CHAPTER 51 ANEW
A fucking meteor????
You had to be shitting me! Although I guess not given that it just happened, but the fact that it shrugged it off and managed to keep going was terrifying. I barely made it out of the collateral damage range myself.
I guess that’s the true power difference between someone in the sixth tier and everyone else. Although I had to wonder if that was just a ‘her’ thing. The skill was devastatingly powerful, but didn’t exactly seem great for duels. Especially given that it seemed to suck up all her mana to cast.
Although pulling a meteor out of orbit seems like it’d be pretty mana intensive to pull off in the first place, so I guess I can’t really blame her for running dry immediately after. At the same time I had to wonder about the physics of the situation. A meteor that big, hitting at those speeds back at home would’ve been an extinction level event right?
At the very least there would’ve been far reaching consequences for that level of impact. And yet it stopped short of the edge of the city. Which led me to wonder if it was either something to do with the skill? Or what the meteor initially hit, explicitly stated The Harbinger.
Was there like an impact absorbing skill or something? The thing didn’t turn back anything on [Mana Sense] or [Electric Sense], it also wasn’t turning back a level. So I wasn’t even sure it was ‘blessed’ by the system in the first place. But there were so many things that just weren’t adding up.
I peaked around the corner just in time to see it start sprinting. And that terrified me. It was one thing for this thing to be like a gimmick fight where it had to abide by specific criteria to make it beatable, but if it had just be sandbagging the whole fight for shits and giggles we were totally fucked.
Castella launched herself forward with a battlecry that I could hear from where I was at.
Only to immediately get swatted out of the air like a fly, slamming into the ground creating a dust cloud. The Harbinger let out a roar of triumph before continuing on its way to the palace now that its way wasn’t being obstructed by the pesky spellblades.
It crashed through buildings and through the secondary wall that separated the royal district from the rest of the city, it came upon the palace full force only to come to a forced stop after slamming into a silver barrier that flashed into existence on impact.
The barrier itself glittered slightly exposing that it was a dome that covered the entirety of the palace.
“Well damn, if they had a barrier that strong why is it not around the whole city?” I muttered to myself.
Although I guess you can’t exactly plan for what’s essentially a natural disaster. Could be that running something like that is expensive, and there’d be no reason to run it if you’re not constantly being attacked by a city destroying disaster.
The Harbinger stood where it was, pacing across the edge of the barrier, like it was inspecting for a weak point. Or rather that seemed to be exactly what it was doing as it experimentally struck against various points of the barrier to little avail.
I kept moving, if there had been any survivors in the district I had initially been helping in, they were all dead at this point, I could only hope Fiona and the rest had gotten out safely. My mind flashed to Penny. I hadn’t seen her since the other night, but I highly doubted that they’d have stuck around. If they didn’t get involved in the war then they probably already headed back to Vinwood which meant that she was more than likely safe.
I hoped.
I ran along the streets while keeping an eye on the giant… thing… What exactly was it anyways? Beast seemed too insulting of intelligence for what it had portrayed so far. Creature was too vague in a description to really be used. Abomination? It certainly was a hideous monstrosity to look at, especially with most of that rocky exo-skeleton blasted off. A crystalline like interior was exposed and modeled in much the way muscles and sinew would be.
I frowned slightly as I thought about it, it all seemed very suspicious.
Not that it was really my place to figure out its origin or what it was. No, I just needed to focus on getting someplace safe at this point, the big players were starting to come out and I was going to end up as a smear against the ground if I wasn’t careful. And that’s if I was lucky and there was even a smear left of me after whatever attack does me in.
I decided to make my way to the guild, it was a bit closer than I probably would like to be to the attacks, but there really wasn’t anywhere else I could go at this point. The inn I was staying at conveniently happened to be located in the district that got decimated by a random meteor strike, so I couldn’t really go back there.
