Chapter 24 : The Dungeon (Actually this time)_New World : Voidborn

I kicked open the next chest to find yet another Runescript.

“HAHA. ANOTHER ONE!” I exclaimed, getting a chorus of groans. “And a few Crystals. Just a Tier 3 though.”

Treia sidled up next to me and frowned at the paper. “How does this even excite you? Do you need me to cover myself in Runes?”

“Why would you- wait, you can do that?” I stopped mid-sentence, switching as my brain realized what she’d said. “You can get Runic tattoos? Do they work like normal? Where can you get that done-”

“Idiot,” Treia muttered, though I wasn’t really listening to her at this point as I’d noticed a new Rune and was already looking through my Rune catalog that I’d been gifted from Treia’s mom.

“Hm, a Mana Compression Rune?” I muttered. “‘Can compress Mana that’s pushed through it, either for a steady stream, or more storage… or just to make Fire stronger. That works too.’ How in the world are you the daughter of a woman who burned things down for a living?”

Treia grimanced. “You… don’t want to know.”

I frowned. “What’d your mom do, coerce your dad into it?”

“... Close enough.” She didn’t elaborate.

I shrugged as Mia patted my horn, sitting on my shoulders.

she said.

I frowned up at her. “So can I. They smell horrid. What’s your point here?”

She smacked my horn this time.

I sighed. “Go ahead then.”

She squealed and jumped off my shoulders, dashing through the next stone corridor. There were screeches as she crashed through, but were quickly silenced with an echoing crack of thunder. Then, more roars, screeches, ect. sounded around us, drawn in by the noise Mia made.

I wiped an imaginary tear from my eye. “Ah, she’s grown so much.”

“She gets progressively more annoying by the day,” Leah muttered, echoed by Treia.

I waved my hand. “Pshh, be quiet. She’s perfect.”

***

“I still don’t understand. Where are all the Beasts coming from?” Char muttered from behind Leah.

Leah didn’t notice, since she was still watching Mia closely, most likely wondering how a weapon of mass destruction was simply sleeping in the arms of a Princess. At least Char had wondered that. She’d eventually come to the conclusion that some weapons liked to sleep.

But, onto the more important bit: The Dungeon felt… empty. Too empty for a Dungeon that recently Broke. Whenever she asked Jason about it, he simply sniffed the air and frowned.

“Can’t you smell them? They’re literally everywhere,” he’d say.

Char was still a bit wary of Jason, though she could clearly tell he bore no ill will towards her. Ever since talking with Leah, she viewed him in a slightly different light, and she began to notice oddities. For one, he could slaughter anything in his path without feeling an ounce of disgust. Some things would simply explode from the Abyss Mana (which she presumed he was using since Treia’s Void Mana seemed a bit different) he’d funnel into them, with enough blood and gore to make even Leah nearly throw up and he’d just wave it off like it was another day.

But, there was something wrong with the way he acted that just didn’t fit with Leah’s description of him: his relationship with Mia.

Char could tell that he loved Mia more than possibly anything, but she couldn’t understand why he valued her over everything else. Yes, she was his Bond, but she seemed to be the only thing he genuinely cared about. Even Treia, his girlfriend, wasn’t treated remotely like he treated Mia.

The only conclusion she could come to was that Jason only viewed Mia as “real”. He still was yet to understand that everything happening around him wasn’t a game. And, at this point, she was also starting to worry about him. Not nearly as much as Leah was, but still.

She sighed. “Not much point in thinking about it now,” she muttered.

Char looked over to Leah to see that she’d dissapeared. She blinked.

“Leah? Where-?”

She was then cut off as something grabbed her from behind and she was hit over the head, immedietly knocking her out.

***

After charging through the Dungeon for an hour, I was starting to realize that something was seriously up. There were so few Beasts, but I could smell hundreds around us, thanks to my [Partial Draconic Form]. My jaw clicked (I actually forgot about my split jaw… I thought I’d never get used to it) more often the deeper we went.

“Are you nervous?” Treia asked, her hand in mine.

I thought about playing it up but decided there was no point. “Strangely enough, yeah. I am.”

