Using my anchor once again, I teleport back over to Shayna, who’s standing, rooted in place and breathless, feet planted on the ground. She cradles her scorched limb, as her barriers flicker around her.
She’s completely focused on warding off her opponent's flames, precisely timing waves of disruptive mana towards that end. The flames explode lighting up the space around them and turning the battlefield into a scorched hellscape.
I stop myself from helping and watch as the reanimated corpse of an attendee pulls all these flames towards him, compressing them into an orb as big as my fingernail, making it float over the staff.
Shayna curses, but she doesn’t give up. Her hair and eyes taking on a pure white sheen.
Just for the shortest moment, the fire mage blanks out, just before he launches his attack, and Shayna pushes through her limits, subjecting the orb to a massive wave of disruption. Though on second thought it may be something a bit different. The orb destabilizes, and the mage, upon recovering his senses, tries to pull it back under his control, as the heat starts to burn his skin and the trees around him begin to crumble into heaps of ash.
The hand holding the staff burns, melting until only the bones remain, clinging to the staff in their tenacity, and finally, the orb expands more, clearly about to explode, as the mage casts it aside.
It’s at that point that the flaming orb explodes, etching a glass crater the size of a house into the hill nearby, the edges glowing red with the heat.
Before the mage can repeat his attack, Shayna launches a projectile that buries itself in his head. Even I have trouble sensing this new attack. It's extremely fast, quiet, and even manages to pierce through the barrier and heat around the fire mage.
Finally, Shayna falls to her knees, turning her head to me, “Fuck, you could have helped.”
“I wanted to see how you would fight,” I reply.
Boosting my body, I reach the corpse and quickly go through the pockets, not finding anything useful. So I just grab the staff.
Emberflame Staff (Upper Epic): Crafted from volcanic glass, the staff ignites producing a fierce conflagration. By channeling mana through this staff, one may unleash a barrage of flames to devastate the battlefield. The Emberflame Staff also enhances fire abilities, making them more potent and all consuming.
Not bad.
Blowing off the corpse of the fire mage, I move back to Shayna.
“Shouldn’t that be mine?” she asks, her hair and eyes turning black with bits of white.
“Think of it as payment for saving your life,” I say.
“Fucking hell, just take it. We’re dead anyway. We’re never going to reach the safe zone by ourselves.”
“Why do you think they did it?” I ask, wanting to hear her opinion despite my own theories.
“Isn’t it obvious? Roculus was part of the core group, he was just pretending to be one of us. They’ve probably planted more people like him in the other groups.”
“And Rat?”
“He just ran away, and we should too before more lurkers come. It’s probably too late already.”
“It’s fine, continue.”
“We should…”
“I said continue.”
She looks up at me, and a bit more white appears in her hair.
“It’s obvious, they were either after our items or using us as bait to lure away lurkers. The more lurkers you kill, the more others are attracted to you. I’m surprised they didn’t leave any marks behind. There are frequencies of mana that attract lurkers.”
“Oh, they did. Eugan left a mark on each of us. I just removed yours and blocked mine. I think she activated Rat’s, so he might be in trouble.”
I still have a mark on me and I have fun watching Eugan’s constant attempts to activate it. So they did it to avoid killing lurkers while forcing us to kill them instead… which draws more lurkers to us?
While Shayna watches with a blank expression, I coat the tip of my finger with resonating mana and cut into my belly, pulling out the mana orb I’ve been feeding all this time. As the wound starts slowly closing, I look at the orb and the amount of mana contained within.
It should be enough.
“Give me a moment,” I tell her.
I use another of my anchors, this time the one I left on Roculus. The man is not good with detection, so he’ll be a safer choice than Eugan.
Teleporting through, I appear next to the two of them, both of them turned to me with weapons already in their hands.
Of course, they noticed the activation.
The orb in my hand starts shining with blindingly white light as I throw it to the ground, before pushing through Eugan’s attempts at disrupting my escape and teleport back to Shayna.
Even where we stand, I feel a strong pulse of mana rippling out from my exploding orb.
“What…”
Before Shayna can finish her question, I teleport again, returning to the scene of my attack and finding little more than rubble in the place of the buildings that once populated the area, the shockwave throwing them all over the place. The heat is still in the air.
Roculus is a bit further away, crawling along and leaving a trail of blood behind him. Both of his legs are gone, and one of his arms is missing as well. Even so, they are regenerating fairly quickly, as is the missing half of his face.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He spots me, emotion flickering in his eyes, “I didn’t know… I…”
I lift my finger, and he stops talking. Then I send a probing wave of mana into the area and fail to find Eugan.
Did she run away? Teleportation again?
Looking around, I find and pick up the weapons Roculus had, a mace and a dagger.
Serpent’s Fang (Upper Epic): Forged from the fangs of an ancient serpent, this dagger’s blade is perpetually coated with a venom that induces severe hallucinations. The Serpent’s Fang also allows the wielder to launch the dagger at distant foes, releasing a toxic mist upon impact with the potential to affect multiple enemies.
The mace seems to be heavily damaged. Did he use it to block the attack?
Impact Mace (Upper Epic, Damaged): Designed for delivering punishing strikes with precision. The Impact Mace features a balanced design that allows for swift, powerful swings. Each hit generates a localized shockwave.
