RD 4 Ch 10

I checked it with Soul Gaze as it rolled back to its feet.

[Hivnara Scout SS

Level: 91

Status: Healthy

Strength: 8062

Agility: 3190

Vitality: 4988

Intelligence: 2112

Spirit: 4398

Skills:

Sense S

Dig SS

Carapace SS

Burning Venom S

Powerful Jaws SS

Bite SS]

The Hivnara scout lunged at me with its two large pincers.

I grabbed onto both, feeling small pricks break through my skin. A burning sensation spread from the incisions as the creature's venom began to rush through my veins.

Gloria needed no prompting to assist me. Purple fire washed over me not touching a strand of hair before slamming into the hive.

However, the purple flames rolled over the creature, doing little else than polishing its carapace while it flexed its pincers and my hands bled, saved only by my own natural defenses.

She cut off her flames a second later, only for Circe to lift a finger. A giant cylinder of wind appeared above the monster. I knew this ability well and was prepared. Circe swiped her finger down and the Air Hammer smashed into the monster, knocking it to the floor and causing its six legs to sprawl out.

That SS Rank Carapace wasn’t going to break so easily. Wind magic was essentially physical damage. The reason that fire was best, was that you could still cook them with that hard carapace in place.

I let go of its pincers and moved, clenching my fists to check them. My hands were red and swollen, but they were still in working order.

Thankfully this had only been a scout.

I called on Blood Blade to make the biggest sword I could. I drew the massive claymore behind my shoulder and slammed it down on the hive's head to little effect.

"Holy crap, these things are tough," Nyx said. Her arrow avoided the harder parts and lodged itself in the hive's compound eye.

It thrashed, trying to get back on its feet, only for Merlin to finish summoning three golems of ice. They immediately mobbed the creature, using their bulk to pin it down as their fists reared back and began smashing into it repeatedly.

Simone came up beside me, grabbing my arm and kissing my hand. Her ability, Soothing Kiss, immediately eased the burning pain.

"Thanks," I said, grabbing the large Blood Blade again. I lifted it high over my head and smashed it down, only to lose the sword again. Blood was continuously running down both of my arms as I made Blood Blade.

Gloria was throwing all manner of abilities into the fight. Small chasms of purple flames erupted from underneath, and a massive purple beast came from the ceiling, clawing at the Hivnara.

Meanwhile, Circe was like a smith at the forge. Her air hammer kept coming down, crushing the Hivnara and occasionally some of Merlin's golems.

I could see that eliminating this monster was going to take a minute, so I knelt where the Hivnara was still scrambling but unable to get up. Grabbing onto one of its pincers, I got another handful of its venom. I gritted my teeth through the pain, determined to fight through and build up more resistance.

If we wanted to finish this instance, we needed to rank up our skills. And I saw the opportunity in front of me. It was incredibly rare to have an SS rank monster pinned down on the ground like this scout.

"Simone, why don't you do me a favor and heal it?" I pointed at the monster.

Only for Circe to look at me as if I'd grown a second head. Her hammer of air paused over the monster before she looked like she was deciding if she should instead smash me with it.

"It's not every day you get an SS to pound away at," I said, making another blood blade. "If I can rank this up to SS, then this sword will finally start cutting through their stupid natural armor." I tapped the blood blade against the armor, and there was a small ring as the purple-colored ant squirmed and snapped at my ankles.

"He has a point," Merlin said.

Merlin had stopped casting another three golems, joining the first and keeping the monster down.

Unfortunately, it got one of the golem legs, and we got a glimpse of how powerful the jaws could be when they snapped together at full force. The ice golem's legs were crushed, pulling it down to the ground where a second snap crushed its torso and head.

"Let's not forget it's still dangerous," Circe said as she began pounding away at it again.

"It's manageable," I replied, making another blood blade and going to work on the Hivnara’s legs. I stabbed smaller swords into the joints, ensuring it would have as much difficulty as possible getting up from the floor. Without its legs underneath it, it wasn't able to exert its monstrous strength and we needed to keep it that way.

Using Soul Gaze, I checked out the monster’s skills for more details. I let out a slow whistle as I went about my work. "Yeah, plenty of abilities we can work on," I pricked my hand once again and allowed the venom back into my body.

Given the way that my elemental resistances were now combined under my titan physique, I could use this creature’s poison to level one of my most powerful abilities.

