Just like the Ghouls, the Fiend was quick, it had the same ability to emit that red mist that would sap away at the health of anyone that got to close just at a much quicker rate. Shaun was still able to block it form touching him for the most part, needing to concentrate on keeping a barrier of air around him that was constantly fighting against the force of the mist.
The beginning of their fight was a lot like playing cat and mouse, the Fiend would come at him, boosting its speed and trying to tear him apart with its empowered claws while he would dodge out of the way and move to another part of the room while following up with an ice strike. He was cautious that any of his more explosive skills would hit the Elder, so he held back, that is until the Hobbit made the smart decision and actually left the room through the door. Finally.
The moment the Hobbit left the room he stopped holding back, moving from defence to going on the attack, he sent a bolt of lightning straight at the Fiend followed quickly by an elemental shift into that same element, coming down right next to the disorientated Fiend then using his gauntlet sending a fire strike at the same time slicing into the arm of the monster before teleporting away to safety.
When he looked over the damage he had done to the Fiend he could see blistering from his fire strike and a large cut through its arm leaking red blood. It was nowhere near out of the fight, what he had achieved though was pissing it off. With a screech the Fiend condensed the red mist around it into its hands and sent a blast of it straight at where he was standing. Shifting back into the air he moved quickly to a different part of the room, but as soon as he came back to himself the Fiend came at him almost instantly, as if it had been tracking him in some way.
Rather than move again he met it head on with his sword, going into melee and imbuing each of his attacks with an ice strike. Every time his sword met the Fiend part of its arm would freeze up, reducing its capacity to fight him at full force. It seemed to ignore this though, if anything it mad eth Fiend more mad than it was and continued to attack him with more fervour.
This pushed the fight into the next level, all he could do was focus on blocking and striking, only having time to use his elemental strike skill once every three attacks as all of his other focus was on no getting hit. Even then he had sustained a few scratches, none of them deadly, but they had been imbued with the red power the Fiend had and it continued to sap away at his health. Feeing his summons start to fade Shaun decided to do something stupid in the hopes that he could end this fight here and now. He still needed to kill more Corrupted after this and wearing himself down in this fight was going to make the rest of the area that much harder.
Rather than using his ice strike skill in any of his attacks he focused on something else, it took only a few seconds to get his mirror blade skill ready and posed to attack. He didn’t use it immediately, instead he let the Fiend attack him a few more times and then, he gave it an opening that it would use. The Fiend fell for it, and attacks exactly where Shaun had hoped. Immediately the Fiend dug its hand into his shoulder with its good arm, when it did it stilled to focus on its own attack on him. As soon as it had stopped moving so quickly he directed his mirrored blade, made of pure ice, straight into the back of its neck.
Being so close to the Fiends face, he could see the shock hit felt from being attacked from behind. He could also see that as he had hoped, the ice blade did similar damage as every other time he had utilised the element, it froze the area around it, in this case, the Fiends entire neck, even moving up to its head. He gave it no time to recover, coating his sword with a magma strike he cut through the arm that was digging into his shoulder, cleanly removing it from its body. Then as quickly as he could he followed up with another strike and this time cleanly removed the head from it body.
The Fiend had attempted to get out of the way, but with his mind focused on the mirrored sword in its neck, not allowing it to move, it had no hope in dodging his attack in time. When the Fiends head hit the ground he wanted to cheer in victory, but at that very moment he felt his first summons dissipate, his golem was down, leaving all the Hobbits it had been protecting vulnerable.
Shifting into the air instantly he travelled as quickly as he could to the position the golem last was, what he saw did not give him much hope. It seemed the golem had gathered all the Hobbits in one area and put itself between them and the Corrupted. Now that the Golem was gone, the Corrupted would have free rein to slaughter the Hobbits, which would spell the doom for this dungeon and force him to do it all over. He couldn’t have that.
He pushed himself into the middle of the Corrupted, switching from air to lightning in an instant, something he hadn’t done and he felt that he had gained several levels in the skill in that instant, pushing the skill in a way he never had before had always been a sure way to gain levels. The moment he blasted down he didn’t let up his attack, he summoned a mirror sword of ice, and together slaughtered their way through the Corrupted, not giving them an ounce of reprieve from his attacks and fully focusing his mind to the task of killing.
Shaun had no idea what has happening in that moment, his only focus was on killing, all emotion left him, his swords were no longer weapons to be used, it was as if they were part of him. The feeling didn’t last though and he came to in a completely different area of the village, around him there was Corrupted cut into pieces, and using his echo he realised that not only had he killed just the monsters where the golem had been but that there was no more Corrupted left to kill at all.
He felt himself absolutely drained, his stamina was dangerously low, as was his mana. He had no notifications around what had happened to him, but losing himself so fully, as if he had lost all control of his actions and only had one purpose, that to kill, was a terrifying prospect. Using his echo again he took count of the Hobbits he felt in the area. 63 Hobbits, thank fuck.
He wanted out of this dungeon, and quickly. The first thing he did was gather the Elder, who was tilled holed up in the building he fought the Fiend, but in a different room. After he had a quick conversation, confirming that the Corrupted were all dead, that the outposts were all taken care off and that all that was left was getting them all back to their village, they gathered the remaining living Hobbits.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
He was in no state to take them back to the village, not yet, so instead he sent them on errands to gather supplies and gather back to him when they were done, ensuring that they knew that none of them could leave the village. During that time he sank into a deep meditative state and recovered. At the same time he inspected his mind, his body and even his mana channels, trying to find some hint as to what had happened to him during that fight. Even after a few hours of meticulous searching, he found nothing. His hope though was that once he finished the dungeon and got all of his notifications for clearing this area, that something would be there waiting for him.
