Chapter 407 - Bone Fortress (Patreon)

On me I don't have that many items, most of them left in the hidey hole deep underground, just the most valuable ones are on me. For example, the stones left by Lissandra. As I fly, I'm studying the improvements to Mana Cycling she left on one of them. At the same time, I also do the mana exercises she showed me, focusing on the evil orb that I'm currently practicing.

I thought of triggering the mana stone that would give me a Restrictive Training Emblem but knowing the cockroach queen it would immediately activate and nearly kill me. For sure there wouldn't be easy way to control it or to change difficulty. So I decide to use it after Beyond 3rd trial.

From my conversations with Lissandra, I also have a strong suspicion Beyond is a place where I can go and leave back to Hell difficulty. Extremely dangerous place but also very rewarding and just being there requires a lot from you. Well, I will see soon.

Anyway, my flight passes quite nicely and I find Bone Fortress where Tess told me it would be.

I come upon dozens of buildings coiling around what seems to be the rib cage of some giant monster.

Outside it's still night, the cold attacking me and in the sky the most beautiful starry view I ever saw with a purple nebula covering a huge part of the sky. As before, the monsters don't seem to come out during the night so I don't even meet any on my way to the fortress.

Moving closer, I detect something akin to a mana web all around. Dozens of weird threads all over and marks left hanging in the air. Most of the things used for detection and some nasty attacks to be triggered. Plenty of these things are sensitive to mana, some to heat or movement, and some in more peculiar ways.

My Mana Wavelength Irises activate and with help with [Resonance] I pass through the defenses and land on the ground. I repeat the same steps multiple times, finding it interesting to see how others set their defenses.

In the end, they are nothing too special, just a first line of defense, not really meant to stop people from entering, just detecting mostly bigger groups or uses of huge amounts of mana nearby. Of course, as I move closer I sense more of them, some hiding deep in the ground, some inside of the boulders along the way.

Plenty of them are connected to some rib bones that seem to have thousands of inscriptions on their surface, seemingly working as something like a core. The bones are just that conductive.

Thanks to my effort, I enter the place fairly easily without people caring about me that much. At first, it confuses me a bit but soon I notice groups of people or individuals going in and out at all times.

There isn't a huge number of people in there, a few hundred at most too. Plenty of them are level 200 and higher and I notice a few with level over 250 too.

“Who are you and where are you from, human?” one man stops me, his hand on my arm. Tips of his fingers bury into my body in a clear attempt to hurt me.

I look down as he is much shorter than me and his legs are weird, there are scales on them.

[Skybreaker - lvl ??]

So around 270? And some race I didn't meet up until now. Did he maybe sense me entering and become interested?

I move and he moves as quickly trying to react to my movement. Even so, I'm faster, and with my body boosted by kinetic energy, I grab his arm and twist it, dislocating it.

I let his punch hit my chest and with interest, I watch as that kinetic energy is absorbed and then turned into mana in an extremely complicated way. That mana then flows into my reservoir.

The efficiency is much better than I thought. It also didn't block the entire force of hit and some percentage of the hit still dealt damage to me but is fascinating to watch. Other than giving me free mana, it seems to be really good passive protection against blunt physical attacks. Though I don’t know how well it would do against sharper weapons with a smaller point of impact.

My attacker rouses up his mana and I pull him closer, still holding his arm. Unable to resist, he staggers towards me and my left hand hits his chin, sending a burst of kinetic energy through and he staggers back.

Neither of us is using that much mana to not affect our surroundings too much.

I let him hit me multiple times, observing my unique epic passive in action.

It is fabulous, it is beautiful and I think I'm in love. It’s amazing passive defense and it also allows me to gain more mana. If I can make my body stronger to endure physical damage I could manage to continue fighting even after I would be entirely without mana, the passive restoring some of it while getting hit.

So I will try to mimic Potency with black mana, mimic Regeneration with this passive, and have Amplification as my attribute upgrade.

The system is indeed fair and beautiful.

With another punch, I send the man staggering back and there is blood on his face. Even so, he smiles.

“For a human you are not that bad,” his teeth are showing.

The atmosphere around him changes and I see he is getting ready to kill. There is no hesitation on his face.

Everyone in this place is a murderer or something worse, this moon serving as a dumping ground for them. There is also an effect covering the entire moon making it impossible for anything other than monsters to be born here. It's something I have learned from others.

So there is no real reason to be hesitant.

The man doesn't say anything else and attacks, his body radiating some field that seems to have oscillating effects. Anything that touches it gets destroyed. The stone under his feet starts crumbling, a wall of the building has pieces of it destroyed. Even some of the mana I left in the air crumbles and gets destroyed.

My [Resonance] supported by my eyes sees through it and when he reaches me there is no effect of his field on me, my skill countering it easily to his surprise.

His head gets separated from his body by a long dagger I quickly create.

[You have defeated Skybreaker - lvl 273]

When I look around there are a few people who were watching the fight but no one seems to mind. Plenty of them just laugh and a small group even seem to exchange some currency, most likely bets on the result of the fight.

“Mister, mister, will you take the body? If you don't want to deal with it I can take it. I offer one small pouch of bone dust, there are even a few small pieces!” An older man with long arms and legs quickly comes closer. He is very thin and his long hair is messy. His eyes are nervously ticking from side to side.

I remember the people grinding the bones of the giant serpent resting against the pyramid and listening to what he said it might be the same here.

