Soul Nexus: A Fantasy Tower Ascension LitRPG

The man stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with a disturbing mix of curiosity and madness. “Welcome to my island. I am Roctiv,” he said, his voice a strange combination of cheerfulness and malevolence. “I see you’ve met some of my creations. Aren’t they magnificent?”

He’s human. This is the first human I’ve seen since I’ve arrived in the Soul Nexus. Why is he doing this? Why is he creating these monsters?

Shadara didn’t waste any time. With a snarl, she nocked an arrow and let it fly. Roctiv’s eyes widened in surprise, but he was quick. With a flick of his wrist, a shield of shimmering light appeared. Everything exploded in a shower of light, sparks, and thunder.

“How rude!” Roctiv stomped his foot. “I was being a gracious host. You barge in, unannounced, and attack me.”

He put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. Shadara growled and aimed another arrow at him. Her shot went wide as the lizard bear leapt out of its cage and into the panther woman.

Killa reacted instantly to the creature that attacked her. It was a massive, scaly beast with four legs and a tail that walked along the wall. It had a head like a lion, with large fangs and claws. But it was the size of a horse, and its fur was a brilliant blue. She wrapped her arms around the beast and engulfed it. The creature disappeared into her black slime, thrashing wildly. But her slime was far too strong for the creature, and its movements became slower and slower until it stopped altogether.

A creature came from my right. Instinctively, I swung my stinger arms, slicing through a creature that looked like a blend of a wolf and a scorpion. Its body collapsed on the ground, with two of its six legs cut off. I fired a single shot into its head, killing it. My HUD showed me earning 2 stat points and 24,868 shards.

I saw another five creatures heading our way. “There’s more coming!”

A monkey with eight spider-like legs and crab claws tried to drop down on me from the ceiling.

Roctiv watched with a twisted smile, clearly enjoying the spectacle. What was even more disturbing was that his eyes locked on me.

I impaled the spider monkey mutant for 23,142 shards and 2 stat points. Shadara snapped the lizard bear’s neck with her hands. I noticed that the creature scratched her shoulder.

The wound didn’t look deep, so I ignored it and instead ran up and kicked a large feline creature covered in razor sharp quills, reminiscent of the bav’varsts, before it could land on her.

It hit the wall on the far side of the room and stumbled to its feet. Shadara grabbed her bow and shot it. Her arrow went in one ear and out the other.

Roctiv wrung his hands together as he watched me. He really needs to stop that.

Don’t focus on him; focus on the immediate threats!

Another of those eight-legged monkeys landed on my back and tried to dig into my shoulder blades with its spider legs. My stinger arms cut them off.

The room shook as I finished off the creature for another 23,442 shards and 2 stat points. A gorilla covered in triangular scales with a lizard-like tail and a crystal chin lumbered towards us. It slammed its fists down hard enough to crack the ground, sending debris flying everywhere.

I got out of the way, but Shadara didn’t move in time. The creature punched her, sending her flying back into a wall. She slumped to the ground, motionless. Killa threw herself at the gorilla, but the creature grabbed a table and swatted her away.

She tried again. It ended the same as the first attempt.

I fired several rounds into it, but my stinger bullets didn’t even pierce its scales. So instead, I stabbed the creature’s back with my arm blade. My blade dug in deep.

The gorilla twisted before I retracted my blade and launched me into the air. My vision jolted as I hit the wall and again when my face slammed into the floor. I saw a notification telling me that my energy had decreased to three hundred and seventy percent.

I jumped to my feet, but it was too late. The gorilla was already in front of me. Its fist pinned me to the wall as he crushed my chest.

I tried to stab him with my stinger blades, but my arms couldn’t get a good angle.

The gorilla grabbed both of my stinger arms with his other hand and pulled my legs with the other. It turned around and held me up as another creature had its head blown off by Killa’s magic.

“If you want her to stay in one piece, I suggest stopping,” Roctiv sneered.

Killa froze, her hands still raised.