I angled myself down a road that put The Harbinger straight ahead of me as I was running, the roads were pretty clear so I didn’t have to worry about dodging any people, it also allowed me to put more focus on-
I came to a stop as I passed an intersection backstepping a few times to get another look. It was exactly what I thought it was. Looters. Or rather thieves is the more appropriate term, they couldn’t even be bothered to wait for the disaster to pass, although this was arguably the best time to do it. No responses from the guard if there was a city destroying threat to deal with.
[Level 212]
[Level 352]
[Level 103]
[Level 132]
Four of them in total. Something I could reasonably deal with I think. The hard one would be handling the tier three. I didn’t know how strong she was, and if she had comparable strength to Fiona I was gonna have a bit of a rough time.
Although, I’m pretty sure I was faster than Fiona by a decent amount. So it might not even be a problem.
The woman looked like she was in charge, ordering her three minions around as they worked on breaking through the door of a storefront.
She was also the first one to notice me approaching, her face split into an arrogant smile.
“Well boys, looks like we have company after all. Although it doesn’t seem like it was nearly as bad as you were thinking it was gonna be, Gordal.” She spoke with a mocking tone.
The one I assumed was named Gordal, scoffed before responding, “Where there’s one adventurer there’s more. We need to get rid of him quickly before the rest of his little buddies come along.”
“No, wait. I recognize this one.” The leader said, raising her hand to her face, tapping a finger on her cheek. “Right!” She exclaimed with a snap of her fingers, “This is the one that supposedly picked a fight with Raylith! Last I heard his party split from him. He’s also pretty famous despite being a newbie because he’s an elf.”
Her smile grew malicious, “Which means that the wittle elf doesn’t hwave any fwiends to come hwelp him.”
I frowned slightly at her speaking with a baby voice. It was incredibly obnoxious, although I guess that was kind of the point.
I glanced at the group again, the two lower level ones had glanced at me initially, but hadn’t said anything and just continued on working.
I let out a soft sigh, “Just out of curiosity, what exactly are you doing trying to break into that store?” I figured I’d at least ask while I came up with a plan of action on how to handle this.
I probably should’ve stayed hidden initially and struck with the element of surprise, but here we are living with the mistakes of our past.
She paused in slight surprise before letting out a guffawing laugh, Gordal just giving her an amusedly exasperated look.
“What does it look like we’re doing wittle elf? We’re about to liberate some hard-earned rewards for ourselves after surviving The Harbinger. I would ask if you had a problem with that, but you’re not going to live long enough to care. Gordal, I’ll let you have the experience for dealing with him, he just hit second tier so you should be able to easily deal with him at this point.”
Gordal sighed, “You just don’t want to deal with him yourself. Well, not like it matters. I could use a punching bag to blow off some steam, especially if no one is going to be looking for him.”
They were willing to let me fight him one on one? They must be confident in his abilities, either that or he must have an ace he can pull out. A magical artifact perhaps? Seems to convenient to be true, but it might be why they’re so confident to be doing this right now.
I let a smirk rise up to my lips.
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Whatever his game is, it won’t matter. Especially since I doubt he’s ready for what I’m about to pull on him.
“What are you smirking at, kid? Feeling pretty brave for someone about to get his shit pushed in.”
I shook my head, “Oh no.” I said as I started walking forward to meet him in the street, my wooden armor rising up starting from my feet, twirling intricately around before finishing at my chest, creating a full-body suit minus the helmet.
“I just felt that I should probably warn you that my levels aren’t a great indicator of how strong I am.”
He came to a stop a few feet in front of me.
“Oh, got your first blue class and feeling confident, eh kid? One blue class isn’t enough to bridge the gap between you and someone with over thirty levels on you.”
I waved my bad hand, exposing that it was wooden from underneath my cloak catching his attention. “Well, I guess I did get my first blue classes, but that wasn’t what I was referring to.”
My entire body exploded with purple lightning as I activated my first active skill since tiering up.
[Lightning Aura] was much more visible than it had been in the previous tier.
Gordal at the very least had quick reflexes, as soon as I started sparking he started swinging. However even before dodge kicked in he was significantly slower than I was. Like, way slower. He probably had comparable agility to myself at base.
