Chapter 53: Blitz
The wall separating Zac and the cavern was less than a decimeter thick, and wouldn’t be able to hold against him kicking it down. Luckily there were no crystals embedded that strengthened its integrity as well. He moved his axe to his left hand and gripped a throwing knife in his other.
After a few deep breaths, he put all his weight on his left leg and kicked forward with all the power he could muster. A deep thud echoed out and a large part of the wall completely crumbled. Zac shouldered his way through the newly created crevice, not caring about the few cuts he got from the sharp rocks.
He immediately threw his dagger with full force at the Herald, hoping for a quick conclusion. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, as the blade seemingly combusted by itself and turned to ashes as it approached the large imp.
Zac wasn’t surprised, and without hesitation pushed forward. He managed to kill two of the smaller imps with daggers on his approach, and then he was instantly within 10 meters of the herald.
The boss roared angrily and lifted the ladle, using it as a staff. A huge wave of pitch-black flames rolled outward toward Zac. Anything it touched turned to ashes immediately, even a few unfortunate imps that were incinerated since they stood at the wrong position in the cave.
A golden sheen enveloped Zac completely, and he jumped through the wall of flames. He could hear a peal of eerie laughter and a snap, then he was through the flames. He didn’t hesitate and pushed all cosmic energy he was able to gather into the fractal on his hand, creating a five-meter blade which whooshed toward the herald.
The blade slammed into an invisible barrier and started sizzling, causing extraordinary pain somehow transmitting into Zac’s mind. But Zac’s power wasn’t for show, and after a brief struggle the blade pressed on, slamming into the Herald’s body.
Zac expected the Herald to be bisected, but with a shocked expression saw its seemingly simple robe light up and protect its body. The robe couldn’t remove the huge momentum from the swing though, and the monster was shot into a close wall like a rocket.
Zac rushed after it and was almost upon it to end the fight.
The Herald spat out a mouthful of purple blood from the impact and screeched angrily at Zac. Its four eyes started blazing ominously, and once again summoned flames. This time nothing in the cave was safe, as black insidious waves billowed in all directions from floor to ceiling. The Herald was like a demonic sun that radiated nefarious flames that wanted to consume the world. The mounds of resources instantly turned to ashes, and the few leftover imps perished as well. The only thing that could stand the onslaught was the cauldron which seemed completely unaffected by the flames.
Zac had already used his armor’s one-time defense inscription, and could only grit his teeth and force his way through the sea of fire. The fires would extinguish as soon as the Herald died, so he placed a bet that the fight wouldn’t last long.
The scorching pain that enveloped him was far worse compared to the normal hellfire of the smaller imps, and it caused him to scream and stumble. The swing that was supposed to cleave the Herald in two lost much of its power and his aim got off-kilt. But he at least managed to slice one of the Herald’s arm clean off spraying blood everywhere.
He shakily prepared to swing his axe once more, but the Herald had had enough. With a few flaps of its wings, it desperately tried to flee, leaving a trail of burning blood in its wake as it escaped through the flames. Every flap of its wings caused the flames to erupt in the air, creating a natural barrier from chasing it.
Zac couldn’t afford to let yet another Herald to flee his pursuit, and charged most of his remaining energy into [Chop] once again, and furiously swung a five meter edge after the fleeing imp. But the imp was quick and he saw that his edge wouldn’t reach even when maxed out.
That was extremely bad news as the whole cave was still covered in the black flames, and they were quickly consuming him whole. If he didn’t kill the Herald he would likely perish before getting out of there. Anger and desperation filled Zac’s mind as he maniacally tried to increase the reach of the blade.
“REACH!” he roared as the edge was moving horizontally in the imp’s direction.
Suddenly, the blade detached from his axe, and continued outward like a wave. It moved as fast as his swing did, and soon reached the back of the fleeing Herald. It proceeded and penetrated the imp without any resistance from the magic robe, Splitting its torso and wings in two.
The body various body parts of the Herald fell to the ground, and Zac thankfully saw the flames covering the cavern quickly snuff out. He didn’t have time to go over the battle scene, as a gang of screeching imps entered through the entrances. Now that the hellscape had subdued, the back-up could finally enter without being incinerated.
Zac was in no mood to fight these little demons, and threw out the huge salamander carcass to block the incoming fireballs. With the newfound room, he placed the Herald’s cauldron in his magic pouch and dashed out the same way as he came.
He kept running through the tunnels to create some distance from the area controlled by the imps, elated with the result of the fight. His bet had been successful.
He had planned to avoid a drawn-out fight with the Herald, and thrown everything he got on it from the start. With how dangerous the small imps were he knew that the Herald would be a true terror if allowed to fire off its attacks. He hadn’t even taken time to use his [Eye of Discernment] on the boss, afraid it would slow him down a fraction of a second.
