Rogue Ascension: Book 5: First Ascension: A Progression LitRPG, page 43
No?
Okay, fine, fine. Have it your way. Nobody appreciates slow and steady progression anymore. But who am I kidding? You’re a fun and challenging bozo. I kind of love it and hate it at the same time. Interesting.]
44. The Heart of the Greatest Tidal Moon Adventure, Part 1
The Dread Whale prepared the finishing touches on its lair to kill Joey, Maylolee, and their allies.
The Dread Whale was more powerful now. Smarter, even.
It didn’t even think of itself as an ‘it’ anymore. It was a she, which was abnormal for monsters to choose. But that was further proof of the Dread Whale’s epicness compared to other monsters.
She was smarter, stronger, and – most importantly – eviler than the others. Especially the lowly monsters of the Tidal Moon Realm.
Why else would the most magnanimous and gracious Lady Cara Necro send the Dread Whale down to this backwater and lesser place? Obviously, Lady Cara Necro saw true villainy in the Dread Whale, trusting her on a mission like this.
The Dread Whale wasn’t trash, after all. She was old. And she was a veteran of many conflicts, so she had a couple of permanent debuffs weighing her down.
But she was one of the best Dread Whales for the past 100,000 years. She was once famous for having the most killer internal defenses of her younger years.
Her internal defenses had gone unused for thousands of years, though. And coming down to the Tidal Moon Realm meant they were even more unlikely to see activation.
The Dread Whale was truly Level 344. Because of system-nerf directives, her powers was limited to that of Level 200 currently. But that was vastly greater than any creature in the beginner challenge area.
Hells, the Dread Whale’s previous nerfs went down to Level 140 once or twice. She’d still obliterated Tidal Moon opposition for the past 300 years.
Of course, the Dread Whale had some awareness of Princess Maylolee being the strongest war siren ever. The Dread Whale was also aware of Joey Eclipse being the greatest beginner the Tidal Moon Realm ever initiated.
So, what?
The Dread Whale was epic! Even with system-nerf directives, the strongest and greatest beginners couldn’t truly compete with her.
It would be like stomping on a bunch of babies.
Which was fun!
Babies were so much cuter that way. The Dread Whale was excited to treat Joey and May and everything they’d built as squash-worthy babies.
Especially now that the Dread Whale finished upgrading her roost into a proper adventurer grinding, war siren chopping, army breaking lair.
She was very proud of her outer lair. She spent the next hour reviewing each part while Joey’s raid army and May’s war sirens closed in from the east and the west.
Oh, that was cute. Did they think a pincer move would open up a way toward the Dread Whale’s body?
Such pitiful children.
The Dread Whale couldn’t wait to squash them. Then revive what remained into slaves!
She could send out another welcoming party of Dread Slaves, but decided against that. She’d sent enough bait. It was time to let the little babies reel themselves in.
The Dread Whale wanted to see how far they’d get past her layered defenses.
As of late, the system supported her in many endeavors. Maybe it wanted the Dread Whale to win and spread dread all over the beginner challenge area.
It was nice of the system to help her review her defenses, too.
[Reviewing the Dread Whale’s Lair. Initiating review.]
[1st Defensive Measure of the Dread Whale’s Lair: The Dreadful Roosting Land.]
Multiple tides surrounded the Dread Whale’s roost. But the land she rested on had once belonged to the old siren tide. She’d removed the tide by flying up and violently shoving its moon out of the way.
Most lowly adventurers would find that ridiculous. That was the least she could do as an epic boss monster.
Of course, the former siren tide had suffered and broken apart. Other tides had absorbed its waters while its moon fell from the sky in pieces.
The Dread Slaves had gathered up the moon pieces along with corral, silt, rock, ships, titanic bones, dead monster shells, and more. All for building material.
Despite being a whale-like monster, the Dread Whale preferred being in the air or on land. And if she was going to stay in a particular spot, she wanted her land to be custom made.
