Healer Book 5 -- Chapter 24

Chapter 24

As much as she didn’t want to admit to her weakness, the lengthy nap Fer’la’vina took curled up in the soft grass underneath the gently blowing leaves of the serene forest Thaden had brought them to had been amazing.  As she sat up and stretched, the physical and mental exhaustion she had previously felt had significantly faded, letting her mind fully process exactly what had happened to her for the first time. 

Despite being alive for so long that she didn’t even keep track of the time any longer, this had only been the third time she had suffered enough damage to her Health to actually die and then be Resurrected afterwards.  Of course, now her “death count” was dangerously close to a double-digit number, which was something that she didn’t think she’d ever see.

Wardens just didn’t die – or it was so infrequent that it was usually due to a freak accident rather than encountering something that could kill them.  They were the strongest force inside the developmental worlds that they oversaw, by a far margin, and there wasn’t anything that she’d ever encountered throughout her career as a Warden that could seriously threaten her. 

But that had all changed over the last few hours.

Granted, because of the restrictions imposed upon the Regions, which weren’t just arbitrary rules but were actually designed to stabilize the energy flows throughout the world, she and her fellow Wardens were severely handicapped by a reduction in Level from her normal 900 all the way down to 567, but in her opinion, that was no excuse.  She still had her evolved Class and its abilities, after all, and while her stats were reduced to comply with the Region’s restrictions, it shouldn’t have made that much of a difference.

Yet, a Level 450 Support Class had killed her.  And not only her, but all of the other Aelveen with her, including two other Wardens that were even more experienced than she was.  Even knowing a little more about him and could make some guesses on why he had become so strong – if not exactly how that happened – didn’t help, because all she could think of was how weak she really was.  This self-reflection had turned into anger, causing her to join with her fellow Wardens to futilely attempt to kill Thaden, and that obviously didn’t turn out well.  But what really hit her hard was their confrontation with the Adversarial monster, which had absolutely annihilated them before they could barely get started in their attacks.  Unfortunately, it also led to the death of one of their own Party, and it was a miracle that any of them were able to be Resurrected after witnessing and hearing how she and the others had died.

The Level gap between them and the Level 655 Legion Commander was significant; she couldn’t pretend otherwise.  But to be so horrifically outmatched by an entity of the Adversary was a disgrace, and she didn’t know if she could mentally recover from that failure.  The only thing she could think of to make her feel any better was that if they had full Levels instead of being capped at Level 567, they would’ve wiped the floor with the Adversarial Elite.  At least, she had to believe so, because believing otherwise wasn’t something she wanted to consider.

What made it all worse, somehow, was the fact that Thaden not only killed the Legion Commander, which was over 200 Levels higher than his own, but had the foresight to gather up the remains of the prideful Aelveen who originally shunned his help, believing him to be an agent of the Adversary.  As much as the evidence hinted otherwise, she no longer believed that – but her previous beliefs led to some serious psychological damage that she was still trying to overcome. 

Feeling inadequate enough to suffer defeat and death multiple times over the course of a few hours was debilitating, but Fer was determined to push through it all to fulfill their main objectives.  They had more important things to worry about other than her now-shattered ego.

Looking around, she saw Che staring out at nothing, her own emotions and psychological state probably even more in flux than Fer’s, as she had been adamant from the beginning that Thaden had to be eliminated.  While the Assassin had agreed after their admittedly short investigation, she hadn’t been as fervent in her absolute certainty as the Arch Elementalist had been.  Still, her fellow Warden looked marginally better after a much needed rest, though she was sure that even more would be needed for her to function as normally as could be again.

Lyn’ar’deia had taken the permanent death of Gen’or’fein hard, though she seemed to be bouncing back faster than any of the Wardens.  At the moment, as Fer got up from where she’d been napping, the Vine Stranger was lounging against a tree, calmly looking through what appeared to be her message feed.  Lyn didn’t look up when Fer passed her, but that was perfectly fine with the Warden – because she had another target for her attention, anyway.

