The white light faded, leaving behind Sam’s new target.
An armoured, towering emancipated warrior stood before him. Its armour looked like it was made of twisted bone and sinew. On second glance, in the poor lighting, it seemed that wasn’t the case. The skin, body, and armour were all an exoskeleton of sorts. It seemed like it was filled with a dark, swirling mist that puffed out through small holes and openings with flames, illuminating it for a brief second. The empty eyesockets on its bald head had an eerie red glow.
[ Echo of Rage
STR: 35
DEX: 10
VIT: 40
SPT: 0
HP: 1050 / 1050
Defence: 10
Damage: 90
Abilities: Adaptive Defense, Vengeful Feedback, Wrathful Aura. ]
[ Adaptive Defence:
Each time you take damage, temporarily dramatically increases resistance towards that damage type.
-Can stack up to three resistances. ]
[ Vengeful Feedback: Any critical hits reverberate to the attacker, possibly stunning or weakening them. ]
[ Wrathful Aura:
An aura that slows and drains the strength of enemies. The closer an enemy gets to you, the more it affects them ]
“Oh... no...” Sam commented, specifically when seeing two of its Abilities.
He knew his main source of damage was cutting weapons, theoretically piercing weapons if he stabs with them, but that’s two... and Adaptive Defence looked bad...
Not wanting to risk waiting too long, Sam sent out his swarm, using his new sword as it was a singular target, and he was glad to see the result.
The Shadow fang triggered, applying a 1 second blind, the Warblade also landed a critical hit, increasing its 80 base damage to 176, and several other weapons landed a critical hit. The Bleeding Edge and several smaller blades missed, sliding off its armour.
There were also more than five hits, so this triggered Static Charge as expected.
[Echo of Rage HP: 504 / 1050
Defence: 10
Defence vs cutting: 1000
Defence vs electricity: 1000 ]
Sam’s victorious feeling of doing half its health in one attack was very short-lived, he felt a powerful wave of energy hit his body like an electric punch locking up all his body’s muscles, he couldn’t move, he had problems looking at anything, not able to properly move his eyes, his chest seized up barely being able to breathe in short gasps.
[ Failed to resist Vengeful Feedback; Stunned. ]
He was so focused on everything else, and the Adaptive Defence that he missed a crucial detail. The monster stepped closer to him, the blind had already worn off. Getting into range it made a powerful and wide sideways slam with its long arms, landing true in Sam’s side. Its clawed hand pierced his side, his neck, his arm and his thigh as the momentum and force of the attack lifted him off his feet, sending him flying. Landing on the ground several steps away he tumbled across the glossy floor before he hit the curved wall.
[ Armour, Defence 50 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 70 / 205 ███░░░░░░░ ]
Sam was able to move after this, barely, he was still sluggish, and weak, it was hard to get back on his feet, both from the damage affecting him and the stunning and weakening effect that hadn’t entirely left him yet.
Using all his strength he managed to get a potion out of his pocket and shove it in his mouth.
[ HP: 170 / 205 ████████░░ ]
His idea was to attack the creature at the same time as his Psyhands, as they only needed mental control, but it seemed that the weakness affecting him also affected the stability of his connection with them. He used all his focus and energy to drink that potion.
The creature was stepping after him, and now that his mind was more aware of things he could feel the oppressive aura that emanated from it, each step it took closer had an almost suffocating pressure that increased as it got closer.
Trying to move his Psyhands only had limited effect, and he could barely move, but as the creature wound up for another attack, Sam remembered, his shoes had a skill attached!
[ Flash Step Activated ]
Triggering his shoes, his whole body blinked out of existence only to reappear on the other side of the monster. It wasn’t the longest distance but it was enough to avoid getting hit.
The creature looked around for him, using a few valuable seconds to get its bearings, during which Sam did his best to lift his weapons and attack, but the debuff on him was still too strong, he could barely get his weapons lifted by the time it saw him.
Doing the best he could to avoid getting hit only failed, rather than swiping at him it picked him up with its long, slender fingers around his body, and slammed him into the floor. He had no chance of resisting.
[ Armour, Defence 50 has lowered the damage. Critical hit. ]
[ HP: 40 / 205 ██░░░░░░░░ ]
This was bad, another one of those and he’s dead. Taking two of his daggers out of sheaths on his body, he stabbed them into the hand of the creature, this was enough for it to let Sam go and though he fell to the floor he managed to land well enough that he didn’t hurt himself.
Using the time to chug another potion, his health rose to 140 as he started limp-running around, feeling that the restrictions on him were lowering considerably. Though he still felt weak, sluggish and quite horrible it was somewhat lessening.
Realising that he was regaining control over his Psyhands was the biggest relief he could get at the moment. Considering his next action he only had one, he needed to gable on taking it out with some stabs as it would be a different damage type.
Reaching out he picked up as many weapons as he was able to, and sent them forward in a stab, making sure it would trigger Cluster strike. He felt the familiar pull and push of the weapons as he did his best to not critically hit.
