Chapter 68
Shattered Plains
Conquest of the Shattered Plains [I]
Difficulty Rating: 37/100
Context: Three hundred years ago, the Emporium waged its first war against the Northern Wilds, bands of scattered tribes, communes, and nomads. Believing it would be an easy victory, the Emperor at the time sent a force of only 30,000 men with only a few Magi scattered about. Mere two months into the campaign, the Emporium's forces were wholly defeated and forced back. Terrain so harsh poisoned swamps were preferable, and the terrifying adoption of the Northmen to it proved to be too much for the small army. Enraged, the Emperor sent Count Aevean who caused the First Shattering, rendering much of the Northern Lands even more inhospitable. However, even he did not manage to achieve full victory.
Sort your spells and abilities and face the onslaught of the Northmen at the Shattered Plains, a land ravaged by magic and blood, where resentment burns like wildfire.
Defeat Northmen: 0/15,000
Defeat a Chieftain: 0/1
A mere blink of an eye later, Asher found himself standing in the midst of carnage--all around, as far as he could see, churning smoke heaved toward the sky. There was nary a blade of grass untouched, still swaying, while countless corpses lay strewn in all manner of deterioration. Armors and weapons, as such, lay strewn further between them, rusted with blood and rain, aging the battlefield by decades.
Between the normal-sized corpses, there were the strange ones, too--a giant skull the size of a tower with three round openings for eyes and a massively protruding snout was angled toward the sky, as though it was howling at the invisible moon. Further east, a mound-sized ribcage jutted from the dirt almost as though it had grown from it, rot and decay overtaking the bones.
Over to the west, just some hundred yards away, Asher spotted a massive wound in the world itself--a gash spanning some twenty yards in width and going on for over half a mile in length separated two parts of the field; as for where the gash led, he couldn’t say. It wasn’t lonesome, either--strange holes and ravines and crevices were visible everywhere around, as though someone took massive shapes and hammered them into the ground for one reason or another.
Further north, there was a mountain--or, at least, what was left of it. Its top was wholly missing, strangely misshapen, carved out like a set of jagged teeth.
There was a duality to everything he was seeing--it was as much a recent battlefield as it was old, aged, and forgotten. Vapors of smoke, the still-decaying flesh, the color of blood in the dirt all spoke to the time in weeks, at most. And yet, the fleshless skulls and ribs and rusted weaponry and armory as well as the general ‘calm’ visible everywhere all spoke of a battle that was already altered twice in the world’s historical tomes.
Three hundred years ago...
He pondered for a moment at the revelation at the very start--three hundred years was such an excruciatingly long time, all things considered. And yet, in this world, it seemed somewhat... lesser.
Shaking his head, he disregarded straying thoughts--it was pointless to think about it too much. All these tiny bits and pieces of ‘lore’ felt so divorced from one another that it was practically impossible to tie together a timeline of events. As such, he didn’t bother.
‘Common’ Starter Weapons returned in all their glory: the Staff, the Sword, and the Bow. He was tempted, if ever for a moment, to select a Bow as a point of novelty, but the Difficulty Rating was far too high for it. Considering the number of enemies he’d have to kill, he settled for the Staff in the end.
The world unpaused and unfroze, and the smoke continued upward, its embers invisible in the dirt. Asher couldn’t see any enemies for quite some time and thus began wandering about carefully, ensuring he didn’t get too close to any of the openings in the ground.
It was nearly two minutes later that he first spotted an enemy--some two hundred yards in the distance, silhouettes emerged from the mist. At the same time, his arm was raised automatically and balls of fire began to quell out the distant life.
Every attack was a one-shot, something he somewhat expected.
It felt eerily nostalgic; it had been some time since he'd entertained an 'ordinary' Stage--an actual horde survival Stage. Kill 'monsters', gather experience, level up, obtain new spells, and kill more 'monsters'.
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Dash [Common]
Level: 1
Effect: Dash in a targeted direction. Has a 3% chance of not incurring the cooldown.
Dash Length: 4 yards
Cooldown: 10s
Next to the Muscle Training and Strike Prowess, Dash was a no-brainer. Speeding onward, the rate of 'monsters' spawning increased--from just four to five at a time to roughly fifteen. They were quite slow, however, and with the Staff's infinite range, he was never in danger.
Wooden Staff [UPG--+3!! Lucky Roll]
Level: 4
+6 Damage
+ [Common Effect] -- a successful hit 'Ignites' the target. All 'Fire' spells deal 15% more damage to 'Ignited' targets.
+ [Epic Effect] -- gain 20% Multi-Strike for every attack. If triggered, the secondary attack will gain 30% Critical Chance. If the secondary attack Crits, fire off the third attack dealing 80% of your Base Damage.
