Chapter 30
Golden Locust Prince
The singular, golden locust burst into flames and teetered out of the sky like a plane with its engine cut off. It glided for a moment, seemingly fighting for its life, but soon lost the strength and dive-bombed at a sharp angle directly into the sandy dune. There was no explosion or a burst of sand flying upward from the collision, only a whimper of a tiny thing that fell.
Asher’s sphincter puckered as he awaited the swarm from the sky to descend toward him and skin him alive--it seemed that as soon as the tiny little thing blew open a tiny hole in the sand, every locust in the sky was alerted and began to descend, too.
"Oh, dear Father in heave--wait," just as he'd begun to pray, for apparently he wasn't as above it as he'd thought, he noticed that something was... amiss. Though the swarm of locusts was barreling toward the ground, they weren’t barreling toward him. Directly, anyway. Instead, they just started to fall. Everywhere. At the same time. “Eh? A... hive mind?” Asher’s conclusion, inspired though it were, was fairly pointless.
Though he wasn’t a direct target of the onslaught, that didn’t mean he was beyond reproach. There were still hundreds of massive monsters plummeting toward him, and should they crash into him, even if he somehow managed to survive, it’d make the rest of this stage either close to or outright impossible to complete.
He turned his sights to the Lumine Charges--he needed five charges to cast Cosmic Drift which was his only way out of this mess. The issue was that he only had three charges. Was there enough time? Well, he'd know soon enough--he pressed his attention not to the swarm falling down on top of him but on the ticks of the Lumine Charge. He'd already decided that, irrespective of when the monsters crashed on top of him, he'd use Cosmic Drift as quickly as he could to hop toward the nearest dune and its peak, hopefully stabilizing even if taking some damage.
His hope was that the swarm of locusts wouldn't just hurt him but also other monsters.
Nanoseconds felt like seconds, and time slowed down to a crawl. But it was inevitable--by some perverse luck, or perhaps the fact that he'd gotten 20% CDR toward it, but the 5th charge had filled up less than a blink before the first carcass crashed into him. Without a second though, he activated Cosmic Drift and flew upward forty feet into the sky, just some five-six feet above the dune’s peak. He aimed carefully at where to descend and managed to land squarely--though there were some locust corpses around, most had slid down into the pits, only a couple managing to hang on the top.
Asher's eyes widened in abject horror as he watched the terrifying, but in some ways still beautiful desert become entirely dyed with the sea of obsidian exoskeletons, pale brown turning skittish, dark black. The valleys now resembled deep, dark abysses, and the peaks the sort of salvation a mind yearned for.
His heart beat rapidly, and his palms and back were both doused in sweat. He was inches away from being killed, or, even if he'd survived, severely hurt--all because he'd let an intrusive thought win. Of all the times and of all the places to let it happen... he could only curse himself and, once more, wonder whether he really was lucky.
As he had hoped, the swarm had completely buried the monsters--to Asher's surprise, joy, and shock, the monsters' deaths went toward his count. Within seconds, he'd Leveled-up four times.
For the first selection, he ended up getting a [Rare] variant of Nimble Footing, increasing his movement speed by an extra 0,4, up to 1,9.
For the second selection, he upgraded Grimoire once more, electing to add 2 more maximum Lumine Charges, increasing the maximum total to 10. The alternative was adding a 1 cost Fireball spell that was essentially just the Lightning Spear without the pierce chance.
For the third selection, he was rewarded with a Legendary variant of Muscle Training, which started off the passive skill at 7/99, increasing his Health by 80, now up to 120.
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While for the previous three Levels the choices were rather simple, the ones for Level 8 were, once again, playing with his desires... and his heart.
Artillery Sight [Uncommon]
+10% Spell Range
Level: 1/30
Magi of Fate [Rare]
+10 Elemental Damage; -20 HP; -5 Physical Damage; -0,3 Movement Speed
Level: 1/3
Wave of the Occult [Epic]
+6% Chance to Multi-Cast Spells (spell must have the innate possibility for it)
Level: 1/5
Asher stared and stared at the three options, all virtually tailored for a spellcaster. He wanted them all but, just like before, there was a clear, best choice for his current circumstances even if it hurt leaving others untouched.
