Besides, they were too distracted by a group of Roman gladiators blessed by the god of speed. The men charged ahead and were instantly crushed as the labyrinth walls changed orientation and smushed the group of six, splattering gore across the walls.

  “Look out!” Kara said, tackling Karl forward as a wall almost smashed behind them.

  “Oh, it’s a moving maze,” the Trickster said as Karl and Kara jumped back to their feet. “That should make this even more fun.”

  “We have very different definitions of fun!” Kara yelled, raising her shield to her face in case any hidden projectiles burst out at them.

  Thankfully, they weren’t the target yet.

  A burst of steam erupted from a path ahead, blinding a Mongolian archer who was fighting something impossible to see through the heavy cloud of water. Then a long mechanical tail with a stinger shot from the steam and spiked him in the face, dragging him back in.

  Karl immediately drew a jade arrow, frosting at the tip, as a horde of fifty Persian clockwork scorpions crawled out of the steam. They had brass legs and glowing green venom reservoirs along their backs.

  Karl eyed Kara as she prepared to take them on.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  Kara grinned, igniting the flames from her Sólbrandr, which glowed brighter now, like the sun. “Only if you are.”

  “Do you think they’re going to help us?” the Trickster said, pointing behind them.

  About fifteen Japanese warriors stood there in layered lamellar armor, each wielding a wicked samurai blade. Their angry eyes glared directly at Karl and Kara as they began shouting something in Japanese that Karl couldn’t understand.

  System Message: “Since you’re not so up to speed on Japanese, I’m here to inform you that they’re challenging you to a duel thanks to your high honor. You have a twenty-five percent chance of that happening after all, and considering the samurai are men of honor and value it above everything else, you get to have a nice duel with them. All fifteen of them. At the same time. Good luck.”

  Kara must have read the message, too, as did the Trickster.

  “Let’s hope those white tattoos were worth it,” the Trickster said, as the samurai and the clockwork scorpions charged them from both sides.

  21

  SAFE ZONE

  Björn was having the time of his life. Even though Karl and Kara were cut off from them, and the steam exploding around them nearly blinded him, they were facing some rather interesting hounds; the fight filled him with the familiar battle rush he had come to enjoy in both lives.

  Their foes looked like Celtic breeds made mostly of iron. They had jaws serrated like little blades and red eyes glowing through the fog around them. There must have been at least a hundred of them.

  Even better.

  All at once, they tore apart the gladiators closest to them. Given their smaller size, they dove in and out of the crowd, viciously ripping through flesh as if it were cloth.

  Sporus didn’t hesitate.

  He drew arrows from the shadows and loosed a barrage at the iron hounds before going invisible.

  Björn felt the excitement flow through him as it always did and looked at Mýra with a smile.

  “What does Odin say to you?” she asked as she withdrew her knife and the Roman shield Livia had gifted her.

  “Allfather, speak to me,” Björn whispered, just as the pack of ravenous dogs reached them.

  As it always did, Odin’s blessing—one Björn had leveled tremendously since arriving—allowed him to see that the hounds’ shoulder and jaw joints vibrated slightly out of sync with the rest of their bodies. From what Karl had explained of industry, this had to be due to the small pistons firing rapidly around their ligaments—whatever that was.

  Thanks to the Allfather’s wisdom, which he could activate more than once a day due to his higher level, these weaknesses glowed in his mind like a faint blue shimmer. If he struck with enough force at the right timing, it would cause catastrophic failure. It seemed to cycle every four seconds.

  He would have to time it just right.

  Björn shouted directions to Sporus and Mýra as he lunged forward, grabbing the iron hound that leapt for him. He caught the monstrous creature with both hands, laughing as it snapped its jaws a breath away from his face.

  “You remind me of Runa!” Björn shouted, laughing as he thought of his favorite puppy from the old world.

  The iron hound didn’t find it amusing, especially when Mýra slammed her dagger directly into its joint as Björn had called out. The machine collapsed instantly, falling limp into his arms.

