Chapter 504 - Deeper Into the First Floor

We split the loot of these lurkers as well and head deeper into the 1st floor. Its destroyed environment with the ceiling high over our heads now feels familiar, but I don't let it lull me and stay attentive.

At some point, two lurkers reach Sophie—something Tess lets happen—and Sophie takes control of them. One is a vyssari man with flame attacks, and the other is a human woman possessing some sort of domain skill that reduces the effectiveness of healing skills.

Around that time, we reach the first named lurker—the same race Rat used to be, the name of which I still don't know. Humanoid but with gray skin and long, slim legs and arms.

[Reanimated Corpse - lvl 307]

I reach him before Jean can, and my Mana Wavelength Iris activates. The ever-present moving mana becomes visible to me. I feel like I can see it all. I see the ambient mana floating in the air, mana seeping from the bodies of people, the structure of the skill the lurker is about to activate. The amount of information that strained me before, even before the trait strengthening, now smoothly flows into my brain, which accepts it—all with an ease that feels like cheating.

The lurker uses my shadow which expands, becomes three-dimensional, and forms into a shape unlike any animal or monster I have seen until now. Its eyes glow red, and six powerful limbs reach towards me.

Mana inside of my crown spins and destabilizes, releasing a disrupting pulse, making my shadow turn back to normal. At the same time, from all the shadows around me, monsters jump wolves with six legs and no tail, humanoid figures with snake heads, lion-like animals with elongated maws and six eyes. Each of them pitch black, made of shadows and mana.

Another wave disrupts them all.

I weave a javelin from my mana and shoot it at the lurker, who bursts like a bubble into a shadowy substance.

Wraith Dance brings me closer, and my eyes read through the remains of his skills. [Eclipse] activates the same way [Resonance] would before. My mana overpowers that of the lurker's, and I connect to his skill, teleporting as well.

I form a barrier in front of me, blocking the barrage of attacks as ripples are sent through the surface.

More and more of that shadowy substance leaks from the lurker, surrounding me and the area. It floats like water, covering an area of multiple streets and spinning like a whirlpool would, sharp and grinding the surrounding area to dust: the remains of the buildings, trees, stones.

A projectile I form shoots through, piercing with ease without even getting damaged and opening a gaping hole through. The lurker's barriers crash under my attack, and he stumbles with the left half of his body missing.

The shadows from the entire area move like a living thing and surround him—a pitch-black figure as tall as a multiple-story building. Its head like that of a lizard's, four arms, two thick legs, and a long tail.

Each step is fluid, the surface of the lurker's creation rippling. The huge figure opens its mouth, and from it pouts a white flame, quickly narrowing until it's only as thin as my arm and crashing against my barrier like a laser. That flame roars as it pierces through the air, burning everything in its way; even the mouth of the shadowy black creation is evaporating.

I give it a bit longer, but the lurker doesn't seem to have any secret card in the mix.

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised. That kind of skill combination would surely be able to wipe out a big city or two, and it's somewhat fitting for someone at level 307, I think.

My own mana explodes from me, surrounding me in armor that is as big as the one facing me. The barrier disappears, and the white flame crashes against the chest of the blue armor, right in front of where I am.

I weave it denser and denser, to the point I feel happy that it doesn't even strain my mind. Kinetic energy explodes from me, and my armor moves faster than ever before.

The shadowy figure gathers flames into its hand, a sword made of white flame forming there as it swings against me.

I further weave and compress mana and let the sword crash against my forearm.

There is no damage, and the sword breaks into flames that dissipate into the air.

Before it can move, I take a step. My eyes locate the body of the lurker, and I burrow my arm into the mouth of the shadow from where the flames shoot, grab the lurker, and squeeze.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 307]

[Lvl 297 > Lvl 298]

Right away, I pull mana back into my crown, and over where the head of my mana armor was, a barrage of stone javelins passes. I boost myself towards the ground and move with Wraith Dance towards where I see pulses of mana. 

The ground in front of me explodes, a huge arm made of stone reaching towards me. I dodge it, and another is there, and then more. Dozens of arms, some of them not much bigger than mine and others as thick as trees. 

Boosting myself into the air, I fly in the direction of the attacker. Whitey's favorite Resonance Flow surrounds me, and every projectile entering within the area close to me slows down and stops in the air as if frozen in time. Hundreds of them do that, immense amounts of kinetic energy collecting inside of me.

The figure disappears underground, and I crash where it disappeared, releasing all of the kinetic energy into the surface below, reverberating the stone.

My eyes read the movement, and [Ley Line] stretches down there, teleporting me into a room big enough only to take a few steps in.

The vyssari lurker, even emotionless as they are, seems to show shock seeing me here and turns to attack me.

I release the mana orb I was making—a compressed mess of thermal energy, kinetic energy, and a lot of mana. Before it explodes, I teleport back to where I was, the ground under my feet shaking.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 291]

Three more lurkers attack me at once, two of them going all out to disrupt my mana and the last one preparing to deploy a domain that I can feel in the air while shooting harpoons at me made of mana with chains tied to them, and these chains connected to the wildly oscillating circle behind his back.

