I wouldn’t have labelled the battle we had just gone through as anything easy. Rather, we were just pretty great at coordinating and combining our individual strengths to take care of even powerful monsters without too much trouble.
But right, this was the Nether Vein unveiling what it had stored up for us all this ti. Immortal, undying Opal-ranked monsters.
An army of them.
“Cursed Pits,” Khagnio hissed, looking around as more and more of the tal-crafted monsters kept rising and rising.
“We really might be in the Pits here,” Ugnash said.
He wasn’t wrong. The darkness pressed harder. Sure, Tavarth had returned with the Klevacite torch to keep the Netherthreads at bay, but that wasn’t going to stop the horde of tallic monsters screeching and surging all around us.
“Then we’ll just have to get through the Pits itself,” I said.
I gripped the tail of the destroyed monster that was trying to reform. Having dealt with the Scarthralls, I was familiar with what I needed to do. As such, white threads of Overclaim-powered Sacrifice burgeoned out to wrap around the monster’s tail. Jerk was free to reform however it wished. Its tail was mine, though.
The Weave agreed.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Remnant of an Opal-ranked Steelblood Demon. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward: Essence of an Opal-ranked Steelblood Demon now manifests around your body with tangible prowess for 3 hours and 40 minutes. All Iron-ranked Attributes raised by 20 Ranks, all Silver-ranked Attributes raised by 15 Ranks, and all Gold-ranked Attributes raised by 10 ranks for every battle encountered for the next 3 hours and 40 minutes. ]
Blistering power coursed through at the sa ti that the Essence of the so-called Steelblood Demon settled around . Lines of ethereal molten tal reforged themselves around now, creating a ghostly version of the monsters I was facing over my body.
“No ti to waste!” Tavarth shouted. “Destroy them all!”
He was right. I didn’t waste a single second in slamming straight at the creatures.
The first one I targeted wasn’t the reforging one. I left that one to the rest of my teammates. Instead, I went for one closest to that, another of the Demons that ca rushing over on flaming wings jetting it over the ground.
We t with a ferocious clash that had the world around us vibrating. But not . Unlike how the exchange of blows with the last monster had made my arms shudder, I had no such troubles this ti. The Sacrifice reward had hugely enhanced my Attributes.
I was expecting the Rituals to kick in—those that already hadn’t, like the Ritual of War—but right now, I was already as strong as I needed to be to take down my current enemy.
Of course, that hadn’t reduced the monster’s strength in comparison. It was still Opal-ranked, still hitting like every blow had trying to deflect a teor falling from space. I was stretching Empowered Deflection to its limits, which was aided by Drain slowly reducing the rate of the monster’s attacks.
But I couldn’t just fight to a standstill. Focusing as I was on my current enemy, I was still aware of several other monsters rushing my location.
So I let one of the blows slip past and hamr on my chest. The combination of the Steelblood Demon Essence and Reverence Everlife made sure I didn’t feel a thing. I was just pushed back several feet. That gave the space I needed to call up another Gravity Orb with Manifestation.
The monster attacked relentlessly, the huge tail slamming in like a telephone pole being swung by a giant. Yet again, I didn’t even have to move. Essence and Reverence Everlife once again combined to let completely shrug off the strike.
Plus, I had raised my weight with Infusion to make sure I wasn’t blown away once more.
I pulled my arm back, then flung the Gravity Orb at the Demon like a cannonball. And like a cannonball, it detonated upon impact, the weird cocktail of energy and matter that “Gravity” was supposed to be exploding and ripping apart over a third of the monster.
It scread out, losing its footing as it crashed to the ground. I decided to end its misery.
With Siphon modifying my weight montarily, I leaped high. Then I slamd down. Before the Steelblood Demon could right itself, I had already turned myself and my Essence fra into a several-ton boulder. My landing struck with trendous force, Field Manipulation further aiding by trapping the monster and hauling down hard.
And yet, despite exploding into pieces, the Steelblood Demon wasn’t dead yet.
I had to rely on the Essence and Reverence Everlife combination once more to protect myself. The other monsters had reached my location, several attacking at once. I was almost tempted to try and defend myself against all the blows, or to dodge if needed. Instead, I focused on Sacrifice.
That was the only way I was going to end the threat of the constantly resurrecting monsters. Even now, even after shattering my foe, the tal was turning loose and runny, trying to gather together to recreate the Demon.
But the threads of Sacrifice spiking out of in all directions caught a lot of the monstrous bits and pieces.
[ Sacrifice
You have Sacrificed 13 [Minor] Remnants of an Opal-ranked Steelblood Demon. Windfall bonus activated.
Reward: Essence already active. Duration extended by 40 minutes. ]
I wasn’t too miffed by the reward not being anything substantial. For one, I had already received the boost I really needed for the current encounter, and previous Sacrifice rewards had shown that there was only so much my body could handle.
For another, I was sward by more of the creatures. I was concentrating too hard on not dying to be worried about little things like not ideal Sacrifice rewards.
The vast majority seed to be targeting , not my allies. Sure, they seed to have enough to keep themselves busy, and I didn’t particularly mind that I was the one dealing with the majority.
