Chapter 337: Silent Strike |
Well, it seems like my buddy BenDover over here finally made it to the 5th floor. He doesn't even seem like he can detect the presence of my anchors.
I'm long since used to my opponents disrupting them or detecting them and that makes me wonder if it's less common than I thought. Have the opponents I’ve been facing just been that good, is that not how it usually goes?
Curious, I put an anchor in front of him as he takes a step to follow and kill the women and that's when he finally notices it. He squints his eyes and then to my surprise, he turns around and starts running away, even activating that camouflage skill of his.
Huh?
Before following him, I create two javelins, fill them with a decent amount of thermal energy, and then boost them with kinetic, shooting them at the women.
One of them blocks the javelin intended for her and the other one tries to run away, dodging hers, but the javelins explode into golden flames.
Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Momo (Hard, 5th)
The other woman starts running away, even dodging the third javelin I shoot but then runs into an anchor and a burst of kinetic energy finishes her off.
Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ Emmmmmm (Hard, 5th)
I find him standing in the middle of a clearing filled to the brim with his traps, almost like my anchors, but worse.
“I know it's you, Noname! I saw the notifications. Show yourself, you dick!” he shouts.
Things like this feel more satisfying up close and personal so I enter the clearing without trying to hide, using part of my mana to strengthen my body.
BenDover is around 30 years old. He has a short pointy beard and creepy eyes. He isn't all that tall but his shoulders are wide. The sword he’s holding is coated in sickly yellow mana.
“Finally, I…” he doesn't even finish the sentence before he launches an attack at me from behind, clearly trying to surprise me.
An acid-like attack splashes against my barrier and sizzles on the surface, unable to penetrate it, even with the attack's weak disruptive properties. A light flashes, blinding me for a split second, and when I can finally see again the man is gone and his traps as well.
With a sigh, I enter the clearing, and boosting my body I turn around, grabbing the invisible man by his neck. My other hand grabs the arm holding the sword he was trying to stab me with.
He opens his mouth and tries to spit yellow acid spit in my eyes, only for it to be blocked by a small barrier, then five needle-like mana projectiles strike at my back only to be stopped by [Redistribution].
I disrupt his mana and break his arm, taking his sword. Then I let go and punch him in the face, using more mana to match his speed in defiance of his higher base stats.
When he staggers back I send kinetic energy to the anchor behind him, sending him stumbling back towards me and I punch him again, breaking his nose.
With interest, I take notice of the systems refusal to heal the wounds for now. So it seems like they only heal in the common area, not during the events. That makes sense.
He curses, dodging my next attack and I sense he is boosting his body to increase his Dexterity. So I disrupt his mana, falling back on a tactic I experienced fairly often until I made the Mantle.
His attacks slow, and I punch him again, then kick his crotch, making him… well, bend over, and my knee hits his face, further breaking his nose.
“I remember you said something funny about my parents,” I note.
Without giving him the opportunity to talk, I slow his movement with [Redistribution] and then pierce his side with the sword I took from him.
Even then, he somehow manages to concentrate enough to create a blue mana dagger and stab at me at the same time as my shadow moves, trying to grab me and slow me down.
Just a short pulse of disrupting mana ends both of his attempts, and I knee his face again, sending him to the ground where he groans. He is constantly trying to strengthen his body or activate his skill, but I'm disrupting it all with [Resonance].
When I squat over him and grab him by his hair, he tries to say something, but it's hard to understand with his torn lips and broken teeth.
I look at his face, which is a bloody mess. “I do not believe you were able to deal with the Matriarch or Myrra on the 4th floor."
Without letting him say more, I create a small orb filled with kinetic energy over the palm of my hand, and grabbing it with my fingers I push the orb into his mouth.
When I kick him away, I call out one more warning, “I will find you in the common area,” and then I let the orb in his mouth explode.
As before, the system doesn't let it happen, and the man just turns into mana particles, being transferred outside.
It seems like the system was prepared for this kind of attack as well and really doesn't want participants to die. Seeing it in the works I guess I can do some hardcore training later.
Noname (Hell, 4th) ⟶ BenDover (Hell, 5th)
My points increase to 69, which is nice, but seeing the black wall of the storm, I decide to move away, heading towards the white pillar of light.
I jump behind the tree and shoot a javelin toward a group of hiding people, barely missing the head of a man from Hard difficulty.
His group launches a barrage of attacks at me. Rocks, pale blue mana projectiles, and even some decent fire orbs. At the same time, three more move to my right, trying to encircle me while others keep me busy. I send more kinetic energy to the orb I anchored to my core, making it spin faster around me.
When the first woman with a sword and shield rushes at me, I slings it against her where it crashes into her shield, releasing the golden flames stored inside.
Right after, I rush her, absorbing those flames and reusing them in a thin stream of flame that envelops another man.
