Macronomicon
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Chapter 188: Bloody Colossus
🕑 Added 2025-08-22 18:46:08 +0000 UTCIt’s been a month. He should’ve been here by now. He’s planning something, but the sheer amount of time he’s spent suggests he’s growing complacent. The enemy does not wait for your convenience. Send the newly-minted assassins and scouts. I want him dead, or failing that, I want to know what he’s up to.
- Caddock, level 63 High Paladin
Sickle of Malignant Silence
+20 Strength
+14 resistance
+8 Kinesthetics
+12 Acuity
+35 Focus
Active: 1 Charge. Wearer may shush a target and apply a debuff that makes it more difficult to speak. Duration and potency scale with Focus.
+15% potency of debuff Abilities.
Debuffs inflicted by the user that have expired or been dispelled, will leave behind ‘seeds’. These seeds will regrow into new debuffs as soon as the their host loses focus on them.
Number of seeds and their duration scales with Focus. Debuffs from seeds do not spawn further seeds.
Debuffs applied by the wearer also apply Bleeding, paralysis, and psychic damage.
Bleed damage is increased. Scales with Focus
Debuffs applied by the wearer may spread to other enemies. Chance scales with Focus, opposed by enemy Focus.
The hairs on Will’s arm stood up as he inspected the Relic.
This thing is EVIL.
Will consulted his slotted items, looking for ones that he could overwrite.
Phantom Hand Slots: (Ring of Accuracy*) (Ring of Explosive Doughmaking) (Wand of the Undead Retainer) (Stormfists) -(Dimensional Coiled Serpent Amulet)-
Okay, so the Stormfists and the Ring of accuracy are wildly outdated and need upgrades, but…their upgrades are…these two.
Will turned his attention to the bow and the chestpiece.
Hammer of God
+24 Strength
+12 Resistance
+18 Kinesthetics
+22 Acuity
+8 focus
8 degrees of correction.
+25% to Lightning damage inflicted by user.
Lightning damage dealt by the user will chain to up to 3 other enemies, dealing 60% less damage with each jump
Upon striking their target, projectiles fired by this bow are converted to lightning bolts, with potency based on the arrow’s potential damage on impact.
Arrows gain a small amount of mass and speed over distance.
Without missing a beat, Will replaced the Ring of Accuracy in his Phantom Hand, wincing at the familiar pain shooting through his hand.
And the armor…
Armor of the Bloody Colossus
+30 Strength
+35 Resistance
+16 Kinesthetics
+6 Acuity
+8 Focus
Whenever the user heals, they temporarily gain a tiny amount of size that persists as long as the armor is equipped. Other Equipment worn by the User scales to match. Vastly increased size may damage the User if their Resistance is not high enough.
New equipment scales to match as it is attempted to be worn.
User and their equipment return to normal size when the armor is unequipped.
User gains a bonus to attack/movement speed when damaged.
Thorns 60%
Lifesteal 6%
…yep. Every single one of these is mind-blowing.
Will’s current dilemma was that he had only so many slots available in the Phantom Hand, and two more astonishingly powerful items with their own soft-set effects just waiting to be slotted.
Some of the effects had been diminished. ‘small’ amount of size had become ‘tiny’. Will was confident that if he slotted it in Phantom hand, Tiny would become ‘small’ again, or even ‘Large’.
But do I really want to become a giant all the time?
It was good. There was no denying that, it just didn’t have the same ‘magic’ feeling that Will enjoyed.
Will wasn’t going to replace the Coiled Serpent amulet, nor would he replace the ring of explosive doughmaking, Which left the Stormfists and the wand of the undead retainer.
I still owe those fellows an upgrade, not a painless death.
Will knew his ghost butlers didn’t care one way or another if they ceased to exist, but he’d be damned if he repaid good work with callous replacement.
That meant only the stormfists were available to be overwritten.
Now, the armor was a direct upgrade over the stormfists. It increased movement speed and attack power throughout the fight and was similarly physical in nature. It fell into the same category of ‘move faster and smash things harder’.
