ocean-life [355] 4.76 Final Flight VII
[355] 4.76 Final Flight VII
Gaining three levels in the span of a fight that lasted… a few minutes at the most. I don’t think I’ve ever been so fortunate. Not since the very first days of the System, when enemies were weak, the amount of Experience needed to gain a level was measured in the triple or even double digits, and leveling up was a daily occurrence. Then again, considering that such new power came only after submerging myself in hell yet again and over the husks of twenty thousand robot soldiers— no matter how mindless, no matter how much they need to be stopped… Maybe it’s not so fortunate at all.The surge in new strength as each level takes effect and each stat point is allocated staves off the worst of my earlier fatigue. Coupled with these few moments in the cold and dark of this ventilation shaft, I feel like I could fight again, if it comes to it. Chloe cast’s [Curing Light] on me rather than [Potent Cure], the next tier of healing magic, claiming that she’s still suffering from the fatigue of casting [Saintess’s Sanctuary]. From the sweat on her forehead and the sense of sleepiness I feel through our bond, I know she speaks the absolute truth.
She doesn’t show it on her face, instead hiding it behind a façade of determination. It’s nearly the same look as she had when back in that wraith-filled castle a couple of weeks back, only without the raw hatred toward the undead she embodied then. To her, the end result is everything. These creatures, regardless of the original intent behind their designs, exist now only to drain the life force of the planet and hasten the demise of every living being who calls this place home. They are a cancerous blight on the planet and must be excised in order for the rest of its denizens to know peace.
Knocking on the metal frame surrounding us and those damned beeps coming from our pursuers is the signal that our time to refresh ourselves is coming to a close. Perhaps in the future… I shake my head and banish the thought; in the throes of battle more than anywhere else, I cannot allow myself to get distracted by existentialism and what-ifs.
“Back or on?” I ask Chloe.
“On,” she says. “We know we’re not prepared for what awaits us back there. Maybe we’ll find another relatively safe spot before we get to the core to rest for a few brief moments.”
Personally, I think it’s more likely we’ll find a safer spot going back, especially now that the central intelligence running this operation has had a chance to consolidate its forces and bolster its defenses. But Chloe is correct that going back ensures our overall journey will be longer and more arduous, and there’s no guarantee that my fears will be realized. I still think they will be; I don’t argue with my girlfriend. Not now, when we most need to remain in sync.
The path branches in several directions, and unfortunately, the map I sketched from before doesn’t include all the passageways. Rather than wait and try to chart out a course, though, I determine that the best path forward is simply to make a decision and live with the consequences, rather than have the consequences of not making a decision, decide our fate for us.
The path widens slightly, though not enough for me to comfortably walk around in. Enough for Chloe to do so with bent knees, though, as she’s half a foot shorter than I am. I continue to float off the ground in a horizontal posture, eliciting a narrowed gaze from Chloe before she shakes her head from a smile. I know she still loves me, even if I maybe do look a bit silly right now.
This thought too is cut short. Spider bots, five of them ahead of us and a pursuit of three more from behind. Each is just the right size to navigate these tunnels, and as soon as they spot us, they’re on us in a manner very reminiscent of that first afternoon after the System arrived.
In our surroundings, we’re at a disadvantage. Fire is off-limits in such an enclosed space, and lightning would just reflect back upon the two of us or maybe damage some critical structure or… Yeah. That leaves five elements, none of which has proven particularly effective against these creatures, so… Physical attacks it is!
Rather than allow ourselves to remain surrounded, we make a break for it. Twenty metal limbs deliver blunt force trauma to both our bodies, but between our levels, our new equipment, and the protective spells cast upon us, we survive with strength still to fight.
I take the lead, stabbing at the creatures as they lunge toward me one at a time. Chloe again uses a [Curing Light] upon me, stemming the bleeding, before she steps forward and gives me the chance to rest for a few brief seconds. While we’re unable to use our full range of motion in these cramped quarters, the bodies of the first two sentries to fall provides us cover, and their only coming at us from one direction blunts the advantage of their numbers.
With one stab of [Lumen]’s blade straight through the centermost of the monster’s protruding compound eye, another crawler bot goes down. [Aria]’s blade cuts through the outer hull of another, though this attack isn’t enough to finish the creature off. It lunges toward Chloe, but I take advantage of the opening it leaves to stab it through the underplate. I hit the core it seems, for the creature deactivates and goes lifeless nearly immediately.
Chloe slashes at another, an annoyed look on her face. “That one was mine, Sera!”
“Is now the time for that?”
“It is if I ever hope to close the gap in levels between us! Did you not just hit level 80!”
“Yes, but–”
“Yes, I know about your little Experience boosting trait, but that’s not an excuse! I’ve always been a little behind you, but–” Chloe cuts off the mental communication as she screams, cutting through the next robot and carving it in three. “I don’t want to be the weaker member of our partnership. I don’t want for you to look down on me or feel a need to protect me and keep me behind the rearguard.”