“You cheap fucker, attacking like that,” Roculus hisses.
Turning around, I see him standing, his limbs regrown and body healed. Even so, it must have taken a toll on him, especially after blocking my previous attack. I'm still surprised he was able to survive it; the power contained in that orb would have even given Gareth trouble. The ruins left behind after the explosion confirm that.
Still, Roculus charges me, muscles bulging through his skin as a skin tight barrier forms around his body.
The anchor I left on him while he was regenerating activates as I send a big part of my stored kinetic energy through, and both of his legs explode again as he falls to the ground.
With a hateful expression, he stands up, not hesitating to run on the ragged remains of his shattered limbs.
I modify my attack a bit and blast him away with kinetic energy, the area around us being cleared from debris and some flames dying off.
Then I track Eugan’s position through the mark she left on me as she struggles to activate it, and when I focus my senses in that direction, I feel fighting going on there as well, most likely lurkers that found the group. The waves of mana radiating from the area seeming to confirm it.
With great interest I watch as the mark on Roculus activates, the same one Eugan put on me. It vibrates with a frequency of mana that I find unusual to grasp and spreads into the surrounding area.
Roculus seems to sense it as well as he stops, his face turning pale white.
Multiple presences approach from the area where Eugan and her group were fighting, seeking the source of the strange frequency.
Couldn't she put it on the ground or an item? Does it need to be applied to a living being to work?
“N-no,” Roculus whispers.
Waving to him, I activate my anchor and teleport away. I immediately cleanse the remaining mana in the area and turn to Shayna.
“How much if I help you to survive?” I ask.
She quickly grasps it, and it takes only a moment, “15 thousand shards.”
“Twenty.”
A few more seconds of her gaze.
“Fine,” she says, finally giving in.
Maybe I should ask for more, but even though she has been in Beyond longer than me, I don’t think she would have much more.
Incoming transfer of 20,000 shards. Confirm?
Yes/No
I confirm.
Shards: 148,648
“Let’s go this way,” I say, choosing a direction.
Rat is to our right, Roculus and the group to our left, so it’s probably better to avoid them both.
With both of them grabbing the attention of lurkers, it might even work better than with the group before. The question is, for how long.
Seeing Shayna moving slowly, I walk over and pull her into my arms before continuing down the chosen path, using kinetic energy to boost our speed along the way. At the same time, I create a field around us to camouflage our position. I also keep an eye on Shayna. It would be unfortunate if she tried to attack me and I died just like that.
Lurkers may be the true danger of the 1st floor, but they probably aren’t the original danger. I know that much from the information I’ve managed to collect.
The first floor is special. If you die here, your body will be revived and controlled by something that’s constantly seeking out attendees to kill.
If you die as a lurker, it will usually take around 1 year for you to respawn, along with your items.
From one point of view, it could be abused as a constant farm of equipment. But someone powerful enough to do so probably wouldn’t have a need for these kinds of items. Beginner attendees usually have upper epic items at most, very rarely do they even have a damaged arcane.
The danger here is also huge. The problem is the so-called named ones. Lurkers of powerful attendees who died here through some form of fuckery. Either murdered by their guild or party, perhaps even through a mistake on their part. People who reached the deeper floors of the dungeon but decided to return to the 1st floor for some reason.
There are a few dozen named ones on the first floor who keep respawning even if they get killed, most of them receiving nicknames like Rookie Killer, Whitey, Specter, Sly Fox, and that’s only the beginning.
My problem at the moment is all the lurkers moving around, each one representing a person capable of clearing Beyond’s trials. And the fact that their corpses retain most of their abilities.
Then there is also our group who never so much as hesitated to kill. Everything they did reeks of desperation, and that makes me wonder what their real objective is.
Sure, I nearly killed Roculus, but that was largely through trickery. If we fought one versus one, it would be a much more difficult fight. And if I had to fight Eugan as well, it would have been even worse. Sure, I’m still certain I would probably be able to win or run away, but it’s risky.
Even then, I don’t put them on the level of Savant, Tacita, Lily, or Tess. So far, I’m sure each of them has more potential.
Good. Go Earth go.
[You have defeated Blood Ravager - lvl 279]
It's surprising Roculus was able to hold on for so long. The presences moving towards him were powerful. He was quite strong after all.
Well, rest in peace, Roculus. It’s a shame I couldn’t get any shards off you.
----------------------------------------
A bit later and much further we find Rat, or what remains of him at least. Only half his head is intact, its dead eye staring at the stone ceiling of this place.
Just like that.
Killed by who knows what, deep underground in a place so infinitely distant from his home.
One of the chosen from his entire population. Someone talented enough to become the top of their First Generation. Nothing but a chunk of skull and flesh with nothing to show for it. No amazing last stand for the world to witness, no great goals. Condemned to a fate of being used and hunted down as he did everything in his power to survive.
There’s a strange feeling of melancholy to it.
Pushing it to the back of my mind, I boost my body with even more kinetic energy and continue to run with Shayna in my arms. I modify our course and rely on the woman in my arms who apparently memorized our map better than I.
And as I do so I check my timer, finding that I still have more than 20 hours remaining on my Stay Token.