Chapter 296 - 287 — It Chose Him II

Chapter 296: Chapter 287 — It Chose Him II

The red left before he got there.

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 2,780 / 7,200]`

It came off the shoulders and down the back and hit the stone running, and the instant it was gone the Heavy’s ruined leg mattered again — the whole thing lurched sideways and nearly went down and had to catch itself on the blade.

James turned to follow the light.

It did not go sideways.

It did not go to the nearest body, which was three metres away and bleeding.

It went *up the terrace* — past everything still fighting, past a wounded soldier, straight across forty metres of open flagstone toward the base of the stairs, and into one of the two soldiers already pulling back toward the middle level.

Further away. Further ahead.

"It’s moving forward," said Maeve.

The empowered soldier turned round and came back down the stairs at them.

`[FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 4,600 / 4,600]`

It came through Alice’s line.

She let it get to her, shifted her hip out of the path, caught the weapon arm as it went by and put the red-gold blade through the middle of it.

`[FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 4,600 → 0]`

`[FLOOR SOLDIER SLAIN — ALICE]`

`[EXP GAINED: 260]`

`[CALL OF SOULS ACTIVATED — MANA RESTORED: +30]`

`[MANA: 3,020 / 3,100]`

No panel appeared for Alice. It never did.

The body had not finished falling before the red tore out of it.

And it did not sink.

It ran uphill, fast, in one long bright line across the flagstones and through the gap in the broken wall at the top of the ramp, and James lost sight of it behind the stonework of the second terrace.

---

The rest of the lower level came apart in about ninety seconds.

The skeleton took the spearman from behind. Ronan and Finn broke what was left of the shield pair. Cillian removed the one trying to get round the flank.

`[FLOOR SOLDIER SLAIN — UNDEAD KILL]`

`[EXP GAINED: 260]`

`[CALL OF SOULS ACTIVATED — MANA RESTORED: +30]`

`[MANA: 3,050 / 3,100]`

James raised one more off the ramp and left the other four corpses where they were, because eighty mana was eighty mana and he did not need an army, he needed two good pieces.

`[SUMMON UNDEAD SKELETON — 80 MANA]`

`[MANA: 2,970 / 3,100]`

The Heavy went down under Ronan and Finn together with its leg gone.

`[HOSTILE ENTITIES ELIMINATED: 6 / 21]`

`[JAMES GANNER — EXP: 14,835 / 69,000]`

---

**[FloorTheoryIE]:** IT LEFT HIM

**[ShieldMainSiobhan]:** HE WAS STILL ALIVE. IT LEFT HIM ALIVE

**[user88317]:** WHY DID IT SWITCH???

**[ZeroFan]:** IT WENT UP THE STAIRS

**[FrontierWife]:** THAT WAS NOT WHAT IT DID ON 28

**[CorkClimber]:** IT PICKED THE HEALTHY ONE. THE HEALTHY ONE.

**[GalwayGoblin]:** JAMES SAW IT

**[MOD]:** Slow mode enabled.

---

They went up the ramp immediately.

"One thing," James said, walking. "Is it going to the strongest one, or is it going *up*?"

"Those aren’t different yet," said Maeve.

"They will be."

---

Seven were waiting on the middle terrace, and the placement answered half the question before anybody swung at anything.

Five Floor Soldiers and two Heavies.

The nearer Heavy stood at the front of the line, closest to Team Zero, unmarked and unlit.

The far Heavy stood twenty metres behind the formation, almost at the foot of the next ramp — and it was wrapped in red to the collarbone, standing perfectly still, waiting.

Maeve saw where it was standing before she saw what was on it.

"It’s at the back," she said. "It’s the furthest one from us and it’s the closest one to the stairs."

"Then let’s make it an offer."

---

They went at the front Heavy hard and deliberately.

Ronan pinned the ordinary soldiers on the left. Cillian and Finn took the near Heavy between them and did not conserve anything.

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 7,200 → 5,080]`

`[MAEVE CALLAHAN — HEXLIGHT BRAND APPLIED]`

Finn hit the marked knee.

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 5,080 → 3,190]`

`[NECRO BLAST — 60 MANA]`

`[MANA: 2,910 / 3,100]`

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 3,190 → 1,140]`

And then James stopped.

He stood there with an eleven-hundred-hit-point Heavy Floor Soldier in front of him — down on one knee, knee joint destroyed, side plate open, a better wounded host than anything the red had ever taken in its life — and he did nothing at all.

"Anyone?" said Cillian, after four seconds.

"Wait."

Six seconds.

Ten.

The cracks in the flagstones stayed dark. Twenty metres back, the red sat exactly where it had been sitting, on a Heavy with all seven thousand two hundred of its hit points, and did not so much as flicker.

"It’s not coming," said Maeve.

"No."

"It doesn’t want the hurt one."

"No, it doesn’t."

Alice put the front Heavy out of its misery on her way past.

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER SLAIN]`

`[EXP GAINED: 420]`

`[CALL OF SOULS ACTIVATED — MANA RESTORED: +30]`

`[MANA: 2,940 / 3,100]`

---

So they went at the one that had it.

James sent both skeletons wide around the left. Finn came in from the right. Alice stayed dead centre so that the five ordinary soldiers had something to worry about other than walking over Maeve and Cillian.

The empowered Heavy fought like the others had — too fast, correcting too well, hitting far above what its frame should manage.

Finn got through anyway.

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 7,200 → 5,220]`

Ronan turned it. Both skeletons got in behind and hung off its arms, and Finn opened the hip.

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER — HP: 5,220 → 3,840]`

The red came off it before the axe was clear.

It abandoned a living body for the third time in eleven minutes, poured down onto the stone, went past the whole formation, past two untouched Floor Soldiers, and up the ramp to the third terrace.

"It isn’t trying to keep them alive," James said.

Maeve was watching it go over the top of the ramp.

"It’s trying to get somewhere."

—

They finished the middle terrace fast, because there was nothing complicated left on it.

`[FLOOR SOLDIERS SLAIN ×4]`

`[EXP GAINED: 1,040]`

`[CALL OF SOULS ACTIVATED — MANA RESTORED: +60]`

`[MANA: 3,000 / 3,100]`

`[HEAVY FLOOR SOLDIER SLAIN]`

`[EXP GAINED: 420]`

`[SUMMON UNDEAD SKELETON — 80 MANA]`

`[MANA: 2,920 / 3,100]`

`[HOSTILE ENTITIES ELIMINATED: 13 / 21]`

`[JAMES GANNER — EXP: 16,975 / 69,000]`

Finn came past him rolling his shoulder, with a dent in his breastplate and a red mark spreading under the edge of it.

"You alright?"

"I’ll be purple tomorrow. Go on."