[System Decay] Chapter 26: Rising Storm (Patreon)

True to the system’s promise, Thalia did not pursue Will once he left the dungeon. Frustratingly enough, it meant leaving the dungeon uncleared, but even though he knew that he had to push himself to his limits, he wasn’t stupid enough to try to 1v1 a clan boss.

The system was more than happy to notify him about his new discoveries afterwards.

Boss Tiers:

A boss’ tier is determined by the minimum projected size of the party required to defeat it with some degree of difficulty.

Clan. At the median level of surviving Users on your planet at this time, it would take a miracle for a standard party of four to defeat this boss. Recommended minimum: ten Users.

You have not yet encountered the following boss tiers: Militia. Battalion. Army. Nation. Planet.

Considering what had counted as a squad boss, Will was reasonably sure that at his level, it wouldn’t take ten or more Users to take Thalia down, but Silver 5?

He’d been able to take on Axl because he’d found a plethora of bronze-rank items in the area. Here, finding bronze-rank items was relatively challenging, but silver and gold? Thalia was the first anything he’d seen that was silver rank. Will knew that she wasn’t alone, but it looked like the university he’d returned to was situated in a relatively low-power area.

“I wonder if that’s the case for the entirety of Earth,” he mused. “The number doesn’t seem to be going down that fast, so I’m going to assume that the tutorials popped everyone out in bronze or unformed level areas.”

That said, even if this area was largely bronze or unformed, he’d just seen evidence that there were silver-rankers in this area. Judging from her title, Will assumed Thalia wasn’t even the top of the ranks for the life kingdom. Caiyeri had told him that they had members throughout the metal ranks, which peaked at gold.

Will didn’t want to imagine what fighting a gold-ranker would be like. If he had to, he would, but given literally any other choice, he preferred to get away with his life.

There was risk that he accepted in the process of leveling up, and then there was suicide. Engaging against someone that far above him without equally broken items was just asking for trouble.

He found the rest of the party still clearing an unformed-rank dungeon. Deciding to leave them to their devices, he went to find another solo bronze dungeon, making sure that he was both far away from Everdale and the life kingdom.

This one was measurably easier than the last. The monsters he saw were a mere Bronze 0, which meant they were the first bronze-ranks he was actually a higher level than.

It was challenging in some ways that the meadow dungeon hadn’t offered. This one was a portal-type, looking eerily similar to the Arcadian tunnel systems, and it was full of hollow suits of armor that moved via some otherworldly animating force. This was how Will discovered that his afflictions did not work on every being.

Animated Armor is immune to [Altrien’s Despair].

Animated Armor is immune to [Bleed].

Animated Armor is immune to [Poison].

Animated Armor is immune to [Wither].

Notably, corruption still affected them, corroding their joints and worsening the animating force within, and The Bell Tolls annihilated one of the animated armors with necrotic damage, rendering it a lifeless heap of rapidly-rusting scrap, but its condition did not take effect.

Will didn’t let that deter him. There weren’t too many of them, and they were slow. Their attacks were predictable and easy to dodge, though the hefty dents they left in the rock told Will that they were nothing to be trifled with.

The monsters did resist his weapons, though, which made killing them a bit of a pain.

But even that was fine. Will’s corruption skills ranged from less than a tenth of the way to silver to over two-thirds of the way, thanks to his consistent usage of them. Directed practice of skills, just like attributes, was the most effective way to raise them without screwing himself over.

He grinned, using Chaos Transfer to give his attuned slayer sword a level of corruption. That, too, could level up.

“Time to put some lessons into use.”

#

Dylan placed a hand over the small, dark sphere.

Absorb Lesser Bronze Monster Core? [YES / NO]

Warning: absorbing a monster core restricts your ability to level up or increase stats through means other than absorbing monster cores.

He selected yes, just like he had the last few.

Searing power scorched through his veins like a hit of cocaine, lighting his senses on fire. Dylan had done coke enough times to know the sensation. It was better. Maybe a little addictive, but Dylan was a real man. Addiction didn’t affect him.

Level up!

“That’s Unformed 20,” Dylan declared proudly. “Faster than any of those soy betas I was with.”

