NOVEL NEXT Chapter 107 - The Pressure
Sam didn't know what to do with this situation. Did she just guess where he was? Was it because of the Appraisal? She couldn't have enough Defence or health to survive an attack, but was it a good idea to attack her?
His mind was leaning towards attacking her; it was the safest option, all things considered.
As he was pondering, she got up and walked gracefully and silently towards one of the doors, her white dress light enough to flow behind her. She stopped by the door and looked back at Sam, again meeting his eyes even though he was invisible.
"Gcom, eh ei swaitin." She blinked slowly as she motioned for the door.
Sam didn't feel confident in dropping his invisibility. Sure, she might be able to see or sense him, but whatever was on the other side of the door might not.
He didn't respond but followed in silence. As he came closer, she opened the door, letting him enter. The door led to a room; it didn't look too large, but there was a light source to the side. He walked back and forth a little, but it was only enough to discover that the next room was just an open hallway into a larger room.
Waiting a moment, the female demon stepped aside, returning to the small rug in the centre of the room and sat down. This gave Sam a little more control over the situation, having him move to the door.
Peering through, still keeping an eye on the demon, he saw that his initial inspection was true. The room on the inside of this door was a simple L-shaped space, with the short piece attached to the wall to his right. The long part made it impossible to look properly into the larger room, allowing only a glimpse to the left.
Wondering if this was a trap, he felt relatively confident that he could probably tear down the tower, or at least drill a hole in the wall, and leave that way. He was only one floor up, and the ground outside was sand. The damage he would take from the lack of flight was minuscule at worst.
Sneaking in, the door was left open as he did, not seeming like this was a trap yet, but as an old wooden door, it's not like he couldn't tear it down in a second if it came to that.
Rounding the other corner, he looked into a gargantuan room that took up the entire rest of the floor, save a similar exit way on the other side, similar to the one Sam stood in now. All of the walls, except one, which had collapsed and led out, were furnished with what looked like art. Painted in purple and gold, not unlike the blood from the other individuals Sam took care of. A large table stood along one wall with a large collection of things on it, one of which looked to be a massive crystal ball.
Everything in here was dimensioned for someone easily thrice the size of a grown man.
And on the other side, on a pile of sand, lay the owner of the oversized furniture. A muscular bodybuilder-like individual, but thrice the size of anyone he had seen before. The demon was massive, but built like a God of strength, and it was staring right at Sam. Its hip-mounted wings were wrapped with iron bindings, but looked like they might have been large enough to even carry this behemoth of a creature in the past.
Letting out a slight sigh, Sam was a bit annoyed that his invisibility didn't work as he wanted on the important monsters.
The large demon sat up, surprisingly fluid and silent.
Sam triggered his Appraisal skill.
[ Veyrathi Paragon, Soth'mar the Black Anvil
Level: 100
STR: 72
DEX: 38
VIT: 92
SPT: 18
HP: 7708 / 7708
Damage: Anvil Crash 739, Weight of Failure 554,
Defence: 500
Abilities: HP Boon, STR Boon, VIT Boon, Anvil Crash, Echo Guard, Obsidian Wall, Weight of Failure. ]
[ Anvil Crash: A crushing downward slam that deals AoE damage and permanently lowers enemy STR for the rest of combat. ]
[ Echo Guard: Reflects the first hit taken, ignoring source visibility and range. 5 second cooldown ]
[ Obsidian Wall: Reduces all damage taken by 75% while stationary. The effect is lost for a few seconds if you move. ]
[ Weight of Failure: Inflicts a stacking debuff that slows enemies by 10% per hit received, max 70%. ]
Holding back an outburst of how bullshit those abilities were, Sam realised if he attacked like he normally did, he'd just obliterate himself. Though knowing this, he could easily take him out by shanking the demon with a 5-damage dagger before unleashing his full volley. Even with nearly 8000 Health and 500 Defence, this would only need a single proper attack. To work around the Obsidian wall, he either just needed to wait for it to attack, or Force Pulse its legs or something.
Worst case scenario, Sam just needed to trigger the Echo Guard, then attack a few times, even with the 75% damage negation and 500 Defence, he only needed a few hits, the demon would either move in that time or die standing still.