He had also learned his lesson from the fight with the Monkey King, ending the battle before reinforcements could arrive. Certainly, last time he had been tricked into thinking he killed all the backup until they sprang out of the ground like mushrooms. But that only showed that anything could happen in a fight, and the longer it dragged on the more variables could crop up.
With his blazing speed the imp boss only managed to shoot two attacks before he was killed, and only one of them had managed to hit him.
Zac touched to his scalp as he ran and grimaced as he felt that all the hair on his head was singed clean off. After a quick confirmation, the same held true for his eyebrows and beard. He didn’t have a mirror with him but he could only assume he looked like a beggar monk by now.
His felt body felt drained and burned, and he stopped as soon as he felt the distance was enough. He had consumed almost all his cosmic energy during the fight, and the hell flames the imp spewed out burned his vitality or soul as well, making him feel truly wrung out.
He sat down on some moss, brought out a bottle of water, and opened up his status page.
Name
Zachary Atwood
Level
34
Class
Hatchetman (F)
Race
Human (F)
Alignment
Human (Earth)
Titles
Born for Carnage, Ultimate Reaper, Luck of the Draw, Giantsbane, Disciple of David, Overpowered, Slayer of Leviathans, Adventurer, Demon Slayer I, Full of Class, Rarified Being, Trailblazer, Child of Dao, The Big 500
Dao
Seed of Heaviness – Early
Strength
175
Dexterity
59
Endurance
100
Vitality
69
Intelligence
49
Wisdom
49
Luck
67
Free Points
3
Nexus Coins
545716
The battle had only given him one level, compared to the almost 3 from the last Herald he killed. He currently felt he was roughly halfway to level 35. That showed just how much harder it was getting to level up the higher his level became. The only reason he kept leveling quite quickly was that his killing speed had improved faster compared to the increasing level requirements.
Before doing anything else he quickly opened his quest page as well to make sure whether what he killed was actually a Herald or not.
Off With Their Heads (Unique): Kill the four heralds and the general of an incursion within 3 months. Reward: 10 E-Grade Nexus Crystals, E-Grade equipment, unique building depending on performance. (3/5)
It was indeed the third Herald he killed. He sighed in relief, elated with finally having moved his quest forward. He had been looking for this boss for weeks and started to worry whether he would find it in time to complete the quest. But this part was finally solved.
He already knew where the last herald was located, and it was badly wounded to boot. The last missing piece of the puzzle was the general. Zac still had no idea how to locate and eradicate him or her, but one step at a time.
However, the good news didn’t continue.
Zac closed down his quest page in order to allocate his points into Strength and Endurance as usual. This time something went wrong, however, and he was unable to put his free point into Strength. He put two points into Endurance without a problem, bringing his total to 103. But no matter how many times he tried, he simply couldn’t allocate his last free point into Strength. Zac started getting a sinking feeling in his stomach, worried he might have screwed up quite badly.
It looked like he had reached his cap for Strength. This was extremely bad news as his main stat was Strength, and he automatically got 3 points allocated every time he leveled up. Would he able to level up at all? Would he just loose those 3 points if he gained a level? What if his Dao Seed improved or he gained a new Title?
He didn’t believe that 175 Strength was the limit of what was possible in the multi-verse. Those titans he saw in the vision should have had thousands in Strength from the aura they emitted. Therefore the problem came down to how to increase his limit.
Zac pondered for a few minutes and came up with a few ways that might work. The simplest method, and the one he desperately hoped was true, was that the cap would increase with a set amount of points every time he got a level. Then his problem would be taken care of. If the increase per level was low he could simply allocate his free points into more Endurance or a third stat.
But if this wasn’t the case his problem got a lot thornier, because the only other method he could think of currently was getting an upgrade. Both his Race and Class were currently F-Graded. If he upgraded one of them, his limits might get increased as well.
The problem was that he had no idea how to do that. Usually, in games, you got a class upgrade when you reached a set level. Unfortunately, Zac didn’t know whether this was at level 35, 50 or even 100.
As for Race, he was even more clueless. He had seen no indication anywhere what to do about race, and the only hint he had gotten that it was actually upgradeable was that the grade got added when he attained a class.
It might take a long time until he found a solution to this problem. The thought of losing tens of levels worth of attributes while he waited for getting an upgrade made Zac truly sick to his stomach.
Zac’s vision started to close in on him, and his thoughts were getting scattered. Suddenly he puked out a large mouthful of blood and bile, before falling down on the ground.
‘Something else is making me sick as well’ Zac realized, just before passing out.