I had a strange dream, but a happy one. Alice and I were running from a group of people, both of us laughing. She transformed into a large raven and I jumped onto her back as she took off into the sky! The people who were chasing us were shouting but we were laughing…
Stirring awake, I blink the sleepiness out of my eyes. Hearing a crunching sound, I slap myself awake and look at the source. It was coming from in front of me, and as I looked up I saw Alice sitting there, many pouches around her as realisation dawned on me. Our eyes met as she held a monster core, about to eat.
“G-Good morning, Mum.” Alice carefully places the core into the pouch in front of her as I sigh. I saw my bag next to her, and from the looks of things she’d eaten nearly all of the cores I had bought for her. I beckon her over and Alice nervously crawls over to me. Pinching her cheek, I sigh.
“What is done is done. You must’ve been hungry. Are you okay?”
“Yes! Alice is full!”
She gave me a cheeky grin as I ruffled her hair. I try to pull up her Status and frown. I couldn’t anymore. Alice had her eyes closed, enjoying me ruffling her hair.
“Alice, does your System say anything about a Pathway?”
Alice tilts her head before nodding. “Alice chose the one that said Alice can be with Mum!”
“What is it called?” I felt a bit confused, what did she mean?
“Raven of the Mistress of the Night Sky. It said Alice can always be with you, so Alice chose it.” She giggled and hugged me. Smiling slightly, I knew she hadn’t put any thought into it and just selected it because of what she said. It’s strange though, she evolved before choosing her Pathway? Alexander had told me evolution happened after.
Looking at Alice’s ripped clothing, I dug through my bag and pulled out a very old adventurer outfit. I had always just left this at the bottom of my dimensional bag. Helping Alice change, I couldn’t help but admire how alike she looked to me when I had worn this. Our faces weren’t exactly identical, she had some softer parts like dimples on her cheeks while I didn’t but she still looked close enough.
Sitting down to eat something, Alice looked at me while drooling slightly. “Alice, you just ate.”
“Alice is hungry!”
“Fine, but only one, got it?” Giving her a ration square, because I wanted to spoil her, I smiled at her joy at receiving food. After we both ate, I got up, checked over my armour and went to pick up Alice.
“Mum! Alice can walk!”
“You don’t want me to carry you?”
Alice seemed to be conflicted before she shook her head. “Alice doesn’t want to get in Mum's way!”
Well, she isn’t wrong. With her new height, carrying her around was a lot harder now. I felt a bit sad as I put her down but closed my eyes and breathed out. This island is divided up into nine sections, with the last section being a boss that sat in an arena on the far side. Breathing out, I made sure my chakrams and gauntlets were good.
The chest from the 110th floor had given me yet another Eye of Lilith, which made me wonder if absorbing the Darkness from the bosses was the right way to go. It felt strange that this was the case, and sighing, I turned to Alice.
“Alright, let's go, Alice.”
“Okay, Mum!”
The cocoon fades as Alice runs over and holds my hand and arm with a giggle. She doesn’t want me to carry her but she wants to cling to my arm? Unable to resist, I ruffle her hair once again as we start moving.
***
“Talons!”
A large talon emerges as it grabs the massive ape, giving me the chance to land a powerful blow to its head. Seeing it die, I sigh and stretch my arms as I turn to Alice and give her a smile. She had grown a lot smarter, being able to work with me easily and finding moments to exploit an enemy's openings.
“Good work, Alice.” Ruffling her hair, Alice giggled and hugged my arm. Currently, we were at Floor 117, a jungle on the island that was filled with monsters. Thanks to being able to use these chakrams it had become a lot easier to defeat monsters, and though they had become smarter Alice had been a huge help with her control of the battlefield. After harvesting the corpse for anything worthwhile, we head towards the exit of the jungle, entering the 118th floor.
A large rocky terrain entered our sights that had a big river running down the middle. It was like a place where one would stop and set up a camp, especially since there were no monsters around…oh, that’s strange.
“Mum, Alice doesn’t see monsters.”
“You’re not the only one. I know the reason, sweety. There is another group down here.”
I could smell a group of humans, about ten of them, in the distance, right in our path. With no much choice, Alice and I continued on, with me stepping in the air over the river while carrying Alice in my arms. Her new height made it hard to carry her with one height, so I carried her in both instead. There were monsters in the depths of the river that would pounce towards us, but at the moment there was nothing.
Making our way through the area, we stumbled upon the group that was hunting monsters. Ten people were fighting as a group, a blue fire with green smoke sat behind them as they fought an onslaught of monsters. I could see two people grabbing the corpses of monsters and dragging them back, harvesting them for materials. The fire was likely used to spread a scent to lure monsters here, judging by the smell.
As we walked towards them, the two harvesting monsters suddenly looked up at Alice and I and put their hands on their weapons before looking confused. One of them stood and approached us.