The attempt in not critically hitting meant that he had to focus weapons to hit seemingly non-vital areas, this caused a large collection of them to miss, but at least none of them critically hit!
[Echo of Rage HP: 194 / 1050
Defence: 10
Defence vs cutting: 1000
Defence vs electricity: 1000
Defence vs piercing: 1000]
“.... Fuck...” Sam commented to himself as he saw that the damage he did wasn’t enough to take it out, and he was out of damage modes. He didn’t dare to punch it, not that his punches would go through the Defence rating, and his Force Pulses didn’t do damage.
Sam started running to keep away, the creature was surprisingly fast, but now that he was out of damage modes he needed to figure out something. Its vitality was too high for the Venom Toothpicks to do anything, and he didn’t have anything besides pointy blades to use. As he was thinking and running, he dropped some daggers to use Force Pulses on its eyes and hands to at least keep it busy, it helped him dodge the incoming attacks enough that the glancing strikes were handled by his armour, but he didn’t have much he could do but wait for the temporary timer on the Defences to run out.
Using his running around to drink his last potion, he filled out his health again, feeling at least a bit better about it.
This lasted a short while until the creature changed its approach. Rather than following Sam around in circles, it walked into the centre of the room and started approaching Sam that way, this made it considerably harder to run away, and its exceptional reach made Sam’s dodges almost useless. It also didn’t help that whenever it got closer, the suffocating aura made it harder to move around or dodge, having to use his Force Blast to attack incoming attacks or its eyes, or just using the Psyhands to push a little, helping his dodging ever so slightly.
“When’s that fucking timer gonna run out?!” Sam barked at his opponent. This was very annoying, he didn’t have any other form of damage, he had tried to ‘punch’ with the Psyhands before but since he didn’t have any attribute calculation for damage they did zero. His fists would at least do one damage each but... that wouldn’t get through the Defence, so...
The monster came closer again, the aura made dodging and running problematic, letting it hit with its wide swing again, at least not landing a critical hit but it still hurt quite a lot.
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[ Armour, Defence 50 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 165 / 205 ████████░░ ]
Trying his luck for an amazing attack, he sent forth his swarm of blades in a stabbing motion, with four misses and zero critical hits as he was careful about that, zero damage got through and... he suspected that the countdown on the damage was probably reset...
Doing his best to get some distance, his mind spun, thinking of everything he could do. He already used his flash step shoes, even if they weren’t used that would only be once. The rest he had was surprisingly stealth-focused. The only skill that could aid in this case, the monster had resistance towards, and the only two damage types he had available it was also resistant against.
As the oppressive aura made another dodge fail, even with his speed-boosting items, he took another 40 damage from it but had an idea.
[ Armour, Defence 50 has lowered the damage. ]
[ HP: 125 / 205 ██████░░░░ ]
But, he did have a fourth damage type, every weapon had a pommel, handle or at least back-side, he just needed to get that through! It might not damage as much but that didn't matter, the monster’s Adaptability could only hold three resistances!
His newfound motivation changed everything, turning all his weapons around he tried striking it with the backs or sides of his weapons. The sudden movement and twist around made it a bit harder to hit, as the weapons weren’t designed for this their delivery of force wasn’t exactly as it should be, and this affected the damage considerably... for the weapons that hit.
[Echo of Rage HP: 104 / 1050
Defence: 10
Defence vs electricity: 1000
Defence vs piercing: 1000
Defence vs blunt: 1000 ]
“HAH! Get fucked!” Sam shouted out in joy a second before the creature managed to land a punch, it had only been swiping and slapping at him through the whole fight so he didn’t expect a punch, the poor lighting in the room also made it hard to see properly.
But, the cutting resistance was gone!
Bringing up his whole swarm, ignoring to avoid critical hits or not, he sent it forward, he just wanted to end it!
9 misses, all of his named weapons including the Warblade missed, and 5 critical hits landed which reverberated back and stunned Sam entirely... again. But, the total of 19 hits was enough!
The monster let out a weird hissing shriek as the mist-like entity within it dissipated into the air before the armour it wore fell to the ground.
Sam wanted to rejoice as the victory window popped up, but he couldn’t move, he struggled with breathing. Mentally choosing to extend the time luckily worked and an hour was added to the time, letting him at least attempt to sigh in relief.
Standing like that in complete silence for a while, the effect started fading and he could breathe more easily, got more control over his Psyhands and eventually was back to himself again. Though this monster wasn’t as... uncomfortable, as the other two, he was potentially the most dangerous.
Had Sam known what he knew now about the resistance, it would have been different, he could have just hit him with a full volley, let him get the resistance, then split up the second wave of attacks between blunt and mostly stabbing, kicking the cutting one off the board and taking him out in the following round. It might not have been that perfect but it would have gone better.
He thought about it before, and it’s a well-known fact but; Knowledge is power.
