The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 302

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Right before Ronan’s combined spear-strike that was layered with practically every offensive skill he possessed struck the magic-immune boss, the two kaijus used their skill to switch places. He had successfully fooled them into believing his conjured weapon strikes with the spear could only deal physical damage. And they had fallen for his ploy hook, line, and sinker.

The boss that was completely immune to physical damage and yet highly susceptible to magic attacks appeared in front of him and took the full force of his spear-thrust to the chest. The effects were spectacular.

The first blow tore through the few scales at the point of impact. Arcane Piercing Strike sheared through its hide as though it were butter, parting its flesh for the spear. Around the wound the boss’ flesh started to freeze, and then a moment later a deafening explosion rocked the large monstrous body. Blood and chunks of fat and muscle sprayed outwards, splashing over Ronan. His arms trembled as he struggled to maintain his hold on the spear in the wake of the blast.

The boss screeched, an agonised cry that was joined by a furious one from the other boss. Ronan wanted to see what the other boss was doing but couldn’t spare any attention. His attack was only just beginning. Surging Strikes would keep striking until he ran out of resources, the boss died, or his focus wavered, whichever happened first. He refused to let it be the latter.

The second and third strikes continued the work of the first. What had been a vicious wound in the kaiju’s chest became a crater littered with viscera and coated with slowly dripping blue blood. That changed with the fourth. The guaranteed critical hit began by blasting a hole through the monster, letting Ronan see all the way through its chest to the sky beyond. That wasn’t all. The outwards transfer of the damage made an absolute mess of its torso. The frost spread like a rapid poison, turning half its body into an ice sculpture. That turned the explosion from a destructive force into a truly devastating blow. The brittle frozen flesh exploded as though it had sublimated, vanishing most of his enemy’s body.

The physics of Surging Strikes was confusing, but Ronan gained a little bit of insight into it when the fifth blow struck. The boss began to fall from the air, which was the only reason the fifth spear-thrust actually connected with what remained of it. That told Ronan that Surging Strikes created exact copies of his attack, velocity, direction, and spatial location included. The sixth missed, but the seventh caught the boss’ head as it tumbled to the ground. The eighth was barely a glancing hit, but purely by virtue of being a critical hit it obliterated what remained of the kaiju’s ugly face.

Right as he was about to celebrate the kill, he felt four pairs of large claws pierce his back. Ronan had no time to react, but right before the other boss tore him to shreds, he activated Porcupine Shield.

The legendary skill had only seen combat use once, and that made the second instance. The first time it had proven that it deserved its rarity, and when Ronan felt absolutely no pain from Azbab’s attack, he knew it had pulled off the same feat. A wave of force exploded out of him as the skill reached the end of its defensive lifetime. He felt the claws being torn from his back as the boss was blasted backwards by the force of the counter-blow.

Ronan turned to face his final opponent. He had the half-baked idea that perhaps killing just one of the copies of the boss would be enough to take them both out, given that they shared a name and a boss status, but that clearly was too optimistic when facing the final challenge of a nightmare difficulty tutorial.

The boss had bleeding holes all over its body. While it was immune to magic damage, Porcupine Shield seemed to simply reflect whatever it absorbed. That meant the physical damage he should have suffered from its claws had been redirected back to the source, giving him an advantage for the final stretch of the battle.

The fact that there had been no kill notification when he took out the other Azbab worried him. A seed of doubt had been planted that it was truly dead, but there was nothing he could do except forge ahead. Hopefully the bastard can’t just endlessly duplicate.

A blistering exchange followed. Ronan couldn’t use most of his powerful skills or spells due to the fact the boss was unaffected by them, but that didn’t stop him from leveraging his raw strength to push it back.

His efforts won him an opening which he punished immediately. Ronan darted in after cutting off one of the boss’ clawed hands, thrusting his spear towards its exposed underbelly. The weapon pierced right through, eliciting a grunt of pain from the kaiju. He yanked the weapon out to deliver another thrust. Then he heard a plip.

