Effects: Activated by temporarily halving your MP and Stamina by 50%. Effects of regen rate are unaffected.
Create Dawn. ATK +100, ATK + 10 for all allies and summons. You can use the skills [Blessing of Eos],[Morning star], and [Glory] at Dawn.
Blessing of Eos (Passive): Activates if horizon is visible behind your enemy. Your attacks will be mirrored with 20% power.
Morning Star: Summon the projection of the brightest star for one minute. Critical rate +10%, Critical damage +50%,
Glory (Passive): Create a halo of sunlight around you and your allies. Frontal assault deals 10% bonus damage, the halo will increase DEF by 1 with every kill.
Duration: 30 minutes
CD: 1 day
Create Dusk. ATK +100, Agility +5 for all allies and summons. You can use the skills [Vesper’s Blessing], [Nocturne], and [Erebus] at Dusk.
Vesper’s Blessing (Passive): Activates if Shadows are visible behind your enemy. You can link your attacks with the enemy’s shadows at 80% power.
Nocturne: Veil the ground in shadows for one minute. Ignore defense by 50%, increase weakness damage by 20%.
Erebus (Passive): Create halo spears for every enemy you have attacked. The spears will attack at random with 1-5% of your power. They are invulnerable as long as the skill is active.
Duration: 30 minutes
CD: 1 day
[At Twilight, both effects can be activated simultaneously]
These were the abilities of an Epic-ranked weapon. When he was in the sanctuary, there was no way such skills would be allowed. Not only were the effects blocked, even the ATK was nerfed to 200.
‘I should escape after a blitz attack,’
Zyrus didn’t let the surge of power cloud his judgment. His MP and stamina were halved, and there were hundreds of scorpions. Not to mention other unknown monsters who lurked in this desert.
*Hissssss*
The scorpion leader tried to calm down the others, but how could Zyrus let the chance slip by?
[Arcane Lance]
Zyrus used half of his remaining mana to create black spears tinged with poisonous aura. [Blessing of Eos] and [Glory] had a great synergy if you could instantly kill your enemy.
[Shackles of Nihility]
Every ounce of his MP was consumed with this. He felt feverish as blood rushed out from his nose and ears, but even so, he smiled as he saw the battlefield with his blurry eyesight.
More than a hundred scorpions that surrounded him were bound by purple shackles. Their already unstable formation became even worse.
Zyrus swept twilight crusher in all directions and launched the spears hovering around him. Just by infusing a tiny bit of his aura he had converted the arcane lances into attacks dealt by his weapon.
Only those who stood at the apex of arcana could pull this off as if it were a parlor trick.
‘They should die in about ten seconds,’
Some might think that his method of fighting was stupid, but he believed otherwise. He knew better than anyone that using a weapon that was way above your level was asking for death.
But that didn’t apply to those who knew how to use their cards right.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
8 Seconds…7 Seconds…6 Seconds…
*Schlk*
*Hisssssss*
His abyssal spears struck the bound scorpions, and at the same time, the scorpion leader retaliated with its skill.
5 Seconds…4 Seconds…3 Seconds…
*Tchaang*
The scorpions shot off grey beams with their tails. Their speed was too fast to see whether they were a projectile or a laser beam type attack. Regardless of which, Zyrus knew that they'd tore through him like cheese.
2 Seconds…1 Seconds…
Hundreds of faint black spears attacked the half-dead scorpions bound by the shackles of nihility. The mirror attacks triggered by Vesper’s Blessing had no more than 20% strength remaining, but what mattered here was the poison and abyss attribute.
*Clang*Clang*Clang*
…
..
.
Metallic bangs echoed throughout the area as the grey beams struck Zyrus. Or rather, they struck the orange aura that formed around him. Glory created a halo of sunlight around him and his allies, and with each kill the halo would increase the DEF by 1.
*Craccck*
“Damn that hurt,”
Zyrus groaned under the almost broken sphere of light. 100 defense was comparable to a unique grade armor. The might of the scorpion’s attack was easy to gauge from the fact that it almost destroyed the Glory’s halo.
‘It’s somewhat lackluster without my summons,’
Zyrus wiped the blood from his mouth and faced the scorpion leader. He wanted to test more of his moves, but the situation wasn’t ideal. Thus, he decided to leave them with a final gift.
