John forced his breathing to grow ragged, let his wings falter in their rhythm, allowed his evasive manoeuvres to become just a fraction slower. It was a performance, every gasp and stumble carefully calculated even as Biomancy kept his body in peak condition beneath the façade. The artificial exhaustion he was projecting was a lie, but the exertion of maintaining it while simultaneously controlling his heart rate and keeping Chester secure was very real.

The stickbug noticed. Of course it did.

"PRODUCTIVITY DECLINING!" the voice boomed through the chamber's speakers, a note of triumph creeping into the corporate monotone. "WORKERS APPROACHING BURNOUT! TERMINATION PROCEDURES: AUTHORIZED!"

The creature's attacks intensified immediately. It launched itself with even more ferocity than before, its entire body a brown streak that tore through the air. John Teleported away, but this time he deliberately aimed for a shorter distance, barely fifty metres instead of his usual hundred. When he reappeared, he let himself wobble in the air, his wings beating an uneven pattern.

The stickbug began to use the environment. Instead of simply charging at them in straight lines, it started ricocheting off walls and staircases at blinding speed, building momentum with each bounce. It became an unpredictable pinball of death, pinging between surfaces at off angles, forcing John to constantly adjust his flight path. Playing with its food now that it thought its hunt was nearing the end.

Chunks of rubble began to rain down on them. The creature was deliberately smashing through platforms as it bounced, sending debris spinning through the air like shrapnel. John had to weave between the projectiles, leaning on Accelerate, his enhanced vision tracking dozens of trajectories simultaneously, while maintaining the illusion of mounting desperation.

A particularly large piece of masonry hurtled towards them. John banked hard, feeling it whistle past, close enough that the displaced air tugged at his jacket. Too close. That one hadn't been faked. Without Accelerate running, that would have been bad.

"EFFICIENCY METRICS: SUBOPTIMAL!" The voice was practically giddy now. "RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE DOWNSIZING!"

John gritted his teeth and pushed himself towards the chamber's perimeter, deliberately heading for an area congested with intersecting walkways. The stickbug followed, its bulbous eyes never leaving Chester's glowing form. It was getting bolder, closing the distance with each exchange, convinced that its prey was flagging.

Perfect.

He let his trajectory carry him towards a massive platform. The moment before he would have cleared it, he "stumbled" in the air, his wing beats becoming jerky and uncoordinated. The platform loomed in front of them, far too close, far too fast. He turned in the air, wrapping Chester up in his wings.

The stickbug saw its moment. It launched itself from a nearby walkway, moving faster than it had throughout the entire battle. The creature crossed the distance in a heartbeat, its body held rigid like a javelin, aimed directly at them with lethal precision.

The monster slammed into them with the force of a train. John's back smashed against the wall, the stone cratering beneath the impact. Pain exploded through his spine, his ribs, his shoulders. The breath he'd been holding was driven from his lungs in a wheeze. Stars burst across his vision, and he felt something crack inside his chest. Real damage this time, not just for show.

His wings wrapped around Chester like iron bands, an unbreakable grip that refused to yield even as the creature's momentum tried to tear them apart. The man was semi-conscious now, his head lolling against John's shoulder, but the white nimbus around him shone bright.

The stickbug stood before them, its body stretched out to its full, intimidating length. It was close enough that John could count the knots on its wood-like body, could smell the acrid, alien stench that emanated from it.

The swarm of lesser monsters, sensing victory, began to converge on their location. Thousands of wings thunderded, countless mandibles chittered. They were coming to feast on the corpses.

From far below, John heard voices. Lily's scream, high and desperate. Doug's bellow of rage. Jade's sharp curse. They were shouting, trying to draw the stickbug's attention, but the creature ignored them completely. Its focus was absolute, its prey pinned and helpless before it.

The stickbug drew itself up to its full height, towering over them. Its primary limbs began to change, the rounded ends sharpening into wicked points that gleamed with an oily sheen. Poison, John realised distantly. Those tips were coated in venom. One strike would be enough to kill, he was sure, even with Biomancy working overtime to keep him alive.