It took a few hours before he felt ready to start the move back to the village, and similar to every other time he had the walk back he was constantly fighting monsters that came from the surrounding area, all aiming to kill of the Hobbits like they were some kind of delicacy. What made this trip back so much easier than all the others was that he had a much smaller group of Hobbits, meaning he was covering a much smaller area.
By the time he had made it back to the village he was exhausted but excited. This dungeon was minutes away from being finished and he would be able to move onto the next without having to spend days healing. On the walk back he had managed to use his mana to heal himself of the wounds the Fiend had inflicted on him and outside of needing to rest a bit to bring all of his stamina and mana back up to full he would be ready to go into the next dungeon immediately.
Once he found the Hobbit who acted as the keeper of the village while the Elder was away he got the confirmations he needed from the system after listening for a while of how thankful they were and that they only wished a reward could be given. Stupid dungeon, not getting any loot or rewards sucks.
*You have defeated a (Corrupted Ghoul – Level 111). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.*
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
*You have defeated a (Corrupted Ghoul – Level 116). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.*
*You have defeated a (Corrupted Fiend – Level 124). Bonus experience for killing an opponent above your level gained.*
*Class: Elemental Blade Slinger has levelled up by +4 levels. [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger has reached Level 104. +12 Str, +8 Dex, +12 End, +12 Vit, +16 Soul gained*
*Race: Human has levelled up by +2 levels. Human (E) has reached Level 81. +32 Ap gained*
*Save the Slaves Dungeon Completed. Dungeon will automatically eject successful participants in 1 minutes.*
What the actual fuck! He checked, and then checked again. He had no notifications giving him any indication of what had happened when he pretty much blacked out in that fight. No new skills, no upgrades, nothing. Checking over his stats in the hope of seeing something he missed he was stilled at what was reflected.
Status:
Name: Shaun Clermont
Race Human (E)
Level: 81
Class: [Advanced] Elemental Blade Slinger - Level 104
Profession: [Advanced] Elemental Creator - Level 58
Health Points:9426/11210
Stamina:842/8150
Mana:2015/31190
Stats: (Available Points: 32)
Strength: 870
Dexterity: 970
Endurance: 815
Vitality: 1121
Intelligence: 743
Perception: 722
Willpower: 855
Soul: 3119
Affinity:
Basic: Earth, Fire, Nature, Air, Water
Advanced: Lightning, Ice, Magma
Titles:
New Initiate, Apex Predator, Planetary Forerunner, Elementalist, Expert Solo Dungeoneer, Duke
Heritage:
Azreal's Legacy (Hidden)
Skills:
Class: [Advanced] Blade Mastery (Level 69), [Advanced] Earthen Echo (Level 55), [Advanced] Enhanced Mind (Level 71), [Advanced] Elemental Strike (Level 56), [Advanced] Stone Skin (Level 33), [Advanced] Elemental Shift (Level 41), [Advanced] Elemental Summons (Level 34), [Advanced] Mirrored Elemental Blade (Level 9)
Profession: [Advanced] Elemental Fusion (Level 52), [Advanced] Creators Control (Level 45), [Advanced] Element Coercion (Level 39), [Advanced] Meditation (Level 56), [Advanced] Mana Sight (Level 50), [Advanced] Runic Scribe (Level 48), [Advanced] Elemental Storage (Level 6)
None of his skills had changed, but some of their levels had grown in leaps and bounds. His Blade Mastery skill had jumped by over 10 levels, as had his enhanced mind and his elemental shift. He knew that his elemental shift had jumped from his instantaneous move from air to lightning, so the Blade Mastery and Enhanced Mind skill had to have something to do with what had happened. He had been using both skills when before he had gone into his killing blackout, potentially he used the skills in such a way that his mind focused fully on killing and his blades temporarily combined the two skills to such a degree that for a moment they created a temporary new skill? Or maybe both skills boosted to something else for a time which resulted in what happened?
He didn’t have the time to figure it out now, he was thankful for the levels, really thankful as it meant that the skills themselves were moving towards their max, but the not knowing was going to annoy him until he figured it out. The minute finished quickly and like every other time he finished a dungeon he appeared back out at the entrance.
* Save the Slaves (E grade) Dungeon has been completed*
Would you like to claim this dungeon for 2,000,000 TE?
This was now the Second E grade dungeon and replicating what he did with the first was going to be easy enough.
*Please choose one of the following options*
Option 1: Terraform surrounding area covered by this dungeon. Note: this will cost further TE, amount dependant on Terraforming.
Option 2: Terraform as per option 1 but also leave dungeon in place. Note: this will add an extra 500,000 TE to cost.
Option 3: Claim area, leaving dungeon in place but do not terraform.
He felt a lot less annoyed at keeping this dungeon as he had the last. It still wasn’t his favourite dungeon he had ever been into but it was so much better than the robots. He chose option 2 and spent some time going over all the plans he had, ensuring that they matched up with all of the surrounding dungeon areas creating a seamless transition between one area to the next. Spending millions of TE was some what depressing, but with only 3 more E grade and the D grade left he was still confident he had more than enough. The plan for him was to invest all the remaining TE he had into the D grade area when the time came. It was up to Viv and everybody else to sort out the other areas the way they wanted. This was only a temporary place for him to stay and he had no desire to waste time making it a utopia for the human race, that was Viv’s job, thankfully.
He did walk back to the dungeon entrance and confirmed that you could now select tier levels before entering, he assumed this would be the case but confirming it before he left was the smart thing to do, just in case something changed with this one compared to the last. Now all that was left was some rest and searching for the next dungeon.