Strengthening my body, I grab an ax that the third one swings at me, disrupting the mana coating the blade. My kick breaks through his mana armor, causing him to crash into a comrade who’s wielding a shield. I activate the anchor I placed on his chest while kicking him, and golden flames envelop both of them.
Absorbing flames from the man I burned first, I grab him and use his body to block a barrage of attacks and shoot a javelin with an anchor tied to it toward the salvo’s origin.
When I appear behind the trio, they notice it, turning around, but I teleport again, appearing near another anchor in front of them. A thin cone of kinetic energy kills the man who launched so many mana projectiles.
The fire mage envelops herself in flames and rushes at me in hand-to-hand combat, only for the flames to die off, as I absorb them. A sword forms in my hand, and I cut her down and transform it into a shield, absorbing a barrage of stone attacks.
I lift my leg and stomp, sending kinetic energy into the ground under me putting a stop to the man's attack.
He turns to run away, but two of my javelins pierce him in quick succession.
Scanning the area with a wave of mana, I relax slightly and force myself to calm down.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly.
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Now repeat.
I have to hold myself back to keep from letting go and embarking on a rampage. I'm enjoying this event way too much.
There are so many people with so many different skills, mostly in groups I have to deal with on my own. I have to do it while conserving my mana and stamina and I still have to get used to my reduced stats. All while avoiding Tess sniping me out of nowhere or Tacita popping out from behind a corner.
“Leaderboard,” I say.
1st (168 pts) - Sset
2nd (139 pts) - Noname
3rd (136 pts) - Savant
4th (91 pts) - Grumpy
5th (84 pts) - Brainiac
Of course, that silly blonde still holds the 1st spot. With her [Farsight], she just needs to locate easy or Normal difficulty people to kill with minimal mana and from a large distance. But Brainiac surprises me. I didn't expect him to climb so high up. Lily better be careful too and avoid wasting her mana if she wants to be in a good state at the end.
It makes me happy that Min-Jae made the ranking, currently at the 8th spot, followed by Biscuit in the 9th.
Four hours remain and half of the original number of people remain, just over 1200.
That's also when the barrier, which has been stationary up till now, shrinks for the first time. The barrier seems to be composed of a mass of solid red energy, only allowing light to pass and finally shrinking at the speed of a top runner once exactly 1 hour has passed.
It's eerie to watch it approach at such high speed, especially when looking at the massive area it covers.
At the same time, it starts raining, the raindrops themselves seem to contain a bit of mana. Not enough to cause damage, but enough to make detection class skills more difficult to use as the droplets splash and burst, generating noise in the form of stray mana.
I [Focus] and filter out bits of useless information and the colors around me lose some of their vibrancy as the rain falls, drenching me immediately.
The black wall of clouds expands and the lightning can be heard constantly, its strikes reverberating in the air and the flashes of light serving to light the area.
Indeed, the system is good at setting the mood because a party of 6 men exits the line of trees seeming to have tracked me.
Gareth (Hell, 5th)
Brainiac (Hell, 5th)
Lootenant (Hell, 5th)
Mari (Hell, 5th)
Ghast (Hell, 5th)
Pumpkin (Hell, 5th)
Yeah, this seems about right.
“Noname, are you dumb? You guys are on the 6th floor so why did you place such a heavy [Restriction]?” Brainiac asks the moment they spot me.
“Because I wanted to. Are you guys cheating? How the hell have you gathered so many members of your group so quickly?”
The redheaded guy who seems to be the most talkative member of the group just smiles and shrugs, “Power of friendship!”
“I hope you don’t hold this against us,” Gareth stands in front of the others.
A blue suit of armor surrounds him and he places some sort of mark on the other members of his group.
I make an experimental attempt to disrupt that connection but it holds strong. Either my skill isn’t high enough, I need more mana, or it's just impossible to disrupt.
“Basic formation,” Gareth says simply.
Brainiac immediately moves to the back followed by two others. Meanwhile, Gareth heads in first, two more members by his side. Mari, a woman with a dagger and a sword in her hands, and the man called Pumpkin with mana collecting in his fists, elbows, knees, and shins.
I know I should keep my distance, maybe even fly high into the air and bombard them with ranged attacks. That style of fighting always seemed to be the best option. But as always, I make the decision to stay at medium range, and the reason is simple.
It's more challenging and fun that way.
The first one to attack is Brainiac, and he shoots projectiles that I can't see and can barely sense.
To dodge, I tilt my head, and three sharp projectiles miss me, cutting through the air while the thunder roars as the black wall of clouds moves closer. The projectiles behind me seem to disappear, their presence weakens, and they turn to attack me again, in an attempt to keep me from noticing them.
Acting as if I haven’t seen them, I create a dozen projectiles of my own, spinning them around my body, and when Pumpkin attacks me with his mana infused limbs, I dodge to the side, and Brainiac's projectiles disappear before they can injure his teammate.
