NOVEL NEXT Chapter 54: Infirmity
<Alex, Real - Endure, City Street Near a Magic Shop>
Alex stepped around the corner, Natasha hot on his heels, both sprinting at the undead before them.
All the various creatures clearly saw them and turned to engage. It was a bit interesting to see how each different variant responded.
The death squires spread out, trying to mesh with the fodder and ravagers that staggered or sprinted forward, respectively.
The flesh golems each bloated momentarily before extending out faster than even the ravagers could run, looking a bit like the squishy kids' toy that bubbled forth when it was squeezed.
It was gross, but well within their expectation for the morphic enemies.
Then, however, they did something that Alex didn't know was even possible. They slammed together midair, the extended tendrils seamlessly meshing and combining into one blob that shot forth like a speeding car, still held up and fed by the three flesh golems.
Alex barely got his off-hand up in time to catch the incoming lance of flesh, Life's Active Defense triggering automatically.
He felt his bones groan at the impact. Even reduced to 20% of its intended damage and spread between his health and stamina, it hurt. Moreover, the quick stamina drain meant that he felt like he'd just sprinted a few blocks instead of the twenty feet that he'd actually covered.
As it turned out, taking stamina damage was never fun. Still better than being splattered or skewered.
He had a moment when his left hand held the extended tendril, and he took full advantage.
With a flicker of Analyze, he knew he had to commit a lot to his next attack.
Undead Flesh Conglomeration
Level ?
It returned a single response, and it felt powerful both to his Danger Sense and Basic Mana Sense.
Therefore, once again, he sent out two waves, the first of his Life to learn from the creature, and the second of HP to destroy.
He had to force both through a hefty amount of resistance, causing the mana cost to spike irritatingly, but it wasn't insurmountable. Right, even the non-plague guard flesh golems have some magical resistance…
Still, he paid the cost in power, focus, and precious heart-beats, finally feeling his Life ripple outward, but this creature was less resistant to his HP than the death squires had been, and before anything could come back, the Undead Flesh Conglomeration was already starting to turn to ash like a flash flood.
The outgoing, destructive health hit his returning, 'learning' life, destroying the flesh it was traveling through and leaving it to drift down, spread over a wide area.
He had only an instant to groan. I'm going to have a pain of a time recovering that Life…
That was the last thought he had time for before the lesser undead reached him, and he and Natasha were in the thick of it, blades flickering and flashing.
He blocked whenever he could, taking bites as necessary to cover his companions and shrugging off the notifications assuring him of his continued immunity to this zombie plague.
John's guns barked out a steady, rapid rhythm, dropping ravagers and fodder each with one shot, quickly freeing up the front liners on their team to face the more powerful variants.
Grant came in with a roar, hammering down on a death squire that had been oriented on Alex, the strike sending out a fountain of no-longer-monster, directed away from the man.
Unfortunately, that meant it washed over Alex, causing a renewed flurry of notifications as the undead's energy was entirely spent in trying to impart the curse onto Alex. His resistance downgraded the 'True Death' curse, and his Life negated the undead effect, so it was little more than an annoyance… a gross, sick annoyance.
Grant gave a momentary, sheepish grin, calling out as he moved to his next opponent. "Sorry, Alex!"
Alex was about to fire off a response when his Danger Sense screamed out a warning. At the same time, he heard the rapid beat of many, many wings.
He flinched. What the taco-truck! I chose away from birds for a reason!
Panic aside, before he could do anything about it—even shout a warning—Pilar's fire roared forth, angled upward, flash-frying a flock of decrepit pigeons that had been swooping down on them.
Undead pigeons… Great… That's not going to come back to bite us. He hitched at the internal thought. Zombies literally are the opponent most likely to come back to bite us.
He stifled a laugh, trying to focus on his opponents. Despite his best efforts, however, he couldn't get this new development out of his mind.
He almost tried to lodge a formal complaint, but he got the sense that it wouldn't go through, and might actually get him penalized because it was too similar to what he'd complained about in the past.
Thankfully, the team wouldn't have to deal with undead pigeons at the moment, but if the undead could somehow start a 'Birds' like cascade of undead avians?
He shuddered, and his distraction caused him to miss blocking the incoming punch from a different death squire. He took the blow to his left oblique with a groan.