“Good,” Kyle said. His red armor was mostly on, though he hadn’t geared up for the helmet yet. “The next step up is bronze.”

“You gonna give me another one of those cores?” Dylan asked, his fingers drumming against the table as electricity coursed through him. “That’ll break me through.”

Kyle shook his head. “Not today.”

“The hell you mean, not today?” Dylan said indignantly. “Do you know who my dad is?”

“Your daddy’s dead or gone, mate,” Kyle said. “We’re all you’ve got now. We’re your bros.”

Dylan took a moment to process that, then crossed his arms. “Alright. Sure. Tomorrow, then.”

“If you can do one thing for us,” Kyle added almost as an afterthought. “We’ve got your back, but we need to know that you’ve got ours.”

“Sure,” Dylan said. “I know the drill.”

He’d been a new pledge before once. This was like that, except everyone had sick magical powers. Whatever it was, he could manage.

Kyle held two hands out. For a moment, Dylan thought that the armored guy was trying to hug him, and he recoiled in digust.

Thankfully, it was just to manifest a long, tactically painted rifle from his inventory.

Dylan whistled. “AR-15?”

“Good eye,” Kyle complimented him. “We had a bunch of these in our apartments before the end of the world. Can’t get them from the shop, but ammo? Hell yeah. Thirty round mag. Semi-auto, though I’ve got mine modded to full auto.”

“Sounds like you’re trying to sell me on it,” Dylan said. His fingers itched for the familiar feel of the rifle. “You’re taunting me.”

“Not at all,” Kyle said, grabbing another rifle out of thin air. He handed it to Dylan.

Taking the proffered weapon and holding its stock to his shoulder, checking the sights. They were custom too. Dot sights, nice and clear. Perfect.

“Sounds to me like you want me to do something with this,” Dylan said, a predatory smile crossing his face.

“I’ll introduce you to the rest of the boys. We’re going to do what we should’ve done before the end of the world,” Kyle said, matching Dylan’s grin with one of his own. “Hunt.”

#

[Power] advanced to Bronze 1!

[Speed] advanced to Bronze 1!

[Affinity] advanced to Bronze 1!

The bronze ranks went much slower than the unformed ones. Despite three or four dungeons of grinding and all of the animated armors slain, Will hadn’t even made it to Bronze 3. He was right on the edge of advancing a level, but he still hadn’t quite made it there yet. At least his attributes had all increased with extensive training.

The slayer sword was at nine charges now, which was also a pleasant surprise. It took longer to build up its auto-crit feature, but that didn’t matter as much when he had First Blood practically guaranteeing he’d spend all of the charges on a critical hit before it fully filled up.

When it did hit, it guaranteed a massive strike. The low bronze animated armors crumpled at a single hit when it made contact.

Will hadn’t only been using the slayer sword, though. He wanted to train everything. His Speed ones were the most intuitive to train, as was Mark for Death, but corruption was a little more annoying.

In order to increase those skills, he kept the axe of despair out in one hand and the seven-shot six-shooter clipped to his belt. Corruption Resistance was on the brink of reaching silver, head and shoulders above of his other skills thanks to its constant application while in the Arcadian cave system.

He used Chaos Transfer liberally, too. Normal striking attacks were less effective against the constructs by virtue of them being made out of steel, but a blow that automatically corrupted them? That was a different story.

Destructive Synthesis was a little harder to train. Will had a lot of junk from the goblins, but he didn’t want to use literally all of his loot before he got to clearing the ongoing quest.

There was the entire matter with the life kingdom, too. Based on his brief texts with Caiyeri, he assumed that her group of elves was coming to town. They would be reunited sooner than he thought.

That said, he had no idea how she’d react if they met again. She’d been surprisingly cordial over party chat, especially for a woman who’d showed so much disdain for him during their time together. Surviving a life-or-death scenario together would bring any two people closer, but Will would eat his metaphorical hat before assuming that her nation wasn’t going to be hostile towards him. He still remembered how he’d been received at the elven outpost despite eliminating some of the most prescient threats to their ongoing existence.

You have defeated a solo boss.

Will brought his attention back to the boss chamber.

