Apocalypse Knights 2: A LitRPG Fantasy, page 8
Stone Spear
Flux Spell: Not ready
An Icelance tore into the cyclopean initiate’s torso and sent it reeling. Marina advanced, her hands held high. Icebolts ripped from her open palms to shred the monster’s flesh from its bones. The Elementalist screamed as she killed, venting her horror-turned-anger in her cries.
The cyclopean initiate fell, its body little more than a mass of ichor-stained rags. A heartbeat later, the monster’s corpse began to disintegrate. The bubbling morass in front of it returned to solidity, though the once-smooth stone floor of the terminal was now pitted and uneven.
Max picked up the silver piece left behind by the cyclopean initiate. He tossed it to Felix as he walked over to Flora and helped her to her feet. Marina caught his eye.
“You’re sure, right? We get rid of the Apocalypse Horizon, and all this…” She gestured to the body parts and broken stone scattered across the terminal. “All this doesn’t happen. Never happens.”
“No,” Max said. “I’m not sure. But we have to believe. And that has to be enough, at least for now. Do you understand?”
Tears welled up in the Elementalist’s eyes. Felix draped a comforting arm over her shoulder. Her lip trembled, but after a moment, she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
“Good.” Max nodded. “Now, come. Follow me.”
Chapter 8
The ferries were functional, to Max’s relief, and still running in the absence of human life. As the tub-like wooden barges approached the terminal, they were funneled into a bend that slowed them down enough for passengers to step aboard. Past the bend, the ferries would then pick up speed once more, heading upstream on one side of the canal while approaching the terminal downstream on the other side.
Max let a dozen ferries pass the terminal before leading the cohort onto one of them. He wanted to see if any of the ferries contained corpses. The presence of any of the latter meant that monsters had slain the erstwhile passengers somewhere upstream, and the cohort could expect to encounter them on their journey. Fortunately, there were no corpses. Perhaps monsters didn’t deign to attack ferry passengers. Or equally likely, perhaps nobody in Misktown’s rural districts made it to the ferries, and anything could happen on the way upstream to the town’s central area.
“Keep an eye out,” he told the cohort, as much out of a necessity to maintain vigilance as to keep their minds focused and away from intrusive thoughts about what they’d seen. The good thing about fighting ghouls in apocalyptic Hisktown was that those monsters consumed their victims, leaving sparse scraps of bone behind. When the cohort had been hunting there to bring Max, Felix, and Marina to Level 3, they’d found far more garbage than human remains. The monsters here did not do the same. They left behind whatever they killed.
“Human minds are so fragile,” Nesura commented as Max moved to the front of the ferry, leaving Felix, Marina, and Flora to cover the other angles of vision. “They are on the verge of breaking, you know? In fact, they have already been broken, in ways that cannot ever be fixed, by the things they’ve seen here.”
“They’ll have to deal with it,” Max replied. “I did.”
“Did you, now?” Nesura chuckled.
Max brought up a Soul Lens screen.
Victory Shards: 3,476.5
Still a long way to go before Level 4, he thought. But this should help me get there faster.
Sagas:
...
Intrepid Errantry
Defeated multiple monsters 1 Level higher solo
+10% Victory Shard acquisition
According to Marina and Felix, Max had managed to accrue more Victory Shards in under two weeks than most Knights-Errant managed in five or six years. If he continued at this rate, he would catch up to Jonn Crask sooner rather than later. If he also somehow managed to acquire the Heroic Errantry, Warden Bane, Warden Killer, and Dungeon Crusher Sagas, just like Jonn had done, he would be able to progress even more quickly. Applied together, those Sagas would triple the rate at which a Knight-Errant acquired Victory Shards.
The higher Max’s Level, the more powerful spells he could copy from fellow Knights-Errant or monsters. He thought back to how Artur Brightblade had casually dispatched Level 99 monsters. If Max were to stand any chance at all against the mythical former Knight-Errant, he would need to surpass the power of a Level 99 monster, but to do that, he needed to get there first.
