On the other side of the door was a short corridor that led to a spiralling staircase. I made my way across, and as I reached the top step, I heard loud clanging noises from the bottom. I tried to make my way down as quietly as possible, my refractive scales responding and doing their best to camouflage me, but the clothes I wore made that a tad bit harder. I pulled the vest off and wrapped it around my waist. It wasn’t perfect, and I could have thrown it away, but I had just got it and thought I looked rather dapper in it.

  ?

  As I made my way down the steps, the sound grew louder and was joined by another familiar sound. It was the same sound those pods had made as they burst through the ground in the circular chamber from before. I had hoped to avoid fighting any more of those Sobekians, especially if they were as strong as Kamera. While the cores would be welcome, I doubted I could face two creatures as strong as him, and I would have no chance if there were any more.

  ?

  When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I immediately ducked down, doing my best not to be noticed. Then I peered around the bannister to see what was going on. There before me was an opening that led into a huge room, far bigger than anything I had ever seen before. It was filled with thousands upon thousands of those drop pod things. They were all in various states of flux, with some being launched through metallic pipes and others being stacked atop one another by giant mechanical claws. I didn’t know what to do and was rooted to the spot, trying to wrap my head around the scale of this place and trying to work out what was actually going on. I was glad I hadn’t gone straight out there when I heard a new sound.

  ?

  I could hear a goblin! They were clearly in distress, and from the sounds of it, they were struggling with someone or something. I watched with bated breath as the goblin came into sight. They did not look good. The goblin was female, she was covered in blood, and I could barely make out her facial features as she was dragged across the colossal chamber and into my line of sight. Her captors were two huge, four-armed, mechanical, humanoid grasshopper-looking things. They wore pristine white cloaks, and while each held the goblin’s arms with one of their four arms, they held black spears with two of the others, leaving them with one arm free. They looked tough, but if it had just been those two, I might have risked it and saved the goblin girl, but no, it was the guy who walked behind them that made my blood run cold. He was big but hunched over and covered in a patchwork cloak that seemed to cover most of his body. I could see what looked like a reptilian tail dragging on the floor behind him, but what really got me was when I got a look at his face. His skin was obsidian black, but the most striking thing was four golden feline eyes that glowed in a gaunt, skull-like face. Its skin clung tight to sharp bones, giving it a half-mummified look, while its mouth grinned, revealing thousands of needle-like teeth and a wicked, purple, forked tongue. He radiated an aura of overwhelming pressure as though his being on the same plane of existence as me could kill me.

  ?

  I could just about hear him speaking over the sound of the goblins struggling.

  ?

  “You are a remarkable specimen; it’s a shame your friends weren’t as hardy as you. It's rather convenient that Mr Pink's little experiment left your village so close to my facility. I hadn’t been able to get access to your species for my studies, especially with you coming from an echo world, but still, I won’t waste you.”

  ?

  I could understand everything the slimy creature was saying, and I guessed he was probably some sort of reptilian creature. I watched as his mechanical servants dragged her to one of the drop pod things. It opened up like a flower, exposing a glowing white interior. She was then hurled inside, and the flower sealed up.

  ?

  “Put her in storage and find out what happened to the Sobekians. If you can’t bring them back alive, at least secure their cores.” The weird creature said as he turned away from the pod.

  The mechanical henchmen left the flower, and where the creepy guy had gone in the opposite direction from me, those two were headed right for me! I really focused on my refractive scales for the first time. While the ability had always been passive, there was no harm in trying to make it work better, and that’s more or less what I did. I focused on the sensation of my scales refracting light, and the more I focused, the better I understood how they worked. By the time the two had reached the opening to the stairs, I had managed enough manual control over the ability that so long as I didn’t move, I was invisible.

  ?

  I held my breath as the two walked past me. They didn’t even glance in my direction. I held my position until I could no longer hear their footsteps, then headed out into the huge room. I was smart and did my best to stay hidden using the pods as cover. That’s when I discovered the true nature of this place. This was the worst place in the universe for someone like me. This was a mother fucking prison! Because of course it was! Can’t ever escape them after the end of the world. I had come to that realisation when I noted that the pods that I had assumed were solid gold were actually semi-transparent. I just hadn’t gotten close enough to them before. In the one I was currently hiding in was a trio of large furry creatures at least twice my height and five times my weight. They were just standing there, completely frozen. I guessed the pods must keep the prisoners in a state of suspended animation. As I made my way, I found many creatures of all sorts in the pods, from feral beasts to almost human-looking things.

  ?

  It wasn’t until I was halfway across the room that I noticed the text carved into each of the pods. Their text was written in a weird, flowing language, but was automatically translated in my head. I assumed it had something to do with my location rather than the system taking pity on me. They were names! The one nearest me said:-

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

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  Kazarak the black drake - Rank C

  ?

  As I peered at the writing, a portion of the pod became transparent, allowing me to peer inside. Curled up in a ball was a huge black lizard covered in black spines that held frozen drops of an oil-like substance.

  C rank! This monster was two whole tiers above me in terms of evolution. Who knew what would happen if this thing were ever to be released? The scary bit was how they even managed to capture it in the first place. I made my way across the colossal room, hoping to find an exit as I did. I couldn't help but peer into more of the pods. Most of the creatures captured were E rank, with only a handful of D rank creatures. I didn’t see anything higher than the black drake, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything hiding deep in. My travels came to an abrupt stop, as just as I was about to cross a clear path between the rows of pods, I saw a glowing golden light coming down the path from my left. I ducked back behind a pod housing something called Mashiek the mauler, a huge humanoid creature that looked as though someone tried to make a werewolf out of a pug but gave it a huge muscly body and a big head full of jagged teeth. I noticed that he also had a strange wooden weapon. It took me a moment to recall that it was called a macuahuitl; it was used by some Mesoamerican peoples. I didn't know all the details, but I remembered watching a documentary about them while high in my younger years. It’s weird what sticks with you. Anyway, this macuahuitl was different from those shown in the documentary: for one, it was decorated with many different-coloured glass fragments, all connected like a stained-glass window.

