Kal’s journey toward the seeker shadow’s territory was easier than he had expected. He had only come across a single large pack of garghounds in the whole two hours it had taken him to reach the edge of the misted region. There had only been a single noble in command of about two dozen base variant garghounds, which at this point posed no threat to him at all in such low numbers. He had gotten almost no experience from the slaughter but the wrath he generated was more than worth the effort since he was able to fully regenerate his lost health.
Health:
1880/1880
Stamina:
3080/3080
Wrath:
120
It hadn’t left him with much wrath after the regeneration but he could get more easily enough if he came across anything else to kill.
Wrath Incarnate [Uncommon] [Soul Forged] [System Assisted]
A Slayer’s Wrath is as much a physical presence as it is a mental state.
Active Effect: Empower your form with your Unleashed Wrath and wade through the masses unimpeded. While in this state your inner self is let free, crushing all emotions it deems as weaknesses. In addition all attributes are increased by 40% at the cost of Wrath until you deactivate this skill. If your Wrath is exhausted it will instead use three times more Stamina until you deactivate this skill.
Passive Effect: Your very presence is unnerving to all but the strongest of will and those you choose to leave unaffected. All living things can sense the Wrath deep within you and will fear you. The more affected by this aura the less Wrath is consumed while using this skill's active effect.
Soul Forged: All future progression of this skill is dependent on the modifications made by the forger.
Warning due to manual manipulation of core and an abnormal resource, this skill is being used as a seal for the abnormal resource. If the abnormal resource’s value ever exceeds the maximum value of your Stamina resource this skill will break and all of the abnormal resource would be left uncontrolled.
Kal had wondered if since his core upgrade the limiter to his maximum wrath had been removed but after reading the description of his Wrath Incarnate it appeared that wasn’t the case. The skill’s description hadn’t changed except for the addition of the definition of the Soul Forged trait. It made sense to Kal that it hadn’t changed at all since with that trait he would have to make all future changes himself. He wanted to sit down right now and try and change it so he didn’t have to worry about his wrath levels as much, but it appeared that he would have to continue to monitor his wrath for the time being. At least until he killed one of the conduit holders. Kal assumed the temporary haven reward for this wave of the trial meant he would get a grace period similar to the end of the first wave. Maybe then he could take another look at his skills.
As Kal got closer to the seeker shadow’s territory he noticed that it had started to get significantly darker. The dome had already been pretty dark due to it only being lit by the columns of magma pouring down from the dome’s roof, but now it was like what little light was in the area was being dulled somehow. With that on top of the strangely dense mist, going forward would be dangerous. Kal had chosen to come to this region first to try and acquire a useful trait with his Abyssal Consumption but right now he wasn’t sure if it was the right decision. It reminded him too much of the dark confusing passages below the shattered plateau for his liking. Navigating that place was almost impossible due to its maze-like structure. The only reason he had been able to at all was because he managed to improvise a way to see the flow of mana. His mana sight had been incredibly helpful down there, with its narrow passages. The pillars of the dome on the other hand would be different. Sure it was incredibly maze-like, but here there was a lot more space between each pillar compared to each wall of the plateau’s passages. He wasn’t sure how useful his mana-sight would be in this terrain.
The only thing stopping him from just heading back the other way and dealing with a known risk was what trait the demons within the seeker shadow’s territory might possess. One would likely be a kind of night vision or maybe a way to overcome visual obstacles. Which Kal guessed would both be handy but he didn’t think they were as powerful as his greater fire resistance trait was. But that was all speculation since he hadn’t even seen one of the seeker demons yet, he didn’t even know if he could eat whatever it is they were but he sure wasn’t going to eat one of those fucking gorefiends.
Kal continued his way into the mists, and as he expected he soon lost track of his surroundings as the visibility of the area grew worse. Kal activated his mana sight and noticed immediately that the mist was not normal. Perhaps he should have checked it earlier but he inspected it carefully now either way. The mist was some kind of mix of abyssal mana and another black mana he hadn’t seen before. Shadow mana? Whatever it was called it was completely black and in turn, made the abyssal mana even darker than usual. It was much harder to see any kind of change in the flow of this mana compared to the abyssal mana throughout the passages of the plateau. If he concentrated it was still possible but difficult. Having to concentrate so hard on seeing the changes in the mana made it difficult to walk while doing so, making him feel like he was back to square one in his mana sight training. It made him wish he simply had the skill, which then made him think about trying to create the skill right now. Which of course he couldn’t do since he was now at his skill cap. Besides, he had no idea how to create a skill like that. It was in no way similar to any of the other skills he currently had, except for maybe Soul Forge which still hurt his head to think about that skill’s complexity.