Finally choosing to sit down, he used a reward window to get some food and water, it was bland but kept him going. At the same time, he wondered what the point of all of this was. It felt like a normal wave-surviving event, if it was winnable it would be in the form of ‘survive 100 waves’ or something, at least having a predetermined goal. Here he had nothing, he was just fighting because he was attacked.
Having eaten his bland sandwich and drank some water, he got up and looked around a bit, specifically at his last target. He was hoping to find some of his armour usable, but also that it wouldn’t be usable as it was creepy and disgusting. To his pleasant surprise, it wasn’t!
The appraisal skill just listed it as the corpse of Echo of Rage, all stats and abilities zeroed out, it was still just as unsettling to look at, as the face, skin and... whole body were there, but looking through the holes in the body around and it was just some weird void, not just dark or empty, but even with the flashlight on his phone he couldn’t see the ‘other side of the inside’ through it.
Dropping the pieces back to the floor, he started walking around the room as he went back to his logic of wanting potions before the next 50th wave fight. His aim was back towards the corridor as he was probably going to get a lot of Aether Crystals, might as well have them drop in there so he didn’t have to clean up again.
This happened a bit faster this time, but with less fancy rewards. The 12th box he opened gave him the second potion, so that’d have to work for now. He didn’t get anything else of any significant value but he did get 22 Aether Crystals, which was shoved into the evergrowing pile in the end of the hallway. Wondering if there was something he could use them for, except very inefficient charging of his phone, but he didn’t think so.
The TAC guide application explained some more about them, but it wasn’t anything practical, he hoped they would explode or something if shattered, but... though they could absolutely shatter and break, that just ruined their energy storage without any effects save a shattered crystal, it was worth less than glass in that form.
Letting out a deep sigh he sat down in his little hallway, the timer ticking down more and more, wondering how many times he was going to have to go through this again. What was the victory condition, was there even one or was this just for some sadistic pleasure of the Entities? He wanted to get out, he wanted to return the favour of the shit they had thrown at humanity... no.. not humanity, he wasn’t that good-natured, he wanted revenge for the shit that happened to him, humanity’s issues were secondary goal. He wanted to shout things to anyone who might be watching but... If they were watching, being called out and confirming that he knows was probably a bad idea.
As strange as it sounded, he was strangely ‘comfortable’ with the thought of being watched at all times, it wasn’t right, and it was creepy as shit, but he managed to accept that easier than he expected. Having spent time in the shower and intimate moments without considering it, so he was at least handling it relatively well? Or perhaps that was a coping mechanism, but it didn’t matter.
Fatigue was creeping in as the timer was running out, he had 14 minutes left and he realised that he’d rather just sleep for a day before continuing.
“Expand time, 10 hours.” The countdown changed from the remaining 14 min to 10 hours and 14 min, as he mentally accepted 10 reward windows into Time he set an alarm for 10 hours. His phone had plenty of power left, and he hadn’t even come close to consuming the one Aether Crystal he used to test the charging with, a crystal of that size and grade should last him quite a while according to the Guide app.
For now, he decided to just lay down and go to sleep, going as far as to put on some music on his phone, letting it echo across the smooth walls as he relaxed, placing all his weapons a bit away in the hallway he drifted off.
Waking up to the sound of the alarm and vibration, he turned it off with a limp arm and barely open eyes. Though the brightness of the screen was at the minimum it still felt fucking bright in this dim room. Parts of his still-sleeping mind looked around for signs of Dia, having gotten used to her presence when he woke up but, there was only the silent hallway, the pile of Aether Crystals and the promise of more shit to come.
Sitting up, he realised two things. The first was that he was hungry again, so using one of the reward windows for some sustenance handled that, but the other was a bit weirder, he didn’t feel like he had to go to the toilet at all... that hadn’t felt like something he needed to do since he came here. But, further thinking he realised that he never seemed to have this feel within dungeons, but before he assumed this was due to a time and focus thing but... now he’d been in here for a while, and it should have happened by now. Parts of him imagined smearing the walls with excrement as a kind of in-your-face to the Entities, but this was fine.
Getting up after he had eaten, the remaining time before the claimed Wave 51 was nearing its end. He was fed up with this loop, he hated it, but he didn’t want to just give up either, he was going to push on, get through this shit, no matter what kind of nightmares they throw at him he was going to pay them back when he got to the top.
Exiting the hallway into the main room, he realised that perhaps it was a good idea to somehow keep track of how many rounds he had been through... in case he was here for a while. Taking one of the daggers he carved three tally marks on the wall near where it hallway exits into the main hall. He’d just update that every reset and see how that goes.
But for now, he sat back down in the rough middle of the room, waiting for things to spawn and focusing on trying to find out how the Ascendant thing worked, he wanted more numbers changed for the better, especially since shit in here didn’t give him XP.
He stared at his statistics screen, trying the same roundabout way to augment the number as before.
[ Wave 51 ]
[ Wave %1 ]
[ Wave #Ӥ1 ]
[ Wave 1 ]