Chapter 9
Lightning Thief
The clear sky above darkened in a wide circle around him, ashen clouds striking with the sound of thunder.
Asher immediately began to move toward the edge at an angle, keeping himself steady. Halfway toward the edge of the ability’s range, he activated Spear Dash in the direction of six smaller spiders. He blurred at that moment and sped forth like the wind, immediately crossing 8 yards of distance and killing all 6 spiders in the process.
Behind him, he heard a loud roar and felt dirt cover him from the rear. Glancing back, the only thing he could see was the storm of dirt and the massive crater that the lightning bolt left behind.
Spear Dash’s cooldown went down from 14 to 8, securing him for the next one. He re-focused back onto the thunder spider, attacking it repeatedly. Unfortunately, he couldn’t activate Sonic Thrust as quite a few smaller ones were accompanying it. Nonetheless, he was slowly chipping away at roughly 100~ HP that were left. Glancing to the side of his peripheral, he noted that was quite close to completing the quest.
Defeat Monsters: 54/100
Defeat Rare Monsters: 1/3
Defeat a Boss: 0/1
Well, quite close was a bit of a hyperbole, but he was over halfway done with the regular monsters, a third of a way there with the rare ones--and the spider wasn’t long for the world either--with just the last rare and the Boss remaining. Though the concept of a boss scared him a bit, fear would do little so he ignored it.
The clouds above grew ashen again and he moved to the side where there was a line of 4 small spiders. Activating Spear Dash, he rammed through them in a shower of gore and blood. He was oddly accustomed to the sight now as he’d seen the spider’s innards hundreds of times by now in virtually every state imaginable. Though it still wasn’t pleasant getting covered in the stuff, he learned to ignore it.
By the time the thunder spider got down to roughly 50 HP, Asher frowned; for the next set of the ‘Wild Thunder’, he couldn’t locate more than 2 smaller spiders together. Though, technically, he could fit a dash within 12 seconds of cooldown, it was teetering on the very edge of it and was quite risky. He continued to run around the large monster in a circle, looking for more than 2, but it was as though their quantity was either suspended or temporarily paused as part of a test--likely the latter.
Scoffing out loud, he gained some ten yards of distance between himself and the large spider and turned toward the smaller ones, ensuring to always be out of the range to attack them. As soon as he saw the inclination of the dark clouds, rather than walking partway and dashing out, he used Spear Dash immediately, mowing down a pair of smaller spiders and reducing the dash’s cooldown to 12.
He hurried over to the large one and started attacking. With a bit of luck, he mused, he might even not experience the next set.
He felt it, suddenly.
His arm twisted ever so slightly in rotation and the spear in his hand hummed--a double strike. It happened so fast that he couldn’t see the movement with his naked eye, but the second array of powerful wind was shot forth almost at the exact time as the first. But... it didn’t end. His arm, rather than twisting further, locked in a position and his muscles grew taut. A third array trailed just a little behind the first two. But... it didn’t end, still.
Asher suddenly felt a twine of pain--his arm twisted unnaturally to the point where his elbow had done nearly a 240-angle turn, and he could virtually hear the bones in his arm crying in pain--as did he. He yelped at the top of his lungs and just as he thought that his arm would break, the fourth array of wind flew off and his arm relaxed back into its normal position.
The four strikes blew through the air like cannons, causing stillness to surge. They all impacted the rare spider within a second, obliterating it completely and causing it to explode into a shower of blood and gore. It was far more violent and bloody than it had been with the staff as the staff simply burned it. But even as he was being covered with blood, Asher’s sole focus was the arm--it was hurting still, pangs of pain echoing from his fingertips up to his shoulder. But the arm did not stop moving.
It found the nearest smaller spider and attacked, yanking forward. He cried out in pain once again and quickly moved out of the range of every monster. Luckily, he had never stopped moving all this while so his Movement Speed was at a remarkable 1.7. The burning sensation of pain cooled down slightly as he saw some 80 monsters spawn just 20 yards from him. Only twenty or so of them were spiders, with the majority being small, child-sized humanoids resembling goblins.
