Zyler’s father always said to him, even when he was a little kid, that playing with your food was considered rude and immature.
He’d like to say otherwise. Especially when the food likes to fight back.
He swung his arm, his claws slashing the nearby crystal trees and pillars that stood in his way. Not even the powerful sturdy crystals could withstand his Strength as they broke and shattered. However, his prey was nowhere to be around.
He spun, kicking his well-trained legs to the ground and pouncing at the nearby soldier. The male soldier looked well-prepped. The leather armor was clean with no smudges on his plated chest and arms. He carried twin daggers as a weapon, and held them in a back-handed grip.
But the little coward refused to strike back and instead jumped out of the way when Zyler landed on him. He missed by a landslide, hitting the ground.
But even then, he still grinned. This was the most interesting pack of prey he ever found.
Turning back, he saw the large group of soldiers from the tiny faction that found this place. He was still bitter from not facing the Lords, so he wanted to torture these little pups before killing them. He was planning on bringing all of their heads each to the lords just to feel better about it.
But now, he was smiling. This was the first time he was caught getting pushed to his near limit. He wasn’t tired at all, and his stamina wasn’t flagging by the least, but adrenaline coursed through him as the soldiers remained tightly knit, with one or two out of sight but just enough to be out of his grasp.
It was annoying, and just pissed him off. It was perfect to have a little bit of fun.
He spotted the one giving the commands. The man looked intimidating as all hell, but his Identify told him this man was just an Expert. But compared to most Experts, he knew how to order at the precise moment when Zyler struck.
“Get ready!” He shouted, a sound reminiscent of a man who’s been on a battlefield all his life. “He’s ready to attack again!”
“You got that right,” Zyler growled, flashing his claws again.
Zyler pounced, using his Class skill to jump higher and farther than before. Flashing his claws, he dug deep down towards the one giving the commands.
He would hate losing such fun so early, but he never liked playing around when the big boss was already there. But contrary to his belief, this Expert knows how to fight back.
His axe flew right at the claws, swiping them away and swinging again to his neck. It was at such a precision that it surprised Zyler a little. If he didn’t just ducked down with ease, he might even lose a good chunk of his neck.
He jabbed at him next, but was hit with a surprising number of spells and attacks from his side. They just flitted across his dark fur, his Endurance-based skills taking into effect. It didn’t even hurt, but it certainly annoyed him.
He growled, turning to find the other Experts who flung attacks at the side. He had to give credit that not a single Expert there showed any sort of fear of his presence. There were some clear hesitation, but Zyler knew well enough to know the difference between hesitation and cowardice.
Whoever trained these Experts must be a real slave-driver. It was a shame. His father would definitely like this kind of trainer as their own Experts were left to be desired. If he were to hazard a guess, most of them could even have a specialized attunement rather than the basic Mana boost one.
“Well now, someone treated you all well to give you such luxuries,” Zyler growled, not hiding his mocking tone at all. He did, after all, practice on how to sneer in his werewolf form. It pissed off his enemies well by doing so. “But did you really think you could take me down with some shitty skills?!”
He roared, flexing his chest and running towards the crowd of experts. They summoned a sort of wall from the ground, made entirely of earth, stone and crystals from the biodome, but Zyler easily cut them apart. He aimed at one of the soldiers, a young girl with pale skin and a wand at her side.
She flicked her wrist and a wall of ice formed. Zyler could tell that this girl had an Ice-attunement, immensely powering her skill. But despite her attunement, Zyler’s own claws were more than good enough to slash it apart, ice particles and clunks falling apart.
He reveled at seeing the girl’s terrified face as he opened his maw to take a good bite out of her flesh.
“No!”
A man roared as he landed right on Zyler’s back, trying to jab something onto it. Zyler stopped immediately, closing his jaws to find that the man was trying to stab his weapon into him.
So he dug around with his hand, picked up the soldier, then slammed his body against the nearby pillar of crystal. The crystal shattered, creating spiderweb-like trails behind the body as the man cursed and groaned in pain. He found that hearing a man cry and groan compared to a woman was just off, but that was just him.
