Ray didn’t need Primordial Guage warning him that he was facing a Lostcaller again. He was never going to forget what a monster like that looked like.
It was almost identical to the one he had faced on the spire leading from Cliff Four to Cliff Three. A humanoid—no, apelike—skeletal form covered with writhing strips of flesh. Its eyes were pits of darkness, the exposed bones looking like they were made of charcoal. Just the sight of the monster sent a shiver threatening to erupt along his spine.
Ray was rooted to his spot for a dangerous second. A Lostcaller? Here? What in the world was a monster he had last seen associated so directly with the Everstead doing here of all places? Had they placed it here to guard against anyone entering the depths of this dungeon?
Every questioning thought Ray had fled as the monster’s unearthly screech rocked everything. This was going to be a giant pain.
The Lostcaller rushed his position as soon as it touched down on the ground. Ray fired both of his draconic maws at it, but of course, they passed right through monster. That annoying ability again. Spirit Phase.
Ray wasn’t about to engage the monster in a pointless, drawn-out battle. Not when the battlefield itself was such a huge hazard. He attempted the same trick that had finally killed the last Lostcaller he had faced. Ray used Project Presence and Spectral Step right after, trying to time his teleportation so that he appeared right inside the monster.
He didn’t get the timing right. When he reappeared, the Lostcaller was behind him, its clawed feet dragging on the ground to stop its rush.
Ray and the monster turned at the same time. Remembering how the last battle had gone, Ray quickly called up Mottling Spiritguard to protect him in case he began facing Dark Lightning.
But what the monster threw out first was its Black Ember.
The tidal wave of black flames rushing Ray’s position ate up everything in its path. Ray cast Lifeblood Soulform to call up Impervious Shell to block the flames. They had come in too quickly, though, which had forced him to call in the shell far too close his body. Just what the Lostcaller took advantage of.
Ray wasn’t prepared for it to shove its arm through the shell. It must have rushed after its dark flames, using it as a cover to get in close. What an annoying little shit.
Its arm thrust in way too fast. He jumped back, his motion aided by his Soaring Wings. But the Lostcaller’s claws slashed in, leaving a huge gash across his chest as his new Vestments were torn open.
Ray shouted out in annoyance more than in pain. The latter was taken care of easily thanks to his Recovery. The former, not so much.
Of course, Ray wasn’t waiting for the entire monster to emerge and rush him down. He couldn’t. The nearest rocky spire was about to explode and flood his little pocket with the acidic gas, which he was pretty certain wasn’t going to affect the Lostcaller in the slightest.
Just as the Lostcaller emerged through the Impervious Shell, Ray aimed his draconic maw to his right and fired off.
“Two can play the phasing game,” Ray said.
The monster leaped at him, but Ray used Spectral Step. He reappeared and regained his bearings with as much speed as his slightly unmoored senses allowed.
The Lostcaller screeched in the distance. Ray grinned. He now had a bit of breathing room. Room he had to make good use of, because he really didn’t want to get drawn into an extended battle against the Lostcaller. The monster screeched, dark lightning crashing all around it. Ray, however, was not giving it the satisfaction of fighting it head on. Not anymore.
While he still had a revolving guard of chaotic orbs, he also used Soulstrike twice to call up two True Mana arms. Then he used Primal Spiritcraft and Origin Resonance to draw up two more draconic maws on his True Mana arms. Giant, spectral draconic maws.
When he imbued some of his intelligence to the two maws, they began taking care of the approaching Tentapedes. Ray didn’t need to attack them himself.
Which left him free to aim his smaller draconic maw in the direction he needed to go. The laser breath burst into the next pocket of freedom. He was tempted to flip off the Lostcaller that was now hurtling towards with incredible speed. Sadly, his hand was encased in the draconic maw.
Oh, well. The monster’s screech of frustration as he disappeared with another Spectral Step was worth it.
The Lostcaller was once more hurtling after him. Ray couldn’t wait. Couldn’t relax. He had to keep moving. By the looks of where he was currently—and what his far-flying eyeball showed—he was about halfway to the end of this maze of rock spires spewing deadly gas. He could do this.
It was a really good decision to call up and give his True Mana arms some intelligence. They could take care of all the Tentapedes that tried to get him. All he had to focus on was getting the hell out of every pocket of freedom he found.
But the monsters kept getting smarter. Kept learning. After several successful transitions from one pocket to the next, Ray’s path was blocked. Even worse, he didn’t see it coming.
Maybe it was the fact that he was moving too fast. Maybe he was just too focused on where he needed to go instead of what was lying in between. Maybe he had been relying too much on his True Mana arms. Whatever the case, Ray’s next fired laser breath never reached another pocket of freedom from the gas.
Instead, it hit one of the Tentapedes farther off. He was sure he had aimed in a direction that was free. That should have been safe.
