Ray decided he wasn’t going to call that thing a humanoid. Rather, Everair-oid seemed a more appropriate term.
Ignorant of Ray’s internal terminological debate, the dungeon guardian charged.
Ray shouldn’t have been surprised it was flying. The thing was supposedly a guardian of Flight Mana. What else would it have been doing in the first place? Thankfully, Ray was more than fast enough to dodge away from it with his own wings coming into play.
Bolts of regular Chaos Chymify did very little damage to it. That spell worked best with living matter, not artificial constructs. He was going to need a Shatterclaw.
Before he could use his other offensive spell, Ray was struck by a storm. Of course. Enemies specializing in Flight Mana seemed to have a predilection for gusts and gales.
This monster flavoured it with all the debris lying around. Bits and pieces of mechanical constructs, machines he couldn’t identify, bricks and masonry from long-destroyed structures, the works. All of it flew into the air as a miniature cyclone erupted into being around the guardian and assailed Ray.
He flew back, granting himself some more distance, and used Mottling Membrane. The defensive spell wasn’t strong, but it was just strong enough to throw off the trajectory of most of the debris from hitting him.
Unfortunately, that also meant that Ray was now too distant to use Shatterclaw on the guardian. He kept moving to the side while maintaining spacing, using Mottling Membrane periodically to keep himself safe.
The problem with fighting non-living creatures was that he couldn’t predict their next moves easily.
Like, the guardian didn’t have any regular eyes that Ray could have tried to fool with Occultic Apparition. It definitely didn’t have a regular mind that he could afflict with Insanity.
What he did have was a way to get an overpowered laser beam right at the start of a fight.
With his Hallow Reputation taking care of the need for True Mana, Ray used True Enhancement on the Greater Windbane Maw, crafting it on the length of his arm with Primal Summons. Boisterous energy coursed through his body, turning him into a livewire.
Ray came to a stop, aimed the maw at the guardian, then fired off the gathering, roiling energy.
The laser breath worked perfectly. It crashed into the dungeon guardian in a millisecond, destroying its innards and making its whole frame explode. The chaotic, black-red fire didn’t burn on the pieces of its artificial form for long, but that was fine.
Both the dungeon guardian and the spout of Flight Mana it had formed around were destroyed.
One of these days, he needed to test the range of the True Mana version of the maw’s breath.
[Warning!]
Presence of the Primordial indicates your presence has been detected by Total Perception [Tier 3]. Presence of the Primordial has nullified the aura of Sylvan Pride [Tier 3].
Ah, shit. Were the Sylvans returning? Ray turned around to look. He wasn’t afraid of dealing with them but fighting them altogether would be a bit painful.
It turned out to be just the one Sylvan, as confirmed by Presence of the Primordial. A lone alien standing atop a different mound of debris, watching Ray from the distance. Of course, the Sylvan had likely already alerted the rest that Ray was here, but the fact that this one was alone was… interesting.
“Where’s the rest of you?” Ray asked while using Presence of the Primordial again.
“Why would you care, foolish human?” the Sylvan said. Looked like she didn’t recognize who Ray was, which could only be to his benefit. “You will leave this dungeon, or you will fall to my blade here and now.”
“Why do you want to kill me? Aren’t you supposed to be guiding the new Denizens to advance up the Floors instead of killing them on sight?”
“Do you truly take me for a fool? You are a known murderer of our kind. Of us and our Brighthorns. That I am not killing you already is a mercy you do not deserve. One last warning, human. Leave or die.”
Well, so much for going unrecognized.
“How about I just kill you instead?” Ray asked.
The Sylvan laughed. “I commend your spirit. At least you will die with honour.”
She attacked then. A quick look with Presence of the Primordial had already informed Ray that this Sylvan was little different from a lot of the others he had fought already. An Acrobat Assaulter with the Wind-based Path.
He could have used Vengeful Plunder then, but he was pretty sure this battle wasn’t going to last long enough for that to be anything more than a waste of True Mana.
Unlike the last few ones he had ambushed and killed, he couldn’t take the Sylvan out from a distance. That was fine. With how much he had levelled up and grown since his last real battle with one of her kind, he was curious to see just how well he would stack up against her. Good thing this Sylvan provided just the opportunity he was looking for.
Ray shot bolts of Chaos Chymify at her which she nullified with Pressure Block. But only the first couple of times.