My bloodline was fairly fixed, but the passive durability and strength granted from my primordial confluence titan physique would serve me in just about every way imaginable. The only slight flaw being that modern day transport was going to be difficult. However, most transportation was about to become irrelevant, so I was not losing much.

Despite Circe's objection, Simone had listened to me immediately and begun healing the Hivnara.

Between using her own abilities and trying to rank them up, Nyx let out a little whoop as her serpent hair danced next to the hive, all of the serpents essentially chewing on one of its extended legs. "This will level up quickly," she said with a smug grin.

"Up to A rank," Circe reminded her. "After that, it gets a tad more difficult. Which is why we perhaps shouldn't mess around, Bran," Circe reminded me.

"What skill are you trying to improve?" I asked her.

"This air hammer." She told me.

I didn't look away from my repeated task of stabbing and poisoning myself.

Circe raised the cylinder of air. "It's S, and I can't figure out how to raise it to SS."

"Well, you have two options, Circe. You can either evolve the skill into something different, or you can get it to SS," I said.

The Arch Sorceress pondered for a moment. "What are my upgrades?"

"Wind Forge. Or at least, that's what I've heard it called. There was a guy who crafted with it in my last life. You can essentially make an anvil, or seal something in an anvil of wind, only to bring your wind hammer down. It's a control and damage skill in one. Most would see it as a solid upgrade, however, it is a smidge slower," I explained, pinching my fingers together.

"Alright, if I were to upgrade it as you phrased it, what do I need to do?" She asked me.

"You need to start crafting with the ability. As for reaching SS, wind hammer has a pretty straight forward technique. You just need to crush powerful things. If you crush enough, it will rank up." I gestured at the Hivnara currently pinned, "With an SS Ranked monster, you'll get what you need.”

“Then stop healing it." She glared at Simone, only to start casting as fast as she could, smashing the wind hammer down one after the other. Simone paused but glanced at me.

"Go ahead. She might be right, there are plenty more where this came from." I offered. I stopped tinkering with my blood blade ability, trying to see if there was anything I could feel as I made different shapes of weapons or used them in different ways.

So far, none of them gave me the sense of progress that might cement the idea that I could upgrade the ability.

After a minute more of pounding, the Hivnara was successfully killed, its body melting into the ground as a small pile of loot formed underneath it. Well, a small pile of system gold, with a little disc of chitin, a little bigger than my hand.

"However small it might be, it was still of great value. SS Rank Material," Circe muttered as she watched me pocket it in my spatial ring. "Now, I don't know if you get to take all of them, Bran." She watched me carefully.

"Of course not," I scowled at her. "However, I'm not wasting time splitting up loot for a scout. When we're all done, we can divide things up far more evenly than we can as we go. This ring will only be for this instance.” I flashed her a low rank ring that I’d use. “I mean, unless you want to keep a running log of what everyone's gotten so far, in this instance," I challenged her.

"Fair point," she said after a moment, changing her tune.

"I think it would be wise if we understood a little more about these Hivnara," Merlin said, stepping back and not unsummoning her golems. Her eyes raked over the ceiling and the various barrel-sized holes that covered the walls around us.

"Well, as you can see," I gestured at the downed Hivnara, "they're sturdy as fuck. And unless Circe can upgrade or rank up her abilities to SS, it's going to be pretty hard to crack these shells. I have a sword mastery technique that I'm working on. However, in order to rank that one up, I'm most likely going to need some more lively targets. Perhaps if I can get my Blood Blade to SS rank, then I can really start doing some serious damage."

I glanced through the system menus, using Soul Gaze on everyone, quickly scanning for abilities that would be helpful. Many of us might have had one or two S Rank abilities, but SS were incredibly rare. My S Rank Blood Blade matched with my S Rank Sword Mastery would get more useful. Now that I had my Sword Proficiency upgraded to Mastery, I just needed to get it up to the A or S Ranks to really be able to cut into the hives. Two S Rank abilities working in tandem should be able to break through a single SS Defensive.

"As for the Hivnara," I said, turning back to Merlin and her question, "we aren't going to get too many options to fight them one-on-one. Consider this a warm-up." I gestured at the downed creature.

"Comforting," Merlin said, glancing over at her golems. "How are their sensory abilities?"

She kept her head on a swivel, looking for any monsters cropping up from the gaping holes.

"Surprisingly poor. That's at least one benefit. You’ll notice that at the moment nothing is coming running at us. They do, however, have a very strong sense of smell, so we'll have to be careful."