NOVEL NEXT 125 - First City Quest
I had been in and around Lophan for about two months now, taking it easy and enjoying life in between completing quests and advancing toward my goal of descending. I must say that I really enjoyed this more leisurely pace of doing things when compared to the constant uncertainty of fighting my way through a layer. Taking part in society almost made me feel human again. Now, after having completed my bonus objective of completing five village quests, I once again found myself in Lophan's office.
After having completed the last village quest I took a day off, but eventually, my curiosity got the best of me and I requested a meeting with the mayor of Lophan.
"So the time has finally come," Lophan said sitting across from me. Nimma's team was also present since they had somewhat become attached to me, always accompanying me when I went to get a quest. "I must say, based on what I've heard of your exploits, I very much look forward to seeing how you handle the city quests."
"And I look forward to seeing whether they can actually put me to the test," I honestly replied. "If I'm going to be honest, while interesting, the village quests didn't really pose too much of a challenge."
"So I've heard," Lophan agrees while sipping some of the tea his secretary had just brought in. "Before we get to it, though, I should probably go a bit more into depth on how the city quests work. They're very similar to the village quests as in once we generate a quest you'll be forced to accept it. But, while you had some leeway with the village quests, should you decide that you want to abandon the quest, there will be rather dire consequences, both for yourself and for our settlements. Now, I know that you are strong and that you are willing, but before we go any further, I need you to confirm that you are aware of the consequences of generating a city-tier quest."
"When you say dire consequences, what does that mean, exactly?"
"There are usually penalties attached to the quest should you fail them in any way," Lophan elaborated. "As for us, it really depends on the quest. There might be an incredibly powerful monster spawned by the quest which could wreak havoc before we subdue it. We are many in numbers and have quite a few warriors technically of a higher tier than you are, but the system is unpredictable and in the worst case we might lose the city. To make matters worse, if you fail and we take out the threat ourselves, we would still get penalized by the system because we helped too much."
I hadn't talked with Lophan a lot but he always came across as a friendly guy, trying to make sure I felt comfortable around here. Now, there was not even a trace of this Lophan to be found. He was dead serious, not willing to compromise on the safety of his citizens now that there were some real stakes involved. Trying to match the serious atmosphere I gave it some proper thought before replying.
"I understand."
"Good," Lophan allowed himself to relax a little, a bit of the friendly guy shining through again. "Aside from the forced quest acceptance, I am limited to generating one city-tier quest a week. I don't have any influence on what kind of quest comes out, but to be honest, we're all hoping for an inter-city tournament here."
"An inter-city tournament?" I was a bit confused. "How is an inter-city tournament a quest for me? And why is it important to you? Can't you just do a tournament by working with the other cities?"
"Well, there's a bit of history here," Lophan settled in for what might be a longer explanation. I took a quick peek at the members of Nimma's team but they all acted like they already knew everything about this. "For you, you will simply be asked to take part in the tournament and you will get rewards based on your placement. For us, it's a bit different. First off, the inter-city tournament wouldn't be between the warriors of our city, but rather between us and another settlement. What makes this so different is that this tournament would be system-sanctioned. And with that comes the benefit of being able to bet certain things.
"You've heard a bit about our struggles from Nimma, and one big roadblock has always been that we couldn't increase the size of our settlements. All across the seventh layer, Asphon settlements are stuck on having two cities and nine villages and nobody really knows why. Many things have been tried to increase the limit before, and we've had one idea that seemingly nobody has tried before. Travelers coming down to the seventh layer is somewhat of a rarity. Them being strong enough or even willing to generate a city-tier quest is even rarer, which would explain why nobody tried this before.
"I have discussed this with our neighbors from Kurra city before and we've agreed that, should one of us be presented with the opportunity, we'd bet all of our cities and villages to be won by the victor. Since the system presides over the tournament and allows us to bet like that, we should technically be able to double the size of our settlement. Nobody knows what would happen after that, but increasing settlement size always brings some sort of advantages with it. After you've completed your bonus objective, the system won't allow us to generate any more quests, so we have three chances to get it.
"Of course, whether we get it or not will be due to no fault of your own and I don't want you to feel bad if we don't get that specific quest. I just felt it appropriate to share this with you."
