[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 31: Jailbreak

Venturing into yet another cavernous space within the Dark Vault that was even bigger than the last, Sam found it strange how there were no monsters. Just more puzzles and labyrinthine rooms that would have taken them days to get through if he couldn’t bust down the walls.

Which Sam gladly did.

He much preferred flipping each obstacle into yet another training exercise for his [Breaker] bloodline. This way, he’d eventually discover whatever secrets this Dark Vault held while simultaneously improving his bloodline. All without focusing solely on practice and getting nothing else done.

If they could find some enemies, it was very possible that he could finish up the rest of the objectives for his questbook.

Thinking about enemies, Sam wondered if the ogre could force its way into this place.

One of the requirements for entry into the Dark Vault was accompanying an Incarnate. Based on that alone, the ogre shouldn’t be capable of following inside.

So long as whatever forces protected the Dark Vault were stronger than the ogre. This was something Sam hardly had any bearing on.

He checked the quest for what little time was left, if there was any at all.

What he found was rather surprising.

Time remaining: 7min

No way only 10 minutes had passed since he last checked the quest, looted all those [Dungeon Ingresses], broke into the Dark Vault and made his way even deeper.

“Does this Vault do something to the passage of time?” Sam asked aloud, finding the concept too surreal to be true.

“It’s… possible,” Raiko said, sounding doubtful as well. “Though that’d be supremely useful, especially in your—I suppose our—predicament, it doesn’t bode well for the nature of this space.”

Thinking about it, Sam figured there might be something else entirely going on. “Maybe the time remaining is more like a progress bar, showing how long it’s taking for the ogre to search for me. And without me around, it can’t.”

Raiko looked doubtful, and Sam had to agree that probably wasn’t it.

Raiko’s ghostly form drifted ahead of the group. She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes hidden by that samurai hat. “How’s your mana after demolishing that last wall of ancient stone?”

“Fine. Honestly, it doesn’t take much mana at all.”

Komachi’s stomach grumbled. “Hungy.”

“Might as well take a break,” Sam said, taking out one of the remaining packets of rations and handing it to Komachi. He took out one for himself and was halfway through the motion to give some to Raiko before he realized she couldn’t eat it.

She gave him a sad smile.

They sat on some rubble and ate in relative silence. The gargantuan room could not be truly below ground. The island hadn’t seemed that big.

Sam had broken through countless walls now, all of them made of the same strange stony glass. No monsters. No threats beyond boredom and the very real concern that he and Komachi might starve to death.

And it was in that ensuing silence that something began to move. It was faint at first, a gentle whirring sound, but it grew in intensity like a plane passing overhead until it drowned out Raiko’s shout of warning.

The ceiling above opened up, exploding into chunks of blackened rubble that rained down upon Sam and his group.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the world below erupted, too.

While Sam didn’t have a shield to block the rubble, he did have a big sword. And that was considerably more useful in his hands.

It wasn’t like the thin metal sheet of a shield was going to actually stop him and his cat from getting crushed, anyway.

Hopefully Raiko would be fine. Or at least fine-ish. She could float, though she was doing a lot less of that recently.

Sam swung his sword back and forth, using [Power Stance] and swapping between [Whirling Slash] and [Reaping the Willows] to generate [Fury] from the large chunks of stone raining down on him.

Thankfully, the pieces of falling stone counted as an enemy and he could generate [Fury]. While not strictly necessary, it was helpful as the [Fury] enhanced his Arts when a particularly large chunk of ceiling broke free and threatened to crush him.

Over the course of the last few chambers, Sam had gotten better at understanding the limits and uses of his bloodline.

There were ways to break just about anything, but if he manipulated the critical weakness just so, he could slide his blade into the solid material like a knife through hot butter.

Then, if he released his Breaker bloodline, the stone snapped back and sandwiched his blade in place.

Sam did that now, driving his claymore deep into the stone at his feet even as it began to break apart and fly away on buffeting winds. Floating bits of stone were sweeping back and forth across the room, and Sam wasn’t about to let himself be blown away.

After Sam anchored himself to the flooring, he snatched up his cat by the scruff of her neck and shoved her face-first into his breastplate.

This was no time to be polite.

With his [Charred Claymore] nearly up to the hilt into the floor, Sam knelt down and held on with both hands as the storm of debris tried to blow him off into the dark emptiness beyond. Only once it became clear that Sam was here to stay did the storm settle down.

He could feel tendrils of foreign mana trying to take the stone away from him. Since he had already relinquished his control, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

The flooring at the edges began to break apart, swirling into the debris-strewn air. Chunks of stone streamed past in some manner of organized chaos.

What chunks would have collided into Sam and Komachi, Raiko slashed apart with crescent waves of blue mana that ripped from her blade.

More and more of Sam’s only foothold began to rip away. Whatever force was taking control of the glassy stone showed no desire to stop.

Without thinking, Sam pressed a palm into the floor. All he could think of was to stop it. To push and expel the alien force.

There was a deep bassy THUMP  as silver-and-black flames rolled out from Sam’s hand along with a chilling sensation along his arm.

Uncertain and a little unnerved by what he had just done, Sam looked around, only to realize that his platform had stopped crumbling.