While the Artillery Sight was novel and nice, it was also fairly useless for the current Stage. There were no long, open stretches of land where he could kite the monsters and simply pummel them from Narnia. What range his spells already had was more than enough for this place.
Similarly, Wave of the Occult was massive--casting the spell twice was effectively dealing double damage, not to mention if the spell had an additional effect. The problem? It was wholly RNG. And Asher, for the time being, was still in a slight daze over RNG, what with the whole Chaosmonger Calling and all.
Magi of Fate, on the other hand, even if it took away a lot of stats had palpable increases--a raw, unquestionable increase in damage. In fact, it'd double it for him. While the option would likely fall entirely out of favor as Asher continued increasing his base stats, for the time being, it was a perfect choice for him. And thus, he chose it.
The world unpaused and he glanced briefly to the size where, to his surprise, he saw that he only had just about a minute left to survive. To an even bigger surprise, he saw that the number of Rare monsters he’d killed was actually at 3/1. Somehow, someway, that rain of locusts managed to bury two mini-bosses. Fortune found in a disaster and all.
Looking around, he couldn’t see any monsters approaching--in fact, he suspected that even if there were monsters out there trying to get to him, it’d be difficult. There was a sea of corpses to wade through.
His eyes inevitably drew downward and he caught a glimpse of a golden glint just some twenty feet from him. He carefully descended, making sure to stick his legs deep into the sand so as to not slide downward. It still only took him some ten seconds to reach the glint which was when he realized it was actually that tiny little golden locust that was the cause of all of this.
Asher reached into the small hole and pulled it out--though it was dead, its body was actually in a surprisingly fine shape. There was some soot and some scorch marks across its ‘armor’, but all of it seemed surface level. The chances were that the monster died from simply being boiled inside out.
Cringing at the thought and suppressing it deep down in his soul so he doesn't ever have to deal with the potential corollaries, Asher wiped the locust and inspected it closely. There were no special markings of any sort--outside from its shell sporting a slightly golden luster that had dimmed considerably with its death, there seemed to be nothing special about it. Perhaps it could be used as a material by some skilled jeweler to make a nice pair of earrings or a necklace, but Asher neither knew someone like that nor could he yank this thing outside even if he did know someone.
“Ah,” as soon as that thought crossed his mind, Asher’s mind reeled in a fervent expectation--and a moment later, the world, as though responding to his own conjecture, responded, pausing. A window appeared in front of him--not one of choice or anything alike, but just one of raw info dump.
Shell of the Golden Locust Prince [Legendary--Damaged]
Level: N/A
Description: As far as the Legends and Myths go, those of the Golden Locust Prince were always ridiculed--locusts were pests despised and feared by all, and even the faintest thought of affording them grace was met with mockery. And yet, here and there, throughout the historic tomes, there were whispers and mentions of a golden glimmer in the ebony swarm. However, that was all they were--nobody had ever been capable enough, or perhaps fearless enough, to try and catch that golden glimmer amid the sea of black.
Note: Ey’lwan might be very interested in the Shell. Deliver it to her for an unknown reward.
Asher sighed as he watched the dead locust disappear from between his fingers. Though he didn’t know where the thing went, chances were that it would appear in his cabin just like all the other rewards did after the Stage.
He didn’t know who Ey’lwan was, naturally, though he had a bit of a suspicion that it might be the smith that torched her smithy a couple of days back. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be difficult to confirm in due time.
Seconds ticked away and, soon enough, he'd survived the full required duration. It was... somewhat boring, really. In fairness, there was that moment where he thought he'd die and had the swarm not buried the entire desert, he would have likely struggled a lot more, but he felt that he wasted not only a relatively good Starter Weapon but also some nice, lucky rolls.
“Oh well,” he sighed as the darkness surged. “Better than being yoked to River Styx.”