Unless Temporal Equalization works on Artur too, he thought. But he’s not a monster, and as far as I can tell, Temporal Equalization only works on monsters. No. If it comes down to a conflict, I’ll have to beat him in a straight-up fight or think of some other way that doesn’t involve Temporal Equalization, Max thought as the ferry traversed past the slowing bend in the canal and began to pick up speed.
Soon, the barge was slicing through the water at roughly thrice the average speed an infantry column could march, which meant that the cohort would arrive at their destination within three or four hours, instead of the eight that overland travel on foot would accomplish. Still, this also meant that they were confined to the ferry for this duration, where their tactical options were limited in the event of a monster attack.
Not that we would have many more options either if we’re attacked upon an open plain with only craters for cover, Max reasoned, thinking of the blasted landscape beyond the column of burned wagons.
“You said that the highest Level a Knight-Errant has ever reached is 12, right?” he asked Nesura.
“Yes,” she replied. “Across every world subject to the will of the Cosmic Logos, the highest Level any Challenger has ever attained is 12.”
“So the Level 99 monsters here have never been seen before, in any world?” Max kept his gaze loose but alert, sweeping it from side to side to cover his field of vision. He’d taught the rest of the cohort how to perform sentry duty in this fashion, and a quick glance over his shoulder told him that they were doing their best to apply their lessons.
“That’s correct.” Nesura grunted as she shifted in his belt pouch. “Like I said, what’s happening with your world is unprecedented. The more I see of the Apocalypse Horizon, the more I’m certain the will of the Cosmic Logos isn’t at play here.”
“Why do you think that?” Max asked. “I would like to hear your reasoning.”
“Many worlds have failed to rise to the challenge of the Crucibles, and they have all been destroyed, rendered lifeless, uninhabitable wastelands,” Nesura said. “Once that happens, the Cosmic Logos turns its regard away. This world, the one we’re in right now, is done. Life has been extinguished. Yet there are still a whole lot of Crucibles sitting around unchallenged and all these Crucible Agents wandering around confused and aimless.”
“I’m guessing monsters and Dungeons aren’t cost-free to keep around,” Max said.
“Exactly. Drawing Crucible Agents from their native realms and placing them on Challenger realms requires the expenditure of cosmic energy. Manifesting Crucibles is the same. The higher the Level of Agent and Crucible, the more cosmic energy required.”
“And Level 99 ones are horrendously costly.” The soft sounds of conversation arose from behind Max as Marina and Flora began chatting about mundane matters back in the present. That was good. Interaction among them of any kind would keep their minds active and alert and also stave off rumination of what they’d just seen.
“Yes. They weren’t needed to destroy this world,” Nesura said. “And they certainly aren’t needed here right now, where there’s nothing for them to do. The Apocalypse Horizon is a disastrous drain on the Cosmic Logos. I don’t know why it hasn’t withdrawn its energies by now.”
“Perhaps because it can’t? Artur is keeping all these monsters and Dungeons here to hurt the Cosmic Logos.” Max folded his arms and exhaled slowly, trying to steady his racing thoughts. “That is entirely consistent with his psychological profile. According to historical records, he saved thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives through his efforts. He was the lover of Mira Pureheart, revered by all. Artur Brightblade was a hero in the simplest, entirely unironic sense.”
“Go on,” Nesura prompted, making her peaking curiosity perceptible through the mental link she shared with Max.
“Why wouldn’t he hate the Cosmic Logos, the perpetrator of so much horror and suffering across so many worlds?” Max continued. “The Cosmic Logos is unequivocally evil, also in the purest and completely unironic sense. Of course Artur would desire to cause it pain or, if it weren’t capable of feeling pain, at least some inconvenience.”
“I would say a lot of inconvenience,” Nesura mused. “The cosmic energy required to manifest even a single Level 99 Crucible is enough to bring at least a hundred different worlds within the Cosmic Logos’s purview. Ah, I see it now. You’re trying to say that Artur Brightblade has saved many other worlds by sacrificing your world.”
