It was invisible – besides the ripples in the air – but Sam could see it clearly through his other senses as the void propagated through the horde of monsters. First, it latched onto the first monster the wave of void touched, where it gathered into a ball of mana, which in the tenth of a second imploded, creating another wave that touched another, and so on. As the wave began to envelope the horde, he felt his power stretched thin, barely able to hold back the enormous amount of mana.

So, he didn't.

FWOOMP

POFF

And the monsters vanished.

He relaxed as the gigantic monster horde vanished with only a few stragglers remaining on the edge, and felt his entire body drenched in sweat.

'Why did they have to do this so realistically…' he complained inwardly as the momentary pause he gave to the nothingness ended and more and more monsters, bigger and meaner every second, started to appear.

Still, the spell was awesome, and he felt that with a few tweaks, he could really have something amazing.

'A self-propagating army killer… I can already hear the river of tears from the forums…' he mused as he listened to Katie joyously laugh out loud.

"THAT. WAS. BADASS!" she cried. "DO IT AGAIN, BOSS!"

He didn't reply. Instead, he raised his hands and began conducting again. Watching the magic spread and destroy, he felt he was on fire.

With every wave, he tweaked a little.

On one, he worked on the activation speed, then a few waves later, he tried to modify the implosion. He wanted faster, not bigger. This was against an army that stood shoulder to shoulder; he already had options for one-on-one combat.

Still, he worked feverishly, trying to use up every last ounce of inspiration that he had gained.

Meanwhile, Katie was happily running around, sometimes drenched in the oily substance being excreted by their enemies, sometimes covered in a black armor that had tentacles coming from everywhere, each of them wielding their own serrated greatswords made out of shadows, sometimes shedding eldritch yellow light and sometimes dancing conga with a bunch of voidlings.

The last one may have been a hallucination, as he was so focused on the spell, he couldn't really focus on other things.

Hell, the only reason he hadn't died to any sneaky assassin-type or ranged voidlings was because of Katie doing her best impression of a caffeinated capuchin monkey high on speed, cocaine, and something you could buy from the old crazy guy at the far end of a trailer park.

Still, by the end of the first hour, he was regularly cleaning out great swaths of monsters, no matter the size. It didn't matter how many clawed hands, how many eyes, or glowing horns the monster had; if it was missing half of its body, then it wasn't fighting.

By the end of the second hour, he could somewhat control the spread, ignore certain targets aside from party members – as the developers were kind enough to provide at least some friendly-fire protection – and to focus the power of the explosion.

Mixing things with his sensing skills, he got a quick evaluation of the target's power and managed to tailor the void explosion to their level. There was no need to spend extra mana on them when the spell already cost too much.

Still, his mind worked feverishly as he tried to find the perfect configuration for the devastating spell.

Moving, or any action, was right out, as he doubted he could do this on the move. Still, an army killer without a dedicated summoning team, guards, and ritual circle was pretty good.

Pausing momentarily, he idly looked down at the dusty ground and had a thought.

'Wait a second…I'm a Rune Master…'

The last hour was him basically using his legs to carve a rather crude supporting rune circle in the ground around himself between bouts of casting.

As a concept, it was rather simple.

His biggest weakness was the amount of mana he could channel, and the fact that he had to fully concentrate on casting the spell. If he could offload some of that to a ritual circle, it would increase his effectiveness many times.

With only his feet there to use as an instrument, his prospects weren't great, but drawing a simple focusing circle that gathered ambient mana and helped with regeneration was enough for now. He could later sit down, maybe with Fitzgerald's help, and put together something that had to be deployed by a team of people.

'If I add a few auxiliary circles, I can even have a few people help with the casting…' he mused, keeping a list of ideas for later.

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

Then Katie cartwheeled toward a bunch of monsters, and he decided to focus on the fight for now.

He was getting tired, both bodily and mentally.

Keeping up the focus for this new spell was murder on his stamina. Still, he persisted. He didn't come so far, just to give up because he felt a little tired.

[Quest Completed!]

"W-as th-at any be-tter?" he asked, exhausted beyond belief as he lay on the ground, appendages pointing away from him right next to Katie, who was breathing just as heavily as he was.

He heard the clacking of the Void Lady's shoes first, before he saw her lean over them with a smile. Puffball was on her shoulder, looking at Katie with a peculiar expression.

"Much better," she replied, still smiling. "Not what I'd have done, but an interesting application of the skills I showed you."

"That means we're finished, right?" he asked hopefully. He didn't know if he could survive another round of that.

The Void Lady looked up, presumably at the floating island, now reduced to barely a quarter of the size it was at the beginning, with only one small pile of rocks protruding out of the flat area, simply drifting in the sea of chaos.

"What do you think?"

"Blergh…"

[You acquired a new quest!]