But either his flying eyeball had failed him, or his concentration had been lacking. The real problem wasn’t that he had been stymied. Ray had already used Spectral Step as soon as he had fired the draconic maw’s breath. So, he teleported.
Only, instead of reappearing inside a safe zone with no gas around him, he was in the middle of it.
Ray’s senses immediately died. He was only just able to make out the Tentapede lying dead after contacting the compressed beam of chaotic fire. He only made out everything turning silver as the gas pressed in thick and fast.
Then he went blind.
The gas had begun attacking him. Ray hadn’t been ready for it to be so immediate. He tried screaming as the gas ate away at his eyeballs and turned his world dark, but that only allowed it to enter his body even faster. His lungs drowned, his skin was being split apart, his whole body had begun disintegrating.
This wasn’t just some kind of acidic gas that ate up anything it touched. It was deliberately destroying every inch of his body like a million piranha-like particles.
His hearing went deaf too. No surprise there. But his ears turned useless only after he heard the much worse noise. The clawing and fast footsteps of the Lostcaller getting closer were the last things Ray heard. The pain was so bad, but he had to think. He needed to live.
Just as he was sure the Lostcaller had reached him, Ray used Spectral Step again. His target wasn’t any wayward location he might have flung his laser.
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Instead, he ended up right beside his flying eyeball.
Ray used his Recovery. As soon as the world felt like it was twisting again, the agony disappeared. He really must have teleported out of the gas. The first thing Ray healed were his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself face to face with his third, independent eyeball.
Then he managed to grab it. Of course, one little eyeball and its wings couldn’t hold him up. Ray and the eyeball both began quickly descending towards the floor. The gas-strewn floor.
Even worse, the Lostcaller had changed direction. Now, instead of hurtling towards the free spaces on the ground, it was rising straight upwards. Somehow, it had spotted Ray, even after his teleportation. No peace for Ray. Fuck.
At least he now had a direct view of the chamber with all three of his eyes. Ray quickly identified his next target location.
He teleported there after firing another laser breath. It wasn’t blocked this time, thankfully. The Lostcaller immediately changed direction. Good. Ray didn’t want it to destroy the Scouring Eyeball.
But he was also done running from it, on and on like that. He used Lifeblood Soulform, calling up the Imitator construct.
It was timed perfectly. Ray disappeared with another Spectral Step fallowed by a laser blast to reach his next pocket of freedom. But the Lostcaller didn’t follow him. Mostly because the Imitator construct had taken up his form to make it seem as though he was still in his original location.
For all that the monsters had been smart in reacting to him, the Lostcaller had fallen for the fake Ray hook, line, and sinker.
Of course, the construct wasn’t able to stand up to a direct confrontation with the Lostcaller for long. A couple of slashing blows with its oversized claws and the Imitator construct began falling.
But not before Ray modified the Soul Aspect. No longer was it a Mimic. Instead, Ray used Lifeblood Soulform to call up a Soul Aspect he hadn’t used in a while.
The bees.
Their angry droning filled the air, their little black-red bodies attacking the Lostcaller immediately. The monster screeched in surprise, trying to get rid of the dozens upon dozens of chaotic bees attacking it all at once.
While the Lostcaller might not have been smart enough to try and trick Ray, it certainly knew how to defend itself. It used Black Ember. A wave of black flames torched the entire area around the monster, making sure none of the flies were left.
Ray, of course, was well aware that it wasn’t going to work. His mission was accomplished.
He kept moving as the Lostcaller turned to rush after him. The True Mana arms were still doing a fantastic job of stopping the Tentapedes from getting too close. Ray could focus partly on just moving from pocket to pocket.
And partly on killing the Lostcaller.
He made the remaining bees that had inserted themselves inside the Lostcaller to turn into little blobs of magma and resume attacking from within. Origin Resonance helped greatly. The flies began eating away the Lostcaller from within, the heat generated so great that he was sure they were vaporizing the monster from the inside.
Holy hell did he really not want to experience that first-hand.
Of course, the Lostcaller immediately began to screech and attempt to dig the flies out from within. It used Spirit Phase to convert most of its body into that incorporeal form.
But most was the key word here. The monster still had to keep a small chunk of its body corporeal at all times. The bees immediately focused on that part, using their Molten Mana infused bodies to begin eating away at the only bit of the Lostcaller they could reach.
Ray didn’t pay it too much attention. He had seen the monster struggling in one spot—against bees of all things—and knew this was his opportunity.
He took control of the True Mana Soulstrike arms. Directing both the oversized spectral draconic maws and the one on his left arm to aim at the Lostcaller, Ray fired.
Three different beams of compressed chaotic fire shot towards the main monster causing him so much grief. The Lostcaller was still too busy trying to rid itself of the bees within its body. It didn’t see the lasers coming. When the monster finally saw the lasers reaching their target, it was too late.