“Perhaps not even then,” Max said. “My world is still alive beyond the Apocalypse Horizon, and I still have a chance to prevent whatever has happened here from happening there. This sacrifice hasn’t strictly happened yet. Also, my Temporal Equalization spell reduces the Level of monsters and Dungeons to mine, but do we know for a fact that when I do so, any cosmic energy is indeed freed up and returned to the Cosmic Logos?”
“No. Hmm. Interesting. No, we actually don’t,” Nesura said. Max glanced down at the bat. She was scratching the top of her head in a disturbingly human fashion. “So, according to your reasoning, Artur Brightblade is at odds with the Cosmic Logos. He has, in fact, hurt it by creating the Apocalypse Horizon and yet, through you, also prevented his world from being annihilated. Or at least, he’s given you an opportunity to stop that from happening. If you succeed, your world survives while the Cosmic Logos suffers. That would truly be a masterstroke of spiteful vengeance. I love it.”
“Let’s go one step further with that train of thought,” Max said. “Victory Shards and enchanted items all require cosmic energy, right?”
“Correct.” Nesura’s ears perked up. The familiar’s eyes shone with curiosity.
“And Knights-Errant gain power by attaining higher Levels and getting more potent enchanted items. What if all this, the Level 99 Dungeons and monsters here that take up so much cosmic energy, are simply a means for Artur to raise a host of powerful Knights-Errant that can surpass Level 12?”
“And go all the way to Level 99?” Nesura sighed in awe. “A renegade Cosmic Prospect and an army of Level 99 Challengers? Surely even the Cosmic Logos would feel threatened by such power.”
“Especially when the source of this power comes from itself and, as evidenced by the Apocalypse Horizon, cannot be withdrawn at will. The Apocalypse Horizon is only the beginning of Artur Brightblade’s vengeance upon the Cosmic Logos.”
“Only if you succeed. Only if you and your allies reach Level 99,” Nesura pointed out. “And only if you and whoever fights alongside you agree to help him take on the Cosmic Logos. Those are very big ‘ifs’.”
“They are,” Max agreed, wondering if he had to kill Artur Brightblade after all.
Chapter 9
Taking the ferry turned out to be an excellent choice. No monsters attacked the cohort as they traversed beyond the rural outskirts of Misktown, passed through a cluster of suburban residences, and began closing in on its central area, where its commercial and administrative districts sat and its industrial areas began to stretch further inland.
Flora had brought a cache of minor potions, and she shared them out amongst the cohort, to top up everyone’s Health point and Mana point reserves. Max thanked the Defender before tipping a vial of blue effervescent liquid down his throat. Felix dutifully gathered all the empty vials into a small sack before handing them back to Flora. She smiled and returned them to her ring of holding.
Max readjusted his Flux spells during this time too, setting his newly acquired ones to readiness.
Flux Spells: 8/8 readiness
Defiant Rally: Level 1; Instant, 5 minutes; 8 Mana READY
Double Shield: Level 2; Active; 8 Mana per 10 seconds READY
Firebolt: Level 3; Instant, 0 seconds; 8 Mana READY
Icebolt (Temporal Infusion); Level 1; Instant, 0 seconds, 2 Mana READY
Icelance: Level 2; Instant, 0 seconds; 8 Mana READY
Jolting Arc: Level 1; Instant, 0 seconds; 6 Mana initial cast, 8 Mana per second READY
Momentum: Level 2; Instant, 0 seconds; 0 Mana READY
Stone Spear: Level 3; Instant, 0 seconds; 12 Mana READY
“You’re pretty much like four Elementalists rolled into one,” Marina commented, reading off the Soul Lens screen she’d angled upon him. “I’m going to start joining Felix in complaining about how unfair your Classification is.”
After slightly over three hours, the outer edges of Misktown’s central districts came into view, as did the sinister length of Graywind Mage Tower. The ferry entered the slowing bend that would allow it to turn around at the terminal ahead. Max had the cohort debark, then. If the terminal at the rural outskirts had been claimed by a monster, there was no reason to believe the same hadn’t happened here.