Soth'mar was interesting in two ways, first was its danger to its opponents, you'd need a good tank to not die after an attack or two. Second was the defences, that much health and Defence was hard to get through, being level 100 made sense for a lot of these things, but it was still a special thing to behold.
"l Id ono twis ht ofigh. t Ido' n tthin k Ica nfigh tyo. u Isa wyo uo nth ebal." It said with a thundering, deep voice as it nodded towards the Crystal sphere on the table across the room.
Sam sighed. He would like to speak with the creature, but he had learned zero of their words.
Taking several seconds to think, the demon held its palms up in a somewhat calm and non-aggressive way.
"Ah, so you do understand me," Sam commented with a relieved sigh.
"No.. slow... not fast." The demon replied as he looked at Sam with a weird, forced smile.
Dismissing Invisibility, as it was following his movement across the room, even on the hard stone floor, Sam didn't see the need to keep the Energy allocated in case he needed it for something else. But the fact that this demon could speak with him made things easier.
It got to its feet, as fluid as before, but this only had Sam take a mentally defensive position, expecting an attack. He was glad to see that the Demon repeated the attempt on a calming gesture with its hands before it walked over to the large table, using a few moments ot find a massive book that had seen better days. Spending a moment carefully flipping pages, it ended up taking a step towards Sam, placing the book on the floor and taking several steps away.
Sam hesitantly looked at it, keeping both the book and the demon in his field of view. As he came close enough to read what was there, he saw that it had instructions.
There were a few words like 'Hello' and 'words', or short sentences like 'I like the sand', with some arrows and lines, almost like a pictographic guide, that moved the last letter of a word into the position of the first letter of the following word. Then the last letter of the sentence became the first.
This made 'Hello' into 'Ohell', 'Words' became 'Sword', and 'I like the sand' became 'D ilik eth esan'.
[ Veyrathi language unlocked ]
A pop-up to the side of Sam's field of view startled him.
"Fuck, that caught me off guard." Sam let out a relieved sigh after he processed his own startling.
"Ta, h Iunderstoo dtha!" The demon commented suddenly.
[ Ah, I understood that! ]
As it spoke, a small info window manifested near him and somewhat attached to him when he was in Sam's field of view, almost like some weird live subtitles. Sam was also happy to see that it didn't need him to properly read it, pulling his focus in case something were to happen. Instead, he just somewhat understood what was said, even when not properly looking.
"Your language is weird, why is it based on English..." Sam asked through a statement to himself.
"I don't know what English is," Soth'mar replied. "But we can communicate now."
His wide smile seemed genuine, with a sense of relief in it.
Sam eyed his potential opponent, and he didn't feel entirely safe, feeling this was a trap.
"Don't be like that. I'm not going to fight you. I saw you fight the others, and I can see your numbers. You're clever and probably figured out how to fight me, but I don't intend to kill myself today." Ending with a sigh, he sat back down on the sand.
"Well, you're not just some random Dungeon mobs, I'll give you that, but... what do you want? If you're not going to fight, are you just letting me through?" Sam couldn't help to identify the intelligence of a person, compared to the almost mindless monstrosities of a Dungeon creature. Not comparing him to a person felt oddly rude towards Dia, as, for most intents and purposes, she was the same.
"You mean our Dumb brothers?" Soth'mar put an odd pressure on the word dumb, as if it were a category or name. "Dungeon mobs, is that what they are called to you?"
Still being cautious, Sam developed a small interest in this creature and its apparent desire to talk. "Call them what you want, I just want to get out of here, and if you're not fighting, let me pass."
Having a solid and simple plan, Sam was ready to send a single dagger at the demon to trigger the damage reflect before ripping it apart with the remaining of his damage. He didn't feel safe.
Nodding slowly, the demon pondered before responding. "There's only one way out of here."
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
"It's the light in the ceiling, isn't it?" Sam interjected, feeling rather confident about this.
"Yes. We used to be able to fly, to get out, but after the Pressure came, we can no longer fly." The demon ended with a solemn tone.
"The Pressure? You could fly in here before that?" Sam realised he sounded a little more excited than planned.