She seemed to realize that even blocking was still allowing through at least some of the Insanity affliction. So, the Sylvan quickly reverted to dodging entirely instead of tanking the hits.
That was one score in Ray’s favour.
She tried rushing him down, but a quick Sphereguard of Chaos stymied her. The orbs hung threateningly on either side of Ray, and the Sylvan appeared to understand that if she got too close, she’d be struck.
Unfortunately, she had those annoying Wind Whips to strike at Ray. They came out fast. So fast that Ray himself would likely have been struck by them had his chaos orbs not shot in and sacrificed themselves against every whip of wind. But while his opponent was busy, Ray summoned up his wings, applied Occultic Apparition, and flashed forward.
He got just close enough to cast a Shatterclaw, which the Sylvan dodged instinctively. Then rushed in for a counterattack. Too fast. Even as Ray moved back, she closed in.
The Sylvan had her Pressure Block shield raised. It tanked the last remaining orb but Ray compounded the effect by blasting out a Mottling Membrane. Now that staggered her, slowing down her furious rush enough for Ray to fall back quickly.
Even as he retreated, he cast Arcane Construct to call up the Greater Windbane Maw with the wings that allowed it flight. Distracted as she was, the Sylvan didn’t see it.
As soon as she had recovered, she tried to rush in and attack again, but that was when Ray’s construct flew in from the side. She managed to evade the flames, and even smacked away the maw itself from chomping through her. What she couldn’t react in time to was Ray himself rushing in.
With his arm raised, clearly about to call down a spell, the Sylvan instinctively raised her own Pressure Shield up high. But it didn’t matter.
Because it couldn’t stand up to Ray using the True Mana version of Shatterclaw to take down the Sylvan.
The ethereal arm of monochrome energy tipped with burning scarlet claws ripped into the Sylvan. There was no contest. Ray’s arm crushed the Sylvan where she stood, a blast of chaotic power at the impact ending her life.
[Enemy Defeated—Sylvan]
Acrobat Assaulter [Tier 3] Sylvan: [Level 16] x1
Essence: +2,400
Knowledge: +3
Mana Restored: +160
Essence to Level 18: 5,780/16,500
Knowledge to next Threshold: 454/500
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Ray decided to move on quickly. He couldn’t be sure if the Sylvan had warned the rest of her party about the lone human also inside the dungeon, but it was best to assume that she had. Which meant he needed to act fast.
Not that Ray had a ton to do, of course. Progress through the dungeon mostly involved destroying more of the Flight Mana spouts guarded by the debris guardians in the same manner.
At some point, though, Ray came across a different kind of obstacle. Instead of destroying Flight Mana, he now had to use it.
[Presence of the Primordial—Dungeon Obstacle]
Hidden Passage
The sheer amount of debris littered in the airfield necessitated its caretakers to construct passages that allowed for easier traversal through the airfield. Of course, the Everair themselves could fly over it, but having a straightforward route on foot allowed simpler transportation mechanisms to function. However, the debris has blocked the passages. Use Flight Mana to remove the debris and open up the tunnels.
Ray read through that obstacle description a couple of times. First he had to destroy the spouts of Flight Mana, and now he had to use it. This dungeon really needed to make up its mind.
Although, shouldn’t the Sylvans be facing the same obstacle he was? Didn’t that mean they had to have opened up some passageways too? The dungeon covered a huge area, so he couldn’t be certain where exactly the Sylvans had gone, but it couldn’t have been far.
But if Ray went looking for that, then he would risk meeting one or more Sylvans again.
Hmm. Speed and convenience, or greater surety of safety? Sighing to himself, Ray went looking for a passageway that was already open.
Along the way, he met a couple more of the debris-constructed dungeon guardians. Ray had gotten the exact method of defeating them almost memorized. Since they weren’t really intelligent and had no variation between them, he could execute the exact same pattern as always and come out victorious.
Things got a little more interesting when he finally found the passageway.
Ray didn’t go around looking on his own. That would have been inefficient. Besides himself, he also employed the help of his flying eyeball with Lifeblood Construct.
[Warning!]
Presence of the Primordial indicates your construct’s presence has been detected by Total Perception [Tier 3].
The offending detector of his poor little eyeball turned up at the mouth of the tunnel. Not surprising at all. It was looking more than likely that the last Sylvan had warned the rest. So, this one had come out to see if Ray would indeed appear.