Hence the first defensive measure – an uneven, ridged, nearly impossible to traverse land. That was miles and miles wide.
Her Dread Slaves had labored ceaselessly for this. They used old congealed blood, rot, vomit, excrement, and more horrid things as building materials. And plenty of dread magic, of course.
The land had tunnels filled with crawling horrors ready to drag adventurers down. It had maze-like corridors with thick, jagged, impenetrable walls a hundred feet tall. And her Dread Slaves had built upward from the perimeter to the center. From all sides, the adventurers and war sirens would have to climb up an incline constantly while Dread Slaves ran downward in ceaseless waves.
Of course, the Dread Whale was at the top of the incline. Like being queen of the hill. Although the Dread Whale wouldn’t admit that aloud. It was unwise for any monster to claim to be the king or queen openly in Multiverse Z.
[2nd Defensive Measure of the Dread Whale’s Lair: Floorwalker Towers.]
If an observant adventurer making landfall at the edge of the Dreadful Roost were to examine their surroundings, they would notice tower-like structures standing oddly compared to most structures or lack of structures in the chaotic land. Those towers contained hidden Floorwalker Slaves.
Once the unsuspecting adventurers and war sirens committed themselves deeper into the land, the Dread Whale would have the top of the towers blown off. The blasts would reveal the heads of the giant man-like fish beasts.
Then the Floorwalker Slaves would shoot down dread-infused hydro beams.
The Dread Whale had collected over a 1000 Floorwalkers over the years. She had 700 encased in those very towers.
Another 300 waited underground where she would send them up through massive but hidden tunnels. The underground Floorwalkers would break through thin layers of the surface and outflank the attackers.
They weren’t the strongest of slaves, but their size and powerful dread-infused hydro beams would obliterate the weakest of the attackers. They would spread dread fast before the great adventurers eliminated them all.
[3rd Defensive Measure of the Dread Whale’s Lair: Dread Avians.]
Now, if the attackers were to get even further inland. Or if they were to fly over all of her land-based defenses. They would meet an unwelcoming storm. Avians. Simple beasts. Easy to frighten. Easy to fill with dread. Easy to collect in the hundreds of thousands.
Why would this matter? Because they ranged from Level 80 to Level 100. Even if they weren’t powerful slaves, the Dread Whale only needed them to nick, claw, peck, screech, cloud vision, and create more dread.
By this point, the attackers would’ve been midway to the Dread Whale’s body.
The Dread Avians would serve as a horrid storm, slowing down the attackers. Blinding them to terrible gaping holes in the ground or to the many Dread Slaves that would redouble their attacks from all directions.
Especially the Dread Slaves who waited underground for the attackers to journey past them unknowingly. Then the Dread Slaves in wait could spring their ambush and attack them from behind with the Dread Avians serving as a constant distraction.
Plenty of Dread Avians would die. But the Dread Whale had so many of them, it didn’t matter.
Best of all, anyone who tried to fly would not only be pecked and clawed to death by the swarm of Dread Avians, they’d get stopped by the Floorwalker Towers. The Floorwalkers would prioritize the destruction of aerial attackers, while the Dread Avians acted as a ceaseless storm of claws, beaks, teeth, and wings.
Of course, some adventurers might still get past all of that. Then they would meet the 4th Defensive Measure.
[4th Defensive Measure of the Dread Whale’s Lair: Dread Barriers.]
Not one.
Not two.
But three barriers.
The barriers overlaid the Dread Whale’s epic body. The barriers weren’t hard. But they were difficult to push through.
And they rapidly increased dread.
Since this was a heavily system-regulated lair, there were obvious weaknesses. Adventurers could remove the force barriers by destroying the glyph obelisks surrounding the barriers.
There were four for each barrier. Twelve in total. Each barrier required all four of its obelisks destroyed for them to fall fully.
That was fine and dandy. However, the best part was how the Dread Whale cleverly placed the obelisks.
Most of them were underground.