Shops, offices, taverns, and the like filled their vision as the cohort stepped away from the canal. The buildings were lifeless and neglected, many of them bearing massive scorched or frost-rimmed holes in their walls. Max swiftly discerned the central avenue that would lead them straight to Graywind Mage Tower. He was tempted to make a mad dash toward it. Instead, he led the cohort to the shadow stretching from the foot of a banker’s office and bade them take cover there.
“The Dungeon can’t be more than a mile away,” he said. “In fact, it’s probably much closer than that. But this is also where we can expect to find the most monsters. So far, the monsters we’ve seen aren’t lurkers or skulkers like the ghouls. This means that the best way for us to make our way there is through the buildings. There’s no hiding from the monsters, with how high their perception is, but if they don’t get a direct line of sight upon us, they might just think we’re other monsters passing by.”
“I agree with that course of action,” Flora said. “Creatures like the tanarr lord and the brazen incinerators are too large to fit into buildings.”
“That cyclopean thing wasn’t,” Felix pointed out. “What if we run into a whole bunch of them in a crowded hallway?”
“All the better for me to catch them with my Temporal Equalization spell,” Max said. “The close quarters also allow us to engage them in hand-to-hand combat more easily, which is where we want them, since at Level 3, their physical attributes are significantly lower than those of ghouls.”
“Central district buildings are usually all connected by walkways or underground tunnels,” Marina said. “Are we going to use those?”
“Yes.” Max rapped his knuckles against the side of the bank. “We start here.”
The cohort slipped into the bank. Its front door had been blasted off its hinges, along with most of its front wall. Piles of ash and charred bone amidst the ruins were all that remained of the people who’d sought refuge within the bank. The walkway to the adjacent building, an enclosed corridor interspersed with steel-framed windows, was on the second floor. The cohort crept beneath the windows as they crossed it. The sun was already past its zenith in the sky. Massive swooping shadows interrupted its light.
Max peeked over the sill of a walkway window and spotted huge blue forms, similar in size and shape to the brazen incinerators, drifting idly by.
Monster: Azure Exterminator
Level 99
Health: 3,900/3,900
Mana: 3,850/3,850
Physical Attributes
Strength: 100
Dexterity: 506
Fortitude: 308
Perception: 212
Abilities
Winter Beam
Endless Flight
Frostsoul Consumption
Rewards
Victory Shard value: 99
Treasure Class: SSSS+++
These are the frost counterparts to the brazen incinerators, Max thought. Lowering his head back beneath the windowsill, he gestured for the cohort to proceed.
They made their way through one building after another. Strangely enough, they didn’t come across many human remains. Those that they did find were usually near the entrances, the remnants of hapless souls struck down by flame or frost just after they sought refuge indoors. Neither did they come across any monsters. The cyclopean master was a special condition monster, so perhaps humanoid monsters capable of fitting into buildings were the exceptions to the rule within this region of the Apocalypse Horizon.
More and more massive, disc-shaped shadows danced across walls or darkened windows as the cohort approached the Dungeon. Eventually, they found themselves huddling in the shadow-strewn remnants of a ruined restaurant veranda, with Graywind Mage Tower less than a hundred strides away. Brazen incinerators and azure exterminators circled languidly overhead. If the cohort broke cover, the monsters would spot them immediately and strike them down.
“What are we going to do?” Felix asked. “Make a run for it?”
“We won’t get far.” Flora shook her head. “Their dexterity far exceeds ours.”
“Then what? Do we fight?” Felix put his hand on his blade. “Have Max jump right into their faces and use his Temporal Equalization spell like he did before?”
“That’s not going to work,” Max said. “First, they’re too high up. They’re at least a hundred feet above the ground. I have a Flux spell that allows me to fly, but I don’t think I can reach them in time before they spot me and get bored enough to kill me. Also, they’re too spread out. I won’t be able to catch all of them in a single cast of Temporal Equalization, even if I do get close enough.”
“And if you leave even a single one of them at Level 99, it’ll finish you off right away once it sees what happened to its friends,” Marina reasoned. “Yeah, fighting them is definitely not an option.”
