Too Stubborn to Die

Admin

The admin chief walked over to the viewing station, glancing down at the intruder in his dungeon. He was technically supposed to do something about it, but when he saw who was involved, he no longer cared as much.

“Wait, this is the guy that killed our boys from the other office, isn’t it? Fuck that guy. I say we let the Death God do whatever he wants.”

“Err, chief, are you saying we’re going to let this illegal dungeon interference continue?”

“Eh. Serves him—”

“Chief!” Called out an admin, phone pressed to his face.

“What is it?”

“Our line has been ringing off the hook ever since the Death God arrived. We’ve got lots of gods from across the multiverse complaining. They’re not too happy about this.”

“Oww,” the chief groaned and rubbed his face. “Dammit. And just when I was starting to enjoy myself. Fine, whatever. Tell them I’ll deal with it.”

The admin chief shook his head and strolled over to the lever, activating his portal down into the dungeon.

Aaron

The undead charged, mouths agape and clawed hands swinging wildly as Aaron’s fists met them, crushing them with every—

His fist slammed against the air, sending out powerful rippling vibrations in all directions.

“What? A barrier?”

Aaron tilted his head, and a moment later, the System admin stepped out of thin air.

“Oh, no. Not more of you guys. As if things weren’t bad enough. For fuck’s sake.”

“Oh, trust me, I wish I wasn’t here. If anything, you should be thanking me,” the admin huffed and turned to the undead horde. “And you, Death God! This is not sanctioned interference! You should know better! As pertains to dungeon ru–”

“What is against the rules?” The Death God’s voice returned, echoing all around. “I have not broken any rules. Is the System’s word not law? How could I, a simple god, contradict the infallible System in its own dungeon?”

“It states right here that interference cannot make a dungeon floor impossible to complete!” the admin said, tapping on a parchment that rolled out of the air. “Look at them! Most of the party can’t even walk thanks to you!”

“So? The boss still remains intact. There is nothing stopping them from killing it. I have not made completion of the dungeon impossible.”

“Er, well, whilst that may be,” the admin held a hand to his ear as if messages were pouring in. “I see. Yes. Understood. I’ll see it done.”

The admin began to wave a hand around, and suddenly a wormhole ripped through the air.

“I don’t report to you, Death God! If you have problems, take it up with your fellow gods. But I have been instructed to provide passage to the boss. That said, we will allow this…” The admin looked around at the undead horde. “To continue. Consider it a compromise. But do not test me! You may be a god out there, but we admins rule in the dungeons!”

“Whatever. Do as you please. It does not change anything. Whether you die now or later, I will take your life, Aaron Dober.”

And with that, Aaron sensed the Death God’s presence had left the dungeon.

“Hmph, and you. Count your lucky stars. If it was up to me, I’d have left you here to die.”

Final floor quest altered.

Defeat the boss before you are overwhelmed by the undead horde

“Wait, you’re not getting rid of these guys?” Aaron said, pointing at the undead.

“No, I’m not! But at least your friends won’t be useless now. They can take that passage straight to the boss. The boss’ chamber is immune to outside interference… to a degree. This aether won’t be there. Not yet, at least. They’ll be able to fight it at full strength… unless it takes too long. Now, I’m leaving. And don’t give me an excuse to come back here and whoop your ass!”

Aaron glanced back at his companions as the admin disappeared. The barrier holding back the undead was still there, but it didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. Some of the undead were still after them, but most of the undead were retreating, heading toward some unknown objective far in the distance.

“A-ran… that was…”

“Odd,” Voidrin finished his sentence. “We were saved by the admin. Interesting. Was it just because of rule breaking, or do you have friends in high places?”

“I think we are all lucky you have a big fanbase,” Elmira said to Aaron. “Maybe I should give you a little kiss. Who knows? It might give us more fans.”

“We could do one on each cheek,” Talia suggested.

“We have to move,” Ikran said, marching straight for the wormhole. “We don’t have time to mess around.