I struggled against the gorilla, but my arms wouldn’t budge. To prove its point, it started pulling me. My shoulder joints groaned in protest before popping out of place. I screamed in pain. The pain, at least, quickly died down from the adrenaline in my system.

Roctiv cackled as he said, “So, what should I do with you?” He paced back and forth, his eyes never leaving me.

Killa moved forward but stopped when the gorilla pulled harder, eliciting another scream as my legs became dislocated.

Roctiv let out another chuckle. “Oh, the fun we’ll have. But I don’t think it’ll be so much fun for you, girlie.”

He reached out and grabbed my chin.

I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Shadara standing up and aiming another arrow at the madman. Just like the first time she shot him, showers of electrical sparks shot out from him. Several of them hit me as if they were drawn to my mostly metallic body.

If I thought being pulled apart by a gorilla was painful, it was nothing compared to the electricity that coursed through my body. Every muscle from the neck down seized up and burned while sharply twisting in undesired ways.

A red tentacle wrapped around the gorilla’s eyes. It howled as it dropped me to reach for its eyes. The creature stumbled around as it flailed its hands as Killa’s magic burned its eyes. Killa ran up to pick me up, as I couldn’t control any part of my body.

Then something slammed Shadara in the back. A creature with a ram’s head and a body made of tree bark with a single horn reared up and slammed its hooves on her arms. I heard the bones breaking.

As Killa spun to run, Roctiv stood up and extended an arm out towards us. A blue arc of lightning jumped from him into Killa’s back and through into me.

Pain exploded in my body, and I fell to the ground, my limbs twitching uncontrollably. Killa screamed as she was hit by Roctiv’s electricity magic, her form convulsing and splattering against the ground around me. Shadara tried to fight her way towards us, but the gorilla mutant grabbed her.

Roctiv stepped forward, electricity crackling between his fingers.

“You three have been rather troublesome,” he said, sending another shockwave through us.

Darkness took over as my vision faded.

When I awoke, I found myself in a small, dimly lit cage. The bars hummed with a faint electric charge. A simple tap of my stinger arm on it left me writhing on the ground in agony. When I recovered, I looked around and saw Shadara and Killa in similar cages. Killa was in a massive glass container, surrounded by electrically charged metal bars. Shadara was unconscious in her own cage.

We were stripped naked, and the gorilla held what looked like our stuff in his hands.

Roctiv pointed to a crate. “Just put it in there for now. I’ll deal with it later.” He turned to face me. “The first one of them is awake,” he said, his voice dripping with mock concern. “Good. I was afraid I’d done permanent damage to you. That’s quite the body you have.”

I struggled to sit up, every muscle in my body protesting. “What do you want with us?”

Roctiv chuckled, the sound sending chills down my spine. “I want to know what makes you tick. You have a very human face, but the rest of you is far from human. It’s like you’re some half golem thing. I didn’t know that was possible.”

His eyes narrowed on me as he wrung his hands together. “I want to replicate you, improve you, complete you. If I had a body like yours, I’d not have to worry about eating, or sleep, or time itself. Nothing would stop me.”

I rubbed my head as if it would alleviate the ringing in it. “To what end?”

He clenched his fist and shouted, “Perfection! Perfection, of course. Nature is flawed, chaotic. But you, you are something else. You are what I’ve been dreaming of. Someone has beaten me to my dream. You are beyond nature.”

He walked up to my cage, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “I see that I’ve been wasting my time looking to make the ultimate lifeform using what nature has already created. But you’ve shown me that there is a better way. Yes, you’re flawed, I can see that. But you…you are the perfect specimen.”

“You’re insane!” Shadara spat as she tried to stand up.

She slumped back down when she tried to use her arms. Her left leg was also bent at awkward angles. There was a look of obvious pain in her face that she tried to hide with her anger.

“Perhaps,” Roctiv replied with a shrug. “But all great minds are often misunderstood. But I am merely a man with vision, with purpose. You see, I’m so close to a breakthrough. And your arrival is just the catalyst I needed. Especially you.”

