Snowstorm mountain peak #3 reached. Reward provided upon exit of dungeon or automatic removal post time lapse.

Barry stepped onto the flat, soft snow of the third peak and sat down immediately. The sgimas had provided a significant challenge, and Barry was forced to resort to using many of his abilities he’d been otherwise saving up to this point. Additionally, he had once again nearly exhausted his stamina completely. Barry recognised that these long, drawn-out battles were becoming a problem for him, and when he turned his attention to his stats page, he decided to throw both of his free points into stamina, giving him a welcomed boost to his depleted energy levels. A glance at his main stats showed that his health was still sitting at around ninety percent, with the only real damage he’d received being the gash to his side. His mana was at thirty percent from all his clone use which was reasonable. And finally, his stamina was now sitting at around twenty percent after receiving the boost from the two additional stat points. After again checking for any danger, Barry rested his back on the snow whilst snuggling into the pelt, waiting for his stats to restore.

After some time, Barry was startled awake by a blaring message in his mind. He hadn’t even realised he had fallen asleep, and he felt disoriented as he looked around at the blank, white landscape.

Hidden dungeon snowstorm peak update. Time remaining 1 hour. If time lapses you will be returned to the entrance of the dungeon. Rewards provided upon exit of dungeon or automatic removal post time lapse.

Yawning and reorientating himself Barry studied the message.

“Only an hour remaining, I better get a move on,” he thought as he shook the sleep from his eyes.

Another glance at his main stats gave him some confidence as his vitality was fully recovered whilst his mana was back to seventy percent and his stamina sat at just over fifty percent. Regarding his skills he found his clone transfer uses were fully recharged, with him being able to use it up to four times in quick succession, provided he had adequate mana. His two newer skills, barrier and null magic skin, weren’t quite fully recharged, but Barry felt he still had plenty of uses left, although for the barrier skill it would be dependent on the size of the squares created. His remote chain uses were back to full, and he could now use it four times in total with his recent boosts to his soul item level. And finally, the rest of his skills were all ready to be used or relied solely on mana rather than a timer cooldown, so overall he was feeling fairly prepared for whatever was awaiting him at the peak of the mountain.

He marched upwards for around another thirty minutes before he caught a glimpse of the next peak. Or to be more specific, the final peak. As he looked up, he could finally see the first hints of clear sky above the relentless falling snow and howling winds. It was like a winter version of an oasis in the desert, as the very tip of the flat-topped mountain was now visible, and above that was a circular area of blue sky bordered and surrounded by the otherwise grey nothingness. The sight made Barry grin, but also made him focus, as from his recent experiences, each time he locked eyes on the next peak, a strong enemy soon made their presence known. And this moment was no different, for as he studied the peak, Barry saw the silhouette of a figure emerge from the summit of the mountain and make its way down towards him.

The humanoid being was not large, looking to be around five and a half feet tall. It didn’t appear to have any long threatening tail, or sharp claws, or heavy club. But that didn’t make it any less intimidating. It seemed to glide down the mountain as it travelled, not needing to step as it moved, as if it floated on the snow. It was wearing a plain hooded cloak that flowed down past its feet, with it had its arms held close to its side. The cloak and sleeves were a greyish colour, but it had a strange, transparent, almost ghostly appearance. Barry found it hard to focus on the being as his eyes flickered when looking through the odd outer garment. As it floated nearer Barry’s heart froze, not from the cold, but from the frightening appearance of the beast’s face. A skeletal, humanoid skull rested beneath the hood, and a strange red fire glowed in the sockets where eyes should be. If the sgimas were like something from a horror movie, then this beast was the stuff of nightmares. Despite the lack of any discernible visual organs, Barry could feel the stare of the beast deep within his soul. The more he stared back, the deeper his feelings of fear and dread grew. Suddenly snapping out of his stupor, Barry felt his strong will fight back against the external interference from the monster and he realised the creature had tried to manipulate his mind. The glowing fire in the beasts’ eyes dimmed and Barry returned a glare of his own. He would not be unnerved. He would not be bullied by petty mind tricks. He was a fighter, and he was about to bring the fight to this creature.