Still. It made think of the Nether Vein targeting specifically like it had done before.
I couldn’t tackle an entire horde of the creatures in the sa way that I had the first one. There were too many of them, firing molten breaths from too many directions while also slamming into physically from all sorts of angles. Singular defence against that sort of assault was nigh on impossible.
So I did my best to create so space once more. The Netherthreads sward my back and threatened to spear into , but so Imbuent and Reflection had them reconsidering quick.
Taken from , this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
More importantly, I tore apart the world as much as I could with Gravity. The tal bent and broke, rising as Field Manipulation covered a huge expanse, its layer of force alternating with Infusion and Siphon at the sa ti. Orbs of Gravity collected the ripped apart tal in head-sized satellites that started revolving around thanks to Orbit.
The monsters rushed down even across the broken ground. That was the problem. I couldn’t try to co up with as powerful a response as I needed because the Demons refused to give any space.
So I let that be their doom. The spinning orbs revolved so fast now that they had essentially turned into a shredder. It wasn’t the monsters that reached . I leaped at them first.
The closest one got ripped apart. First, there was the Gravity Orb wrapped in the heat I was collecting with Concentration while surrounded by all the tal I had ripped up. Then the gravity itself interacted with the impact by exploding. With two subsequent tearing blasts one after the other, the Steelblood Demons were shattered. The ones I got to were, at least.
It wasn’t always effective. They were powerful in their own right, able to block or defend themselves better than I wanted to give them credit for.
Especially since I was too busy focusing on using Sacrifice to eradicate them for good.
Though, I stopped after the first one. There were just too many monsters attacking at once, too many of the damn Demons hamring and blasting with molten tal. I had to either recreate space or focus on defending myself while ending the monsters.
It was long, hard, tedious work. Even if I wasn’t feeling mana exhaustion just yet, the ntal drag weighed heavy on my mind. Several tis, I faltered too. I was forced to keep all my senses on the highest alert, cranked all the way to a hundred, for way too long. It was inevitable that so of the Demons would get past my guard.
My Reverence Everlife armour broke, and a burning claw crushed half my right arm. I yelled out, quickly kicking myself back to let Mana Heal take care of the worst of the wound.
Shit. I needed to keep more of my Aspects around for Vital Mana.
Physiologically, I still wasn’t really breathing heavy. I didn’t feel tired either. The combination of my significantly improved Attributes and my various buffs was keeping perfectly steady.
It was brutal. It was hard. I kept faltering, only to forge onwards, Sacrificing as many of the monsters as I could. There wasn’t an endless amount of them, but I could only Sacrifice so much before I was interrupted. Just fully killing one monster took multiple attempts, where I kept needing to rely on Reflexive Mana, Reverence Everlife, and Empowered Deflection to save .
And even then, it wasn’t enough. Maybe I was being crowded in by too many monsters because the rate at which I kept making mistakes and was forced to retreat went up. There were multiple instances where I was surprised I barely managed to survive or co out with my consciousness still intact.
I didn’t have a count of how many Demons I had ended. There were no piles of monstrous corpses around to indicate how successful I had been. Especially since they kept coming and coming.
Maybe that was partly to bla for why I finally got caught.
My mace got slamd out of my hand. A Steelblood Demon managed to barrel through the ripping wall of shrapnel orbiting , tackling to the ground.
Okay, that was actually brilliant. Reverence Everlife protected well against direct impacts, but not against soone grappling like we were in a wrestling match. And the problem here was that it wasn’t a person tackling down, but a multi-ton monster whose half-molten body had already started incinerating alive.
I had Absorption on to take in the worst of the heat, but struggling out of my current bind was proving difficult. It got almost impossible when more monsters joined, trying to pile up on .
Didn’t matter how much I struggled. Didn’t matter how loudly I scread. I made no progress. Panic had clutched my chest in a deadly vice grip that made it hard to breathe. I was literally drowning in a sea of monsters, whose bodies were lting to try and keep down. I was burning alive. I was—
Fuck.
Of course things weren’t going to be so easy. Of course there would be no flashy fight, no singular confrontation where I could sohow turn the tides through so ans. The Nether Vein knew , knew how I operated. How I succeeded.
And now, it was course correcting to kill off. I punched back, fought harder, even shouted for help, but it was useless. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t even think straight.
Think. Think. There were so many monsters, so much heat pouring into —
I had been trying to make use of the energy I gathered with Affixes like Absorption. It clicked that I already had Concentration. Since I couldn’t move, since I was effectively trapped, there was only one thing I could rely on.
Immolation created a pyre around . More heat to draw in for what I was actually attempting to create. Gravity and Illumination were joining in the mix too, burgeoning out with more and more compressing power. All the Affixes I needed were working on overdrive, pushed to their brink to manifest the only thing that could save before I was crushed and mutilated.
A part of was blessing Reverence Everlife every other instance I was still alive, now that most of the manifested Steelblood Demon Essence was gone.