[Eclipse] activates, and I gradually feed it more and more mana, not minding the attempts to disrupt me at all. My eyes read them all, modify the frequency of my mana, and they are barely a bother.

The world loses more of its colors under the influence of [Eclipse], and only mana keeps its color. It's something that happens from the view of others as well—not dissimilar to the effect of [Focus].

[Eclipse - lvl 8 > Eclipse - lvl 9]

[Eclipse - lvl 9 > Eclipse - lvl 10]

[Eclipse - lvl 10 > Eclipse - lvl 11]

The domain the lurker was preparing to deploy destabilizes and deactivates, unable to penetrate the effect of my [Eclipse], which overpowers it—my mana resonating at counteracting frequencies, disrupting its structure.

His mana harpoons crash against my bare body, turning into fine particles.

Mana threads swirl around me, turning denser and denser, weaving together as they move into the air behind me, forming a circle of inscriptions.

The harpoon lurker tries to move away, but a javelin quickly forms near me, connected to me with a thread of mana, similar to how the harpoons were connected to the lurker. It shoots ahead, changing direction of its flight as the lurker tries to avoid it and following him. At certain times, bursts of kinetic energy pulse from it when I tilt it slightly, sending it in different directions until the javelin finally pierces the lurker and a notification about the kill rings.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 289]

[Eclipse - lvl 11 > Eclipse - lvl 12]

The two remaining lurkers, similar-looking feylith figures, stop trying to get into my head and disrupt my mana.

Wraith Dance brings me to them before they fly into the air, and they avoid pulses of kinetic energy, swiftly maneuvering their flight. The inscriptions made of mana threads I was making finally activate, attempting to mimic the thing the eye did that didn't allow me to fly.

For a moment, the two feylith stumble, and it seems like they will fall, but flaws in my inscriptions sabotage the attempt, allowing the duo to push through.

More testing needed.

I deactivate [Eclipse] and the mana threads and boost myself into the air with kinetic energy, quickly catching up to the two feylith.

The highly specialized lurkers attack again, their mental attacks crashing uselessly against my passive, and my control over my mana is much too high for them to disrupt, allowing me to finish them quickly.

Two more notifications ring.

Quickly, I move from body to body, picking up all useful items and reading through the descriptions.

Looking around, I don't find any lurker that close, so I teleport through the [Ley Line] connecting me to Lily and appear near her, only to duck down immediately, the huge axe passing over my head.

"I'm sorry! You surprised me!" Lily shouts and moves at incredible speed.

Sensing mana, I look into the air, and there a vyssari floats, blue flames surrounding her and a crown made of fire floating over her head.

[Reanimated Corpse - lvl 313]

What Lily was escaping from is a fireball made of blue flames with a white core as big as a small building.

Feeling the heat scorching my skin, I use teleport again, this time appearing near Tess after sending her a warning through the link. In the distance, a flash explodes, and blue flames with white mixed in burst into the sky, the heat setting the surrounding forest ablaze and evaporating what they hit.

The shockwave and heat reach even us here, and I watch as the flames swirl and move like they are alive, creating the shape of a snake that moves towards a lonely figure.

Jean doesn't even try to avoid it, and I would bet he is smiling. He punches towards the flame snake that disappears like the flame of a blown-out candle, the immense pressure blowing it away and tearing the ground apart.

Flame armor surrounds the flying vyssari, making her even bigger than Jean as she lands—burning blue armor around her and two enormous gloves made of white flames.

She and Jean clash again, burns appearing on the man's skin, but the flames blowing off before reigniting quickly as Jean hits her again.

The vyssari in flame armor is thrown through the air, setting anything she touches on fire and stopping after bulldozing through dozens of trees. Jean reaches her surprisingly quickly, his stomps blowing off the fire from the burning forest and then crashing against the armor that once again extinguishes. He grabs the vyssari by her head and arm, ignoring the burst of white flames crashing against his chest, and pulls, tearing the small body in half.

The flames blaze off once more before the vyssari lurker dies.

Jean stands there with his chest burned off, ribcage visible, and organs inside his body as well, especially that big, powerful heart beating surprisingly calmly.

Slowly, his wounds begin to close, and I can tell Lucien isn’t healing him. Even so, his combat abilities don’t seem reduced at all.

With all lurkers dead, we exchange a few quick messages and, looting the bodies, head towards the safe zone again.

"So what do you think of Jean and Lucien?" I ask Lily, matching my speed with hers.

"I could beat him if I wanted," Lily immediately says.

Now that I think of it, that would be fun to watch, but I don't say it out loud and instead specify, "You know what I meant."

"Well, I can obviously heal better than that boy, I think. He didn't do much until now. As for CarrotCake... Jean... I can see why he won the tournament in his round. He might seem hotheaded and dumb, but he is surprisingly effective in fights."

"It's called battle IQ," Sophie joins the conversation. "During the fights, he is always very aware of positioning, other opponents, and is quick to grasp their abilities."

I don't even ask her why she observed him so much. She obviously wouldn't like someone like him threatening her life.

***

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