Chapter 147: Puzzle...and Stuff

That's when Josh realized something. The flames in the torches had all disappeared! He stared incredulously at it all. Meanwhile, the Nightmares were still having a blast chasing him. 

They didn't seem to mind that he kept killing their brethren. They wanted to eat! Whenever one died, another took its place, and the game continued. 

As he was running, Josh checked the torches. At first glance, they were all identical. But he then noticed something. On each, there was a symbol that was so faded it was barely discernible. 

In fact, there were two of them. One seemed to be a rock, while the other was a raindrop. Was it time for a puzzle?

The first step was to acquire a few Flickering Flames gently. It was pretty fun to extract and even PG 13! It wasn't even gory as the nightmares didn't actually bleed. 

Oh, but there were screams of hunger before, screams of agony during, and a lingering dark resentment afterward. It would go away after a little while, so it was pretty neat overall. 

Then, it was time to try various combinations until something worked. While that didn't sound that smart, it was. Science had always progressed with random trial and error to this day. Well, for this world, there was that one Dela alien ship too… 

After a while of bashing his head against it, Josh finally figured it out. The solution was to alternate between placing light in a rock torch and a water torch. Two of the same in a row would extinguish them all. 

However, the real difficulty was to keep track of the surroundings. Hell, just reading the signs was harsh. Fun fact, there was lots of horse meat all around, literally! His barbecue plans were coming along fine, minus the nightmare infestation. 

With the 'puzzle' solved, the same process repeated itself. 

CRASH! RUMBLE! NEIGH! 

Before, he had been facing five horses simultaneously, but now it was ten. There was also one more symbol, how surprising! Would Josh be stumped by the small addition of a flame symbol? Of course not!

He quickly placed the Earth, Water, and Fire combination and raised his head proudly, realizing afterward that it was wrong. Then, he confidently tried Fire, Earth, and Water as it failed once more. 

A try later, he had cleared it like a Boss! Then it was the same thing over and over, but with more symbols and nightmares:

"2 horsies, 5 horsies, 10 horsies, 17 horsies, 28 horsies, way too many fucking horsies!" 

"Ugly rock, ugly raindrop, ugly flame, ugly breeze, and ugly dark hole! Oh my God!" Josh was about to go crazy. 

Every time, he picked the wrong initial order and had to start over again slowly. It was extremely slow, considering all the four-legged distractions. Eventually, he reached the final stage!

He had finally done it! In front of him, there was a circular vast sandy courtyard. I had evolved from a pizza slice to a full pizza! (Audience losing their shit!) 

That is when began a staredown between Josh and 41 nightmares. He was even multitasking as he was flipping the middle finger to the sun symbol that had appeared on six torches. 

Yes, it wasn't that many combinations to try. But! It really was a huge pain in the ass! Oh well, it would soon be over. A little while later, he had cracked the code once more. 

The final order was: Dark hole, Rock, Flame, Sun, Raindrop, and Breeze! What was the logic behind it? He wasn't sure. He felt it was either some obscure philosophy or a wordplay. 

The fight that followed was intense. It was world toppling. It was amazefuckingreat! But, it especially was coming to an end, finally! Just as he was placing the 20th Flickering Flame, it suddenly happened. All the torches lost their light. 

At first, he also thought he had made a mistake. Did he misread a symbol? Did he skip one by mistake? He vowed to be more careful and started anew. 

This time, at the fifth stone, it was already failing! Why?! He was sure he hadn't committed a blunder this time around! He knew that he wasn't to blame. Josh tried once last time, being even more vigilant. 

When he saw it, he couldn't help but start laughing. There was a serious problem, but it was so unexpected!

Josh hadn't noticed before for 41 obvious reasons. Well, the problem was exactly that 41st one. In the back, there was one Nightmare that had just given up on eating Josh. After all, what was the point? He'd dodge somehow. 

Nope, it was in the process of swallowing some Flickering Flames. Josh somehow felt its emotions. It was so happy and proud of its genius idea. 

"You in the back! Stop eating that! That's mine! Plus, that's cannibalism" Well, it clearly didn't care about such trivialities. 

