RD 2 Ch 28 (Patreon)

Chapter 28

“Stupid birds.” Nyx sank down into her coils.

“They’ve been good to us.” I sat down with the mound at our back. The pile of S-ranked bronze feathers had grown taller than us and several times wider.

“My stats are fantastic.” Nyx bobbed her brows for me to check them again.

She’d been pretty proud.

At level fifty-six, she had a right to be. Besides myself, she was probably going to be the strongest Heros to ever step out of the initiation instance.

Those levels had given her 1100 stats. Sadly, my own levels only gave me 275. It would be nice if the system gave me more stats per level once I got my class upgraded past S.

Still, for now, I was imagining how much gold I was saving for the stats.

Leveling was the early part of growing stronger. After a while, levels became difficult, and the next focus was on gear as the next easiest way to improve. Finally, when that failed, players just shoveled mounds and mounds of gold into their stats. It was incredibly difficult to continue growing as the cost increased.

Maximizing the foundation of my stats was critical, even if it would be easier to use all the blood that I’d collected and jack my class up as high as I could.

“We’re about to leave here, aren’t we?” Nyx asked.

“Yeah. The birds are probably the second hardest thing, and they are already in the eighties. After this, we’ll push to that cyclops city and farm them. Would you like to do the honors for the pile?” I waved at it. We both had S-ranked rings.

Nyx finished her sandwich and waved her ring to suck up all the loot. “By the way, why the sandwiches?”

“Convenient. I have a… strange nostalgia for them,” I told her.

“Oh. Okay. Forget that I asked.” Nyx waved her hands and hurriedly changed the topic. “How do you want me for the next bird fight?”

“Same to what we normally do.” I ignored the potential second meaning in her words. “Just keep petrifying as many as we can. If we can slow the lot of them down, they’re not too bad for me to knock from the sky.”

Individually, swarms were weak, but it was easy to get overwhelmed, and the crisscrossing of so many bodies played tricks on the eyes, making them hard to hit.

Nyx nodded sharply and drew her bow.

“I’ve also been saving something.” I pulled out the lionhead hat and put it on, adding an ability to my list.

[Deafening Roar S - Roar so loud that it disorients targets in the area.]

“Too bad that it didn’t give you an impenetrable hide.” Nyx inspected the hat.

“That would be just absolutely broken. Besides, bleeding all over the place is kind of my thing.” I put the hat on and summoned a Blood Blade into my hand. Sadly, the other three mini-bosses hadn’t given me much of personal value. I did get a cloak that I thought Gloria would love though. “Let’s go.” I rushed out past the line where the birds would detect me and begin their swarm.

The bronze-beaked birds shot up from the trees, filling the air with honking and throwing their feathers down at me with each flap.

Crimson Barrier snapped into place around me as feathers embedded themselves in the red bubble, only for the birds to hit it a second later.

I opened my mouth and activated Deafening Roar.

Nyx’s snakes covered her ears as the air rippled out from my mouth, along with a booming roar that made me seem larger than life.

The birds wobbled in the air, and I didn’t wait to see how long they would be affected. My blade was already swishing through the air, cutting down as many as I could.

A few fell to the ground in their struggle, becoming targets for me to jump on as I danced about and fought the increasingly coordinated swarm. “Petrify them!” I shouted.

Nyx was firing blindly into the swarm, but there were enough of the birds that she hit more often than she missed. “Going!” Her serpents all shot forward, and she radiated a soft light causing a dozen birds to drop to the ground before drawing back her bow and firing a single arrow that split into six.

I let her harass the birds in the air, moving to smash those that had been petrified on the ground while warding off those diving for me.

My Regeneration was getting a workout as bronze feathers cut through me by the dozens.

When they weren’t firing feathers, the birds were sweeping down to use their bronze beaks and peck at me, which left their necks exposed to my swift sword.

I felt Deafening Roar come up again, and I let loose even as I tore through the birds.

The fight became a race to see if they could wear me out or if I could cut through their ranks fast enough.

By the time there was nothing for me to swing at in the air, the adrenaline rushed out of me, and I stabbed the sword into the ground to prevent me from falling over.

“Are you okay?” Nyx approached slowly.

“Great.” I wiped blood from my eyes with a forearm that was missing skin down to the bone in several spots.

She stared at me for a long moment. “I’m really happy that I got a ranged class.”

“You have that defensive ability,” I said, pulling the sword up and starting to collect the loot.

“Stone Skin only lasts ten seconds. It’s not so much of a defensive ability as it is an ‘oh shit’ protection.”

“Sounds like something to save your butt. Which is defense. With your bow, Petrifying Arrow, and Gorgon’s Gaze you should be able to keep most things at range. Not to mention, it seems you are going to have a mix of poison abilities in there, too,” I told her.

“Don’t much like those. They kill far too slowly.” Nyx kept up with me working through the loot piles.

After the time we’d spent together for the past five days, we’d become a well-oiled machine at the simple stuff.

Thankfully, there hadn’t been another sleeping arrangement debacle. I was still a little embarrassed that I’d moved over to her bed while I was asleep.

