Leveling Up The World 8: A LitRPG Adventure, page 44
“Stone, can you see through illusions?” Dallion asked.
Err, no? The aetherfish popped into existence.
That was moderately annoying. There was no doubt that the guardian was present, hiding somewhere among the hundreds of realms that composed the current section of the item. At the end of the day, the guardian didn’t have to face Dallion; it was Dallion that had to defeat it to progress forward.
Combining magic with attack, Dallion drew a light symbol on the floor in front of him. Threads lit up beneath the mirrors, stretching like cables, or thin pipes, but still no platypus.
“Not in the mood to play?” he asked, using his music skills to add arrogance to his words.
Whether or not the guardian could hear, it didn’t react.
Any ideas on this, Nil?
One or two, the echo said. I still think it’s a bit too early for you to tackle the artifact.
You could have said so earlier.
There’s still a chance you get lucky.
Translated to normal speech, Nil was acknowledging that Dallion had grown enough to try and take on the platypain. That was encouraging.
“Do I have to start breaking things again?” Dallion asked.
Without waiting for an answer, he spun around with his harpsisword, doing a semi-circle strike in the process, then sprinted down the corridor, shattering all the mirrors on his right. Every few steps, an instance of his would peel off, carefully observing which mirror would start getting repaired first. When nothing happened, Dallion turned around, doing another destructive dash. Glass fragments fell to the floor with a nasty crunching sound, and yet the guardian still refused to show itself.
Two out of four, Dallion thought.
The logical choice was to go with the floor. That way, he’d leave the messiest part for last. Then again, using instances eliminated the need to choose. Two rows of instances ran along the corridor, sliding the vibrating harpsisword along a different surface.
With each step, it seemed that the guardian wasn’t there. Then, at the very last moment, the platypus jumped down from the final mirror segment on the ceiling.
COMBAT INITIATED
The red rectangle made it clear that the creature meant business. Not wanting to disappoint, Dallion performed a series of sparked infused line attacks in the playpain’s direction.
A series of barriers emerged, stacking around the guardian. Each of Dallion’s line attacks was strong enough to smash three barriers at one go, but the more that were destroyed, the more appeared.
When did he cast them? Dallion wondered.
Several of his instances had been watching the guardian non-stop and hadn’t seen any symbols appear. There had been no footprints, no limb movements, not even a change in the platypus’ fur.
Moments later, another spell materialized, causing sharp quills to emerge out of the creature’s body and fly like homing missiles straight at Dallion’s head. Thanks to his armadil shield and combat splitting, the attacks were avoided, though remained too close for comfort.
Gritting his teeth, Dallion missed the time when he’d rely on green markers to tell him where the enemy’s attack zone was. Sadly, those only worked on lower-level creatures, not to mention that magic seemed to bypass them completely.
Dallion unsummoned his shield, then moved his right hand with such speed that he created the illusion that four sets of fingers were visible.
“Lux, take care of evasion!” he ordered.
Blue flames surrounded him, pulling him a few feet away from the platypain.
“Stone, can you cast shield barriers?”
Err, yes. Barriers are easy, the aetherfish replied.
“Do that,” Dallion ordered while concentrating on his casting. “I’ll need five seconds.”
For most people, five seconds wasn’t a lot. When it came to magic, that was an eternity. All the boosts and training could only help so much when casting complicated spells. Back in the Purple Moon’s realm, it had taken two people in unison to cast the spell fast enough. For Dallion to do it on his own, he’d take three times longer.
More quills went flying Dallion’s direction, followed by a new set of barriers surrounding the guardian. Lux gracefully moved his owner throughout the air, careful not to ruin his spell. Meanwhile, Stone created a series of individual small barriers in rapid succession, blocking each quill that posed a threat.
The attack didn’t stop there. Catching on to Dallion’s tactic, the guardian started a complicated spell of its own. Dallion had no idea what the spell was, but experiencing a brief calm during which the platypus remained perfectly still gave him an idea of what might follow. Unsummoning his shield, he cast a portal spell with his left hand.
Lux immediately caught on, flying through the portal into another corridor realm. A split second later, the main corridor twisted and collapsed on itself like a straw that had all of its air sucked out.
“What the heck?!” Dallion shouted. Adding the final symbols to his spell.
What the platypain had done wasn’t just a simple attack spell, it was dangerously creative. It was manipulating the environment itself! The only entities Dallion had seen do something similar were Aether, the reality chameleon, and possibly Katka during their previous fight.
Now, do you understand why I didn’t think you were ready? Nil asked. That’s one category of spells you haven’t trained in.
A series of magic circles collapsed in on themselves, as Dallion completed his own spell. Chains show out of the air, passing through the portal and squeezing through the corridor until they twisted around their target.
The guardian had protected himself by creating a barrier sphere, but that didn’t dissuade the chains. As if sentient, they wrapped around the sphere, waiting for the moment it would give in. If Dallion knew the exact spell Raven had used to exhaust all magic, he might have resorted to using it. Unfortunately, that was one thing he had failed to learn.
