Victor diverted an incoming blade. It screeched past his interlocked blades, but Chloe was quick to counter. Her thin glowing sword pierced through the beast's eye with quick precision. Not a murmur left its throat as it was instantly killed.
You defeated a - Level 34 Golem.…
| Extra experience gained from fighting a higher levelled monster!
You have Levelled up!| Victor ( Harbinger of Fear ) level 29 -> Victor ( Harbinger of Fear ) level 30
The golems were difficult to kill. Victor relied on slashing, but with the hardened exterior that was akin to stalwart armour, his blades refused to cut into them.
To defeat them, he had to act as a tank would. Obtain their enmity, then allow Chloe to pierce their vitals in one swift movement. That meant he had to suffer injuries if he wanted to slaughter them. And he did.
Victor pressed against the deep gash in his forearm. Just having the two of them fight together, with no Vitality user to take the brunt of the damage, was disastrous. Only because of his high grade skills and Path did they manage to take on the opponents in front of them. But it was becoming too difficult.
Yet Chloe still fought with him. Why?
“Why did you choose to come with me?” he asked. Taking a health potion from his bag, he uncorked it, then swallowed down the contents within. “You could have chosen the same as the others. To side with Noah. I don’t understand your reasoning.”
Chloe grabbed hold of the sparkling blue that had spawned in the air in front of her, she grabbed it, then turned to Victor. “It’s clear Noah only thinks of himself. What’s stopping him from charging ahead, Calum, and the others following because they need him, then he just ups, and disappears?”
“At least with you we can decide our own battles. Take it slow and steady. Reaping the rewards for ourselves. We may not be the ones to kill the ‘Lord’, but we can take the time to grow stronger”
Victor nodded. It made sense. Noah was strong, but following him was indeed too risky. Would the others follow him, or throw him away when he has fulfilled his use?
However, he disagreed with the latter part of her words. Time. It was something he didn’t have. He had to kill Noah now before he received any more upgrades. From the time he fought him in the cave, it was evident he was catching up despite Noah’s meteoric speed of levelling. It told Victor he didn’t have the best Pathways, or Skills. At their current progress, Victor would grow stronger as they continued to level.
Take that away, and Victor would no longer feel as confident. He had to nip the mounted warrior in the bud.
Fighting like this was risky, but they could manage. With just the two of them, their rate of levelling would be faster–depending on the enemies the others were facing, of course.
Victor took a breath. The potion was taking effect. Wounds scabbed over. They itched.
The duo prepared for a few minutes. Bandaging each-others wounds in silence, using any of the fragments they had to gain any last effort power-ups. When they were ready, they set out once more.
The large room that they had just left was covered in red brick, candle-sticks hung on the sides of the walls, and a dull red carpet lined the floor. But now they left all of that behind.
In the distance, all Victor could see was a never ending tunnel, or hallway. Dull grey, almost black brick had replaced the colour from before. It felt like they were walking toward the gateway of hell. Victor felt no fear. He was the ruler of it. It bent to his will.
Soon, there was a change. A split path. One went left, the other right.
Mission Obtained:
| Take the left path. Walk on it until the end.
| Reward: Obtain your Desire.
My ‘Desire’? Victor tilted his head, his lips curled. It was Noah. He desired to see those pale blue eyes drip with fear.
Victor didn’t know why he wasn’t susceptible to his skills. But he knew the human wasn’t entirely bereft of the sensation.
He had sensed it for a second at the beginning of their fight.
It must be due to a skill. All he wanted was to erase that barrier, and show Noah a world he would never be able to revisit.
One foot in front of the other, he waltzed into the path on the left.
***
Noah stopped moving and focused on the tremor sense that Krall’s form provided when he activated the Monster shard. But there was nothing. The hallways either travelled too far to detect anything, or something was stopping his sense from working at all.
Just as he was about to turn to the others and see what they thought, a system notification popped up within his vision.
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Mission Obtained:
| Take the left path. Walk on it until the end.
| Reward: Obtain your Desire.
My ‘Desire’? What the hell is my desire? Noah thought. Was it his desire to become stronger, to be free? He didn’t know. But now he was curious. If he walked down the left path, would it make his desires apparent?
He walked forward, but it was evident by the other’s reactions that they didn’t want to join him.
“You’re not coming?” He asked, specifically Lorena, who he was on good terms with.
She shook her head. “I have received a mission to travel the path on the right. If it is a blessing from my sponsor, I shall take it.”
Her words were like a lightning bolt flashing within his mind. That’s right. If the sponsors were some all powerful beings, did they have the capabilities to grant missions through the System?
Maybe one of his sponsors was wanting him to take the left path. Maybe they knew something he didn’t?