Flux Spell: Not ready
An Icelance tore into the cyclopean initiate’s torso and sent it reeling. Marina advanced, her hands held high. Icebolts ripped from her open palms to shred the monster’s flesh from its bones. The Elementalist screamed as she killed, venting her horror-turned-anger in her cries.
The cyclopean initiate fell, its body little more than a mass of ichor-stained rags. A heartbeat later, the monster’s corpse began to disintegrate. The bubbling morass in front of it returned to solidity, though the once-smooth stone floor of the terminal was now pitted and uneven.
Max picked up the silver piece left behind by the cyclopean initiate. He tossed it to Felix as he walked over to Flora and helped her to her feet. Marina caught his eye.
“You’re sure, right? We get rid of the Apocalypse Horizon, and all this…” She gestured to the body parts and broken stone scattered across the terminal. “All this doesn’t happen. Never happens.”
“No,” Max said. “I’m not sure. But we have to believe. And that has to be enough, at least for now. Do you understand?”
Tears welled up in the Elementalist’s eyes. Felix draped a comforting arm over her shoulder. Her lip trembled, but after a moment, she nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”
“Good.” Max nodded. “Now, come. Follow me.”
Chapter 8
The ferries were functional, to Max’s relief, and still running in the absence of human life. As the tub-like wooden barges approached the terminal, they were funneled into a bend that slowed them down enough for passengers to step aboard. Past the bend, the ferries would then pick up speed once more, heading upstream on one side of the canal while approaching the terminal downstream on the other side.
Max let a dozen ferries pass the terminal before leading the cohort onto one of them. He wanted to see if any of the ferries contained corpses. The presence of any of the latter meant that monsters had slain the erstwhile passengers somewhere upstream, and the cohort could expect to encounter them on their journey. Fortunately, there were no corpses. Perhaps monsters didn’t deign to attack ferry passengers. Or equally likely, perhaps nobody in Misktown’s rural districts made it to the ferries, and anything could happen on the way upstream to the town’s central area.
“Keep an eye out,” he told the cohort, as much out of a necessity to maintain vigilance as to keep their minds focused and away from intrusive thoughts about what they’d seen. The good thing about fighting ghouls in apocalyptic Hisktown was that those monsters consumed their victims, leaving sparse scraps of bone behind. When the cohort had been hunting there to bring Max, Felix, and Marina to Level 3, they’d found far more garbage than human remains. The monsters here did not do the same. They left behind whatever they killed.
“Human minds are so fragile,” Nesura commented as Max moved to the front of the ferry, leaving Felix, Marina, and Flora to cover the other angles of vision. “They are on the verge of breaking, you know? In fact, they have already been broken, in ways that cannot ever be fixed, by the things they’ve seen here.”
“They’ll have to deal with it,” Max replied. “I did.”
“Did you, now?” Nesura chuckled.
Max brought up a Soul Lens screen.
Victory Shards: 3,476.5
Still a long way to go before Level 4, he thought. But this should help me get there faster.
Sagas:
...
Intrepid Errantry
Defeated multiple monsters 1 Level higher solo
+10% Victory Shard acquisition
According to Marina and Felix, Max had managed to accrue more Victory Shards in under two weeks than most Knights-Errant managed in five or six years. If he continued at this rate, he would catch up to Jonn Crask sooner rather than later. If he also somehow managed to acquire the Heroic Errantry, Warden Bane, Warden Killer, and Dungeon Crusher Sagas, just like Jonn had done, he would be able to progress even more quickly. Applied together, those Sagas would triple the rate at which a Knight-Errant acquired Victory Shards.
The higher Max’s Level, the more powerful spells he could copy from fellow Knights-Errant or monsters. He thought back to how Artur Brightblade had casually dispatched Level 99 monsters. If Max were to stand any chance at all against the mythical former Knight-Errant, he would need to surpass the power of a Level 99 monster, but to do that, he needed to get there first.