Lagora was only a step behind, rushing past with red cheeks.

“You too, Mo’han,” he said. “I’ll stay here. Try to slow them down. You should all go deal with the boss. This corrupted aether that the Death God infected the area with doesn’t affect me. I can last against these undead for a long time. But we’ll all get overwhelmed eventually if they get in before we deal with the boss. I’ll be more useful out here than there, and you’ll be more useful in there than here.”

“He’s right, y’know,” Voidrin said. “What are you all waiting for? Let’s get a move on.”

Talia caught Aaron’s eyes, nodded, and followed Voidrin into the passage. And Elmira winked and followed.

“You too, Zero. You’ll be much more help to them than me.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Woof!”

“Are you sure, A-ran?”

“I’ll be fine. And with any luck, I might catch up to you guys later. But for now, let’s focus on beating this thing. Remember, more auction points if we do it quickly.”

“Smooth skin right for once,” Lord Draxas said, scuttling past into the passage.

Aaron got in one last wave before the wormhole closed behind them, and the barrier collapsed. Now, it was just him and an endless horde of groaning undead.

Aaron cracked his neck. “Alright then, let’s get at this.”

He wasn’t exactly sure what would happen if he didn’t hold them back, but since the quest objective said that they had to beat the boss before they were overwhelmed, he had a pretty good feeling that the undead could break into the boss chamber if left alone.

He met the horde head-on, a wide smile bending his face as his fists slammed into rotting flesh and bone. He trusted his team to deal with the objective more than anybody, and now he had the chance to break minions of that damned Death God.

But as he smashed through them, he noticed something. Each time they died, a burst of the corrupted aether poured out, and it kind of felt invigorating.

“Damn, that shit is like a Red Bull!”

Aaron shook his head. He was getting hopped up on corrupted aether, and his eyes went wide as he crashed into the horde with ever-increasing vigor.

At first, he’d liked the feeling. But he was getting jittery, and kind of anxious, like he was headed for a caffeine overload, but he had a seemingly endless sea of undead still to carve a path through.

“Not good. I’m gonna die of a heart attack at this rate!”

The problem was, it was really fun. Skeletons exploded under his fists, and zombies were torn apart, and the aether bursts pumped excitement straight into his veins.

It was too much. He needed a second, feeling like his chest was about to explode, and he used a particularly powerful [ Bombardier Fist ] to blow dozens of the undead away and get some breathing room.

“Shit. shit. Shit. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?” Aaron was speaking like a chipmunk, words tumbling out of his mouth in a jumble.

The corrupted aether might not have been hurting him, at least not yet, but the buildup was certainly getting to him. He was starting to feel like he might explode if it kept up.

He could feel like a separate pool of energy within him, and he knew he needed to figure out how to release the valve.

“Wait! Fuck that’s what’s going on!”

[ Reap ] was working the entire time passively.Every time he killed an undead, the racial Skill was syphoning energy from his kills. But unlike normal kills, the only energy that could be stolen from the undead was the corrupted aether.

And it was something else.

“I do not need undead crack in my life!” Aaron roared, but there wasn’t much he could do. The horde was already atop him again, and if he ran, or stopped fighting, they might go after his teammates and head to the boss room.

He tried cycling the aether through his core, and expelling the energy from his pores, but it wasn’t anywhere near effective enough. It did, however, give him a nice deathly aura of corrupted aether.

“What am I gonna do?”

His mind was racing a million minutes a second, and he tried to think of anything as he threw himself into a dizzying array of punches and kicks. With his usual stubbornness charged forward, pressing himself against the horde, attacking wildly as he tried to come up with a plan.

Aaron’s fists and kicks were shooting every which way, somehow getting faster and faster as the corrupted aether built up. Soon even the undead horde was falling back as he scored kills at stupendous speed. It was incredible. He turned into a blur of hopped-up destruction, brutalizing the undead forces.

But he seriously needed a release. And he was starting to get very worried. Screw heart attack. What if he exploded and then revived using the corrupted aether? Would he turn into an undead? He didn’t want to find out.

