Chapter 154: Relying only on yourself
It feels as if time has slowed down as both warriors dash at me, and the shamans start mumbling something. I see mana collecting in their hands.
The warriors reach me, and the first shaman finishes his casting. The area around me changes. It's as if I was thrown into the deep mud, and the harder I try to move, the more difficult it becomes. It's the same field the Goblin shaman on the first floor used.
But not this time.
My mana resonates against the field around me. I take a step to the side to dodge a stab and block the attack from the second goblin.
The field changes slightly, and [Resonance] fails.
Interesting.The roots of this story extend from novell bìn origin.
I create armor around my body, filling it with as much mana as possible and it deflects the next few attacks from the goblin warrior.
Meanwhile, I reach towards the field around me with [Resonance], but it fails again. So I observe it deeper and then realize something. The shaman changed the frequency his mana works on to activate the field. It wasn't a significant change that would affect the skill. No, he only twisted it slightly in response to my [Resonance].
One of the warriors' spears gets covered in pale blue mana. As he stabs at me, it pierces through my armor and into my leg.
I ignore it and send more mana toward my armor, turning it a darker shade of blue.
My attention is on the field around me and my skill.
I observe, I perceive, and I [Focus], adjusting [Resonance] slightly in a similar way to how the shaman did. I change the frequency it works on, and the field around me disappears.
No longer slowed, my kick sends one warrior flying away. I immediately shoot my flames at him, all the heat I drew from the air while dealing with phantom goblins. I feel relief as I finally release all that heat and it blazes up into the surroundings.
Before the flames reach him, the second shaman does something to them. My flames change direction as they approach and are all drawn towards the goblin shaman with ease, ignoring my hold over the flames and the fact they're mine.
Again, I resonate against the field about to slow me down. I disrupt the mana strengthening the goblin warriors and stab my dagger through one of them, barely avoiding the other. The wounded goblin warrior jumps away.
The remaining warrior jumps away, and as if it's a signal, the field tries to slow me again. This time, it operates on multiple frequencies. At the same time, my flames and goblins are launched at me as three dark orange fireballs.
As for Beyond, it's different than I expected. Well, it's not like I knew what to expect from it.
The first floor's objective was to survive 30 days; the Beyond's first quest is to survive 1 hour. Right now, it feels as if this place is designed to filter out the “weeds” in a similar way to the first floor. It's either that or each time I enter Beyond, I will return to the floors I already visited, and they will be much harder.
And hell, the Beyond is difficult. Extremely difficult. I am absolutely sure I'm currently the only one from our group able to survive this. Maybe not even Tess would be able to stay alive, and I consider her to be the strongest after me.
Question mark monsters are everywhere, so many of them. Heck, I still remember my surprise when a bunch of Cinderbears popped up at the start.
The presence of the giant Cinderbear gets closer, and I stand up again, quickly running away. This time I try to use the least amount of mana and be as efficient as possible.
From a distance, I continue to observe the Cinderbear. The monster is massive, easily as big as the Undead bear and deer I fought. Like them, he also has two question marks. Not around level 150 like them. No, this cuddly bear is well over 200.
Yet, the entire time I watch him, and feel his gaze on me, I think of how I could kill him.
All while dealing with goblins once in a while. Each goblin warrior is around level 150. High enough to tear through most members of group 4. Yet I'm doing fine. Wounded in multiple places, poisoned, with my mana barely replenishing and slowly getting lower, I'm calmer than before.
I'm alone, relying only on myself.
I don't have to care about anyone. I can go all out and fight as I want, and all this danger pushes me to my limits.
Is it supposed to be like that, or am I just that strong, stronger than the standard? How strong am I from the point of view of the system?
I stand up, and a little bit of blood remains on the ground where I sat. Huh. I focus a bit more and tighten the mana bandages around my waist, chest, and thigh. The wounds continue to refuse to close.
After checking my reserves, I realize that I have barely around half of my mana left, which reduces the efficiency of my Mana-Fortified Resilience. It's fine, I'll push through.
When there are only 30 minutes remaining, the suns disappear from the sky as if someone flipped a switch.
On a void black night sky without any stars, lights appear. Beautiful blue, green, and pink polar lights swirl all around, lighting up the ground underneath with moving and uneven light.
As if all at once, the screeches of the monsters sound all around me. The goblins, wolves, bears. All terrifying and full of anger.
Then I feel all the presences moving towards me.