Unless Temporal Equalization works on Artur too, he thought. But he’s not a monster, and as far as I can tell, Temporal Equalization only works on monsters. No. If it comes down to a conflict, I’ll have to beat him in a straight-up fight or think of some other way that doesn’t involve Temporal Equalization, Max thought as the ferry traversed past the slowing bend in the canal and began to pick up speed.
Soon, the barge was slicing through the water at roughly thrice the average speed an infantry column could march, which meant that the cohort would arrive at their destination within three or four hours, instead of the eight that overland travel on foot would accomplish. Still, this also meant that they were confined to the ferry for this duration, where their tactical options were limited in the event of a monster attack.
Not that we would have many more options either if we’re attacked upon an open plain with only craters for cover, Max reasoned, thinking of the blasted landscape beyond the column of burned wagons.
“You said that the highest Level a Knight-Errant has ever reached is 12, right?” he asked Nesura.
“Yes,” she replied. “Across every world subject to the will of the Cosmic Logos, the highest Level any Challenger has ever attained is 12.”
“So the Level 99 monsters here have never been seen before, in any world?” Max kept his gaze loose but alert, sweeping it from side to side to cover his field of vision. He’d taught the rest of the cohort how to perform sentry duty in this fashion, and a quick glance over his shoulder told him that they were doing their best to apply their lessons.
“That’s correct.” Nesura grunted as she shifted in his belt pouch. “Like I said, what’s happening with your world is unprecedented. The more I see of the Apocalypse Horizon, the more I’m certain the will of the Cosmic Logos isn’t at play here.”
“Why do you think that?” Max asked. “I would like to hear your reasoning.”
“Many worlds have failed to rise to the challenge of the Crucibles, and they have all been destroyed, rendered lifeless, uninhabitable wastelands,” Nesura said. “Once that happens, the Cosmic Logos turns its regard away. This world, the one we’re in right now, is done. Life has been extinguished. Yet there are still a whole lot of Crucibles sitting around unchallenged and all these Crucible Agents wandering around confused and aimless.”
“I’m guessing monsters and Dungeons aren’t cost-free to keep around,” Max said.
“Exactly. Drawing Crucible Agents from their native realms and placing them on Challenger realms requires the expenditure of cosmic energy. Manifesting Crucibles is the same. The higher the Level of Agent and Crucible, the more cosmic energy required.”
“And Level 99 ones are horrendously costly.” The soft sounds of conversation arose from behind Max as Marina and Flora began chatting about mundane matters back in the present. That was good. Interaction among them of any kind would keep their minds active and alert and also stave off rumination of what they’d just seen.
“Yes. They weren’t needed to destroy this world,” Nesura said. “And they certainly aren’t needed here right now, where there’s nothing for them to do. The Apocalypse Horizon is a disastrous drain on the Cosmic Logos. I don’t know why it hasn’t withdrawn its energies by now.”
“Perhaps because it can’t? Artur is keeping all these monsters and Dungeons here to hurt the Cosmic Logos.” Max folded his arms and exhaled slowly, trying to steady his racing thoughts. “That is entirely consistent with his psychological profile. According to historical records, he saved thousands, if not tens of thousands, of lives through his efforts. He was the lover of Mira Pureheart, revered by all. Artur Brightblade was a hero in the simplest, entirely unironic sense.”
“Go on,” Nesura prompted, making her peaking curiosity perceptible through the mental link she shared with Max.
“Why wouldn’t he hate the Cosmic Logos, the perpetrator of so much horror and suffering across so many worlds?” Max continued. “The Cosmic Logos is unequivocally evil, also in the purest and completely unironic sense. Of course Artur would desire to cause it pain or, if it weren’t capable of feeling pain, at least some inconvenience.”
“I would say a lot of inconvenience,” Nesura mused. “The cosmic energy required to manifest even a single Level 99 Crucible is enough to bring at least a hundred different worlds within the Cosmic Logos’s purview. Ah, I see it now. You’re trying to say that Artur Brightblade has saved many other worlds by sacrificing your world.”
