NOVEL FROG Chapter 325 - Drifting into the void.
You have successfully saved against NIGHTMARE!
You laugh at the specter of your own terror!
You have critically struck your foe!
Eric jolted awake, finding himself once more in the ruins of Newark, and his rune shield was gone as if it had never been.
The despairing wales and desperate cries of those doomed for the Orc fire pits filled the air.
Eric jolted upright, eyes alight with terror… before Unified Perception kicked in and he better sensed the realm about him.
For as much as he found himself stepping upon Gilton’s battle-scarred streets, peering upon ruined buildings, he sensed as well the specters that hid so well from both vision and the arcane… but who’s spiritual and heat signatures were unmistakable.
But even understanding the phantasmal nature of the ruined city before him didn’t dispel the background, any more than flicking a casually claimed stone from outside interacted with the ruined sentinels of concrete and steel.
Eric flashed a cold smile, his mind briefly flickering through all his options as he wrapped a strip of cloth around his eyes.
Because the best way to handle enemies invisible to the eye when surrounded by deceptive phantasms was not to use them at all.
His exquisite heat sense and arcane perception was what he now relied upon, working every bit as well as when he once hunted rats in the sewers of Gilton, from the very start.
Instantly, he got a sense of the numbers arrayed against him, realizing there weren’t just a few handfuls but scores of specter-like spirits rapidly closing in.
So Eric didn’t bother fucking around. He had already survived one delve where not understanding his foe’s weaknesses had come perilously close to killing him, yet once he understood the nature of his foes… his efforts were richly rewarded.
Just as they were now, once more.
You have summoned forth: Blood Orb.
Note! Necromantic abilities have been formally outlawed by the Northeastern Branch of the United Federation of Nations!
UFN warning disregarded.
What what goes on in a delve STAYS in a delve!
“Sanguis Fulmen!”
“Sanguis Fulmen!”
You have critically struck multiple Level 65 Specters!
Your lightning has lanced MULTIPLE targets!
You have CRITICALLY STRUCK multiple targets!
You have successfully slain six Specters!
Experience earned!
(60 Mana, 60 Qi & 3 Soul Reserves expended.)
Eric flashed a fierce grin at the sounds of his rapidly approaching foes screaming as they faded away to oblivion, Eric instantly seizing the Vor and raining furious lightning upon a rapidly routing enemy. It was with fiercest satisfaction that he witnessed creatures so like the ones that had once come so close to killing him now rupturing before his fury as easily as throwing stones at brittle glass houses. And in less than two minutes, he was already at the brink of earning another level.
He tempered his manic joy, however, when a pair of darker shadows sought to strike him from behind, somehow utterly certain that their touch would have horrific repercussions for his friends… even if he should survive a couple of their blows. Hopefully.
Quickness check made!
Speed Racer in effect!
You easily escape encirclement!
“Sanguis Fulmen!”
“Sanguis Fulmen!”
Eric howled with fury and glee. Finally, he was able to cut loose without stricture or fury. He could finally push all thoughts of vicious intrigue and cold-hearted betrayal into a tiny frigid corner of his mind, along with the agony he knew he was already over, happy to revel in the sheer joy of OBLITERATING his foes and sucking in their juicy soul-force and he was absolutely flooded with sweet potency and power, his Blood Lightning becoming both far more efficient and deadly than it had ever been before.
Crimson Lightning is now Rank 10!
Efficiency perk AUTOMATICALLY taken!
You have achieved Rank 59 as a Primal adventurer!
Crimson Lightning is now Rank 11!
Crimson Lightning is now Rank 12!
Crimson Lightning is now Rank 13!
You have achieved Rank 9 as a Runic Spell Forger!
You have been completely surrounded by EXTREME Hostile Potency!
Warning! This counts as a BRONZE TIER OPPONENT!
For a time, Eric’s laughter rang through the massive cavern, even as he sensed the trap closing in.