She raised her eyebrows, slightly surprised. “I thought you would try to act like you’re completely confident in clearing this Dungeon.”

I scowled at Mia as she sang in my head, , while giggling on Treia’s back.

“I might have been thinking about it.”

“But you’d never lie to me, right?” Treia asked innocently.

I gave her a flat look and she shrugged, letting go of my hand and leaning against me. I had a moment’s hesitation before I wrapped my arm around her. She let out a satisfied sigh and closed her eyes, letting me lead her.

For a while, it was completely silent, though I didn’t process that until Mia nudged my mind with confusion.

I stopped, frowning, Treia opening an eye.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, her hair almost completely covering her eye.

“Do you hear that?” I asked her, slowly scanning the cave we were walking in.

She listened for a moment before responding. “No?”

“Exactly.”

She didn’t seem to understand until I gestured around.

“We’re in a Dungeon that Broke. That should be filled with Beasts. And it’s completely silent.”

Her eyes went wide and she turned slowly, scanning our surroundings. She stopped when she looked behind us.

“Jason, Leah and Char are gone,” she whispered.

I spun around to see that, in fact, Leah and Char were completely gone. “If there’s something that can take Leah without her making a sound, we might be screwed. She’s the loudest person I know.”

Mia, still on Treia’s back, sniffed the air.

Without hesitation, I sent a blast of Ice upwards at the same time as Mia, freezing the leg of some sort of spider thing that tried to scurry away. Triea looked up, bewildered, before her expression contorted to disgust.

“Spiders? Seriously?!” she hissed.

I Eyed it and nearly balked at it’s Level.

Assassin Arachnid - Level 92 | Tier 4

A spider that, you guessed it, uses traps to “assassinate” targets or prey. I will capture them and leave them in a web that’s nearly as hard as Platinum. They have high amounts of Agility and Strength, with little in the way of Endurance and Vitality. And, just to rub it in that they’re superior, they have a venom that eats away at Health and Mana.

Threat Level : High

Before I could decide whether to curse or laugh, another eight eyes flashed above us. Then another set of eight. And another. More began flashing into existence until seven spiders, between Levels 87 and 93 were above us.

Treia cursed for me and I tensed.

“The city could’ve been destroyed if the Orchestrator sent things of this Level,” I growled. “Why didn’t it?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Treia responded. “Right now, we need to fight-”

“Oh, hell no. You stand absolutely no chance against these things,” I said back, glaring at her.