Letting the chains do their thing, Dallion turned around and cast another portal spell. Since there was no way to reach the platypain through the main corridor, he was going to have to jump through the mini-realms and get to him from the other side.
In his mind, the scholar skills acted in full force, forming a mental map of the area for Dallion to follow. Since everything was based on the basic principles of diffraction, one could make a pretty good guess how the realms would be connected.
You’re being reckless again, Nil said.
“Yep.” Dallion didn’t have much choice. With this enemy, it was a race against time. The aether chains were persistent but, even so, they might snap at any moment.
You’ve become stronger. Dallion heard the voice of the guardian in his head.
“Does that mean you’ll surrender?” he shouted, rushing forward through the maze of mirrors.
Only if the outcome is wholly in your favor. For now, it isn’t.
“You’re confident about that?” Dallion kept on casting portals. According to his mental calculations, he was half the way there. It was almost funny how the trip so far had taken him less than the chain spell. In the future he’d have to get a lot faster, which meant he had to double his efforts during Katka’s training.
You’re using mage spells, but they’re borrowed. You aren’t able to create your own spells.
“I’ve created lots of spells on my own.”
You aren’t able to create your own spells, the guardian insisted with cold certainty. Until you do, the greatest advantage of humans will remain out of reach.
The farther Dallion went, the more the corridors split. Still, he knew he was on the right track. Just for good measure, he cast additional barriers behind him to limit any potential movement his opponent might have.
Please, let’s not fight in three dimensions, Dallion said to himself.
In the distance, he could see the ball of chains. Neither of the two spells had ended, maintaining the status quo. It was the playpain’s passiveness that was alarming. The creature was smart, creative, and skillful enough to have thought of something seconds ago.
A matter of steps from his target, Dallion summoned his harpsisword, filled it with spark, then thrust a point attack from point blank range. The raw power of the strike shattered the chains and the sphere beneath it. At that point, several things happened at once.
As the attack continued forward, it cut through another barrier that hadn’t been visible before.
AETHERIZER LEVEL 2 GUARDIAN
Species: PLATYPAIN
Class: MAGIC
Health: 90%
Traits:
- BODY 20
- MIND 40
- REACTION 20
- PERCEPTION 20
- MAGIC 40
Skills:
- ATTACK
- ATHLETICS
- SPELLCRAFT
- ILLUSION SHROUD (Species Unique)
- FUR ISOLATION (Species Unique)
Weakness: UNKNOWN
The white rectangle emerged, providing the first information regarding the creature Dallion had come across. The good news was that there weren’t a large number of unique skills. The bad news was that all of them were exceedingly powerful.
The illusion shroud gone, magic symbols shone all over the creature’s fur. Most of them Dallion was unfamiliar with….until the spell took effect.
PAIN EFFECT
Pain will course through your body for two minutes.
Casting speed has been reduced by 50% for two minutes.
Dallion’s high perception turned against him. He yelled out in agony, unable to handle the pain, despite all the time spent in the wilderness. His vision blurred. Every muscle in his body rebelled as if wanting to twist off and hide somewhere far away.
There was no way Dallion could withstand two minutes of that. By all logic he had lost the fight and with it, the attempt to clear the aetherizer. However, there was one thing in hunter training that made Dallion accept the outcome. One thing that Euryale had taught him was that the moment of one’s defeat was also the tipping point as long as he managed to take advantage of it.
Dallion’s body screamed at him to twitch in an attempt to relieve part of the pain. Only as he did, he kept on holding the hilt of his weapon.
To the observer, it seemed that he had lost control and was moments away from collapsing to the ground.
“Spark!” Dallin shouted through the pain.
A bright glow covered the harpsisword as one final line attack was performed.
FATAL STRIKE
Dealt damage is increased by 500%
A glowing line emerged on the platypain’s fur as the remaining mirrors behind the guardian shattered to dust.
“Got you!” Dallion said as he crashed on the floor.
All that remained now was for him to withstand the two minutes of pain before moving on to the final guardian. If luck was on his side, maybe he could end this. If not, he’d have learned some valuable lessons.
Not quite, the platypus replied.
What?! Focusing every drop of will he had, Dallion looked up.
The creature’s outer layer of fur had peeled off like a coat, revealing a second layer beneath. Somewhere buried in the trivia section of Dallion’s memories, he remembered that the platypus on Earth had two layers of fur to keep it isolated and waterproof. Obviously, this was the case for the platypain, too.
THE MAGIC DETECTOR
In more cases than not, fatal strikes were enough to defeat any creature. In this case, it was like fighting an egg—the outer shell had cracked, leaving the creature itself unharmed. Thankfully, with the information rectangle now visible, it was clear that sixty percent health had vanished along with the outer layer of fur.
A moment was spent in revaluation. Both sides created new strategies, evaluated them, then spring into action.
Fighting against the pain, Dallion split into a dozen instances, each doing a variety of slash and thrust attacks in an attempt to finish the job. Meanwhile, the platypain went on the offensive. No longer the slow and defensive creature of before, he avoided all of Dallion’s attacks while simultaneously casting a spell within his fur.
