169. The S-Rank Dungeon (I) (Patreon)

Zane spent most of that time munching things.

First it was a bunch of steel, mostly B+ and A-rank treasures. Reina had gone on a huge spending spree, emptying out the vaults to get every Steel treasure she could for him. 

Skill up!

Indomitable Hide X -> XI

Skill up! 

Indomitable Hide XI -> XII 

He noticed each Skill Level past X was a lot bigger of a leap. But it also gave a much bigger boost. Going from Level VIII to Level X gave about as much of a boost as going from Level X to Level XI. 

He went to one of the Warrior Dojo’s specialized training room. There the training cannon blasted shards of sheer concentrated Elemental Ice at him. Extremely hard-packed shards at sniper rifle speeds.

Then admired his skin. It didn’t glisten like polished fancy steel. But it held strong. Subtle, rugged, but powerful. Those bolts couldn’t even scratch him now. If he had this kind of defense against Jason he wouldn’t have gone under 35% Health, much less 20%.

He literally felt himself getting stronger and stronger every day. 

***

The next morning, the whole team shuffled in for a practice run.

Avery came in cranky from being woken up this early. She complained quite a bit. It was almost noon.

At first Reina had a plan sketched out. It had these charts and everything, showing where they all went, like something a high school basketball coach might draw up. She had four basic formations she wanted them all to memorize. “We can build from there,” she said.

Zane squinted at it. It slipped out of his head the moment he saw it.

Then they tried it out in the simulation room. Ghostly Monsters spawned all over the place. They got to work running around, trying to clear the room.

They did. But Avery accidentally ended up hitting Zane. Evan also accidentally ended up hitting Zane. Quite a few times. Zane’s head was smoking slightly by the end of it.

“Oops,” said Avery, wincing. “Uh. Sorry ’bout that.”

Evan also said sorry, just a lot more and a lot more panicky. He looked about to cry until Zane showed that it did zero damage at all.

Reina frowned.

Then she drew up a simpler strategy. This time, just one formation. They went at it again.

Avery ended up hitting Zane again. Evan also ended up hitting Zane again. Several times. Zane almost hit himself.

Zane noticed something odd whenever he got in a fight. Everyone kept hitting him.

Avery’s theory was that he was just a big target.

“Actually…” said Avery. She studied him. “There’s something special about you. Hmm.” 

She thought about it. “It’s like you’re one of those big ol’ heavy bags, y’know? You know if you hit it really hard nothing bad’s gonna happen. So you wanna try punching it, it’s fun! Even if we don’t mean to hit you we still kinda want to. So it ends up happening.”

"…"

“It’s a good thing! It means you’ll be an even better tank. If everyone wants to hit you so bad they won’t go for the rest of us!” She had to hop a little to pat him on the head.

"…"

Reina sighed. Eventually, she scrapped the plans. They all had very simple roles. Zane did the whacking and the blocking. Avery pointed out where to go and distracted the enemy. Evan went around zapping the birds, and also doing extra damage when Zane was too slow. Reina healed anyone who got hurt.

This time worked way better. They stopped stepping on each other’s toes. And Zane only got hit once, which was much better than the last few goes.

By then Zane had accepted his meat shield status. 

Their teamwork finally satisfied Reina. After that, they went for a picnic. They teleported to a private island somewhere in the Pacific with a bunch of little cabanas and servants clothed in white shuffling here and there, serving up hot delicacies. The place had nice beaches. Apparently, Zane owned a bunch of places like these now.

*** 

The next day they set off for the S-ranked dungeon.

Their first stop was through the Philippines. The regional hegemon there was the Pearl Throne Faction, which granted them access to their portals. They walked from the Faction square down to the docks.

The buildings here were made out of a marble the sheen of seashells. Lots of bamboo in them too, making up the roofs, the doors. Zane saw terraced fields cascading down lush green hills—their tour guide, a kind little old man who was also the Faction Head, said they were all A-ranked Treasure Areas harvesting a kind of special ginseng. He offered to gift Zane a whole bushel. 

Crowds would’ve mobbed them the whole way down if it weren’t for the strict security. Zane was used to crowds, but this time there were so many people his whole mini-map was a blot of pure white, white on white on white. They stuffed the side streets, pointing and gaping and waving, shouting his name. They stuffed the skyscrapers—he saw little crowds of them squeezing onto the balconies, hanging over the railings to get a peek at him. Pointing and gasping. 

Reina was good at smiling and waving. She got lots of cheers. Everyone seemed to love her wherever she went, Zane noticed. 

They made it down to the harbor, where a ship was waiting for them.

It was the S.S. Styx. It was a sleek beast of a warship. It was the size of an aircraft carrier, built of an ultra-dense, almost pitch-black wood you’d never find on Earth. There were lots of giant ornate cannons seething with essence, holes glowing yellow-red like the mouths of volcanoes. No sails or rigging—the thousands of runes lining its hull all the work.

Artificers were still inspecting the hull when they arrived, making sure it was all up to snuff. 

The thing was on loan from the Cherry Blossom Order, the Faction that ruled Japan. Which had the strongest navy this side of the world. It could take on most of the Pacific dungeons. This ship in particular was the best of their fleet, an A+-ranked treasure. Reina rented for nearly a hundred high-grade essence stones. 

They’d easily get it all back after this raid was over.

They went on board and set sail. Zane and Reina retired below decks early. Evan wanted to explore and stay on deck and watch the clear turquoise water go by. He wanted to see the bright sunlight and the clear blue skies and the big creatures swirling around the oceans, like the ocean serpents or the whales the size of islands. Avery went with him to make sure he didn’t fall overboard.

