World Filter

The creature charged down at a terrifying speed. No care was taken for the Ghasts that got in its way. They were simply sliced clean through, as this variation had sharp blades on its wings, in addition to its massive blade-like tail.

“Fuck, big boy incoming!” Chris shouted.

The frontline reacted in time but the creature moved with incredible mobility. Only taking minimal gunfire as it swooped down at them.

That was all the time they got as the mass of flesh crashed into Mark’s construct. The impact alone nearly floored him, tiny cracks splintered throughout the pane of force.

Then completely against their expectations, the creature gave up its movement advantage in favor of wrapping around them like a tomb.

The thing plastered itself around the dome with crushing force. The construct held but the pressure was immense.

The squad unleashed attacks with full force at point-blank range, but the tough rubber-like skin seemed to be protected by something.

Mark was beginning to move more energy into the shield when the eyes opened.

All along the wingspan of the creature, eyes began to open, and for each one that did the pressure increased. Hundreds of tiny eyes with crimson iris’s stared at them from behind the screen.

Mark felt the fear effect slam into his construct like the weight of a mountain. Cracks began spiraling throughout the shield, Mark wanted to feed more energy into it, but it was the mental equivalent of being punched in the gut. He couldn't breathe in or out. He couldn't move his energy.

“Sam!” he grunted.

She must have heard the desperation in his voice because the next thing he heard was her shouting.

“Everybody down. Now!”

Then the world exploded in a torrent of wind and ice.

He looked up for a second and caught the fleeting sight of two blades formed from super-compressed icy air, crossing each other in a shimmering 'X'

She smashed her hands together and the spell tore forward. Gouging out the flesh on its chest.

It screeched in pain and retreated with massive bloodied gashes, but not before swinging its bladed wings into the failing dome.

The construct broke apart and Mark gritted his teeth as the rebound smashed into his mind.

Disoriented Mark watched the world around him fall into chaos. The frontline retreated to them, surrounding the casters. Sam was panting from exhaustion.

With the dome gone the fear effect began stacking up. Jaya created a writhing whirlpool above their heads to block the dive bombers. The light in the room began to fade.

Though Mark had managed to hold onto his light spell. The Ghasts were surrounding it like moths to a flame. So much so they were blocking the light from reaching the rest of the room, causing elongated shadows to dance on the walls.

Jonathan and Sam ripped anything that approached apart, but the numbers were piling up and two slipped through.

Jaya was occupied so Sam released an icicle. Skewering one. The other dove at Mark, plunging its barb toward his throat.

Without thinking he let his Resistance-enhanced reactions take over and moved his hand up to meet the incoming attack.

The barb slashed through the soft flesh of his palm as he grabbed it. Arresting its path towards his throat.

The pain cleared his head, bringing his mind back into razor-sharp focus. He pulled the struggling Ghast towards himself. Getting a better grip he cast two [Force bolts] on either side of the thing.

It exploded in a rain of black blood and flesh, coating Mark's chest, arms, and face. Mark was pissed.

[Shape Mana] snapped back into place around them, only now with much more resources.

[Cleansing surge] cleared out the fear and poison from the group.

Mark's eyes fell on the suppressed light spell.

“Flash, incoming,” he warned.

Moving his hand toward it he began pouring Mana into the connection. The light behind the swarm began to brighten.

Mark poured Mana in until it was guzzling the stuff.

Its intensity grew until it burst out in a dazzling display of light. The sound of burning flesh could be heard as it started to flash-cook them. Tiny screams went up as the light grew overwhelming.

The ghasts scattered but Mark had the spell chased them. Unfortunately for them, they weren't faster than light.

A single ball of radiance chased after the swarm. It was like burning ants with a magnifying glass. The limiting factor became how fast his mind could tell the spell what to do and his quickly diminishing Mana.

It was at this point that the giant Ghast decided to jump back in.

Mark sent the orb at it like a beam.

