A loud screech tore her mind back to the present as a flying monster swooped down on her from behind. She spun around and fired an arrow that exploded into hundreds of razor sharp shards. The shards shredded the monster only meters away from her into a bloody mess that splattered across her and Mike. Ignoring the gore she turned back to firing at the attackers.
“I guess the other side is having problems with the flyers and letting some through.” She looked at her uncle from the side of her eyes. “Shouldn’t you be there to help?”
“What would I do against flying monsters? I don’t have a bow.” He paused. “Or enchanted items from my lover.”
Kitty snorted. “Nice try Uncle. But even if I was doing something with that dumb dork you wouldn’t trick me into saying it here. But if you MUST know. I am not sleeping with him. Gah, I just party with him sometimes.”
“You mean you attack the Necropolis with them.” He said it bluntly.
“Yes and sometimes we clear dungeons.” She grumbled and added. “Ones he has already cleared for his precious bonus.”
Mike sighed. “Those fools at the Necropolis probably deserve it.” He paused. “No, they definitely deserve it, for what they did.” His voice was heated. She understood what he was so angry about. Once she had been rescued, again unnecessarily so. She had returned to tell everyone in Little Garden what the Haven Lord of Necropolis had done to her. The fact that the big bombardment on the wall had apparently been done by the Haven Lord also became common knowledge. The Purifier had officially taken the stance of not trading or interacting with the Necropolis, she didn’t go so far as to openly declare them enemies though. People abandoned the Necropolis in droves after that night. Between the Haven Lord attacking his own people and the walls being breached, many lost all faith in Richard and the Necropolis. It was so bad people not wanting to be part of Little Garden were heading south to a haven named of all things, the Thunderdome. Apparently, it was a name from some old ass movie from before her time. She wasn’t sure why people thought it was a big deal, but the rumors of what the place was like, weren’t great.
Most were now residents of Little Garden which had tripled its population in the months since that big night. Things had gotten worse when a small army of skeletons arrived to demand they turn her over to the Necropolis for judgment. Kitty hadn’t been in the Little Garden when it happened, but apparently, it wouldn’t have mattered. The Purifier refused their demand and was backed by the entirety of Little Garden. Kitty knew it wasn’t that the people thought highly of her. But Uncle Mike was a core member of their main combat team. Plus, no one seemed to trust or like the Skeletal Lord of the Necropolis. Things probably would have been bad, despite the huge influx of people to Little Garden. If the Purifier didn’t have some ability that just decimated huge chunks of the skeletal army at once. They just collapsed falling into piles of bones or in the case of the rune covered magic wielding ones crumbled to dust.
After that, the Necropolis had cut off any communication. Their numbers were greatly reduced and still falling yet some refused to leave the place. While Little Garden was growing rapidly, the new influx of people brought more fighters that then provided more resources for the large number of craftsmen. All in all, the events of the assault on the Necropolis had been great for Little Garden.
As for their stance on Dren, they were… complicated. With his ability to hide his Invader status, most believed that Richard had made it all up as a ploy to attack someone. After all, with no proof it looked only like he was using the idea of an Invader, something that wasn’t supposed to show up until the sixth month after the integration, as an excuse to attack people. A few knew the truth though. The Purifier was one and so was her Uncle. That had been Kitty’s fault, sort of. She had insisted he at least reveal the truth to those two. Other wise she couldn’t continue to stay in his party.
Thinking about when she made that declaration and his response made her grit her teeth. He had laughed at her. Asked her when she had been in his party and why he would want her to stay. His attitude had been infuriating. But just as she was cycling through insulting him with the same insults for the third time, he suddenly relented. Saying he would do as she said and she could stay in his party. He even sent her a party invite right then. Part of her was still annoyed with herself for the amount of happiness she got from that. Of course, it lasted only until he announced he was really doing it just so he could use the pylon and the system shop in Little Garden.
Kitty had been shocked at how little shock the Purifier and her second in command had shown at the revelation that Dren was an alien invader from some other planet. Here to kill and conquer. Their only question had been what he planned to do with Little Garden, did he plan to attack them?