That is how Josh, who had been running away all this time, began chasing. But the Nightmare just kept fleeing at full speed. Actually, no. It was running toward the other Flames. 

Not only was it fast, but it was avoiding confrontation. That was really bad, considering Josh had been using their own charges to kill them. 

How was he supposed to deal with that? Oh! He knew! He took out the cursed amulet the monk had crafted him! Ta-da-da! It would taunt the horse toward him. That was genius! But then he noticed that none seemed affected. 

Rip, it seemed that ability had been nerfed or possibly patched. As he kept thinking, he had to dodge over and over to avoid death. 

"Can't you guys give me a second to think?!" But the answer was obviously no. They kept trying to rip his whole body apart. But, he had a plan. 

"Good luck following me there!" He grinned as he went toward the outer walls. Then, he started climbing it using his spider set ability. The 41 nightmares would be left behind and he would have a moment of peace and quiet!

They looked so lost and confused right now! It was so damn satisfying. They all kept looking at him, wondering how he had done that. But they were bound to never know for— never mind, he spoke too soon!

One of them broke into a mad gallop and started running on the wall?! What?! How?! This was bullshit! Since when could horses ignore gravity?! 

That's how 41…no 40 Nightmares went after him. In the back, that one cheeky horse was still eating flames. This Tower really needed a pause button when one got tired. Then again, the goal was to kill humans. 

Actually, the objective seemed to be more to train them. The only question remained: for what purpose? Was it to take over their souls as Hegel had said, or was it just a matter of entertainment? Probably just for the show to be honest. 

Anyway, how was he supposed to do this? He felt like he needed to keep a gluttonous kid away from candies. On the plus side, no one would complain if he murdered that Nightmare, but it had tons of brethren in the way. 

Josh just needed to find a method to disturb its eating. That was all. What did people find annoying when having a meal? Besides their food being gross, probably loud noises and disgusting scenes? 

Was it possible to make the Flickering Flames less appealing? He tried something. Josh began making rounds, visiting every torch. 

Then he slapped some zombie skin on it! How was this! It would now be the most disgusting thing in existence! No one would ever want to eat that and….never mind. 

The creature didn't care. It even gave a satisfied smile (actually many). Chances were, this monster didn't have a sense of smell. That was the only explanation. 

Well, if that didn't work, there was still one thing left to do. Intimidation! It was time for the bloodstained outfit to come into play! Then Josh stood in front of the annoying Nightmare.

"Listen here, you little shit! You can't eat these! Now, find something else to do!" 

Josh was expecting it to fail, but unexpectedly it worked. He couldn't help but be glad that it was now charging at him. But then he realized that it was aiming for the Flickering Flame in his hands! 

Josh just killed it in annoyance. Every now and then, there would be one horse that would just randomly begin to eat flames. 

But that's when Josh decided to try something. It was time for the return of the slightly terrifying Burger-Man! As he equipped the burger head, the gluttonous horse finally turned his way. It then began trying to eat his face. 

Finally! Incredible success! With deep relief, Josh went and busied himself with the torches. This time around, there was no creature that got in the way. Well, excluding the ones trying to kill him. 

Still, he could manage these. He just kept jumping over their backs, skipping from one creature to the other. It was extremely risky, but he could manage somehow­. 

Eventually, it was finally over. The 36 torches were lit. At that moment, the nightmares began neighing, all of them. It sounded really bad, akin to a clamoring from Hell.

That's when they all began galloping crazily in a big circle. They kept following the exterior walls. With every rotation they did, the place seemed to grow darker and dimer. 

There was some flickering too. Then the Flickering flames began vanishing from the torches, a deep chime resounding every time. ♪DING! ♪

That's when the ground began rumbling, and even the walls shook. Whatever was coming was going to be big! (Or had spent way too much on marketing budget). 

That's when a black portal appeared. It was crackling with energy and out of it came something that one could have only qualified as a Nightmare!…

Creator's Thought

As all this happened, remember that the normal version of this Floor was simply to survive under an assault of relentless Nightmares. No lame puzzle, no cheeky horse, nothing of the sort. What a disappointing and sad end it must be to die from failing a puzzle! Well, we eventually learned of it when Dead Men's Whispers became a thing...