This enemy seemed to have noticed that Alex was unaffected by the previous curses, and it was trying something new.
Notice:
Curse of Creeping Infirmity, partially Resisted.
Reduced to Curse of Creeping Enfeeblement.
A wave of exhaustion flooded through him, radiating outward from the point of impact.
He felt weaker and slower.
His Life fought back, the curse beginning to lose ground almost immediately, but it wasn't instant.
Alex exchanged a rapid series of blows with the death squire, slowly failing to block more and more of them—despite liberal use of Multi-Strike and Life's Active Defense—as each touch from the creature sent another wave of the curse through him, the effects stacking and compounding wherever they overlapped.
In a way, his Life fighting back was making it harder, as his body was being unevenly affected, utterly ruining his coordination.
In fact, Alex was entirely sure that, if it weren't for his Kinesthetic skill, he'd be unable to move with even a modicum of control or coordination.
When he had that thought, he did his best to bend his actions to lean heavily on that skill, and it immediately helped.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Now, he was only getting hit half as often, in a continued—if reduced—downward progression.
Great, I'm descending into death a bit slower…
Still, he wasn't being entirely overwhelmed and that was good news all around. He'd even been able to cut off one of the creature's arms, leading to it kicking him almost as often as it punched, but it was a step in the right direction.
He was continuing to use his Life's Active Defense every time it came off of cooldown. Just like he was spamming Multi-Strike often enough that he was in danger of bottoming out his stamina if this fight took more than another couple of minutes. That combined with his increasing reliance on the Kinesthetic skill would be enough… it had to be.
Alex had to admit that the situation wasn't great. He was slowed enough by the curse energy rippling through him that he had no hope of touching the squire's flesh to impart his Basic Life Transfusion even with Multi-Strike.
Worse, after he'd taken the creature's arm, it became even more defensive of the joints and weak points of its armor. He couldn't even get a hand on where the arm had been, because the armor had almost instantly morphed to seal off that opening.
In truth, it was obvious that—if he'd been alone—the other undead would have been able to utterly swarm him. There wouldn't have even needed to be more death squires. He'd have been quickly slain by lesser undead. Even without other undead, this one would end him soon enough.
But he wasn't alone.
His group was nicely handling the other creatures, allowing him to solely focus on his own slow demise.
Make no mistake, Alex was actually fighting brilliantly. On pre-system earth, he'd likely have won any close quarters fight that he might have been in, but this wasn't pre-system Earth, and with his physical stats cursed down to an uneven twenty percent of what they should be—at least in how he could bring them to bear—he was simply too weak, too slow, and too fragile to have a prayer of winning.
He couldn't even imagine how quickly he'd have died if he hadn't accepted the level-ups before they ventured forth, instead waiting until he advanced his class. Sometimes a little at the right time is better than more, later.
Of course, as already stated, he wasn't alone.
Natasha's Force Shield flickered into being, saving Alex from what might have been a lethal blow to the head, and causing the death squire to stagger back, not from the rebound, but in an off balance attempt to get around the magical protection.
Her spear lanced forward in three quick strikes as she slid in an arch around Alex's left side, somehow maintaining leverage to attack powerfully without slowing her advance.
She couldn't pierce its armor, but she weakened each limb with a thrust through various joints.
Before it could recover, Grant came in with a yell, swinging his hammer in a blow that was so slow it should have been child's play to dodge.
But Natasha had perfectly set up for the attack, and the death squire couldn't seem to recover enough before the magic empowered hammer impacted it, center mass, crumbling the chest armor and pasting its torso.
A glorious kill notice flashed before Alex, but he dismissed it without reading it, falling to his knees, sucking in breath after breath.
His companions surrounded him, John and Pilar watching their surroundings as Natasha and Grant checked on him.
"Curse." Alex managed to gasp out, causing them to grow even more concerned, but he shook his head. "One moment, handling it. Just slow."
He could feel his Life sallying forth from his blood to weaken, defeat, and then purge the curse within him.
He added his growing competency in actively moving his Life energy throughout his own body to speed the process up.
This time, he tried to be wise about it, unlike when he'd tried to overcome the rot tendril curse, he didn't lead his own Life energy to destruction.