More droplets of lightning-fast water tore through his body. He’d mentally reacted to the spell being cast, but unfortunately his body still couldn’t keep up with his lightspeed nerves, and the boss’ devastating attack tore through him. He was left looking like a slice of swiss cheese. The boss cackled and darted forwards. Then its body glitched. The next moment the boss appeared where it had been at the start of its leap, but instead it slashed its claws and snapped its jaws as though it was at the end.

Ronan laughed as he realised that had to be the effect of Time Bleed, the status effect that his new race could inflict upon strikes. It was interesting to see at work, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to keep him alive. The boss charged again once it had recovered from the shock. This time there was no chronological interference to save him. The claws tore through Ronan as he weakly fought back, but the few hits he landed with his spear were barely more than scratches. Then the boss grabbed hold of his head and twisted. He felt the sinews in his neck tear, then his skull deformed as the boss ripped it off and squeezed.

His consciousness remained intact, and he could feel that his soul was mostly unaffected by the separation of head and body, but the pain was most definitely real. The weirdest thing about the experience was that Ronan realised he could still feel his body as though it were attached with working nerves and all. On a whim, as his health points neared zero, he tried to raise his arm.

The last thing he saw before his death was a headless body raising one arm in a salute to the defeated. Nice.

Unprecedented modifications detected…

Analysing…

Unable to determine harm-benefit of modifications. Deferring to inheritor

Physical body has mutated, resulting in the following:

Magic damage resistance +165%

Dismemberment resistance +48%

Physical damage resistance +39%

Water resistance +19%

Keep mutations?

No skill this time. Ronan’s brief complaint was followed by the realisation that getting skills from dying was already overpowered enough and that it didn’t need to happen every single time. Once was already fantastic, and he was certain that it would happen again in future. He moved onto the analysis of his latest iteration, looking forward to seeing just how much his multipliers would have increased by.

Iteration 56 analysis:

Highest level achieved: 404

Highest class achieved: Paragon Fate-Dancer (Galactic)

Highest fortune achieved: 843 Bronze Credit, 871 Copper Credits

Stats gained: 1,113,372

Cultivation stages achieved: Mind (Opal ★★★), Body (Iron ★★★★★), Energy (Vibrating ★★★★★★), Soul (Yellow ★★★★) [+5]

Inventory value accumulated: 1 Iron Credit, 12 Bronze Credits, 219 Copper Credits

Chrono Enhancement Updates:

Experience gain multiplier has increased from 850% to 10,000%

Achieving a celestial class for the first time has rewarded you with 5 Chronos merits

Credit gain multiplier has increased from 24.7% to 2,109.7%

Experience gain multiplier has increased from 41.922 to 1,155.294

Cultivation talent multiplier has increased from 1.0 to 12.5

Cultivation progress has been reset, maximum stages reached have been locked

Mastery progress has been reset, maximum tiers reached have been locked

Class has been reset, class skills purged from status

Levels have been reset, maximum race grade reached has been locked

Chronos merits have been acquired! All four paths of cultivation have reached at least the first realm! Inheritor possesses 35+ skills or traits! Inheritor has pushed one or more multipliers beyond the first concentration point! Access to chronos clan ancestral grounds granted at the second threshold

Ronan realised he’d already hit the cap for the experience multiplier, but it was way, way higher than it had been before the baptism. He didn’t have any merits to spend, but that didn’t mean there was nothing to do in his clan’s ancestral grounds. If the administrator is going to interfere every time I do the nightmare tutorial, then I need to be prepared to take out whatever he throws at me.

For perhaps the first time since the integration, Ronan decided not to bullheadedly rush into the hardest fight possible. It was time to return to the lower difficulties and farm skills and traits. He planned to raise everything he had at a lower rarity to a higher one, and see what other powerful skills he could collect. There were also some useful classes he could spend some time on, to see what he could do about shoring up his other weaknesses.

It was time to grind the apocalypse.

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