It was good that an “encounter” began at any point Ray decided it began. That meant his use of True Enhancement on the Great Windbane Maw before using Primal Summons caused the improved, ethereal version of the maw to appear over his arm.
As the Sylvan focused on the eyeball, still trying to decide if it was an enemy or not, Ray got into position.
Then he fired off his laser breath.
It was as effective as it had always been. The beam of supremely compressed chaotic fire crashed into the Sylvan with fatal force, instantly killing the alien. Ray didn’t even see where the Sylvan’s body ended up from this distance.
[Enemy Defeated—Sylvan]
Acrobat Assaulter [Tier 3] Sylvan: [Level 16] x1
Essence: +2,400
Mana Restored: +160
Knowledge: +3
Essence to Level 18: 8,180/16,500
Knowledge to next Threshold: 457/500
Cool. He was almost halfway to his next level up. Maybe the next few Sylvans and clearing the dungeon would push him past the requirement and get him his much needed level.
Ray hesitated in front of the tunnel. He could—and did—send his eyeball further inside to continue scouting ahead, but that wasn’t the real issue. What he was actually curious and slightly scared about was the structural integrity of the passage.
As in, what if it began to collapse and crush Ray while he was inside?
Logically, it shouldn’t be an issue. The Sylvans had used it, hadn’t they? It hadn’t collapsed on them. Ray ought to be fine too. But he couldn’t get the claustrophobic fear out of his mind.
Nevertheless, banishing the fear back, Ray strode forward.
The tunnel thankfully didn’t start collapsing on him. Even when he was a good distance inside, where the entrance was now no longer easily visible, the tunnel remained steady. Lucky him.
In fact, though the walls and ceiling were made of compressed debris all joined together with some strange, sludgy matter, they were strong. So strong that the tunnel soon opened up into a huge chamber. One with the largest spout of Flight Mana Ray had seen yet.
Ray could tell he had moved deeper into the bowel of the dungeon. The tunnel had been gently sloping downwards.
He had expected to come upon the rest of the Sylvans in this location, but there was no sign. His eyeball had found nothing, and questing out with Presence of the Primordial didn’t find anything either. Strange. What was the significance of this giant room, the—
The significance materialized in the form of a new dungeon obstacle.
[Presence of the Primordial—Dungeon Obstacle]
Dreaded Guardian
The Everair were aware that their initially selected mechanism of guarding the airfield might not be strong enough. That was why they devised a secondary means of safeguarding their airfields. By simply harnessing the very air, they could create a guardian unparalleled within their airfields. A living, elemental guardian. Defeat it to advance.
Ray stared as the so-called Dreaded Guardian came to life before him. A wind picked up, quickly turning into the furious pace of a storm. Clouds formed ahead of him, dark and heavy as a hurricane. Like with the debris-constructed guardians, this Dreaded Guardian took on the shape of an Everair as well. The only difference was that it grew to a much greater size.
Essentially, the entire middle section of the chamber was taken over by the monster. It was huge.
Unlike with the last few enemies he had faced, Ray actually used Presence of the Primordial this time to grant himself some hopefully helpful information.
[Presence of the Primordial]
Dreaded Guardian [Monster] [Tier 7] [Level 18]
Elemental creature created by the tampering of Flight Mana with need for protection. Constructs its form with a cloud that is difficult to damage. Sustains itself purely on Mana, so it naturally seeks to kill other creatures that can use Mana. As such, it is rarely seen in the presence of other creatures.
Skills:
Cloud Form [Tier 4]: Condense your form into that of a cloud, massively raising your defence against Mana-based, non-physical abilities. At Tier 4, this skill reduces damage from all non-physical abilities by 20%.
Raging Storm [Tier 5]: Unleash a powerful storm that lashes foes with wind, rain, and lightning.
Thunder Charge [Tier 4]: Build a pulse of lightning that strikes your foe when you land a physical hit. Charge will remain active until a direct strike lands.
Dissipate [Tier 2]: Control the density of your form to appear and reappear parts of your body at will. At Tier 2, this skill can vanish and manifest up to 20% of your body at the same time.
Dead Rain [Tier 4]: Call down rainfall that saps your foes of their life force. At Tier 4, this skill steals 4% of your target’s maximum Recovery every second the target is physically under the effects of this skill.