An irresistible clarion call to the dozens… no, hundreds, of bitter revenants and specters so fragile that they couldn’t even exist in the outer world. Only in here could savor the tainted spiritual pressure they needed to exist. Frigid howls of ghostly apparitions now filled the air, sending shivers even through Eric’s crimson haze, Spiritual Perception making it exquisitely clear the weight of tortured souls that eagerly wanted him to join their ranks.
And Eric was no longer lashing out with abandon, having to weave and dodge with disciplined focus that rapidly became tinged with desperation, refusing to feel shocked, or horrified, when frigid breath caressed his Rune enhanced armor only to freeze it right off, and a chunk of Eric’s 284 Vitality underneath.
As if over 4000 Health and massive resistances meant nothing at all.
Between one heartbeat and the next, what had at first been a glorious chance to let go, before evolving into a glorious exercise, harnessing both his reflexes and his Potency Reserves while enhancing his deadliest skill, had somehow become a death trap.
Suddenly, Eric found himself not just herded but utterly surrounded by not dozens but hundreds of hungry, powerful specters, as the frigid whispers that froze his ears off became cackles of glee that scratched and bled across his soul.
Only then did the cold taste of mortal peril finally snap Eric out of his berserker’s haze, as a sudden sense of his own mortal peril, and recollection some of the most dangerous fights of his life all clicked together in a single desperate act revelation, realizing that he had been leaving his trump card unplayed for far too long.
He opened his mouth wide, mind racing along too long neglected paths, savoring warped magics that had NOTHING to do with the symmetry of Runic arts, but were rather the discordant clashing of all three of his major disciplines. He visualized himself ramming opposed forces together in the desperate hope that the resulting reaction would work just as well as it had when facing a zombie incursion in the heart of Junk town, what now felt like a lifetime ago.
Even as he utterly failed to account for the differences in power that dozens of levels and massive boosts to his stat pools would make, as he whispered the word that would unleash catastrophe.
“ABJURO!”
Eric roared, and the world flashed Brilliant white, before inky darkness that tasted of screams and blood and the very realm being torn asunder left him hurtling through the air, fighting to maintain consciousness as his body suffered Catastrophic injury.
You have successfully unleashed UNORTHODOX ABJURATION!
UNORTHODOX ABJURATION HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY FUSED TO THE ESSENCE OF DOMINION!
You have managed to summon a HIGHER ORDER MANIFESTATION OF DOMINION!
Your abjuration transcends all known limits.
CRITICAL SUCCESS!
You have slain 169 Greater Specters!
Unorthodox Abjuration is now Rank 21!
Unorthodox Abjuration is now Rank 22!
Unorthodox Abjuration is now Rank 23!
you have successfully learned the Necromancer Spell Variant:
TRANSCENDENT ABJURATION!
Obliterate your undead opponents and any pocket rift they’d are nest within with a higher order manifestation of Dominion! - Cost to cast: 40 Mana / 40 Qi / 40 Psion / 40 Soul Reserves. (Efficiency will increase, should you dare to master this spell!)
You have suffered catastrophic damage!
You have achieved Level 60 as a Primal Adventure!
You have achieved Level 61 as a Primal Adventurer!
You have achieved Level 62 as a Primal Adventurer!
You have achieved Level 63 as a Primal Adventurer!
Your fourth node has SUCCESSFULLY ASCENDED!
Potency surge is healing all injuries at 140 fold basic rate!
Unified Restoration is now Rank 12!
Unified Restoration is now Rank 13!
NOTE! You have successfully ruptured your local rift!
Boss Monsters have NOT been defeated! You are unable to shape the fate of this rift! Rift closure will occur in 30...29...28…
For an endless moment, Eric felt nothing but blinding agony that would have consumed him then and there, had he not learned the awful art of fusing the essence of Dominion right into his very nerves, FORCING them to obey and mute his agony. Yet even so, his skin feeling like it was both freezing and boiling as his eyes bulged, but didn’t burst, and he sensed himself hurtling into the void, as the rift rupture shrank in the distance.