Inspection:

Beast: Snowstorm wraith

Level: 20

Stat: Mana/Manipulation/Perception

The information was helpful, but in the end it didn’t matter. Barry instinctually knew this was the strongest monster he had ever come across. He could sense the power emanating from it. But levels weren’t everything, and he was on a timer. He wanted the rewards that awaited him at the top of the mountain, and he wasn’t going to let this thing stop him from obtaining them. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what the reward would be, his gut and his experiences told him it would be worth the effort, and he was going to do everything he could to get it. If he wanted to continue to excel in these training grounds, then he had to keep pushing himself, and to leave now without even trying to succeed would be a blow to his self-belief. So as the wraith stopped around fifteen metres from Barry and raised its skeletal hand up, he didn’t panic or run. No, he smiled, ready for the challenge, longing for it. Level differences be damned, he was going to give this fight his all. He took a bite of one of each of his three stat boosting consumables and summoned his aura chain in each hand. He let the lower half of the weapon dangle into the snow and then, with a yell, he charged up the mountain towards his ghostly foe.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

With a flick of its glowing bony wrist the wraith released an avalanche of snow from just in front of it. The two-metre-high wave of ice and snow flowed down towards Barry with an earth-shattering grumble. Barry reflexively activated physical barrier three times, creating a trio of floating steps in front of him. Then, with a quick series of bounds Barry jumped up to from the lowest to highest barrier and instantly leaped off towards the wraith, easily clearing the avalanche that flowed underneath. Barry felt his bottom two barriers shatter under the heavy weight of the flowing snow, indicating the power of the opening attack the wraith had used, while the third barrier was too high for the attack to reach. As Barry fell towards the mountains incline, he kept his eyes focussed on the wraith and he saw it raise its other glowing hand and click its fingers. Instantly, Barry felt the wisping air around him change direction an pickup speed. The sudden force pushed him backwards and he tumbled through the air, crashing heavily through the snow and into the underlying rocky mountainside with a crash. Barry felt the crack of ribs to his side, and he had the wind knocked out of him, but he didn’t wallow in his pain. Instead, he immediately leapt back up and out of the human shaped hole of snow he had created and restarted his charge up the mountain, this time with a clone to either side.

Barry weaved between his clones as he ran, attempting to confuse the wraith as he again closed the distance. Meanwhile, the monster began to fire spikes of ice towards him with frightening accuracy. Barry had already received more than one spike to the leg and had activated his rapid recovery skill in response. He’d also tried to use barrier to block some of the spikes, but they were too numerous, and too powerful. After two hits his barriers would shatter, and more ice spikes would fly towards him. But that wasn’t the main issue, there was something not right. Somehow the wraith seemed to always know which of the three identical Barry’s was the real one as it targeted him with every attack, never once getting distracted by the clones. Confused, he even activated his clone transfer ability to swap positions, but again the wraith just instantly switched targets towards Barry’s true body. Knowing there had to be a way the wraith was identifying him he shot a glance across at his clones and at the snow around them.

“Footprints! The clones don’t make any footprints,” he realised, “But how can it possibly see such fine detail in these conditions, and from such an angle? Its perception must be incredibly high.”

Realising his clones were more or less useless, he dispelled them and reconsidered how he could succeed in this battle against such a powerful being.

Another ice spike slammed into his leg as he closed in on the wraith, who had yet to move from its original elevated position. Now that his duplication skill was within range of the beast, he activated it and summoned a clone in the air right above it. The clone was in the process of falling towards the wraith and had its chain raised above its head. Then Barry activated clone transfer, and he brought the full weight of his aura chain down, aiming for the head of the frightening creature below him. Just before the chain hit, the wraith reacted, bringing one of its sleeved arms up and creating a swirl of icy wind from its glowing hand. The wind shot up at Barry and affected both the force and the aim of his attack. Instead of slamming into the wraith’s skull, the chain collided with the beasts exposed forearm, causing little more damage than a graze. Thankfully, the wraiths rushed defensive strike didn’t carry the same force as its previous wind attack and Barry continued to fall next to the nightmarish creature, rather than being blown away. For a split second the two humanoids met gazes, and Barry stared deep into the black and flaming eye sockets of the wraith. Then, the wraith let out a ghoulish howl as it raised both glowing hands towards Barry, ready to strike.

