35_Resistance is futile

The possessed mechanoid stammered back, two of her hands tried to attack the human, while the other two desperately grasped the rest and fought with them for control.

"1001 0011 0110 0010001 1010101"

The cultists on their heels began to chant in unison, their strange voices attempting to infect the minds of all who could hear them.

Herman, Polya and Heartsun shrugged the influence away. However the effect on Staple was immediate.

Staple’s consciousness floated further and further away in the black void of her mind. She could feel her control rapidly slipping as something else took possession over her body.

The foreign entity radiated cold indifference rather than malicious intent. As if her mind was just a puzzle to be solved and then discarded as the need arose. She wasn't even considered an enemy, just a tiny inconvenience in its path.

Before she completely lost control, the mechanoid let out a primal cry. She twisted away from her unruly hands clawing at her, shoving them aside just long enough to angle her blades into her own ears, crushing plasteel and tearing wires.

As soon as she deafened herself, the hostile hands tore off one of the arms still under her control, but with the remaining one she lifted her blade and, in a single decisive motion, severed her own head at the neck, putting and end to the bizarre struggle.

Her damaged body toppled down into the sand, while her severed head rolled to a stop at Herman’s feet.

"What the actual fuck!" Herman shouted at the gruesome display. The entire thing had happened in less than a second. The insane speed of the bot being nearly too fast for the man to see what the hell was happening, even with his cheater stats.

"Stapleeee!" Polya shrieked as she saw her favorite aunt perish.

"Amm Herman, there are a few of those green toads right outside my fence. Amm should I… What should I do…." Slippy uncertanly asked herman through the man’s digital overlay.

Herman paled at the mention of the amphibians being inside his friend’s soulspace.

"Pull the emergency lever!"

"Are you sure, it might be an overkill, they haven't yet tried to cross the electric fence…" The slip began.

"Do it noww!" Herman screamed with panic. He was now sure what those little critters represented, and if they didn’t deal with them immediately, his friend was going to follow Staple’s fate.

BOOOM!

Thanks to their connection, Herman was able to hear the sound of the massive explosion coming from Slippy’s soul space. The white electric fence and the surrounding area promptly exploded, the lever doing its job to activate the stashed explosives below the barrier.

Herman thought it might be sort of a last resort nuclear option in case someone overwhelmed Slippy’s defences. It would have the side effect of destroying the slip’s defences, but in turn it would also blast any intruder to smithereens, hopefully…

It was quite a conflicting security measure, but now he was glad it was there.

Herman quickly grabbed the digital Slip, opened its settings and disabled all external connections, cutting off its senses and leaving Slippy blind and deaf to the outside world. He hated to do this, but there was no other choice. Hell, he might have already been too late.

With that settled, he focused his attention on the world around him. He had barely paid any attention to what was happening while they ran, choosing to instead care for his friend’s safety.

Now he saw they had hunkered down at the ruins of a square building, there was nothing more than the foundations and the rubble of collapsed walls to take cover behind. Heartsun and Polya were shooting projectiles at the enemy, and the cultist horde had them surrounded.

However now its numbers were boosted by a contingent of more warefrogs, as well as more of the damnable ordinary looking toads. They sat at the back and observed their position with that unnerving glare of theirs. Herman yet again felt a shiver cross his body and he tore his gaze away from the critters.

"Don’t look in the toads eyes!" He shouted at his allies.

His two remaining companions just grunted in confirmation and continued firing at the horde around them, all the while taking cover of their own as the cultists kept peppering them with nano bolts.

Every time a projectile hit, it began to eat the rubble around them and expand as the nanoids consumed everything in sight and made more of themselves.

"Do you think you can summon the undead?" Herman asked as he rushed near the position of Polya.

"I am trying! But without my familiars I can't use the same amount of power as before. Plus there arent much bones around here." The woman said as she shot another colored feather towards an approaching warefrog cultist.

"Still, I don’t think it would work anyway… Look there!" Polya added, pointing to the side where a few undead chickens fought with couple of green toads.

The necromantic minions managed to slay a few of the enemy, but then got stung by a few lashing tongues, after which the skeletal chickens collapsed into a pool of gray goo. Then a new toad reassembled from the pool, only to resume attacking the rest of the rapidly diminishing undead.