"I see," I could feel that this was really important to Lophan, and technically the entire Asphon race, I guess. If their gamble worked, they potentially took one more step toward their ultimate goal. Alas, they were forced to abide by the system and its whimsies. Looking Lophan over, I felt a bit like I was looking at my past self. He was about to gamble. He was about to draw a slip of paper out of possible thousands and the only thing he really cared for was the grand prize. I could understand his nervousness. "Let's hope that my luck stat helps us out a bit, shall we?"
I tried to wink at the man, but doing so as a slug with extendable eye stalks and no eyelids just made me look like an idiot. At least I got a chuckle out of Lophan and after he asked me once more if I was definitely sure, Lophan nervously generated a quest for me.
New Quest!
After a massive war eradicated the population of both sides, the lone winner celebrated his empty victory. Winning over the enemy king had given him power, letting him reach a level never seen before, but there was nobody to share the victory with. Prince Tempus accepted this as his punishment for his greed, anger, and hunger for revenge, which made him start the hostilities back up in the first place, eschewing peace in favor of avenging his late father. For hundreds of years, he wandered the depths of the great molten sea, slowly losing himself to madness. A madness that has finally reached a boiling point. The only thing left of the once proud prince is a hollow shell, hellbent on destruction.
Prepare yourself, for Tempus is coming!
Goals:
Defeat Tempus, the Mad Prince (T9)
No more than 50% damage to the city of Lophan.
Rewards:
5 Level ups
Upgrade Passive Skill: Lava Diver (B) to Heat immunity (S)
Learn spell: Lava Torrent (A)
Failure penalty:
Lose Passive Skill: Lava Diver (B)
Gain Passive Skill: Fire vulnerability (A)
Randomly lose 50 attribute points.
Upon reading the story bit of the quest once more, I remembered that I had heard of this guy before! Back on the sixth layer I had seen a memory upon finding the obsidian palace that showed me the moment war had been declared. If memory served me right, the king of the lava people kept referring to their enemies as "the worms" which already gave me a hint on what I was about to fight. I quickly relayed the contents of the quest to the others and Lophan immediately snapped into action, yelling out orders as soon as he threw open the door.
I stood to gain some great stuff upon victory, but the failure penalty was equally as great. This was my first time seeing a negative passive, and it being A-tier probably wasn't a good thing. Considering that fire was a favorite of a lot of monsters and intelligent species, I really couldn't afford to fail this. The attribute loss honestly wasn't even an issue. I took another look at the (T9) indicating that I was about to fight against a monster of the ninth tier for the first time… and got a bit excited. The threat of the penalty quickly vanished and was replaced by boiling blood. I wanted to, no, needed to get out there and fight!
A low rumble could be heard in the distance, announcing the mad prince's arrival and I jumped out of the open window, ignoring the surprised shouts of Nimma's team. I was about to get a proper fight and everything else fell away as I focused on trying to locate my prey. I teleported upwards, easily clearing even the highest building as the rumbling grew louder and louder. Massive pieces of the ceiling started falling in the distance, heralding the worm before I could see him and I activated my speed boosts in order to get there faster. The place with the falling ceiling was about ten kilometers away from Lophan, giving me ample space to fight.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Perfect!
The rumbling reached a crescendo and the ceiling broke open, sending parts of the fake ceiling flying everywhere. Buildings below me that got hit collapsed, sending a massive dirt cloud into the air but the events below me barely registered since my eyes were transfixed on the monster that emerged.
Obsidian Crown Serpent (T9)
A highly evolved version of a lava snake. Making their habitats inside of volcanoes or a planet's inner layers, these highly intelligent monsters are rarely seen. As they get a lot of privileges that other ruler-class monsters get, they usually lead massive colonies of lower-tiered snakes. While encountering a colony like that is already dangerous, the Obsidian Crown Serpent is by far the most dangerous of the pack. With its ability to coat itself with lava even when fighting outside of its preferred biome, it's dangerous to even get close to it. Aided by a large arsenal of lava and obsidian-based spells, it is a nightmare to take out even for experienced groups.
The gall of the lava blob king to call this magnificent creature a worm!