Barry reacted quickly, triggering two uses of his remote chain, and activating his null magic skin in preparation for the wraiths next magical attack. Two chains rose up quickly from the snowy ground below the wraith, one instantly wrapping around the creatures’ legs, locking it in place. The second chain crept up further and looped around the arms of the beast, pulling them down so the creatures glowing hands now faced the ground rather than Barry. The surprised wraith screeched in annoyance as Barry began a powerful horizontal swing towards the creatures unprotected body. Before the chain was able to connect with the beast’s side, its entire right began to shine and a wall of ice shot up, completely blocking the strike of Barry’s chain. He quickly moved to step around the icy wall and swing his chain forward again, but he felt something was wrong through his connection to his remote chains. When he cleared the side of the wall, he saw that the normally jet-black chains had turned white in colour, frozen over from the abilities of the wraith. Then with what could only be described as a smirk, the wraith shook its arms and legs and his chains shattered into thousands of shards of ice. Barry was shocked, he didn’t know it was possible for a soul item to break. Or perhaps only his true aura chain was his soul item, and the remote chain was considered an ability instead. Whatever the case it didn’t matter, as a torrent of wind, ice and snow rocketed towards him from point blank range, slamming into his front and sending him tumbling over thirty metres away across the side of the mountain.

Barry coughed and gasped as he finally stopped still on his back. His body was numb, and yet everything hurt. The heavy ice and snow from the attack was like being hit by a car. He sat up quickly, groaning as he moved his aching muscles. At a glance he saw his health, stamina and mana had all dipped to well under fifty percent. Looking back in the direction of the wraith he saw it once again gliding across the snow in his direction.

“I don’t think I can beat this thing,” Barry thought as he watched the monstrosity approach. “I’ve thrown nearly everything I have at it and all I’ve managed to do is scratch one of its arms. There’s no way I can reach the peak if I must kill this thing first.” As the thoughts entered his mind he had a sudden lightbulb moment, “Maybe I don’t have to kill it.”

Hope replaced disappointment, and he thought back to the messages the dungeon had sent to him at various points. At no point did it mention anything about killing beasts in order to claim the rewards, and Barry knew for a fact that he hadn’t killed all of the wolves or trolls, and yet he had still received the rewards message. He might not be able to defeat this enemy at his current strength, but he was confident he could get past it, if only for a moment. Glancing up at the true mountain peak above him, Barry saw there was less than fifty metres to go, so he got himself up and started sprinting.

The wraith let out a howl as it saw Barry’s movements, picking up its own pace and beginning to fire off more ice spikes in his direction. Barry dodged as many as he could, and used the last of his barrier skill uses for the rest, but another few icy spikes got through and lodged themselves in his limbs. Barry responded by activating another remote chain, temporarily immobilising the monster. He then summoned a clone at his skills maximum range ahead of him, instructing it to sprint upwards towards the peak. Then Barry turned towards the wraith who had already snapped free of the chains. He charged down, ducking and weaving between the spikes to the best of his ability. Just as he closed in, he saw both hands of the wraith glow brightly and another icy and windy snowstorm gushed forward in his direction. As the blizzard was about to hit him, Barry activated clone transfer and found himself closing in on the peak of the mountain. With only a few metres to go Barry suddenly found himself slipping back as the ground moved backwards beneath his feet. He looked around and realised that the wraith had used its abilities to separate a ten-metre-wide section of ground from underneath him, causing him to slide back down the mountain on a platform of hard snow. But fortunately, Barry still had one more use of clone transfer left, and he was well within range, so he used duplicate to summon a clone on the flat surface of the peak of the mountain.

“Not even a landslide can stop my illusions,” Barry thought as he activated clone transfer and appeared at the true peak of the mountain.