The creature's bulbous eyes narrowed with what could only be described as satisfaction. When it spoke, the voice that boomed through the chamber was no longer filtered through a peppy corporate drawl. It was raw, vindictive, pleased.

"PERFORMANCE REVIEW: COMPLETE," it declared, each word dripping with venom more potent than anything coating its limbs. "FINAL ASSESSMENT: TERMINATED. WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE."

John met the monster's gaze through his sunglasses, his expression carefully blank. Chester was a warm, barely-breathing weight against his back. The swarm was closing in. His teammates were too far away to help.

The stickbug reared back, its sharpened limbs drawing back like spears, ready to impale both of them in a single, devastating strike.

It lunged.

And at the last possible second, John smiled.

The transformation was instantaneous. His skin rippled, flesh becoming metal, his entire body transmuting into gleaming steel in the space between one heartbeat and the next. The stickbug's venom-coated limbs struck his chest with a sound like a gong, a resounding clang that echoed through the entire chamber.

The impact should have driven straight through his body. Instead, the limbs skittered off his metallic surface, unable to find purchase, unable to penetrate. And then Adamant Defence did what it was designed to do.

A beam of concentrated energy erupted from the point of impact, a lance of searing light that combined lightning, plasma, and lava into a single devastating counterattack.

The beam struck it square in its stick-like torso, and the creature's triumphant shriek turned into something altogether different. A sound of shock, of disbelief.

But John wasn't done. His free hand shot out, no longer occupied with maintaining balance or steering his flight. His wings held Chester in an unbreakable embrace, wrapped around the man like a protective cocoon of black leather. And with his hands now free, John seized the opportunity he'd been waiting for.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

His fingers closed around one of the creature's limbs, and in that moment, every upgrade he'd purchased, every point of Aura he'd carefully spent, came together in perfect synchrony. Grappler at Level 6 gave him the knowledge of where and how to hold, Titan Tendons at Level 6 made his joints unbreakable hinges, while Cellular Regeneration and Adaptive Musculature—his most recent purchases—flooded his body with strength that adjusted to match the exact force needed to maintain his grip.

The stickbug struggled, trying to pull back, but John's grip was like iron. The creature yanked with a force that should have dislocated his shoulder, but Titan Tendons held firm, and Adaptive Musculature responded by flooding more strength into his arm, his shoulder, his core. His muscles bulged beneath the steel skin, cords of reinforced tissue that refused to yield.

The impact of catching the creature's momentum cracked the wall behind him even further. John felt his ribs break, shifting around within him, and the pain was white-hot agony that screamed through his nervous system. He tasted blood in his mouth. But he held on.

Biomancy, his third active spell thanks to Triple Casting, flooded through his system. Broken ribs knitted steadily back together. Torn muscles reattached. The internal bleeding that would have killed him in minutes reversed itself, his body regenerating at a pace that defied natural law.

And then, because the healing wasn't quite fast enough, because the damage was still mounting faster than Biomancy alone could handle, John did what he'd been saving for exactly this moment.

He leveled up.

Strength Level 7 -> Level 8!

-12800 Aura

The wave of healing that accompanied the stat increase washed over him like a cool tide, and suddenly the pain receded to a manageable throb. His ribs finished knitting. His spine straightened. The microfractures in his shoulder blade disappeared entirely.

The stickbug's bulbous eyes were wide with something that looked almost like fear. Or perhaps just confusion. This wasn't how the script was supposed to go. The prey was supposed to die. The weak were supposed to be culled. That was the natural order of things.

John looked up into those eyes and grinned. He could see himself, his expression predatory in a way that his usual awkward attempts at being cool never quite managed, because there was no act here, no attempt to impress anyone. This was true, genuine satisfaction, deep from his heart.

This was revenge.

"Got you," he said.

+5000 Aura

The stickbug screeched in frustration and brought its other limbs to bear. They rained down on John's steel body like a hailstorm of knives, stabbing and slashing, trying to find any gap in his defense. Each impact triggered another counterattack from Adamant Defence, beams of destructive energy shooting out in all directions, scorching the creature's carapace, leaving blackened stains on the brown chitin.