But…Will liked the sickle more, and if the sickle wasn’t slotted, its effects would be more of a nuisance than deadly.
And Will wanted it to be deadly.
Not to mention…
Will glanced at his Aspect description, scanning down to the single line hanging out there by itself.
Grants a passive boost to any lifesteal effect wielded by the user.
With that effect, Will could probably create a couple more lifesteal/thorns Relics and have them ready to go before it was time to leave.
Although…I’ve never really had the opportunity to test the lifesteal boost effect. That could effect how I use it.
Will took off all his gear and started trying on different Lifesteal items, inspecting them both on and off his body.
Each item that already had lifesteal gained 2% more after he put them on.
I’m not wearing any kit, so…
It looked like he got a flat bonus to the lifesteal of any item he wore.
Does it scale with Resistance? Will wondered, putting on his Dimensional bangle that boosted Phantom hand. He still had the ring of explosive doughmaking slotted, so his Resistance jumped up above 300.
Will checked the items again. That flat bonus had increased to 3%.
So, 1% extra lifesteal on each Item with lifesteal for every 100 Resistance. That’s not that bad.
Despite being a small boost, If Will wore 4 lifesteal items, that was a free 12% extra lifesteal, which was nothing to scoff at. Any lifesteal build would be more than happy to add that extra little bit to close the gap and try to reach 100%.
Will glanced over at his Set items, and a thought occurred to him.
…Full set bonus increases the effects of Aspect by 50X. Aspect gives a flat boost. Would that work?
Will put on all of his set items to get the full bonus and tried on a 2% ring of lifesteal.
2 (100)% lifesteal.
…huh. I guess 100% is as high as it’ll go. Wow.
Will took his set back off.
That’s awesome, but I can’t count on the set bonus being active for the duration of the fight. I’m probably going to swap away from the Coiled Serpent Amulet at some point, and I can’t gain a full set bonus without it while wearing the bloody colossus armor, since it takes up the torso slot.
…I need to make a handful of items to work with the colossus armor and the Aspect boost to Lifesteal.
It sounds like the max size before it begins to harm the user is determined by Resistance, and my lifesteal boost is affected by Resistance as well.
Not to mention, the premise of the armor is to take a lot of small wounds and heal from them, gaining size and the bigger I get, the more surface area of me there is to wound.
If my Resistance isn’t top notch, someone’s gonna just put an empowered Ability through my giant target of a skull.
So to support the colossus armor, I need relics that grant Resistance, a bit of lifesteal, and thorns, to bump those up as close to 100% as they’ll go.
As far as Will was aware, there was no going higher than 100% in thorns and lifesteal. The only reason Frederick Wyrd was able to blow people up was the synergy between his voodoo damage link Ability, and the pacifist rod that damaged him for dealing damage to others. Those two things created a loop that would eventually explode someone, lifesteal and thorns were just the icing on that bloody cake.
It wasn’t infinite either, it was a simple test of who had higher self-heal and durability, and the damage overflowed to the loser, who then exploded.
Will didn’t have the damage link Abilities, so nobody would be exploding, they could stop taking damage from him as soon as they stopped attacking him. Will wasn’t going to give them that option, though.
That was the simple beauty of the combo. Will would literally become a bigger and bigger threat the longer the fight went, and he would use the increased size and speed to apply greater pressure on his enemy, forcing them to attack him.
…Which would increase his size and speed.
Hmm…movement speed Relics would be handy.
When people thought of massive giant monsters, the words that came to mind were slow, lumbering, towering.
Will wanted the Build to defy expectations…simple as it was.
Okay, Resistance, Lifesteal, Speed, Thorns, Will thought, scanning through his piles.
They were starting to get a bit depleted, but he could manage to get at least a little bit of lifesteal on each item.
Will made himself a full set, minus the gloves, and the left-hand ring.
The amulet and ring carried the most Lifesteal while the Thorns was spread out among the items. The boots had a strong 65% speed bonus after Will combined all of them, and Will wasn’t able to wear a pair of gloves, unfortunately.
