Wave: 2
Time: 21 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes, 32 seconds
Kal had managed to keep on schedule with his serpent murder and had gained three levels over the last three days. Things were going surprisingly well, with Slayer’s Intent staying in good condition was much easier than before, allowing him to continuously hunt. His decision to come here had been risky at first but he had clearly made the right choice. He had been in the mists for nearly a week and hadn’t come across any other types of demons than the dark serpents. Sure killing the serpents was starting to get boring now that he had been at it for a few days but that didn’t mean he was going to stop anytime soon unless something changed.
Which brought him to today. Kal had come across several more dark serpents coiled up and using their mist-producing skill. He of course killed them but he had started to notice a weakening of the mist. It was starting to get to the point that he didn’t need his mana sight to navigate the place. It certainly made hunting down more of the serpents easier but he was pretty sure he would start coming across other demons soon. It would start to quickly become dangerous again once the other demons were able to enter.
If the other demons were joining forces there was little doubt that they would come to the conclusion that he had been moving through the mists for the last week. He wanted to sleep well before he needed to fight any more big horde even if they were as weak as the garghounds, he was starting to slip. Every level he gained enough to keep him going for another twenty-four hours, but he had to kill more dark serpents every day to keep up with that schedule. He wasn’t going to keep up for much longer. He was starting to make more and more mistakes while fighting the serpents near the end of each day. Even though he was catching up in raw strength, they were well and truly strong enough to punish him for any missteps he took.
He decided that he would push through for the next day and if he hadn’t managed to level he would try and find somewhere to sleep. It was definitely a risk but he really didn’t think he had a choice now. If he came across the seeker's shadow while he was struggling to stay awake he was a dead man.
Wave: 2
Time: 20 days, 23 hours, 52 minutes, 32 seconds
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 45] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 44] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 47] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 43] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 43] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 44] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 47] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
[Seeker Dark Serpent | Abyss Spawn 44] Bonus experience awarded for slaying a higher level entity.
Kal was panting as he fed the last of his wrath as flame into the still-writhing body of his latest kill through the fang he had taken. It had been a hard fight despite its lower-than-average level for the variant. It had actually managed to ambush him like the first he had fought. His fatigue had made him lose concentration on his mana sight and allowed it to bury a fang into his chest which was bad enough. What was worse was the fact that the damned things were venomous, the instant the fang broke his skin it had injected a ridiculous amount of shadow mana into his system. It hadn’t been a particularly damaging effect but it had drastically reduced the clarity of his inner vision.
Which meant a few things. First, he couldn’t replicate the cleansing effect he used when eating the garghound meat to remove the mana. Second, his Wrathful Regeneration was rendered almost completely useless, meaning he had to battle the demon with a gaping chest wound that grew worse with every jarring move. And finally, third, all of his skills took way longer than normal to activate and deactivate. It was like he was trying to drink tar through a straw when he tried to use Flames of Wrath but Wrath Incarnate was the worst affected.
Kal had tried to activate the moment he pulled away from the attack but it just straight up didn’t work for nearly ten seconds, making him unprepared for the serpent's next attack which threw him into another pillar. If he hadn’t leveled as much as he had over the last few days he would have been dead. Luckily Wrath Incarnate eventually worked and he quickly took control of the fight's momentum with overwhelming savagery.
“Fuck! Still no level up,” after that fight Kal was at his limit. He killed eight dark serpents and still hadn’t leveled. It honestly seemed unfair at this point. How did the elites back home manage to get over level one hundred when you had to kill so many strong monsters to get the required experience? Most back home wouldn’t do it alone either, instead sharing the experience between a party or an army. Was it because he was only killing the same kind of creature over and over? It had gotten easier to kill them even with their in general higher attributes in the strength and endurance department. But with his fatigue, it certainly didn’t seem easy.
“Of course, the system probably doesn’t care,” Kal didn’t know much about the goals of the system, assuming it had any but what he did know about was the terms of the trial.
Trial of the Slayer IWave: 2
Time: 20 days, 23 hours, 43 minutes, 21 seconds
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
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 does not what enemy they face.