“Jackie!” The woman shouted, at least giving this crazy, but respectable man a name for Zyler.
“You think you’re brave?” Zyler growled, plastering a well-intended sickening sneer. “Well?
Jackie looked like your average man with a basic sword and leather armor. His blood trailed from his mouth as he gritted his teeth. The claws were digging deep into his torso and neck, but only just so to cut his skin slightly. The real pressure came from his Strength, already crushing his insides. Still, the man was managing well, even starting to glare back at the Journeyman despite the clear gap in power.
“Better than…” Jackie groaned and coughed, but kept going. “A Journeyman bullying Experts…”
“Hahaha!” Zyler laughed. “You’d be the first guy to tell me that straight to my face! You think what I’m doing is cowardly?!”
He picked up Jackie’s body, no heavier than a ragdoll, and threw him across the field. He fully expected the body to land and just explode in a pile of guts and organs, but the same girl managed to create a sort of stop-gap between the nearby pillar and the thrown body.
A plethora of soft snow formed and Jackie’s body fell into it. It exploded into a pile of white snow and ice debris instead of the reddish gore Zyler expected. Still, the reaction was impressive in the girl’s favor, something that Zyler can approve of.
“Well you’re damn right!” Zyler responded with a fangy grin. “‘Course what I’m doing is cowardly! But this is war, dumbass! Rules of combat don’t apply when fighting for your life!”
Zyler would also agree that a Journeymen going after a group of Experts was cowardly. In fact, he hated those bastards that think they were better than the ones they fought, being a stage below them. However, Zyler learned for a long time now that playing fair won’t get you anywhere.
It won’t stop people from trying to kill you, especially when they can get an advantage. It won’t even stop his older brothers from trying to murder their youngest, using whatever means necessary to do so.
In the end, power is what mattered. It’s how he managed to survive, and how he became the sole heir to Bastion. Not even his father would disagree with that.
“So how about you actually fight instead of complaining?” Zyler said, now becoming more pissed off as memories of his childhood played in his head. “Come on! Fight me!”
…..
Roderick gritted his teeth in fury. His temple was already bulging with veins the size of cables as he watched the travesty unfolding in his very eyes.
The fortress that was supposedly the home of this boss that would’ve granted them access to the resources of this entire biodome was becoming a chore. Much more so than he anticipated. He knew the risks of sending an army through the teleporter with what little manpower his city had, but he didn’t expect to have already hit a snag the moment they started taking down the fortress.
Most of his soldiers were specialized fighters, brought to their limits thanks to their concoctions to give them powers equal to that of Journeymen, but these creatures… These elemental crystal beings were tougher than they all expected.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The first mob they encountered were crystalline bats that have stunned all of their soldiers with their high-pitched screeches. Then, before anyone can do a thing about it, they were attacked by their fluttering wing blades and sharp bites. They have already suffered casualties on the very first mob. And soon things have gotten worse.
Giant wolves, persistent bears, all creatures made of crystal were giving Roderick a headache he didn’t need. Quarter of the time he had to help them out, only making him seethe more in return.
His power was… waning, to say the least. He didn’t have the qualifications to pass through the Master stage. But after years of constantly teetering on the Master stage, he was slowly, ever so slowly falling off.
He had a debt to pay to the system itself, and he needed to pay for it. It didn’t help when the Aetheric Federation kept demanding payments that were beyond their reasoning. He figured by making his boy into a proper Journeyman would’ve helped, but he should’ve realized by now that such a thing was impossible.
He gripped his white-gloved fist tight, remembering the failed attempt at the Eve Glade town. If it weren’t for that barrier keeping their town aloft, they would’ve found out about the biodome and be done with this. But now that they persisted, they were close to gaining access to the biodome. If he doesn’t do something soon, those Eve Glade miscreants would take everything he needed.
He won’t let that happen. He had debts to pay. He needed to fulfill his goal of reaching the true Master stage. He will not suffer more setbacks.