She slams another robot to the ground and stomps on it with enough force to second vibrations echoing through the whole complex. “I want to be by your side. I want to be your equal in every way, fighting alongside you. And you know, maybe I am a healer at heart. Maybe that means I’ll have to strategically withdraw from fighting. Maybe there’ll be a time where my compulsions will tell me to heal both sides of a protracted battle after the fighting is over. It did with the Order of the Wilds.
“But I won’t let myself be forced back just because I’m seen as small and weak and vulnerable!”
I can’t help but wonder if the whole situation with her mother is influencing her mindset on this. That she fears that if she doesn’t keep getting stronger and being out there with me, someone will one day come after her in an attempt to get to me. Some absolute idiot who doesn’t realize just how incredible and how strong Chloe is. But then again, we know there are people even more powerful than us out there, and those same people have shown that they are ruthless enough to resort to such perfidious tactics.
In the end, I cannot blame her. But at the same time, I cannot allow her to become incapacitated. I will not let her die for the sake of her newfound warrior’s pride, just as she will not let me die in my masochistic battle junkie craze to increase my strength. And I tell her as much.
“Very well. But do not step in until I am in imminent danger.”
The battle drags out for a while. Chloe’s little outburst from before summoned yet more spider bots into the fray. The two that come from behind, I take out in a series of brutal piercing blows and slices that cut through their hulls with ease. After watching Chloe dispatch over a dozen of them, I’ve gotten a good idea of where their weak spots are. Namely, their eyes and the leg joints.
Chloe doesn’t seem to care. She’s exhausted and fuming, but she doesn’t let that stop her from attacking with blow after brutal blow. She can’t dodge as well as I can, but by tapping her face with the back of her hand, she’s able to cast [Curing Light] on herself. The flow of blood trickling down her dominant right arm stops, giving her a new burst of strength with which she decapitates the nearest insectoid abomination in a merciless two-bladed maneuver.
The fourteenth bot goes down, then the fifteenth, before we finally have a lull in the action. Chloe takes a long and deep breath, but I can hear her heart palpitating underneath her armor which still remains immaculate and glistening despite the mixture of blood, oil, and sweat still attached to its outer plate. Some special purifying properties of auracite, I guess.
[Your party has slain seventeen Archnoid Crawlers (Levels ranging from 65 to 66). You have gained a boosted 35,000 Experience.]
[Level: 80; Experience: 10,927,204; To Next: 390,966]
[Current Stats: [Health]: 10,428 / 18,422; [Ether]: 4,104 / 13,480]
“How did it go for you?” I ask.
Chloe grins. “200,000 Experience. Hit level 77, a bit more than a third of the way to 78.”
“Seems like the gambit worked; I only got 35,000, and I doubt the four level discrepancy accounted for that entire difference.”
“Good. That’s something I can use in the fight ahead.” She sits down cross-legged, using the pieces of scrap to cover her from an ambush.
I follow suit. “No. I think the next fight will be the last fight for the dungeon.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I’ve been trying to keep tabs on where we’ve been going. We’ve very close to the center of the tower as far as the horizontal direction is concerned. It’s just a matter of making our way into the core chamber.”
“And what did you have in mind, Sera?” Chloe gives me The Look. “Certainly we’re not just going to just waltz right up to the core chamber, say ‘let me in’, and expect that to work.”
“Maybe a tango?” I ask.
Chloe slugs me in the shoulder. My [Health] falls by forty, and I can feel a small bruise forming from the perforated blood vessels there. It’ll heal within an hour, though. Thanks, [Valkyrion’s Body], my best and most underrated Skill.
“Be serious!”
“Well, we simply need an access point. And rather than wasting our time looking for one— probably a heavily guarded one— why don’t we just form our own.”
“What are you thinking, Seraphina Mortensen? This better not be some really stupid idea, like, I don’t know, just barging right the hell in.”
“Maybe.”
“Why do I even–”
“Follow me on this one,” I say, switching to telepathy in case we’re being listened in on. The robots have sent no more, but may just be reevaluating their strategy. “They have the advantage in numbers and fighting on their terrain. We are two against a million. Eventually, we will be worn down; we nearly were in here just now. So, rather than going through goddesses only know how many more corridors and sentries, wouldn’t it be better to just make a straight path for the core?”
“And how do you propose we do that, Sera?”
“Well, we shouldn’t be far from the core chamber. Just up three floors. And we’ve seen before that my flames are quite capable of melting the metal which comprises this facility.”
“Didn’t we already establish that we were trying to avoid using your fire in here due to the risk of deoxygenating the air?”
“We can hold our breath for twenty seconds.”
“You think it’ll only take twenty seconds for you to melt these steel floors?”
“No, Chloe. It’ll take me much longer than twenty seconds to deal with so much metal. But as a wonderful, beautiful, and incredible woman once told me. [Celestial Fire] burns hotter.”
I pause for a moment. Chloe tilts her head to the side. But when her lips curl upward into a gleeful smile that borders on the sadistic, I know that she’s all too excited for what is to come. As soon as we get a little more rest and a few more potions down our throats.