Ionize [Tier 4]: Charge the air in the vicinity to cause sparks to randomly manifest. At Tier 4, the range of this skill is 12 meters.
Huh, interesting. Ray didn’t have much time to read through the entire list of its abilities. The monster had already risen high on its feet, readying to attack and take him out.
Ray could only wonder one thing. If the monster was alive and breathing, then how had the Sylvans gotten past it? Had they just tucked their tails between their legs and booked it out of the area? Or had they found a different route to take them to wherever they needed to be?
And that was Ray’s ultimate concern. While he wanted to clear the dungeon and its obstacles, his priorities had shifted to discovering whatever the Sylvans were here for.
In other words, he couldn’t waste time against this hulking cloud of a guardian.
Ray decided to attack the monster as ferociously as he could in an effort to just defeat it before it took up too much of his time. As such, he used True Enhancement on Shatterclaw, creating his ethereal black-and-white arm to smack the monster with.
But at the very spot he struck, the monster simply disappeared. Ah, right. That was the Dissipate ability coming into play.
In fact, the monster’s cloudy body was already amorphously moving around. It was far too fast, twisting and reconstructing its shape in no time at all.
As fast as Ray could cast his spell, he couldn’t move his True Mana Shatterclaw arm fast enough to keep up with his foe. Even when he managed to land a strike, it didn’t have a ton of effect. Cloud Form was reducing the direct damage he was applying, and since the monster wasn’t made of living matter, the chaotic effect didn’t take hold.
And then the monster was counterattacking. A disembodied cloudy fist smacked in from his four o’clock, Thunder Charge filling up the blow with lightning. Ray already had his wings active, so it wasn’t too difficult to dodge back.
As he evaded, he still tried to hit the monster with his Shatterclaw arm, but all he managed to destroy was the fist that struck him. Nothing else.
He couldn’t tell if that had done much damage. It certainly didn’t look that way at a glance. By that point, it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to be able to beat the monster back as quickly as he had hoped. Not with Shatterclaw.
So instead, Ray began flinging Chaos Chymify. He had to let the Shatterclaw arm dissipate for now, which felt like a waste of True Mana. But that was fine.
Chaos Chymify was having the exact effect he had been looking for.
Despite the monster’s strong defence against Mana-based abilities—which meant pretty much everything in Ray’s arsenal—it didn’t have a strong defence against status afflictions.
Ray could tell that Insanity was proccing. The monster’s movement pattern had changed. Its motion was jerkier now, twitchy and irregular instead of like that of a cloud flowing in the wind. Lashing out in Ray’s direction instead of wreathing him like deadly smoke.
Next, Ray summoned up a flying Greater Windbane Maw. While the chaotic fire it belched didn’t perform the greatest, what it could do instead was directly bludgeon the Dreaded Guardian with a ferocious charge. Non-physical abilities, Cloud Form’s description had said. A draconic head filled with ripping teeth was very much physical.
Even then, with the flying Windbane Maw biting and crashing through its cloudy form and Ray blasting it with more and more Chaos Chymify, the Dreaded Guardian wouldn’t give in. A second later, it unleashed its storm.
It was worse than what the Greater Windbane had thrown out from the mountain peak. Way worse.
Ray was instantly buffeted with powerful winds so strong that even the bolts of Chaos Chymify were blown to different directions from their target. Rain pelted him like watery bullets, and he was forced to retreat as the air sparked and crackled before lightning smacked down.
Ah, shit. This was getting a little too insane for Ray’s liking. Funny, since that was the status he wanted to afflict, but it was taking too long.
So, without further ado, Ray let his construct distract the monster for a little while longer while he flew out.
He had already seen the tunnel restarting at the other end of the chamber. That had to be the direction the Sylvans had gone. Hopefully, Ray would find them fast enough.
Behind him, the monster let out a thunderous roar and the storm continued buffeting him. Clearly, he wasn’t free. In fact, the monster would likely kill the construct in short order, considering how strong it was. And then it would no doubt rush after Ray himself.
But as he wended his way through the tunnel, Ray was pretty certain he would reach his dest—
The passageway opened up, depositing Ray at the tail end of what he could only describe as a giant airship. An airship that a small group of Sylvans were entering. Ray grinned. He had finally found his targets.