What should have been an easy dispatch for William became an evasive dive. [Danger Sense] had activated at three separate points behind William, forcing him to dive under the airborne beasts. He regained his footing swiftly, thanking his Dexterity in the process. He was also able to catch what triggered [Danger Sense]. Three phantasmal horns speared out from the ground, the tips of each meeting in the spot where William’s back had been.
“That was sneaky, you overgrown house cats!” He yelled, the novelty of new prey having worn off and turning to William wanting the fight over already.
He didn’t like having to factor in things other than the enemy directly in front of him after all. Face to face slaughter was the way forward. The three beasts spread out in a flanking motion. William knew that he would be relying heavily on [Danger Sense] in this fight. Action economy was a thing in TTRPGS and he decided to use the same logic, intent on removing each beast, one at a time as that would also remove one of the phantasmal spears that the creatures could seemingly conjure. He decided that the one stalking to his left would be the first mark.
He took Sharpie in a one handed grip on his shield arm, pulling out one of the hip daggers. He didn’t expect to outright kill the beast with it, but maiming it would allow him to get close enough for Sharpie to do the rest. William swiftly lunged for the beast, throwing his dagger with his classic combination of [Dagger Toss] and [Mana Investment]. The dagger flew true, striking his quarry in the top of its left, frontal leg, making the beast lurch forward with a low growl. William was nearly upon the beast when [Danger Sense] activated from in front of him. He spun just in time to avoid the phantom spear attack that had appeared from the ground in front of where he had been. With a final dash forward, William swung using his first sword-form, slicing the beast’s head off in one, clean blow.
He had no time to rejoice, however, as [Danger Sense] triggered again, in two spots. The first was another beast mid air, jaws wide, hurtling straight for William. The other was an oncoming spear attack. He couldn’t avoid both attacks, so he chose the lesser of two evils as he willingly took the spear, goring his side instead of the razor sharp teeth tearing his throat out. It was the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, but in that moment of pain induced clarity, an opportunity occurred as the beast in front of him was recovering from the missed attack. A grisly grin grew on his face as he brought Sharpie down in another swift arc, cutting a straight line down the head of the second beast.
The Syphon rune triggered and William felt healing take hold on his gored side as the spear disappeared with the life of its owner. He witnessed the head of his kill open from the perfectly vertical slice, a crimson flower of flesh in bloom. William turned to find the third beast, but went cold as he couldn’t see it anywhere. His [Danger Sense] was dormant and the environment remained the same. This did not last however as the flesh of his kills, the spilled ichorous black blood, the pitch colour of the soil, and even the stale air itself began to get drawn to a point near the natural bowl’s far edge. He saw it then; The third beast, growing in size, and more disturbingly, sprouting additional horns and many more teeth.
William was about to attack, preventing the beast from completing the transformation, but stopped as he saw the landscape around him return to greens and browns as befitting the natural order. The dark energy or whatever was being drawn from the area into the beast proper. He had a hunch then that killing the beast once it had completed the transformation would, hopefully rid the area of the Fell atmosphere, maybe even if he was lucky, remove the Fell-kin threat entirely, and so he waited, watched, and weighed his attack options.
He had a feeling that Sharpie wasn’t going to cut it. He would probably need to unsheathe and use the attack he had used on the bandit group previously. He decided to name the combination Alpha Strike. Nothing on the system seemed to recognize naming combo attacks, so it was just a way for him to quickly summarize the stacking of his attack buffs layered on top of his [Vortex Slash].
About thirty seconds passed as dark gave way to light in the bowl that was William’s battlefield. The beast had completed its transformation and William decided to use [Identify] once again:
{Ascension_Protocol}
Beast – Fell Lynx Alpha – Level 18
{End}
“Well, fuck me. Fuck you too, you extra oversized tabby!” He said, annoyed that it got a seven level jump from absorbing the ‘whatever the fuck’ energy.
He had to work his ass off for the levels he got. This pissed him off to no end. The grumblings were cut short as the beast roared, it’s sheer power, rattling the ground, the trees, the air, and even William’s core. William prepared his Alpha Strike for when the beast inevitably charged him. It didn’t take long for that to occur as the beast thundered towards him, each footstep shaking the very ground William stood on. If it wasn’t for his Dexterity, the shaking would have floored him, making him easy pickings. Five meters were all that separated the two.
William executed his Alpha Strike in that moment, cutting even the air itself, as his overpowered [Vortex Slash] bit deep into the beast’s neck, chest, and two frontal legs. William had expected the beast to have keeled over and died there and then. The attack had drastically crippled the beast, yet it stood. It didn’t move, but the eyes fixed on William, painting him with an abyssal, eldritch, ancient glare. It was as if entropy itself had eyes. Eyes that assessed and judged William’s mind, body, and soul.