Alterations: Difficulty significantly increased, Time trial: Enemies will be allowed to enter the area of the trial for a 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
From the short description of the quest it certainly seemed like he should be killing all kinds of demons. Not just concentrating on a single variant. Was the variety of demon types that mattered or was it just quantity in general? The slayer class definitely had a theme of mass slaughter and hunting single large monsters was much more a hunter's theme than a slayer’s. Was it really that simple? Honestly, it probably was. Dalen’s growth solely relied on the distribution of alcohol that he had created, so it would make sense that Kal’s could be different from any other combat class’s progression, especially since he was an epic class. To progress faster he would need to work on his efficiency and speed. It would likely continue to be fast to level if he varied the level and type of the demons he killed but if sufficiently dangerous monsters weren’t present, horde killing might be better.
He would have to look into it eventually, but right now he needed rest. But first, he needed to find somewhere to hide out and cleanse shadow mana from his body.
Health:
554/2000
Stamina:
1892/3800
Wrath:
0
He wasn’t in great condition but it should be enough to fight off another serpent, assuming he wasn’t ambushed again.
Kal moved through the mist with a hand over his chest wound. With the mists fading slowly he was able to make out the spires all around the dome much easier, and after another hour he found a place that might be a good enough spot for him to sleep for a few hours.
It was a cave much like the others he had found throughout the dome. Its entrance is barely visible from the outside unless you happen to be approaching at the right angle. Instead of being on the dome floor, however, it was about eighty feet off the ground on the side of one of the larger spires. He wasn’t thrilled about climbing with his wounded chest but it was definitely the best place to rest he had found besides hiding under a serpent corpse.
The climb was easy enough, he honestly kept forgetting how easy things like climbing had become due to his new attributes. Pulling himself up and over the ledge into the cave, Kal couldn’t resist the chuckle the sight inspired.
“Of course, there was one here,” about thirty feet away from the entrance was a pillar of black crystal pulsing with a blood-red glow. He took a seat in front of it opened up his quest log, and read the description of the first quest he had received after coming to the abyss.
The Forgotten One
Uncover the mystery of the Mountains of Revenge.
Pillars Found: 1/3
Rewards: Uncommon Chest, Title
“Well, looks like I’ve found number two of three,” Kal said as he used to Identify on the pillar again.
Pillar of the Forgotten One [Epic]
Much has been lost due to the actions of the fate-binders. But before you, stands a relic from the days before the betrayal. Do you dare step upon the path?
The description was the same if his memory served. He wanted to touch it immediately and see if he would find that strange man again. He was clearly important and powerful, and most likely the forgotten one the quest described but apparently knowing his name wasn’t enough to complete the quest.
But before he did that he needed to cleanse shadow mana from his body and try to sleep. Now that he wasn’t in the middle of combat he could fully concentrate on his recovery. He dove down into his body and inspected the black mana slowing his skills. Filtering his mana sight to ignore the shadow mana in his body was easy enough but he had to tinker with the amount ignored to actually see how the intrusive mana was affecting his skill.
It took him nearly an hour but eventually, he was able to make out what was going on. The shadow mana was clearly affected by a skill the serpent had, it was behaving the way the shadow mana outside was. It seemed sticky almost, and that is what Kal believed was making it affect his skill. All along the channels and other constructs moving throughout his body Kal could see the shadow mana accumulating and sticking to the constructs. He obviously didn’t know how exactly it worked but it was probably a simple will command kind of like Flames of Wrath. It was possible the slowing effect was simply a property of shadow mana, just like how it darkened the area where it was highly concentrated enough.
Cleansing the shadow mana was a pain. When it went to form the half-vital, physical energy construct into the cleansing sphere the shadow mana immediately covered it, making it much harder to complete the construct. But with some extra effort and another hour or so, Kal was able to form the construct. It wasn’t the best shape for the task, however. He had to move the sphere around his body to gather up the shadow mana in batches before sealing the sphere and activating his Wrathful Regeneration powered by a bit of siphoning, which wasted even more time.
Kal decided he would need to find a better solution for foreign mana. The sphere method was fine if the mana radiated from a source like the garghound poison, but when it was injected like the shadow mana it was nowhere near at a large enough scale to do the task efficiently. Even after the hour when his skills started working correctly, he could see traces of the shadow mana in his body but it was so thinly distributed it would be a real hassle to cleanse with the sphere method. He just hoped the rest would be handled by his vitality or otherwise fade on its own.