He wasn't in a hurry to free the king in order to fight him. So instead he drank the second health potion to heal from the wounds he had gotten from the fighting and recover from the physical exertion with using so many manifestations in such little time. To a lesser extent he also felt the mental exhaustion that came with it, but “powerful mind” really did help alleviate a lot of the pressure. The next chance he got he was definitely going for “powerful body” as his next trait.

  “You sure are stacking up a lot of passive effects and skills.”

  “Might as well, the energy manifestation skill is taking care of any kind of active effects that I could want, might as well just keep going with something to improve that further.”

  He focused on the pile of stuff and the constant banging that was echoing through the hall. He was pretty tempted to just go find the spawners now and get rid of them, thus completing his quest. But on the off chance that the king did break free, he didn't want to get attacked from behind. Plus this might be the opportunity for him to try out his newest skill “surprise attack!” After all, the skills simply said the opponent can't see it coming. nothing about it being an opening strike. Of course, that could also be implied knowing the system. So time to do a test run, though there was a good chance he could see it coming so even if this were to fail or succeed he would have to do multiple tests.

  He quickly started throwing everything he had dumped into his storage ring that was around the trap door. He had lucked out with the Throne of Gluttony landing on top of it as that was likely his heaviest item. Once all of the stuff that was around the actual door was removed he stepped behind where the trap door would open and after hearing another bang quickly removed everything that was on top.

  The next bang absolutely shattered the door as the giant roach shot into the air, with Quill swinging a massive spiked fantasy styled Warhammer manifestation into the creature's back, crushing its wings and flinging it forward as it crashed into the ground.

  He didn't think his “surprise attack!” worked if he were to hazard a guess which meant he did see or at least expected an attack coming which did make sense he supposed. However he counted himself lucky for hitting the bug's wings, likely crippling its ability to fly as that would have made any fight a lot more difficult.

  However he did not press his attack, a stupid move sure but he was determined to give this one final chance. He didn't particularly want to kill what could potentially be the very last Roach. So he allowed the king to stand back up and collect itself, its eyes turning towards the roaches he had just killed before gazing at him.

  “I am only going to say this once more.” Quill spoke with an exasperated sigh, having a strong feeling how this was going to play out. “I only wish for peace. Do not attack and we can talk this out.”

  “Do you truly believe peace is an option?” the king spoke not with anger but with a somber tone as if it finally registered to him that all of his people were gone “If you were in my position. Would you settle for peace?”

  Quill's face twisted into a scowl. This would have been a lot easier had the king just lashed out at him with rage. “No.” He finally spoke and manifested his pizza cutter to his hands. “I suppose I would not.”

  They both stared down one another before the king launched himself forward with a chittering screech and Quill started backpedaling, using his pizza cutters superior reach to keep the king from getting too close. He just needed to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike since he doubted he could engage in close combat for a long period of time against his better technique.

  Finally an opportunity arose and he swung widely, pretending to leave himself open as he put himself slightly off balance. The king quickly capitalized and closed the distance bringing his blades closer to Quill. Only for him to quickly manifest arms, each grabbing the blades. struggling to keep them in place due to the roaches' strength. But he only needed a moment. He quickly pivoted with his pizza cutter and smashed it into the roaches head, brutally cutting through it and beheading the poor bug.

  He watched the body hit the floor as he dissipated his manifestations. The fight, while brief, left a poor taste in his mouth as he turned and wondered where the roach had its spawners located.

  He decided to check the same area where the rat king had his spawners but as he started walking towards the stars that led to the main hall where all of the platforms would be located he felt like something was off. Something he was missing that he couldn't quite grasp.

  “ that's probably because you ARE missing something silly.”

  “and that something is?” He was forced to ask when she didn't elaborate

  “ Oh come on. I don't want to spoil the surprise for you~”

  “ what surp-” he didn't finish his sentence as he watched the roach King's body slowly start to glow, golden streaks start to move over its carapace as it took on a red tinge, the body jerking violently before standing up seemingly getting bigger and bigger in the process.

  “ You didn't get a kill notification, silly. You gotta be a little more situationally aware. Also I'm kind of surprised that this is the first Roach that seemed to continue living after getting its head chopped off by you. I guess it makes for a good boss fight though.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Quill didn't get a chance to retort as, despite having no head and therefore no eyes, the roach king's body seemed to know exactly where he was and launched himself at him with more speed and strength than he possessed before.

  Quill barely had enough time to manifest up a shield to block the blow and saw cracks within his manifestation spread out like a spider web due to the sheer power that pushed him onto his knees, his own body groaning from the impact he had just taken head on.

  The roach king then brought one of its arms to strike at Quill from the side and he manifested a second shield to block. Letting the blow hit him like a baseball and fling him away. This would hopefully put some distance between them as he crashed through several benches and rolled back to his feet with a pained groan.