A soldier ran to him, looking battered, bruised, and bloody from the fights. They were currently going after the inner reaches of the fortress, and they were facing more opposition than before. He knew his boy was already making the Eve Glade soldiers back off, but if they don’t finish soon, they might come in at some point.
The soldier raised his hand in salute. “My lord, this is too much! These creatures are a lot stronger than we expected. Also, they keep acting strangely. They don’t follow any of the patterns we studied from them at all.”
“What are you talking about?” Roderick demanded. “How different are they from random beasts we encountered before?”
“I-I’m not sure,” The soldier shook. Roderick picked up the tremble in his voice. He was only slightly relieved to hear that the soldier still feared him as he should. “But their attacks have grown stronger, taking out our men before they can even attack. And worse, they keep crowding us in numbers that should’ve been unnatural. They’re so deeply packed with different monsters that we don’t have enough room to maneuver.”
“What?” Roderick raised a brow. “Even if the biodome has its perks, that doesn’t make any sense.”
As long as he knew, even biodomes follow some common sense. No matter how strange the atmosphere, how strange the wild life it can be, the creatures should know not to make a mess of things. In a sense, they lived here longer than they have, and even the wildlife has rules to follow–the rules of nature, one might say.
To find so many packed together, and according to his soldiers, all of them are so different that it shouldn’t make sense for them to work together… something was off.
He stared in a different direction. The tower that stood slightly off compared to the rest of the stone fortress. It felt off to him for a while now, and even his stupid son managed to find something out. Contrary to him, even Zyler didn't want to mess with that tower.
Is there something going on with that tower? Roderick rubbed his trimmed beard. He glared, curiosity taking over. Should we destroy it first?
“Sir?” The soldier asked, noticing that Roderick paused and stared at a direction all this while.
Roderick let out a tired breath. “It doesn’t matter. Keep adding pressure. If they are all so packed together as you say, then use all of your firepower to burn them all. Do not leave a single monster alive–we need all the leverage we can have to get to the boss.”
“Understood,” The soldier nodded, and headed over to the recovery station after giving his report. The fact that he looked like shit and still managed to report made it admirable as a Journeyman stage should. Even if the soldier was the one that had forced his breakthrough like so many others.
He also knew that his order might even include his own soldiers in the process of being overwhelmed in flames, but that didn’t matter. These were all rejects that couldn’t even hack it in Journeymen. He knew that by the end, none of them would survive.
Whether or not they returned completely recovered, they only have a few short years to live. That’s the end goal of all those who try to skip ahead of the system.
I will not let that happen, Roderick thought, his eyes narrowing. That will never be me.
…..
Blood trickled from his mouth after landing straight into the ground. If it weren’t for the fluff of snow that Cacia created, he would’ve snapped his body in a way that can’t be recovered.
This was the worst match up they could ever have. Not even a group of trained Experts could match against a single trained Journeyman, and worse yet a combat type of Journeyman that specialized well against fighting multiple opponents at once.
This man, clearly a Bastion soldier, could transform into some sort of were-wolf creature from some skill and rip apart their defenses like they were parchment. His claws managed to dig deep into their combatants’ shields, their armor just ordinary clothes to the werewolf.
Worse yet, the speed and power of that monster soldier was too much. Not even Moars, their leader, could keep up with him for long before the other soldiers managed to step in time before his head was cut off.
Jackie trembled, his fear already gripping hard against his nerves. Even with his sword in hand, his fingers felt like they could lose their grip at any time. Even so, he still moved. He didn’t plan on letting anyone else die, at least not while he was around.
The other soldiers, while they were being utterly overpowered, never gave up either. While they were up against a wall, they had numbers on their side. And each soldier worked like cogs to a machine, each one spinning with each other in harmony.
Not a single step out of place where the other can’t predict. Each soldier of Zacharia’s retinue couldn’t be more different from one another, couldn’t have more different ideals and goals, yet they moved with precision to Moar’s orders, taking over one another when the first can’t keep up. They were brought in when a group of soldiers were decimated by the werewolf, just avoiding certain death, then another group came in when the second couldn’t last.