By the time Zane and Reina came back up a few hours later and a Level higher, Evan had made friends with every sailor on deck.

Zane noticed some dots trailing them in the distance.

“They’re wyverns,” murmured Reina. She was still arm in arm with him, resting her head on his chest. “It’s the TV crew. They can’t fly in after us, but with scrying glasses, they’ll be able to see us. That reminds me…”

She closed a little band on her wrist and tapped it. The gem on top started glowing.

“This will let them scry us from far away,” she told him. She’d squeezed a revenue split from Elias she was quite satisfied with. Each extra viewer was a little extra money for them. She projected bringing in a few hundred max-grade Essence stones’ worth from this raid alone.

*** 

Soon the waters turned somber, dark. The sea had lapped at the boat before. Now it started to swirl and swell, grow grumpy. But the ship cut right through the waves without rocking. The runes on the hull glowed a little brighter. That was all.

They started passing some A-rank Safe Zones, dungeons recently cleared by the Asia team. Nothing stayed here except for some lighthouses that doubled as watchtowers. A few Asian World Rankers standing guard waved as they passed. Mostly Archers and Mages, there to fend off Monsters and sound the alarm. 

The waters grew more and more unruly as they drew close. Soon clouds started gathering overhead, thick and heavy, warning of rain, blocking out the sun. Swirling darkly.

Crackles of lightning ran across their surface… in the distance came the soft deep groaning of thunder…

Soon the waters got so choppy even the ship had to slow. They were crashing, dragging, wrenching and shoving, spitting up huge sprays of white foam, trying to ram the ship over with twenty-foot-tall waves. It was like the ocean here had a mind of its own.

Zane saw Laws thickening in the water. The air grew charged with essence, with Wind Law. Walls of it started ramming the ship, too, breaking against invisible wards—but some still got through. One almost knocked one of the sailors overboard.

The Captain came on deck—Captain Hashimoto, a fierce old man with a thick white beard. He started shouting hoarsely at the crew members, who scrambled to obey. Soon, new layers of wards draped the ship. Just in time. Fingers of lightning reached down, crashed against them, smothered everything in white.

When they faded the wind came next. Storm winds, long pale blades crashing, breaking, swirling away…

It meant they were getting close.

Reina was getting stressed. She clung onto his arm. 

Then Zane felt a little tug near his hip. Evan was very nervous. He started clinging onto Zane’s other arm.

Zane just stood there blinking, not quite sure what to do.

Then they saw the Trench at last.

It was a giant splotch of pure darkness. Like the water turned to ink going miles across and miles wide. The strangest thing was how calm it was, how still it was—the only oasis of calm in a stormy, angry sea. Wide arcs of lightning played madly over the waters. Winds bashed this way and that.

When that fury ran up against the darkness, it just… vanished. Vanished into an abyss with no bottom.

Then—

“Incoming!” roared the captain. 

And on the mini-map, a red dot broke free of the dungeon border. A huge red dot. They saw it almost instantly too—a lesser darkness breaking from the greater one. So big it dwarfed the size of the ship…

“Fire!” roared the Captain.

And the cannons gave it Hell. Each blast was like a World Ranker’s attack. They ripped through the waters and sank into the beast, lighting it up in stark reds and shining whites, making it shudder.

But that was all. It stilled—and kept coming…

Blind Dragonfish (Monster)

Essence Level 174 

Zane thought about taking care of it himself. Then he looked around, then at Reina and Evan. He liked it better when there weren’t so many people around… things tended to get explode-y when he got going.

He looked over to Evan, who was still stuck onto his arm like a barnacle. He had an idea.

“Hey,” he said.

“Wha?” said Evan, blinking up at him. 

“I need you to explode it,” he said. He pointed at the thing. “Use the Skill I gave you.”

“Um…”

“Evan,” said Zane. Then he used the Evan activation words. “I believe in you. You can do it.”

Evan gasped. He started shaking. Then he nodded, eyes bright, all firm and determined. “Un!”

Zane grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him overhead. Evan’s elf-sword popped up in his hand.

“Clear Beam Slash!” cried Evan.

It looked like the first rays of sunlight coming through on a cloudy day—striking through the waters, dispelling the darkness. Even Zane was surprised how powerful it was.

Evan had pretty much everything except a Concept right now. He was only Level 148, which meant there was a big Level gap. But next to Zane, and Avery, and Reina—especially Zane—there were huge streams of power going into him. Especially when Zane said the words; Evan was literally glowing. It was that Power of Friendship boost, Zane realized.

Evan’s shots were so fast it looked instantaneous. Like turning on the lights in a dark room. They whipped right into the head of the dark splotch—and it shrieked, went sideways. Zane felt a huge pain in its head—followed by a blindness. When Evan struck it couldn’t see straight, feel straight.

“Hiyaaaaa!” cried Evan, and kept slashing. More dazzling beams piled on. At the same time the cannons took their toll; dozens rattled off blast after blast.

The Monster soon turned tail and sputtered off, leaking inky blood. Badly wounded… 

Silence. 

“We did it!” squeaked Evan. 

But he’d spoken too soon. 

Three more giant red dots broke out on the Mini-Map… 

The Captain gave a loud curse. The sailors went quite pale at that. 

Zane frowned. 

“Zane…” said Reina, looking imploringly at him. 

“I’ve got it.” 

It was time for him to meet them head-on. 

He set Evan down. Then he took off his shirt. He wasn’t even sure why. It just felt right. It took a little wiggling to get it off his shoulders. 

He crouched down and gave one massive leap. Sprung out over the ship several hundreds of feet, making one enormous arc. And dove headfirst into the churning waters.