“Perhaps not even then,” Max said. “My world is still alive beyond the Apocalypse Horizon, and I still have a chance to prevent whatever has happened here from happening there. This sacrifice hasn’t strictly happened yet. Also, my Temporal Equalization spell reduces the Level of monsters and Dungeons to mine, but do we know for a fact that when I do so, any cosmic energy is indeed freed up and returned to the Cosmic Logos?”
“No. Hmm. Interesting. No, we actually don’t,” Nesura said. Max glanced down at the bat. She was scratching the top of her head in a disturbingly human fashion. “So, according to your reasoning, Artur Brightblade is at odds with the Cosmic Logos. He has, in fact, hurt it by creating the Apocalypse Horizon and yet, through you, also prevented his world from being annihilated. Or at least, he’s given you an opportunity to stop that from happening. If you succeed, your world survives while the Cosmic Logos suffers. That would truly be a masterstroke of spiteful vengeance. I love it.”
“Let’s go one step further with that train of thought,” Max said. “Victory Shards and enchanted items all require cosmic energy, right?”
“Correct.” Nesura’s ears perked up. The familiar’s eyes shone with curiosity.
“And Knights-Errant gain power by attaining higher Levels and getting more potent enchanted items. What if all this, the Level 99 Dungeons and monsters here that take up so much cosmic energy, are simply a means for Artur to raise a host of powerful Knights-Errant that can surpass Level 12?”
“And go all the way to Level 99?” Nesura sighed in awe. “A renegade Cosmic Prospect and an army of Level 99 Challengers? Surely even the Cosmic Logos would feel threatened by such power.”
“Especially when the source of this power comes from itself and, as evidenced by the Apocalypse Horizon, cannot be withdrawn at will. The Apocalypse Horizon is only the beginning of Artur Brightblade’s vengeance upon the Cosmic Logos.”
“Only if you succeed. Only if you and your allies reach Level 99,” Nesura pointed out. “And only if you and whoever fights alongside you agree to help him take on the Cosmic Logos. Those are very big ‘ifs’.”
“They are,” Max agreed, wondering if he had to kill Artur Brightblade after all.
Chapter 9
Taking the ferry turned out to be an excellent choice. No monsters attacked the cohort as they traversed beyond the rural outskirts of Misktown, passed through a cluster of suburban residences, and began closing in on its central area, where its commercial and administrative districts sat and its industrial areas began to stretch further inland.
Flora had brought a cache of minor potions, and she shared them out amongst the cohort, to top up everyone’s Health point and Mana point reserves. Max thanked the Defender before tipping a vial of blue effervescent liquid down his throat. Felix dutifully gathered all the empty vials into a small sack before handing them back to Flora. She smiled and returned them to her ring of holding.
Max readjusted his Flux spells during this time too, setting his newly acquired ones to readiness.
Flux Spells: 8/8 readiness
Defiant Rally: Level 1; Instant, 5 minutes; 8 Mana READY
Double Shield: Level 2; Active; 8 Mana per 10 seconds READY
Firebolt: Level 3; Instant, 0 seconds; 8 Mana READY
Icebolt (Temporal Infusion); Level 1; Instant, 0 seconds, 2 Mana READY
Icelance: Level 2; Instant, 0 seconds; 8 Mana READY
Jolting Arc: Level 1; Instant, 0 seconds; 6 Mana initial cast, 8 Mana per second READY
Momentum: Level 2; Instant, 0 seconds; 0 Mana READY
Stone Spear: Level 3; Instant, 0 seconds; 12 Mana READY
“You’re pretty much like four Elementalists rolled into one,” Marina commented, reading off the Soul Lens screen she’d angled upon him. “I’m going to start joining Felix in complaining about how unfair your Classification is.”
After slightly over three hours, the outer edges of Misktown’s central districts came into view, as did the sinister length of Graywind Mage Tower. The ferry entered the slowing bend that would allow it to turn around at the terminal ahead. Max had the cohort debark, then. If the terminal at the rural outskirts had been claimed by a monster, there was no reason to believe the same hadn’t happened here.
