Chương 166: Sound Attacks

Damion stomped his foot a few times and waited to see if the noise attracted more Demonic Beasts. When nothing showed up Damion supposed he had either killed or driven off all the Demonic Beasts in the immediate area. It seemed it was time to move to the end of the valley. Knowing that the next Demonic Beasts he would encounter would likely be B Rank Tace Panthers, Damion moved forward cautiously.

His goal was not to try and be completely silent, like it had been at the beginning of the simulator run, instead Damion was moving cautiously to try and spot the B Rank Demonic Beasts before they spotted him. As Damion neared the end of the silent valley he began to worry when the inevitable attack from the dungeon guardian would come. When all the sound in the area went eerily silent he knew he was about to be attacked.

Damion raised his Ice Shield, ready to block whatever attack the B Rank Tace Panther sent his way. Unfortunately, Damion was not prepared for the B Rank guardian's attack. The silence of silent valley ended in a split second and bombarded him. To Damion it felt as if all the sound of the valley had been sucked up and then shot at him through a cannon. His head ached and he began feeling nauseated.

If the sound blast had not ended after only a few seconds he likely would have been barfing up what was left of his lunch. As it was Damion was left stunned on the ground, completely defenseless against whatever attack the Tace Panther might use next. Damion tried to sit up and focus his eyes, but all he could see was a blur coming towards him. Raising his Ice Shield, he tried to block, but before he could everything froze for a moment and then vanished. He then found himself standing back in the battle simulator.

"Your allotted time has expired. Would you like to use points to add more time?" the battle simulator asked in its mechanical voice.

"No," Damion said. Even if he was willing to spend his points to continue in the dungeon simulation, he knew he stood no chance against the B Rank Tace Panther. When Damion left the battle simulator he found Mage Teft waiting for him with Elicia.

"How was it?" Mage Teft asked.

"A lot more challenging than I thought. I knew there was a big power gap between me and B Rank Demonic Beasts, but I didn't think it would be that vast."

"The difference is vaster than you think."

"What do you mean?" Damion questioned.

"The Tace Panther you were fighting with there at the end was only a mid C Rank."

"What? That one was only mid C Rank? But that attack it used, none of the other Tace Panthers used an attack like that."

"Most Tace Panthers prefer to fight with their teeth and claws. This one either knew it was not a physical match for you or perhaps it saw you battling its companions. Whatever the reasoning was, it attacked using its Sound affinity, which as you can see can be quite disorienting." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"I see. Is there a way to defend against such a broad attack?" Damion asked. The Sound attack he was hit with was not a tangible attack, he could not block it or dodge it, but there had to be some way to defend against such attacks.

"The easiest way to avoid being hit with Sound type attacks is to not listen," Mage Teft said with a mischievous smile.

"Is there a better method than just plugging my ears?"

"Earplugs maybe," Elicia suggested with a grin.

"Ha, ha," Damion retorted.

"Stop messing around. How am I supposed to block an attack that isn't physical?"

"Despite not being an attack you can see, Sound affinity attacks are not nonphysical attacks." Damion took a moment to think about what Mage Teft was telling him. Remembering back to science lessons on Earth Damion recalled that sound is a type of energy created by vibrations. The Tace Panthers' attack must create a large amount of sound waves that caused his disorientation. The sound nullification field must be caused by the Tace Panthers somehow countering or dissipating the sound waves around them.

From those lessons Damion remembered that sound waves could not travel through a vacuum. Sound needed a medium to travel, thus Sound affinity attacks needed that as well. However, he had no way to create a vacuum. The more practical option would be to create a barrier to block the sound waves or redirect them. Even if Damion could not completely block a Sound affinity attack, if he created a barrier it would diminish the attack's power.

"I need a barrier type spell. With that I can still block or at the very least diminish the power of a Sound affinity attack."

"Very good," Mage Teft congratulated Damion.

"There are two other methods you should be aware of."

"Two others?" Damion paused for a moment to give Mage Teft's statement some thought.

"One should be to use another Sound affinity attack to nullify the attack directed at me."

"Very good," Mage Teft said.

"Without a Sound affinity yourself, countering a Sound affinity attack is no easy feat. Even if you do get a Sound affinity artifact, it is not easy to precisely counter a Sound attack. Now, what would be the last method?"

"Distance," Damion said after a long moment of silence.

"The further sound travels the weaker it becomes. If I attack from range I should be able to minimize the effect a Sound affinity attack has on me."

"Excellent. Now go get yourself cleaned up. Also, I recommend you head into the city this weekend and replace your armor. That D Rank armor is too low rank for you. If it keeps taking C Rank attacks it is going to completely fail at some point and get you killed." Damion looked down at his chest and understood what Mage Teft meant. He'd been using this Scorch Asp skin armor for several years now. Up until the beast wave it had served him well.

But during the cleanup after the beast wave he took a hit from the Deinosuchus and that damaged his armor. Since then he has taken a few hits from various Ferocious and Demonic Beasts, including those in the battle simulator, which despite being a simulation still delivered real attacks capable of injuring him, or in this case, damaging his armor further.

"Yes ma'am," Damion answered. He would have preferred to go back to Leland's and have the man make him a new set of armor. However, Damion guessed if he did contact Leland and place an order, the sly businessman would charge him an arm and a leg to ship the armor to Argentum. Mage Teft did not stick around to offer any further suggestions to Damion, leaving him and Elicia to make their way back to their dormitory.

Once he was back in the dorm he decided to follow Mage Teft's suggestion and began to make plans to head into Argentum tomorrow to place an order for new armor, but first he had to find an artificer that could do the work. Damion just hoped whoever he found would not overcharge him.