  “You’re not as cute as her, though,” Björn said, throwing the iron hound aside as dozens more poured in, leaping onto gladiators on all sides.

  As Björn slammed his Bifrost battleaxe into three more hounds, he saw the divine ravens Huginn and Muninn observing him from the upper rim of the towering walls. Thankfully, he had completed their riddle quests the previous night, when he had to out-eat Justus and mentally explain if a pizza was a sandwich—a challenge far greater than he had expected.

  He thought he could almost hear the boy cheering him on, shouting his praise.

  The thought drove him harder.

  Björn head-butted one iron dog, crushing its face with his own without feeling pain as his berserker ability took over and numbed all weakness. He grabbed one dog in each hand and smashed them together, crumpling the metal as if they were mere children’s toys.

  He hurled the wreckage into the hounds battering Mýra’s shield, giving her just enough time to drive her knife into the joint of the one attacking her. One of the hounds did land a bite on her frozen leg armor, but the cold air burst from her plate, freezing the dog’s mouth, allowing her a moment to ram her knife through its eyes.

  Even though her face was pained at having to kill animals, she looked striking with fiery red hair spilling from her Cryocoil hood.

  “Can you stare at her after we survive?” Sporus said from somewhere in the shadows as he fired an arrow that dropped a dog just before it could bite into Björn’s arm.

  “Forgive me,” Björn laughed as he smashed his battleaxe into another iron hound, along with two gladiators who stood in his way, not caring for their lives.

  The System countdown continued to tick as they fought.

  Time Remaining Until Safe Zone Closes: 07:21

  Björn was about to comment on how well the armor fit Mýra when Odin’s vision struck him.

  In a heartbeat, he saw endless cycles of the Colosseum—gladiators screaming triumphantly with weapons held high, only to fall and be replaced by another victor who slaughtered him, again and again. Even Ragnar appeared, holding enemies at bay and full of glory, only to fall like the rest as snakes consumed him.

  The vision ended as suddenly as it came, leaving Björn stunned for a second too long.

  An iron hound slammed into him, pinning him to the ground where several other gladiators already lay dead. Fear surged as he realized he was seconds from joining them, forgotten to this world, with Mýra left alone.

  The dog tore into his right arm, ripping away chunks of flesh that he didn’t feel.

  Björn shouted and drove his hand deep into the machine’s metal rib cage. With all his might, he summoned a Bifrost Shield.

  The glowing rainbow road split through the hound, silencing it instantly and cleaving several nearby gladiators in half—thankfully not Mýra or Sporus.

  “You okay?” Mýra asked as Björn shook off the wreckage and jumped to his feet.

  “I think so,” Björn said, brushing it off. “Come. We must meet up with the others.”

  Karl rapidly fired arrows at the samurai, trying to Elf Leap past them, but they were incredibly fast. Their swords sang through the air, sweeping his arrows away. It was a good thing he didn’t teleport, because he would have been skewered like a kebab by their glowing, black katanas.

  “I’ll take the samurai,” Kara said, throwing up a Baldr-light shield to cover their backs. At the same time, she blasted a beam of light into one of their faces and followed it with a blinding slash of her blade.

  Karl trusted that she could hold her side, and he pivoted, activating his Dual Shot. He dropped two nearby clockwork enemies at once. Thanks to his affinity against monsters and constructs, and his absurd accuracy, the two closest clockwork scorpions fell instantly.

  But there were many, many more.

  Strength (+20): lvl 13 (20/140)

  Wealth (+2): 11,049 Gold

  Glory (+60): 3,200

  Level: 42 (100/430)

  Karl also received more strange ingots since these were machines, along with two ka-ching sounds.

  Item: Venomcore Ingot x4 (Epic) — A dark emerald alloy ingot with translucent channels running through it like veins. Thick green fluid slowly circulates inside, occasionally bubbling as if alive. Crafted weapons apply Venom (Stacking) — each hit deals 15 poison damage per second for 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Armor grants +30% Poison Resistance.

