! Boss will spawn in 10 seconds! Prepare yourself

Well, shit...