Yes, indeed, the barrier covered all directions, too! Just in case there were pesky adventurers thinking themselves clever by going underground.
Some had tried in the past. The underground monsters tore them apart.
The Dread Whale was an epic boss veteran for a reason. It was always a good idea to defend from all directions.
Nonetheless, the barriers served as an anti-magic bombardment deterrent, too. Magic attacks would get repelled the most. Nothing physical was truly a threat to the Dread Whale’s body even if it could pass through all three barriers.
What good would physical range attacks do, anyway? The Dread Whale could regenerate lickety split.
All nuking and ranged attacks were a nonfactor. Any attacker who attempted to dive on her from directly above would face the Dread Avians, her tower defense dread beams, and a struggle against the barriers, which would slow them down for easier killing and enslaving.
Attackers had tried the drop-in approach and failed. But the Dread Whale wouldn’t mind seeing them try again.
[5th Defensive Measure of the Dread Whale’s Lair: Widespread Dread Bombs.]
Ah, the emergency measure.
The hidden bombs.
It was normally impossible for her to use crafted items if it wasn’t for the system-nerf directives lifting to Level 200. Now she had just enough smarts to use magic items! And the system allowed it, too!
Wow, the system was being so nice to her. The Dread Whale figured the multiverse wanted Joey and Maylolee dead if it was going to let her use magic items!
So she went for the emergency option. Blow everything up! Big boom!
She had stockpiles of magic ordnance that failed to explode from past war sirens who’d thought they could blow up their problem.
It was hilarious how every attempt to attack the Dread Whale only strengthened her. Of course, triggering the Massive Dread Bombs would lay waste to her roost and hurt her in return, but she would survive.
It would be sad that she’d lose Maylolee’s parents, which the Dread Whale held close as a just-in-case measure.
It was always a good idea to play with the heart-strings of adventurers before you kill and enslave them!
The power of the explosives reached no further than low-tier superior quality. So they would be more destructive to the land and to the steady ones and denizens.
But at that point, once she blew everything up, the Dread Whale would do so when the attackers were at their absolute weakest, filled with dreadful desperation, and had no way out.
If any survived, she would personally kill whoever remained and remake her Dread Slaves from scratch. Hopefully, she would have Joey and May’s enslaved corpses as replacements for May’s parents.
Or maybe the Dread Whale would have them all! A whole family set with a mom, a dad, a daughter, and their son-in-law.
Like her own undead dread dolls.
[This concludes the review of the Dread Whale’s Lair Defensive Measures.]
Yes, yes, this is perfect. I’ve never had such an opportunity like this. Even in the Caravan Necropolis Realm, I was just another monster in the swarm.
But here, dare I say, I’m an evil god-queen! And I’m going to slay Joey Eclipse and Maylolee Suzuki and end their pairing before it grows any further.
The Dread Whale made wicked monster whale noises that was her version of laughing.
Because of her evil nature, her diabolical mind understood the magnetic draw between two great adventurers like Joey and May. Destroying their connection would provide a great amount of monstrous pleasure.
Doing evil for evil’s sake was the highest of dark virtues. But petty evil, especially trashy romance-breaking evil that was the bane of all happy endings, was the Dread Whale’s favorite evil pleasure.
I should kill them dramatically. When all of their friends are dead and it’s only the two of them. I’ll start with Joey first. Then I’ll puppet his corpse and torment Maylolee before I finally finish her just like her parents. It’ll be the perfect unhappy ending for them both!
Everything was perfect. She had everything prepared. And she wasn’t too sleepy yet.
The attackers were raiding her roost too early. She could watch the attackers fail, die, and become Dread Slaves for her great and pleasurable entertainment.
The Dread Whale laughed some more. This was the most thrilled she felt in a long while. This would be her best session of squashing babies, spreading unhappiness, and being the evilest of evil monsters.
The Dread Whale stopped laughing when she noticed something strange.