Aaron closed his eyes, but his mind was soaring, making concentrating incredibly hard. But he had to focus. To concentrate on his aether as he fought back the horde. It was like his third or fourth, or maybe fifth eye by that point had opened up, and he felt like he could read the undead minds, let alone their movements.

It was like he was a part of them. A matrix of expanded thought stretching out, and encapsulating all of the dead within his understanding.

“What the fuck!”

Aaron grabbed his head, squeezing as he focused on the deathly aether. “FUUUCK!”

He was barely even thinking anymore. More primal instinct than anything else, and he activated [ Spectral Projection ]. He could see everything, moving his spirit around while controlling himself; it was far, far too much for one man’s mind.

But he had to do something.

“SHIIIITT!”

Using death-related skills provided a little relief. He could use the corrupted aether to power them, but it was tiny. And if he stopped killing the horde, they quickly got bored of him and started to turn back to where he assumed was the boss chamber.

He had no choice. Keep fighting, or let these undead ambush his companions.

But the aether was bubbling up inside. His veins popped, his eyes went bloodshot, and he popped.

Aaron literally exploded into corrupted aether, his body ripping to shreds, and taking a good number of zombies with him. And creating an impressive crater.

“Ohh,” he groaned as his body pulled itself together. But he felt different. It was like his aether itself had been corrupted.

And there we have it. The finale. As I said, death is inevitable.

“Death God?”

The voice was in his head, and Aaron got a very bad feeling.

“No fucking way. You turned me into a zombie? Nah. No way, mate. Fuck that. And fuck you.”

Kneel!

“Ain’t fucking happening.”

Aaron’s brow bent, and he broke into a furious rage, crushing undead all around him as his fists flew in every direction.

KNEEL!

“And I said, fuck off!”

He could feel the Death God’s anger almost like it was his own. An untamed rage poured into him, and he ignored it. And instead of listening, he kept punching.

How? How are you this stubborn!?”

Aaron smirked. This wasn’t exactly how he planned for things to go, but the Death God’s irritation sure was a pleasant silver lining.

“Not liking the show?” Aaron mocked as he continued to drive through the horde, crushing them under fist and foot.

A powerful willpower. Impressive. But you are still dead. And I am still the Death God!

“We’ll see about that!” Aaron said, throwing himself into the next wave of undead.

Aaron knew he had a serious problem. He might have been able to force the Death God out of his head, but that didn’t cure his zombie problem.

However, as he continued his rampage through the endless sea of undead, gradually breaking through the weaker lines of zombies and skeletons, and working through to ghouls and vampiric bats, he sensed something.

That power…

There was something ahead, deep in the heart of the horde. Something powerful. But more importantly, it was filled with normal aether.

Aaron didn’t exactly have a plan, pulsing with corrupted aether as he turned into a blur, disintegrating skeletons with his fists. But he had a hunch. If he could get aether back into his core…

Well, it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try.

He could sense his goal up ahead, and he began to slaughter a path through the horde. He was taking more hits as his enemies grew stronger, phasing in and out of combat, and reaping energy to fuel his psychotic rampage.

But he could feel it getting closer.

That’s got to be it, whatever is controlling this horde for the Death God.

Aaron crashed through another row of undead, and he saw it ahead of him. An undead giant towering above everything around it, and on its back it carried some kind of obelisk.

It wasn’t the giant that he sensed, but whatever it was carrying, and Aaron had a feeling it was what allowed the Death God to bring his undead horde into the dungeon.

But that wasn’t why he wanted it. It was the pure, uncorrupted aether he could feel within it. The Death God’s aether had corrupted him. After dying, it had filled his core and turned him into a zombie.

But if he could get his hands on a large amount of concentrated normal aether?

“I really hope this works,” Aaron muttered as he sent his fists through several skeletons.

Even if he survived the dungeon, he was not too keen on continuing as a zombie. Especially not one the Death God could invade the thoughts of whenever he wanted.