He used his talents once again to recover his MP and stamina. The scorpions wouldn’t just stand there to let him do as he wished, so he had to make every second count.
[Morning Star]
A blurry red sun appeared behind him. Adding the blood mist that arose from his talent’s activation, the current scene looked like a landscape from hell.
Since Zyrus was down on his MP, there was only one skill he could use to finish the scorpion leader.
[Spear aura]
He ran while channeling all of his stamina. The mark on his chest flared up as well as he activated the Devourer’s effect.
‘Celestial’ attribute was somewhat hard to grasp even for him. But after months of practice, he was certain of one thing: It hit harder than any attribute he’d ever seen.
Zyrus made full use of his agility and climbed over the unorganized scorpions. His target was well within a 100 feet.
*Hissssss*
‘Argh…it’s preceptive,’
Before he even breached the 50-foot radius, Zyrus found that there was a hole carved on his shoulder. The scorpion leader’s attack speed was nothing to laugh at.
‘But it’s too late…’
*Hissssss*
*Splatter*
Dozen aura spears struck the scorpion leader along with Zyrus’s twilight crusher. With so many concentrated attacks on its head some were bound to trigger the critical hits. Naturally, Zyrus took another hit on his stomach as well.
But this place wasn’t the sanctuary where one had to bring down a monster’s HP to 0 in order to kill it. The critical rate and damage were more like the weapon’s enchantments that dealt more damage rather than plain numbers.
The scorpion leader was deader than dead. Its subordinates were useless since none of them could match Zyrus’s agility once he went all out.
‘And it’s about time I retreat,’
Of course, he used his blood to poison the leader’s corpse before leaving. It'd be a jackpot if the scorpions had something like a funeral ceremony.
[Earth Movement]
…
Moving in the desert was easier than on land, at least for those who could move underground. Zyrus felt like he was swimming in a swamp as he went deeper and deeper into the ground.
‘Let’s see…Zirnitra is on the right,’
He located the trio with his connection and moved in their direction. The first thing they needed in their mission was to figure out the terrain and the types of monsters that inhabited them.
‘I thought there’d be some creatures living here as well…’
He kept his vigilance despite the lack of any other lifeforms. Perhaps the scorpions and sandworms ate all the other species, or they were invaders who now lived on this barren desert. Regardless of which, being able to move unhindered gave him a lot of opportunities.
*Shhhk*
Zyrus lifted his head from the dune like a mole. It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to travel across miles.
*Flap*
“I thought you’d bury me with the momentum,” Zyrus greeted the Zirnitra who landed like a feather.
“I dare not,”
“No need to be so formal. So, what did you guys find?”
“There are a lot of monsters in the area. More than a few thousands at the very least,”
“…I’m not certain, but I believe there’s a third species that’s leading them.”
“Guoooo”
Zirnitra, Elsid, and the ghoul replied one by one. He expected the first two answers but what surprised him was the third. Ignoring the fact that he somehow understood what ‘Guoooo’ meant, the content itself was shocking.
“Are you saying that the desert is alive?”
“Guoo,”
Zyrus and his named subordinates were rendered speechless. On one hand, it would be stupid to ignore the ghoul’s words. It had higher sensitivity to life signals than anyone present. But on the flip side, how powerful would a creature have to be to escape their perception range?
“…Can you locate it?”
“Guooooo”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“My liege?”
“He said that it’s right behind us,” Zyrus replied to Zirnitra with a sigh. He decided to let things be since the other party wasn’t hostile.
“Keep an eye out. For now, we’ll build a temporary camp at the highest vantage point,”
They behaved as if they hadn’t sensed anything and left on the back of Zirnitra. Zyrus mulled over the last battle and made a plan to finish off either the scorpions or the sandworms in one fell swoop.
He guessed that the first contact condition should be related to wiping out one of the three forces. Now that he had a general idea about this area, he could make better use of his resources after connecting the headquarters.
‘But before anything else, I need to measure the day cycle…’
Zyrus looked at the real sun that was hanging overhead ever since he came here. The day here was longer than usual, and he hoped the same was true for Twilight.