Natasha stayed with him—flanked by Pilar and John—while Grant quickly moved to ensure that the magic shop was empty.
Alex would have pulsed his Detect skills, but he thought—and the others seemed to agree—that he needed to focus on other things at the moment.
The door was locked, but a quick strike from Grant's hammer against the part of the door near the lock fixed that.
Or broke that? Alex shook his head, grimacing at the distraction.
After Grant quickly checked the inside, he went to get the teachers.
By the time the four people came around the corner at a slow jog, Alex was ready to get to his feet.
He was still weaker—and his stamina was down to about a quarter—but he could move again.
He pulled out some food and started eating it, reveling in the slow increase of his stamina.
He felt like his body had gained a lot of experience fighting curses. As such, he wasn't surprised by the simple System notice that popped up when the last vestige of curse energy was eliminated.
Attribute Level-Up:
Basic Resistance - Curse
Level 1 → Level 2
Yeah! Now, I just need to do that an unknown number of times more in order to… not have to experience it again.
That was a silly way to look at it. That's essentially a simplistic summary of what training was across the board.
He knew that he'd make it happen… somehow.
As to how the fight had gone, if he had to guess, having any resistance to curses downgraded any curse that affected him, and then the level of the resistance was an indication of how well and how quickly he could fight off the rest.
Maybe if I get it from Basic to whatever is next, it will downgrade it twice initially? That did make some sense, though he had no idea how that would work with venoms. It wasn't like it would downgrade the type of venom, as if it had come from another animal or creature.
Still, it wasn't like he was going to go get bit to find out.
Definitely not.
But wait. I guess that's assuming Basic is the lowest type, and that seems like… something that would be in the System Basics book.
He quickly pulled it out and it seemed that Skill and Spell prefix words went: Lesser, Basic, Moderate or No Prefix, Greater, Ultimate or Sublime
Not every skill or spell had every step, and some had others, as nothing could ever be too easy, but it was a good guide on the power of the skill or spell in question. So, not the bottom tier. That's… good?
And the attributes had levels instead of rarities, it seemed, but the book didn't address attributes, as it seemingly wasn't a 'basic' topic.
At that point, his companions checked on him, and he assured them that the curse was dealt with. He thanked Natasha and Grant, specifically, for coming to his aid before congratulating them as a whole on good work.
He took a moment to ash the undead so they wouldn't have to navigate the bodies.
As Natasha continued to collect the results of his ashing undead, he found that it was easier to find his remnant Life within the remains of the Undead Flesh Conglomeration than he'd feared. Despite the ash being so spread out, just like with the rot tendril, every bit of his Life called to him from within the remnants.
This will be so much easier when I fight non-undead and am not ashing them. Well… he could refrain from ashing them now, but that would only make the fights harder.
So, maybe it won't be easier over all, but it would be easier to recover his Life after a battle. He was probably just falling into a 'other side is always greener' mentality.
As he pulled in the last bit of the Life he'd sent out to learn from the conglomeration, he felt a small freeing of something within him, followed by a pop-up.
System Notice:
New Attribute Acquired
Basic Resistance - Magic (Lvl 1)
Details:
Innate ability to combat magical effects.
Your Life energy has a minor boost when combatting magical effects such as artificial heat or cold, among others.
Description:
You have fought creatures inured against magic, and you decided that's a pretty cool racial trait they have. In fact, it would be nice if you could have it for yourself.
Your Life has learned to combat magical influence on your body, allowing you to directly oppose that which others must simply bear through or heal against… assuming they survived at all.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
You… really shouldn't have been able to get this.
Huh…
Oh well, I won't tell if you don't.
After chuckling at the addendum, Alex took a moment to consider what the attribute would actually do.
So… a fireball will be a little bit less hot as it burns my flesh? He frowned for a moment. I guess that's not a bad thing… and it could make the difference somewhere down the line.
Still, he did not look forward to finding ways to level any of these resistances he was acquiring… no matter how useful they would be… and how much the gamification made him want to find ways of doing so anyways.
Floor-legos… I'm going to find a way, aren't I…
Notifications dealt with, it was time to raid a real magic shop, and the very idea put a smile on his face and temporarily suppressed the memory of what he'd just gone through.
It's loot time.