Dren to her surprise had paused and seemed to really think about it. She saw his eyes glancing to the side, something that was common nowadays as people looked at things in their system screens. Then he had just shrugged and declared the system didn’t seem to care so he didn’t. As long as they would let him come and use the pylon, he wouldn’t attack anyone from Little Garden. He even offered to help with Monster Surges if they needed.
Her Uncle’s response had been even more shocking. After the revelation, he had just stared at Dren and his flashing Invader tag. Then burst out laughing before turning to her and loudly declaring that it figured she would need to find an alien for a boyfriend. She had been enraged at the insinuation that she was dating THAT boy. But after a while, when she was done venting her anger and Dren was gone. She had reluctantly admitted that she MIGHT have feelings for him. She remembered glancing up at her Uncle trying to read his reaction. After all, she was talking about an alien. Even to her, that was a strange thing to think about and embarrassing to admit.
Her uncle grew sullen and serious while looking at her, then spoke bluntly and clearly. Reminding her that condoms were a rarity nowadays and to be careful. She had kicked him in the shin, both enraged by him and relieved. If he could drop his serious persona to make a bad joke about it, he must not be too worried. After that though, things got bad. Real bad. He kept making jokes about Dren being her knight in shining armor and her being a damn damsel in distress. She had finally gotten him to stop, but only after she really lost her temper. She gave it another week before he brought it up again.
They made more small talk while she slaughtered monster after monster. As silence settled between them, she wondered how Dren was doing in the dungeon. Would he kill the boss on his first try?
*****
Silvery threads wrapped around the monster’s chest, binding all four of its arms as they held that greatsword. The threads also wrapped up its two leathery wings. It was only maybe half a meter taller than Dren, covered in dull reddish colored scales, and humanoid in shape. With four arms wielding a single wide bladed greatsword and two leathery wings protruding from its back. Its head was that of a horn crested lizard with six eyes set in two eye sockets. They stretched from the front of their face to the side, with three eyes pushed together in each socket like peas in a pod. It was naked and luckily genderless, heavily muscled, and far different than the monsters of the dungeon.
Elementals of Earth, Water, and Ice had filled the dungeon. The first and weakest were the Earth Elementals. Made of solid stone as hard as steel they were only the weakest because they could be harmed by physical attacks. Huge five meter tall humanoid shaped beings that shook the ground when they walked. But, luckily for Dren, they shared a weakness with the skeletons summoned by the Necropolis Haven Lord. They had no blood to bleed or stamina to exhaust. But they had mana that could be drained, something that was a rather unique weakness to Dren and his Profane Blade class. Others would have to break them apart with raw damage. But Dren, could attack their mana source directly. Either with the buff from his Profane Blade skill or every ten seconds when his Profane Drain triggered. Even better for him, both seemed to scale not just with his Profane Blade class but his Profane Acolyte level as well. He wasn’t sure why that was the case, but he was more than happy to take it.
The ice elementals were much the same in appearance, towering humanoid figures of glistening ice. Their frozen bodies were more fragile than the hardened stone of the earth elements. But they had more attacks than simply smashing things like the earth version. Their frozen bodies could also regenerate by producing more ice. Like the earth elementals, they had veins of mana that could be disrupted or drained by Dren. Making them far easier for him than they should have been.
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The hardest had been the water elementals. Unlike the other two, physical attacks did far less to them. Fire was somewhat effective, but not great. Blowing them apart did decently. Plus Kitty had let slip that they were surprisingly weak to ice magic. Also, unlike the others these were not humanoid in shape. Large floating orbs of water with swirling belts of water flowing around them at multiple angles. They sent slashing blades out from those belts at range while slender whips of water would lash out from the main body, with enough strength to split stone. But like the rest it came down to the fact Dren could directly attack or drain the resources from an enemy, mana included.
Plus his level twenty skill had been an upgrade to his original passive, Deadly Blows. It was now Crippling Blows and would leave status debuffs when he critically struck. There were three possible depending on the type of critical point he hit. Gaping Wound, was the health damage debuff he left It increased the potency and duration of any health draining ability while making them harder to heal. System Shock was the stamina damage debuff. It stopped all stamina regeneration until it was healed and for a short time after it was dealt, all stamina costs were increased. Finally, there was Mana Disruption, which caused any use of mana to deal health damage to a target.