My eyes were glued to it as more and more of the massive creature emerged. Just as the description had said, it was currently coated in lava, making it difficult to make out any distinct features. What was readily apparent was that it was big and incredibly long! When the thin tail end of it finally fell out of the ceiling and the serpent coiled itself up on the still dusty ground I could finally appreciate the monster in its full glory.
Its body was easily five meters thick and it had to be around a hundred meters long. The lava coating its body moved along, giving it the appearance as if a flowing river of lava had come to life. Since even its head was entirely coated by the stuff, I couldn't tell how it actually looked, but I had to admit that it kind of did look like a worm in this form, albeit a very big one.
It looked around for a second before it zeroed in on me gliding in the air. I wasn't sure if it had good sense or if the system gave it some kind of tracking ability that could sniff me out, but that didn't matter.
The fight was on!
Not wasting any more time I opened the hostilities with my strongest spell. Already prepared, a tiny ball of void appeared above me, slicing reality apart shortly after. Since the snake was so large it was almost impossible for it to avoid my void rend and I got a clean hit in. The resulting explosion sent lava flying everywhere and caused the serpent to scream, making me seal my ears instantly. I really needed to mutate them so they could do that automatically.
Much to my surprise and enjoyment the spell wasn't enough to kill the serpent in one shot. It looked like I should be able to fight properly! With some of the lava gone, I could see its black-scaled body. The armor of lava quickly repaired itself, but I could see a sizable gash leaking green blood before it did.
The serpent began thrashing around, making full use of its body to destroy as much of the area around it as possible. Although there was no chance that this would hit me in the sky, it did throw up yet another cloud of dust and debris that made it hard to see the massive snake. Unfortunately for it, its bright magma armor gave its position away, and even if it hadn't, it was so big that it was hard to miss if I just carpet bombed the area.
I was just about to do just that when the serpent got one over on me. Instead of me raining down spells, the serpent sent tons of them my way. Hundreds of tiny lava bullets flew in my general direction and took me by surprise. Due to the smoke screen, it had created I hadn't been able to see the spell matrix of its spell. Whether that was just a lucky accident for it or actually planned, it was damn smart and I had to wonder if it had gotten any intel about me. Sure, according to the quest story it was but an empty husk acting on instinct, but the serpent was also described as fiercely intelligent.
Unfortunately for the serpent, I couldn't care less about the entirety of its lava spell arsenal. Lava Diver gave me complete immunity to lava, making the spells useless. I didn't even bother dodging as I decided to fight fire with fire, launching a barrage of void javelins into the smoke. Unfortunately, I was in a similar situation to the serpent since the lava armor could vaporize all of my poison spells before they could reach its skin unless I created an opening first.
We kept up the mutual bombing for a few seconds until some black thing emerged from the dust and rocketed at me with insane speed. I cursed and cast a void teleport that I'd kept almost finished, teleporting myself back a hundred meters. The ban on teleporting between layers and dimensions was still in place, much to my annoyance, but thankfully this didn't include short-range teleports. And, contrary to my void jump, I didn't need to waste time by going through the portal with this spell, instead almost instantly appearing at my destination upon casting it.
The black thing turned out to be a ten-meter-long and two-meter-thick obsidian spear that crashed into the ceiling moments after I teleported. The speed of that spell was terrifying, but as long as I was ready to teleport it should be fine. Just as I thought that, the obsidian spear exploded sending tiny obsidian shrapnel flying everywhere and I engaged my defensive skills while curling up into a ball to protect my eyes. Unfortunately, I didn't have another teleport ready and had to eat this one.
I got peppered by the pieces that turned out to be incredibly sharp, managing to cut into my flesh. Thanks to my defense skills I didn't get hurt too badly, but for the next one, I should remember to cast my shield spell. I hadn't actually needed to seriously defend myself for such a long time that I didn't think of it when I had to make this split-second decision. Still, I was just happy to finally be in a real fight!
The serpent had destroyed all of the buildings around it and by now there wasn't nearly enough dust to reliably conceal itself. The lava armor was blown off in several places, working overtime to repair itself. I didn't waste the opportunity and sent out a slew of poison spells until the archive properly showed me that the debuffs had been applied.