I launch my projectiles, and the mark Gareth placed on him glows, and a silver hexagonal barriers the size of my fist appears to block them.
The woman with a sword and a dagger senses my burst of kinetic energy and blocks it, and the projectile aimed at her is blocked by a silver barrier.
I infuse my golden flames with disruptive mana, and the darkening area around us lights up, the raindrops evaporating as the flames envelop the man attacking me with his fire. The silver barrier surrounds him, and more and more mana rushes into it in an attempt to fight the disrupting properties of my flames.
Even though I know I just need to keep it up for a bit longer to get through, I stop and dodge a few more invisible and hardly noticeable attacks from Brainiac, and then an even smaller one from behind me.
“Damn, you are the first one to notice that one!” he shouts.
He falters in surprise as I shoot a javelin at him, boosted by kinetic energy that gets barely blocked by Lootenant who’s staying close to him. The javelin just changes its direction mid-flight and heads to some kind of weird orb Lootenant dropped all over the place and hits it instead.
Without time to examine the interesting skill more, I boost my body further, dodging Mari, who’s clearly surprised by my sudden increase in speed and cut through her dagger and sword with a dagger coated in [Resonance].
The man named Pumpkin launches an attack from behind, but I just shoot a blast of kinetic energy at him that even now gets blocked by a silver barrier, and I disrupt Brainiac's attacks.
In a smooth movement, I dodge Mari's kick, and the dagger in my hand extends and turns into a spear which I burrow into her shoulder, spilling her blood.
Before I can send thermal energy into her through the spear, she disappears, Gareth taking her place, my spear embedded in his shoulder.
A silver light flashes and my barrier blocks it, throwing me away.
I absorb my inertia mid-air, confusing Pumpkin, and his attack misses. Boosting my body, I stab my spear into his leg, but again, he disappears, Gareth taking his place as well. The man in transparent blue armor grabs my spear, and with impressive strength, pulls me closer.
I disrupt a few more attacks from Brainiac, this time needing to use more mana as he seems to be trying to get through my mana jamming, and a mace made of silver mana similar to his barriers forms in Gareth's hand.
It clashes against my dagger, and I send more resonating mana through it, carving the mace apart to the man's surprise, and stabbing the dagger into his chest.
He disappears, and Brainiac appears where he was, and a barrage of extremely quick attacks clashes against me, cutting into my flesh twice before I disrupt them.
Brainiac is smiling, but I do not attack him. Instead, I use the anchor I placed on the dagger I left in Gareth’s chest and appear in front of the man who, like me, has made it into Beyond. His wounds have already healed, and his armor strengthens itself even further.
I open my mouth, and a tricolored orb just turning bright crashes into him, and then I teleport away despite his attempts to stop it.
Appearing in the air, I look down at the ground, expecting the explosion. Instead of that, a silver barrier surrounds my orb, and with a grunt from Gareth, it disappears, the explosion of white light, shockwave, heatwave, and following implosion tearing the forest nearby apart.
No words pass between them, but they seem to be communicating. And this time, I really regret this limitation of not being able to restore my mana. I want to fight. I want to throw my all against them.
But I can't, I have placed a limitation upon myself and there are still four hours remaining. There is Tess, there is Lily, and Tacita, and most importantly, there is Savant.
I check my reserves and close to 20% of my body mana seems to be missing already.
My frustration increases even more when the man that was just standing next to Brainiac shoots a lightning spear at me, and I’ve sensed him charging it the whole time. He even placed a mark on me that seems to serve as a beacon for the powerful charged attack made of white lightning. Something I let happen out of curiosity.
Instead of dodging or using a black orb to absorb it, I just cover the back of my hand in a barrier of disrupting mana, and with a dismissive gesture, I disrupt the attack.
“Fucking monster! You’re under a restriction, so act like it!” Brainiac shouts at me.
“Behind you,” I call back at him.
“As if I would fall for that…” in the middle of the sentence, he stops and throws dozens of slashing projectiles into the area.
No matter that Tacita dodges them all, a calm expression on her face the entire time. She dodges and parries attacks thrown at her. Lightning and Lootenant's weird orbs either disrupted or flicked away.
When a silver barrier surrounds Brainiac, a wild smile appears on her lips, and her arm moves in a blur. She attacks dozens of times, the mana-coated dagger in her hand tearing through the barrier and turning Brainiac into particles of mana with one last slash that would have separated his body from his head.
One of the reasons why I'm up here is because I noticed her sneaking closer.
The rain continues to fall down, making her messy brown hair wet and stick to her face. Wordlessly, she catches my gaze, and she waves at me with squinted eyes and a smile.
The message is simple.
You are not safe there.
Tacita (Hell, 4th)