I started dodging his punch and everything around me slowed to a crawl, his fist seemed like it was moving in slow motion.
So I retaliated, I pulled my blade out, and in the same motion, cleaved straight through his neck coming to a rest by his side.
Contrary to popular belief as shown by anime, there was no large spray of blood three seconds after the cut was made. His head didn’t also stay connected during that time.
No he died immediately, his head sliding off even before I had fully come to a stop. It toppled to the ground with a sickening thud. The cut on his neck was so clean it hadn’t started bleeding yet. But it probably would in a moment.
“Ah shit,” I said rasing my bad hand to my face and grasping it, like I was acting upset with myself, “I forgot to fully warn him.”
I then emulated the obnoxious woman’s smile from earlier, “I already have three classes, one of which is purple. So basically, no one is coming looking for me, because no one needs to come looking for me.”
Currently she was still shocked, as were the two goons beside her.
“You know, there’s a famous saying where I’m from that I think perfectly sums up what’s about to happen here.”
“You’re underleveled and overfucked.”
I didn’t give them a single moment to try and recover after that. I raised my left hand casting [Paralyzing Blast] through it.
I hadn’t given the leader enough credit however, she dropped to the floor in a low three-point stance, in an attempt to dodge it. I just detonated it in the air directly over her head causing her to get caught in the blast.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look like it paralyzed her as she came flying out of the explosion while maintaining herself extremely low to the ground. A dagger was in her hand, I wasn’t sure what her plan was so I cut out the issue by summoning a barrier directly in front of her face.
She reacted instantly, flinging herself to the side cutting off all her forward momentum before landing once again in that low three-point stance. The stance held her so low to the ground that it wouldn’t have been feasible to maintain that for very long without stats. But here she did it effortlessly.
We stood apart from each other, sizing each other up as we determined our next moves. I wasn’t sure how to handle this, I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about beating an opponent that was as fast as me. All of her stats were geared towards speed, I might be comparable to her on that front, but it wasn’t something I could necessarily guarantee either.
She could still be holding out on me, but given how far she was pushed towards that, there had to be sacrifices in other areas of her stats for it. So physically, she might not be all that strong. Although that wouldn’t matter if she stabbed it through my temple. I wouldn’t be surviving that.
She decided her next move before I did, yelling at her two lackeys that were standing there slack-jawed at our short engagement so far, “What are you two morons doing just standing there?! Attack him!”
They scrambled to their feet and moved to start surrounding me, while the leader stayed in front of me. I kept my eyes on her as my hand shot out to the side casting [Chain Lightning] on the one to my left.
Once again, maybe I just wasn’t giving my opponents enough credit. Or maybe I had gotten used to how easy it was to land attacks in the chaos that was the skirmish I was in, honestly not that long ago.
But he dodged out of the way almost effortlessly. He had a longsword that he held casually in one hand, the other had dual daggers.
I hummed thoughtfully, I was outnumbered, and potentially outgunned in stats depending on how powerful miss thief was in front of me. She was radiating confidence, from her stance to her facial expressions.
Maybe it was time for a little experimentation with my skills. My previous iteration of [Mana Flurry] had allowed me to reach up to something like six feet in front of me before I ascended. The new skill didn’t say that it had that. But ascending was supposed to be just a flat increase in capability. So my hope was that it kept that part of the ability. In return for losing out on the guaranteed number of attacks, it basically guaranteed that a second strike would land instead of making them when it was pointless.
So my hope was that it could happen from the same additional six feet of extra range. Tag that on to a three foot blade, that’s nearly ten feet of reach. We were currently sitting at about fifteen from each other. I needed a way to safely close the gap and deal with them one at a time.
The guy to my right moved first coming rushing in, almost immediately after the guy to my left started moving to help him. I made a feint of dashing in on instinct to swing at the guy to my right at the same time, immediately covered myself in a layer of barriers covering everything on my left side as he moved forward.