They hadn’t lucked into another bangle or one-handed glove, and Will wasn’t about to bake his dimensional bangle into something that fit a one-off Build.
Oh, and I need a good helmet! Will thought, scanning the Relics. He was eventually going to become huge while wearing the soft-set, and that would make his head a enormous target.
Will picked through the helmet pile, picturing himself as a giant. He didn’t want a tiara made to boost magical powers, or something to look cool and breezy while boosting acuity like a headband. He wanted heavy steel between his face and missiles.
There. Will spotted a black bucket helmet he had tossed aside a long while ago because he didn’t like it.
grabbed the bucket helmet and dropped it over his head.
The helmet was distinctly uncomfortable to Will, suffocating his superhuman senses inside a sheet of steel wrapped around his head. His vision…wasn’t really affected, because he was blind, but his hearing was suddenly thrown off, with sound being caught and diffused by the helmet around his skull.
It was stuffy and irritating, and Will hated it.
It’s perfect.
The front of the helmet was a full fame-plate with small holes for breathing and vision, but even those holes had a thin wire mesh over them to catch particulates. Will could feel the helmet fusing to his Torso piece, making it so another person couldn’t easily dislodge it.
Helm of The Stubborn Bridge Guard.
+4 Strength
+12 resistance
+5 Focus
Pain and blood loss from wounds is delayed. If the wound is healed before this time elapses, no pain is felt. Scales with Resistance.
..Oh, gods, I hate it.
Will was categorically against self-harm and Builds that simply tanked damage because they could – No offense Reggie. I know it’s your job – And this thing was practically screaming ‘hey! Go get yourself hurt!’
Which made it perfect.
Damnit.
Will Baked it, adding two dozen Relics to it’s potency.
Once he was done, Will scanned through the basic Relics he’d made to prop up the bloody colossus armor.
Ring of Retribution
+4 Strength
40 Resistance
+12 Kinesthetics
+10 Acuity
+6 Focus
15% Lifesteal
8% Thorns
Amulet of Retribution
+5 Strength
+35 Resistance
+10 Kinesthetics
+10 Acuity
+12 Focus
21% Lifesteal
10% Thorns
Helm of the Black Knight
+18 Strength
+55 resistance
+8 Kinesthetics
+6 Acuity
+16 Focus
12% Lifesteal
10% Thorns
Pain and blood loss from wounds is delayed. If the wound is healed before this time elapses, no pain is felt. Scales with Resistance.
Pants of Retribution
+12 Strength
+30 Resistance
+15 Kinesthetics
+8 Acuity
+5 Focus
8% Lifesteal
12% Thorns
Boots of Speed
+6 Strength
+15 Resistance
+12 Kinesthetics
+5 Acuity
+5 Focus
4% Lifesteal
8% Thorns
+65% Attack/Movement speed
For the boots, Will had sacrificed outrageous stat bonuses to stack on more speed-boosting effects, to make them really speed up the entire Build.
And yeah, 65%? That’s a lot.
Alright, let’s get this over with, Will thought, taking off his set and donning the new soft-set one piece at a time until he was completely covered head-to-toe with the new Build, his Set safely tucked under his bed where everyone would assume he’d be an idiot to store it.
Eh…
Will just had a paranoid feeling that if he stored it in his Phantom Hand, Caddock would find a way to disconnect his Dimensional Storage and cause him to lose everything all at once.
It wasn’t rational, but there it was.
He didn’t have a hand item, so Will put on the Dimensional bangle, then he checked his stats with the new soft-set on.
