Kal stood, the crimson flame still encompassing his entire left hand. His desire to inspect the new skill he had created was overwhelming but he forced himself to take stock of his surroundings as the beginning of the second wave began. Several more pillars of dark power pierced the dome, each of them outputting the energy to show that they were indeed active like the first had been. It appeared the second wave would be even more dangerous than the first, and this time Kal would not be relying on the uncontrollable power of his birthright. He knew that if he wished to, he could tear open his core once more and let his birthright destroy the opposition. But he of course would not gain any experience from this wave, likely further increasing the risk to himself in further waves, assuming there were any. Kal also had no way to know if his birthright would be able to keep up with what was coming for him now. Sure, it was obviously a better fighter than he was right now but it was definitely more reckless. Kal had some theories on the strength of his birthright but nothing concrete but he certainly didn’t want to put any of them to the test any time soon.
The terrain below him had changed drastically during the final moments of his skill forging. The hundreds of spires still remained making the dome a confusing maze of stone, but there were also several other more unique features added since the power transforming the area had finished its work. Kal was high enough in the dome to see that it had been split into several biomes. One was a burning inferno, flames climbing their way up the spires in that area. Kal could even see that the magical pillar in that area had a different color, its darkness was instead accented with flame.
“Things just got a whole lot more complicated,” Kal said as he scanned the area around him. Judging by the different colors or mana in the pillars, Kal guessed that each of the pillars belonged to one of the bestial lords' allies. He opened up the event to see what had changed.
Trial of the Slayer IWave: 2
Time: 28 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes, 12 seconds
The Lords of this layer have become aware of your presence and have allied their forces with the Bestial Lord. Show them that a slayer cares not what enemy they face.
Alterations: Difficulty significantly increased, Time trial: Enemies will be allowed to enter the area of the trial for duration with no limit.
Warning: Several lords of the first layer have detected anomalous mana from this trial and have sent their forces to intervene in the trial. However, the lords do not have a sanctioned conduit under their control and have been forced to power their own, limiting the forces they can field inside the trial to numbers equivalent in strength to the bestial lord’s horde. Difficulty of trial has increased significantly.
Reward: Legendary Skill, Uncommon Chest x 2, Extra Class Upgrade Benefit
Optional Objective: Slay the Elite
Slay the anchor of each conduit in the trial zone. Reward given for each anchor slain.
Felflame Scion: 0/1
Gorefiend Butcher: 0/1
Seeker Shadow: 0/1
Kuroxet Bonedrinker: 0/1
Reward: Temporary Haven
Kal frowned at the timer. Twenty-eight days was far longer than he expected the second wave to last for. It was going to be a lot longer than he had hoped before he could return to Mira. He hadn’t slept for several days at least now, with the loss of time he really wasn’t sure how long it had been. He felt fine right now but he could tell that the feeling would change soon. Kal was pretty sure his lower need for sleep wasn’t normal and he was incredibly lucky to be able to go this long without it, but soon he would need to rest. He frowned at the added warning to the event, he had no choice but to break his core and release his birthright, but it was now clear that there were more than just short-term consequences to what he had done. What was even more disappointing was that the reward hadn’t changed at all even with the difficulty increasing significantly. But perhaps he shouldn’t complain too much. Kal was pretty sure that if these lords hadn’t gotten involved the terrain wouldn’t have changed as it did, leaving him in the jagged uneven terrain that he had been fighting in for the last couple of weeks. It had been difficult to evade the garghound hordes, but now he could at least avoid the larger packs that would likely be unable to scale the spires that now filled the dome.
When he finally got down to the optional objective the terrain changes began to make a lot more sense. From his vantage point he could easily make out the fiery biome that he assumed was where the felflame scion was, and scanning the area he could make out another to his left that seemed to be completely filled with a dark mist, likely belonging to the seeker shadow if he had to guess.
What Kal wanted to know was, what was the maximum level allowed into this trial? The description had said without limit but up until the appearance of the garghound royal guard everything had at least been manageable. Kal suspected that in general the garghounds were some of the weakest abyss spawn that existed but their sheer numbers were enough to make up for it for the most part. It would explain why he hadn’t many above level twenty-five. What he didn’t know was how they compared to the other forces that had now entered the trial. Seeing a new variant of the kuroxet didn’t exactly fill him with confidence either. He had slain several of the base variants and even a couple of the reavers but he had no clue on how they compared to the bonedrinker. If it was the anchor for one of the conduits he doubted they were comparable at all.
Looking towards the center of the dome, Kal could see the original pillar of dark power active again. Several large groups of sky hunters poured from it as expected and immediately began fanning out across the dome, likely searching for him. With changes in the dome, his position had been moved slightly and now he was roughly about halfway to the center of the dome so he had some time before they would make it all the way here.