Tac was more resilient than either Fer or Che, but even he had been rattled at how powerless they’d all felt against not only the impossibility that was Thaden but against their enemy, who had outmatched them so completely that it was still hard to fathom.  As she spotted him across the vibrant glade full of soft grass and flowers, Fer quickly navigated over to where he was occupied with the nearby dungeon entrance.  She could immediately tell that there was no sign of the Adversary having infiltrated it, so she was now curious as to what had caught his attention.

“Is he still in there?” she asked when she was close enough for him to hear her with shouting.  He nodded without looking toward her, his hand still on the edge of the entrance, clearly reading the state of its current inhabitants.  “How long has it been?”

Tac finally looked up at her, opening his eyes as he did so.  “A little over 3 hours.”

Wow, 3 hours?  I guess I was out longer than I thought.  With such high Levels and stats, Wardens didn’t need nearly as much sleep to function properly; a couple of hours a week was typically all that was needed to maintain their normal state.  Even at Level 567 and her reduced stats, that didn’t change much, so napping for 3 hours was abnormal enough to know that she had been extremely exhausted.  If she was being honest with herself, she could still feel a bit of that exhaustion and likely needed even more rest, but she was alert enough to handle herself just fine for another day or two. 

“Is it a Maximal difficulty Intermediate dungeon?”  Another nod.  “That’s insane.  I still don’t have any idea how he can possibly do something like that alone.”  Her fellow Warden didn’t respond to that, so she asked, “What Challenge is it?”  Fer wished she had researched what kinds of dungeons the Region contained before she arrived, but she hadn’t thought it mattered at the time; their priority had been to get there as soon as possible to stop the Adversary from extending its foothold into the world, not research.  Besides, she was more than familiar with the types of dungeons that could be out there, as well as the Challenges they presented at different difficulties, so it wasn’t necessary to know the exact ones in the Region.

“Endless Onslaught.”

Now that was a surprise.  Fer knew exactly what that Challenge consisted of, and if Thaden followed the same sort of measured pace required to reach some of the stronger monsters sent against him, then she could expect him to be out within an hour or when things got too difficult.  Maybe I can get in another nap?

As it turned out, though, Thaden wasn’t following any type of measured pace.  “How’s he doing?”

Tac was silent for a moment before he took his hand off the dungeon entrance, fully turning away from it and facing Fer.  “I… can’t explain it.  See for yourself.”

Confused at his lack of explanation, she walked up to the dungeon entrance, seeing that he had left his connection to it open for her.  With only the slightest hesitation, she reached out and connected to it, closing her eyes.

The “connection” she had with the dungeon wasn’t exactly a two-way interaction; instead, it was more that she was sensing the information about the dungeon in a way that the System was able to translate.

Dungeon Overview:

Dungeon Name: The Mines of Khanordun

Dungeon Options: Basic and Intermediate

Recommended Party Size:

Basic (Minimal): 5

Basic (Medial): 5

Basic (Maximal): 5

Intermediate (Minimal): 100

Intermediate (Medial): 200

Intermediate (Maximal): 350

Recommended Levels:

Basic (Minimal): 25-30

Basic (Medial): 60-70

Basic (Maximal): 100-110

Intermediate (Minimal): 190-210

Intermediate (Medial): 280-300

Intermediate (Maximal): 370-390

Intermediate Challenges:

Minimal: Assault Waves

Medial: Cave-in Escape

Maximal: Endless Onslaught

Current Active Participants:

Basic Parties: 0

Intermediate Raid Parties: 1 – (Maximal)

Party Progress (Select):

1 Intermediate Maximal (Currently engaged in Endless Onslaught Challenge)

She knew that, from this Dungeon Overview, Wardens could enter into a specific instance of the dungeon, just as they had done with the last one where they had invaded Thaden’s particular instance.  But it could also simply tell them the status of any Party inside the dungeon, as well as their progress.

Immediately selecting the only Party in the dungeon, she was further informed that the Raid Party currently only had a single member of the Party surviving, their general location, and their current Health status – but it didn’t have any other personal information.  What it did have, however, was the progress Thaden had made in the Endless Onslaught Challenge.

