We had cleared the dungeon. It been an open deer grove in the forest. One large red wolf and three large brown deers. Why were there wolf and deer monsters together? No freaking clue. The skills offered were Flame Breath and Minor Tremor.
Naran picked Minor Tremor instead of an upgrade for Rock Lance or Imbue Cold. It would shake and disturb a patch of ground. It was weird how concentrated the skill was. The patch of ground was about the size of two cars next to each other.
Experiencing the skill made it hard to keep my balance. I almost thought it had a mental component with how off kilter it made me feel. It was a good PvP trap skill. If someone ran into a patch of ground or was standing on a patch when the skill was activated, it would be devastating. It would basically pin them in place unless they were ready to immediately throw themselves to the side. Even if they did that, it would make a recovery difficult.
The skill only lasted 10 seconds. That was same amount of time Rock Lance lasted. An eternity in most fights. It was far less than the 100 seconds Entangling Roots lasted.
We maneuvered to the South of the city of Heaven. If the Ritualist was running the place, he could name the city whatever he wanted. I would respect his naming choices, even if it was the height of irony.
The reason I picked the South gate was because it was the only gate that next to the terrain of the flowerlands. The rest opened up into forests, which limited visibility too much. The flowers would hide monsters low to the ground, but anything large would be visible from the slightly elevated position the city resided on compared to the nearby terrain.
This meant the South gate was the best choice for my initial attack on Heaven. Naran would wait with the cart and Aahan half a mile away on a hill to observe. The nearby level 1 white deer had been cleared out and they were easily visible in the flowerlands. Naran would only intervene if monsters were moving to cut off my escape from outside the city.
My goal was to enter the tunnel through the city wall and drag the fight out of the city to probe the Ritualist’s limits. I wanted to fight in open terrain and avoid an ambush. I was not about to be trapped in a tunnel again.
Once Naran, Aahan, and the cart were in position, I made my way towards Heaven. I had a shield in my left hand, kept my right hand free, and a sword in a sheath at my side.
At the entrance to the city, I noticed the wolf hybrids. They looked like werewolves with their digitigrade legs. I counted five of them. They quickly spotted me but didn’t attack. As I approached, they all retreated back into the city.
This was why I hated intelligent opponents. Time to force the Ritualist to act. I entered the tunnel through the wall. I noted there were no chests or anything else a monster could be hiding in, behind, or on. I carefully checked the ceiling.
Nothing. While I hadn’t seen anything on top of the wall, it would be simple to have a monster lay down. The walls were tall enough to hide something up there. There were four stories tall compared to the buildings two stories worth of height.
Even if there was no easy way to get up there, I had no doubt the Ritualist could make a pyramid of monsters and have them climb up. With monsters turning to dust when they died, at least he couldn’t block off the entrances with their corpses.
I stopped a couple feet short of the exit into the city and looked at the wolf hybrids looking at me from down a street. It was basically an open invitation to enter.
“How annoying,” I muttered. I checked the angle and the distance. Too far for an Acid Shot. I chose to wait. Just standing here would put pressure on the Ritualist to act and spring his trap without me being in the center of it.
I felt confident breaking through one blockade of monsters on the outside with Naran’s help, but two blockades, would be too tricky. The main thing I had to do was avoid being injured. Without access to the store and restoration, any injury would be a pain to deal with.
Ants, dammit! I hadn’t seen any level 1 ants except those called forth from summoner monsters. Even if there were range limitations, this changed everything. Acid Shot. I melted more than half of them and quickly retreated.
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There were no monsters to intercept me as I left the city. I stopped a short distance outside the tunnel. The monster ants stopped inside the tunnel as well. How annoying fighting someone who wasn’t an idiot.
It was a standoff. The Ritualist could trap and kill me if I entered the city, even wear me down. With his ability for long range remote attacks, there was no chance of finding him.
The only option I had was to intercept teams of humans he sent out of the city. But that would be a long-term siege, since he would be able to control the arrivals. The issue was that new arrivals would keep coming, replenishing his stock of people.
