I am implying that someone reincarnated and told the world about everything he knew from his old world, and left it up for the populace to decide whether it is real or not. This person did. Walking straight into the way of an ax fall, I stuck my hand out at the last second, catching the ax before it hit me. With a delayed yelp from Andromeda, I crushed the ax to pieces.
When we came up to an arrow trap, I ripped off my arm and threw it across the seemingly bare walls of a corridor we had to take to get to the end, which I found to be a maze. This place will need remodeling when I claim it. Seeing the arrows fly by, Andromeda's scream was drowned out by the *tink* of the arrows hitting the stone opposite the trap.
Walking over all the arrows and re-attaching my arm to my body, and ashamed Andromeda meekly walked over them as well. This process was repeated over and over again, with a little pushing of my servant, a little limb sacrificing, and some leaping, but we finally made it to the stairs, which I assume would lead to the second level of the castle. Flying up the stairs, for Andromeda, literally, for me, not so much, we managed to get up the winding staircase in a matter of minutes. Another thing I will need to get rid of.
Absorbing my sensory spores from the previous floor and sending them out into the second, I found, surprisingly, no traps of any kind. This floor seems barren of anything, just an open space. This must be a resting floor then. Just as I was about to step out on the second floor, I felt a sharp tug on my clothes. It was Andromeda.
"Master, this floor is not what it seems to be. There is a dark energy emanating all around this room. There must be magical traps or summoning circles all around this place. Be careful." And Andromeda warned, squeezing tightly onto my jacket. It seems that the magic circles and the other types of magic I can detect, or detect the absence of, them, but I can't seem to get an inkling of this type. Interesting.
"It will be alright. You stay here and if you find anything that might be a threat to me, call me back. I trust you." I said, laying a furry hand on her soft head, being sure to avoid her not-so-soft horns. Blushing, she nodded her head, to which I, too, responded with a nod. After an awkward moment of silence, I turned away from the threshold of the stairwell, making my way to the center of this room.
The closer I got to the center, the colder it became. That was when, halfway to the center, I heard a massive *thunk*. Turning around, I found that a massive stone slab had blocked off the entrance to the second floor, as well as my only exit out of this place. Sighing, I turned around and continued walking. Well, there's no point in worrying about things that are quite possibly unable to be changed.
When I finally reached the center, which took about five minutes, a massive rumbling started, shaking the entire area. Falling to my knees, I tried my best to keep my balance against the constant, violent rumbling, but it just kept increasing. That's when I had a great idea.
Changing my shins into spores, I used them as shock absorbers, allowing my body to stay straight while my feet were shaking violently. It is sort of like twisting one part of straw and the other part remains unmoving. A weird analogy, but it the only one I can come up with in this stressful situation. And it only got worse, as I saw a couple of hundred feet ahead of me the ground shattered and a giant, rotten hand reached up through the ground and started pulling itself up.
Staying in the same place throughout the quake, I patiently waited for a massive figure to emerge from the ground, looking like a giant zombie. Only, this zombie had four arms! Pushing the rest of its grotesque body out of the ground with its lower two arms, I got to look at this monstrosity in its full glory. Arms and legs the size of buses head the size of a wrecking ball, and a body to match that of a commercial airline, it looked like something you would see in your dreams after a scary zombie movie.
Rotten flesh dripping like syrup, the giant lumbered toward me, wrenching back all four of his fists. I guess now is a good time to test another one of my improvised skills. Making two more armholes in my jacket, I materialized more of Gallen's arms, increasing the mass and size, making me have two new, bigger arms. Sort of matching the giant before me, I sent all four of MY arms, using a Mana Wave punch in each of them. Just in case, I also layered them in Draconic Spores as well.
As the time of impact lowered, I braced myself for the worst to happen. Planting my feet, I leaned into the throw of my punches, and just before the fists of the opposing zombified giant hit me, I threw them. A sonic boom resounded through the whole arena, shaking the ceiling and crumbling some of the walls. It would seem that we are evenly matched. My hands were at most a quarter of the size of the giant's fists, but they held strong against such force.
Pushing up with all my strength, some of the spores that I layered cracked and shattered, showing how strong this creature is. That is not to say that the zombie is not damaged from my punches either. Upon impact, a few massive crunches could also be heard after the booms quiet. Successfully pushing the zombified giant back, he stumbled backward, two of his arms falling to his side, mangled and leaking black blood from torn muscles, flesh, and bone fragments piercing through its rough skin.
Fixing the shattered bone structures in my own body, I retracted my arms, which were wrecked, falling apart at the seams. That is the only downside to my body modifications. They are good for some small fights but are not as stable as the original copied body. Absorbing the arms back into myself, I flexed my re-structured hands. Seeing no problems with them, I layered them thick with Draconic Spores, pounding them together, making metallic sounds.