Soth'mar chuckled. "You can probably get out as well if you help us get rid of it. We think we know where it is."
Sam narrowed his eyes at the creature in front of him. It was asking for help? For some odd reason, that didn't feel right. He was about to mentally compare the Aetheria natives to the ones who had moved into Earth, were living in Player villages within Aetheria or Dia, to other creatures within the Aetheria domain, but... He realised that he was already excluding more or less every sapient individual in the comparison, so it didn't exactly feel fair.
"How do I know this isn't some trap? As soon as I turn around, you attack me?"
"I don't wish to fight you. Even if I wanted to, from what I have seen, my damage isn't enough to take you out in one attack. And after landing a hit, you will easily kill me. Why would I threaten you, if you're the only chance we have to regain our flight?"
Still feeling unsure, Sam considered his options. He had no idea how to get out of here, save for climbing the ceiling of a stone cave for a city's length. Without the backup of a flight, he didn't feel confident in that. The fact that he was discussing this with the demon, and what he had seen of the others outside, they weren't just Dungeon mobs. He already confirmed this, but if this wasn't a Dungeon, why did his quest still say that his current goal was to escape one?
[ Ascendance system quest: Escape the cave complex.
-Defeat the boss to open the exit.
-Become the Dungeon Boss - Completed
-Survive as the Dungeon Boss - Completed
-The Ascendant's information is blocked from appraisal; appraisal will fail.
-The Ascendant's appearance is not altered.
-Emergency exit for Players is (#&`#Q/&
Reward
-Skill: Appraisal blocker (S)
-Upgrade to a class skill
Note
-Time remaining: 34 hours, 43 minutes. ]
As he thought about it, the window popped up, this time displaying information differently. Sam felt a sudden little urge to trigger his plan to take out the boss; it would be so easy. One dagger first to get rid of the dangerous defence, then just whail on him until he dies. It would take seconds at best.
But, he managed to keep it back; only a twitch showed his plan to obliterate his opponent before a slight smile grew on Sam's face. Normally, he would have panicked with the time limit, but he was understanding something.
Sam looked to the sky as if he were trying to find a surveillance camera.
"Oh, so you don't want me knowing this?" He felt like he was being gaslit; he knew for a fact that the quest mentioned escaping the Dungeon before. But now it just looked like he was exiting some location and killing a boss, the boss wasn't mentioned before either.
"N... no. I share this willingly." Soth'mar answered hesitantly.
Looking back at him, Sam smiled. "That's not meant for you, I'm figuring out something for myself."
He kept looking around in hopes of finding something hinting to anyone looking, but the only thing that changed was the countdown still lowering.
Turning back to his conversation partner, Sam had a different idea. The quest wanted Sam to kill him; in context, it felt like this was a way to silence a source of information, perhaps a thorn in 'their' side, since the Veryathi could fly before. But if Sam could fuck with them a little bit by freeing the locals, he was surprisingly fine with this.
"Ok, I'll help out, if only to answer something for myself." Sam didn't feel confident in the situation, but too many things had been triggered in the back of his mind for him to ignore them.
Soth'mar smiled widely. "I'm glad to hear it. Let me show you where we found the Pressure."
Getting up from his sand, he stomped towards the hole in the wall. For his huge size, it wasn't even a whole body length down; he simply stepped off the edge and landed in the sand, sinking as he did so.
Sam could hear plenty of commotion outside. Now that he had their language translated, he could see that they put Soth'mar in a positive light. Most comments were in the form of 'Him' coming out.
"Veyrathi, the Human that comes with me is not to be harmed ot disturbed, he will help us with the Pressure!" Sam's new ally proclaimed with his arms stretched out like he was listing a divine commandment.
Briefly wondering how they knew about humans, not to mention the language book he showed him before, Sam put all his Aura Points into his Barrier, set Triggered Manifestation to create shields if he was being attacked, before he walked over to the edge.
Before him, in the sand, on the remaining roofs of ruins and spread around, were easily 100 of the normal-sized black-skinned creatures. Various forms, various horn shapes and various wing sizes, he didn't bother appraising them all. However, he did feel his mind looking around for more of the mind-controlling ones.