“What?!  There has to be something wrong; are we sure this dungeon hasn’t been compromised?” she asked, the shock of the information she was being fed cracking her voice slightly. 

“It’s not compromised,” Tac assured her.  “I’ve been monitoring it for the last hour, and while he’s slowed down significantly from when I first connected, I believe that it’s 100% accurate.”

“But—”  She had no words to complete her protest.  This is impossible; something must be wrong.  She shivered despite the warm day, pulling her hand away from the dungeon entrance.  But what if it isn’t?  I knew he was powerful, but this?  If this is accurate, then that means he’s stronger than any Warden at full power without any restrictions – and he’s only half of our Level!

She could only shake her head, wondering if he was even more of a threat with this new information.  Not because he was allied with the Adversary or working against the System; but because he was strong enough to endanger the world all by himself.

I guess it’s good that he’s on our side?  

Even after she thought that, Fer wasn’t entirely sure if it really was a good thing or not. 

                    *

“I… think… I’ve… hit my… limit.”

Thaden struggled to speak, even as he struggled to lift his hand high enough to reach the glowing blue orb that would signal his desire to stop the Challenge so that he could escape.  As it was, he was barely able to hold himself up off the stone floor at the orb’s pedestal base, as the pressure beating down on him threatened to squash him flat.

“That’s what I tried to tell you 30 minutes ago,” he heard coming from Sadia, who had stopped fighting the pressure and was flattened against the floor.  She could still cast spells despite her position, especially as her head was turned toward Thaden which allowed her to target him. 

“Yeah… well… I got… what I… wanted,” he managed to gasp out, lifting himself another inch in the process.  Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the field of hundreds of Guardian Totems surrounding him and his squirrel companion, their additions to their damage mitigation one of the only ways they had survived that long.  He added another one even as he continued to struggle to rise, adding to their defenses a little bit, but it ultimately didn’t matter; he had to get out of there soon or else he wouldn’t be able to move at all.

Everything had been relatively straightforward for the first two hours of the Endless Onslaught Challenge, as their combined Leach spells absolutely tore apart everything that appeared through the hole in the walls.  It wasn’t until the monsters constantly attacking them reached a threshold where no new types of monsters appeared, only higher Levels of the final monster, that things started to get a little more difficult.

Enraged Deepdweller Emperor – Intermediate Maximal

Level 800 (Perceived Level: 1,040)

It began with the Level 800 Enraged Deepdweller Emperor appearing, which was an enormous, 60-foot-tall amalgamation of insectoid parts and amorphous shadows that moved quickly and could project powerful blasts of physical and necrotic damage at a distance.  Over time, the thousands of individual monsters had slowly whittled down to only hundreds of more powerful monsters with higher Levels, so by the time the Emperor showed up there were only about 20 monsters assaulting him simultaneously – but that was more than enough to cause some issues for him.

It wasn’t because of the damage he was taking, nor the necrotic afflictions his body fought through thanks to his high Physicality stat, necessitated because they were too high of a Level for his spells to clear from him or prevent.  Instead, it was the Level Compression of a monster 350 Levels higher than his own that caused some complications.  Having faced the Soul Harvester, which was nearly 450 Levels above his own, he could handle the Level Compression from 1 or even a few of these monsters without too many problems; the issue was that he was soon facing 20 of them, with each one bearing down on him with enough pressure to be uncomfortable by itself. 

Still, he persisted, as his damaging spells were still killing his opponents at a fairly consistent pace, thought they definitely weren’t being one-shot anymore by that point.  Instead, it was a steady drain on their Health, with some of them taking up to 5 seconds to deplete it completely, so he was still making progress with only an uncomfortable pressure on him.

However, by the time he saw Level 900 monsters, he was on his knees, barely able to support himself and staying upright.  The combined Level Compression between all of the monsters was intense, and he thought about giving up at any moment.  At Level 950, he was forced to deactivate his Recovery State spell and activate Guarded State, boosting his defenses, as his current defensive spells were having trouble keeping up with the constant attacks from so many powerful monsters.  Guardian Totems came out by that point, he activated Aura of the Sentinel to further boost his defenses before casting some of his newer defensive spells such as Internal Automation and even Mirrored Vigil to present another target to redirect some of the damage away from him, at least temporarily.