  The roach King didn't let up though as before Quill could even reorient himself, he was upon him once again. Instead of using a shield to block the oncoming blow, Quill manifested an orb around his entire being similar to when he was inside the cursed sins mouth. His hope was the circular protection would help mitigate some of the force that was bearing down on him while allowing him to roll (ba-dum-tiss) with the blows.

  It worked but not to the extent he had hoped. The headless roach king repeatedly slammed his blades into Quills force field as he was pushed back into a corner, desperately trying to mend the cracks that were created by its overwhelming strikes.

  This felt like a battle of attrition and he wasn't sure if he would be able to win this if something didn't happen soon. He was already a little tired from fighting his guards and he didn't know how long this strengthened state from the roach king would last or if there was even a time limit. He needed to do more damage to weaken him so that he could at least get himself out of this poor positioning.

  Grading his teeth, he started shooting spear-like spikes out of his force field hitting the roach Kings carapace with as much force as he could muster without sacrificing too much of his energy that went towards mending the cracks created by the kings blows.

  Every single one of his spikes hit the carapace but they couldn't pierce through so he pulled it back and struck again. Hoping that the repeated strikes all over its body would eventually break through. All he needed was to get his energy manifestation inside its exoskeleton and then he could rip it apart.

  At some point Quill found himself screaming in defiance. The attacks and blows put more of a strain on him than he was expecting. He had not come all this way just to die to a headless bug with a situation that could have been avoided had they just allowed him to fucking talk!

  He began to expand his force field, stopping with the spike attacks. forming a second orb connected to his own, this time expanding around the roach King. he was pissed that he was pushed this far to do so many horrible things that he did not want to do and this wasn't even the end of it. He was a king, so what if he was also a bug! King or bug, they were the same in his eyes and deserved the same fate! To be squished!

  He started to shrink the force field around the roach king. Its walls slamming into the bug's body constricting it. Now it couldn't bring its full strength and force into blows as its arms pressed against its body. It still struggled and Quill had to mend various cracks that started to appear but he still kept up the pressure slowly squeezing and constricting the bug with every ounce of will he had.

  He was starting to taste blood, he was pretty sure the tears running down his cheek were also of blood, plus he felt his skin start to split open. Still he kept the pressure up. Squeezing and crushing as the exoskeleton started forming fractures and cracks all over its body. With one final scream of defiance he pushed himself as hard as he could and crushed the roach King as its body squished and broke under Quills force field.

  You have killed a roach kin level 25. experience gained.

  “Now you got the kill notification. Good job! Pretty sadistic way to end his life too. I couldn’t be more proud!”

  Quill instantly dissipated the manifestations and after scooting around the roach kings messy remains, dropped to the floor in exhaustion. A heavy sigh came out of his chest as he looked up towards the ceiling.

  “ the system absolutely copied and pasted the grand stations” he said as he looked at the all too familiar artwork on the ceiling.

  “Really? that's what you're focused on right now?”

  “ I am never going to pass up an opportunity to bash on this stupid idiotic system,” he responded, a melancholic chuckle escaping his lips. He still needed to do one more thing then he could get to resting for a bit.

  With a groan he sat up and threw a glance over at the electric sign that stated arrival times for the cursed sins. There were six in total and one of them said “delayed” which he took as a very good sign but that would have to come later. Right now he needed to complete his roach quest.

  He began to make his way towards the pay-gate in the stairs that led up to the halls that would lead to the platforms. It probably would have made more sense for the roaches to store their spawners in the locked break room but the rat kin didn't do that so he wondered if there was a reason. He decided to just check and see if they had stored their Spawner in the same place the rats did.

  He climbed up the stairs, pointing out to her about how everything really was just copy and pasted from the other station and how the system was a lazy piece of shit with no artistic integrity. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if the system just took the design of something else in it's Multiverse and just slapped it on here. She seemed happy to indulge his mini rant this time at least. Likely knowing it just helped for him to vent.

  As he got to the main hall he looked down with his enhanced eyesight and spotted two Lotus like devices at the end. When he reached them he tapped his foot against one of the devices and read The Prompt screen.

  Roach Kin spawner-low quality

  Unranked

  Unclaimed

  Can spawn 20 unranked level 1 roach kin once or 1 G ranked level 5 roach kin once with a cooldown of 24 hours. Has a possibility to spawn a Roach kin with wings.

  Would you like to claim this spawner?

  It was basically the same as the Rat Kin one but for roaches instead. He tapped the other spawner with his foot to see if it was any different but got the same prompt. So both spawners spawned roach kin.

  He promptly hit no in claiming the spawners and when it asked if you wanted to destroy it he hit yes. Both of the spawners immediately crumpled into dust and tension that he didn't know that he was holding left his body as he flopped back down onto the ground.