A fast moving golden object blurred through the air. A missile of sorts. It soared over the ridged, uneven, hellish land.
The Dread Whale replied with superior reactions.
She blew the tops off her towers to reveal the skull-like heads of the Floorwalkers. They charged their dreadful hydro beams too slow. They wouldn’t be able to stop the incoming missile in time.
The Dread Avians gathered in front of the golden missile. Still too slow. The missile would pass by the Dread Avians and through the barriers without too much resistance.
Fine then. The Dread Whale would accept the hit. Once it landed, the Dread Whale would heal.
That turned out to be a careless idea.
At the last second, the Dread Whale noticed tiny figures mounted on the incoming missile – which was a harpoon, she realized.
She counted six figures.
The perfect number for a squad of great ones.
NO!
She ordered the Dread Slave with the match and fuse to light it. And blow the entire roost.
Too late.
The harpoon struck her belly. It opened a wound for the great adventurers to enter. They breached her body.
Nobody in the Tidal Moon Realm breached her body before. Not even Maylolee’s parents, who were the first to make the Dread Whale feel concerned.
This went beyond concerned. The Dread Whale was gobsmacked.
What about all the hard work I put into my outer defenses? The Dread Whale thought sadly. That’s not fair. You’re not supposed to skip those.
Before she could fully understand what just happened, her roost exploded. The bombs obliterated nearly everything around the surface and underground.
May’s parents were put to rest at long last.
Caverns collapsed. Tunnels crumbled. Monsters fell or flew sky high, crushed, torn up, blown apart.
Her intricately structured mazes fell to ruins. The ridgy, uneven, ankle-breaking hazards flattened. The roost became leveled ground, made easier to walk on.
All the barriers surrounding her winked away. Almost all the towers fell to smithereens, killing most of the Floorwalker Slaves.
The Dread Whale’s epic body, even while nerfed, endured the superior but catastrophic explosions. The blasts shook her up a lot, which she hoped disturbed the great adventurers immensely.
Nonetheless, the bombs ruined her roost. Now she was compromised internally while defenseless to actual artillery bombardment and land invasion. She still had her Dread Avians, at least.
And I’m not asleep yet.
Time to fly.
The Dread Whale wriggled her massive body out of the rubble and took to the air. Her many avians swirled around her, sacrificing their bodies to defend against ranged attacks from war siren artillery and militia spells.
It was barely a bother while she fled. Yes, she lost many avians. But it didn’t matter.
Joey and Maylolee were inside with four other greats. No beginner had ever accomplished such a feat.
How utterly embarrassing. The Dread Whale was a veteran monster! An epic boss, too!
She needed to concentrate on her internal defenses, which had grown rusty after going unused for so long. Her baby needed to wake up and defend her mother’s heart, too. And all the emergency Dread Slaves she kept inside for just-in-case reasons had to wake up.
The emergency Dread Slaves were minions she’d gathered before coming down to this backwater Lesser Realm. The likes of which no beginner adventurer or denizen had ever faced. Her baby was a more recent creation and was already a horror of her own right.
Yes, they would fall under system-nerf directives, too. But the Dread Whale wanted to believe they could slow the six down.
Still, none of this should’ve happened. The Dread Whale should’ve won easily. She always won for the past three centuries!
Was this their plan the whole time? Make me think their armies were important when they truly planned to mount a rapid-flight harpoon and breach my body directly?
That can’t be! That’s too ingenious! Only epic adventurers would think of such plans! How would they know they could go inside and attack my heart? They couldn’t be that smart!
But what if it’s true? What if they are that smart?
I’ve been fooled by beginners!
No, no, no! Oh Lady Cara Necro, make it not so! How can these beginners be such geniuses? Such savants of trickery and warfare!
If these are truly the greatest and strongest beginners, I must kill them! I must snuff these gifted babies before they truly grow to become powerhouses. For you, Lady Cara Necro, I will be the end of Joey Eclipse and Maylolee Suzuki!
