Root was leading a violent conga-line around the cavern, running backwards to keep his opponents at a distance as he battered the lead goblin with his cudgel. Bat was teleporting between the shamans, digging his claws in where he could and trying to break their concentration as they either danced or cast spells. And Dryad was standing in the center, his large wooden shield providing protection from one side while he lashed out with his claws on the other. Several greys noticed Elijah as he walked into the cavern and came rushing at him.
[Target]
Grey Goblin (Level 5)
HP: 40 / 40
These greys were stronger than the goblins he’d faced in the past, but were still nothing compared to the other enemies he’d fought so far. Even a glancing blow with his Batwing Blade was fatal to them once you included the Necrosis debuff taking effect. He wasn’t going to let this chance at easy experience go to waste, however.
He dodged a spear thrust from one and smacked its shoulder, quickly editing the experience modifier in its debug menu to be a ten times multiplier, then he slashed with his sword. He repeated this process several times. These were weak mobs, hardly much of a threat, a fact that was accentuated by his familiars completely decimating them.
He felt his connection to Bitter Bat snap and looked over to the bonfire after he eliminated yet another grey. He’d assumed that one shaman had just gotten ahold of him, but as he looked over his eyes settled on the bonfire. The remaining shamans had stopped dancing and chanting at it and were now bowing on the ground. It seemed to be alive now and wholly separate from the timber which had been feeding it.
Elijah realized his tactical error. The grey goblins hadn’t been the threat; they’d been the distraction. Giving their lives so their shamans could finish whatever spell they had been enacting. And now, Elijah faced a major problem.
[Target]
Fire Golem (Level 45)
HP: 100 / 100
It was ten meters tall and at least as wide. Its body resembled a broiling mass of plasma with flares wisping off of its ‘skin’. It appeared to glide across the ground, leaving scorched stone behind and immolating anything flammable in its path. And two enormous arms jutted from its sides, ending in large balled fists.
“That doesn’t seem very fair,” Elijah grumbled to himself. The shamans had only been level fifteen, but somehow had summoned a significantly stronger enemy. One that he wouldn’t be able to even touch with his Reality Warp skill without burning his hand. That was assuming it had enough of a physical form to even allow his skill to activate, which wasn’t a given.
He could see the shaman’s health was dropping, slowly but steadily, as the fire golem moved. He wondered if the golem was burning them up, or if they were channeling their health to keep the golem moving.
”Root, Dryad,” he called, getting their attention as he backed away from the creature. “Get the shamans. I’ll keep the fire busy.”
The two familiars confirmed his orders as he backpedaled away from the golem. He twirled his blade in the air, trying to keep its attention so that his familiars could get around it.
It lunged at him; the fiery fist came at him with incredible speed. He tried to dodge out of the way and felt the hairs on his leg singe as the heat radiating off the creature caught him. It felt like he’d stuck his legs into an oven, and the smell of burning hair filled the air. He tucked and rolled as he dodged, springing to his feet and casting his ‘Dragontooth Swarm’ spell at it.
The bats sprang forth attempting to damage the creature, but they burned up as they made contact. Their talons and teeth could not affect the flames of the creature. The smell of their burning fur mixed with the smell of his singed hair. It was worth a try, but he hadn’t expected it to actually work.
That left him with few choices. His bats weren’t able to touch it, and he couldn’t get close enough to use his sword or ‘Reality Warp’ skill. He didn’t have many choices open to him besides those. Even his familiars would be incinerated if they got close.
His familiars were working their way through the shamans, killing them one by one in a tag-team assault, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the golem.
He teleported out of the way of another punch, finding a jagged outcropping of rock high out of reach of the golem. It made little sense to Elijah. This wasn’t necessarily a beginner dungeon—being linked to the city of Klade rather than the starter city of Nethy—but that shouldn’t mean that it was unbeatable.
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Down below, the golem was still moving towards him. It was slow, almost lethargic, when moving, but moved at incredible speeds when attacking. He questioned whether there was something he could use there. Some key to defeating it.
The only way he could see to defeat it was to use non-physical magic. Something like Benjamin’s ‘Thunder Clap’ or ‘Dark Blast’, but it made little sense from a design standpoint to make the dungeon only completable by mages.
He needed time to think, to observe the creature and to find its weakness.
He summoned Bitter Bat, adjusted the familiar’s ID to his own, creating a copy of himself. “Keep the golem busy but don’t take risks.”
Bat nodded his head and dropped from the vantage point that Elijah had taken. There was something there that he could almost sense. Like every other time, the secret had been hidden in the code of the game. It was so frustrating that he couldn’t just crack it open and peer inside. It seemed to lead to the origin of the bonfire.
The shamans, maybe?
He watched as Root and Dryad fought with one of the last remaining grey shamans. Bitter Root levied a remarkably strong smash into its skull, and it went down. The health bar zeroed out, but there was no change to the golem. No dimming of the fire, no flicker of the flames, just the same continuous assault on the facsimile of Elijah.
