─────────────────────────────
STATUS:
Name: Enochia Adams
Title: N/A
Level: 28
EXP: 1,100 / 28,000
HP: 871 / 1,250
MANA: 3,190 / 3,300
STR: 32
AGI: 30
VIT: 25
FAI: 110
LCK: 16
DEF: 0
Free Points: 0
[ EXP ▓????????????????????? ] 4%
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After quickly allocating her free points, Enochia stared at the status window for half a heartbeat longer than necessary, then snapped it shut with a mental flick of her wrist.
She exhaled through her teeth.
[Dispel]
Cervain vanished, the poor half-melted knight folding back into whatever pocket dimension her summons were in. She’d apologize later for her idiocy, but for now, though—
[Chains of Nebuchadnezzar]
The dozen chains exploded from her palms like angry serpents finally let off the leash. They slammed down onto the giant obsidian crab with the sound of a cathedral bell being hit. The mother-beast shrieked a wet, grinding roar that vibrated the ash under her boots and tried to roll, tried to scuttle, tried to do literally anything except lie there pinned down, looking like a very expensive, very angry dinner plate.
Though, the chains didn’t care.
They coiled and tightened, and the more it tried to get them off, the more and more it got stuck.
[110 DMG dealt]
[110 DMG dealt]
[110 DMG dealt]
[110 DMG dealt]
[110 DMG dealt]
Her arms buckled for a second under the absurd collective weight, boots skidding forward half a meter before she caught herself. She snarled, flexed, and the chains held. They still pulled like a team of pissed-off oxen, but now? Now she could actually plant her feet and tell them to behave.
[Iron Grip]
A single, much thicker chain snapped out from her left hand. It locked onto one of the palm-sized babies skittering at the edge of the shore, yanked, and the little animal got launched straight at her face.
Though, it never made it to her.
The chain burned clean through it mid-flight. Orange shell cracked, insides flash-cooked, and the whole thing popped like an overripe tomato.
[136 DMG dealt]
[+1,500 XP]
[+6 Crab Legs]
[+1 Crab Broth]
Enochia blinked at the loot notification, then grinned so wide her split lip reopened. “Oh nice. I thought I would die of thirst down here, thank you little guy.”
She dashed at the dozens of those little guys going to their mama, and she was pleasantly surprised by the upgrade to her speed once again. This time, instead of a speeding bike, she felt like she was riding a not so fast motorcycle, but still tons faster than a bike! Also, the chains still dragged at her, sure, but now she could move with them instead of against them.
As she reached the crabs in mere second… Well you could say that the first one never saw her coming.
She slammed it down with a wet crunch, orange ichor spraying across her gauntlet like someone had thrown a bucket of paint.
[43 DMG dealt]
But since it was still alive, she continued hitting it until it was no longer with us.
[40 DMG dealt]
[46 DMG dealt]
[+1,800 XP]
[+3 Crab Legs]
[+1 Crab Claw]
“Ewwww,” she muttered, flicking gore off her wrist. “You guys were kinda cute. But you ruined my bath time. And your bitch of a mom hurt my baby. So game is game, little dudes.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Though the little crabs seemed not to give the slightest damn about Enochia herself, they just kept scuttling straight for their pinned-down mother in blind, mindless little waves, orange shells clicking and clacking over the scorched stone like a parade of very angry cutlery, and she almost felt bad for a quarter-second before remembering their oversized mama had tried to punt Cervain into next week.
Enochia sucked in a quick breath through her teeth, muttered a quick “Roo, please stop spamming my vision with every single tick, just bundle the damage, please?” and the system gave a soft chime of acknowledgment.
[Chains of Nebuchadnezzar]
The air around her snapped like a dozen whips made of lightning. Twenty-one fresh chains erupted from her palms, wrists, elbows and near shoulders, and after flying a bit into the air, they slammed down onto the nearest cluster of baby crabs.
The little ones didn’t even get time to squeak.
Shells shattered, ichor sprayed in hot arcs that hissed into steam the second they touched the ground, and the damage notifications collapsed into one clean, beautiful line.
[110 DMG dealt × 21]
Enochia barked a laugh. “Thanks babe.”
But the laugh died fast because behind her the mother crab let out a shriek that sounded unlike anything Enochia had ever heard, so she really did not even know what to compare it to, and the chains still tethered to the beast suddenly yanked with enough force to lift Enochia clean off her feet.
Her boots left the ash in a spray of black dust. She twisted mid-air, snarling, arms windmilling for balance as the world tilted and the giant obsidian nightmare thrashed.
“I know, girl.” she spat through gritted teeth while her body jerked like a marionette on frayed strings, “I feel the exact same way about you, so shut your fucking mouth.”
The chains were screaming now, metal groaning, links stretching, the ones already fused to the crab’s shell starting to glow dangerously bright as the strain built. She could feel them buckling, could hear the tiny pings of micro-fractures spiderwebbing through the links.