For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of panic, even as his lungs ached with the need to vent the air trapped in his lungs, thoughts racing to his time battling cackling Shamans who had sent him hurtling into the heavens to the wards he had placed muting G-force itself.
Only he was now far beyond any earthly atmosphere, hurtling into the depths of endless frigid darkness, being relentlessly pulled away from the distant sliver of warm, life-giving light slipping free of the ruptured rift into the starless void.
Praying that his desperate plan would work, Eric allowed the tiniest trickle of air to leave his lips, mouthing words he didn’t need to hear, so long as the energy trapped within his frame could blossom forth.
“Inverto gravitas! Roboro Gravitas! Unos Attentio!” Eric screamed in his mind with every iota of focus, and suddenly it was as if he weighed a thousand pounds. His weightless plummet into the void quickly reversed, and he was hurtling towards an event horizon that was the closing rift itself. A rift shining brilliant colors into the starless void. A rift that was still closing, and Eric realized to his horror that he would be too late.
“Eric? Fuck, you idiot! Roboro Ventus Unos Attentio!”
Eric was surprised beyond belief to here Bunbun’s voice. Even more so to feel a strong blast of frigid air pressing against his back, the void itself eager to claim it all, allowing it to smash against his back with no resistance at all, and suddenly, to his profound, heartfelt relief, it seemed like he just might slip through the rift in the nick of time.
Then a warm cloak of light, heat, and life-giving air embraced him, and he wanted to laugh for joy, before realizing that he was hurtling for the ground at breakneck speeds.
In that instant he understood his absolute peril, and that he had no time at all to do anything, most definitely not evolve an instantaneous spell, or scream out a four word chant in twenty seconds. Yet there was one thing he could most definitely do. That which allowed him to embrace a combat sensed utterly beyond his opponent’s ken, resisting the kinetic force of blows as if they were far slower than they actually were.
He pushed his ephemeral slow time state to the absolute limit, every instant seeming to stretch endlessly as his level up points shot into Quickness, Finesse, and Perception as they so often did, enhancing the effects even further. Because the difference between being gently poked in the chest or having ones heart explode from impact had everything to do with the speed of the projectile, all other factors being equal. Or, perhaps just as valid, it had everything to do with the relative perception of speed.
Because if time was now going at a fraction of normal speed for Eric as his mind absolutely blazed with all the information he could process in his environment, then hopefully his body would be equally capable of handling the kinetic force of impact. Regardless he could sense with such clarity, in those endless awful moments the crater of absolute destruction he had caused upon a featureless grey canyon of a rift. If nothing else, most of Gilton’s post-apocalyptic remains had been abjured, along with hundreds of specters that had thought Eric such easy prey.
He sensed as well the utter fragility of this realm, the crater that was paper thin in some fourth-dimensional hard to define way. Yet the gate of mist he sensed just a short distance away, that any smart, careful party could have gotten to after only having to fight half a dozen perilous encounters, so long as they could see the apparitions, and knew how to protect against, dispel, destroy, or simply avoid those specters… still glowed with potency.
Without a doubt, the boss monster was alive and well.
Eric could only pray that it would stay in its corner of the Delve as he finally made contact. Even with Combat-time in full effect, he still had to endure feeling like a thousand pounds of weight was upon his back for long seconds as he crouched and rolled, allowing his legs and maneuvering to absorb the force, and then he was upright once more.
Because a thousand pounds of weight would definitely have crushed any mortal. But with his present physique… it had amounted to no more than momentary muscle strain.
Then he sat his ass down and meditated, pretending he wasn’t shuddering with adrenaline and the after effects of coming so damned close to death. Again. So many fucking times in one day.
Yet all he had to do was close his eyes and feel the horrific darkness clawing into his eyes, ears, every pour of his skin as he was sent endlessly hurtling away from a tiny patch of light representing light, life, and home…
He choked back a terrified sob. Focusing on nothing more than his breathing.