The stare off ended suddenly as the five horns protruding from the Alpha fired out, bony missiles intent on turning William into Swiss cheese. William dodged the first two, and used his shield to block the third and fourth horns. The fifth however, tore a chunk out of the shoulder of his shield arm.
“Mother-fucking bastard,” William cursed, as the pain seared in his shoulder.
The assault didn’t end as the horns returned to the beast’s head.
“you’ve gotta be fucking with me…” William said, seeing the beast tilt its head down once more for another barrage. [Indomitable Parry] wouldn’t stop all of them, nor could he avoid all of them. Trying to dodge and block them caused a hole in his shoulder. His options were few, but then he remembered the ability of his shield. He willed it to expand into a tower shield, blocking the majority of his body. He could still see from around the edge of the shield and witnessed the barrage fire forward once more. He had a sudden epiphany, seeing the attack coming. Each horn was a thrust, a rain of thrusts completing the attack, piercing through the target into whatever remained beyond, as if to aim through the target at another one behind it.
He knew then in that moment, the true power of sword-form two, Form of the Rainstorm.
The epiphany was welcome, but didn’t help against the immediate assault almost upon him. He blocked with the shield, stepping to the right, avoiding two horns as the remaining three impaled his shield. His arm was fine, but the horns were mere inches from his head. A weaker shield would have spelled death for William. His eyes suddenly widened however, as he felt a pull on his shield, no, on the horns stuck in the shield. The two that missed, returned to the beast immediately, and William grinned, vicious intent forming as he come up with a risky, but completely fucking awesome plan.
He stopped resisting and readied his sword. He was pulled from his feet, flying straight for the beast. An attack that made even the seemingly omnipotent and ruthless eldritch gaze widen in some surprise. As the horns connected once more, William combined [Mana Investment] and [Vortex Thrust] aiming straight for the beast’s head. He landed his mark, and he was dumbfounded at the result. Sheer force of cutting energy, punched a hole through the head and body, creating a flesh tunnel where the beast’s internals had once been.
The beast in its death throes fired the horns out, launching William back several feet. He hit the ground hard, bouncing once and impacting the edge of the bowl that was now completely rejuvenated to its original verdant nature. William looked up from the dirt to see the beast sway, grasping for life with complete and unfettered desperation. William’s shoulder still stung from the earlier injury and decided that it was time for Sharpie to re-appear. The sword he had been using was several meters away from him, so he couldn’t exactly use that one. With a hop, William was back on his feet and started charging at the beast, Sharpie held high, as he readied his finisher. With an activation of the Syphon rune, he did a [Vortex Slash] combined with another [Mana Investment].
The last thing the beast registered was a rending scythe of force, annihilating what remained of its head. The beast fell onto the ground, and William felt the prompts in the back of his mind, confirming his victory. He watched as Syphon knitted his wound back to perfect flesh and turned his gaze to the shield. He knew it would survive and be whole again with minimal effort on his part other than the wait time, but his attention was caught by a faint glow on the three embedded horns. A closer look made his eyes widen in sheer joy. They were runes.
He touched one and willed it to his mind:
Ascension_Protocol}
{New Rune Learned:}
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- Recall
{Description}
A rune used to recall the enchanted item to its owner’s grasp. Typical applications include thrown weaponry and other projectiles.
{End}
The new rune was a huge win. He couldn’t easily enchant the Mythril daggers, but he could potentially enchant the hilts of his side daggers and create boomerang style daggers. Other ideas came to him too, such as summoning a weapon to his side if disarmed or the like.
He took a few moments to wrench the horns free. William didn’t bother with harvesting the two on the dead beast, but instead, put the three horns into his spatial ring and turned his attention tot he prompts he received:
{Ascension _Protocol}
You have slain: Fell Lynx Level 9
Bonus EXP from Titles.
You have slain: Fell Lynx Level 10
Bonus EXP from Titles.
You have slain: Fell Lynx Alpha Level 18
Bonus EXP from Titles.
----------------------------------------------------------------
{Race: Human – Level 19 Reached}
Attribute points allocated, plus 5 unused points.
{Class: Fighter – Level 12 Reached}
Attribute points allocated, plus 5 unused points.
{Race: Human – Level 20 Reached}
Attribute points allocated, plus 5 unused points.
{Class: Fighter – Level 13 Reached}
Attribute points allocated, plus 5 unused points.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
{Allocation:}
Would you like to Allocate Unused points (20) to attributes?