Magic symbols mixed and merged, creating a pattern that Dallion couldn’t make out. The aetherfish, though, did, for it cast a spell of its own. A green sphere surrounded the platypain, only to be shattered moments later with such force that all of Dallion’s instances instinctively jumped back.
“What’s that?” Dallion asked.
Assembly, Stone replied.
“Assembly?” Dallion split into instances once more. The moment some of them looked around, searching for the realm portals, he saw what the familiar had meant.
The labyrinth of mirrors had vanished. There was no maze, no portals, the hundreds of realms had all collapsed into one cube-like reality. What made it particularly annoying was that while the whole of reality appeared to be one three-dimensional cube of interconnected corridors, the guardian had multiplied. A quick glance revealed close to twenty of him in various parts of the cube.
Those weren’t instances or echoes—Dallion could see threads of magic going through mirrored walls, connecting each. That wasn’t his only problem. The walls themselves seemed to be both there and not, phasing in and out of existence at random intervals.
He broke reality, Dallion thought.
Interesting, Nil mused. I haven’t seen that spell outside of theoretical studies.
“Don’t be so enthusiastic about it!” Dallion shouted as his instances dispersed throughout the mirror cube. A few of them were blinked out of existence as walls materialized through them. The rest cast identical spells, sending aether projectiles at the various guardians. Six even managed to hit their target, but all that did was cause one of the platypus’ copies to pop out of existence, the magic thread returning to those that survived.
Now that he’d seen that his enemy wasn’t indestructible, Dallion split again, this time in far more instances than before. All he had to do was keep this up until—
That’s not the right way, Harp’s echoey voice resonated in his mind. You have to do something different.
“It’ll be fine,” Dallion replied.
His instances were still killing off guardians, but the difficulty seemed to increase with each iteration. If Dallion had managed to kill off six instances of the platypain, he could only pick one reality. The second time, only eight of his instances were lucky, even if there were close to a sixty of them. The time after then, only three managed to get a hit.
The platypus wasn’t only learning how to counteract Dallion’s tactics but had gone back to casting spells of his own.
“Harp, what do I have to do?” he asked.
Use magic, the nymph guardian replied. Copy the spell I show you.
“I thought you couldn’t teach me magic.”
There always are exceptions. Just follow my lead.
Dallion expected the nymph to emerge in her full form and start drawing symbols. Instead, the harpsisword strings vibrated, forming symbols in the air.
Magic music, Dallion thought. A fascinating concept he had considered a few times, though never actually tried.
Without wasting a moment, he combined spellcraft, music, and attack skills. The tip of the blade moved about, following the path created by the sound. A pattern began to emerge. It was as if Dallion were drawing in the air using light instead of paint.
Remember the symbols that go into making this, Harp said. All of them are things you know.
Dallion concentrated. Knowing that he was dealing with something familiar helped to a degree, but it was like trying to make out the brand name of a very stretched plastic bag. Even with dozens of instances, Dallion made more mistakes than he would have liked. Thankfully, his efforts paid off.
SPELL RECOMBINATION
(+2 Mind)
You have successfully translated a pattern spell into magic symbols. Sometimes the pieces of something are worth more than the whole. However, that only works if you know the pieces to begin with.
A blast of water shot from the space in front of his hand, as if he’d created a magic water hose. There was no pushback, not even the slightest tension. The water kept on shooting forward with the intention of blasting everything in its path. Hitting into the first materialized wall in the reality cube, it went on, spreading to other sections.
The beauty and horror of it all was that even after seconds had passed, the spell had no intention of stopping. Instinctively, Dallion pulled back his hand, believing he could reduce the flow. The stream continued unimpeded, sprouting from a spot in the air.
You can move back if you want, Harp said. The spell will keep on going on its own.
“What is it?”
A water elemental spell. This is how you create water from magic.
“This is no creation spell. I recognized some of the symbols. This is a portal.”
Good. There was a grain of pride in the nymph’s voice. You’re learning. You opened a portal to a magic reality full of water. In that reality, water can never end, so it will continue to fill this realm until there’s nothing left to fill.
“I’m flooding a realm?” Dallion just realized the power he had unleashed. “You can sink entire realms?”
There always are conditions. This is a small magic realm, so yes, it can be filled easily. Other realms, like the dryad world swords, will react differently. A large amount of water can be unleashed, but it would never be fully sunk.
During the conversation, the cube continued to flood before everyone’s very eyes. The platypain realized it, too, for it started casting barriers in an attempt to stop the impending water.
“Harp, you know that platypuses can swim, right?” Dallion asked.
Platypains, the dryad corrected. Not anymore. You tore off its second layer of fur. Now, it’ll sink like a rock. And even if it didn’t, water negates the magic it needs in order to remain in existence.
That’s magic water? Dallion thought. One had to admit, it sounded cool. With this trick, there was so much he could achieve. Heck, there was no sell that could hold him. Doors could withstand the weight of an entire realm of water, and even if they could, Dallion would easily swim up to a window and use a point attack to break through the wall or ceiling.
