The Pinnacle Warrior

Chapter 204: Branching Understanding

Muti’s laughter echoed through the Dungeon branch as she cut the wyvern’s wing off with one single attack. Her new weapon, the only Steel tier piece of equipment that the party had so far, was performing admirably. As the wyvern tumbled through the air, unable to keep itself aloft, Muti passed from Astrid’s vision under its wing and then reappeared on the ground.Astrid wanted to ask her ally questions, but now wasn’t quite the time. They’d just re-entered the Dungeon branch to resume their assignment, and she wasn’t going to leave herself open to attacks from a crippled but not killed monster.

Without pulling on any Skills, Astrid ran towards the monster, the earth shaking underfoot as the massive creature tumbled and rolled on the ground. It wailed in agony and despair as it tried to find its feet. Unfortunately, its long, venomous tail seemed to be mostly uninjured from the fall, and Astrid stayed very aware of the tail as she circled around to the head to deal the dragon deadly blows.

The beast seemed to have been helped by the fact that its neck was so flexible, as its scales all along its neck had been shattered by the fall, but its neck still moved freely. It looked at her and hissed a threat, but she didn’t care to consider it as anything more than the last movements of a dead creature. She ran forward and started smashing her hammer into its head from different angles, side, side, then above, and after six strikes, its resistance died and it fell to the ground. Two more hits after that brought the kill notification, and Astrid nodded.

“Obviously the new weapon’s doing its job,” she said as she turned towards Muti.

Instead of answering, the Barbarian raised the sword above her head and cheered. The weapon that the Craftsman had provided to them was similar to her previous heavy blade. Also a seax, the new weapon was longer than her previous one, which had been about 60 centimeters long from tip to the bottom of its hilt. The weapon came to a point along the blade, a single brutish line that was covered with delicate-looking enchantments. The new one was actually longer than what Muti had requested, being nearly 90 centimeters long. 

Her immediate response had been negative, as it was half again as long as her original, but Olafson had made a very good argument that she didn’t even try to argue with: “A longer, stronger blade will keep you from spending as much mana to make your strikes deadly. The weaker and smaller the weapon, the more your mana has to cover for it. The dragon Boss is much larger than the wyverns you’ll be facing, and its defenses stronger. You’re already struggling to kill with your Iron tier weapons. If you want to exhaust your mana fighting the Boss, go ahead. If not, you might as well get better at controlling a slightly longer weapon, just like this. I hope you get accustomed to it, since doing that will make you more deadly without being too reliant on your mana, like the Barbarians prefer.”

She had taken the weapon right then, the party paying only 200 gold for it. From what very little Astrid knew about equipment, she was fairly certain that the price was a steal, though Benedict had spent about twenty minutes haggling and arguing with the Craftsman about prices. Like so many other people engaged in selling equipment seemed to do, Olafson threw himself into negotiations without delay, and with a broad smile. The final price was eventually reduced by 25 gold pieces, and, as soon as she was allowed, Muti bound the new weapon in place of her previous seax.

“How’s the mana cost compare with the new one?” Astrid continued.

“It is hungrier for my mana than the old one,” Muti reported, “but it does much more with a single strike than even four full power strikes would have been. I will need to be more careful not to accidentally provide too much to it again.”

“So that hit on the wyvern,” Astrid confirmed with a surprised grunt, “was much more than the strike required?”

“I would say that was obvious,” Muti replied. “The general enchantments on the blade also strengthened the effect of Shadow Strike, so the Skill itself did far more than before as well.”

Astrid blew out a long breath, nodding. “So you’ll need more practice to make sure you’re not wasting mana. No reason to be using two or three times as much mana as was necessary.”

“I am looking forward to the day in which you become in possession of a Steel tier weapon of your own,” Muti said, moving past Astrid’s latest statement as Astrid worried at her bottom lip. “The one you wield now is far from suitable for your strength.”

Astrid chuckled for a moment, allowing herself to be pulled from her frustration. Muti had immediately zeroed in on Astrid‘s emotions, comparing her equipment to Muti’s. Regardless of what the other woman said, Olafson had said he would get more equipment over to them before long, though each side of the partnership agreed that they wouldn’t replace their equipment wholesale and all at once. As it was, for now, each member of the party gained a bit over 300 experience apiece and took another short step towards the next level.

“Seeing this just… is a little bit disappointing,” Skandr said.

“I wish I didn’t immediately understand what you were saying,” Astrid chuckled. “We need to start fighting monsters the watershed above us, if even wyverns can’t pose much of a threat to us like this.”

“Or fight swarms again,” Skandr said. 

“If you’ve got spells you specifically want to try,” Astrid replied, “then I’ll make sure you get the opportunity. After all, we all would like experience at some point, not to stay in Iron forever.”

“You mean Steel,“ Benedict corrected her, and Astrid waved her hand dismissively through the air.

