Spending My Retirement In A Game

The young Eisen looked at the transcended Cecaelia in front of him as it towered above him from out of the magma, the hot, molten rocks twirling around underneath it as if they were water. And then, he simply laughed, "Yeah, sorry about that, but I don't think so. I just need to get back there and check something, and then I'll leave. Nobody gets hurt, and you can continue... whatever the hell you were doing down here." While pointing at the obviously quite special tree behind the Cecaelia, Eisen spoke.

It slowly pulled one of its tentacles out of the magma and held it forward toward Eisen, who just stood still and let it happen, "You are quite a fiesty one. But sorry, that's not really how it works. You made your choice, so... Die."

As the Cecaelia spoke these threatening words, it continued lightly waving its tentacle through the air. After a few moments, Eisen looked forward and smirked, "What, you forgot what you're supposed to do to follow up such a threat?"

"No, but surprsingly, your body is quite incredible. It's as if I hald molten your flesh instead of cutting through it, so it's still sticking to itself." The octopus-man pointed out in a rather curious tone, before Eisen turned his head toward his arm at his side, where he suddenly started to feel a heavy stinging as he lost all function in it.

The moment he did, he saw a part of his skin that had turned deep red with some charred black parts scattered accross it. The red part, like the Cecaelia had said, somehow acted as if it was some sort of metal that had molten. And in a similar fashion, the weight of Eisen's arm pulled on that molten part and stretched it out. Eisen's own arm was the cause for itself being ripped off of him violently instead of being cleanly separated.

The old man watched in shock as his arm slowly hit the ground and his blood started gushing out of his wounds. But the moment that Eisen realized he was steadily losing health because of how his blood poured out of his arm, he ground his teeth together and squeezed down onto this stump to basically close it up.

He stared at the monster in front of him, realizing that something was wrong. Something was very different to before. Instead of facing some random monster that happened to have an ounce of intelligence, he was seemingly faced with something that was incredibly, incredibly strong. Although he wasn't able to tell why it was.

There was someone in this room that realized why, however. And that was the real, current Eisen. He stared at the transcended monster in the center of this large space with a polarizing stare. The old man was unsure if he should be horrified or curious. 

"This is a transcended monster..." The old man muttered. It was really... incredible. That was a good way to word it, he figured. Even he himself hadn't been able to see what exactly the transcended did, although he had a pretty good guess about it, since he was able to see a few jolts here and there.

The transcended Cecaelia had pulled its tentacle out of the magma before then proceeding to swing it at Eisen's arm at such a velocity that it would have been able to cut right through the limb if it weren't for Eisen's especially sturdy body, while also being too fast for the eye to actually see.

It was truly incredible.

But now that Eisen was seeing this, he looked at the memory-Eisen's arm, and soon realized what exactly was going on, and he figured out the way that this transcended seemed to fight. That wasn't just a normal swing, obviously. It was infused with this monster's element, most likely, which was something that caused any sort of mass to act similar to how magma acted. Instead of immediately burning up, it was like the former Eisen's body was slowly turning liquid in some way,

But just as he figured this out, the former Eisen stared at the Cecaelia with a deep glare, "What the fuck did you do right now?!"

"Hm?" The transcended monster answered, "I'm just having a bit of fun. I don't get that many guests here, and since you made the active choice to be killed by me just now, I figured I shouldn't waste this opportunity."

"You sick bastard..." The old, young, man growled, but the Cecaelia just shook its head as it swung its tentacle again, cutting through Eisen's arm once more. But because the former Eisen was able to somewhat jump away this time around, it was a much more vicious cut than the rather clean one from before. For one, it didn't cut all the way through Eisen's arm, but only about two thirds of the way, and only the bit that was directly cut through by the tentacle turned into this magma-imitation state.

Hence, Eisen just experienced something that was far more painful than even the first attack, so much that he wasn't able to stop himself from having a few tears build up in the corners of his eyes, "You motherfu-"

"Interesting... You're pretty tough. The last guy that I played with like this fell unconscious after seeing his first arm drop to the ground. Well, it won't take long until I can make you my meal either." The monster pointed out, but Eisen just started to smirk, while the current Eisen groaned loudly in discomfort at watching this.