  Kara burned through Stamina and Health in fending off the samurai, keeping them from being overwhelmed for the moment.

  The scorpions, however, were simply too fast and too numerous.

  If Karl tried to Elf Leap past them, he wouldn’t get far. The corridor narrowed sharply beside them, and at best, he’d take a crushing pincer straight to the chest—fully armored, but still lethal. Yes, his armor rating was high, but he wouldn’t be able to withstand a dozen pincers through the heart.

  There was only one desperate move left.

  “Transform!” Karl shouted.

  She triggered it at the same time as him, just as the samurai and scorpions closed in. Simultaneously, Karl activated his Rune of Overpressure Leap Mk II directly into the scorpions while becoming a werewolf.

  Glory (-190): 3,010

  Karl and Kara detonated forward in a violent burst, launching nearly eighty meters and leaving behind a scorched path for the samurai and scorpions caught in the blast. As they flew, Karl activated his Moonfang Strike and Moonflayer Veil to unleash maximum damage.

  They didn’t have eighty meters of clearance, so Karl pivoted mid-flight and drove his feet into the metal wall. The molten wall crunched beneath his boots, the flames warping it further, and he launched them forward again, bouncing them back into the carnage like a deadly game of ping-pong. Karl and Kara clung to each other, the Trickster barely managing to hold onto Karl’s neck as they slashed wildly with their claws.

  They became a flying, monstrous cyclone of death, hacking and tearing through scorpions and samurai alike with their claws and teeth. The combined damage, the violent impacts, and the reckless momentum injured both Karl and Kara, but left total slaughter behind them.

  Only three samurai survived the brutal collision once the rune wore off, and they fell to the bloody, burnt floor. Their armor was no match for Karl and Kara’s reinforced bones and the spreading flames. Only two scorpions crawled away from the onslaught.

  And from such butchery of eight of the samurai and about thirty of the clockwork scorpions, he received 46 more of the Venomcore Ingots, along with more experience in his werewolf skill tree and wealth.

  Alpha Path (+2): lvl 9 (110/190)

  Reiði Points (+2): 2

  Moonlight Meter is now 140/140

  Intelligence (+10): lvl 8 (60/90)

  Wealth (+52): 11,101 Gold

  Glory (+90): 3,100

  Level: 42 (190/430)

  Even the Trickster snatched one of the dark samurai blades, waving it around like a kid at the fair before pocketing it in his magical, hidden inventory.

  Karl could sense that Kara wanted to finish them off, her bloodlust raging and her desire for more glory palpable in his mind. But it didn’t make sense to continue fighting. They were running out of time and still had no idea where they were in the maze.

  “Come on,” Karl said, becoming visible again and grabbing her by the arm. He picked up one of the scorpion tails from one of the machines they had butchered and chucked it across the corridor of the maze to teleport them.

  “We could have had them!” Kara shouted, frustration in her voice as they continued running down the next turn of the maze.

  But then the maze shifted again, erecting a large, blazing-hot wall in front of them and closing off the area behind them where they had left the samurai and the scorpions. A sickening crunching sound came from where they had just been, followed by a terrifying scream from one of the samurai.

  “Impressive timing,” the Trickster said, pointing at the two different corridors ahead of them. “Which one are you going to choose?”

  In the left corridor, an Egyptian gladiator was leading an army of dead gladiators, which he must have resurrected; they were shambling in their direction to eat them.

  In the other hallway, three Indian fire breathers were fighting a steam rhino. They seemed to be handling it well as they jumped out of the way while it slammed into the wall, continuing to blast it with flames from their mouths.

  “Let’s do the zombie path,” Karl said.

  Kara nodded, eager to keep their Moonlight Meter up. They dashed on all fours at the Egyptian and his army of corpses, tearing through them with ease and severing flesh and armor as if it were paper. Karl effortlessly took down five while Kara bit through three.