Ray’s breath caught in his throat as he crushed another True Mana shard. As the dust and energy from the explosion cleared, there was nothing left of the Lostcaller. He really had killed it.
Holding his celebration for the time being, Ray focused on getting out of the maze of rocky spike ejecting tearing gas. His two True Mana arms continued taking out any of the Tentapedes that tried to get too close.
At one point, one of the monsters managed to rush in close enough to grab Ray in its pincers. But the draconic maw grabbed it instead, then slammed it bodily against the other monsters just behind it. The chaotic flames emerged from the maw’s mouth a second later, compressed into a destructive beam that shattered all the Tentapedes at once.
It wasn’t long before Ray emerged from the death trap. He found himself turning around, a breath of relief gusting out of his lungs. Ray had done it. Holt shit that had felt long.
[Enemy Defeated]
Tier 11 Monster: Rock Tentapede [Level 35] x9
Tier 11 Monster: Rock Tentapede [Level 34] x17
Tier 12 Monster: Lostcaller [Level 39] x1
Essence: +102,910
Knowledge: +81
True Mana Restored: +9,320
Essence to Level 42: 24,780/150,700
Knowledge to next Threshold: 2,193/2,500
Excellent. Another level. And a much needed True Mana point. He plugged it into Mottling Spiritguard, taking the spell to Tier 5.
Ray was starting to feel he ought to focus more on raising his spells’—especially his offensive ones’—Tier higher. He didn’t want to keep relying on the Mana Infuser ring, even if it was quite handy. The problem was that the True Mana costs to raise his spell Tiers even higher with the ring were prohibitively expensive.
Sure, he wasn’t lacking in True Mana shards just then. But still. What if he suddenly ran out of True Mana in the middle of a fight because he had tried to use the Mana Infuser ring?
Ray got going. Like before, the chamber narrowed into another of the giant tunnels, though this one was a lot shorter than the passages he had been through so far. He only had to walk for a few minutes before he reached his next, and last, Dungeon Obstacle.
[Primordial Gauge—Dungeon Obstacle]
Torn From The Birthplace
The centre of all burgeoning has been uprooted. Where once lay the mighty source of all growth, there lies nothing at all. Yet the guardian still remains, as does the way forward and the way out. End the guardian’s misery if you seek to advance. But beware that misery can beget desperation.
Ray stared at the words for a little while. The System couldn’t have been more stupidly cryptic if it tried.
Shaking his head, he climbed through the opening in the tunnel that looked more like a hole in the wall. The aforementioned guardian turned out to be yet another Lostcaller. Ray licked his lips. The monster’s identity was clear even at this distance. He was not looking forward to facing another one, though.
The dungeon’s final chamber was just as large as the ones he had been in so far. At the very centre, right where the Lostcaller was located, stood a strange bowl or altar. He wasn’t sure what to call it.
It was clear, though, that there had once been something on it. The same thing that the System had warned was now gone.
Ray frowned. It was a Tower Node, wasn’t it? Had to be. What else could possibly fit?
Well, no new Tower Nodes for Ray. He strode forward. There was a lot more light in the area than in the previous passages and chambers. Looking up revealed a huge hole in the distant ceiling, kind of like what he had seen within the dungeon with the Viledrake.
That had to be his way out of here. Although, how was he supposed to reach it? There was no convenient lift in this dungeon.
Problems for later. First, Ray had to face down another Lostcaller.
The monster was rising to its feet. He cracked his neck as the Lostcaller got to its full height. Alright, time to get this over with.
Their battle begun with a shriek from the Lostcaller. The world distorted, charging up and twisting as much of it turned dark. Ray felt a little like he was floating. Ohe, he knew what this was. That ability of the monster to transport everything into a strange spiritual, afterlife-like realm. What was it called? Oh, right. Dead Rift Roar.
The world turned haunting. Illegible sounds whispered into Ray’s ears, his senses tingling as his eyesight dimmed. He was losing control of himself, his balance, of his senses.
But it wasn’t just the disorientation that hit Ray. It was the souls themselves appearing a second later. He had to stare. Smudges of brilliant blue-white were flying through the murky world he had been transported into, all floating closer to the Lostcaller.
It was only thanks to Primordial Gauge that Ray understood those were souls. Souls… Ray froze for a second.
Then acted.
He cast his latest acquisition. Black-red energy sparked to life as he used Deathlife Corral. The energy spread far and wide in little lines, shooting through the disembodied spirits and locking them in place. Holding them all—well, the ones within his spell’s acting radius—near Ray himself. Keeping them from getting to the Lostcaller.
The monster’s second shriek pronounced that it was clearly aghast at Ray’s intrusion into whatever it had been attempting to accomplish.
It shocked the monster enough that Dead Rift Roar’s effects started to disappear. The real chamber returned, complete with the light from above. Ray regained his composure, standing straight once again.
“Thanks for handing me the win,” Ray said. “You dumbass.”