With a few minutes before he needed to get moving Kal opened the description of his newly forged skill.
Flames of Wrath [Uncommon] [Soul Forged]
The wrath within obeys your call to smite all that oppose you. This skill allows you to conjure a malleable manifestation of your wrath. Potency scales with will.
Soul Forged: All future progression of this skill is dependent on the modifications made by the forger.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The skills description was similar to what he remembered from the system offered skill called Flames of Hate but it specifically mentioned that the flame was malleable. Kal picked his word back up and passed his hand over its blade, hoping the flame would stick to the blade. Nothing happened at first but then he realized he needed to actively will the flame to do so. After the mental command, the flame immediately spread across the blade’s entire length. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched the skill work as he intended. Kal honestly thought he would make a useless skill on his first attempt but it appeared the glimpses of insight he received from his birthright had gone a long way. It remained to be seen how damaging it would be in combat, but since it scaled with will he was confident it wouldn’t be useless since his will was his second highest attribute next to endurance.
Kalum Lesta
Status
Class:
Slayer of Fate [Epic] [Anomalous]
Level:
25
Race:
Human?
Health:
1850
Stamina:
3000
Wrath:
54
Attributes
Strength:
256
Agility:
122
Endurance:
300
Vitality:
185
Intellect:
109
Perception:
155
Will:
294
Wisdom:
141
Available:
6
Titles
Ascendant, Core Bane, Core Smith, Defier of Dhinir, Planeswalker, Planar Appetite, Slayer of the Strong, Endurance Elite, Strength Elite, Will Elite, Demon Slayer, Paragon of Man
Skills
Soul Forge [Rare], Wrathful Regeneration [Common], Wrath Incarnate [Uncommon], Abyssal Consumption [Rare], Flames of Wrath[Uncommon] [Soul Forged]
Race
Birthright: Confined
Kal looked over his status noting the addition of the skill to his skills list and tried to judge the rate at which it consumed wrath. From the look of it, the usage cost was surprisingly slow while he was simply manipulating it like this. Which he guessed made sense since it wasn’t an actual flame but more an offensive extension of his wrath. He figured it would use significantly more once he actually used it on an enemy.
With his new skill explored enough for now, Kal needed to decide what to do next. From his current position he really only had three choices, he could concentrate on fighting the garghounds as he did before, explore the fiery biome and try to determine how powerful the interfering demons were, or do the same in the misted region. They would all be dangerous obviously but it was a trial, and one that he would pass.
The way the trial was currently going Kal didn’t think that going after the garghounds was wise for several reasons but the main one was that it was in the neutral regions that Kal suspected there would be the most diverse enemy forces. It still remained to be seen how the different demon types cooperated, but if they were to cooperate effectively at all he would be at far more risk there, attacked by multiple types of demons he had no experience with. If he had a choice he would have preferred to fight the kuroxet first but he couldn’t see their territory from his current position, meaning he would have to travel through another's territory first anyway. This all left him with either going to the territory of the seeker shadow or the felflame scion.
The felflame scion’s territory was probably the safest choice due to his greater fire resistance from Abyssal Consumption but it was also the next most likely place he would find the garghound hordes as they shared his fire resistance. Kal was also tempted by the seeker shadow’s territory since he had reached a new tier meaning he could gain another trait with Abyssal Consumption which he doubted was worth doing with the garghounds or whatever the felflame were unless he wanted to improve his fire resistance. Kal wished he had a coin to flip but sighed and decided to go with the most efficient option and started climbing down the spire in the direction of the dark mists.
“Hopefully they don’t have any weird surprises waiting for me…”
----------------------------------------
Vorayx screamed in rage as he tried again to step through the conduit into the system events arena. Every time he tried he found himself stepping out the other side in the same place he had just left with an infuriating notification appearing in front of him.
Conduit strength has been diminished due to a system-sanctioned event. Only entities of equivalent power to the event are permitted entry due to dimensional instability.
“This place can rot in the seventy-fourth layer for all I care!” Vorayx roared, he should have brought one of the scions from his lord's palace, perhaps then he would have been able to overcome the system's barrier. But then again perhaps not. The system often manipulated events such as these, perhaps soon the barrier would allow his entry so that he could find this mortal freak. Disgusted he turned to find the strongest of the kuroxet that he gathered in his search.
[Kuroxet Bonedrinker | Abyss Spawn 65]
Pathetic… with sneer Vorayx grabbed the lesser thing by the throat and tossed it into the conduit. He scoffed when it actually worked and the kuroxet managed to enter the event. This mortal must be truly pathetic if the system believed that a thing of such a low level was a worthy enemy. Vorayx waved his clawed hand at the surrounding kuroxet, “Bring me the mortals heart and I will refrain from slaughtering the rest of your kind!”