William Oh
World Traveller Level 52
53 + 126 Strength
159 + 363 Resistance
156 + 91 Kinesthetics
204 + 67 Acuity
104 + 101 Focus
Charges: 180/205
Free Points: 0
Non-stat Item Abilities: Explosive doughmaking*, 100% Thorns, 95% Lifesteal, Growth on heal, Atk/Move speed on damage, +65% Atk/Move speed, Pain/Blood Delay,
Phantom Hand Slots: (Hammer of God) -(Ring of Explosive Doughmaking)- (Wand of the Undead Retainer) (Sickle of Malignant Silence) (Dimensional Coiled Serpent Amulet)
Primary Abilities: Aspect of the Immortal Serpent***, Phantom Hand(x6), Map
Secondary Abilities: Sourdough** Uru Drake’s Eye
Tertiary Abilities: Phantom Eye
Primary Ability upgrade Available!
Secondary Ability Upgrade Available!
Aw man, didn’t quite hit 100% Lifesteal. Will did a little mental math.
He was currently hitting 65% with the relics he was wearing, and gaining another 30%, with six items being boosted by 5% each due to Will having over 500 Resistance. So either he had to find a way to gain another 5% lifesteal or raise his Resistance by about 80.
Well…I haven’t made a weapon for this soft-set yet. Should be easy enough to get 100% lifesteal once I do that.
But for now…time to show off my fancy new heavy armor.
Will left his ash-covered workplace and strode into the main area of the caravan.
Will caught Anna’s attention and gestured to himself.
“Whaddya think?”
The Tangled baker girl lit up.
“It’s so crazy looking! I love it!”
“You look like a training dummy,” Travis said from the other side of the caravan.
“Oh right,” Will said, taking Travis’s new ring out of his storage and tossing it to him. “We’re square.”
“Whaddya me-HOLY SHIT!” Travis yanked off his current ring like it was burning him and replaced it with the one Will had made for him.
Will left them behind and trundled over to where Loth was breeding different strains of insect, always trying to push the boundaries of what was possible with her minions. Will was deliberately playing up the slowness and weight, despite the boots boosting his speed.
He didn’t want anyone to know how fast the set actually made him.
“New Build. Whaddya think?” Will said, holding his arms out.
Will wasn’t an expert in kobold expressions, so he could’ve been mistaken, but Loth looked…embarrassed for him?
“It’s…a bit of a mish-mash isn’t it?”
“What does style matter?” Will demanded, slightly hurt. “It’s about the numbers.”
“Well, I can’t see the numbers, so when you walk up to me, creaking like a tin golem wearing five different styles of heavy armor with light shoes and no gloves, and ask ‘what do you think?’ my only option is to comment on the aesthetics.”
Will cocked his head contemplatively, but the bucket over his head prevented it from being revealed to Loth..
“I think Brianna might be a bad judge of what looks cool,” Will mused.
“True.” Loth said, nodding. “She thinks you are cool, and as a bad judge of style, assumes whatever you do is cool.”
“Huh. Hadn’t thought about it that wa-
SQUELCH!
Will was interrupted as something wet exploded on the other side of the caravan, near the wall overlooking the wilderness beyond.
“Abyss was that?” Will asked, glancing over. He couldn’t hear worth a damn with this damned bucket over his head, so he summoned a Phantom eye and sent it that way.
Loth glanced up at Will, her brow furrowing.
“Did you grow a bit just now or are you just happy to see me?” She asked, measuring Will against her snout.
“…We’re under attack,” Will said, his Phantom eye locating the group of stunned men in Graneshian garb gawking at a pile of meat near the center of their group.
Comments
Arrogant Dreamer
I've noticed that consumable items for battle is not really a thing so far in the story. Things like lightning grenades, paralytic gas bombs, curse grenades, mnemonic cognito-hazards. It feels like will could bake abilities into his consumables and make strategies around them.
Gavriel
When you got a ridiculous defense with ridiculous thorns and life steal... Guess you only see benefits from damage like this.
Patron1kj6tz
Jason, what the Abyss are you talking about? -A random caravan member
Macronomicon
I'm mostly using Resistance as Dmg reduction, because I'm not a fan of the disconnection HP causes from the actual physical body. I wouldn't want a bug to work, so I'd probably have to regulate lifesteal by the actual mass of the target multiplied by the severity of the wound. I.E., you cut a bug in half, that's a lethal wound but only about an inch long, Vs. cutting a human in half, that's a lethal wound for a much larger creature. I realize this could lead to some weirdness with huge creatures, but at least they're not as portable as bugs, and it makes a bit of sense. purely from a biomass standpoint.