"Well, that’s not good…" Herman muttered.

___

Summon fish!

Summon fish!

Summon fish!

A swordfish materialized in thin air and propelled itself with astounding speed at the warefrog cultist charging at their position, not before the cultist managed to shoot Herman in the forehead, and nearly knocking him out for good.

"Are you ok? Herman!" Polya shouted at the downed man.

In the absence of Slippy, the man in question had a wall of text and popups assaulting his senses as usual, however he found out he had a small tiny corner free of the popups at the edge of his vision, so he awkwardly swiveled his head to the side as to see what was happening around him.

"S..starfish!" He muttered, lazily extending one hand and shooting a floppy orange starfish at a leaping toad that was about to jump on Polya’s head. The starfish collided with a wet plop at its target. It didn’t do any damage, but at least it veered the course of the amphibian away.

"Fuck!" The necromancer cursed, turning away from the fallen man and resuming shooting magic at the enemy who was nearly upon them.

"I am fine…" The old man said, twisting on his legs to point at a hand towards the enemy, straining to hear or see Polya over the clatter of stats and damage notifications.

"No you are not fine!" Polya shouted as she pushed his hand away from herself and towards the enemy, just in time before the man could decapitate her with another swordfish.

"Your head is covered in that gray goo thing, and it’s already spread over most of your body. It’s eating you alive!"

"Urgrghhh…" Herman moaned as he tilted his head to see that the necromancer had her face shield down, and her metal armor was covered from head to toe with nanoids. A faint grinding sounds came out of her as the tiny mechanical critters did their damnedest to chew through the obstacle.

"God dammit, we never should have confronted them. I just hope we actually respawn after this." Polya said, looking around for any solution or a way out.

To her surprise, she did see Heartsun hissing at her and waving a tentacle at them to hurry the fuck up. The plant monstrosity had excavated a wooden hatch at the base of the structure, and had somehow already gotten its massive bulk inside.

"Herman, hold them off!" The woman shouted at the delirious man, unsure how much got through to him considering his body was fighting both the nanoid infestation combined with the barrage of popups and debufs.

She grabbed him and threw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, ignoring everything else, she rushed for the small hatch at the back side of the building.

A warefrog cultist lunged at her, but Polya had had enough and drove a full force punch straight into his face. Her gauntlet connected with the frogocultist’s skull and instantly converted him into pixels.

More enemies surged in to fill the gap, and soon the entire building was packed with enemies. Heartsun did his best to push the invaders back from the hatch, but with his ammo depleted and his body being eaten alive by nanoids, there was little he could do.

"AAArgh!" Polya roared, pushing and shoving the mass of amphibian bodies clawing at her.

"P…piranhas…" The old man atop her shoulder wrasped.

A stream of vicious saber toothed fish poured from both his hands, the torrent of beasties rushing without pause. The tiny critters did what they did best and nipped at the enemy, causing commotion and chaos.

Taking her chance, Polya threw Herman at the hatch, him colliding with Heartsun and disappearing below.

To her horror all the piranhas were nearly gone, transformed into small chubby green toads. Not hesitating further, she leaped for the hatch and vanished into the depths below.

But not before snatching a tiny golden egg from a pouch on her belt and leaving it behind as a goodbye gift.

___

"Fuck fuck fuck, we have to get out of here!" Polya shouted.

"Hiss hiss grr!" Heartsun growled.

"Argwghh…" Herman groaned in half delirium, his mind and interface glitching out from the influence of the nanoids invading his body and the swarm of popup notifications.

"Off, get off me…" Polya and the rest struggled to untangle themselves from the ball they had entangled themselves into, right below the open hatch.

Somehow they managed to unwrap themselves, and woman and plant ran with all their strength, each grabbing one of Herman’s legs and unceremoniously dragging him as they fled the hatch and plunged deeper into the dark tunnel.

___

Hop, hop.

A chubby toad hopped to the strange mechanical egg, tilting its head and examining it with evil red eyes.

"Croak?" Larry said to his comrade who also happened to be named Larry.

"Croak croak?" Larry answered with equally as baffled expression.