It slammed into the side of the creature's face and stopped at the skin. The creature's flesh burnt and bubbled in that area, but Mark could feel something stopping his Mana from pushing into the creature's body. Stopping Mark from sending his orb into the thing and cooking it from the inside out.

Mark realized it was its will. Its will was what was stopping Mark from just summoning light in its brain or heart. It controlled the Mana in its own body and the only way to beat that was to overcome it, but he couldn't do that in this situation.

So he just left it stuck there burning it.

The creature let out a wail and charged at them once more, thrusting its barb forward like a spear.

“Frontline with me!” Jonathan shouted.

Mark sent Prana into his construct, burning the candle at both ends.

As the Frontline charged he sent the construct surging forward in a wave. Providing cover and meeting the creature's charge.

When the two met, Mark was ready this time.

The collision unleashed an explosive, concussive force, shaking the room slightly. Cracks formed in the concrete directly under Mark’s feet, but he managed to stop its attack and Jonathan punished the creature for it. Cutting clean through the creature's tail.

It howled and swiped at him with its wing. Daphne jumped in the way taking the brunt of the attack to hear gauntlets. She flashed gold for a moment and the wing rebounded with violent force.

Chris whipped his spear out in a flash and stabbed it forward through the thinnest section of its wing. Stabbing into the stone below.

Davis and Ava attacked the creature in sync, plunging blades into its underbelly.

It screeched and Mark saw the Ghasts above react. Collecting into a cloud once more and diving on the frontline.

Mark pulled the light from its home in the creature's cheek and sent it straight up to the falling mob.

Killing as many as he could, but there were too many.

“Scatter! Mark the Casters!” Jonathan shouted with a calm even tone.

This was where Mark got a display of what high-level Aura users could really do.

One second they were right in front of the giant Ghast and the next they scattered in all directions, killing their way through any obstructions.

The swarm of smaller ghasts crashed down obstructing Mark's view for a moment.

Mark was pulling in his shield to keep the three of them safe while the room turned into half a dozen small skirmishes.

When it cleared the main Ghast didn't know which way to turn first, but Jonathan soon made that choice for it, by dashing right back into the mass.

Killing the smaller ones with just a single slash. Then at almost point-blank range, he made a horizontal slash.

A massive arcing crescent of red-gold force expanded out of the blade. Cutting through anything that got in its path and landing directly at the cross-section of Sam’s previous spell. The skin in this area was already greatly weakened, so when the attack came through it tore into the creature. Cutting through jaggedly and passing out the other side.

The creature let out a moan and fell apart into two sections, dead, but the battle continued.

Mark wanted to keep killing as many as possible, but to make the light deadly he had burned through 72 Mana in less than a minute. So he cut the flow of Mana to the spell down to almost nothing again.

Making the dazzling beacon return to a docile orb of light. Sam was still recovering from the use of whatever that spell was. Jaya was sending columns of pressurized water into the dwindling group of Ghasts.

Eventually, after minutes of continued battle, the room fell silent.

All that could be heard was the panting of the survivors.

“Alright, sound off, is anyone badly hurt?” Jonathan said.

Everyone responded with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Everyone gathered up and Mark took a look. They were all battered and bruised in some way or another. Daphne, Jonathan, and Chris seemed the best off. Jonathan because of raw power, Daphne seemed to have gone further into defense, and Chris had eyes in the back of his head.

Mark healed the worst of their wounds and left the rest to time and their Aura. Sam still seemed out of it, but Mark determined it wasn't because of an injury.

“Okay, thoughts going forward?” Jonathan asked the group.

Mark spoke up.

“Well, my two cents is that we should rest, if all the rooms are going to be like this one we can't go in half-cocked”

Jonathan nodded, looking at the rest of the party. When no one protested he said.

“Alright, agreed.”

Everyone gathered up and took turns either keeping watch or grabbing a snack. Mark grabbed a bottle of water to chase the exhaustion away.

The casters were exempt from watch to recover and just before Mark began [Meditation] Daphne came and sat down next to him.

