On the twentieth floor of the elven empire’s capital city dungeon, a large figure had materialized in the center of a large underground cavern. It materialized from the ground up, starting at the cloven hooves that it stood on. As the black smoke condensed, a nightmarish figure covered in armor from the waist up appeared, it’s black armor bearing many small scratches and scars in the metal, and it’s legs were similarly scared, though this time it was in the flesh.
It pulled a massive greatsword from it’s back—one almost as tall as the figure itself, which stood at nearly three meters. The sword undulated along its length, making the blade look like rolling waves among the hovering balls of fire in the room. The armored foe growled, and the room seemed to shake slightly from its reverberations. Opposite the figure, near the cavern’s entrance, stood a single short person, with silver hair and horns curling delicately from her head, starting right above where her ears were. Her eyes seemed to glow gold in the firelight, and she held a sheathed sword in her left hand. She wore a long coat suited for combat, and worn down from multiple encounters and victories.
After the armored figure materialized, she seemed to undergo a change, the aura around her strengthening exponentially from a dramatic increase in mana and stats. Her horns doubled in length, growing darker nears their tips, and another set of horns could be seen faintly peeking out from under her hair, these ones sweeping back from her face, towards her back. Her hair seemed to glow faintly now, and her eyes shone brighter, making the slit pupils in the center of them all the more apparent, from the absence of light in them. Dark marks could be seen appearing on the skin of her neck, disappearing down her shoulders. They also coiled on the backs of her hands in simple and brutal, yet somehow also graceful lines.
As the armored figure finished it’s bellowing, she lightly tapped the ground with her foot, and seemingly disappeared. The figure was clearly able to track her movements, though, as It raised its sword to meet her charge.
A vicious clash of steel resounded through the cavern, the figure having caught the now naked blade in the girl’s hands. She snarled, and pushed with her sword, and the figure astonishingly took a step back, stumbling a little as it did so. The girl took that moment to disengage, and sweep back in with a low blow aimed at the figure’s cloven feet, trying to limit its mobility somewhat.
Things tend to not move without feet (or hooves), after all.
The figure’s sword slammed into the ground, tip first, as it barely blocked the blow. Now furious at the girl, the figure’s eyes began to glow red beneath its steel-faced helm. It raised its sword, and lay into the girl devastatingly. The ground beneath her shook as she blocked every blow, one after another. She sighed, somewhat disappointedly, and disengaged whatever had allowed her to overwhelm the figure, the lines on her hand dispersing, her horns shrinking with the new pair disappearing completely, and that aura around her weakened again. Immediately, the figure began to challenge her, as she no longer had the power to take it’s blows head on, and had to dodge them instead.
The figure noticed the change, and took to the offensive even more, pounding the area around the girl as she displaced all of them, lightly redirecting it’s sword away from her.
Had a master swordsman seen this, he would have been astonished. While it takes less power to redirect a blow, it also takes more concentration and skill, which was being displayed by the girl in stunning amounts. Every time she redirected a blow, she would wait until the last possible second, and let the sword pass her by mere millimeters until it crashed into the ground.
The figure’s poor sword was now battered and covered in scratches from its frequent contacts with the ground, and on one strike, the ring of it hitting stone changed subtly from the earlier strikes.
The girl’s entire demeanor seemed to change at this moment, from someone simply dodging and deflecting blows meekly, to one who waged war with the world itself. An overwhelming aura surrounded her, one not derived from her mana or stats, but from her entire being. The one that she had earlier while using her power-up was actually a few times weaker than this one.
The figure stumbled a little as the aura hit it, and the girl took advantage of this to dash in. The figure, panicking under the dual oppression of the aura and her sudden nearness, smashed it’s sword into the ground harder than it ever had before. With a tinkling sound, the massive sword shattered, the strong blows against the ground having weakened its structural integrity greatly.
And while the figure had been able to suppress the girl somewhat with it’s sword, now things were different. It tried to attack with the hilt of the broken blade, or it’s fists, but was attacked instead.
Every time it’s hands neared the girl, she would lash out with astonishing timing and accuracy to hit the exposed parts of its wrists and hands, slowly bringing the figure more and more pain, and closer to defeat.
Eventually, its hands were dangling uselessly from its bleeding wrists, and the figure’s movements had turned sluggish and weaker.
It stopped fighting, and turned its angry red eyes at the girl, who was only covered in a light sheen of sweat from her exertions. Almost invitingly, it dropped to it’s knees, and bared its throat under the armor gorget. The girl stepped closer, and raised her sword for the killing blow, cutting straight through the figure’s blood vessels and windpipe. No blood shot out, though, as the figure directly collapsed back into dark shadows, but now before shooting the girl a rude gesture with it’s barely useable hand.
The girl sighed, and sheathed her blade, proceeding to the room beyond the cavern. She arrived at a glowing rune set into the floor, and stepped on it. Immediately, she was surrounded by a glowing nimbus of light, and disappeared from the dungeon.
----------------------------------------
Ugh. That floor boss was a disappointment. I had thought that maybe I could have unloaded on it, but that hadn’t been the case. If I had used〖Demonic Transformation〗to it’s fullest extent, it wouldn’t have been a fight, but a slaughter.
It wouldn’t have been any fun, and I wouldn’t have gotten any good experience.
Besides, Niten had told me that I needed to pursue greater challenges, saving my overpowering moves for when I felt death.