Against the elemetals with their not having health points, it wasn’t great. It did cause some physical damage to the ice and earth elementals. But if it did anything to the water ones he never noticed.
Finally, there was this boss.
Dragon Knight Level Fifty Boss.
Dren had been excited to see the word dragon before he realized it definitely wouldn’t count for his quest. The humanoid creature had stood like a statue holding its sword with all four hands just in the middle of a massive room. After a bit of debate, he had sent Ren in to attempt to bind it. Her new race of Nest Watcher was good at ambushes and traps, even if she didn’t get many bonuses in a dungeon. Not much had changed with the evolution. She looked a bit more mature but still barely that of an early teen girl. In fact, there was only one really big change.
“It is melting them!” Ren’s lithe voice announced and Dren saw what she meant even as he rushed in on the boss monster. Ren had bound its entire upper body, all four arms, the sword, and its wings in her Steel Silk. But the boss was straining against it, pushing the blade it held out as if to cut the silk. It didn’t cut them but they rapidly glowed first orange, then yellow, and now white while starting to melt. Dren lunged for it, his eyes focused on a crimson line across its neck. But at the last moment, the blade cleaved through the silk, breaking it free. He was able to dodge the attack by flinging himself to the side, spinning like a corkscrew while flying past it. The monster’s wings snapped out flinging away the still melting silk strands and spread, revealing that the large wings were actually two overlapping sets, before taking flight.
“Damn flying piece of shit.” Dren growled and flung enchanted knives at the boss. Yet each missed, as it sped away so quickly a thunderous boom erupted and knocked the projectiles off course. It zipped and darted around with more booms of displaced air before streaking down. Its massive greatsword cleaved the ground where Dren had been an instant before. Appearing after teleporting away he realized his mistake. Teleporting straight back left him right in line for the rushing wave of flame that projected from the sword.
Fire washed over him and he grunted at the slight stinging. He hadn’t used his ring’s mana barrier. It was still useable but in his weekly attacks on the Necropolis, he had pushed it too far. It was damaged and while it appeared to be repairing itself. It was a very slow process. Despite not using the powerful defensive item, his set of Dread Leather and the silken clothes he wore beneath were all made with triple imbued materials and fully enchanted with fire resistance being one of them, muted the attack. It was made even more bearable as Meg had managed to get her Curse of Weakness off on the monster before the attack. Most of her other curses were less useful against a single enemy, with no other monsters for her to have it attack. But she could layer ever stacking curses on the monster whittling its damage down to nothing if given long enough. He really hoped she would get a curse that reduced an enemy's speed.
Teleporting again, he tried to appear above the monster as the fight continued.
*****
Character Status
Name: Dren Race: Human (I) Class: Profane Blade (26) Profession: Profane Acolyte: (21) Health: 9100/9100 Stamina: 9050/9050 Mana: 8675/8675 Credits: 32,698 Reaper bonus Total (41) Agility 244 9 Dexterity 236 5 Endurance 362 2 Intelligence 347 11 Spirit 340 3 Strength 223 4 Toughness 222 3 Vitality 364 4 Dungeon Competency 70% Solo Dungeon Competency 60% Class skills: Runes: Profane Gaze Rank 1 (Max) Color Shift Crippling Blows Rank 1 (Max) Lesser Bleed Battle Focus Rank 9 Lesser Drain Dual Wielding Rank 5 Lesser rune of frost Snatch Rank 2 Profane Agony Profane Drain Rank 5 Profane Binding Barrage Rank 8 Profane Darkness Profession skills: Profane Decay Refine Items 4 Rank 5 Profane Durability Imbue Materials (Rapid) Rank 2 Profane Empower Disenchant Rank 6 Profane Explosive Triple Material Imbuement Rank 3 Profane Fire Reinforce Conduit Channels Rank 3 Profane Lightning Misc Bonus: Profane Space Essence of the Dragon Rank 1 Profane Speed Equilibrium Rank 1 (Max) Ruthless Invader Rank 1 Betrayer Rank 1 (Max) General Skills Profane Meditation Rank 2 Explosive Resistance Rank 3 Poison Resistance Rank 5 Fire Resistance Rank 3 Advanced Stealth Rank 2 Crafting Skills Dread Leather Working Rank 2 Advanced Skinning Rank 3