Shops, offices, taverns, and the like filled their vision as the cohort stepped away from the canal. The buildings were lifeless and neglected, many of them bearing massive scorched or frost-rimmed holes in their walls. Max swiftly discerned the central avenue that would lead them straight to Graywind Mage Tower. He was tempted to make a mad dash toward it. Instead, he led the cohort to the shadow stretching from the foot of a banker’s office and bade them take cover there.
“The Dungeon can’t be more than a mile away,” he said. “In fact, it’s probably much closer than that. But this is also where we can expect to find the most monsters. So far, the monsters we’ve seen aren’t lurkers or skulkers like the ghouls. This means that the best way for us to make our way there is through the buildings. There’s no hiding from the monsters, with how high their perception is, but if they don’t get a direct line of sight upon us, they might just think we’re other monsters passing by.”
“I agree with that course of action,” Flora said. “Creatures like the tanarr lord and the brazen incinerators are too large to fit into buildings.”
“That cyclopean thing wasn’t,” Felix pointed out. “What if we run into a whole bunch of them in a crowded hallway?”
“All the better for me to catch them with my Temporal Equalization spell,” Max said. “The close quarters also allow us to engage them in hand-to-hand combat more easily, which is where we want them, since at Level 3, their physical attributes are significantly lower than those of ghouls.”
“Central district buildings are usually all connected by walkways or underground tunnels,” Marina said. “Are we going to use those?”
“Yes.” Max rapped his knuckles against the side of the bank. “We start here.”
The cohort slipped into the bank. Its front door had been blasted off its hinges, along with most of its front wall. Piles of ash and charred bone amidst the ruins were all that remained of the people who’d sought refuge within the bank. The walkway to the adjacent building, an enclosed corridor interspersed with steel-framed windows, was on the second floor. The cohort crept beneath the windows as they crossed it. The sun was already past its zenith in the sky. Massive swooping shadows interrupted its light.
Max peeked over the sill of a walkway window and spotted huge blue forms, similar in size and shape to the brazen incinerators, drifting idly by.
Monster: Azure Exterminator
Level 99
Health: 3,900/3,900
Mana: 3,850/3,850
Physical Attributes
Strength: 100
Dexterity: 506
Fortitude: 308
Perception: 212
Abilities
Winter Beam
Endless Flight
Frostsoul Consumption
Rewards
Victory Shard value: 99
Treasure Class: SSSS+++
These are the frost counterparts to the brazen incinerators, Max thought. Lowering his head back beneath the windowsill, he gestured for the cohort to proceed.
They made their way through one building after another. Strangely enough, they didn’t come across many human remains. Those that they did find were usually near the entrances, the remnants of hapless souls struck down by flame or frost just after they sought refuge indoors. Neither did they come across any monsters. The cyclopean master was a special condition monster, so perhaps humanoid monsters capable of fitting into buildings were the exceptions to the rule within this region of the Apocalypse Horizon.
More and more massive, disc-shaped shadows danced across walls or darkened windows as the cohort approached the Dungeon. Eventually, they found themselves huddling in the shadow-strewn remnants of a ruined restaurant veranda, with Graywind Mage Tower less than a hundred strides away. Brazen incinerators and azure exterminators circled languidly overhead. If the cohort broke cover, the monsters would spot them immediately and strike them down.
“What are we going to do?” Felix asked. “Make a run for it?”
“We won’t get far.” Flora shook her head. “Their dexterity far exceeds ours.”
“Then what? Do we fight?” Felix put his hand on his blade. “Have Max jump right into their faces and use his Temporal Equalization spell like he did before?”
“That’s not going to work,” Max said. “First, they’re too high up. They’re at least a hundred feet above the ground. I have a Flux spell that allows me to fly, but I don’t think I can reach them in time before they spot me and get bored enough to kill me. Also, they’re too spread out. I won’t be able to catch all of them in a single cast of Temporal Equalization, even if I do get close enough.”
“And if you leave even a single one of them at Level 99, it’ll finish you off right away once it sees what happened to its friends,” Marina reasoned. “Yeah, fighting them is definitely not an option.”
