World Filter

The room shook as Daphne’s fist broke the surrounding concrete. Jonathan's blade sang as it slashed through the air. The two of them were locked in a deadly dance with the creature.

Its speed and strength made it a tough foe.

However, with the two of them working in tandem they were able to lock it in place for a short while.

They needed to finish this as fast as possible because the rest of the squad was doing their best to hold the Ghasts at bay.

Mark didn't have time to check right now, but he had already seen Ava go down. The thing was if they didn't deal with this thing now they were all in shit.

He had to believe she was okay.

“What’s the plan here, guys, I’m at half a tank” Sam screamed over the sounds of battle.

Mark wanted to try and lock it down, so they could kill it but everything he could think of would take more resources than he had right now.

“Wait, not everything.” Mark thought.

“We need to slow it down, then deliver the killing blow,” Mark shouted.

“Jon, Daph, keep it occupied. Sam I’m going to hold it down, you may only get a second. Use it.”

“Right, one extra lethal spell coming up, call it,” Sam said with joy in her eyes and maybe just a hint of craziness.

Mana began to surround her.

Daphne knocked the creature's back leg out from under it, to which it responded by turning and sending her flying. She bounced twice against the concrete. Leaving divots carved in the stone with her frame. On the second bounce, she righted herself in midair and landed on her feet. Glowing a dull gold light.

Jonathan took advantage of the creature's lapse in concentration and tried to gut the thing. The blade sunk into its underbelly but the creature reacted with admirable speed, turning its body at the last second to reduce the slash to a thin cut. Black blood trickled out, burning the stone.

The creature snapped down at Jonathan. Who retreated backward while Daphne charged it from behind.

Mark had precisely one spell that was cheap enough right now and could still have a lasting effect on the battle.

Mark gathered the Mana for a [Mind spike].

He had no idea how strong this thing's mind was. It had shown incredible intelligence and was probably enhanced like all things in this dungeon, but right now it was his only choice.

With half of his remaining Mana, Mark cast it.

Waves of Marks Mana flowed throughout the room. First, he saw three powerful minds nearest to himself. Sam, Daphne, and Jonathan. One of them shone with the strength of a star. Then he felt six more strong minds where the rest of the party were, again a powerful mind was amongst them, but nowhere near the brilliance of the first. Surrounding them all were twenty-one chaotic minds, the Ghouls.

Then he turned his eye towards his target. The massive creature in front of him.

It was strong, very strong, but he could handle it.

Mark condensed the Mana and slammed the spike into the creature's mind.

Hearing a howl of pain as the creature jolted in pain.

Building the bridge of Mana up quickly, he tried to put pressure on the creature's mind. Trying to slow it down.

A presence came forward to meet him, pushing back his mental charge.

The creature's head snapped round to Mark and he felt it growing in strength.

The two fought a wrestling match in the mental space, both struggling to push the other under.

Jonathan took the chance to slice into the thing's neck and chest. It attempted to dodge but its moments were jerky and it only managed to reduce the wound to a deep cut.

Mark held on, but something was wrong. The creature’s mind was getting stronger.

Trying to figure out what was happening Mark's eyes darted around the room. Howls were beginning to go up in the chamber joining into one continuous call. They were helping their alpha. How had he missed this?

There was a faint permanent connection between all the Ghouls and they were joining forces with their leader. Lending it strength.

“Mark, ready!” Sam said as a spear of almost white fire collected in her hands.

Mark struggled against the creature as a dozen weak minds joined the tug of war. Gritting his teeth he held on, he could still handle this. The flip side of their tactic was that the normal Ghouls were slowing too. Lessening the battle on both fronts.

Unfortunately for Mark, as more of them joined the mental war, it freed their leader to wrestle some control back over its body.

It was still considerably slowed but as Daphne and Jonathan fought. It managed to dodge the worst attacks and sometimes even retaliated at them.

Frustration and stubbornness churned in Mark. He had promised this thing’s death and he’d be dammed if he didn't uphold his end.

As Corrupted charged into the connection Mark grabbed onto each and every one of them. Locking them down and strong-arming them out of the way.

His head throbbed in pain.

Grabbing hold of Alpha once more he held it in place. He had to last until he could give the signal

Mark felt a couple of minds dying. Probably killed in the battle with Davis’s group.

More piled on.

Mark dropped to one knee.

The mental weight was overwhelming. His head felt like a giant was stomping around in there.

The bridge he had built of Mana was coming apart at the seams. The spell was failing under their collective weight. Perhaps not designed for this.

Mark's eyes locked on the creatures struggling form as it began speeding up.

“No way in hell you bastard,” he thought

He cast a second [Mind spike] with the last of his Mana.

Right away he could tell what he was trying to do was possible, just not for him. His mind couldn't handle two spells of this nature at once. However, if he let up here then the first spell would fail and the creature would be free.

His mind was breaking under the weight.

Mark didn't know what to do for a moment, the spell was stalling, the bridge was collapsing and his mind was crumbling.

Then he realized what he would do if he broke something in the real world.

He would fix it.

Prana rushed to his head, attempting to find the damage and repair it. It found none, but Mark pushed it to search for something less tangible. The Prana snagged against the edges of his consciousness. It felt weird.

With no time to figure it out, he tried to heal his mind, his will. The Prana filled the gaps, sealing the cracks closed.

Slowly as the two spells and dozens of minds wore down his mental wall, he began to heal it.

The second spell slowly slotted into place and Mark felt incredible pain lash through his mind, but he did it, the spell was completed.

Another [Mind spike] slammed into the creature's mind. The two iterations overlaid one another and the second spell expanded to support the first.

Mark strained under the new connection.