Patron1kj6tz
So if Will has at least 200 Resistance and his full set bonus then all he needs is a minimum of 1% of life-steal on one relic to hit 100% effective LF. If I recall correctly Will's currently open non-set relic slots are neck, right hand ring, and hand(s). Given that he bakes 20 relics into a 21st one now what he really needs to do when he makes a new super amulet, super ring, and juices up the space bangle is include 1 life-steal relic in at least one if not each of the 3 (in case he has to swap one out temporarily or his Res drops below 200). Losing a couple stat points is more than worth 100% life-steal (I've been assuming that he includes some relics just for their stats not effects). Especially since his default build is, by no means "squishy", a lot less durable than the damage he deals in addition to being very evasive so he would only take small amounts of damage most of the time anyway. So having that life-steal would keep him topped off pretty much all the time. QUESTION ABOUT LIFE-STEAL AND RESISTANCE If someone is borderline dead, basically at 1hp, and has 100% LF and beats 2 effectively identical individuals half to death they should be up to perfect health. What if they go after 2 civilians (0 Resistance) or climbers with far less resistance? Basically is there a hidden HP stat that goes up with Resistance or is Resistance just damage reduction? As in you still have the same number of HP any healthy adult human would have? I assume someone can just squish a bug or two to heal (unless they were VERY big bugs) because a 1-inch beetle has a lot less HP than a human.
unmellow the gamer
I honestly didn't even process what the squelch meant at first despite it being a very well setup punchline. Lel
Macronomicon
My thought process is never to buy an upgrade that stops working or only works part of the time unless it's life or death. An upgrade to speed up acclimation would take up a valuable slot but would stop providing a benefit after he adapted. Better to wait until his brain figures out how to deal with the visual stimuli, then decide what upgrades he wants.
Gorane
Primary and Secondary Ability upgrade Available! Lets go! I hope as a secondary he takes a new ability, he doesnt have a handle on Uru drake eyes to confidently upgrade them. Tho alternatively he could use a upgrade to make himself to afapt to them much more easily.
Arnon Parenti
William OH eats assassins for breakfast and whole armies by noon, he then raises them back in the evening so he doesn't go hungry the next day. Visual testimony verified from multiple reliable sources including two lords who demanded to remain anonymous and the Heretic Caddock who sacrificed himself to deliver a message to Granesh.
Ian Allen
The end of this chapter had me laughing out loud. Great stuff!
David Giles
Loth remains best girl.
Alan Ben Sen Clem
the snout part was cute. was Loth standing on her toes and comparing her size to Will? I always imagined her to be smaller than Will and the top of her forehead being where Will's lips would be.
Trey
agreed. loth is one of my favorite characters on the merit of her just being so smart and using her intelligence so well. i feel like the main issue is that will seems to have outgrown his team but thems the breaks when you got lord-level power. this fight w caddock might prove that he still needs his squad tho. also also, the rest should have class advancements when they hit lvl 50 next floor so the squad might catch up somewhat when that happens
Joshua Little
Thanks for the chapter.
Josiah
I miss Loth. I hope she'll be relevant to the story again soon. Also a few chapter ago I didn't even remember who Alicia even was. Feels like the whole crew has been ditched.
Redc05
Meh, will can basically just escape before he dies of thorn damage
Macronomicon
LOL, all good points. I can tweak it before i get started tomorrow. The audience already knows where they came from so adding the granesh livery doesn't really serve any purpose, does it?
