C80: The One Reborn
6/20/2026
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Exiting out the Yahar'gul chapel, I find a scurrying beast which I strike down in two hits as they are durable little fuckers. I get two blood stone chunks for my effort. I see before me two options going forward but I also distinctly remember this specific section as it always annoyed me in the game.
There is a villager up a small section up along with a group of summoned enemies that I would have to get by if I died at all to them or the next section.
I take the right side path which let's me get the drop on the gunman villager before taking out the two dogs with a few weak wind-blades. From here I hear the jingle of a chime maidens bell and see the group of summoned enemies I just mentioned but only now do I just realize something.
A chime maiden hidden in the corner soon finds something touching her hood. She tenses, looking up only to find the hunter she was attempting to thwart wave at her with the strangest greeting. "Shalom, quick question. Were you always here? You know what, nevermind, the answer would be too humiliating for me" Slap, Splat
I directly shattered her head against the wall of the railing. I hear a few more splats as the blessing on the summoned enemies fades but they themselves don't. I slap the two huntsmen and the brute around and they became super squishy.
Then there was another huntsman who was gate-keeping 8 blood vials. What a worthless life he lived. If he was even alive since he too had the whole red skin thing.
Pulling open the next set of doors, I find the hypogean Gaol with the lamp I saw just moments ago, all bent and broken with the lamp itself shattered. I poke it a few times just to make sure and yup, it's broken.
I promptly kick over the chair of the Mensis member before looking down below and seeing two shadowy figures standing around. One in the direct center of the room and another with a church cannon on the left side near the exit. I sense a third just at the edge of the stairs, walking around.
I slowly walked up to the middle one and gave him a good old fashioned heavy back slap with my saw cleaver, knocking him on his knees before plunging my fist right into his decrepit heart. Yet I'm not done there as I activate the eldritch arm and round up both his soul and heart. I tear out the heart yet the soul would remain, not intact though.
I give it a nice few cracks so that he may enjoy his eternal misery until I finally finish him off. I kill him, for now as he grants me the clawmark rune.
At the same time, the other two mensis hunters come rushing at me. The previously identified cannon hunter also has the saw spear which he primarily uses for jabbing attacks while the other has the flamethrower and whip sword. They also have the little tontritus which I only just recently collected. I can only guess it's the twin to this one.
I finish my analysis by grabbing both their heads and smashing them together before repeating the soul cracking process with them as well. I distinctly remember how many times I died to this trio and they deserve worse, not to mention all the bullshit that the members of the Mensis organization are at fault for.
The cannon guy gave me a crap ton of bullets while the other only gave me a single madman's knowledge, poor guy couldn't even provide a single old one's knowledge. A puny little heretic amongst the Mensis members.
With these three finished, I proceed downstairs where I encounter the scourge beasts instead of random villagers lying around, except these scourge beasts have lost quite a bit of flesh as they have their ribs cleanly sticking out. Even their tails are just stumps of bone.
I go through a few of them, passing by my old cage and where I found that dumb bitch Advil or whatever her name was. I find instead a madman's knowledge here and along my exploration around the area, I find a few frenzied coldblood (8), they really like that specific number in this area.
Having made my way outside, I see what essentially looks like small carts that are made up and covered in skulls that were fueled by tons of blood and random organs to grant it sentience.
There are quite a few of these but they are horribly brittle to the point that even one normal strike from me takes them down, at the very most, I follow it up with a slap on a random skull before their thin grubby hands claw at him.
I get another madmans knowledge for my troubles before going back and activating the lift that most certainly was not down here before when I spent a ton of 'days' grinding here on the pigs back then.
Funnily enough, one of these fragile bone boys gives more than a single pig did back then. +Not worth, +do not recommend, +Trash improvement, +will kick nicolash in the balls.
Taking the elevator up, I realize that there was a hidden path midway up. I remember that there was a teleporter or something of that like around here and the other takes you just a few feet forward near the boss arena. At least I check it out, take out a scurrying beast that gave blood chunks while the scourge beast gave twin shards before I got another t8 coldblood. Going back up a few steps, I already found the room with the teleporter. It's a giant bowl similar to the messengers bowl but closer to the ground and with a larger radius to easily fit 2-4 people inside if they all took up even space from their corners.
I step inside and touch the water with my hand, only moments later finding myself in a new place. My wind senses spread out to confirm in a new place. My range helps me identify exactly how far I actually went, which was indeed only a few feet away from the giant stairs that were previously blocked by one of the roaming pigs way back when.
I take out the scourge beast and gunman villager here before going down and taking out the skull carts of which, two were able to expand and shoot out organ projectiles, maybe it's one of it's own skulls yet I don't see them losing any from an outward look. Surprisingly the shooters are a bit tougher than the regular ones but not by much as a slap will still finish it off. I made sure to use my eldritch arm skill to pull out their souls to ensure their death is final as I have many others along the way which I couldn't normally visceral up till now.