Something dripped down Mark's upper lip. The world slowed around him. Not only had he never used two spells like this at the same time, but now he had almost two dozen passengers fighting him.

Every thought in his mind was etched in painful detail.

Mark wrestled to the top and for an instant, he could see the room from twenty-three sets of eyes. He grabbed hold of the alpha, fully arresting its movement.

A ping echoed in his head.

“Now Sam!” he shouted for her, bringing the world back up to speed.

She shot a spear forward like a beam of white transparent fire that burned the retinas.

The spell charged toward the frozen creature and plunged right into its skull.

Dropping it to the floor, dead. Mark felt the connection severed immediately as its death reached Mark.

The weight vanished as their leader was no longer there to act as a conduit.

Mark reeled from the loss of connection and pain bounced through his mental scape. The spells collapsed.

Howles of rage and sorrow yipped through the air.

A ping came at the same time as a Prompt.

The anchor for this Dungeon has been removed. Dungeon # 43 will drop back to tier 0. Please continue to clear it to maintain this level.

Party Reward: 1 x silver rank mystery chest[Aura]

2 x Bronze rank mystery chest[Aura]

Distributing…

Congratulations you have received 1 x Bronze rank mystery chest[Aura] as a Dungeon reward!

Congratulations on being the first party to clear a Dungeon in this sector

Rewards: +15 attribute in your main path.

Sam sagged in exhaustion.

“Damn, I was going for contained plasma. Looks like I don't have it just yet” she said wistfully.

They then turned to the battle still raging behind them. Daphne and Jonathan dashed to help.

Mark was almost completely spent. He couldn't form any spells right now. His Mana was at rock bottom. The new attributes in Prana helped to bring him up to 21 Prana.

Mark let the Prana soothe his mind so would be ready to help when this fight was over.

Turning toward the raging battle Mark pulled out his rifle, taking shots to try to reduce the numbers.

All the while he kept an eye out for casualties. Ava was up and moving, but he saw heavy wounds on her, on everyone really.

He’d had to check but they were still on their feet, so he took that as a good sign.

The group of ghouls seemed to go crazy after the death of their leader. Throwing themselves at the squad, however once they gathered back up. The party systematically killed the remaining group. Which had dropped down to ten Ghouls.

Mark checked everyone’s wounds as soon as he got a moment. The wounds were many and nasty.

They flushed the affected area while Mark went around healing what he could. Davis had it the worst. One of the bolts had hit him in the neck. When Mark flushed the wound, he saw the surrounding flesh and larynx were damaged. He did his best to heal the man but told him not to talk too much for now.

Going through the squad's collection of wounds, Mark noticed that a good many of them were not life-threatening.

Aura had brought their wounds down to crippling. Mark realized that fighting against these monsters at close range was not only dangerous, but it weakened their frontline. They would have to be careful if these creatures started appearing on the surface.

His own body was not much better off and throbbing was building at his temples.

Mark did what he could for them with Prana, deferring to simply dressing their wounds when he ran out.

Once he was done he sat down light-headed. By then a headache to end all headaches pounded against the inside of his skull.

“Okay, I’m radioing command to tell them the mission was a success. We should rest here for the remainder of the night. We’ll make the journey home after some rest” Sam said.

There was no argument at all.

Mark heard the end of Sam's report on the radio.

“No casualties, repeat, no casualties”

Mark was sure he had a ton of prompts, and to distract himself from the soaring pain he started to go through them.

91 x Corrupted humanoid cleansed{Dungeon bonus X2}(182 + Sector reward: x4)[728]

16 x Corrupted Ordinator cleansed{Dungeon bonus X2}(64 + Sector reward: x4)[256]

1 x Corrupted Ghoul cleansed{Dungeon bonus X2}(6 + Sector reward: x4)[24]

252 System Points awarded

Partial exp awarded to (9 users - expand list)(Sector reward applied: 131)

Partial exp awarded to (Mark Young)(Sector reward applied: 131)

65.5 System Points awarded

Congratulations [Force bolt] has improved!

[Force bolt] has reached Rank 10.

The user may now improve an aspect of the existing spell or Evolve the spell into something new.

Improve/Evolve

Skill Acquired: Limit release(Mental)

You have learned to make the best of what you have. More than that, you have learned to push your mind beyond the physical, beyond what is safe. Affording you the strength to become more than what you are.

At the cost of mental integrity, accelerate your brain's calculational limit.

The strength of this skill is based on Mana and Resistance attributes.

Warning: this skill operates similarly to the [Duel cast] skill series and can be overlaid against it, but overuse will cause [Mind fractures].

1 x Corrupted Behemoth cleansed[chaos - 3]{Dungeon bonus X2}(30 + Sector reward: x4)[120] Partial exp awarded to (Jonathan Wilson, Samantha Dureal, and Daphne Colt)(Sector reward applied: 90)

8 System Points awarded

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

Partial exp awarded to (6 users - expand list)(Sector reward applied: 72)

Partial exp awarded to (Mark Young)(Sector reward applied: 72)

6 System Points awarded

576/576

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

625/625

Level up!

+2 Prana, +2 Resistance

“Behemoth, huh,” he thought sluggishly.

Daphne had been sitting next to him and had started talking at some point, but he wasn't sure when.

He squinted at her. She was talking again, but she looked worried.

“What is she saying?”

The world was turning fuzzy. Mark felt something running down his nose again. He brought his hand up and touched more wetness.

Looking down at his hand he saw red, more was running down his shirt.

Realizing something was wrong, he slammed his free points into Prana and set a [Regenerate] going.

With the last of his consciousness, he managed to direct it before the world went dark.