His gaze lingered on me, and I felt a shiver of fear. “What are you going to do with me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

His eyes gleamed as they traced every inch of my body up and down with a deeply disturbing hunger. “I want to know what makes you tick. What makes your body tick? What makes your mind tick? I want to know everything about you. I’m going to take you apart, piece by piece, and study you.”

The man cackled. “And after I have learned everything, I will perfect it into the ultimate lifeform. I will create a new race of super beings with your genetic material as the template. Once I have a fully functional chimera with your DNA, I will merge my DNA with it. I will be unstoppable—immortal. I will be eternal.”

“You’re sick,” I whispered.

Shadara let out a deep growl. “Let us go.”

Roctiv smiled, a cold, cruel smile. “I’m afraid you’re in no position to make demands. You see, your little escapade cost me some of my finest creations. It’s only fair that I use you to replace them.”

He turned away from me and walked towards Shadara. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a wave of electricity at the panther woman. She screamed as she writhed in agony. “I think I’ll start with you, beastwoman. You know, get rid of the distractions and all that.”

Killa struggled against her own imprisonment. She slammed against the glass, but it was useless. Some yellow tentacles appeared outside of her glass container but vanished before they could do anything.

I reached out my hand for Shadara. “Wait! Take me instead.”

Roctiv paused, his eyes narrowing as he slowly turned his head towards me after my outburst. “Oh? And why should I do that?”

“You’re curious about me, aren’t you?” I said, desperation creeping into my voice. “You want to understand what makes me unique. Use me for your experiments. Just leave them alone.”

Roctiv’s smile widened. “Again, why? I was planning on doing that already.”

I froze. Uh, I didn’t think that far. Let’s be honest, I didn’t think at all. What do I do? I can’t let him do anything to Shadara.

If you wish to save the beastwoman, you will need to show him something.

Show him something? I looked at my energy level. It wasn’t looking good at a hundred and five percent. All that electricity really took it out of me. I screamed internally. I don’t have a choice.

I drove one of my stinger arms into my hand, cutting off half my hand and four of my fingers. I picked it up and held it for the man to see before putting it back where my nanites reconnected them.

I flexed my fingers to show that they still worked. “If I cooperate, you will finish much sooner than if I fight you.”

Roctiv quivered. “Oh my, oh my. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, little puppet? Fine, I can study you first. She’ll make a perfect test run for afterwords.”

This isn’t over. I’ll find a way out of this. For all of us. I don’t have a choice. Orange, no matter what happens, do not let him collect even one nanite.

We will keep all nanites away from him at all times. It may cause reconstruction times to lengthen.

That’s fine. We just can’t let him have you. I need time to figure this out.

Roctiv loomed over me. “Let’s begin, shall we?”

I hung my head. “If you want to keep me alive, I’m going to need energy. Lots of it. I’ll need to eat.”

The madman scowled. “So you have some limitations, after all. Fine.”

He let out a high-pitched whistle. The gorilla walked out and came back with a few of the mutants we killed. It placed them in front of my cage and stood next to them. Four more mutants circled around my cage. They were some kind of cheetah-raptor mix with feathers along their spine and tail.

Roctiv crossed his arms and pointed at the carcasses. “Eat up. And don’t even think about attacking me. I’ve seen how fast you are. Experiments one-two-three through one-two-six are faster than you. And you’ve already met experiment nine-one-zero.” He waved to the gorilla.

“If you take too long, I’ll get bored and work on experiment nine-one-one,” he said as he glanced at Shadara.

The hum of my cage stopped, and the gorilla lifted the top door. I don't know if those mutants really are faster than me. But if I do try to attack that psycho they'll still rip me to shreds. And if I try to kill them first it'll leave me too vulnerable to the gorilla.

I have no chance.

Gradually, I used my stinger arms to cut the meat up as I shoveled it in my mouth with my hands. As I chewed on each piece, I was assaulted by the overwhelming sourness, almost like the meat had gone bad.

How can a person be so cruel?