{Y/N}
{End}
He had done it. He had reached level twenty and he could feel the next prompt as a racial milestone. He was hoping for some juicy skills to come from it. He could sense an additional two prompts beyond that waiting for him. He was gonna have a busy afternoon it seemed. He sat down and considered his stat points thoughtfully and where best to allocate them now he had hit another milestone. The last fight had shown him that he had used more Dexterity and [Mana Investment] for his strikes rather than regular blows focused on Strength. He decided that all four fighter points would go to Dexterity this time around, instead of Strength. With the four Wisdom boost from his racial levels, he also felt like he had to optimize the final twenty point allocation towards a powerful future build.
A few minutes passed and he decided that he would add two more into each of Strength and Dexterity, four into Vitality and four into Wisdom, six into Intelligence and the final two into Charisma.
{Attribute Changes:}
- Strength: 73 > 75
- Dexterity: 71 > 77
- Intelligence: 58 > 64
- Wisdom: 68 > 76
- Vitality: 56 > 60
- Charisma: 46 > 48
{Resource Pool Changes:}
HP 560 > 600
MP 580 > 640
SP 730 > 750
{End}
William wouldn’t have bothered with Wisdom until he factored in that it was the sort of stat that would be an unsung hero in terms of perception and gaining insights. Both things would help for a swordsman of any form. He also figured that with the boost done now, the next few levels he gained could ignore wisdom and let the racial boost do the work. He was setting the foundations early, he affirmed this even if only to himself to justify not dumping the points to Dexterity or Intelligence.
There was no point dwelling when he had other good news waiting as he checked out the milestone prompt:
{Ascension_Protocol}
{Milestone Skill Offer:}
As a reward for reaching the Human Level 20 Milestone, please select up to two of the listed general skills to add:
General Skill – Type: Self – [Darksight]
{Description}
A General Skill that enables the user to see normally in non-magical darkness. Skill is passive, and has zero cost. Darkness in many places is feared by most. The fear of what remains unseen. You welcome it. You rejoice in it.
[Notice – Sudden shifts to light environments may cause temporary blindness.]
General Skill – Type: Self – [Flash Stride]
{Description}
A General Skill that allows the user to teleport to a point they can see within 30 meters. [Cool-down: 60 Seconds][Cost: 10MP]
[Notice – Cannot teleport through objects.]
[Notice – Teleport is linear and does not allow user to change direction mid activation.]
General Skill – Type: Self – [Delver]
{Description}
A General Skill that will aid you on finding new dungeons to explore and conquer. Skill is passive, and has zero cost. While within twenty miles of a dungeon, hidden or public, you can determine the location on instinct.
Proceed to Skill Selection:
{Y/N}
{End}
His eyes gleamed with greed at the options. He noticed that the delver one was offered again and like the last time, he ignored it. The first two would be absurdly good for his combat style. The [Darksight] would allow him to be deadly at night and in darkness, and the [Flash Stride] ability was a great get out of jail free card, or an ambush tool. He didn’t hesitate to pick those two skills.
With that done, he examined the penultimate prompt:
{Ascension_Protocol}
{New Title Offered: Enemy of Entropy}
{Description}
Achieved through the cleansing and purgation of a regional Fell-kin presence, through slaughter of the Fell-kin Alpha beast.
{Effect}
Damage taken from Fell-kin is halved.
Sense when Fell-kin are within a mile radius, number of fell creatures and in what direction they are.
Faction Enmity Gained: Heralds of Entropy
[Notice – Accepting this Title will make it appear on your identity if the spell Identify is used on you. Description not included.]
Do you accept the title?
{Y/N}
{End}
The title was welcome in the buffs it gave, though he did worry at the line mentioning enmity. It eluded to a potential organized force behind the Fell-kin infestations that appeared across GAEA. If that was the case, would stopping more Alphas endanger his loved ones? Most of the things he had found in the world so far had tried to kill him and he had adjusted to that way of life, but if his family were put at risk from his actions, how could he live with himself if something bad happened to any of them?
The thought brought him out of the revelry and onto the final prompt waiting:
{Ascension Protocol}
{Level notice}
Congratulations on reaching race level 20.
[Notice – Further EXP gained in region is halved.]
[Notice – Move to higher level zone to remove EXP restriction.]
{End}
William re read the prompt three times to make sure he wasn’t misinterpreting it. He wasn’t. The prompt specified all EXP, indicating that his Enchanter EXP would also be affected. He then realized his fuck up; He should have focused the two levels into Enchanter then both classes would be well rounded.
“Well, Fuck me I guess,” William said, dejection evident on his tone as he collected his personal effects form the battlefield. At least he was stronger for the bandit assault that loomed. Every bit of strength helps after all.