“You know I didn’t know what to expect when you asked me out on this lovely trip, but I’ll tell you this much it's good for the exp”

Mark very nearly did a spit-take then and there. He swallowed and cleared his throat. Squinting his eyes at her, she did that on purpose.

“Glad you like it, so far it's proving to be everything the brochure said it was,” he said.

She snicker.

“Though you may want to clean up, you look like you took a blood bath”

Mark shot back that she didn't look so good either, with bone chips and blood splatters in her hair.

She just laughed it off. They chatted for a couple of minutes until Mark had to focus on [Meditation], but before he did he brought up his prompts.

Spell acquired: Light control

Through the focus of Mana, the user has learned to manipulate the energies around themselves.

The intensity of the light produced is based on the strength of the Mana attribute.

Mana's requirement varies according to the spectrum created

Mantainance and spectrum shifting costs Mana.

Caution: This spell offers no protection against the creation of light.

2 x Corrupted humanoid cleansed(2 + Sector reward: x4)[8]

1 x Corrupted Ordinator cleansed(2 + Sector reward: x4)[8]

4 System Points awarded

2 x Corrupted humanoid cleansed{Dungeon bonus X2}(4 + Sector reward: x4)[16]

42 x Corrupted Ghast cleansed{Dungeon bonus X2}(168 + Sector reward: x4)[672]

172 System Points awarded

Partial exp awarded to (9 users - expand list)(Sector reward applied: 744)

93 System Points awarded

Partial exp awarded to (Mark Young)(Sector reward applied: 744)

93 System Points awarded to (9 users - expand list)

441/441

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

484/484

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

1 x Corrupted Leviathan cleansed[chaos - 2]{Dungeon bonus X2}(20 + Sector reward: x4)[80] Partial exp awarded to (9 users - expand list)(Sector reward applied: 72)

2 System Points awarded

Congratulations your party member delivered the killing blow to [Corrupted Leviathan]

529/529

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

Congratulations [Cleansing surge] has improved!

When Mark saw the numbers he realized his exp boost was stacking with the dungeon bonus and applying to the team.

Mark saw he had thirty free attributes. He put 20 into Prana and 10 into Mana.

A blinking appeared right away, so he brought up his status.

Name: Mark Young (22 - M)

Level: 23

Next level: 349/576

Stats:

Resistance

Aura

Mana

Prana

508 (+6) [430]

0

118 (+10) [+20]

259 (+2, +6, +20,)[+55]

[Half Milestone Reached!]

Unspent stat points - 0

Corruption value: 42.20%

System Points: 1189.5

Skills: Meditation, Limit release(Physical)

Spells: Passive Regeneration(Self)[5], Force bolt[9], Prana Pulse[2], Regenerate[4], Draw Corruption[5], Corruption recovery[4], Shape Mana(Force)[9], Invigorate[4], Cleansing surge[5], Read Memory[1], Mind Spike[1], Earth Control[1], Light Control[2].

World inventory. Marketplace. Trade

Congratulations on being the first user in your sector to reach 200[Prana] attributes!

Rewards: 1x Bronze rank mystery chest [Prana]

Mark was surprised, but right away he saw a pattern. The last time he had gotten a half milestone was at 50 Prana. When he reached 100 he had completed the milestone and his regen had increased.

So maybe this time he needed to get 200 Prana to get the regen increase. This would mean that he had to get to 300 total Prana for the next increase.

If this held true next time he would have to get 300 additional Prana, then 400 for the next.

Regardless that was a long way off.

Mark sank into his skill trying to get as much energy back before they had to move again.

An: Milestone explanation.

Rank 1 2 3 4 5

Additional Prana 100 200 300 400 500

Total Prana needed 100 300 600 1000 1500

At the halfway point the system will notify the user. In this case, Mark is halfway through rank 2 with 100 additional Prana.

Each rank will increase the base Prana regen by 20%. At rank 5 the user will regen 1 Prana a second. This will also stack with any regen given by items.