My eyes snapped toward the head of the serpent where a large spell matrix appeared. It looked like it wasn't too proficient with the spell since it took a while to activate and I took those precious few moments in an attempt to learn something about the spell by analyzing the matrix. Unfortunately, all I could figure out was that it had something to do with fire, which most likely meant that it was a lava spell. Still, that was enough for me to know that I didn't need to dodge.
One second later, I really wish I had just dodged the damn spell.
As soon as I saw the effect of the spell I knew that it was the spell I would receive as a reward for defeating the prince, Lava Torrent. True to its name, it shot out a high-pressure stream of lava that slammed into me and then proceeded to pin me to the ceiling. The lava itself did no damage to me, but the pressure managed to constantly sap away my HP. Not wanting to just let myself be pummeled like that I once again teleported away, and not a second too late as it turned out.
I had to shake off some lava that clung to me as I reappeared in the air a few hundred meters away. I watched in awe as three giant obsidian swords slammed into the spot where the lava torrent was supposed to be pinning me down, well, up, in this case. It would have been bad news if I had still been there and I opted to activate my shield spell and keep it up for the rest of the fight. I had been surprised several times already and there was no need to take further risks.
Taking advantage of the fact that the serpent did not know I'd escaped already, I once again used a void rend and then followed it up with two more. It wasn't easy, and holding back the spell once completed took a lot out of me, but since the prince so graciously gave me some time to prepare, I'd readied up three spells before firing. The effect was immediate and the damage devastating, causing the serpent to thrash around once again, this time in pain.
Not willing to pass on the advantage, I decided to fire a void laser, keeping it trained on my adversary. Instantly casting another one once the spell had ended. I was cackling at my firepower in my mind when I realized the thrashing hadn't been random or out of pain as I had assumed. No, it had gotten itself into an odd-looking position and started spinning around itself at high speed before sending out its tail like a whip. The snap the tail caused when it broke the sound barrier rattled me even through my sealed eyes and the last thing I saw was the rapidly closing in tip of the tail before I got sent flying.
My flight was shortlived as I slammed into the ground a split-second later. Thankfully I had my shield up. But, by how much MP just got drained out of my MP tank I could tell that this attack would have been enough to almost one-shot me. Yes! Good! This was it! A proper fight! The threat of death being but a moment away! I was just about to get back into the fight before a follow-up attack could hit me when my high got rudely interrupted.
You have killed a T9 Lv.7 Obsidian Crown Serpent
You have been awarded 381 Data Points.
You have successfully completed the city-tier quest!
Rewards:
5 Level ups
Upgrade Passive Skill: Lava Diver (B) to Heat immunity (S)
Learn spell: Lava Torrent (A)
Bonus Objective:
Complete three city-tier quests (1/3)
No, it couldn't be…
I looked at the massive serpent that had collapsed to the ground unmoving. The lava armor was slowly pooling to the ground below it, revealing the jet-black monster beneath. I froze as I stared at the first tier nine monster I ever encountered, not able to believe that it was over just like that. This was supposed to be an epic fight! A brutal back and forth until one of us emerged victorious. A fight where I could put everything on the line, exchanging blow for blow, letting loose, and pushing myself to the limit.
But now I was supposed to believe that the fight was over after a few exchanges?
Prince Tempus was a fellow royal, a monster two whole tiers above me, specifically spawned by the system to be a challenge. And now I stood here, staring into the empty eyes of what was once a mighty warrior after a scant three minutes of fighting. My body was full of energy, raring to go, ready for a good fight, yet there was nowhere to put that energy and I slowly crashed down from my high. I vaguely registered that Nimma and the others arrived next to me, taking a closer look at the fallen prince and attempting to talk to me.
I ignored them completely, staring into the eyes of what was once Prince Tempus, holding out a faint glimmer of hope that he would rise again to carry on the fight. But it never happened. At some point, I had to admit to myself that it was over. The fight had come and gone. And, although I was allowed to display some of my strength for the first time in a while, I felt hollow inside.
Without saying a word I turned around and started slowly crawling my way back to the city, intent on getting into bed and sleeping. I didn't even bother to take the body into my inventory for later consumption, leaving behind four confused and worried Asphons.
I needed some time alone.