It’s been five months since I had taken him as a teacher, which had probably been the best decision I’ve ever made, even if he made me memorize the names of all the major kingdoms, cities, dungeons and labyrinths.
The help he provided in understanding the politics of our continents, and the history of it has been nothing but helpful, and he also doubled as a fantastic combat teacher.
It actually came to be that he learned of most of my trump cards, and evaluated each for their weaknesses and strengths. I was able to combine a few of the complementary trump cards into stronger ones, boosting my survivability thanks to him.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Him telling me to fight the floor boss on the twentieth level was a little tame compared to some of the stuff he’s had me do.
Though, I have been feeling a little tired lately for no good reason, and my stomach's been hurting for the past day or so. It was nice to vent some of the frustration from that on a willing opponent. Even if it might have been slightly overkill in the end. I mean, come on! The floor boss volunteered itself for death.
Though I suppose it just wanted a way out from the pain I had inflicted, and it doesn’t particularly matter if it dies, since it just respawns the next time someone enters the room.
Ah, I suppose I should go ahead and explain the conclusive differences between dungeons and labyrinths. I didn’t really know the differences until a few months ago, when Niten explained them to me. Before then, I just knew that some were referred to dungeons, and others labyrinths. Also that labyrinths were more dangerous that dungeons.
First, dungeons are normally quite static. The floor layout’s tend to not change much, unless the dungeon is experiencing a period of growth. When that happens, it expands rapidly, expending most of the energy it had collected over the years. Dungeons get their energy from the adventurers who enter it, leaching off some of their ambient mana, and absorbing the leftover mana from spells they use. It can use that mana to respawn the monsters inside of it, and set aside some for future expansion.
Labyrinths however, are at a fixed size as soon as they’re born. But while they cannot expand themselves, they can change the interior as much as they like, often switching around rooms, floors, monsters, and floor guardians. The reason a labyrinth is thought of as having a greater amount of danger as compared to dungeons, is that they are unpredictable. While you can make a map of the safest routes through a dungeon, it’s impossible in a labyrinth. Labyrinths also, unlike dungeons, gather mana from nearby ley-lines, or so the theory goes.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to study labyrinths, while you can literally grow a dungeon to watch the whole process happen. And truth is, we still don’t know a lot about them, like whether they have personalities, or cores, or if a labyrinth can die. We know that a dungeon can die, and that dungeons have cores and can gain sentience at a high enough ranking.
Labyrinths though, are for the most part still a mystery.
Upon exiting the dungeon, I got looks from the nearby elves. However, instead of the disdain and disgust that had been there five months ago, now there was equal parts fear and curiosity.
The curiosity was because I was a taboo half-blood, and still walking around free and easy.
Fear because a few of them had tried to deal with me.
Whether by capturing me, killing me, or even attempting to sell me to some human nobles, they wanted me out of the capital. Unfortunately, none of the ones responsible could recover from their foolish encounter with me. They seem to always underestimate me, and pay the price for it. On a side note, decimating groups of people the way I had was all due to my dungeon dives, which left me considerably stronger.
Especially because I could focus on just fighting, and didn’t have to worry about attracting attention while I was on my own, or procuring rare smithing materials. My level and stats had increased greatly. In fact, I had just gained a level from fighting that floor boss.
Status:Name: Katariah SilverTitles: (4 Hidden)Race: Demon/ElfAge: 13Gender: FemaleMain Class: MageSub Class(es): Smith; SwordsmanLevel: 73Health: 1245Mana: 96360Strength: 228Stamina: 127Dexterity: 249Intelligence: 332Wisdom: 248Luck: 1
Yeah. I’ve gotten a bit stronger in the past few months. I’d say that part of the reason is Niten’s tutelage, and the other part is the power leveling I did. It reminded me of a form of entertainment from one of my lives.
Anyway, I walked down the main boulevard, towards the imperial palace.
Also part of the reason some fear me, it due to the fact that I’m frequently seen entering and exiting the palace, and stay there every so often.
In fact, some have even begun to call me ‘The Shadow Princess’, a title surprisingly close to the truth of my relationship with the imperial family, and the royal lines.
Though, the adventurers and common people began calling me that for different reasons…
I entered the palace through a side door, as I’ve always hated the feeling of all those eyes on me as I go through the front. Besides, it’s not shameful to walk though a servant's entrance when you choose to do so.
I went and found Niten, informing him that I had succeeded with the floor boss, and was okay. He reminded me that I left in a week to go to that school, which I had previously found out was named after my mother in her honor—The Silver Academy.
Well, Aunt Aspasia wanted me to go as a student, but Niten and I had another, more effective plan in place for that, and he’ll be traveling there with me to ensure that it was seen through with.
After that, I excused myself, and went directly to my room. For some reason, I —really—wasn’t feeling well at the moment.
I sat on my bed, and was struck by a particularly bad stomach cramp. I briefly considered what was causing this, turning over ideas such as bad food, indigestion, or something else, when I remembered something terrifying.
Didn’t all of these symptoms fit something found in half the population?
Tentatively, and somewhat frightened, I reached my hand between my legs, and then out again.
Crap.
There’s blood there.
As I was panicking over the implications of this bombshell, the ironically pleasant ding of a status announcement rang in my head.
[tr]
[tr]
New Title GainedTitle:〖Immortal〗UnlockedThe holder of this title will age slowly until reaching adulthood, when all aging stops.
----------------------------------------