Chương 159: AF Chapter 158 – Another Pit

Lightning crashed and rang against the Shields, swirls of Debuffs came in from the grievvers in the back, and were then popped by Dispels washing out from me and removing the hostile, corrupted magic. The melee line ground through the grievvers implacably, their speed and ferocity greater than even before the Fall, if not the raw power of their blows. Multiple attacks did what powerful attacks had then, a savage reaping as they trod the dead grievvers underfoot, eventually making it all the way to the crossways.

Kris split the last grievver on her side up the middle, and it died as Lost Light sliced through its innards and destroyed its insides. Before it could even reflexively fold up in death, she was off to the left, while Rogar, Kopf, and the Mick rapidly de-limbed the last Bile there with swift and sure strokes, and four shots from the archers spit its braincase cleanly. This was a Total Clear run, and that meant any grievvers off to the sides had to be slain. The easiest way to do that was to lure them in.

The Mick promptly headed off to the right, while I readied a Vuln, and everyone lined up to take on what Kris would be pulling in. Not that she couldn't kill it, but this was about speed, and many Weapons make things faster. It wasn't hard to track her return, Quaver glowing and leaving a stream of Lost Light spirals behind her. T he last grievver there bounced and leapt after her as if it didn't know how to walk, only spring along.

The Vuln flashed up, the Bows thrummed, and the Bile Grievver was checked just a bit as they plunged into it like deep-punching bits of the sun. Regardless, it kept coming, unaware of the subtle positioning as it saw its prey holding position to meet it…" Tremble!" I saw the clutch of its limbs at the kiai as it charged in and Kris countered, slamming full into it and stopping it in place as Quaver plunged deep into its thorax. It quivered for just a moment…

and then Kopf slammed it from the side and drove it hard into the wall. Accent chopped down, forelimbs dropped free, Land hacked into the back end of the thing and its scrabbling legs there, and Quaver swirled through cross-cuts faster than the blink of an eye. Kopf spun away, and the stunned Bile only managed to twitch before the second volley impaled its braincase with practiced precision.

The melees shifted sides as us ranged support turned around, a whooping cry letting us know the Mick was coming back, even if the tracking indicator in the Detect Good/Evil Status indicator wasn't marking everything with an Alignment in range for our attention, and we didn't have this short complex completely mapped out with all the spawn points marked and obvious.

Another Bile Grievver was coming after him, and the same sequence of events followed, but this time starting with Rogar and Kris standing there to impale it as the Mick slipped between them. It drove itself onto Sword and Glaive, was shoved up off the ground and its belly exposed as the ruinous effect of the Archer's Stand Thrust drove triple damage hijinks into its insides.

Bows thrummed, Kopf caught the Mick, spun completely in a circle that had the Mick actually walking the walls at one point, and together they turned completely around and drove into the grievver from the side, hacking off its legs chok-chok, leaving it impaled up there for attention, flailing wildly as it tried to move. The Bows and Autobows centered calmly on the braincase, and released.

"Next!" Kris called out, turning and sprinting ahead and to the left, where two grievvers, by the counts of those coming in to reinforce, would be sitting towards the back of the twisting halls. Everyone set up to receive them, and then the two that would be coming from the right in matching sequence. The monitors above would be watching the magic about the dungeon, having learned to read the pulse of the Summons and spawn points to indicate how many things had been killed and were currently active.

Normally a monitor might be coming along to make sure there was no cheating, but after leaks of tactics and the like, a Fellowship doing a Total Clear could be left alone if they requested it. Everyone thought we were going to be clearing out the grievvers and going for a fast time in doing so… a time, I knew, that we were well ahead on.

An old team with Pyreal spells could probably rival what we'd done, but they'd be relying on War Magic and luck, and a perilous consumption of mana as they chewed through the Shredders, leaving them little to nothing to use for the second half, if they dared… and no resources to endure, meaning they'd have to book it to get out of here before the respawns.

A mental shout confirmed the two Biles were there, and Kris was leading them back at speed, easily outrunning the ir leaping attacks and charges of the two neo-spider things. I waited with Split Vulns as they came after her, softening them up for the crushing wave of follow-up attacks that would take them out in seconds.

The force-membrane peeled back and away from us as Kris hit the lever behind us at the end of the first hall to the left, and we piled inside quickly. Ten seconds later her lightfoot had carried her all the way back to us through the twists and turns, also outracing any spawns reforming. I could have broken the effect with Argent Savancy, but there was no need to do so.

This was important, as the few paramount teams that had gone all the way to the bottom actually had to have a second Fellowship come in behind them and throw the levers so they could leave, fighting the respawns to do so! In front of us was a gaping pit, a good two hundred feet deep. Off to the right, a narrow spiral ran down and around the yawning hole, offering a perilous way down that exposed those on it to spell bombardment from the creatures below, yet another reason not to attempt a Total Clear.

This was where I did my Debuff thing ahead of time. -Bane to Shades, - Kris /ordered, and inky black flames wound around the glowing Brilliance of the Weapons there as the Infusion was changed. I washed my Detect Evil over what was down there, hissing at the Levels indicated. Even as Summons, they were strong… but not as strong as the Tou-Tou shades, save for the towering malevolence that was looking up at me from the avatar of Bael' Z haron. My special project.

I painted out the positions of each and every one of the Penumbral Soldier shades and the Bile Grievvers down there. Nine separate targets, no surprises or changes. It was one of the killer implications for most Fellowships, as if everything closed to melee now, it was a good way to die. Debuffs started flying up at us from them, pulsing and flaring around everyone but Kris, but that was fine.