  Alpha Path: lvl 9 (160/190)

  Wealth (+5): 11,106 Gold

  The Trickster fired explosive acorns into the Egyptian’s face. The man lost control of his zombies, which then turned and began eating him. The robotic squirrel laughed maniacally and whipped out his samurai blade to lob off the heads of two zombies, which had lunged at them.

  They didn’t pay much attention to finishing off the Egyptian, as the System kept informing them how little time they had left.

  Time Remaining Until Safe Zone Closes: 05:06

  They barreled through the hallway, desperate to find the safe zone before time was up.

  For several minutes, they raced through the halls, teleporting past machine monsters like mechanical minotaurs and gladiators engaged in battle with them or each other, slaughtering a couple of dozen of the more distracted ones along the way. Karl took out five of the minotaurs and six gladiators, while Kara nearly got the same amount, and the Trickster got assisted kills by disorienting anyone who got in their way by swinging his katana and Hel’s Chain like some crack-addict squirrel, which he swore he was not anymore.

  They picked up a few more odd ingots, experience, and some gold, but they didn’t stop to do any more serious looting. If they didn’t make it to the safe zone, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  Item: Juggernaut Hoofsteel Ingot x8 (Epic) — A dense, iron-black ingot shot through with red-hot stress lines. Armor grants +30% Resistance to Charge and Knockback effects. Weapons gain a 10% chance to cause Bone-Shatter (reduces enemy strength by 50% for 10 seconds).

  Alpha Path (+1): lvl 10 (80/200)

  Reiði Points (+1): 3

  Moonlight Meter is now 150/150

  Wealth (+23): 11,129 Gold

  Glory (+30): 3,130

  Level: 42 (220/430)

  Karl had to restrain himself from stopping to help a man who had fallen into a floor grate. His hand stuck out as he desperately tried to escape.

  Karl closed his eyes in pain and kept running. It would be pointless to save him.

  Steam burst out at random times and in random places, boiling those caught in it. Karl briefly took a blast to the face, but thankfully, he was immune to the blinding effects. Still, his Health dropped, and he had to snatch a Persian gladiator fighting a machine serpent and eat him while running.

  Alpha Path: lvl 10 (90/200)

  Wealth (+3): 11,132 Gold

  “It’s rude to snack on the go, you know,” the Trickster said as Karl finished devouring him and tossed the body, ashamed of what he had to do to stay alive.

  Karl ignored him. They had less than a minute left, and still no safe zone.

  Time Remaining Until Safe Zone Closes: 00:58

  “What do we do?” Kara asked as she finished shooting a couple of Spaniards with her Baldr light beam, while Karl destroyed another clockwork scorpion that emerged from a shifting corridor. It granted him two more of its ingots and experience.

  Alpha Path: lvl 10 (100/200)

  Wealth (+1): 11,131 Gold

  Karl looked up to see the golden eagles flying above. They were running out of time; he needed to think fast.

  He shoved the last of the Roman pizza into his mouth, as did Kara and Ratatoskr, boosting their Health and Stamina.

  “Can you throw up a light shield midair?” Karl asked, keeping his eyes on a group of Native American warriors bursting down the hallway, shouting something and chasing after them.

  “I can,” Kara said, her voice hesitant as she saw the plan forming in Karl’s mind.

  “We might not need it,” Karl said, ripping apart the scorpion tail until only the stinger remained in his hand. “But be ready, just in case.”

  Kara grabbed onto Karl’s arm, and right before the natives could reach them, he hurled the scorpion stinger at the nearest golden eagle, smacking it in the face. The next moment, they Elf Leaped high above the maze; Karl desperately grabbed onto the golden eagle to keep them from falling back down.

  As expected, the bird did not like being grabbed, especially with Karl and Kara weighing it down. It immediately plummeted, flapping its wings desperately to stay aloft and screeching with anger. Dozens of other birds above the maze began firing their metal arrows at them like machine guns.