There was a variety to them--some were yellow, some were green, and some yet red, and they wielded different weapons. Most were melee--swords, axes, spears and such--though there was a particular variant that caught his eye: they were wielding wooden staves that were eerily similar to the one he wielded yesterday.
And, sure enough, as soon as they saw him, they raised the staff, and a single ball of fire appeared above them, tossed at him. With a twine in his heart, he hurried to the right while still slowly closing the distance and switching the spear-wielding arm to his left. Luckily, the fireball moved much slower than for him and it did not seem to have any homing properties. However, considering that there were at least 10 goblins that spawned with a staff, that would be ten projectiles that he’d have to keep an eye out on. Dodging them at 20 yards of distance was possible, but if he got close--which he had to because of his weapon to at least 4 yards of range--it’d become far more troublesome.
Luckily, the monsters’ movement speeds varied greatly--or, in the case of the goblins with the staff, they didn't even move, remaining like stationary turrets that continued to fire at him relentlessly. As such, he simply had to wait a little while for the rest of the monsters to gain a degree of separation from the staff abusers before beginning to mow them down. Unluckily, however, just as he started to whittle down the large group, the last massive monster appeared dab-smack in the middle of the goblin 'mages'.
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Asher audibly groaned--it wore a long, tattered robe with runic enchantments and held a variation of a wooden staff as a weapon. It was barely three times the size of the rest of the goblins, so a 'large' monster was a bit of an overstatement, but Asher hardly cared for it. As soon as it raised the staff and he saw three fireballs appear and shoot toward him, he cursed. The fireballs moved fast--despite the fact that there were some 30 yards of distance between him and the monster, the attack reached him within just three seconds. Luckily, the boss didn’t have the homing feature either--though he did have another one.
As soon as the fireballs landed on the ground, they erupted into pillars of flame that just barely missed him, each covering some four yards in radius. He didn't even have the luxury to admire or dread them, though, as he had to keep moving to dodge the continuously fired spells from the lesser goblins. Frustrations mounting, he resumed whittling down the 'melee' ones, swiftly securing a Level-Up.
Invoking Rage [Rare]
Level: 1/3
Effect: Every 3rd strike with the Main Weapon deals 40% more damage. It if it kills the target, increase your damage for the duration of the Stage by 0.4. Stacks up to 20 times.
Nimble Footing [Common]
+0.3 Movement Speed
Level: 1/50
Early Judgment [Rare]
Level: 1/3
Effect: Mark a random target [priority: Boss->Unique/Epic/Rare Monsters->Ordinary Monsters] and prime them for Judgment. After 2 seconds, deal Holy Damage to the target and gain a random, temporary buff. Multiple instances may overlap if CDR is high enough. Has a 50% extra Critical Chance against non-Ordinary Monsters.
Damage: 24
Range: 80 yards
Cooldown: 15
Asher sighed in relief--he didn’t need movement speed, and it was already fairly late in the stage to get optimal use out of Invoking Rage. As such, picking Early Judgment was a no-brainer. As soon as he did, he focused on the mini-boss goblin to see what would happen--golden light fell from the sky and a set of beautiful, golden runes appeared around the monster, orbiting it for two seconds. After two seconds passed, the runes exploded and transformed into a gold-gilded blade that struck the top of the monster's head.
The sound of a low hymn hummed outward as a massive, bold '-36' appeared above the goblin's head, indicating that the spell struck critically. At the same time, Asher noticed that his attacks with the spear increased in frequency. In fact, they more than doubled! It was then that he noticed a fading 'text' at the top of his peripheral vision: He Bestows Judgment Upon You: +200% Attack Speed for 10 seconds. Extends by 0.5 seconds for each kill, up to an extra 5 seconds.
He grinned, feeling elated. He’d have the buff until the next Early Judgment as he’d already killed ten monsters required to extend the buff for an extra 5 seconds.
The world was one of blood and gore and fire--though it was rather difficult to dodge the ranged abilities, especially at first, due to the Erdar’s Boots, it became easier and easier with the passage of time. Because of that, he continued to shrink the distance between himself and the projectile-firing squad. It was also then that the Early Judgment triggered again, smiting the goblin boss. Unfortunately, this time around it did not crit, dealing ‘only’ 24 damage.
