I make a break for the starting steps at once. My game plan here is to go at it as fast as I possibly can. The less time these monsters have to stop me, the better. Once I get up to the top, I should have solid footing, and at that point I can fight them all on equal grounds. Until then I just need to avoid them, which shouldn’t be too difficult with my increased agility.
On top of that, compared to the last time I used [Featherguard], my perception speed has also increased somewhat due to the points I dropped into dexterity. To take the same analogy I used before… or was it just a similar one? Meh, can’t call it off the top of my head. Anyways, as I was saying… To take the same analogy I used before, if before I was driving a car at a hundred twenty miles per hour and could barely react to anything, now it’s like I’m driving a car at a hundred miles per hour!
It’s still nigh incomprehensible, but it’s SLIGHTLY more comprehensible than it was before! And I haven’t made mention of it yet, but dexterity in this game is very accommodating.
Anybody familiar with speedsters recognizes the three paradigms they fall into, right? You’ve got speedsters who witness EVERYTHING in their speed-vision, which is a horrid fate. Speedsters with no accelerated thought, so they just go SPLAT into a wall. And then there are speedsters with selective cognition. This game firmly plants itself into that third category.
Now I won’t claim to be an expert…. buuuut I’ve watched a few videos on how that works. Apparently your immersion gear tracks your brain signals reacting to danger and reacts faster than your body itself to slow down your perception, but for some reason a lot of devs opt out of using it. At least they do for the games I play.
…And it feels pretty smooth so, er… I dunno what that says about the games I play, but that’s besides the point! I’m saying that as soon as I feel like I’m in any sort of peril or danger or a situation that requires advanced cognition, it instantly activates without my say so, which is very convenient. It’s not a huge difference, but it is like… twenty percent increased perception speed so far? And that goes a pretty long way. I imagine that if you don’t have much or any agility, playing this game could start to feel like a slog at higher levels when you have more dexterity by force of leveling. You’ll be perceiving everything like, at least two and a half times faster with seventy five if it keeps increasing at this rate, so… eesh. Good thing it’s selective activation.
Man, good thing I have that dexterity to enable these loooooong tangents huh? Now, where was I… Hup, two three four, up the stones and coming for more!
There’s about a two foot long gap between each jump, and I make each of them with haste, but so far none of these birds circling up above have dropped down for me… so, I keep on keeping on. And after taking my fifth jump, do my UT. MOST. TO NOT LOOK DOWN, CAPICHE? OKAY BRAIN? We understand this concept, yes? We don’t look down when we’re yards off the ground? Kay? Kay, cool.
Hup, two, three, four, jump, to, the, floor-not floor, NOT floor-y’know what?
“Screech, when I tell you to do so, create as big of an updraft as you possibly can, alright?”
“Well okay I can do that but it might be a little weak like this.”
“As long as it can slow a fall it’s fine.”
“Well alright! If you say s-oh look out.”
“Huh?”
WHOOSH
Pulling back just in time, I lean out of the way of an intercontinental ballistic bird rocketing through the air. Had I not leaned back, it would’ve crashed straight into my dome, no doubt dealing crippling amounts of holy shit that’s another one.
I shift myself to the right, in towards the wall that the stone I’m on is jutting out of as I frantically attempt to both dodge the incoming strike and regain my balance. Perhaps not being quite as, er, suicidal as I gave them credit for, none of the birds readily choose to launch themselves into the stone I’m standing on now that I'm closer to the wall. Though in my brief curiosity as to the fate of the two that attacked me, I peer over the edge in a moment of foolishness, and come face to face with the reality that I am now at least ten meters off the ground.
Only ninety more to go!!! Or it could be more. It could be a hundred, it could be two hundred, I could have no depth perception, I could be trash, I could be freaking out, in fact I could-
Jasper is rebelling!
WHAP
“Hm?” I practically chirp out loud as Jasper’s tail makes contact with my leg.
“Hmph.”
“...Pardon, but if you had hands, would you have slapped me?”
“Mhm.”
Alright, fair enough. This is a situation wherein one could benefit from a good slapping, I’ll concede that. Wipe that image of a fall from your mind and proceed onwards.
[Recall].
“Thanks Jasper.”
“Mhm.”
Really… DO NOT look down again.
The two birds that decided to dive rise back up, clearly having somehow breaked before hitting the ground despite their immense momentum. They fly right by me, giving me the stink eye as they do it, regrouping with their flock in the aftermath. If I count right, I’d say there’s about a dozen of them up there. Each of them probably being an agility-dumped build. Perhaps they have vitality though, just to survive the aftermath of… y’knowing me.
Though I’m not sure how effective having like, sixty more health would be if they tossed themselves at a hundred miles an hour into the stone floor.
So… I didn’t personally witness how they survived their attack, and won’t be doing so for any future attacks because I am NOT going to look down, but I imagine their whole strategy is something along these lines.
Fly out of the Ascent, and fly straight down to build up as much momentum as they can. Then, they proceed to lock on to whoever their target is, and ram into them at full speed to knock them back down to the bottom. Though, how do they intend to survive that? They might have a skill of some sort to reduce recoil damage… That’s plausible, right? Well, you know what? I’m gonna paint the best case scenario right now, right here.
