The monster roared as a deep crater was blasted into its ethereal form, sending a cascade of black liquid pouring down onto the ground. Sam swung again, widening the crater. Other than the ice attacks and the frigid chill, the monster had few attacks available to use against Sam.
He quickly whittled its flesh down to nothing, sending shards of ice like ectoplasm thudding to the ground, where they dissipated. Soon, the monster was almost completely headless, but it was still moving. The tiny bit that remained of its head seemed sufficient to keep it aware.
It eventually got one foot underneath itself, and began to rise. By this point, Sam’s energy reserves were almost completely bottomed out, but he still had enough strength to run towards the monster’s leg and reach it before it was too far. He swung for the fences, driving his weapon through the monster’s achilles tendon, laying it low once more. Normally such attacks would be futile, but Sam’s Dao was unusually potent for its level, and he was unusually strong. As a result, the monster stumbled.
Sam drove his hammer into its leg one last time, starting to falter from his exhaustion. The creature fell forwards, crashing down among the trees. Sam stumbled forwards, almost out of energy, and moved as slowly as he could, trying to let it recover.
By the time he reached the felled wraith, he was feeling a bit better, and his resources had all recovered to about a quarter of their full amount. His body burned all over, and he had no choice but to ignore the tortuous pain. In any case, this battle was coming to its conclusion, and he knew that he had what it took to finish it. More importantly, he was hopeful that he would gain a level from this.
Sam walked between the trees, avoiding the monster’s bulk as it lay. It kept trying to rise, but it was ultimately unable to do so, as only its hands were free. A roar of frustration came out of its incorporeal mouth, and it slammed its hands down, sending spikes of ice flying towards Sam. He dodged as the wave of icicles came shooting towards him, and kept moving. The monster knew that its death was coming, and quickly at that, and it struggled to reach Sam with its hands. He dodged around its ponderous blows effortlessly, and eventually reached its head.
Raising his hammer above his head, he sent every last scrap of his power into it. Blazing like a new star, his weapon fell, and slammed into the remainder of the monster’s head. It shattered like glass, and fissures started to race down the monster’s body, breaking it apart into nothingness. Essence entered his body, and Sam quickly sent it surging into his next node, causing him to grunt as pain ripped through his body. Afterwards, his other injuries began to heal somewhat.
Sam fell backwards, and sat down, completely spent. Over the next few minutes, he recovered enough to stand and check his notifications.
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You have killed a Juvenile Cyclops Wraith!
You have leveled up!
Sam had been able to gain a level from that fight, which was what he had wanted. However, it had been quite a bit harder than he had been expecting. It seemed that ghostly enemies were quite hard to deal with, except with overwhelming energy, as physical attacks were useless.
As the Corpse Titan began to rise, Sam suspected that such monsters would become more common. He was not looking forward to that. Sam got to his feet, spotting a small glowing core lying on the ground where the monster had been. He walked over to it, and picked it up, feeling a strange sense of coldness from it. Strange in that the feeling was purely conceptual, rather than tangible. He quickly scanned it, interested in what it was.
Wraith Core
F-Rank Monster Remnant
Ghosts are imbued with such a conceptual level of cold and intangibility that this remains after death, in the form of a core. Such cores can be used by beings cultivating Daos related to these concepts.
Sam closed the interface and pocketed the Wraith Core, surprised at just how cold it felt to the touch, even through his armor. It seemed to exude the cold through any sort of layer, showing that it was not normal cold, but rather, as he had suspected, some sort of conceptual cold. With that battle done however, he had been richly rewarded, with both the core, and a level up. However, he was not ready to go back to the city yet. He had a feeling that he could find more monsters before it was time to go.
A few hours later, Sam had butchered his way through the ranks of the weaker monsters, but still had yet to find anything that would pose a challenge. The teams of hunters that were sent out into the woods to level up had scared away a lot of the monsters in the area, and even the stronger ones had been wary, after seeing what Sam had done to the Inferno Boar that had attacked one of his units. Sam was suffering from his own success here, and because of his immense strength, he was finding it harder to gain more strength.
As he slashed through a group of herpetopedes, Sam finally emerged into a large clearing, near the side of the canyon. Hopefully there would be more undead monsters here that he could whet his blade on.
As he emerged into the large open space, he could see across the canyon, and what he saw was not an encouraging sight. The entire plain on the other side was blackened, and there were what looked like hordes of skeletons milling about around it. Every now and then, he would see one of the massive cyclops ghosts rise out of the canyon and emerge onto the surface world. Most of them appeared on the far end of the canyon, but every now and again, one would appear on this side of the canyon. The speed at which the Titans were awakening was accelerating, and Sam knew that for the survival of the world, someone would have to find a way to kill an E Rank.
He suspected that the way one was supposed to do this was with the combined force of the Seven Seals, but he knew that getting them would be a far harder task than it seemed. None of the other factions would be willing to give them up, and even if Sam explained his motives to them, they would never trust him. Perhaps if they saw the extent of the damage that the Titans could do, they would give in, but by that time, it would be too late.
Sam held no illusions about what would happen if the Corpse Titan came knocking on the wall of his city. It would be wiped from the face of the map in a matter of minutes, or perhaps even seconds.