He already guessed that this memory was about how he first had both of his arms ripped off of his body, bujt he didn't realize that it would be in this kind of scenario. At the very least it seemed like this had been extended into a memory about fighting this transcended monster... Maybe more memories would overlap with others now. Eisen was given this new 'privilege' of being allowed to speak with his former version already, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched to assume that there were other changes now that Eisen got to this number of recovered memories.

The old man just sighed as he continued to stand there, watching all of this unfold, as the young Eisen in front of him simply laughed loudly, "Right, there's no way you'll be able to do that, bud. Listen, I can tell that I'm not physically as strong as you. I'm only level 500, after all. But you? You're at a point much, much higher than that, quite obviously. But at the same time, you're a little bit of a dumbass, aren't you?" 

A bit startled at being insulted instead of begged for forgiveness, the Cecaelia looked down at the man in front of him, "What did you just say?"

"That you're a dumbass, you dumbass." He pointed out, before he started to swing his arm around a bit. It was basically hanging on by a thread, and doing something like this hurt Eisen an incredible amount, but this was something that Eisen kind of just had to do for now.

And so, he pushed his foot underneath his already ripped-off arm and kicked it up before hitting the hand of his other arm against the hand of the ripped-off arm, and the moment that the clapping-sound appeared, a simple screen appeared in the old man. It was like a setting-screen, but very different at the same time.

This was a special sort of item, a sort with different possible functions that completely worked out of a specially-created subspace.

Luckily, Eisen added that this screen could be controlled via thoughts, or else it would be a bit annoying. And so, the old man set up two processes that were supposed to run at the exact same time, both of which were made to do something similar, albeit with completely different outcomes.

"Now then. Nice meeting you, but- You know what? Actually, it wasn't nice meeting you." The young man said, and then finished up what he was doing on this special screen floating in front of him.

The moment he did, two circular openings with nothing but a black space behind it appeared out of thin air. One was pointed forward into the direction of the tree, while the other was pointed upward toward the ceiling.

And soon after, a third opening appeared that Eisen kicked his ripped-off arm through before swinging his half-ripped-off arm into, before it closed down and cleanly cut off Eisen's other arm as well.

"Oh? You have access to quite some interesting magic there." The Cecaelia pointed out, and the young Eisen just quietly chuckled, "Sure, it's a sort of magic, I guess. But in the end, it's all craftsmanship." He pointed out, before he slowly started to tap his foot on the ground at a steady pace.

And a few moments later, now it was the transcended Cecaelia that was unsure what exactly was supposed to happen, "This is quite boring... Oh well, I guess I'll have to continue with you now." 

The monster pulled more of its tentacles out of the magma, and the moment that it did, Eisen just slammed his foot down onto the ground that he created with his boots. Exactly at that time, the two openings that were floating in mid-air reacted, and both shot something out of them.

The opening that was facing upward shot out something like a small, finger-sized drill, although it quickly started to increase in size as it started to dig straight upward through the ceiling.

Meanwhile, the opening that was facing toward the tree just shot out a small metallic ball. Of course, the transcended monster wouldn't just let something fly at its treasure, so it quickly caught the ball.

"What is this supposed to be?" It asked, and just when it did, it cracked open, and truly tiny bug-sized golems flew outward and then made their way to the tree. The ball was already quite close to it, so the bugs soon reached the range that the monster couldn't go to, due to the tree's aura. 

And a few moments later... The whole space surrounding this tree, including it in itself, just disappeared, and then re-appeared in the form of a small glass-orb floating in front of Eisen, before it itself blinked out of existence before the transcended monster was able to react to it.

"You! What did you do?!" It screamed out in a horrid shriek, "You will not get away with this!"

"Oh? Won't I?" The old, young, man asked as he looked at the hole created by the drill, "You realize that this is an underwater cave, right?" 

And as water started to pour down the hole into this incredibly hot space, Eisen started to retreat.