Reaching behind my back, I pull out my comically large stick from thin air, (otherwise known as Wailing Hunt) grasping it firmly with one hand, and then with two as I lean away from the wall.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
The birds up above show an immediate reaction, three of them soaring higher into the air, up and out through the open ceiling of this cave. On my end, I simply remain stock still. In a normal scenario I’d, perhaps flourish with my weapon? Take the edge off the situation? But I’m uh, frankly absolutely not doing that as far off the ground as I am.
And then? One by one, they come plummeting down from the sky, the rest of the birds making deviations in their flight paths so as to avoid a collision. All three of the Ascenters that had flown up shooting straight down the what’s basically a tunnel for these assholes.
Clearing my head of, shall we say, unnecessary thoughts for the moment, I finally start spinning Wailing Hunt with Phantomcleave still embedded within it now that I have a proper target to focus on that isn't the FLOOR. Now, I’m not looking for raw damage here, hence I'm not using Phantomcleave. Instead, I’d rather like to test an interesting theory. What exactly counts as… “blocking” an enemy's attack?
Adding a flourish of my own into the flourishing, I spin one time and build up some heavy momentum, completely ignoring the fact that a pebble just fell from the rock I’m on nope that didn’t happen that didn’t happen that didn’t happen, and line up my strike just right, like I’m about to swing for the fences!!!
WHAM!
The first bird absolutely gets its face caved in for a catastrophic-11!-eleven da-au-duh-abuhduhhuguhmuguh? wwwwwwwwwWHAT? ELEVEN DAMAGE?
At the very least, it’s sent careening off to the side with a horrific squawk. I don’t really have much time to be baffled about it though, because the other two are still hot in their approach. Maintaining my spinning flourish without dropping too much momentum, the other side of Wailing Hunt, which for convenience's sake I’m just going to refer to as THE STAFF without the mental bolding from now on, rises up as I tilt it towards the incoming attacker, crossing my arms in the motion, and with another echoing CRACK, it slams into the Ascenter, knocking them to the side for a pitiful 9! damage.
Though once more, the bird is knocked drastically off course, sending it careening down to the floor with a very inelegant noise.
Lastly, I straighten up as much as I can. I’ve already lost the force I’d built up via flourishing from deflecting the previous two birds away, they were heavy hitters… So I don’t really have a choice in how I’m going to ward off this last one. There’s no time to build up extra force, and avoiding it is a shoddy option at best. These platforms aren't exactly... spacious, so that's going to be a last resort.
Therefore!
Raising the staff directly above me without so much as uncrossing my arms, I position it between me and the incoming PROJECTILE. I very nearly buckle under the force of its newton’s fourth law as it slams into me, but before I can topple backwards, I shove the monster away. And with one more indignant squawk, it too gets sent careening to the floor beneath.
Though, with two key differences. That being that somehow I DEALT NO DAMAGE??? PARDON? And that two, this time it actually counted as blocking its attack for some reason! How do I know that?
Disoriented!
That’s how, obviously, I got a status effect proc notification. Very cool. Didn’t realize we get those. Kind of weird how Screech’s [Song Of Wrath] doesn’t notify me of status effects when I get notified about every damage source that we put out, but whatever.
Alright. Just gotta go do that however many more times! Let’s go, keep moving Koth, happy feet let’s go!
Even though more of the ascenters are already rising up to no doubt attack me with reckless abandon, I keep running and jumping, climbing up a “step” every second. From what I've seen of them so far, two or three of them rise into the air every time they collectively go up, after doing so they start flying up, and from there it takes them about five to six seconds to wind up a volley proper as they come zooming back down. Jump, stop, jump, stop, start spinning…!
BANG!
8!
BOOM!
7!
Two more of them get sent flailing down to the cave floor, now approximately twenty m-now approximately an amount down. Though, if my eyes do not deceive me…
HOW THE !@%& IS THAT BIRD GETTING UP!?
One of the god damn ascenters is flying back up. After the ABSOLUTE SLEDGEHAMMER of a blow that connected with its face. Alright bruh, I’m gonna need to tame me one of these things cause what is this bullshit? They just immortal? They some kamikaze phoenixes? Cause GOD DAMN! I don’t think normal birds just eat that level of CTE and walk it off! If Screech came flying at a block of cement at a billion miles per hour, I don’t think she’s getting off with eight damage. RIGHT???
Oh, I’ve just sat here for two seconds rambling to myself about how unfair this is, look at me wasting precious time, this game must’ve been too easy so far! KEEP MOVING BABY BOY. This isn’t even CLOSE to Sanctioned, beat that, beat anything. Hardest game hands down, Omniscient is not even touching that title.
Breath in… breath out… ignore the floor, take to the… floor, I guess. Floor’s mine.
“Hear that!?”
“M-mm??”
“Hear what?”
“...H-hear what?”
“Oh, my bad everybody, just talking to myself.”
I mean, I need something to psyche myself up for these eighty meters.
Oh dear god, there’s eighty more meters. Alright,
12!
“You’ll need more than one at a time pricks!”
Probably shouldn’t have said that, cause six just flew up at once.
“...Huh, good on you lot, taking my advice.”
Whoosh
Whoosh
Whoosh
Whoosh
Whoosh
Whoosh