It wasn’t perfect. Already, the golden armour had cracked and failed in several spots. Molten tal was sizzling through my guts to mix with my stomach acids. My right shoulder had been pulverized by the constant blows from the monsters.
But even where the Demon’s relentless aggression had torn into , I was still alive. Still feeling the healing aftereffects of my newest Fervour Augntation.
The last of the manifested Demon Essence and my Augntation shield cracked in front of my face. My limbs had already been pumlled too badly or were being held back by the monsters. But now, as my face got enveloped by a burning claw that couldn’t quite crush or burn through my skull just yet, renewed panic threatened to make lose all concentration.
Instead, I scread out and sent out more Sacrifice threads. If now wasn’t the ti when Overclaim was supposed to work, then I didn’t know what was.
It didn’t remove the whole hand, but it did take care of just enough for to see into my assailant’s eyes.
“Piece of shit,” I muttered even as I burned my tongue in the effort. It was trying to pour molten tal straight into my mouth.
More cracks resounded in my ear despite the snarling and shrieking of monsters all around . Pain pulsed through my body as the Demons finally got through my defences in multiple areas. But the noise of my shielding golden armour breaking was accompanied by a different sort of crackling.
Starburst detonated so harshly, I blacked out before I could even sense myself flying away at the shockwave.
I rolled across the tal floor, trying to feel enough about my body to force myself to get up. My Compound Aspect had montarily turned the night of the Nether Vein into day, the explosion roiling out for a lot longer than I had been ready for. No matter what my condition was, no matter how much it hurt, I couldn’t just hunker down. Not yet.
With effort that felt like it tore more parts of , I got to my feet. The pain was slowly receding. It shouldn’t have, because Mana Heal was absolutely not working when I didn’t push out any free external mana threads.
But Reverence Everlife was still working, still trying to fix . It seed that was another important side of that Augntation.
Oh, and Pain Sense Control was all that stopped from blacking out again.
The monsters. I looked around, trying to find my targets and where they were reforming. Starburst had successfully gotten the bastards off . It had also destroyed all of them utterly. Though, not to the eradicating level that Sacrifice could boast. As such, I needed to locate each and every one of them before—
Hold on. I dragged in a shuddering breath, feeling sothing shift painfully in my chest. There was sothing else I could try.
My lower guts were still swimming in agony. It looked like the wound wasn’t going to heal until all the molten tal had been pushed out. Honestly, thinking about it in the abstract just made my mind want to lose itself in the fact that I was walking around and doing shit instead of dissolving from within or sothing.
I got a hold of myself and focused. Entropy. That was what I needed here. It would be a lot more efficient than Sacrifice, since the latter needed to be present pretty close to my targets. But out here, the monsters had been blasted far apart.
So, I focused on Entropy. I concentrated on the sheer amount of residual energy still cooking everything in the vicinity. On the heat that suffocated, the light that burned.
But that energy was just the vehicle. The dium. I wasn’t seeking to make the fallout of my Compound Aspect radiate away. Rather, through that energy, I sought to send mana threads and reach everything within the vicinity, making them all break apart.
The issue I had noted with this tactic was that natural radiation just wouldn’t occur fast enough. Even with my Affix pushing things, it was all just a bit too slow.
So I Sacrificed cast after cast of Entropy. If Emission was going to work at the rate I needed it to, then I had to boost the casts constantly. The energy around was still strong, still turning my surroundings into the pit of a volcano. My enemies hadn’t reford yet. Which ant I still had so ti for bonus casts.
It was only when I saw the first of the Demons standing back up that I finally unleashed an overly boosted Entropy.
Emission tore through everything around . Starburst had done trendous damage, and now Entropy was rapidly eating away at everything, at every bond between every atom and possibly the forces of attraction within the atoms as well.
My feet started sinking. I looked down. Entropy was rapidly turning the solid tal floor into sand before reducing the individual grains even further. If the sparking sensation was anything to go by, then I was probably releasing enough radiation to give my future generations cancer too.
Good thing I had Intake to counter that. At least for myself.
“What in the Pits are you doing, Ross?” Ugnash asked from sowhere farther back.
I looked over to see that he was wisely not approaching . He could probably feel the indiscriminate effect of Entropy from even that far out.
“The Steelblood Demons are down,” I said. I was glad that my voice sounded alright, despite the state my body was in.
It was the truth. The Demons were crying out as they were slowly dissolved under the influence of extrely boosted Entropy tearing through them.
“The what?” Ugnash asked.
“The—”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re okay, but we need to move.”
He was right. The whole debacle had turned a little self-centred, mostly because I had co way too close to dying, but I wasn’t the only one fighting here. In fact, now that the shrieks of the nearby monsters were fading and no longer distracting , I finally noted how the rest of the battle was going.
Basically, it wasn’t going well at all. And I wasn’t sure I was even in a good enough state to help.
A violent roar ripped through the whole area. Ugnash and I both watched as a humongous version of the Steelblood Demons forced a whole squadron of soldiers and adventurers to scatter.
I could only stare. How had I not even noticed that thing yet? That thing was big enough to destroy Ring Four in one swipe.
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