The quality of items Shammus had stored in his inventory began depleting, as the desert kept up it’s harsh conditions. He held the charm close to his chest, as another Sword Master approached.
“Well well well… If it isn’t the Forgotten Swordmaster!” This one was a woman, Shammus was tired of having to kill the same compatriots he got the title of Sword Master alongside.
“Nn… And unfortunately I had to run into you, Scylla.” Shammus spoke bitterly towards her, clearly refusing to speak her real name.
“Aww, still using the code name I had during that war! Wasn’t that over 20 years ago?”
“Correct, but that isn’t forgotten history for me.” Shammus raises his blade, already glowing in the deep red only knowable to his enemies and allies.
“Ha! Then I guess you won’t mind me calling you your code name, Achilles.” Her voice was sweet, similar to the beast she was named after. But Shammus held similarities to his code name-sake as well.
However that is where the similarities stopped to their namesakes, since Shammus was not invincible all but to one part, and his injuries were growing during this fight. And Scylla was no nine headed monster not even Godlike Odysseus harmed, the two were mortal, and aging fast.
The system stopped aging after Level 250, which both reached way too late in their lives to gain too much benefit from, only becoming immortal around 40-50. But thankfully for Shammus, he never let age get in the way. Scylla did, her old joints she stopped training, leaving the stats to speak for themselves.
Shammus, or as Scylla’s final words called him, Achilles, was successful, as not only did his stats speak for a higher number, but his muscles stayed in experience, even before entering the tower.
The small text bubble pops up, one with a far sadder intonation then it had back when he was young, “[LEVEL UP!]”, but it continued on, [LEVEL IS NOW-
Meanwhile, on a lesser Floor…
The party of five heroes wandered in, Sornid casting a Light spell behind and ahead of the group, allowing themselves to see. The temple’s dark energy didn’t dissipate, rather it thickened like a fog around the group.
It was almost suffocating the dark energy, and it only got thicker as it got onwards. It got enough to the point Pallad had to cut through it to even move forward. It was a terrifying location, usually dungeons are full of monsters, the main worry typically being getting swarmed and overwhelmed.
But in this place, there was nobody, not a single living soul in sight other than the putrid black. The light itself, usually able to light up an entire great hall with light similar to great moonlight outside, the sky itself going dark with the light pollution, was hardly comparable to a torch’s meager distance.
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The darkness, clearly unable to be revoked with the Light Magic of Clara, as she had attempted once the light spell went out the first time, left them all in complete and utter black, the sound changing from stone to wading their feet through a thin layer of water.
Although this water was thicker, and despite their lack of sight, they kept close together. The darkness was dispersed, as a single person on a throne stared down at them. There were many monster corpses lined up besides the walls, as the pale face stood from the throne. The thin layer of liquid was now visibly blood as the great window above lit up the room with the moon.
“Wait, wasn’t it daytime when we had arrived?” Bariton raises his voice in question at the oddities shown within this chamber.
“Yes, it was…” Clara answered, casting upon all of them a water walking spell. It wouldn’t have worked had she not known it was blood before the spell was cast, and she knew this well. Sornid took note of Clara’s casting of spells and pulled out his very own grimoire.
Pallad pulled out his flail, with Bariton his lyre. The final member, Judine, pulled out her own gavel and Scales of Justice. The battle had yet to begin, but the Lord who was stepping down the stairs to his throne, already drew his sword, which seemed to emanate the exact same darkness, but more putrid and far far more rotten.
“Why must you come and bother my lair?” The tall pale man spoke, his dark hair flowing in a nonexistent wind. Clearly inhuman with the fangs sharp enough to easily pierce through skin.
“Ah, it’s simple, we are simply looking for a way onwards in our long journey.” Bariton steps forward, ensuring all attacks aimed at him, if he were to dodge, wouldn’t hit his party. He lightly takes a bow towards the beast who looks human.
“You lower your head not enough for the Count of this area, especially one ageless similar to I.” The Count had answered, with a swift blow towards Bariton using the blade.
Bariton quickly moved out of the way, in fact casting a Slow spell along with [Swiftness] upon his own party. The two skills together allow the damage dealers to quickly catch the foul beast in a combination Skill, with Sornid casting [Firestorm], Pallad casting [500 Strikes], and Clara casting [Purifying Light].
As the fire beams up, with a strike down of holy light and the constant attacking from Pallad, the beast is left with not much, but he is slowly reforming. Bariton’s quick action of calling out that he is obviously a Vampire and Judine’s [Imprisonment] skill to prevent movement from the foul beast thankfully stopped the weapon from piercing Pallad’s throat.
During the brief time the Vampire stayed chained up, Bariton quickly cast a Damage Type altering skill, and changed everyone’s damage to Holy. The next spell Sornid cast was the nail in the coffin for the beast, being [Annihilation].
All that was left was all of the party gaining the same notification, [LEVEL UP!] with a grateful continuation [YOUR LEVEL IS NOW 79!]. They all looked through the rewards, including over 500,000 Coin, and even more EXP at 100,000,000.
The five of them all allocated their stats, and Pallad got the sword. It was apparently called the Slaughterer’s Sword, with the special On Hit effect causing the body to rot while the user is still living.
It wasn’t too strong other than the Rot ability, with that it practically disabled all regeneration of anything, and even inversed the effect of most healing. Instead of regaining HP, it lost it at half the rate you would’ve recovered it.
The Damage numbers themselves weren’t too special, being Strength multiplied by 10, compared to the Flail it was puny. But the Rot… It was truly an evil power, one capable of ending fights in an instant if it’s something that was capable of healing itself beyond just natural regeneration, and if it relied on regeneration to tank hits it was also done for.