I get another madmans on the left side of what obviously looks like a boss arena. I also take note of the human-like statues grabbing at the doors with the right side even having the door gate indented out to the street, like something caged in breaking out. All of them frozen in place and I have the strange suspicion that these aren't statues.
"How the hell do they manage petrification like this? It's a single moment to get it right which is way too coincidental. Unless it's their own members killed like this or villagers that they threatened after something else broke the metal cages on the doors before they were all frozen."
"Well whatever" I end my contemplation as I enter the arena, or I would if the system didn't interrupt me.
[Challenge Mode initialized: Select NG+ strength to the boss before you: The one Reborn.]
"Aw, right, it's been so long since I faced a normal boss that I forgot this was a challenge and not just something that naturally happened." I lament my fate as I make my decision.
"I don't remember much about this boss except that it just …exists. So I'll go with ng+55. I think my last boss was at 50." I think of Ludwig that I turned into my companion. But then again, I've gotten heavily stronger to the point that im not sure any boss I fight anymore could survive a few hits from me, especially since all my skills can mash together pretty well.
"Screw it, set it to NG+71" I make my final decision and the system senses my intentions and accepts it as fact.
[Accepted, Altering World. The One Reborn shall be bestowed with 8 modifiers]
I feel a shift in the world like never before as I knew that tipping the new game difficulty into the higher tier would have heavy repercussions but I hope it's not another Witch of hemwick situation where she already has a sharpened buttplug for my asshole. All primed and ready to violate my corpse.
The world shift ends and the fog wall takes its place before me. I waste no time entering as the system informs me of the modifiers.
[The One Reborn has obtained these eight modifiers: Conjoined Apotheosis, Anthropromorphic Avantism, Sentient Summons, Lich Subsidiaries, Arch-Tempered, Nascent Speed, Bestowed Strength, Decaying Dream]
"Holy shit, that's a lot to unpack" I comment as I enter the arena. I take a few brisk steps forward as unlike with ludwig, Im not immediately attacked.
Gazing upon the blood red moon high above the distant cathedral before a gathering of chime maidens high above in red dresses begin to ring their bells. A black cloud covers the pale blood moon as they call upon a new creature.
BANG
I try to interrupt the summons as my bullet strikes true upon the chime maiden yet the summoning is not disrupted, a little unstable sure but not disrupted. I shrug in annoyance that it's not a ritual that requires all 6 to summon but instead needs all 6 to fail before it is canceled. I take out another two. Both from the other side of the one I first killed before the black cloud trembles, but not before liquid begins to spill out all over the floor of the arena.
I freeze the area around me to prevent direct contact with the unknown liquid as a small rant escapes my lips. "No way, no how am I letting this gunk into my fucking boots. I swear to all gods that if this shit touches my socks, I will annihilate everything."
I make my way to the upper area as the One Reborn gets up from his mighty fall from the portal. It's originally a giant skeleton that just goes the inverse direction from the waist up. Multiple legs on its sides which would be its rib area with a humanoid form just a bit out of reach from whichever head space you think it uses as the one in charge.
Yet here it's a single individual, one that shares a humanoid form yet possesses two heads, instead of falling heavily like the original would, this one lands with grace atop the mucus like liquid that came with it from the portal. Their heads are covered in tentacles similar to the Nightmare Executioners from the hunters nightmare but without the weird purple glow around their tendrils.
I gaze up at the chime maidens to find that the ones I took out with my gun have returned. I frown as I realize that this is likely related to the Lich Subsidiaries. The chime maidens are immortal unless I get their phylacteries, wherever those are.
I attempt to sense the phylactorys' but nothing stands out too much, either congregated in the distant towers beside them or inside the lichs themselves but slightly hidden in their bodies so shooting their heads proved fruitless.
I use my evolved jumping skill to bypass walking by the conjoined One reborn, hopping off the wall beside me to get up to the top, or rather onto the bridge between the two sides to get a better look.
My magical senses tingle as the chime maidens ring their bells, summoning a whole slew of villagers and dogs that move to encircle me. I expected aggression but instead they hold their ground as the lich maidens call out and the other chime maidens ring their bells as well. All the summons begin to rush towards my position until a good 50 surround me from both sides of the bridge.
I activate Berserker Rage along with Power Boost then coat my weapon in wind magic that would unleash a wind blade. I then swing in both directions. Essentially in a full wide circle, but there were actually two swings. My strength allows me to create a sound based whiplash against both sides before the wind blades tear the summons apart as I approach the first lich on the right side.