He also lost the Attack Speed buff as it was replaced by a different one.
He Bestows Judgment Upon You: +200% Range for 15 seconds. Extends by 0.5 seconds for each kill, up to an extra 5 seconds.
Asher’s eyes lit up like a pair of glistening stars--quickly killing ten monsters to gain the maximum duration, he spun around and used Spear Dash to close the distance between himself and the firing squad in the rear. His 4-yard range suddenly turned to 12, and he likely wouldn't get as good of an opportunity as this ever again.
Because the ranged goblins were stationary, it was relatively easy to maintain the maximum range, though he still drifted closer to 11 yards than 12 just because he feared missing a single strike in the period. Rather than focusing on the mini-boss, he went after the smaller ones. Luckily, they seemed to have been made out of paper and began to explode into a bloody eruption with each one of his strikes.
Balls of fire continued to hurl past him, and the boss' ones exploded into pillars repeatedly, usurping the terrain and covering him in the dust. Furthermore, the raw temperature rose tremendously and he began to sweat profusely due to the heat. Nonetheless, he pressed on, managing to kill the last of the smaller mage goblins just as the range buff expired.
Golden light appeared once more and runes danced around for two seconds before transforming into the massive, holy blade. It appeared again: ‘-36’. By now, the mini boss’ Health was drained down to just 20% and Asher was close to weeping tears of joy at his ‘luck’. The buff he got, however, betrayed that joy quickly.
He Bestows Judgment Upon You: +200% Elemental Damage for 10 seconds. Extends by 0.5 seconds for each kill, up to an extra 5 seconds.
It seemed as though what his weapon and spells were had no correlation to what kind of a buff he’d get since it was truly random. Alas, he struck gold twice in a row, and getting a dud didn’t hurt.
He cleaned up the mini-boss and the remaining monsters, completing all the quests except the last one. He also Leveled-Up one more time, taking Strike Prowess to increase his damage by 1.
Just as he wondered when the boss would appear--and while skating around the center of the arena to maintain the buff from the boots--a roar of thunder struck from the clear sky. A singular bolt flashed so brightly it blinded him--its thickness mind-bending--and rammed directly into the center of the arena. It was so violent and energetic that it exploded the ground into a massive crater with over 40 yards of radius. In fact, Asher had to use Spear Dash to just barely get out of its range.
Debris shot out upward like inverse rain, showering the entire arena, and the storm of dust violently spread out in all directions for a few moments before clearing up. It was also then that Asher got to take a look at the boss that landed at the very center of the arena. At the same time, the world paused, and a single window appeared in front of him with the picture of the boss at the top: it was a person donning faintly cyan leather armor and a dark hood over their face. A pair of daggers was strapped to the belt, and the person continued to flash the tiny bolts of lightning even in the picture.
Rawen the Third [Epic Figure]
Age: Unknown
Lineage: Northern Wild Empire, Venil Dynasty’s Holy Order
Origins: Unknown
Class: [Lightning Thief]
History: there is nary a record of Rawen before the First War of Succession fought between Prince Caval and Princess Jasmine. Some say that he was an orphan that the Princess hand-selected to rear as a personal weapon; some say that he was a wandering mercenary who caught a glimpse of the Princess’ otherworldly beauty and decided to follow her; and some yet say that he is the long-considered dead Third Prince. Few cared for his history, however. During the Battle of Primrose Castle, just as it seemed like the Princess’ forces were about to be routed back, he appeared from the sky in a bolt of thunder and obliterated the entire castle’s worth of forces all on his own.
Throughout the First War of Succession, he continued to accrue one achievement after another, soon rising to the position of one of the Princess' Ten Holy Warriors. Though his life was brilliant and beautiful, inspirational to many children who would come to read his myths and legends, his end was all but; despite her best efforts, the Princess eventually lost the War of Succession and, in a bid for her life, betrayed Rawen alongside several other Holy Warriors by handing them over to the Prince Caval.
They were all tortured, stripped of their powers, and publicly executed as an act of warning for the rest of the Empire to stand down. His spirit raged, never subdued by peace, forever and fully consumed by the flames of betrayal.