[Into the breach, once more: You really need to stop doing this to yourself!]

[You need to survive.]

[Time: 1:00:00]

[Penalty: ???]

[Reward: Survival]

Then the Void Lady raised a dainty leg and kicked in Sam's direction.

A brief flash of light, and he was now lying on the dusty ground of the stone island. Next to him, Katie groaned, her trademark cheerfulness somewhat diminished.

"Next time I want some kind of excitement, I'm going to bug Lucy and not you…" she complained as she got up and offered him a hand.

He took it and pulled himself to his feet, feeling every part of his body protesting the movement.

"I'm pretty sure she would just make you do paperwork."

"Ugh, never mind…"

[Quest Completed!]

They both staggered as they appeared in the middle of the courtyard, both of them supporting the other, as Sam was pretty sure that without that, both of them would have collapsed on the spot.

"Let's not repeat that again…"

"I second that…" Katie replied with a groan.

As they stood there, they suddenly heard clapping. Turning toward the noise, they saw Lucky looking at them with an adoring gaze, the Void Lady clapping with a satisfied smile, and even Puffball was awake and looking at them. Or at least in their direction…

"What a performance! What strength!" she celebrated while walking closer, the familiars following her along. "It seems I haven't underestimated you."

"Does that mean we're finally finished?" Sam asked again, really hoping she would answer with a yes.

Thankfully, to his and Katie's relief, the Void Lady nodded, then began speaking.

"For now, yes. But if you wish, in the future, I shall be here and at your service. I'm sure with a little more experience, you could create even more spectacular spells, young man…" she told them, then turned a little to the side and pointed beyond the protection surrounding the Tower of Void. "And look, your actions even resulted in something good."

Katie let him go, causing his legs to buckle, as she turned toward where their 'benefactor' was pointing, but he still had just enough energy to keep himself upright. Turning in the same direction, he was just in time to watch as the small disconnected pieces of what was once a tower similar to the one they were standing next to were consumed by the roiling chaos that seemed to be taking perverse pleasure in consuming it.

Sam didn't know how he knew that, but he most definitely knew it.

"The more matter exists in the void, the more chance it has to cling to it and take a shape of its own. Destroying what we can't protect is, in a sense, like taking care of a garden. Sometimes you have to prune things…" the Void Lady explained upon their unasked question. Then she clapped her hands together, moving their focus from the sea of darkness to her. "However, I think it is time for some well-earned rest. Follow me, please!"

Then she began to walk toward the tower. Sam glanced at Katie, who just rolled her eyes and grabbed him under his arm. His loyal wolf then rushed over, increased his own size enough that Sam could lean on him, and the small group began to trudge forward.

Sam had around a minute in the room he was provided, enough to give Lucky some food - even if the familiar didn't fight with him - shoot off a few cleaning spells at himself, then he practically fell face first into the bed the moment he pushed the logout button.

Waking up in his gaming pod, Sam had barely a second to luxuriate in the sheer relief of leaving behind his tired gaming body, before the tiredness of his real-life body hit him, just as he was hit by the mother of migraines at the same time.

With one hand clutching his head, he started the opening sequence of the gaming pod, but just as he was about to push himself up, the migraine doubled, and he had to lie back in the cushions of the pod to ride out the pain.

He didn't know how long he lay there, but after a while the migraine, while not vanishing, ebbed a little, allowing him the energy and focus to move.

As he began to rise, he had to ignore the persistent buzzing sound, finding it rather irritating, but the migraine had all his attention, and the only target of his focus was the small medical cabinet he had set up in the gaming room.

After who knows how long, he managed to reach the edge of the pod, his legs hovering a little over the ground while he mentally prepared himself for the task of walking to the cabinet. Future tech meant future medicine.

Now, he just had to stand up.

Easy-peasy.

As he moved, he realized that some kind of ringing noise joined the persistent buzzing.

Still, the cabinet called out to him.

He put his hand on his forehead, trying to apply pressure that would hopefully help with the pulsing headache, then took another step. However, as he pulled away his hand from his face, he felt something wet on it.

With great effort, he moved his head, causing the room to spin a little, only to see a blurry red spot on his palm.

Embarrassingly, it took him a rather long time to recognize what it was. But as the realization settled, the room suddenly came back into focus, just as the buzzing and ringing sound.

Turning his head once again, he saw the equipment next to the gaming pod, placed there for medical purposes, was doing its best to warn him that something was wrong.

"Ugh…" he managed to grunt just as his poor legs gave up, and he felt himself fall to the ground. He tried to reach out to something, but even his eyelids barely managed to cooperate with him.

Still, refusing to die like that, he grabbed whatever embers of energy he had and called out hoarsely.

"Co-mput-er, c-all L-ucy. C-o-de…Redddd---"

Then the darkness swallowed everything.

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