Chapter 87 – An Ember, Alight (3)
Even out of breath as she was, panting as cold shivers ran down her spine, Eve couldn’t help but shake her head in reply to Aizen’s confident tone.
‘Another fool, like the Paladin,’ she thought to herself.
She hoped he’d at least buy her so ti to recover before, like the Paladin, he died due to his overconfidence.
‘Does the system make a clown out of everyone it touches or sothing?’ she wondered.
There was no more heat to Pull from the air around her, and she didn’t want to risk losing more of her body for a human. There was only so much of her to go around, after all.
Her breathing started to calm.
Every single stride from the monstrosity shook the earth around it from the sheer weight of the thing. Aizen’s comparatively small form and flimsy-looking blade extending from the device on his arm in the face of the beast didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
It roared from its tentacles and beak-like mouth, bringing one of its aty appendages down on Aizen.
At the last mont, he dodged to the side in a superhuman movent, clearly relying on the system’s stats. She’d faced enough demons to know that stats weren’t enough to overpower them.
The Awakener, Aizen, slipped past the tentacle in a smooth step, and his blade blurred downward onto the tentacle with all the speed she expected of a system skill.
It was faster than her eyes could follow, but it was a skill she recognized, «Strike».
The blade cut partway into the thick trunk of the tentacle before slowing to a stop against the toughened flesh.
Aizen pulled the blade back in ti to dodge another tentacle, which thudded into the ground next to him and kicked up a cloud of dust.
The creature, undaunted by its failed attacks, surged forward and attempted to encompass Aizen in its bulk.
Particles of earth swirled around Aizen and condensed over his arm. He reared back, coiling his muscles, and in the next mont, unleashed all of his power.
His fist struck the creature’s center mass with such ferocious force that the lingering motes of dust were blown away,
A shockwave of wind tugged Eve’s hair and cloak back.
She squinted her eyes against the gale and saw a spark of sothing bright upon impact. Whatever he’d used, it was far more than a simple «Strike».
Against all odds, the demon monstrosity, which looked to weigh at least two tons, judging from its condensed muscles and the way each of its steps shook the earth, was lifted into the air at least half a ter.
Its flesh rippled over its body, and blood spurted from its beak from the damage the punch did to its internal organs.
Still, the creature didn’t give in quite yet.
Instead, it did sothing that made Eve’s heart drop.
She’d only encountered it once, but the mont the purple mist exploded from the pores in the tentacle-thing’s skin, spraying outward in a haze, she prepared for the worst.
That purple haze couldn’t do anything to her, but she’d once seen her kindred elves, powerful Awakeners, slaughtered after a similar haze, sohow cut them off from their previous system.
‘Shit… Co on…’
She reached out for warmth in the air. Thankfully, the shockwave had blown the front of cold she’d created away, and she found enough to at least stave the shivering for the ti being.
It still wasn’t nearly enough.
“Get back!” she yelled.
It was too late.
The wave of purple expanded with unnatural speed and completely engulfed the area, even reaching her. Though it did not affect her, other than assaulting her nose with a reek like sothing that’d died and been left to rot in the sun, she was more afraid of the effect it’d have on Aizen.
Sure enough, the mont the mist crossed over his skin, Aizen paused for a mont.
The demon thumped back into the ground re steps from him and scrabbled backward, letting out a shriek of complaint in its panicked retreat.
For a mont, they stared each other down.
The thing’s beady, fish-like eyes darted around, taking in Aizen, Eve, and the haze it’d just emitted.
One might question if a smile could be possible for sothing with a beak for a mouth, but if such a creature could smile, then the demon was smiling at Aizen with all the malice in the world.
Eve tried to Pull in more heat.
Following an Eruption-powered «Strike» to the demon-thing’s abdon, a purple mist hissed from its pores and quickly engulfed us. Eve shouted sothing from a distance, but I was too distracted by the system window.
[#$*@&^]
The mont the fog enveloped and I received that ssage, I felt a mont of pure shock.
Everything sort of ‘snapped’ at once.