“You know what I meant. Large numbers of slightly weaker monsters will be good to help us progress through the levels and get a lot more experience. After all, we’ve got twenty more levels we can gain here in the Sanctuary before we might have to leave. I’d rather not have that be ten years from now, if I can help it.”

“But we are going to need to continue to push ourselves,” Felix said, offering nothing else.

“I’m not suggesting we start charging through a village of level 50 hobgoblins to get levels as fast as possible,” Astrid replied, “but we can see that killing a lot of monsters that aren’t necessarily a huge challenge like in the Trials can still result in good Skill options and Class evolutions. After all, I took what, almost two years to evolve from Bronze, and I was the fastest of all of us. And that was with us all pushing so hard to make sure we qualified for the Trials for the final two months.

“Following that same path would mean that we would take another two years, at least, to get to the point where we would be talking with the Verdant Walkers again about our continued residence here.”

“We are going to go a lot faster than that, though,” Benedict replied. “I was there, I know that we weren’t confronting monsters a watershed higher than us until we were only one or two levels short of that watershed ourselves. In case you forgot, to get experience to evolve to Steel, we were hunting Steel tiers at level 45. We had a chance of killing a Boss at the peak of the first watershed of Steel that we only missed out on because it was in the water and we couldn’t do much about that. So let’s not rush. We’re assigned to be here in the Dungeon right now, and if we continue to get equipment like Olafson is promising us, we’ll get to the point where these wyverns are easy prey before long.”

“I agree,” Astrid said, “we need to make sure we’re always pushing harder and harder, growing more and more, because the Great One will know when we start to hold back and fail to experiment. However, Muti is always going to need to practice new skills with her Boon of the Mana-Touched. Skandr is always going to have new spells to experiment with. Felix needs experience protecting the party against innumerable foes, and I need to, despite my Class’s function and focus, learn how to pace myself when fighting against hundreds or even thousands of enemies. You need to continue your experimentation with Skill flexibility while also pushing the Skills themselves and finding out what else is possible. All of that sounds like things to do while surrounded by weaker monsters in other branches or parts of the Dungeon proper. Might as well get a bunch of experience and push ourselves through some of the levels faster while we’re at it.”

“We’re both saying the same thing,” he said, glancing between all of the members of the party, “I’m not sure why you’re arguing with me about this.”

Astrid paused for a second, realized what she just said, and nodded her head. “I apologize.”

“I think that’s the point you’re getting at,” Skandr said, “is that we want to get into the Dungeon proper, sooner rather than later. There will be plenty more opportunities to gain experience and to push ourselves there than in these branches and variation will keep us growing. It's just… I guess I’d call it uncomfortable to realize that these are the monsters that were always scary in any stories I heard as a kid, as well as the single time we ran into one. Now, instead of something to fear and flee from, we can bully a wyvern instead of struggle in a fight against it, and I’d suspect that, with what Muti can do now, two or even three wouldn’t be much of an issue at the same time.”

“They are clever,” Muti shook her head. “Those we have fought until now have fallen quickly to our ambushes because they have not seen our capabilities before it is too late for them to respond. If one is able to see my sudden appearance and the crippling of their fellow, then they would be much more focused on protecting themselves than those we have killed until now, I am sure.”

“I think she’s got the right of that,” Astrid nodded. “Even if they’re not true dragons, they’re lesser ones and aren’t pushovers. Plus, they have to have something that allows them to crash through fully grown trees without any issue, which means they’ll be tougher than we’ve seen, or will be able to show that better in a more prolonged fight. I thought I saw their scales clump together defensively when they purged the Skill, is that right?”

“Yes, it’s definitely at least a partially defensive Skill,” Skandr agreed.

“Will I need to test my blade against its defenses in such a way?” Muti asked, eagerness dripping from every word she said.

“I don’t think we need to consciously look for an opportunity like that,” Astrid chuckled, “but I’m sure you’ll find one before long.”

The party continued speaking for a while, but with what they learned, the tension of fighting the wyverns in the nest was largely drained away. On the first floor, they quickly dispatched another five wyverns, as they’ve been contracted to do, and moved onto the next floor with a certain surprise in the way they carried themselves.

The second, third, and fourth floors passed without incident and finally, on the fifth, things changed. The nightmares that had been common enough to find on the earlier floors now wandered in herds of ten to twelve, but were much more skittish than on the earlier floors. It wasn’t long before the Wanderers saw why that was, when a pair of wyverns crested a nearby hill, flying at a breakneck speed, and straight towards the horse-like monsters. The nightmares reared around to charge towards the wyverns, their charging Skill activating as a thick black miasma covered them and solidified into a shield before them.

The Wanderers watched as the first wyvern activated two of its Skills in unison, the defensive Skill that thickened and locked its scales together as well as the wind burst. Then, prepared, it continued charging through the nightmares’ Skill with a crunching sound. The battle commenced in truth maybe a kilometer away from the Wanderers, the aftershocks of Steel tiers’ Skills exploding against each other, throwing rubble all the way to where the party stood.