He felt slightly more at ease when Sentinel's Watch didn't react to any hostility coming his way.
Soth'mar reached a hand over towards Sam. At second glance, it seemed like he was intending to help Sam down, but all Sam could do was hold back his instinct to attack the demon reaching out for him.
Shaking his head, Sam chose to jump down into the sand instead. It felt strangely safer, all things considered.
As he did, some of the closer Veryathi reacted, but didn't come closer. His landing was far from graceful, but the sand caught him as he expected. It was only one floor in height, so it was hardly an issue, even without the Player's fortitude.
"The Pressure comes from inside, or rather, from under." Soth'mar started explaining as Sam got sand out of his shoes.
Soth'mar pointed at the base of the tower, which looked to extend into the sand.
"We tried to dig our way down, to dig into the stone walls, the stone floor. We couldn't damage it; any scratch we could form only mended itself in moments."
Sam looked towards the base of the tower, not wanting to turn his head around, but given that he was surrounded no matter what way he faced, and the fact that he almost felt compelled to attack them, to not turn around. It all made him only want to get to the bottom of this more.
The demon boss dug down a few large hands to get more access to the base structure of the tower, attacking it with all his might, with claws and with skills that only made scratches, barely even damaging the surface of the stones that made up the construction. In between attacks, it healed itself, still looking dirty and old but undamaged. To prove that he wasn't just unable to damage this, he walked over to a smaller building, already heavily damaged, but punched a standing wall with similar force. As his fist made contact, the stones exploded into rubble, the entire wall caved in, and the debris alone took down the remainder of the building, its floor, and did damage to several other constructions nearby.
Turning to Sam, he continued his explanation. "It's the only place this happens, other walls, ceilings, floors, we can damage them all, but not this. Our sensitive people could feel something inside, but we don't know what."
Analysing the information, it was clear that there was something in there. It wasn't always like this, but after this feeling, this Pressure came, and they could no longer fly.
Sam considered the situation a little. This whole thing, him being a boss monster and whatnot, was triggered after he hit a damage potential of 10,000. So that had to be important and relevant. Perhaps he was to believe that it was because of Soth'mar's defences, but to get here, he had to go through the wall from his own boss room.
Taking a second to think deeper on this, when he met the Entity in the white room before, it seemed like the ones in control had internal drama. He might have some supporting him, but others are trying to have him accidentally die.
This also made sense, considering that after the wave survival dungeon, he complained about the rewards, which updated the reward list with extra information that didn't make sense to be there. Or how, when activating his Ascendant superuser powers, he didn't do it directly, he had to somewhat 'request assistance' to do what he wanted... Was that just a way to raise the issue with someone with higher access?
Manifesting his full swarm and making sure Clustered Strike was active, he proceeded to attack where the demon boss had attacked only a minute ago. It took several blows with surface-level damage before the glitching returned, the same glitching from the boss room. Like a small patch of textures was damaged, digitally tearing, overlaying itself and vibrating.
He didn't stop attacking, again and again, ignoring the sounds of the people around him, ignoring the horrible screeching sounds this made, he struck the same point more.
A crack formed, and subsequent hits made it larger. Some mending property made it smaller by the moment, but Sam's attacks kept widening it. A stalemate was reached where the damage Sam could deal was healed between attacks, but each collection of critical strikes pushed the crack larger, slightly. This continued, and Sam was glad he didn't expend energy doing this, letting him keep attacking, more and more. The crack, the glitching damage, now covered most of the stone he was aiming at. Pulses of electrical damage, puffs of fire, spread around, debris finally letting go, being ejected on elemental energy. A cone of fire pulsed from the Emberslash blade, lightly scorching the nearby stones. Bleed not do anything; the Void damage did not stack, no healing was done, no ignition, but consistent damage barely overtook the healing.
Ejected debris reformed, taking a moment, allowing the crack to expand but plugging up a smaller area. Sam moved the Aura Points from his Barrier into damage boost on the Shardspike Glaive. This boosted the base damage from 280 to 574; the linked elemental damage also increased, which let him push past the restoration effect. The crack was widening more and more.
Then the stone broke.
At the very same moment, he felt a familiar warm sensation covering him.