This boss had been pretty unimaginative. It was just a larger animated armor, this one with a variety of weapons that could be used on the environment.

As it turned out, Wraith Cloak and Wind Walker combined obfuscated his presence enough in the darkness that the armor couldn’t find him. Will had experimented, using Weapons Free on every oversized weapon he could target.

Weapons Free’s restriction where the target could contest it, he soon realized, applied primarily to weapons the target was actually holding. The gargantuan animated armor, as it was described, only wielded one to two of them at a time.

Will had stolen a massive axe, then a spear, and finally a mace, barely managing to lift them long enough to put them into his inventory before striking it with an arrow that had Chaos Transfer applied to it and using The Bell Tolls right as the skill came off cooldown. At two layers of corruption, very little intelligence, and down two of its weapons, winning had been an inevitability.

There was a vault key, but there wasn’t much, just an elemental stone of Undeath—which looked like an interesting parallel to Will’s Death element, but which he couldn’t use—along with five awakening shards of the ghost.

Will examined his loot haul before leaving the dungeon, stretching to relieve the exhaustion he’d accumulated from non-stop fighting for so long. He was out of bronze-rank stamina potions. Will made a mental note to get more the next time he found a shop.

Item: Gargantuan Axe

Uncommon, bronze

A massive weapon for massive beings. Are you sure you want to use this?

[Gargantuan] - This weapon does greatly increased damage on a hit.

[Mighty Cleave] - With an infusion of mana, you can increase the force and sharpness of the gargantuan axe.

The other two items were pretty similar. Disappointingly, they weren’t great choices for his primary weapons, but Will was more than happy with the slayer sword.

There was one interesting piece of loot from the boss. Other than the monster core and the bronze credits, it had an abnormal coin.

It was lootable, so of course, Will took it.

Item: Hot or Cold

Rare, bronze

A wondrous item. Heads—hot. Tails—cold.

One side of the coin was painfully hot to the touch, the other bone-chillingly cold, just as promised. Will had no idea what it was actually for, and the description erred more on the “uselessly vague” part of the system’s scale of describing things, which ranged from “actively trying to kill me” to “literally saved my life during the fight.”

He inventoried it. At worst, it could be fuel for Destructive Synthesis.

Will wanted to make a tablet of the ghost, but he needed seven awakening shards to form the tablet. He could use the unaffiliated awakening shards for those, but he wanted to save those for the shards of the beyond, like Ayla had asked him to.

With the dungeon looted, Will did one last check for spare loot and left.

#

To Will’s surprise, nobody pulled the emergency card before the end of the day.

Over the party chat, they decided mutually to meet up at the same safe zone where they’d left Dylan early.

The asshole was nowhere to be seen. Will hoped he was somewhere very, very far away, reconsidering his life choices.

Allie and Lev had both reached Unformed 14, with Trevor lagging a level behind, which meant their grinding had granted them two levels. All three of them were coated in gore and small wounds that Lev’s skills were still working on healing, but they looked determined in a way they hadn’t before.

“Good first day?” Will asked.

“Great day,” Lev said. “Allie got a new skill. I’m almost to a new one, and so is Lev. We all have a full set of elements, now.”

“Then we’re a step closer to taking the university,” Will said. “Rest up and get back to it tomorrow. We need to be combat ready as soon as possible. Every day we let pass is another day they entrench themselves.”

“Yeah,” Allie said. “Should we talk strategy?”

“Later,” Will said, holding his nose. “You three smell like an army died on you. Go take a shower.”

#

Their discussion revealed mostly that they didn’t know much about the university other than the fact that a party of between ten and twenty people had claimed it for themselves. They had ranged from high unformed to low bronze the last time they’d seen them, but that had been days ago. Will knew very personally how quickly things could change.

They decided that the three of them would keep on hitting the unformed rank dungeons and trying to dip a toe into the bronze-ranks while Will went to scout out the university. He was the one best equipped to fight or run, after all.

All four of them were tired as hell, so they went to sleep shortly after.

Will thought he could hear gunfire in the distance as his eyes closed, but he might have been imagining it.

He dreamt of hunger.