My senses of the world dulled.
The clarity of each movent and minute detail on even the trees behind the creature blurred together.
The demon’s pungent odor and the iron tang of blood in the air faded to a whisper.
Each heartbeat rebounded with a light pulse rather than with the thunderous boom I’d naturally blocked out in the sa way one always sees their nose but naturally filters it out.
Even the pain of striking the creature, its skin as hard as steel, only beca a numb throbbing.
Just like my senses, my movents were equally affected. It felt as if I were moving through a sea of viscous air.
In a mont of dread, I attempted to reach for my mana and activate a simple «Strike» to catch up with the demon during its brief retreat.
I was t with nothing. At that mont, I realized I was as powerless as the Unawakened I’d recently escorted from the northern mountains.
At least, from the light glinting in the creature’s eyes, that’s what it believed.
Below all of that numbness, below my slowness and being cut off from the system-given stats, flowing through my veins was another system.
The second system, perhaps due to it being the only system affecting at that mont, felt stronger than ever.
In that period of power, I had a burst of intuition.
‘Co at ,’ I thought, staring the creature down.
It might’ve been faster, bigger, and heavier at that mont, but I sohow knew, even despite its massive fra, that it wasn’t stronger.
The demon had no such knowledge and charged at with the certainty of a lion pouncing on a baby deer. Its form was shrouded through the fog, but I didn’t need my eyes to see it anymore.
I closed my eyes and saw it in my mind’s eye, each of the vibrations through the ground and its hungering pants giving it away in more minute detail than even the normal system would’ve granted .
The second system’s energy flowed through , completely unimpeded.
Surely, it saw my swing, slow as molasses compared to my previous attack, but it didn’t make any attempt to defend.
Instead, it leaped at beak-first to close the gap and devour whole.
That was its final mistake.
⟬«Piercing Eruption»⟭
All of my stamina surged through in a tidal wave of absolute, undeniable force.
No doubt, you already know what happens when an unstoppable force ets a very much movable target.
The earth moved with , amplifying and changing the effect of the hit.
Rather than rely forming around my fist, it surged from my feet and over my legs, twirling around my body in extrely rapid revolutions and surging up into my hand, solidifying and extending to reinforce my body in a sort of earthen fra, constantly repairing and reinforcing itself.
My fist t the creature’s beak.
CRACK—
Its face tore apart, and the entire concussive shockwave of my hit flowed in a single direction rather than in a radial blast like before.
Even strengthened, the demon’s skin peeled apart, and its bones shook into fragnts, the fragnts into particles, and the particles into rapidly dispersing signatures of heat on the wind.
From head, to shoulders, to abdon, to toes, nothing of the beast was spared.
One mont, a giant monstrosity hulking over , its beak poised to swallow whole; the next mont, a re aura of heat and light.
Even that faint trace soon vanished.
The mist dispersed, I felt the empowering energy within dwindle again, and my senses sharpened, bringing a wave of agony through .
Had I broken my arm in multiple places? It hung by my side, useless.
⟬Dungeon Cleared
Reward Calculated…
1000 XP⟭
⟬Solo Clear!⟭
⟬Level Up!⟭
⟬Level 6⟭
⟬XP: 0/32,000⟭
⟬Skill Upgrade Unlocked⟭
⟬Upgrade a skill of your choice to be twice as efficient.⟭
I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I wondered why I only received experience for the second system.
Was it because the other system had been blocked by that strange purple mist?
On top of the skill upgrade, I was still sitting on the previous skill selection for the second system as well. Since that was rely the boss of a local dungeon, I could only imagine how much stronger the demons were getting.
What would the demon boss of a larger dungeon look like? How powerful would the previous city lord of Karfana have beco if I hadn’t stopped him?
If other cities had fallen, how strong would their demons already be?
More importantly… just where were the demons getting all of their power for such rapid growth?
Putting all of that out of my mind for when the situation was less pressing, I looked over at Eve.
Her hand was extended toward , flickering with a faint fla, and she spoke in a cold tone.
“What are you?”
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