Perhaps there wasn’t a physical tell; instead, it might be a secret that was hidden with nothing giving it away until the last shaman fell. He should still be able to feel some shift though, a change in the variables if that was the case.
No, his familiars had just killed another, and there had been no change to the code at the end of his perception. That meant that the shamans were a false flag after the golem was summoned. Something to provide a distraction from the genuine threat, or just leftovers of a path that was no longer open.
His eyes locked on the dying embers of the fire that had raged in the middle of the circle. There was something there, something that called to him. The code of the golem felt messy, verbose, almost ethereal. This creature wasn’t the work of a carefully crafted encounter designed to test a party of adventurers; it felt more improvised. A reaction. Something thrown together to test him personally. Sloppy and immature work.
Whatever waited in the ashes of the dying fire was more solid, neatly wrapped like a perfectly constructed tower of code. The creation of either a human’s experience or the system AI itself. The contrast between the two was stark now that he knew what he was meant to be looking at.
He felt he understood the forces that were at play here, and the secret to this challenge.
If he were right, it should be easy to finish this entire mission. If he were wrong, he’d open himself up to attack while wasting precious mana.
He set his jaw and chose to take the risk. His bats swarmed over him again, and he teleported to the edge of the pit.
One shaman turned from the fight with the familiars as he appeared, but he cut it down with a few easy strokes of his sword and a cast of his swarm. He felt the code closer now, something in the burning embers.
He reached for it.
A body slammed hard into Elijah before his hand even got close, sending him sprawling and crashing into the far wall of the cavern. When he finally cleared his mind, he saw what, or who, had hit him. The fire golem must have gotten a good punch in on Bitter Bat. He saw a copy of himself lying on top of him, and the copy’s hair and eyebrows had been burned off. Root and Dryad looked up from their latest kill, seeing the hairless form of Elijah’s copy and started laughing.
Of course, the golem had reacted to Elijah getting close to the source of its existence. It had punched Bitter Bat at him on purpose, getting all of its enemies in one place where it could keep a proper eye on them.
Not that it had actual eyes.
The heat was intense as it shifted itself closer to them. His familiars quit laughing at the hairless copy of Elijah, suddenly aware of the threat that was moving towards them. Even the shamans had changed their stance, turning to face the golem but backing away, no longer concerned about the Bitters; they had a bigger issue to deal with.
The fire golem wasn’t stopping, no longer under their control. The question remained in Elijah’s mind if they had ever controlled it, or if they’d lost too many of their numbers to keep it leashed. If it made it to them, it would burn everything—Elijah, the Bitters, even the shamans. There was no getting away from it; the only escape led straight past its imposing flames. He could teleport, but that wouldn’t solve the issue and would just drain his already low mana even further.
Could he even drink a potion with this oppressive heat, or would it boil away before bestowing its effects?
Elijah tried to breathe in through the oppressive heat. It felt like inhaling sand, and his lungs felt like they were on fire. Did he have time to make it back to the ash pile before the creature was on them? He tried to push Bat off, but the familiar was unconscious. It would take too much time.
A thought sprang into his mind as he shoved on the body of his unconscious familiar. The golem had singed off all the hair on Bat’s borrowed body, but hadn’t immolated him. Instead, the attack must have had a physical component. That implied there was something physically solid within the flames.
If this worked, he was going to have to remember to thank Benjamin for ‘teaching’ him this spell.
Two scout bats sprang from his shadow, the routine of landing on his wrist before taking to the sky becoming familiar. They flew headlong into the fire golem. Elijah used Bitter Bat’s unconscious form as cover as his scouts died and exploded in a concussive ‘Thunder Clap’.
The shockwave hit him, lifting him into the air. Elijah was tossed back, losing another chunk of health as he slammed against the wall. Another chunk as his own body, the one inhabited by Bitter Bat, slammed into him again. Pain exploded through his body, matching the pain in his ears as they rang. All around him, ash from the fire rained down like snow.
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Hordes of Tartarus [Isekai / LitRPG]
LitRPG Isekai Progression Mythos Action
Vincent washes up on an Ancient Greek island under attack after a drunk selfie gone wrong. To survive, he must fight mythical creatures, level up fast, and upgrade the hamlet’s defenses before the next wave of horrors is unleashed upon the islanders.
But holding the line isn’t enough. Vincent must also complete quests, clear dungeons, and learn new skills if he wants to stand a chance against the escalating threats.
Beyond the island, the Titans have escaped Tartarus and wage war against the Gods who once enchained them. Gates to the Underworld rupture across the lands, unleashing horrors meant to wipe out humankind. And rumors say the Gods are losing.
Can Vincent, through increasingly brutal foes, unpredictable bosses, and precarious bonds with the islanders, emerge victorious against the Hordes of Tartarus?
What to Expect
Quests Kingdom Building Mythic Beasts Epic Worldbuilding
- Weak-to-Strong progression with skills, loot, and leveling
- Greek mythos with heroes, monsters, dungeons, bosses, and escalating challenges
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- Worldbuilding depth with Gods, Titans, and consistent action-driven adventure