“Sure, why not.” I reach my hand and as the man shows his crooked smile and starts giving me the pouch I add, “If the bone dust is fake I will find you. There is already a mark I left on you.”

That makes him stop and I can sense his heart beating widely.

When I move my hand to grab the pouch he quickly pulls it back and giggles, “My bad, mister! I was about to give you the wrong one!”

The pouch he gives me this time is smaller and he watches as I take it. There is a dagger coated with some poison on his body and I see his hand twitching towards it.

Before he grabs it his eyes meet mine and I return his gaze.

Very slowly he lets his arms fall along his body. Instead, he turns to the corpse and goes through the pockets.

“Here, mister.” He gives me all of the things from inside of them and only then he grabs the legs of the body and quickly pulls it away.

I give a look at the items I received but most of them aren't even worth mentioning. Only the bone dust seems somewhat interesting and I add it to my bag with things I can live without but am curious about.

There is also a bag with very valuable items such as alloy from Nevan, mana stones from Lissandra, and some interesting pieces of metal. On my back I also have tied Flamebearer. I thought of taking a voidsteel blade with me as I still have a few of them I didn't sell, but decided against it and left them in the hidey hole for future experiments together with more metals.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - I'm at the place

Soph (Hell, group 4) - Sset is busy. You are there early. We will start in around 18 hours.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - I will locate the portal in the meantime and examine the place.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - good idea. But they might have a backup they can activate if the original one fails so please wait with destroying it until we attack.

NotAaron (Hell, group 4) - fuck I can't wait to deal with these shits.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - make sure to take as much revenge as you can. If they escape try to mark them to hunt later.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - as if they will escape Sset, she will snipe them from miles away. I will also try to find the teleport of Black Tower and we will destroy it in sync with you Noname. Not one of the fuckers will be escaping.

Izzy (Hell, group 4) - language!

NotDennis (Hell, group 4) - But that's what they are, Izzy! They…

I ignore the rest of the conversation and turn off the Community. In front of me stands a small group of people, this time they are all human. All three of them.

Their levels are lower than mine, but I sense five more signatures close around. Most of them feel ready for a fight.

I don't know why but it feels weirdly comfortable. So far no one has shown me even a hint of goodwill and only tried to rob me, kill me, or scam me. For some twisted reason, it's fun.

Without any word I continue to walk in the same way I was, not considering the trio blocking that direction. Inside of my body, my mana rouses up and the energies stored inside of the core as well.

They just curse, jumping out of my way. Even so, none of them attack me, they even hold their mana inside of their bodies, the same going for the ones trying to hide.

Somehow I feel a bit disappointed but I continue to delve deeper into the Bone Fortress. At the same time, I carefully send my senses into the area. Right now I can't attack the place before I find the teleporting array. I don't think I could quickly get rid of everyone without a few of them sensing me preparing to attack.

In such a case, they would probably use the array and move to Black Tower which would cause trouble for the rest of my group.

Sure, there are different ways to deal with it. I could also use the array to follow them to Black Tower but there is a chance they would destroy it so I can't follow. It's not much trouble so I can wait the 18 hours Sophie asked for.

And it's interesting most of the people here don't seem to mind my activated [Mana Crown] that much. I get a few looks but currently, it's considered probably as something set as defense and they don't sense the amount of mana I already stored inside.

There is also another reason I have it activated. I hope to fish out someone who knows what it is so I could ask questions and learn about this skill. That would be nice.

Reaching one of the tallest rib bones with the least buildings around I stop for a moment. The presence that followed me ever since I entered the fortress is still there, following me but staying out of sight.

The bone is white and the surface is extremely smooth, either it was always like this, or every rib bone was scraped of imperfections on the surface to be turned into that bone dust. I poke it a few times and send my senses inside, to my surprise finding out that the bone is even more mana conductive than I expected.

Estimating the level of the being it belonged to is difficult but I would say something akin to the remains of the snake resting against the pyramid.

Creating a dagger out of my mana I make it very dense and as sharp as possible. The dagger ends up noticeably heavy and not that far off from being turned into a tricolored bomb. Even so, I can not even slightly damage the bone. The dagger's tip just grinds against the surface and there isn't even a scratch left behind.

That might be why it seems to be used as currency here. I wonder what they use it for.

I activate my eyes and [Resonance] for a moment and create the sharpest edge I can on my dagger.

It takes a decent chunk of my mana and even some kinetic energy but bit by bit I cut into the bone and after a few minutes cut off a piece as long as my finger. Quickly storing it away I rouse my mana again and reach to cut out more.

“That is enough,” the voice from behind me sounds, my creepy stalker.

[Ember Knight - lvl ??]

The man is short, barely reaching my chest. Interestingly, his legs aren't human-like; they resemble those of a lizard but are slim, nimble, and covered in black scales. Otherwise, he seems fairly normal.

When I do not answer he continues, “I have been watching you ever since you came and have a few questions. What place are you from? Who sent you? What is your name, and your position? Who are you looking for and how the hell did you manage to take out such a big piece of the bone so quickly? Answer."

As the others before he is acting threateningly. It's not that he is underestimating me, instead, similarly to the men before, he just feels wild, ready to attack even an enemy stronger than himself.

Even so, I push my annoyance with the man away. Just for a few more hours or until I find the array. I'm searching for it even now.

“I'm from Ruminous Border. My name is Elydor,” I introduce myself.

***

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