Grabbing them by the neck, I scan their body for anything that could count as a phylactery but not outright finding anything before I choose to snap their neck and they fall over and die. I receive no echoes yet instead find that the lich respawns just a few feet beside me where they originally stood.
I cant see anything in that bit of space but I could feel the magical disturbance in the air. It's likely something that is hidden from me but if I know where it is, I can hit it.
I swing in that air. The maiden attempts to get in front me but my saw cleaver sears right through her, until it just stops around the clavicle.
A strange gas spreads from the chime maidens body creating a blood red aura around her that mimics the pale blood moon above.
She grips my axe which is stuck in her and tosses my blade aside but I just store it in my inventory as I take out Null instead. When I upgrade 2B, I also went ham on Null. it's not in it's full powered state, well maybe. When I achieve the proper state of World Creator, ill find out if there is anything left to improve.
In the meantime, it's bolt engine was improve for greater power which means the chainsaw blades are much tougher and can last for longer before needing to be reactivated. I then upgraded it's durability to surpass even the toughest hunter weapons. The last was to improve the serration in all its stats. This means that regardless of its three forms (shortsword, heavy broadsword and chainsword), it is far above the basic saw cleaver.
Though not mine of course.
I took the liberty of upgrading all my weapons which includes the Holy Moonlight greatsword, Saw Cleaver and Tontritus. Tontritus got a similar engine upgrade while imprinting a similar weapon echo skill onto the weapon so that it has a passive effect of double hits on all connected strikes as well as more powerful bolt damage.
Saw cleaver got the serration upgrade along with a vibration effect similar to the chainsword basic function so that the saw cleaver can shake while inside an enemy to tear them apart better.
The Moonlight greatsword got a boost to its scaling on all fronts so that it better synergizes with me. I also gave it a miniature lunar moon of it's own to further boost the arcane high above it's maxed out S scaling at +10. Granted I don't have the blood rocks and blood chunks required to reach that state yet. I've been able to get most of my weapons to +8 or +9 thus far thanks to cheating with my crafting skill but more resources are required to finish it off.
With the chime maiden somehow resisting my attack, I take out Null who has higher serration than even my Saw Cleaver, I activate the bolt engine which roars to life but in that brief moment, the chime maiden summons more villager which I stomp to death except for one which somehow survived until I notice the red aura transferred from the lich to the summon as the maiden herself died but the summon was not affected.
Cling clang.
I'm surprised as the villagers move at fast speed and have high strength. I activate QuickSilver to keep pace with the summon before taking them down via decapitation. I guess this was the nascent speed and bestowed strength working together.
I try to attack the spot of the phylactery again but touch nothing. I try a few more times but only get the maiden to resurrect in this time again.
I kill her once more and pull out Eldritch arm which finally touches the invisible gemstone that I then crush. A soul-screeching pain is heard around me.
I get a shiver down my spine as my senses tell me that this originates from the one reborn down below. It was not a shiver of terror but one of caution as well as confusion over my so called immobile foe that has done nothing up till now.
Both heads of the one Reborn rise in unison as their tentacle covered mouths open and release a symphony that tingles in the back of my head. I really don't feel anything and just continue on my way to kill the 2nd lich maiden who then ressurects beside me again and i then kill them properly with my eldrich arm.
Splurt
I stop in place as I feel an attack connect with me with my health decreasing but I don't feel where I got hurt or where it came from. I look around and don't spot anything as I am suddenly hit on my back and sent flying off the entire ledge where the lich originally was.
I crash on the floor but take no damage thanks to the upgraded silver cat reflexes. I look around and still don't spot any nearby enemies. I take a vial but im interrupted again as the vial shatters before i find myself slammed into the wall by a heavy strike.
"Fuck, invisible enemies that can seemingly follow me easily or are just fast like the other one" I try to think of any sort of possible escape as I don't know which way to go to fight off an invisible enemy.
I try to use eldritch arm to swing around and potentially grapple the invisible enemy but hit nothing, it likely escaped my reach moments before I touched them.
But at least this told me that it fears my arm as I use my other to take the vial and restore my low health.
I look around, hoping to find some sort of indicator for where the enemy is. Like a shadow emitted by the moon's light. I even thought of creating a fireball to find said shadow but I found something out during my visual exploration.
'There is no moon'
"There is no moon." I repeat again as the realization strikes me that im stuck in another illusion as this one has the darkness gradually increasing around me.
"Decaying Dream. I get it now. I was caught in an illusion that could very well kill me. It must have occurred when I entered the boss arena and they covered the moon. The eclipsing darkness hid the encroaching death." I mutter to myself as I try all my skills, unleashing blasting strikes in all directions, using my magical senses which only tells me that there is only the one reborn near me. I can't even sense the lich chime maidens.