Its edges looked half-melted, and he felt a connection to the piece of stone like he did with the [Archflame Coal].

There was no time to ponder the meaning of this, however, as Sam also noticed the creature that was forming out of the fractured walls and flooring.

Massive didn’t begin to describe it.

It filled the calm center in the eye of the storm. All around them, dark twisters formed and broke apart, fencing them in.

And just behind the guardian creature was a roughly hewn crystal, below where the center of the room would have been. A black tree sprouted atop the crystal, its obsidian roots ensnaring the crystal like a prison.

Sam tried to get a bead on the creature’s strength, but he couldn’t get anything other than its name.

[Stellar Warden (Boss)]

Three hexagonal jeweled eyes flared to life inside a weirdly geometric head. Its body was made up of fused pieces of stone and debris, but hardly any of it was actually connected to one another.

Some magical force seemed to keep the pieces connected, because it had absolutely no trouble raising an arm made of thin beams of stone and swatting at Sam and Raiko.

Amidst the Dark Vault falling apart, Komachi’s little bell rang clear. Her [Warding] spell went up, applying a tier of defense to his group. Sam had some doubts as to how much that would do against the Warden’s swinging arm. It was the size of a school bus, but it was better than armor being his only protection.

Sam hunkered down behind his blade, bracing for the blow while he pulled gingerly at the [Archflame Coal’s] strength. It was close to fully recovered. It had power to spare.

I’m relying on the coal way too much, he thought ruefully as a heat haze went up along his straining arms and down into the blade.

He pulled at the blade’s Metal, drawing as much as of it as he dared even as he knew it would wreck its durability.

When the Warden’s arm slammed into the blade, it slowed for a moment in the shimmering heat haze around the blade, but even that wasn’t enough to stop it.

The claymore’s enhanced Metal buffer was high enough that the force of the Warden’s attack against Sam’s blade didn’t snap it in half.

Sam’s whole body felt as if he had just been rung like a bell. His bones vibrated painfully, and his vision blurred.

But he survived.

Through his connection to the blade, Sam knew that even with the coal’s help, and the use of Metal mana, his sword couldn’t take another blow like that.

It would break, and then he would be left utterly defenseless. That single blocked blow had depleted nearly half of its Metal reserves in one go.

Time to take the fight to the big guy, Sam thought, looking around and mapping out a path to the creature amid the gently spinning detritus that littered the area.

Ignoring the impossible height he seemed to be at, the rapidly scudding clouds all around him, and the infinite drop below, Sam leapt onto the nearest platform, and then leapt again.

He didn’t think beyond plotting his next jump. Not only because the Warden was trying to swat him out of the air like a bothersome fly, but because if he paused to think about his situation, he’d be frozen with fear.

What sort of person can go from peacefully living out their life in Hawai’i, then battling in some apocalyptic endgame, to being thrust into a new world full of monsters and floating islands without batting an eye?

Sam locked as much of the fear and confusion away as he could into his own little personal vault of horrors. One day, he’d face the knowledge that his home was well and truly gone, that everything he had known and lived through was no more.

But right now, he had a monster to kill.

It helped, having objectives like that. Something to focus on.

He wasn’t in this alone at the least, though what Raiko could do appeared to be limited to distraction and striking with mana. Good thing he wasn’t the only one that could see her, or else this’d be a lot worse.

Some of the Warden’s attacks went the nimble shinobi’s way. He didn’t know what level she was anymore, but she certainly wasn’t as fast as she used to be.

Scabbard fuming with blue energy mid-leap, Raiko sliced an azure blazing wave that splashed against the Warden’s three eyes.

It was enough to take the pressure off of Sam. He hopped from one platform to the next as the Warden was distracted and landed heavily onto what he could only think of as its shoulder.

The collection of beams and shattered stone rolled and moved with an oddly organic cadence. Sam levered his blade up and drove it home, testing out the creature’s defenses.

Inanimate objects worked differently than living ones, though Sam had only practiced so far on the former. This creature appeared to be something in between.

Sam’s sword hit the side of the creature’s head with its three glowing hexagonal eyes, each one pulsing with red light. The sword rebounded off the Warden’s impenetrable body. The gonging sound echoed into the sky all around, and Sam nearly dropped his sword from the pain that shivered all the way up its blade and into his shoulders.

It’s like swinging a bat at a steel wall!

The Warden turned its full attention on Sam.

Its entire head twisted about, unconnected to anything. All three ruby-red eyes blazed callous disregard as they focused on the puny human.

Normally, Sam would be a goner.

This creature was all but impervious to any attacks he had that he could throw at it. Judging by Raiko’s magic-based attacks, which seemed equally ineffective, the Warden was well beyond their capabilities.

But Sam’s probing strike had revealed something very interesting.

Counterintuitive though it seemed, the Warden had zero weaknesses. There wasn’t a weak point on the entire creature’s body.

Sam tightened his grip on the blade. He flashed a vicious grin at the Warden.

Let’s just see how far my bloodline is able to carry me, Sam thought with an exhilarating thrill.

The [Stellar Warden], a nightmare of incredible size and impenetrable defenses, was the perfect candidate for Sam to test the limits of his Breaker bloodline.