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Though navigation was hard, Kal figured that none of the other demons besides whatever these seekers were would likely be able to navigate the place either. So he at least had fewer enemies in here than out there. Kal was forced to follow the wall of several spires as he came across them for a time as he tried to continue straight toward the center of the misted region. Soon enough he had to completely rely on his mana sight to make any headway at all. Then suddenly he felt stupid, he could manifest a bloody flame of wrath and here he was stumbling through the dark. Sure it wouldn’t help with the mist but surely it would help with the darkness. Kal activated the skill and held the crimson flame in front of him, but surprisingly he couldn’t see it at all. Not a speck of crimson light made it to his eyes. He reactivated his mana sight to see if he could figure out what was going on.
He could see the wrath flickering in his fist now that he had his mana sight active again. The combination of black and abyssal mana densely filling the area around him seemed to cling tightly to the crimson flame. Kal even noticed his wrath was dropping significantly faster than it did when he normally held it outside of his body or on his sword. Was the mana here somehow consuming his wrath or was it just targeting the light emanating from it? The second option seemed more accurate to Kal since he didn’t feel any difference in the potency of the flame in his hand. But it was definitely using more wrath to keep it active so he decided to dismiss it. It wasn’t worth losing the single attack he could make with it before needing to kill something. The moment the flame vanished something caught Kal’s eye. It was only the tiniest fluctuation but the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end at the change. Kal raised his arm in response, as what he had barely seen struck.
A powerful blow slammed into Kal’s arm forcing it into his chest, knocking the wind out of him followed by the sound of several cracks as he was suddenly taken off his feet. If he could have seen his vision would have darkened as he flew through the air and slammed head-first into the stone wall of one for spires. Kal came back to himself barely a second later as he fell at least twenty feet back down to the floor of the dome.
Health:
1243/1880
Stamina:
3000/3080
Wrath:
94
His status flashed into his eyes, as he spat out a mouth full of blood onto the ground as debris from the spire showered onto him. Kal immediately fell into his battle stance, luckily he had held onto his sword after the strike but it was a near thing. Whatever hit him was incredibly strong, and judging by the blow it was big too. It was like getting hit by a scaled wall, the blow had struck his entire torso. Kal’s arm dulled the blow a bit but it had overcome his strength enough to send him flying anyway. And he couldn’t even see the bloody thing.
Kal’s eyes were wide as he tried to see every minute fluctuation in the mana around him- there!
Another tiny change but enough for him to just barely notice, followed by a slight breeze on his face was all the warning he needed to throw himself into a roll. The wall behind him exploded, pelting him with shards of rock and dust. Kal rolled to his feet and pivoted, hacking down with his sword with all the strength and speed he could muster. The effort was met by a hard jolt to his arms as his sword made contact with something even larger than he expected. He felt the sword bite into the thing's flesh but it wasn’t deep. A deep reverberating hiss filled the air and the color of the mana in front of him changed to marbled gray for a fraction of a second. Kal immediately took a step back as the mana in front of him moved again and vanished before he got a good look at it. He quickly tried to use Identify but the skill failed without a proper view of his target. Kal was off balance after the sudden change in mana and tried to leap to the side to avoid the next attack but wasn’t fast enough, the strike clipped his legs and sent him tumbling to the ground again.
Health:
1034/1880
Stamina:
2879/3080
Wrath:
94
The blow wasn’t as severe but he had already nearly lost half his health and he didn’t even know what was attacking him. Kal tried to focus his mind again on the fluctuations in the absolute darkness that surrounded him. Again, the tiniest change was all the warning he got before the next attack came. An idea flashed into Kal’s mind as he dived into a roll again to avoid the next attack. Kal activated Flames of Wrath and ran his hand over the scales of his attacker as the blow barely missed him. He willed the flames to spread across his enemy.
The crimson hue of his flames was still visible to his mana sight as it spread across the body of his attacker. Kal rolled to his feet and got a small distance away before turning to see the outline of the creature that had already wounded him so much. The body of the creature was huge, the flames climbing at least twenty feet into the air above a coiled mass on the dome's floor. At the highest point a head the size of his torso faced towards him with two now visibly fluctuating gray eyes staring down at him. Before the flames vanished Kal used Identify again.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 42]