The other issue was that this would take away from my grind speed. I didn’t want to be stuck out here, slowly whittling away at the Ritualist’s forces. He also had monsters that could summon other monsters. A long-term battle of attrition was not in my favor, but I had no idea how to force a resolution.
“Ideas?” I asked Naran.
“We need more people. It is like Truth but worse. A lot worse.”
“I agree with that. But even with people, I don’t think quantity will win this kind of battle. The best option is to grind up higher stats and then blow my way through any opposition. With 500 more in both Spirit and Regeneration, I could sweep the city with acid.”
“True, more stats would do it. Teams to hold each of the entrances through the wall. I could see it working. But it would a constant battle over many days.”
“But the Ritualist would need to sleep eventually. Endurance counters the need for sleep, but it doesn’t remove it and I doubt he put a lot of stat points into that stat,” I also hadn’t been able to really gauge how effective the stat was or get confirmation that the effect was what Endurance actually did.
“Regardless, you can’t do this alone,” Naran said, and I nodded at that.
“True. I was hoping something would come to me, or he was less prepared for my probing,” I said with a sigh. Fighting an intelligent opponent like this was incredibly annoying. Personally, it would be the kind of fighting style I would love.
Just sit back, let your minions fight for you. I patted my gut and knew that was one reason I had become fat. Taking the easy route, or the overpowered sit back route. The Ritualist had an advantage now, but I had no doubt he and his army would have no chance against a level 4 monster. I had survived that disaster. It just the quantity and coordination he gave them that was the biggest problems. Also coming up with new things and traps. There were a lot of challenges with this type of opponent.
“Well, we will circle the city some more and then find a place to camp for the night. Since I am not going in there, might as well get the last skill point and you can get another.” It was just one drop in the bucket of debt I owed Naran.
“Let’s get going. Just offset from the wall?”
“Yes. So, nothing can fall on us.” I was going to keep an eye on the top of the wall, to see if the Ritualist had put monsters up there. He would be foolish not to and he was anything but foolish.
Ah, yep, there were a couple of wolves watching us. We made our way around the city, finding only one human team and killing them before retreating for the night.
This time Naran and I would be splitting an actual watch. Another annoying thing about dealing with a person, was that we had to be ready for an attack at any time. There was Death, but there had been that tremor beforehand. Something I still had no idea why it happened. Maybe Death clawed its way up through the ground from the void of darkness beneath our feet.
I always prided myself on my intelligence and determination once I put my mind to a task, but this was a problem with no good solution. I had to wait to gather up more power. The question I needed to figure out, was what the Ritualist would do in response and come up with a counter for that.
Well, I could keep up the pressure a bit after the next arrival and then we would leave back to Purgatory. I could have teams sent to grind the dungeons and kill any teams out of Heaven. That would force the Ritualist to respond. The problem was, that I was the only person who could effectively counter any type of response.
Since he most likely had some kind of range limitations, that meant he would have to leave the city of Heaven. But if he left, he would be near invincible wherever he was. Even 20 skill users organized under me, would be hard pressed to fight through 200 monsters that could coordinate and use tactics.
Even if the monsters were only level 1, the sheer number under his control was enough to counter most everything. If Purgatory and I kept up the pressure and he responded, it would be a tough battle. A battle I wasn’t sure we could win without casualties.
His best option was to assault Purgatory itself and end the threat of our harassment. Teams wouldn’t be able to stay out here but could sweep up the skill points and kill any human grinding teams. Eventually he would be forced to respond.
If Purgatory got warning ahead of time, we could lure him into a decisive battle and kill him once and for all. The issue was dragging him from his city into said confrontation, getting enough warning, and winning said battle.
Each of these issues I wasn’t confident in. Still, I could slow him down a bit before leaving and other teams could be sent out here for harassment duty.
What if he came back to Purgatory and hid in the city? It would be brutal, but eventually he would run out of resources and be found. The city would be ripped apart and the deaths would be countless, but I would win in the end.
I doubted he would share his methodology and how monsters were summoned. After all the headache he went to, to keep the secret of the crystal powder process, I couldn’t see him giving it out for any reason. Still it was something that needed to be reversed engineered.