Lucius moved swiftly around the monster, deftly dodging its lethal magical attacks. His perception was high enough to determine the trajectory of the attacks before they landed, and his dexterity made him fast enough to stay out of danger. Even though he was holding his own, Lucius had serious doubts about the entire situation. The system had explained that an anomaly of this size should contain one of the weakest summoners, and he would bet a great deal that the monster he was fighting did not fall into that category.

The second problem was the presence of another human here. Had a different group of people entered the anomaly to attempt to close it and gotten themselves captured by the summoner? It didn’t make sense. This anomaly was in the middle of nowhere—what were the odds of someone entering it before him? Whatever was going on, the first thing Lucius needed to do was defeat the overpowered abomination in front of him.

“This thing doesn't seem to have any vital spots. No matter what part of its body I pierce, it doesn’t even flinch.” There was obviously some aspect of the creature that Lucius did not understand, something that was allowing it to break the normal rules. “I don’t believe you’re immune to physical damage!” Regardless of what magical ability was preventing him from killing the creature in a single blow, Lucius was still confident he could kill it because of his ability to increase his damage with every attack, he just needed to avoid taking any damage. “Let’s see how long you can keep this up.”

He stopped trying to land deep, or devastating blows on the creature and began attacking with quick slices and jabs, doing his best to generate as many stacks of Assassinate as he could, and achieving some other benefits in the process.

Through effort, you have raised Assassinate to level 4.

Through effort, you have raised Sword Fighter to level 2.

The room around him was becoming a scorched mess from all the magical energy the creature was unleashing. Lucius guessed that it was tapping into the energy being siphoned out of the anomaly. He didn’t expect it to run out of juice anytime soon, so he had to rely on his own abilities to defeat it. The damage-buffing power of Assassinate was incredibly potent in the right situation, and Lucius could already see the effects of his increased attack power. He ducked under the monsters outstretched arm, feeling the heat from the red energy beam on his skin, and struck out with his sword making a small slice in the creature’s left thigh. What should have been an insignificant laceration however, turned into what looked like an axe wound. When the buffs from Assassinate stacked high enough like this, it was as if his sword suddenly contained explosives that could burst open the flesh of his enemies.

Lucius watched in frustration as the large gash in the summoner’s thigh filled itself in with the same black substance that coated its body. “So that’s how you’re doing it!”

The strange black substance parasitizing the being’s body was able to take the place of damaged tissues, but that ability probably had a limit, and Lucius was determined to find it. He moved around deftly avoiding the glowing magical attacks as he landed one attack after another. He started aiming at a single point on the creature to focus his damage, and after landing at least five empowered attacks in a row, a gap opened up in the monster’s abdomen that looked like it had been blown out by a cannonball. The creature fell to its knees, it had been destabilized from receiving such a debilitating wound. Attempting to seize upon the weakness of his downed foe, Lucius moved in, but before he could close the distance, the runic inscriptions on the walls around him began to glow red, and a blast of energy erupted from the summoner’s body.

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A perfectly timed warning from his oldest talent helped him back away just in time to avoid the blast, which quickly dissipated as the energy spread out. But the original blast had been so powerful that when it reached Lucius, it still felt like hurricane force winds.

Through effort, you have raised Sense Danger to level 5.

The blast had been extremely potent. Lucius was sure that he would have been severely injured if he hadn’t avoided it. As the final gust of wind from the blast cleared, he noticed something had changed. The monster’s flesh looked desiccated and sunken, as if it had been drained. Its movements had visibly slowed as well. That blast of energy must have been the creatures attempt to end the fight before it ran out of power.

When it realized its attack had failed, the weakened monster began scrambling toward the spiral staircase. “You want to run? Be a shame if something happened to your legs…” Now that it had stopped releasing the deadly beams of light, Lucius was able to freely unleash devastation upon it. He easily kept pace with it's attempt to flee, hacking at the back of its legs in rapid succession, it took him only a handful of swings to completely destroy it's ability to run.

The black sludge was still attempting to repair it's wounds, but the process was so slow by now that it was almost negligible. Lucius started directing his attacks at the web of black itself. As soon as he did, the creature began flailing wildly in pain for the first time. “Oh, you don’t like that?” Redoubling his efforts, he struck again and again. Even in its defenseless state, the creature displayed unbelievable resilience. "How the hell is anyone supposed to kill something like this?"

Lucius had perfectly countered it with his stealth and exponentially powerful attacks, but any other human would have been easily defeated by this summoner. Thinking about the unfairness of low leveled humans facing something like this made him angry. By now his attacks had reached an absurd level of damage, each blow further mutilating the creature’s body until it was unrecognizable. Even then, Lucius had to hack away at the mass of flesh for another two minutes before he finally received confirmation of its death from the system.

You have defeated Abyss Parasitus, level 25.

You have reached level 18! You have 5 attribute points available for distribution!

You have reached level 19! You have 10 attribute points available for distribution!

"Finally..." When Lucius saw the message he stopped attacking and wiped the sweat from his face, he knew as soon as he read it, however, that his suspicions were correct. “That wasn't a Rift Summoner.” Whatever that creature was, it was not what he was supposed to find here. Another message followed the first one though, shedding some light on the situation:

You have defeated Rift Summoner, level 10.

“So that was the Summoner? Or at least, it was also the summoner...” Apparently Lucius had been fighting not one creature, but two. That black goop was it's own separate Abyss monster, and it had somehow taken over the Rift Summoner’s body. Either way, his job was done, and he needed to escape back through the anomaly before it closed.

Before leaving, Lucius approached the body of the poor woman who had been captured and tortured by the despicable creature. Her body had been thrown to the floor by the monster’s final desperate blast of energy. He didn’t have time to bury her, but soldiers usually wore dog tags. At least he could bring those back so what happened to her wouldn’t become a forgotten mystery. He found the tags around her neck and quickly pulled them off. He also noticed a clear outline in the front pocket of her uniform while he was so close. Opening the Velcro flap, he found a small notebook and pen. He only glanced at the first page due to a lack of time, but it was obviously a journal, so he took that as well.

Lucius would have liked to search the tower thoroughly for anything useful, but he wanted far more to avoid being trapped in the Abyss. He quickly made his way back to the anomaly. When he reached the runic circle, he noticed it was much different than when he arrived—the red glow of the runes was faint, and the event horizon of the portal flickered ominously. Wasting no time, he leapt through the portal.

Congratulations! You have successfully defeated a Rift Summoner and closed a level 1 anomaly!

You have been awarded 1 item upgrade token (usable on items of the grade [Magical] or below) and 1 Ring of Holding!