Before the two nanoid abominations could converse further on the matter, the tiny gears at the side of the egg began to spin. The top half of the egg opened, revealing a tiny chick figurine.

"Peep." The figurine happily chirped.

The two Larry’s had just enough time to exchange bewildered looks before they got consumed by fire.

The baby chick expanded into a raging inferno, its fiery shape forming a mighty phoenix with its wings outstretched wide. The phoenix flickered with red and yellow energy, the power coalescing around it with a rising crackle before exploding in a thunderous boom, the shockwave sweeping through the area and disintegrating everything in its path.

___

+ 30 corruption damage

- 30 health

+10 health from natural regeneration

+ 0.2 resistance to nanoid infestation

“Joiiin usssss.” A chorus of voices whispered.

- 2 to willpower

+ 0.2 mental resistance.

+ 30 corruption damage

- 30 health

+10 health from natural regeneration

+ 0.2 resistance to nanoid infestation

“Oooonee of usssss”

- 2 to willpower

+ 0.2 mental resistance.

On and on the numbers and eerie whispers went. The dispassionate System voice droned without end, bombarding his senses with countless popups and useless statistics.

Yet the longer Herman remained in the number trance, the weaker the creepy voices became, until finally…

Congratulations! You have gained immunity to nanoid infestation.

Congratulations! You have gained the legendary skill: Troll regeneration.

COOONGRATULATIONNNSSSSS!!!!!!

Level up! Level up! Level up! Level up!

"N..no, no more stats, please no nnnoo…" The human mumbled in his feverish state of delirium.

However the System had no mercy, the puny human had ignored its messages for far too long. It was time for him to finally see the truth. It was time for…

The full and complete status screen of Herman Novikov.

"Nnooooo arghrghhgh" The human futilely pleaded as he foamed at the mouth from the rush of data.

___

Name: Herman Novikov (Proxy Glamour Applied)

Level: 85

Race: Human

Age: 140 years

Class: Super Duper Legendary

Health 63/5500

Mana 2450/5500

Strength: [ 256 ]

Agility: [ 224 ]

Vitality : [ 216 ]

Perception: [ 254 ]

Intelligence: [ 252 ]

Wisdom: [ 211 ]

Charisma: [ 1 ]

Luck: [ SUPER DUPER LEGENDARY ]

Status Effects:

- rrree..reddacted, skipping to ne..next….

SKILLS:

1: Create fish (Legendary, unique): Create any fish, anywhere, at any time, of any size.

2: Battle gardener (Legendary): Your might and battle prowess of fighting with simple gardening instruments is super duper legendary. You are an expert with any gardening appliance in combat conditions. + 700% damage when fighting with gardening tools.

3: Gadgeteering : (Godlike, unique): You are a technological savant. Your prowess and ingenuity with all things technological is beyond measure. All who dare to…. Rrredacted redacted, skipping skipping……

Yes, yes it was working! Herman was finally adapting to the madness. Despite his delirious state he managed to fight back! The more he skipped from those dreadful numbers the better.

Badges:

- Bully hunter: (Lvl 3) (+ 3 % unarmed damage to bullies)

- Slayer of mecha raptors: (Lvl 1) (+ 1% Damage against mechanical raptors)

- Slayer of giants

- Master gardener

- Plant tamer

- Plant speech

- Nagging resister

- Survivor of nanoids

- The only… rrrredacted , error redacted

Well that wasn't so bad. Herman thought with satisfaction. He had zoned out through most of it, and the rest he managed to skip through all that hacking know-how. The System had nothing on him! The man thought smugly.

However the System had other plans for the foolish mortal. Just like Odysseus tempted the gods with his hubris, so did Herman’s taunts did not remain unheard.

Congratulations, you have earned the privilege of being able to review each and every previously unseen notifications, ranging from level ups to detailed description and charts of each subsequent eye blink in the virtual world.

Enjoy :)

"MNNNOOOOOAAARRggghhh!!!"

Herman bellowed in despair, however it was far too late as his fate was already sealed. And with that the human’s fragile mind was assaulted with a tsunami of notifications and popups hungry for his attention.

And so Herman was banished to the void realm of pure data and boredom.