Chapter 219: From Sausage Roll On The Couch To Public Ruin

Notes: Ultimate flex against physical fighters. The catch? The skill makes you so absurdly dense that you sink two inches into solid concrete with every slither you take, and every single attack that hits you produces a deafeningly loud, metallic PAN-THUNK sound like a heavy iron frying pan hitting a bowling ball.

Cooldown: 8 minutes.

Cost: 90 IP.

I read it, then read it again, because that sound effect description alone is doing something to me emotionally.

So I turn into an indestructible brick for fifteen seconds, but every time someone tries to stab me, it sounds like someone’s whacking a frying pan against a bowling ball.

[System: Yep. PAN-THUNK. Every single hit. Nice and loud too, whole room’s gonna hear it.]

And I sink into concrete.

[System: Two inches a slither, give or take. Bit like swimming through wet cement, except you’re the one making it wet. Very embarrassing, very slow, very hilarious from where I’m sitting.]

Old Mate has never once given me an option that doesn’t come with some kind of humiliating asterisk attached.

[System: Mate, you’re a floating smoke snake who fights like he’s allergic to dignity; what did you expect, a nice clean shield spell? This is peak you. Absolute wall of a cunt for fifteen seconds, but you waddle around like a fridge on roller skates and sound like a novelty kitchen appliance every time someone tries to punch you. It’s beautiful. It’s poetry. Frankly, I’m getting emotional.]

Compared to the other two, though, at least nobody’s getting naked, and nobody’s clothes are getting shredded off in a fireball.

[System: There’s that, yeah. This one’s just embarrassing, not catastrophic. Big step up for you, honestly.]

I mull it over for a second, but there isn’t really much to mull. Ninety IP either way, and between "impenetrable brick that sounds stupid" and "explosive strip club grenade" and "smug hand that slaps people," the brick’s the only one that doesn’t come with collateral damage to my relationships or my dignity in front of paying customers.

Alright, going with the third one. Nuh-Uh Stance.

[System: Solid pick, wanker. Boring, but solid. I was half expecting you to go full pervert and pick the naked bomb, credit where it’s due.]

I was tempted.

[System: Course you were. You’re a snake, mate, not a saint.]

The window flashes green, IP ticking down from 106 to 16 in one clean swoop, and I feel something settle into my body like a weight dropping into place, heavy and solid and sitting right behind my ribs where nothing used to sit before.

[Skill Acquired: The "Nuh-Uh" Stance (Rank C+)]

Sixteen IP left in the tank. Barely enough to buy myself a coffee if the system sold coffee, which it doesn’t, because apparently everything worth having costs ninety and everything cheap is a joke skill that makes soap bubbles or whatever garbage was on offer last time.

The only real downside I can see is the sound effect, and honestly, if some poor bastard’s stupid enough to take a swing at me, they deserve to hear a frying pan slam into a bowling ball right before their hand goes numb.

[System: That’s the spirit. Very "I contain multitudes" of you.]

The only thing I’m a little worried about is the cooldown. Eight minutes is a long time to sit around invincible-but-immobile if things go sideways, and if I get caught using it at the wrong second, I’m basically a really expensive paperweight until it resets.

[System: Yeah, that’s the trade-off for being unkillable, mate. Can’t have your cake and eat the whole bakery too.]

Guess I’ll just have to hope one of the girls takes the skill in the next top-up. Lyra’s usually all over that shit the second I start looking crispy, and Cherry’s got this weird radar for when my tank’s running on fumes.

Between the two of them, maybe I won’t have to spend eight full minutes as a glorified cast-iron paperweight every time this thing runs out.

[System: Optimistic. I like it. Bit deluded, but I like it.]

I let the couch swallow me a bit more, glancing over at the security feed where the ceremony’s still going strong, Lyra laughing at something a high roller said, Cherry’s horns twitching from clear across the casino floor like she can feel me thinking about her, Channel still glued to her businessman like a particularly venomous barnacle.

Sixteen IP in the bank, one new skill that makes me sound like kitchenware getting abused, and a night that’s somehow already gone better than I had any right to expect.

[System: Don’t get comfortable, dickhead. Something’s always about to go wrong for you. It’s basically your whole personality at this point.]

Yeah, yeah. Let me have the two minutes of peace though.

[System: Nah, scratch that, peace time’s over, mate, we got work to do.]

I crack one eye open, what.

[System: You heard me. Get up. Stop marinating on the couch like a sad little sausage roll; we got a live feed running, we got a target on stage.]

I know exactly which skill he’s talking about before he even finishes the sentence, and something low in my gut goes warm and stupid all at once.

Blow-Up Doppelgänger?

[System: There it is. Look at that face. That’s a man

remembering he’s got a get-out-of-jail-free card for his dick.]

One use. Spawns a perfect copy of whoever I want, and whatever I do to the copy happens to the real one too, no matter where she is or what she’s doing. And right now Channel’s up on stage in front of half of twawi and anybody who’s anybody in Ami city and a live feed pumping straight out to half the city, smiling that soft, breathless smile like I’m the only thing she’s ever wanted in her life.

I glance at the security screen. She’s mid-sentence, wings tucked neatly behind her, talons folded like a lady’s manicured hands, delivering some line about gratitude and new beginnings that I already know is complete horseshit.