With the first wyvern’s attack, the nightmares’ charge was broken, though it had taken the entirety of both Skills to expose their prey, not to pick off any of the other monsters. The herd’s counter attack thwarted, the smoky horses attempted to flee while the second wyvern charged into them with its tail shooting in one direction, and then the other. Three fell, twitching and thrashing from the venom as both wyverns went further to catch another six of the horse like monsters for their meal.

“Now is as good as time as any,“ Astrid muttered to the rest of the party as she looked at the two lesser dragons feasting on the black bodies of their prey.

“I’m leading,” Felix said, and the rest agreed. He rolled his shoulders as Skandr gave him the equivalent of Lightning Reflexes that the wizard had developed over the past year, and Benedict took out his flute and prepared to bolster their charge with Voice of Liberation.

Less than ten seconds had passed since they decided to make their attack, and Felix nodded at once as he settled his feet solidly on the ground and then led the charge forward. He started only a split second earlier than the rest of the party, leaving trails of lightning in his wake as he sprinted forward, and Benedict had to hurry and burn Alacrity-aligned mana to ensure that the Guardian remained within the 50 meters of effect of Voice of Liberation. 

Once the Bard managed to maintain everybody within that 50 meter area, the party stayed together, Skandr’s fingers dancing and leaving a trail of crackling sigils in his wake. As Felix threw himself at the wyverns, Astrid flicked her gaze back just long enough to see as Skandr finished the incantations for whatever he was doing and the sigils snapped forward a hundred meters to encompass his hands with golden lightning.

“I’ll want a charge of Physique when you can offer it,” he said as the golden lightning darkened to a glimmering scarlet, and then a maroon so deep as to border on black. His face went pale as he clapped his hands together, and an imitation of his hands expanded into existence above his head. Both of the Archwizard's feet were solidly planted, and the longer he stood still, the more solid the hands appeared as they swelled to two meters each and his boon strengthened the spell.

Felix raised his shield and obviously channeled Raging Guardian as he flashed forward with a speed that Astrid could barely comprehend. His shield glowed with mana that reinforced it and pulled the first wyvern towards it. Without any additional Skill charges to bolster its defenses, the wyvern‘s head was smashed to the side, crashing through two tree trunks before thumping against the ground. It bounced up, and Felix followed through, his axe falling towards its eye.

His attempted quick kill was stopped as the wyvern’s scales flexed back together, and his axe bounced off of a pearlescent barrier that appeared over the monster's piggy eye.

“At most seventy seconds for the armor skill to be replenished,” he shouted as both wyverns threw themselves at him. Their tails lasted forward, deadly venom spraying forward as he raised his shield and activated his Boon barrier. Sky blue mana pulsed out from him and repelled the venom as the tails smashed towards him. Both were repelled by the combination of his shield and barrier, and his axe fell on the slightly wounded one's tail. It found a small chink in the monster’s armor, but the lesser dragons’ greatest weapon wasn’t so fragile, and he didn’t do any lasting damage.

The other wyvern started to throw itself at him, the one that Astrid was thinking of as the female, but she and Skandr's hand spell arrived before it could do anything. The hands crackled with a threatening energy as they cast a deeper red light with each movement. One hand grabbed the wyvern by the back of its head and smashed it viciously into the ground, while the other seized on the creature's tail and did the same. The spell didn’t stop there, raising the head and tail up again and again like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Both fists smashed the monster's body into the ground again and again, blood flowing like a fountain from its every facial orifice while its tail was reduced to pulped flesh.

“I guess you’ve got that one,” Astrid called out to the Wizard as she jumped at the other. She noted Muti appearing on the bound female wyvern’s back, and was convinced that the monster was absolutely done for. A small part of her thought of running back to Skandr, using Physique to help him replenish his stores and strengthening her attack enough to kill this other monster, but she decided against it. It wasn’t worth it, and she just wanted to do something herself anyways.

The male wyvern immediately realized that the man surrounded by lashing mana was the source of its mate’s suffering, and tried to attack. Felix forced its attention back on him with Defender’s Mandate, and its head turned towards him with obvious hatred in its eyes. Its jaws and tail shot towards the Guardian, and he used the enchantment on his shield to pull the tail into the wood as his axe smashed into the side of its head and knocked it aside.

Astrid took that opportunity to activate Body Surge and close the distance, then pushing nearly half of her mana and stamina into a Spectral Graviton centered on her hammer’s head before finally spending a charge of Physique and targeting herself and Felix with it. Her resources spiked as she planted her feet, twisted with her whole body, and smashed her hammer into the base of the wyvern’s skull.

Bone crunched and the monster, largely spent from the hunt and fighting to get to its companion, succumbed to the deadly energy within Astrid’s hammer. It fell, dead, and Astrid allowed herself a smile. Here, on the fifth floor, they would face a bit of a challenge once again, and Astrid reminded herself not to get too set in her habits so as not to experiment with her Skills.

After all, on this floor, there were at least another eight wyverns they had to kill, and it would be boring if she did the same thing to every one of them.