She looked back at me, exasperated. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Before I could respond, the spiders pounced.

~~~

Fighting spiders, I found, was not the most pleasurable experience. They were faster than I was unless I was channeling [Abyss Touch], and they hit like trucks, forcing me to use my Armor. I even fully shifted into my Draconic Form, which nearly doubled my speed and power. The most effective part of my kit was my Shards, which moved at nearly the speed of sound, far faster than them.

Treia, however, was having no such luck and was hunkering down behind me, letting me tank all of the damage, only fast enough to dodge some attacks.

Our saving grace was Mia’s [Domain of Ice and Lightning] Tiering Up in the middle of the fight, which significantly slowed them down. I was finally able to pin down a few and kill them, which (THANK THE GODS!) gave me three Levels apiece.

At this point, I decided to use the 378 Free Stats I still had saved up for some reason. I immediately commanded the System to split them all evenly and I nearly fell over from the pain of all the Stats allocating themselves.

The pain faded after a second and I glanced at Mia’s absurd 1 million Health and laughed as she let out a hiss that reverberated in my eardrums and simply shot at the spiders at the speed of sound, letting out a sonic boom that shook the cavern and nearly broke my eardrums. The yelp from Treia behind me told me she hadn’t been as lucky as me.

It was at that point that my most anticipated Skill to Tier Up finally did so.

Wreath of Destruction has reached Level 50!

Wreath of Destruction has Tiered Up!

Wreath of Destruction - Tier 2

Pulling on the Elements of Void or Abyss, wreath your weapon in either of them converting damage dealt with that weapon to that type and increasing damage dealt by a set amount for a certain time. Every hit you make with this skill active will decrease your opponent’s Resistance by 4% for the corresponding Element, stacking to a 60% decrease. This lasts until the duration ends or is refreshed. While your weapon is affected by this, you restore 5% of Damage done as Health and 10% of Damage done as Mana.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Damage Increase : 40%

Duration : 7 min

Cost : 1200 Mana

My grimace of pain faded away as I activated the Taint Detonation and Health and Mana rolled in. Between this and my Armor, if enough enemies were around me and I could do enough damage, I was practically unstoppable.

After nearly twenty minutes of fighting, me and Mia finally killed the rest of the spiders, tired and poisoned while sprawled on the ground. I checked our gains and grinned.

Status

Name : Jason Andromeda (Bonded)

Level 91 | Tier 4

Race : Voidborn Abyssal

Health : 702720/702720 (35136 Health/Min | 585.6/s)

Mana : 702720/702720 (52704 Mana/Min | 878.4/s)

Class : Voidborn Abyssal Prince II (Unique)

Bond : Miana Andromeda

Stats

Strength : 2196 (Base : 732 Effectiveness : 300%) [25%]

Dexterity : 2196 (Base : 732 Effectiveness : 300%) [25%]

Endurance : 2196 (Base : 732 Effectiveness : 300%) [25%]

Vitality : 2196 (Base : 732 Effectiveness : 300%) [25%]

Mana : 2196 (Base : 732 Effectiveness : 300%) [25%]

Intelligence : 2196 (Base : 732 Effectiveness : 300%) [25%]

Free Points : 0

Titles : The Top of Humanity…?, Abyss Enhanced, One Tier Ahead!, Speedrunner II, Global Powerhouse

Skills : All Seeing Eye of the Abyss - Level 29 | Tier 1, Abyss Touch - Level 56 | Tier 2, Void Armor - Level 60 | Tier 2, Wreath of Destruction - Level 52 | Tier 1, Void Manipulation - Level 51 | Tier 2, Avatar of Destruction - Tier 4, Void Rip (Portal) - Level 32 | Tier 1, Partial Draconic Form - Tier 4, Shard of Oblivion - Level 31 | Tier 1, Void Storage - Tier 4

Growth Item Creation Uses : 2

Bond : Status

Name : Miana Andromeda (Bonded)

Level 91 | Tier 4

Race : Abyss Blizzard Serpent (Lightning Attuned) (Humanoid Form)

Health : 1124352/1124352 (56218 Health/Min | 936.96/s)

Mana : 562176/562176 (42163 Mana/Min | 702.72/s)

Bond : Jason Andromeda

Stats

Strength : 1757

Dexterity : 1757

Endurance : 3514 (Base : 1757 Effectiveness : 200%)

Vitality : 3514 (Base : 1757 Effectiveness : 200%)

Mana : 1757

Intelligence : 1757

Titles : Unique Bond

Evolution Level : I

Shared Skills

Abyss Manipulation, Bonded Battling

Bond Level : II

“Mia has officially hit 1 million Health,” I muttered.

Treia groaned from beside me. “And here I thought that 90 thousand was getting close to you. How much Health do you have, 700 thousand?”

I looked over to her and kissed her forehead. “Close. 702 thousand.”

Mia let out a weak yip and pressed her nose to my cheek. Rolling my eyes, I kissed her cheek.

“Yes, you did amazing. As expected from my adorable and powerful Bond,” I cooed.

She let out a satisfied hiss and closed her eyes as she nuzzled her face against me. I sighed and looked up. Then I frowned.

“What’d you think those pouches are?” I asked Treia.

She looked up with me and frowned as well. “Dunno-”

One of the pouches then began to writhe erratically and a familiar voice shouted from inside it, albeit muffled.

“LEMME OUTTA HERE!” Leah shrieked.

I looked at Treia, who’d begun giggling. “Nevermind. I guess we know now.”

***

The Orchestrator’s mandibles clicked in fury. This male had lived through the attack from his best assassins and had even gotten stronger from its fight. How dare it be happy about the loss of it’s best-

Shhh… the Core whispered to it. The boy will die soon. Do not fret.

The Orchestrator looked to the Dungeon Core, his creator. He gave the Core a long look before letting his anger dissipate. The male would die. It would make sure of it.

***

I held Treia as she slept against me, wrapped in my cloak, whose Runes were starting to get a bit worn out. I let her lean against me as she snored lightly, occasionally shifting her weight. I watched with faint amusement as Leah tried to console Char, who clearly had some sort of PTSD from being captured by the spiders and wrapped up like a burrito.

Mia said, sulking on my lap.

Looking down at the disheartened Serpent, I gave her a small smile and a rub of the horn.

She gave me a worried look.

I frowned.

Mia tilted her head.

I nodded.

Mia gave me a flabbergasted look.

Mia blinked.

I shrugged.

Mia thought for a few moments before shaking her head. she said in my mind, wrapping her arms around me.

Pulling her in closer, I sighed, closing my eyes to rest for a while.