It was starting to wear down the furred monster, growling even more intensely than before. Jackie could see the light at the end of the tunnel. While they were nowhere near the fortress as they planned, each soldier understood that losing even one of their own could mean certain death later on. Besides, this soldier was clearly the strongest of the group. While they have no clue on the other Bastion soldiers’ levels, this one was at least distracted.
“Grr, stay still!” The man howled, the frustration reaching into his wolf-like growls. “Let me hunt you properly!”
“No chance in hell, fucker,” Jackie muttered, knowing full well he couldn’t hear him.
That’s when the man turned his head back to Jackie, his ears perked up. “I heard that, you fucker!”
Jackie’s heart hammered against his chest. He, for almost an instant, reached for his shield. But he only had his sword in hand.
The man roared and pounced straight after him, cleverly avoiding each soldier that stood in his path as he tried to dig his claws straight into Jackie. For a moment, Jackie thought that was it.
Then the face of his friend crying over his own body in a funeral pyre made him pause, his mind turning blank. He remembered the tears of everyone that cried at the funeral pyre. Myra wasn’t an exception.
She cried, as he did, over the death of Maxie and the rest of their soldier comrades. He could remember Philip being drowned in despair over losing Lisa. Even if they were weak, almost useless due to their lack of stats, skills, and titles…
It wasn’t as though nobody would care if they died. That was impossible. That alone brought Jackie to do something he didn’t expect he would do in his entire life.
He shifted his stance, slightly tilting his leg upward with the other backward, and held his sword upside down, the blade leading to the ground. Just as the giant wolf’s claws were ready to strike him down, Jackie roared and pushed onward.
The claws, ever so slowly in Jackie’s mind, slid along the blade, the sharp tips scratching along the forearm. Blood flowed so easily due to the difference in stats, but Jackie didn’t stop. If he did, he would die.
So instead he turned his blade slightly, turning it up and redirecting the claw of the beast. To Jackie’s own surprise, the momentum left by Zyler’s pounce turned upwards into a long arc, missing him by a hair’s breadth. The wolf’s narrowed eyes widened before Jackie took this chance and stabbed straight through his chest.
> Sword Mastery Level Up! It is now Level 10 (Maxed).
>
> You have gained +1 STR from your skill.
> You have gained +1 DEX from your skill.
>
> Sword Mastery has been maxed. Bonuses are now applied.
As the notification filled his vision for just a second, he roared, putting everything he had into it… but the blade couldn’t even pierce the muscle of his chest, let alone draw blood as his own hands ache in pain from the effort.
He paled at the sight. He was so weak he couldn’t even pierce the skin of the monster. Even though the notification showed that he had finally maxed out his Common Sword Mastery Skill thanks to that redirection. He felt nothing but despair clawing at his chest, and most likely would be clawed to death as the man looked down at his chest, staring intensely at the sword hopelessly digging into him.
“Damn stat block,” The wolfman growled. “I swear if I wasn’t blocked, I would’ve ripped you to pieces.”
To Jackie’s surprise, he sounded more miffed about losing to Jackie in terms of redirection than he was at actually being stabbed. Before he could do anything further, he jumped back away, his sword in hand.
The other soldiers came over in time to his relief, gathering together into a tight formation and flashing their weapons. Cacia, the healer that saved him, came over and healed the injury that he caused. Even now, the werewolf was just looking at his chest, then at his own clawed hand before making a tight fist.
“Now I’m royally pissed… Now I’m gonna–!”
He paused, turning absolutely silent as his wolf-like ears propped up. He quickly turned his head over to the direction of the fortress, rather, at the tower that their lords and comrades were at.
Jackie could feel it too. Just like before, it felt like the air was turning in on itself, recalling the near worst moment of his life when he thought their lives were all over once again.
“The tower…” Philip, his mage friend, looked over with widened eyes. As Jackie thought, it really was the tower.
Then, everything became suffused in a bright light as an explosion took over, overtaking their hearing and leaving everything to become white.