Everyone was waiting on the Disks as I sent the Chained Vuln lashing downwards on the wings of True Casting at all of the shades. I then saturated the area with a Slow, then Cast Haste and Prayer around on us all. Silver lightning crackled and made ready to go! Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work! Then I sat back and broke all those Debuffs from the shades with a Dispel as Kris jumped off the edge, everyone with their targets centered and Weapons out.

No archery now, that was just a fast way to die at close-quarters here. Nobody who fought here had ever used flight magic, and nobody was jumping down two hundred feet for the shiznits anymore. The shades below couldn't see us in the swirling miasma above them, and so the sudden shining arrival slamming down into the middle of them did catch them by surprise. Kris' Cloudstepping Sandals caught her a foot above the ground, and the Disks kept us perfectly safe.

The shades being Slowed to half-speed didn't help matters on their end. Hasted blurs of speed flashed into motion, trailing little silver sparks, and I'm sure the shades and grievvers appreciated the eye-catching effect. The Shade of Bael'Zharon hadn't been affected by the Slow, but he was still Blade Vulne d. It was actually not the optimal thing to use against him… but we made do with what we had. The burning eyes of the BZ Shade were fixed on me as the primary Caster and presumably the most dangerous.

He looked like a classic F iend: nigh on twelve feet tall, towering wings, a big-arse flaming sword longer than I was tall in hand, surrounded by a crawling black protective A ura, horned, skeleton stretched and warped, flesh black as ink, long black robe brimming with protective magic. The Mana-Tier Firebolt he sent at me was no joke, either, as everyone split off to take on their own opponents, and magic started to build all around.

My Chain Dispel flashed out at his minions, and every spell taking shape there spluttered and failed utterly in sparkles of Silver Magic. As for the Fire Bolt, I totally ignored it as it slammed into me and did absolutely nothing, actually making the Shade blink in astonishment. With shouts of alarm, four of the shades were tackled right to the ground, wrapped right up and unable to get off any more magic.

The last one, the Black Breath, was nearly invisible inside a swirling cloud of dark particles, and nominally the deadliest of them. It had so much natural armor effects laden on it that normal weapons could barely scratch it at all… but Brilliant W eapons ignored that effective natural armor entirely, and Quaver also had Penetrate Damage Reduction, Shade-Slaying, and a +VIII bonus going for it as Kris closed on it instantly.

She was grinning widely as she Laughed, and the ki-laden glee of a Hag checked even a powerful shade Summons for a vital second. It wailed in startled pain as she tore into it with a swathe of ebon-chased Lost Light, and a flower began to glow in the darkness here, dispelling the floating clouds of shadow in bursts of whiteness eating them away.

Kopf, the Mick, and Rogar had each taken the forelimb of a grievver on their initial attacks, which vastly increased their ability to avoid other forelimb attacks, while the Mass Lightning Resist on everyone withstood the spitting normal electrical arcs from the Casting tendril atop the Biles. The archers were rolling on the floor with the shades, not even trying to do damage, just tying up hands and mouths and preventing any Casting as the things tried to batter at them or push them away.

The Shade of BZ attempted to send out a Fire Volley, targeting five different people, and I Countered with another Dispel, collapsing the flaming spell in Silver sparkles. Then I pulled out the Fastcast Valences from my Bondmage link with Kris, stacked them on the Split Chained Shardrays I put out, poured a Silver Whirling Blade on top of it, and let it all fly as the archers on the ground rolled over and pushed the Shades they were wrestling up and away.

The upper halves of the shades were torn apart by the Shadow-Slayer Infusion on Crown doubling the damage, and the Chains ripped through the grievvers for half the base damage before converging on the Shade of big bad BZ for half-doubled damage. The Shade of BZ ate the impacts like a champion, while the Archers sprang to their feet, darted for the Disks still floating there, grabbed their Bows, and turned to orient on their targets with practiced precision.

The Black Breath dropped with a gasp of disbelief, divided in two by an arc of Lost Light. Bows thrummed, two shots helping Rogar, one each the Mick and Kopf. Kris streaked across the chamber and smashed into the side of Rogar's opponent, Quaver's two Notes thrumming and accentuating my use of the Sublime Chord, the use of the Heartsong clearly unnerving this Summons. Wasp Touches activated, Brilliant Weapons hewed in.

The Shade could feel the power building and buttressing my magic, and more, it could feel something dancing at the edge of its nerves as the Heartsong ripped out on those notes. There was a vengeful kiai as Kris smashed the unbalanced Bile Grievver over and put four sword-strokes down the length of it in a swirl of motion. Rogar ripped Accent down the length of its underbelly, spilling open its very odd innards, and his opponent was down.

With machine-like precision, the archers and fighters raced to relieve Kopf, the former actually hopping up on their Disks for height, and the latter splitting up to come in from both sides. Axe, Sword, and Glaive hacked at the same moment, and Brilliant steel hacked off all three remaining lower legs of the Bile.

Unable to move effectively on the stumps of its limbs, the Bile spit lightning frantically as Kopf rolled out of the line of fire, and the thrumming arrows pitched in two volleys in two accelerated seconds, doing for it cleanly. The Shade of BZ was now striding towards me, swinging that flaming Sword sized for a true Jotun, clearly not considering the implications of his earlier attack as he came at me with a Firephasing Weapon. He should have cut me in two when He swung with force and power.

The furnace-hot flames lit up a red streak on my vest and the skin beneath it... and did absolutely nothing else.