“Who are you?”
“Alisha, this is my daughter, Alice. We’re passing through, we’re not interested in taking monsters here.”
The blonde haired man frowned and crossed his arms. “You’re implying you’re going for the bosses room, since we control floors 118 and 119.”
“You guys can do what you want. If I kill any monsters I’ll leave the corpses for you lot.”
He hesitates for a moment before shrugging. “Your death, the boss is Delta-Class.”
“I know.” Stepping into the air while holding Alice, the man frowned.
“Be careful of flyers, they don’t like it when you walk in their territory.”
Stepping over the fighting drawing some to glance at me, I made my way past them and onwards towards the floor boss. Quickly passing the 118th and 119th floor with no troubles, thanks to the monsters being lured towards the party we had left behind, we soon arrived before the arena, the boss waiting for us in there.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
A Chimaera, a two headed beast with a serpent tail. It’s proficient in Lightning, Ice and Poison magic. Along with that, it’s massive, its size towering over me easily. It was also Delta-Class, along with that I could sense Darkness once more…
There was a lot of darkness within it, far more than the last two. Is it because it was a Delta-Class? But this monster, it didn’t feel like a Delta-Class compared to Arabell. I had read the reports on this, those who had conquered this boss before us survived being hit by its spells, which had raised questions on whether its strength was Delta-Class while the magic fell behind.
Breathing in, I turned to Alice and wondered if I should tell her to stay out of the fight, but knew if I were to defeat this, I would need her help. While I could also absorb Darkness energy, it was far slower than she could. The Chimaera was slow, in fact it barely moved according to the reports, only its snake was fast, its bite held a venom that could kill in seconds if one wasn’t careful enough.
The two heads could use Ice and Lightning magic, both being able to shoot out orbs that caused a patch of their respective magic to cover a portion of the ground. This meant the amount of time the fight could go for is limited, as the arena would slowly be covered in those patches. If you were in the Ice patch, it would slow you heavily while the Lightning patches caused you to to be continuously shocked, locking you up in place.
“Alice, can you drain the darkness from a distance?”
Alice looks at me and tilts her head before nodding. A bit surprised at this, I ruffle her hair and think of a plan. I wasn’t good at making plans, I’ve always kind of just gone with the flow.
“Do you need to be close?”
Alice shook her head. “Alice can be away! It will take Alice a long time!”
Nodding, I decided to forgo a plan. “Alright, you drain it and I’ll distract it. I’ll leave it to you, Alice.”
“Yes!”
As we step into the arena, the Chimaera’s heads roar as their eyes look at both of us. Wanting its full attention on me, I use Lunar Blessing on myself and flash step to its flank and throw a punch with my full strength. As I landed a blow on its hide, I could tell I wouldn’t be piercing it with my fists. I felt the entire body of the Chimaera shift though, and hearing a roar of pain, I knew I had succeeded in gaining its attention. The snaketail lashes out at me quickly, and barely dodging it I felt its scales rip into my skin slightly, causing me to grunt in pain.
Lightning quickly sparked around its body as one of its heads shoots out a cold orb. Pushing myself back with a Wind Explosion, I grab my Chakrams and start using Flowing Strikes with them. A patch of Ice appears on the ground where I had once stood. At the same time as I started using Flowing Strikes with my Chakrams, I felt the Darkness within it start to be drained.
Knowing Alice had started, I dodged the snaketail once again as I stepped to the side. I wanted to avoid flash stepping, fearful that if it lost sight of me, it would turn on Alice. The snaketail however was far faster than I had thought it would be, barely scraping me, causing me slight damage each time because of its scales. If it bit me, I would not survive and knowing that it was the greatest danger to me, I focused on removing its tail while distracting both of the heads, a feat I found extremely difficult.
I started cutting into its flesh at about 80% of my strength with my Chakrams, but its regeneration was fast. This beast was extremely difficult to kill, with magic being its biggest weakness. While I’m focused on using my Chakrams, I build my mana before sending it out.
“Primordial Darkness.”
A spike of darkness shoots out from my hand before it catches my Chakram as I continue to swing. I sensed the magic hit, slowly dealing damage to it. I could also sense the beast getting oddly weaker as the fight went on, but I was quickly running out of space. Over the course of this fight, I had been dodging the snaketail, the orbs from the two heads and trying my best to deal damage, and the half of the arena I was in had been covered in various patches.
Not even half of the darkness energy had been extracted from it, yet it didn’t seem to notice the drain even though it became weaker as it was drained. Did the Darkness empower it? Wouldn’t it notice if a source of power was being drained though? I felt the strain of my body due to using so much strength for so long as I wished I could just tear into this Chimaera with my hands.