Though the One reborn looks different in his wind senses scans.
"Fuck, it's all an illusion, nothing I saw was real. Did the system lie to me?"
[false fsjgljiwl screen] I see the screen pop up but show no actual message except a tangling of words that is barely able to showcase anything as I keep propping up walls to protect myself against the so-called invisible enemy which is likely not real and im just being by magic from the one reborn.
"That explains that. It could even falsify the system message, though it had to create some sense of realism ,so it betrayed it's own illusion"
LUNAR MOON. I call upon my false moon to shred apart all spiritual corruption upon me. I see everything now as my location is revealed to me as well as everything that had been hidden from me.
I see that I'm still on top of the railing between when I jumped up to the upper areas. Yet I see no chime maidens at all. Only their corpses as my inventory is slightly lower with bullets and the rubble and destruction that my initial attack rendered on the surroundings. In fact, I used so much force that I broke the bridge i was upon but also slaughtered the original chime maidens with said force.
I had simply been in front of the entrance to the arena and bombarded with various projectiles from The One Reborn who actually looks like a Nightmare Executioner in it's full glory but with a staff that glows purple and red which occasionally releases orange projectiles similar to the executioner Gloves to blast me.
On closer inspection, I can see that the robe it's wearing around it's decrepit body is covered in glyphs and runes similar to the Moonlight greatsword. I can only imagine that it shares a similar origin.
So the plan is to nab the cloak, slay the bitch. T-pose to assert my dominance over the boss.
[Congrats on escaping the Decaying dream. The remaining modifiers are: Arch-tempered, False God of Illusions, Caster, Grace Granted Gear, Nascent Speed, Sentient Spirit, Shifting Shape]
"Aha, it did fuck with my system from the very beginning. I wonder which of it's abilities let it do that, the illusionary god or maybe Caster?" I question aloud as I rush forward with QuickSilver combined with Astral Movement to the highest degree to slam Null into the Executioner, only for no impact to greet my hands.
The executioner begins to fade as back beside me, I find the previous set of twins, or rather only one of them. There wasnt a system prompt about their appearance changing and even my wind sense don't tell me that the enemy is there.
With the Lunar Moon, I actually can tell that the One Reborn is right beside me. I'm not sure if it's still the original giant skeleton or not. Nor was I certain of its location before but I am now.
I use my skills in perfect conjunction: Astral Shift, Power Boost, Berserker Rage, Weapon Echo and to finish it off, I disable Energy flow to finish it off with Shatter Echo. With a 20-something-x multiplier for my combined skills that then repeat a few times, I don't expect my unknown enemy to actually be able to stay hidden after this.
VVVOOM
The speed I travel along by the power of Astral Movement combined with my physique and protected by my Astral Cloak which nullifies basic drift except for what I purposely allow. This lets me arrive near one of the ends of its body which If I remember correctly is a two sided creature made up of bones and random flesh.
A shockwave soon blasts out from me via Null swinging out as the mass of power I wield makes contact with an invisible entity.
The Illusions fall as one of the twins in the distance fade away like discarded water in the boiling Arizona sun, the cries of my target's voice rise.
"GWAAAAA"
A horrifying screech rises up as I truly see the bone creature before me. A failed kin creation by the scholars of Mensis in their attempts to make a god like Byrgenwerth did with Rom.
My strike outright blasted out a chunk of boney flesh, about 6 of it's legs that were sticking out were also gone. It realized the jig was up as it creates portals around me to have corpses similar to itself fall down on me. I dash out of the way and under the small hole my attack made, allowing me to get to the other side of the creature in one instance.
I then repeat this process of blasting away flesh with ease as I choose not to use shatter echo but I do use weapon echo as the creature is primarily immovable unless summoned away but I just now took out the last chime maiden that was on the far left side. It had an injury on it's cheek from a rock that flew past it's face but didn't die unlike the middle left and far right one when I made my initial blasts against what I assume was an illusionary force that surrounded me and had been part of the power that made me fall to it in the first place.
The ooze on the ground rises a moment later as the boss was enraged but I just jump on top of the creature, standing in the middle of its dumb waist ribs. Multiple hands from the waist area reach for me but I use my shadows to break the weak arms before I just wail on the boss.
Occasionally I would have to hop around whenever it summoned a portal over itself to drop living corpses on me but that only opened the creature up to me hitting it's dumbass humanoid bodies, specifically the head of the pale creature which only dealt extra damage before I retreated.
After dealing with the illusions and my moon preventing anymore from taking over me. The rest of the fight was a cakewalk with the kin falling over after a hefty 10 minutes of fighting and jumping around. It's health bar was enormous.
[Prey Slaughtered]
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Word Count = 4400
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