In, out.
Not moving an inch until an hour had passed, and all his reserves had been restored.
He had learned several important lessons that day. One was to be damned careful of overconfidence, even when he felt in complete control of the situation. Because until he had run a given dungeon at least once… anything could catch him off guard.
Like nearly 200 60+ level Greater Specters in a single city-wide cavern he had managed to aggro nearly all at once.
And the fact that his Greater Abjuration Spell, that was more like an arcane fusion reaction than any sort of harmonious fusion of his elemental arts, could send shockwaves through the ether that, in addition to being capable of severing even a Bronze-tier Undead’s links to the world at large, also had the very potential to rip oven delves and spill him into the void…
Because he had actually managed to fuse a higher order manifestation of absolute Dominion upon the most unorthodox of spells. To the point he had learned a new spell variant of abjuration based on Dominion alone.
It was a profound feat, utterly unexpected, miraculous, and it had nearly gotten him killed.
And at a cost of 40 Mana, Soul Reserves, Spiritual Energy and Psion… it sure as fuck wasn’t cheap, though it definitely represented overwhelming Dominion in the form of overwhelming force, if nothing else.
He then allowed himself to savor the massive silver-lining in what truly had been a perilous encounter. Five level-ups in a single Delve!
With a Quickness now over 400, and Finesse and Perception rapidly approaching a sweet 250, he was now able to think, process stimuli, and move faster than he ever had before. But he was definitely feeling the strain more than ever before as well, thanks to the difference between the three stats growing ever greater.
Alex decided right then and there to focus on Finesse or Perception exclusively to try and lock in massive 30% bonuses he’d get if he managed to hit 300 points in either one before any other Contender that he had absolutely no doubt was out there even now, gunning for those titles. And the closer he got one and preferably both of those stats to 300, the more effortless his Battle-time senses would be.
Yet for all that he savored those incredibly sweet gains, there was a certain System message that froze him stiff with dread. The fact that somehow a fourth node had already ascended, and he had been given no choice in its evolution whatsoever.
He shook his head, knowing it was foolish, perhaps, but he just didn’t have the mental energy to endure bad news that could mean the end of his limitless run, as what were the actual odds that he would have earned a node that once more harmoniously balanced with his Essences and the elements as a whole? Not very fucking lightly.
“One thing at at time,” he thought. “First, let’s shepherd those kids through this Delve and see if we have the grit to handle one final one. Then head for the outskirts of Freetown for a certain shack well out of goblin territory. Then we see if Morlekai’s pad is still the safe haven that I pray it is, free from probing eyeballs with all the enhancements they purchased. Because I got questions and hopefully they have the answers I need.”
Eric’s eyes snapped open, sensing reds approaching. When a random spirit floated by less than fifty feet away, Eric moved like shadow, easing through the dark until he had returned to the entrance, having tested for himself just how easy it would be for the average party to slip past doom undetected, so long as they didn’t get within twenty feet or unleash Blood Lighting, roaring their challenge to the world.
“Alright,” he said to himself. “Let’s get the crew in, and make sure they can lock in at least one kill. Tying themselves to the fate of this dungeon, it’s potency would then become their own. Then I hop through the gate and blast the final fucker, because there’s no way I’m going to risk my friends against the boss-tier version of specters that can freeze chunks of even my flesh off. Then hopefully they get those twelve points and we’re fucking out of here.”
He flashed a wry smile. “And it looks like even whispering is too loud for 100% stealth mode. So bye, approaching specter, we’ll be back to kill you shortly.”
Then, pretending his heart wasn’t still pounding and he hadn’t been meditating in absolute stillness for a full hour to enact a System reset… because he had been both terrified, depleted, and dizzy as fuck after pushing Battle-time so damned hard… he forced himself to step through the gate, praying he would find more than just the endless void beyond.