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THE EVOLUTION MACHINE STRIKES BACK

I never even see it coming.

The blowback.

The blue photon bolt.

Because then, as if tossed aside, the blue bolt suddenly blasts off the Evolution Machine and comes flying right at my scaly green ass.

I have just enough time to raise my powerstaff and deflect the full power of the bolt or I surely would’ve been killed.

And when the bolt strikes my staff I shoot backward as if from a cannon and strike the wall so hard it makes my spine vibrate.

I stumble to my webbed feet and glance behind me and see a detailed impression of my body imprinted into the wall, scales and all.

“I’m afraid I can no longer trust you, sir!” booms the giant mouth in the wall. There’s a controlled rage and fierceness in ATHENOS II’s voice that I haven’t heard before, and it is super terrifying. “You don’t seem to grasp the significance of what we’re up to and for some reason you seem to think you’re entitled to meddle in my affairs! It’s too bad you don’t seem to grasp that this is all being done for your benefit! In the future it would behoove you to show a little more gratitude, sir!”

Suddenly what look like a hundred wet membranous tentacles shoot out of the Dungeon walls. And some of the green fleshy tentacles are clutching swords and some of the tentacles are wearing silver-plated boxing gloves and some of the tentacles are clutching shields and then all at once the tentacles come zooming at me.

I roar and spread my wings and fly full-throttle into the sea of hideous tentacles.