Also at that point, he had given up trying to stay upright and was pressed into the stone floor, though he could still move if he really needed to.  As Sadia had been telling him for a while, he really should’ve quit – but the upcoming Level threshold of 1,000 was tantalizingly close, so he wanted to wait it out to see if he could achieve it.

And just a few moments ago, he succeeded.  It took nearly 40 minutes of increasingly unbelievable pressure flooding onto him from the combined Level Compression of so many monsters to get from Level 950 to 1,000, mainly because he was forced to reduce the amount of damage he was outputting to keep himself and Sadia alive, but he’d done it.  He’d survived all the way up to a Level 1,000 monster and would live to tell the tale.

At least, he hoped he would live to tell the tale – as long as he was able to reach the orb to escape.  He had attempted to activate Safe Harbor earlier, which would give him a reprieve from the attacks, but he couldn’t trigger it because the monsters were constantly inside of its radius – meaning that it would continue to fail unless he cleared them out, which he couldn’t at this point.  He also had Indomitable Aegis in his back pocket if he really needed it, but from the wording of the spell – which prevented all damage and afflictions after canceling all of his ongoing spells and effects – he didn’t believe it would do anything against the pressure of Level Compression.  Safe Harbor probably would, but it was too late to activate it, if there was even a point in the last 100 monster Levels that he could.

So, it all up to his strength and willpower, pushing past the pressure trying to keep him down and turn him into paste at the same time.  Inch-by-inch, he pushed himself up with one arm while stretching his other toward the blue orb, gritting his teeth as Sadia automatically renewed his defensive spells while his attention was occupied.  At one point, he felt a deep wound slice across his back, bypassing his equipment entirely, and he cried out in pain as the first real injury he’d taken since facing the Soul Harvester nearly made him collapse.  But he pushed through the pain even as he was healed by Sadia, using it as a focus to stretch even higher.

And then, just as he thought he would have to resort to activating his Indomitable Aegis when two invisible strikes nearly took off his legs, he felt his fingertips touch the cool, smooth exterior of the blue orb.

Thankfully, that was all that was needed, because Thaden immediately felt the pressure release him, and every bit of damage that was being mitigated and afflictions trying to kill him disappeared.  Like a great weight had finally been lifted from his back, he wearily got to his feet even as Sadia did as well, her expression furious for a moment – but then it broke out into a grin.  “You’re nuts, but I’ve got to hand it to you; I didn’t think you’d reach it, but you did.  Congratulations… but let’s get out of here before this thing stops working,” she said, waving at the transparent, yellowish dome that encompassed them.  When it had activated, it had pushed back the encroaching monsters and left them a route covered by a long half-tube leading to the original tunnel, preventing anything from breaking through it.

“Probably a good idea.  I don’t think I could handle any more than that.”

While he didn’t hurry, he didn’t tarry any longer in the large cavern, which seemed smaller than it had at the beginning once he looked around.  Then again, it also didn’t have enormous Level 999, as well as a single Level 1,000, monsters filling up the space, so it was only natural that it looked smaller – and a bit more crowded than he’d seen it before the Challenge started.

As soon as he passed the threshold to the tunnel leading toward the entrance, and he assumed the exit now, the subtle glow of the yellowish barrier disappeared behind him.  Startled, he prepared to defend himself again, but looking back in the cavern, it seemed to have been reset, complete with the beautiful crystal stalactites and veins running across the walls.  Of the crack that had been gradually widened as time went on, releasing stronger and larger monsters to attack Thaden, there was no sign.

“Well, I guess that’s it.”

As if in response to his words, a notification popped up in front of him, detailing his results of the Challenge.

The smile on his face as he read through it turned into a chuckle, before morphing into a full-blown evil villain laugh once a non-descript chest appeared on the ground in front of his feet. 

I’d say that was definitely worth it.

Chapter 25: https://www.patreon.com/posts/120574275