The Chimaera was simple, it only ever used these two spells and attacked directly with the snake, but it was a wall. Being extremely difficult to kill and with magic that gave you so little time to kill it. It’s been nearly an hour, my muscles were sore and I had only a small patch of ground left, surrounded by Ice and Lightning patches, but it had become weaker, when suddenly I felt the drain of darkness become faster.
Alice has gained insights into Dark Empowerment.
The beast suddenly turned its attention to its other flank, where Alice was. It had every now and then turned over there and fired off spells, but I knew Alice would be fine, but now she had gained its full attention. Gritting my teeth, I knew I had to get over there, and flash stepping, I arrived by her side after two flash steps. There were a few patches of Ice and Lightning with Alice on a patch of clear ground. She was absolutely focused and using my Chakrams, I once again attempted to gain its attention. I intercepted the orbs that it spat out and kept the snaketail’s attention on me.
It grew weaker, quickly. So the Darkness magic had indeed empowered it to the level of Delta-Class, I watched as the beast became slower as its regeneration slowed as more mounds appeared on it. Fully intending to take advantage of this, I drew my Chakrams back and I pointed at the Chimaera.
“Midnight.”
A giant magic circle appeared in front of me which quickly shrunk to the size of my finger. My mana drained fast as almost 50% disappeared as my Noctilucence energy filled the spell I had been wanting to use for a long time. A small silver dot shot out, hitting the beast.
It took effect very quickly as I watched. Right now, with the Darkness being nearly drained from it, I could tell it had become as strong as a normal level 100. The System had shown this beast as just question marks the entire time, meaning the Darkness within it had empowered it that much. All three heads started to struggle to stay awake as Midnight took effect and as the last of the Darkness was drained, it slumped over, sleeping.
Taking my time, I killed the beast with a mixture of cutting the heads and tail off with my Chakrams. I was exhausted, this had been a battle of attrition rather than one where I could just claw into the monster. The snaketail had, several times, scraped me giving me wounds all over my body which had been healing. If it wasn’t for absorbing the Darkness within it, this would’ve been an extremely difficult fight.
A chest appeared as did another red magic circle. Knowing that this led to the next floor, I opened the chest and dug through it. As expected, materials and ores of different kinds were in here and the final item was something new.
Heart of Lilith
Used to open Her Tomb.
Resting for a while with Alice, we both worked on harvesting the Chimaera’s body before settling down for a bit longer. Passing Alice a ration square, we ate while I asked her about Dark Empowerment. She explained it was like my Lunar Blessing, except it boosted one's regeneration and magic, further increased if one held Darkness within them.
She didn’t know how to use it, having only gained inspiration into the spell, but I began wondering why this Darkness gave her inspiration and why it was even there. Once again, the thought of leaving and inquiring at the Guild came to mind, but I decided against it, we had reached this far, might as well keep going. I knew nothing was wrong with the Darkness she had absorbed, as a portion of it had flooded over to me, though it didn’t give me any inspiration.
After a while, we both got up and moved towards the magic circle while holding hands, mostly to ensure we wouldn’t be separated. As we stepped through, we arrived at floor 121. A massive battlefield, divided into sections that became increasingly more bloodied. This time, we both sensed a powerful Darkness from afar, a long way from where we currently were.
I knew right away, this Darkness was not good, and looking at Alice even she recoiled. She looked at me. “Alice doesn’t like that, Mum.”
“Mm, I know.” I think I knew why the previous bosses had such alluring Darkness that gave inspiration now. It’s a trap, making one tempted to absorb this more powerful Darkness. Though, perhaps it wasn’t, but this Darkness only made my instincts scream danger. I wouldn’t let Alice touch it this time, though it looked like she didn’t want to.
This floor, the 121st was a battlefield graveyard. Corpses, as if fresh from slaughter, surrounded us. It would continue as well, becoming worse as we delved deeper. Thinking over the last fight, if it hadn’t been for that Chimaera being so simple, we would’ve been in a lot of trouble. If there is another Delta-Class boss here then we may have some troubles, especially because now we would be plunging into the unknown.
This section started off with monsters prowling this battlefield, but the deeper we want, the less monsters appeared and the more human-like enemies appeared. The reports had said they started to appear around floor 125, and the reason why the exploration teams had stopped on the 126th is because the team didn’t know what to do since those human-like beings read as normal Level 100 humans, with some evolved monsters. Not only that, but they were strong, making it difficult to know if they were actual humans or not.
It wasn’t a morality thing for the team who had explored, but more of a question of what lay beyond them. Judging by the Darkness both Alice and I sensed, there was a high chance that this was the final ten floors. Perhaps this is some type of trap, or it is a reward of sorts, I didn’t know. I just knew that both of us would not be tempted by it, as we could tell something was wrong with that Darkness.
“Alright Alice, let's go.”
“Yes, Mum!”