Not today.
She slapped open her inventory with a frantic thought, four Instafix capsules materializing in her shaking palm, and she slammed them against the nearest chain segments one after another, the capsules bursting into soft white light that raced along the metal.
The fractures sealed. The glow steadied. The chains snapped back to full integrity with an almost smug little chime.
Enochia hit the ground boots-first, the jolt rattling up her legs and into her spine like a hammer strike, knees bending deep to keep her from eating ash.
She tried to throw both hands forward again… Tried being the key word.
Even if she made herself stronger, the thrashing mother was a big problem, but still manageable. But with like twenty more chains stuck on those little crabs, each moving at the same direction... Well it added up.
Her shoulders screamed, the muscles in her upper back locking up so hard she could hear the faint pop of tendons straining, and for one ugly second her arms refused to rise more than a few trembling inches before the weight dragged them right back down.
She snarled through clenched teeth, blood still trickling from her lip, and planted her feet wider, leaning her whole body into the motion. Slowly, agonizingly so, her arms inched upward, elbows shaking, wrists quivering, every inch gained feeling like she was ripping her own skeleton apart link by link.
“Fuck. You. No,” she hissed, voice raw and trembling with effort. “Just once more, I need her to be chained for a bit more!”
One more heave and her arms finally came up far enough. Not high, but just barely enough.
[Chains of Nebuchadnezzar]
The new dozen ripped out anyway, tearing free from her palms and slamming down around her.
[110 DMG dealt × 19]
Then the window she’d been dying to see flashed across her vision.
[+52,800 XP]
[+71 Crab Legs]
[+10 Crab Broth]
[+6 Crab Claws]
[+1 Crab Shell]
[LEVEL UP!]
+2 Stat Points
+10 Souls
[LEVEL UP!]
+2 Stat Points
+10 Souls
Ok, ok, enough with the pop-ups! Even if she loved seeing them stack like candy, her skin was pulling like it wanted to peel itself right off her bones from the pressure of all those chains still clinging to her.
Everything else felt exactly the same as the rest of her: raw, stretched, on the verge of snapping. She could still feel the fifteen or so little crabs tangled up in the outer chains, scuttling and clicking in panic, and the mama was by far the worst offender.
The reinforcements she’d slapped on earlier were already half-destroyed again, so she really didn’t have time to stand around.
She needed to hurry. There was something she wanted to test.
[Darkness]
[Amount of Mana to use:----]
She felt the skill respond instantly, asking her and she dumped four hundred mana into it without hesitation.
[-400 Mana]
[+200 HP]
Dark, shadowy liquid poured out of nowhere and it washed over her in a rushing wave that covered every inch from the tips of her boots to the horns of her head.
Every bruise, every crack in her armor, every tear in her skin, every scorch mark from the burning flour got covered. The liquid seeped into the metal plates, smoothing out dents, sealing fractures, making the dark steel gleam like it had just rolled off the forge. Even the scratches on her gauntlets vanished, leaving the armor looking exactly the way it did the first time she woke up in Hell.
Enochia blinked down at herself, flexing her fingers, feeling the sudden lightness in her chest.
“Is my armor… part of my body now?” she muttered. “Who the fuck cares—this skill is broken as hell. Why didn’t I use it before? Oh right, no fights worth burning mana on. Never mind. This is good. This is really fucking good.”
[Dispel]
Every single chain vanished in a heartbeat, poof, gone, the weight lifting off her so fast and so completely that she actually staggered forward a step, suddenly light as a feather, like someone had cut every rope she’d ever been tied down with.
The crab didn’t care about dramatic timing. It charged straight at her.
Enochia laughed and raised one hand, pointing at the empty space right between them.
[Cloutless]
A golden mark burned itself into the cracked stone floor, and five perfect golden chains erupted from it like spears thrown by an impatient god.
They shot out in five different directions, four snapping around the nearest surviving baby crabs, one wrapping the mama’s massive torso in a single, brutal coil.
Then they all yanked back at once, dragging everything toward the center of the mark in a screaming, clattering knot of limbs and shell.
The chains imploded inward, collapsing into a single point of blinding golden fire that detonated outward in a roaring fireball.
[450 DMG dealt × 5]
The blast wave rolled over Enochia in a hot, stinging rush, but she didn’t even blink.
When the light faded, there was nothing left of the babies.
Nothing left of the mother except a few scorched craters in the ash and the faint smell of overcooked seafood.
The loot window popped up almost shyly, like it knew it had just witnessed something obscene.
[+38,800 XP]
[+43 Crab Legs]
[+2 Crab Broth]
[+1 Crab Claws]
[+3 Crab Soup]
[+1 Titanic Crab Claw]
[+1 Crown of the Drowned Matron]
[LEVEL UP!]
+2 Stat Points
+10 Souls