Revilo
Ah yes, the classic belated we're under attack when your enemies randomly begin exploding. Can't imagine Loth would be happy though, sounds like they made it through her traps relatively unscathed. There's no way she didn't trap the hell out of their surroundings, particularly given the amount of time they spent there. Also I know it's convenient for the sake of the story and they were probably going to assume it was Granesh attacking them anyway but sending assassins wearing your official garb is generally a bad idea
GryphonKnight
> “Did you grow a bit just now or are you just happy to see me?” She asked, measuring Will against her snout. 🤣🤣🤣 >“…We’re under attack,” Will said, his Phantom eye locating the group of stunned men in Graneshian garb gawking at a pile of meat near the center of their group Thorn build For The Win
Tsorov
grabbed the bucket helmet and dropped it over his head. There is a "he" missing.
BerciTheBeast
And we have yet to read about reactions to Will orbital nuking a fortress and turning it into playdoh.
BerciTheBeast
Oh right, could Caddoc set a bounty on Will for the 10th floor?
Macronomicon
It's relative. his current accuracy is pin-drop, but muffle it with an echoing bucket over your head and you're loosing...maybe 30% or more? at least audio. Visual isn't an issue because he's already blind Rn, but it would also limit his field of view by a LOT.
Hell 5pawn
I hope this quote makes it into the audiobook.
Meredith
I want a Travis POV! Pretty please?
Gardor
Alright, lets set his super human senses at 100%. How much could wearing the helmet really impede him, is he at 95%?
Enko
Loth is bae
Monus
Had the same question. Cause with the armor and resistance he'd have very little damage coming through. Certainly not enough to splat someone.
Monus
Cause pain doesn't apply to him with the new gear.
Andrew
Thank you!
Aloysius
Out of embarrassment for not being able to hurt him
Win Rar
"The longer you see Will fight, the more his true gigantic form appears. Its said his true size is the same as the tower"
BerciTheBeast
also with how Will usually kills people wouldn't thorns be super effective against him?
BerciTheBeast
Are thorns applied before or after 1. armor 2. resistance ?
BerciTheBeast
xD
Beeees!
The pain delay means he doesn't even know he's under attack, lmao
Alexis Lionel
Will didn't even notice he was attacked, the other guy pulped
Nyroe
William Oh makes Assassins explode.
Roman
Wills missing hand is just a flesh wound anyways
D2FU
“That could effect” should be affect.
Roman
Probably the arrow that he shot
Ethan Barrow
TFTC!! Not being able to feel pain in battle for the high level stuff is a downside, the reaction of accidentally killing your enemy if funny tho.
David Weller
You really Morrowind'd the shit out of these items.
Josiah
I'm assuming the assassin just attacked Will. There are so many ways to kill someone remotely and invisibly in this story. Alicia's heart attack curse gaze. Will's Eidolons. Thorns as we just saw. It would be weirder for advanced class assassins not to have any option for a one hit kill from a distance.
ReadingObsessed
I love it
Crombell
Nice, the assassin pop got a very real laugh out of me
Cyrus McEnnis
Also - it occurs to me that Will has built one hell of a target for Mark to covet / steal. Any of the life-steal / thorns relics would slot into his build near perfectly.
Cyrus McEnnis
I was just about to say "Well there would be a boss kill announcement if anyone killed Will, so assassination would always be loud and hella attention getting". But then I realized that Will isn't a boss yet, and I doubt he has a bounty >.>
Macronomicon
lemme go look it up. i have it written 63 in like 3 places, and 65 in one place. will fix.
David W. Baijense
Nice nice, cool gear go burrr, but how is this assassination if it's hella loud and attention getting? Unless that's the whole point XD, taking the credit for killing William.
Ano Ano
Wow, the paladin's assassins are truly boned.
Julkur
IIRC was Caddock not level 65?
RedInkQuill
Does Will accessorizing give him access to enough of a build to ward away thorny attention?
Baines
i need to know what goes going through ‘splats’ mind before he went splat or maybe his party
Patryk Rys
Thats metal
Patryk Rys
Um, so, assasin exploded himself trying to attack will?
Cyrus McEnnis
Loth, we're always happy to see you. But that's not the bit in humies that grows. You gotta look at our pupils.
Macronomicon
That's a lotta freaking relics. Also, Monty Python reference, because why not?