~~~

I cracked open an eye as someone nudged my cheek. Treia gave me an apologetic smile before leaning closer and kissing me, something I was still getting used to.

“It’s been a few hours now,” she whispered. “We’re gonna get ready to go.”

I sighed and slowly stood up, carrying a sleeping Mia. I pressed my lips against Triea’s forehead and smiled as she carefully took Mia out of my arms.

“Let’s go then.”

We walked for a few hours, Treia gaining three Levels from a Level 69 wolf that tried to pounce on her. After continuing on for a little while, we came across a large room with what looked like a sleeping stone giant in the middle with a Gold Chest behind it.

Triea’s eyes widened and we all huddled together to discuss it, even having me wake up Mia, though she wasn’t happy about waking up until she heard what Triea had to say.

“This is a Boss room,” Treia explained. “As the name suggests, it’s a room with a Boss. Though, judging by how clean the room looks, it might actually be new, raised to our Level, so the chest may have something for all of us.”

Char looked a bit nervous as she looked over to the Boss. “I can’t really fight… I distribute buffs, not that they’re good…”

Leah gave Char a baffled look. “Your buffs are great! Mana Cost reduction, Damage multipliers, Healing, Damage reduction, they’re all amazing!”

“Or I could just throw my sword at it,” I grumbled. “That might be just as effective.”

“At least use some buffs,” Treia countered.

I raised an eyebrow. “I literally have eight self-buffs, two of which that are completely overkill.”

“Overkill as in…?” Treia said skeptically.

“One that, with just two Shards, can decrease Abyss RES by 60% and another that just gives me a 535% Damage increase.”

The entire group just stared at me blankly, taken off guard. I stared back, simply bored.

“What?” Treia hissed.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s all basically my weapon. And you can’t complain. Your sword can do a solid 48000 damage with 12000 damage every 4 seconds. And this isn’t even counting the other buffs the sword gives you along with the buffs you get from your other Skills. That 2% Damage per stack buff also isn’t even limited to one thing. If there’s, say, 100 things you’re fighting, and they all have 10 stacks, which, seeing your Skills, is probably very easy to make happen, you can do 2000% more Damage. It’s a wonder there’s no cap to that.”

She blinked, her face going red. “Oh… I never really thought about it that way…”

I shrugged, activated my Armor, Wreath, and 12 stacks of Prodigy (just for good measure) and threw my sword at the pile of rocks while infused with Abyss.

Critical Hit!

Bypassed Defense!

1208043 Abyss Damage!

Immediately, the rock Beast dissolved into pebbles and I simply stared at the message until it disappeared.

“Uh. Okay,” I muttered. “Now, that’s not even fair.”

Treia stared at me, baffled. “How much damage did you just do?”

I turned towards her with a bored expression. “Over a million. I just want to know how 10000 translates to 1.2 million.”

She stared at me for a long, long moment before sighing. “I can’t even be surprised.”

Char, however, had simply fainted when I said the damage I’d done. I frowned. “Well, let’s go get our ‘prize’,” I mumbled, walking over to the chest and kicking it open.

Once the chest opened, I felt a flicker of surprise from Mia, then an overwhelming feeling of Need. I looked at Mia, completely caught off guard at the force of her emotions, who scrambled over to the chest and reached in before I could and pulled out a light blue orb that seemed to pulsate.