I waited a little bit longer after he stepped within the ten foot range before activating [Second Strike]. At the same time, just for the hell of it I channeled 400 mana into [Lightning Strikes], if I did manage to connect with him, I wanted to make it count.
He came to a stop and crossed his daggers in front of him aiming to block an attack from the front.
As the rest of [Second Strike] charged up an aura of lightning surrounded the blade giving it the full extension I expected it to have, which elicited a laugh from me as I brought it down in an overhead swing that he wasn’t fully prepared to block or dodge.
He tried to leap out of the way but wasn’t quite fast enough. I cut lightly into his side, and as soon as the attack finished, almost like it was on instinct, my body reversed the course of the attack and, with a sound like a lightning clap, executed the return stroke on his body.
He fell to the ground his right side charred slightly from the damage of [Lightning Aura] and more than likely just the flat damage that the sword was capable of dishing out. Most armor would be like butter in front of it.
Before he had even finished falling to the ground, I saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye from where the leader of the group had been. The leader slammed into the barriers in front of me, not catching it this time or possibly trying to break through them. It didn’t work, but it did drain about 600 points of mana.
She was also a lot faster than I had expected her to be. Given that she had outpaced the other mook that was to her right. I opened up the barrier in between us swinging at her, but she danced backwards out of reach creating a bit of space between us.
The other mook tried to come to a stop to not get within range and I took advantage of his indecision by casting another [Chain Lightning] at him. This time it connected shocking him quite badly. He screamed as the current ran through his body before it jumped to the guy on the ground near me, charring him and causing a scream from him before it cut off and I received a ping in my mind.
I gave a slightly malicious smile, “That’s two.”
“You know, if you surrender I won’t have to kill both of you. You might be able to get away with a jail sentence instead of being dropped in the streets. Although I wouldn’t mind the exp from doing so.” I said tauntingly, emulating the same mocking tone she had used on me earlier.
She growled, “I’m going to kill you, Elf. I’m going to cut your fingers off one by one and make you eat them. I’m going to cut your ears off and cram them down your throat as well. I’m going to violate you in ways you wouldn’t even dream to be possible, and long before I’m through with you you’re going to beg me to kill you.”
I tilted my head at her, “No, I don’t think I will.”
I kicked off the ground, propelling myself at her at full speed. She did the same attempting to meet me head on. I flipped mid-air so I was moving feet first and placed a slightly slanted barrier in front of me stopping all my forward momentum and immediately changing direction to the remaining mook.
He wasn’t even remotely prepared for the speeds we were moving at and wasn’t ready to try and stop my blade as it carved through his chest, killing him instantly.
I then placed another barrier at my feet and propelled myself into the sky.
I couldn’t quite fly yet, but having a high strength stat, followed by an insanely high agility stat allowed me to build up a lot of momentum. I launched myself probably twenty feet straight into the air in a single jump.
I probably could’ve gone further, but I wasn’t trying to escape. I instead did another flip so I was head first towards the ground and placed another barrier to stop my upward momentum before slingshotting myself at the ground.
I was probably hurtling towards the ground well over terminal velocity. The thief had barely managed to turn around looking to see the corpse of her teammate falling to the ground, but not to see where I had gone.
She wasn’t ready when I came careening out of the sky, somewhat similarly to the meteor that Lillian called down.
I activated [Second Strike] right before I hit two quick blows cutting from left shoulder to right hip and then being reversed, I didn’t stop there, keeping the skill running I cut from left hip to right shoulder allowed the skill to reverse that strike as well.
Two quick claps of lightning sounded through the air before she fell to the ground, the front of her body smoking from the lightning that had been coursing through her body.
A ping sounded in my mind letting me know that she was actually well and truly dead allowing me to relax back from being in combat.
I practically fell to the ground, my arms and legs feeling extremely shaky now that the adrenaline was starting to fade out of my system.
I looked at the four bodies that surrounded me.
I guess I had gotten my wish. I’ve gotten stronger.