+ [Uncommon Effect] -- every 5th attack is guaranteed to trigger all %chance based effects on the Weapon.
Asher smiled silently as he picked the upgrade--he was still unsure whether it had to do with him actually upgrading Luck, or whether the ‘game masters’ were just screwing with him, trying to get him to invest more and more into Luck, a potentially worthless stat.
Regardless, the choice sped up his carnage quite a bit. As it was quite some ways away, he couldn't fully see the end result of the bombardment, but he could imagine well enough. Rather, he'd already seen most and had grown strangely numb to the whole ordeal. Even if the 'monsters' in the distance were clearly humans or at least an offshoot of sorts, his heart hardly stirred at watching them be burned alive in a single bout of flames.
Firesworn [Epic]
Level: 1/1
Effect: every kill achieved with a fire spell charges a fire spear above you, increasing its size, damage, speed, and penetration. Be careful--overcharging it may result in a dangerous explosion.
Damage: 6-8388
Speed: 3m/s--89m/s
Penetration: 0-68
Cooldown: 10-48 (the greater the charge, the longer the cooldown)
Thunder Spirit [Epic]
Level: 1/3
Effect: summon a Thunder Spirit from the sky at the targeted destination. It will explode upon impact, dealing massive damage spread across all enemies in the area after which it will execute its Root Ability. Cannot be activated automatically. Each successive usage increases the cost.
Initial Damage: 388
Spirit Sundering Damage: 86 per target
Cooldown: 60s
Cost: 16 Health [increased by 2x with every usage: 32/64/128/256/512/1024]
Enduring Light [Epic]
Level: 1/1
Effect: form a barrier of light around you that absorbs 20% of all damage you take for the next 8 seconds. Upon expiration, the barrier is shattered and a golden shield is cast above you, reflecting all absorbed damage to all foes within 80 yards of you.
Cooldown: 120 seconds
For the first time, Asher paused; he discarded Enduring Light almost immediately as he didn’t need a defensive spell just yet, but was split between the Firesworn and the Thunder Spirit. Both had drawbacks, though the Spirit’s was a lot less vague--however, at the same time, the lack of vagueness presented clear shortcomings. For all intents and purposes, he'd be able to cast the spell up to a maximum of 5 times, and the fifth cast would leave him with a depressingly little Health after the fact.
On the other hand, Firesworn had no such drawback--he just had to be careful not to ‘overcharge’ it. Even if, altogether, it would do less damage, it was still a better choice.
As soon as he made it, a tiny kindle of flames appeared above him, and, as the spell described, with each enduring kill, it grew slightly in size, elongating slowly into the shape of a spear. The growth, however, was slow. So slow that he immediately realized the secondary trap of the spell--due to its insanely slow rate of growth... there was a legitimate chance that he might entirely forget the spell existed should he become overwhelmed in a battle.
Sighing, he shook the straying thoughts away once more and focused on the battle. He wouldn’t forget--hopefully. Would be an awfully depressing way to go, ultimately. For all the bravado, killed by his own spell.
Chuckling for a moment at the thought, he experimented a bit and fired off the Firesworn spear--unlike the fireball from the Staff, it didn’t have a homing ability. As such, it whizzed past everything and flew off in the distance, never touching anything. Scratching his nose momentarily with embarrassment, he forewent any further inspection and moved on. There’d be other opportunities, after all.
Wooden Staff [UPG+4]
Level: 5
+6 Damage
[Common Effect] -- a successful hit 'Ignites' the target. All 'Fire' spells deal 15% more damage to 'Ignited' targets.
[Epic Effect] -- gain 20% Multi-Strike for every attack. If triggered, the secondary attack will gain 30% Critical Chance. If the secondary attack Crits, fire off the third attack dealing 80% of your Base Damage.
[Uncommon Effect] -- every 5th attack is guaranteed to trigger all % chance-based effects on the Weapon.
+ [Rare Effect] -- striking an 'Ignited' target increases Critical Chance by 1% until the next Critical Strike. If at least 10% Critical Chance is gained this way, the next Critical Strike will deal an extra 200% damage and explode into a fiery blast with a 20-yard radius, dealing half of the inflicted damage to all foes in the radius.
Once again, Asher upgraded the Staff. By now, it had likely gone from ‘Common’ to at least ‘Uncommon’ in rank, though it didn’t matter.
Ultimately, he found himself simply flowing through the motions. And, as though the world was angered by his numbing lull, a mournful shriek exploded from the south, prompting him to turn around. His heart stilled for a second when he saw a mass of silhouettes emerge like swarming shadows--there were thousands of them, at least.
“Huh,” he chuckled, raising his staff slowly. “Truly never a dull moment.”