“A… orb,” I said, unimpressed.

Treia looked closely at it before her eyes went wide. “That’s a Dual Core! Ice and Lightning Attuned!” she exclaimed.

I tried to force my disappointment from the “fight” as I processed this. “A Dual Core?”

Treia spun towards me, joy evident on her face. “An Evolution Core!”

I frowned as I tried to Eye it.

“I can’t use my Identify Skill,” I said, uncomfortable with this information. “Actually, the very sight of that orb is not filling me with joy.”

It was at this moment I realized that all my current active Skills had flickered out of existence.

I took a wary step back from Mia before announcing this.

Treia simply looked confused. “What? Why are you speaking Elvish?”

I looked over to Leah, who had the same look of complete bewilderment and had taken a few steps away to the other side of the room. She looked at me and spoke quickly in Spanish, which my brain had to catch up to understand.

“I can’t use any god magic,” she said, though it probably meant : “I can’t use my Divinity.”

I had to force myself to speak English again. “I… can’t… Mana…”

Treia seemed to understand that there was something wrong with my Mana and she told something to Mia in what I thought was Common. Mia blinked and looked at me, clearly a bit panicked.

Instantly, Mia opened our [Void Storage] and threw the Evolution Orb in it, the pressure on my Mana releasing and my Armour flickering back into existence at full force.

“-Jason! What’s wrong?!” Treia yelled, running over to my side as my knowledge of Common flooded back into my mind.

“I… don’t know,” I said as she went up to me, concerned. “Give me a moment…”

I then promptly blacked out.

***

Mia sat next to her Bond as he slept, feeling guilty. She didn’t know that the special sphere would hurt him. Mia had gotten caught up in the joy of finally finding what she needed to evolve that she hadn’t realized that it had stopped the Mana flow through her Bond’s body.

She looked over to Treia, who was talking with Leah, who’d been able to withstand the sphere for longer, and the untrustworthy tail girl.

“-have something to do with how you two aren’t from this world,” tail girl was saying. “There are reports of newly Integrated people having adverse reactions to certain magical objects, like Evolution Orbs and Runes, that cause their Mana to-”

“Cause it to short-circuit,” Leah finished with a frown on her face. “I think because I use Divinity, I wasn’t affected as badly. But Jason was completely cut off from Mana and completely forgot to speak anything other than his native language.”

“He speaks Elvish natively?” Treia asked in surprise.

Leah shrugged. “Where we’re from, it’s called French, ‘the language of love’,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Or as Jason calls it, ‘the language of no relationships,’ though now you exist.”

“I… don’t exactly feel much more comfortable knowing that. I think you should stick to ‘the language of love’.”

Mia crawled onto Treia’s lap, which was almost as comfortable as Jason’s lap, but, for now, would be good enough, to listen in.

Tail girl tilted her head. “Don’t you want to know more about him?”

“That’s not the point,” Treia said grumpily, rubbing Mia’s lightning horn and shoking herself. As she waved her hand, she continued. “I like knowing more about him, but-”

Leah snorted. “I know far too much about him and will tell you that learning any more than the basics is not worth your time.”

Treia looked at Leah curiously. “Why is that?”

“Because all of the things I could tell you would be useless for you. Neither of us can be as dumb as we were before.” Leah shook her head. “I mean, we can, but it’s already difficult enough as it is. I’m part of the Valkyries and he’s my supposed mortal enemy. I still don’t understand what Abyssals did to the Valkyries, but he has nothing to do with it.”

Tail girl frowned, but didn’t elaborate. Treia sighed, this time rubbing Mia’s ice horn.

“Well, I guess we just have to wait until he wakes up-”

“Boo,” a monotone voice said from above them.

The girls shrieked, expecting an attack when the looked up, only to be met with laughter from Mia’s Bond.

Bond laughed from above them, nearly falling off the platform of Void Mana he sat on as the four girls scrambled around. Mia felt amusement flowing from her Bond and giggled herself, unable to contain it.

“That…” he wheezed. “Was priceless. Didja miss me?”

Chapter 24 : The Dungeon (Actually this time)

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