“Well, well. I think you’re going to be happy with this one.” I held up a flower crown.

[Garland Crown S Rank - Homing Aim S

Homing Aim S - Your ranged shots do not miss]

The ability would work against anything that didn’t have some sort of S-ranked defensive ability or vastly outpaced her in agility.

“That’s for me?” She slithered over and took the crown of pink and white flowers before putting it on her head. “How do I look?” She twisted in a full three-sixty for me to see the flower crown from all angles.

“Wonderful. Like an Olympian victor,” I said.

“Alright. Loot acquired. We’re heading to the cyclops city?” Nyx perked up with a giant smile on her face.

“Yep. Let's keep going. We might not have a sanctuary there to sleep in. I’ll put up talismans to give us shelter, though.” I tried to prepare her as we got moving towards the cyclops city.

“If you say it’s good enough, then it must be great. I wonder what Zane’s group is up to?” she mused.

“Staying alive. He still has the talisman I gave him. If there was danger or if Galen tried anything, he would have torn it,” I said.

Most likely they were just camping and hanging out. It would make a solid bond for those from this initiation. One that I would miss out on, but at this point, I needed to focus on myself. And I wasn’t really looking for a group of people following me around all the time.

My mind went to Katie, and then I pushed her aside. She’d gone too far with trying to incite chaos among the initiates. I would let the Clan deal with her how they wanted after we got out.

It seemed there were going to be greater issues, according to Simone.

“That’s good. That you took care of them,” Nyx said. “When we get out of here, I’m sure you’ll be strong enough to do what you want. There must be tremendous pressure on you right now.”

“There is, but I’m no stranger to pressure. I’ll be fine.”

“Well, good luck. I got your back.” Nyx ducked her head and leaned into her sprinting with her new tail.

***

The cyclops city was even bigger up close than I’d pictured. I’d seen it from the top of the mountain, but that was nothing to seeing it at present.

It was all sloping arches and pristine columns. Meanwhile, cyclops moved through the pillars as if they were working.

In reality, they weren’t actually doing anything but appearing busy. The instance provided all that was needed.

“Nyx, for this, it might be best if you snipe them out one at a time.” I figured with her tail, she’d be able to get higher angles fairly easily so she could fire on them.

“Yeah. I can try the crown.” She stared at a cyclops and fired far to the right, only for the arrow to miraculously curve back and hit the cyclops. “Yes!”

The cyclops was less thrilled and roared as it thundered through the stone archway and out to us.

I stepped in front of Nyx, blocking the cyclops’ guard and splashing some of my blood on it to activate Sanguine Locking.

It stiffened up and fell over.

“Just keep getting more and bringing them to me.” I wanted us to farm as many of these as we could before time was up and I’d have to go merc the boss.

“What if there’s a backup because you can’t kill them fast enough?” She watched as I started stabbing the cyclops repeatedly.

“If you could poison them it would be helpful,” I answered. “Otherwise, unless I’m up to my eyeballs in paralyzed cyclops, just keep bringing them out.”

“Aye, aye.” She slapped a salute to her forehead and started firing wild shots to see how far she could push her new ability.

One arched blindly over a wall only for a cyclops roar to come back over.

I smiled. She was already figuring out her new ability and all it could do.

A handful of monsters were now storming out to us, and I started to use Blood Bolt with one hand to tag them and lock them down while my other hand held a sword and pumped it up and down into the current cyclops.

Nyx slithered down the way and kept firing petrifying arrows into the city.

From up on the mountain, it had seemed that this city was absolutely teeming with cyclops, and it only proved increasingly true with how many she was able to pull out of the city from this small area.

Dozens of cyclops in level 80s swarmed over me, falling to their stomachs as they lost the ability to control their blood.

Nyx moved through, her hair having ranked up substantially. Her serpents were able to poison the cyclops reliably. All of them quickly became poisoned, and Nyx headed back out to get more.

These cyclops were beefy.

My absent stabbing was taking minutes to kill them. If we just poisoned them, they’d eventually die. I just had to focus on keeping the poisoned ones locked down with Sanguine Locking.

The ones so far actually registered on my ability to keep them paralyzed. They were high enough level and there were enough of them that I couldn’t actually do this forever.

I sped up my stabbing for a moment while Nyx was away working to clear through the cyclops quickly.

Nyx sprang back into view with a small army, but I frowned as a fireball soared through the sky behind Nyx.

“Behind me!” I threw up a Crimson Barrier as soon as she was in range.

The S-ranked spell exploded against my barrier and shattered it, only for two more fireballs to enter the air, coming from other casters.

I fired off Blood Bolts at those casters, locking them down as soon as I could.

Nyx watched the fireballs, and when they got close, she shivered before her entire self turned into a stone statue that took the fireballs head-on with only a light scorch on her surface.

A moment later, she shook off the thin layer of stone.

“Hate that ability. I feel so trapped.”

“Better than getting blasted by fire. Poison these and help me kill those casters before you go. They might not be able to move, but sometimes, those things can still get certain spells off.”

“Aye, aye, Capt’n.” She went to work, ever the eager soldier.