It was the same for the others. They gazed at the right path with new found motivation. It seemed they had all received the same mission, and it was telling them all to go right.
“Thraz, what about you?” Noah asked.
“It’s telling me to go left.”
“What about anyone else?”
They all shook their heads. The right path was their destination.
“Well I guess this is it then,” Noah continued. “Meet you all on the other side. Maybe.”
“Stay alive, Noah,” Lorena said with a slight smirk. “We may need your help for the Lord of the dungeon.”
“I’ll do my best.” Noah waved with his back turned to them. He headed into the tunnel.
Noah didn’t know what to expect, but hopefully it would give him some answers. He had to admit, the reward was an interesting one. Far more exciting than simple skills, or pathways. Would it be better, or worse?
He would have to wait and see.
Glancing to Thraz, he asked, “What’s the reward for your mission?”
“Something about obtaining my Desire,” He said, excitement evident within his feverish eyes.
“Oh?” Noah continued. “You expecting something?”
“Yes, if it’s my desire, then my partner will be somewhere here!”
“What? That Heren–whatever it was?”
“Herengon,” Thraz corrected. “Yes, I had an arranged partnership with her tribe. Kaya is her name. She is my desire!”
“Oh, then I do hope you’re able to meet her.” Noah said helplessly.
He was expecting something more… grand. Like besting a dragon, or something.
Maybe he really likes the girl? It was cute. In a dragonborn, scaly kind of way.
Noah never really had the chance to think about relationships. He was too busy surviving, and preparing. Feelings of the heart were a luxury he didn’t have the chance to pursue. But maybe in this new world?
Thraz was corrupting him.
Shaking his head, he focused on the task at hand. The hallway soon opened up into a larger rectangular room. Honestly, it just looked like an even wider hallway, but the size wasn’t the only difference.
Large pits filled the room like visible traps. Shouldn’t they be covered? Noah thought. He hesitated to get closer. He needed to be careful.
Noah activated his Monster Shard and felt the Expansion Energy within his core dwindle by the second. He once again focused on the unique sense Krall had gained from his evolution. Tremor Sense. At least that’s what Noah named it.
Ripples left Krall's limbs and seeped into the floor, like a drop of water striking a still pond. The miniature waves crept forward, then bounced back to Krall. Yet the only thing he could tell about the pits was, it was deep. Unfathomably so. Not only that, even the walls bounced back nothing. As if something was cancelling his skill, just like the tunnels before.
He waited for something to happen. Anything. But the room was still.
Guess it’s one of those presence activated trap rooms, huh?
Tutting, Noah grabbed one of the spare weapons he had in his bag; a dagger, to be exact, and threw it into the room. Nothing.
Oh to hell with it. Sighing, Noah ordered Krall to walk forward. Thraz to the side, they entered the room at the same time.
Just as they walked through the entrance, the walls grumbled to life. The sound of rock grinding against rock filled the entire room. Sprinkling of dust, and fragmented earth fell from the ceiling, as if protesting at the movement.
Holes emerged from the walls, and monsters emerged from the darkness. Not only that, the entrance behind him ground to a close, then shifted toward him–pushing him toward the holey floor.
I hate this. Noah spat. Not allowing the wall to judge his movement, they leapt to a solid piece of land of his choosing. Thraz jumped to the side of him.
Snarling. Noah snapped his vision to a hole in the wall. Glistening white teeth displayed themselves, dripping some sort of nasty secretion down onto the tiled floor below. Dripping, it sizzled the rock underneath, eroding it until only a hazy smoke filtered up to the ceiling.
It stepped forward, showing off its gruesome face. It was a hound, but most of its face was gone. Savage knife-like teeth flashed, unhidden from a lack of flesh to cover them. Two green embers flickered within its eye sockets. It was undead. Just like the skeleton from before.
Ignoring the dungeon theme, he readied himself for a fight.
The largest of the hounds bounded straight for him. Leaping from its hole, the toxic teeth threatened to consume him.
Krall snarled. Thrashing his hand in a wide arc, it slammed the monster down into the deep chasm. It was undoubtedly dead, but dozens bolted out of the walls. Straight for them.
Relying on his keen sense of smell given from Krall, Noah snapped his spear into an oncoming hound, piercing its heart. Then another, he penetrated its skull with the point of his weapon.
Then–
Noah’s eyes widened at the sight of a humanoid wolf appearing in front of him. It was too fast. He relied on the blinking skill, his dual blades blurred with a red haze, and clashed against his raised spear.
Gritting his teeth, he was about to mount a counter attack, but the ground rumbled. At the entrance, the floor fell. One after the other, it approached Noah as Victor readied another attack.