But John just tightened his grip.

Grappler wasn't just about holding on. It was about control. About leverage. About turning your opponent's strength against them. The knowledge flooded through him, instinctive, and he used it now. He twisted his wrist, torquing the creature's limb and giving himself better grip on the appendage.

The stickbug thrashed, trying to shake him off. It threw itself backwards, but John went with it. It tried to slam him into the wall again, but his Adamant Defence turned his body into an anvil, and it was the wall that shattered, not him, sending them crashing through, falling down to a lower level.

All the while, Chester was safe, cocooned in the protective embrace of John's Draconic Wings, which were themselves encased in the metal skin of Adamant Defence. Synergy. He had to make sure there was a gap the portal core had a line of sight to him through, which was a massive pain in the arse to keep track of, but it was necessary, so he got it done.

The man was taking a beating from all the wild motion—John could feel him groaning as much as hear it—but every time his health dipped too far, Chester was levelling himself up too, his own system desperately trying to keep him alive.

It was a war of attrition now, and John had more resources.

The creature spun, trying to use that sawblade technique again, trying to turn its entire body into a cutting weapon. John felt the centrifugal force trying to tear his arm off, felt Cellular Regeneration and Adaptive Musculature screaming as they redirected every available fibre towards maintaining his grip.

He held on.

The stickbug launched itself across the chamber, bouncing off walkways and platforms in a desperate bid to scrape him off like an unwanted barnacle. They smashed through a suspended bridge, scattering lesser monsters in all directions. They crashed through an upside-down fountain, water erupting in a geyser. They ricocheted off three different surfaces in the span of two seconds.

John held on.

His Biomancy was working overtime, constantly repairing the damage from each impact. His Titan Tendons were the only things keeping his joints from simply tearing apart. His Adaptive Musculature was burning through energy at a terrifying rate, his muscles bulging to grotesque proportions as they struggled to maintain the impossible grip. And without Cellular Regeneration, neither of them would have stood a chance. Witnessing it all through Biomancy was a deeply unnerving experience.

But he held on.

And all the while, he was climbing.

It was slow, agonizing work. Every inch he gained was a victory paid for in pain. Grappler guided him, showing him where to shift his weight, where to plant his steel fingers for the next hold. The stickbug's body was a constantly shifting landscape, bucking and twisting, but John was relentless.

He pulled himself up the creature's body, hand over hand, his steel fingers digging into the chitin, his legs wrapped halfway around its stick-like form. The creature tried to slam him against surfaces, tried to use its other limbs to pry him off, tried everything in its arsenal. But John's defence was absolute, his grip unbreakable, his determination iron-clad.

He was making his way towards the creature's head, towards those bulbous black eyes that were now wide with something that might have been panic.

The stickbug began to move erratically, throwing itself through the air in increasingly desperate . It was no longer trying to attack. It was trying to escape. To throw off the thing that had latched onto it like a parasite, like a predator.

Chester was taking a beating. John could feel the man's health dropping with each violent manoeuvre, could hear his choked groans even over the chaos of battle.

John's own health was yo-yoing wildly. Biomancy and periodic level-ups kept him functional, but the damage was mounting. His Aura balance was plummeting, thousands of points spent every few seconds just to heal the constant barrage of injuries that were too much for Biomancy.

Agility went to Level 8. Mind went to Level 8. Arcane went to Level 8. Talent went to Level 8. Pain and ecstacy swapped placed with discombobulating frequency.

But he was almost there.

One more pull. One more desperate grab. His fingers closed around the joint where the creature's limb met its thorax, and he hauled himself up with a grunt of effort.

He was face to face with the stickbug now, close enough to see his own warped reflection in its compound eyes. The creature's mandibles clacked frantically, and that insufferable, corporate voice screamed through the chamber's speakers one final time.

"LET GO OF ME!"

John's grin widened. And then, with his three active spells still running, with his Aura balance still reading a comfortable reserve despite the thousands he'd burned through, he spoke:

"Looks like you've found yourself in a sticky situation here."

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