  ?

  The light approached, and I saw two of the mechanical grasshopper things that were slightly different to the two that had accompanied that monster from earlier. These looked less robust and carried no obvious weapons. They held up thick lights that glowed with strange little lights. I debated whether to stay hidden or jump the critters. The decision was taken out of my hands when one of the creatures stopped and released a pulse of blue light from its eyes. A moment later, both of the grasshoppers turned to face my direction, their claws not holding the lamps, turning into razor-edged claws.

  ?

  Ah Shit! I thought as the two charged towards me. I dropped my tremor sense ability and targeted a spot right where the two were about to step. I grasped my magic and visualised my spell. A three-meter-tall rose of earthen spikes erupted, skewering one of my assailants; the other, though, had leapt almost forty feet up before landing neatly near its unfortunate friend. It looked to me, then looked down at its companion before looking at me once more. The mechanical grasshopper bent down, not taking its eyes off me, and did something that surprised me. It reached down and plunged its hand into its still-struggling companion's head, pulling out a weird, metallic object. I did not like what it was doing, so I charged it. charged it. However, it noticed me coming and once again leapt into the air, swallowing the strange object.

  ?

  I came to a halt seeing the construct in the air. I was getting ready to tail slam the thing when it came back down, but much to my horror, it didn’t. The creature began to glow a deep orange colour, and the other creature's dead critter's parts flew up to circle it. My heart sank. I had watched enough mech anime to see where this was going. The dead creature's parts melted into a mass of molten metal, covering the floating construct and reinforcing it, transforming it into something far more robust and terrifying. The creature that landed before me, decimating my earthen rose, was completely different from the frail grasshopper critters I had just been dealing with. This creature resembles a bipedal rhino beetle with a huge, orange horn that glows and emits heat from its tip. The monster was at least eight feet tall and carried a thick sword as long as I was. There was no way it should have been able to pick up the blade, let alone pick it up. Still, as powerful as that monster looked, I was certain I was faster than it. That was until its carapace opened, and where a beetle's wings would be, I saw an orange glow, followed by a sound reminiscent of a jet engine. A moment later, I narrowly avoided being beheaded by falling back onto my arse as the thick blade sliced past where I had been and stopped millimetres from the pod I’d been standing beside. The beetle bot looked at me, its eyes glowing a deep orange. eep orange.

  ?

  Oh! Hell no! I thought. diving to the left and narrowly avoiding a concentrated beam of lava. I didn’t have time to recover as I had to immediately dodge another beam, followed by another. The beams were slow enough that I could avoid them, and I was fairly certain that the heat wouldn’t be an issue with my scales, but when I saw the sheer concussive force of the blast pierce through the ground where I had been, I decided it was probably best if I didn’t tank one of those blasts.

  ?

  As more and more blasts came, it became harder to keep my footing on the ground as it began to fall away, revealing another colossal chamber much like this one beneath. I thought about trying to escape down there, but my adversary could fly, and it looked like a three-hundred-foot drop at least. I leapt from the quickly melting away ground to land on a pod. I had noticed that the creature was avoiding them with its attacks and hoped that by being up here, it wouldn’t be so trigger-happy with its lava beam. I was right, the creature didn’t spam its beam anymore, instead it rushed me again with that titanic sword. I leapt about from pod to pod, but it was becoming clearer to me that my agility was not going to hold up in a battle of attrition against this guy. I needed a way to even the playing field. That's when common sense hit me, and I realised. Instead of hopping from pod to pod, I needed to take the battle in amongst the maze of pods.

  ?

  I dodged another swing, jumping over the blade, and dived down into the rows of pods. The beetle bot followed me there, and while it could catch up to me easily enough in a straight line through some twists and turns, the fight began to turn in my favour. I relied on hit-and-run tactics. Using my bestial Empowerment in short bursts to attack the bot whenever I got the chance to ambush. I never engaged for too long, leaping down onto its back and ripping chunks of metal before disappearing amongst the Pods. It didn’t take long before I managed to disable its flying capabilities, forcing the monster to the ground. Without its ability to fly or use its boosters to close the distance, I felt more confident taking the thing. A stupid mistake.

  ?

  The creature’s horn glowed, and that molten glow began to spread throughout its body. The heat it emitted was far beyond the lava, and I knew I would not survive those temperatures if I got caught in whatever it was doing. Then it fired a thin, piercing beam of high-pressure lava. The beam sliced through a pod like a knife through butter, cutting a humanoid entity with butterfly wings in half at the waist. Both halves erupted in flame. I guessed he had decided that killing me was more important than preserving the pods. The slicing beam came again, slicing through pods one after another, until an alarm blared, and all the remaining pods were fired upwards, propelled by a strange blue energy. That left me and the molten beetle bot standing alone in a very big and very empty room. Things were bad enough with just this guy, but they got a whole lot worse as holes in the walls opened, releasing a horde of the mechanical grasshoppers. There must have been at least a hundred, and all of them were looking at me with their glowing red eyes.

  ?

  Ah Shit!

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