(TPOR) Chapter 108: Pending Quest (Patreon)

In front of Zed Chris swung her club in a downward strike and Abed turned to meet her with a strike of his own. His sword tore the ground as it moved to meet her in an upward swing. It hit Chris’ club violently, sending her back. Ash stepped away from the chaos, not fool enough to think she could help in the melee.

Abed spared her the barest glance before stomping a single foot into the ground. A spike of earth shot from the ground and Ash saved herself from being impaled with a conjured shield of ice.

The earth spike met her shield and shattered it on impact. Despite its woeful defeat, the shield had served its purpose. It had stood in the way and the impact of their meeting shoved Ash violently away where the spike should have run her through.

In front of Zed a notification he hadn’t seen in a while mocked him.

· You have been struck a critical blow.

· You are stunned.

A dark chuckle tried to escape his lips and he coughed up blood. Abed’s attack had carried too much weight behind it and had done more than shattered his arms. There was also a deep impression on his chest, a line that ran the width of his chest. It pressed his rib cage and suffocated his heart.

· Attribute [Regenerate] has been activated.

· Attribute [Regenerate] takes effect.

Pain filled Zed and he held it down behind gritted teeth and clenched jaw. Anger was his support, giving him willpower where pain tried to drain him. The darkness continued to claw at his vision, and while he could feel his injuries already healing, Zed could feel his consciousness threatening to slip away.

He fought against his pain, needing to survive. Beside him Shanine’s body didn’t move, didn’t mourn his pain. She remained unconscious as a man turned on his party simply because he wanted her.

And here Zed was, considering his sanity as pain tried to burrow into the very fiber of his being.

On the other side of him was a dead monster with a face even God would not recognize. It appealed to his anger and his rage. Appealed to his dawning insanity.

Reality settled on him as he fought against the appeal. Abed wasn’t losing to Chris. If anything, he was winning by a long stretch as he beat the girl around. What that meant was that when Chris finally lost, Zed was next, and something told him his regeneration attribute would not keep him alive once Abed had his time.

With a mental command, one filled with pain and more struggle than it had any right to have, Zed pulled up a notification.

Quest: [The Beginning After the End]

You have drawn closer to where you once started after your end, what’s left of it, at least. You have drawn closer to the mana surge but enemies stand in your way, survive the enemies and find out what has become of the surge.

· Objective: Find [Mana surge] 0/1.

· Reward: [Pocket memory (I care?)].

· Bonus objective complete: Defeat nine [Mana beasts (Beta)] 9/9.

· You have gained +200 [Exp].

· You have 1 pending Quest.

With another command he pulled up his pending quest, a quest that had followed him for a long time.

Pending Quest: [Giant Slaying]

An ally has pitched the idea of conquering a beast well beyond your reach and you have taken the idea a bit too seriously.

· Objective: Defeat a Rukh rank enemy 0/1.

· Reward: +600 [Exp].

· Qualification requirement: [Beta rank].

· You meet the qualification for this Quest.

It seemed today was the day he completed the quest or died trying.

With an arm fully healed and another with its fingers popping back into place, Zed pulled himself to the corpse.

Ahead of him, Abed weighed down on Ash and Chris, wailing on them while his aura flared brightly.

When Zed got to the corpse, he ran his arm across its disfigured and bloodied face, smeared himself with its blood.

He’d been fighting against insanity long enough.

Certain he had more than enough blood on him, he placed his hand on the corpse and hoped what he got from it would be more than enough.

· Would you like to use [Conqueror’s touch] on [Wobble imp (Beta, category 3)]?

Zed’s agreement was verbal.

“Yes.”

· You have used [Conqueror’s touch] on [Wobble imp (Beta, category 3)].

· You have gained +70 [Exp].

· Exp to category 3: 3400 (10)/3400.

· You have sufficient Exp to evolve.

· You have a pending evolution.

· Would you like to evolve to [Beta, category 3]?

He kept the notification at the back of his mind as he staggered to his feet amidst a cloud of colorful smoke that had been an imp not too long ago.

He staggered forward as a new notification popped up.

Skill: [Bloodwrath (Mana, blood, passive)].

· [Blood mana] required to activation: 1199/1200.

All he needed was one more. Even a nose bleed would suffice.

So a nose bleed he would have.

Zed stumbled forward, his core a bright beacon within his mind. His body begged for evolution and he begged it wait. Madness crawled in his eyes and he saw everything but understood nothing.

Abed wailed down on Chris’s raised club. Once. Twice. Thrice. Each blow forced her knees deeper into the ground and she gritted her teeth in endurance. Then Abed changed his attack. He swung upwards and Chris moved her club to intercept the swing. She took it against the club and the blow sent her flying.

Good, Zed thought as he bent down and swept his hand over a dead monster, staining it in blood. He had a plan. A plan that would herald his madness. And while he needed it to be executed, he hoped he still had the mental control to execute one last complex rune.

His fingers were already working. In one hand he held a rune easily crafted while he battled to craft the other in his second hand. Still, he pulled up a recent notification.

· You have a pending evolution.

· Would you like to evolve to [Beta, category 3]?

“Evolve,” he commanded, and he felt his core obey.

There was no pain in this evolution and it was nothing like the last one.

Zed’s core seemed to imprint itself in his mind as his aura flared out like a brutish thing, uncouth and feral. Its bluish white color solidified, and so did the specks of other colors littering it like sprinkles on an ice cream. Anti-climactically, that was all there was to it. His core became brighter and more solid.

However, strength filled him as the effect of his evolution kicked into place.

· You have evolved.

· You are now [Beta Rank] (Category three).

· 4 Aptitude points added to all base Aptitudes.

· You have received 5 Aptitude points.

It was fortunate to know that evolving did nothing to clear out the numbers gathered to his blood mana absorption, though he wasn’t certain that was a good thing.

Aptitude

· Strength: 51.

· Agility: 40.

· Speed: 36.

· Mana: 77.

· Will: 33(-4).

· You have received 5 [Aptitude points].

· You have 10 Unallocated [Aptitude points].

· Extra [Aptitude points] will be gained at each category.

· You will gain 5 [Aptitude points] on evolving to the next category.

Zed saw the notification, the updates. The rise in numbers gave him hope that he could survive the fight. Even without the numbers the power coursing through him was ecstatic.

A distance in front of him Abed stood alone.

Ash struggled to rise to her feet in some forgotten part of the forest Zed could not bring himself to care about. As for Chris, whatever she was doing was nobody’s business.

Abed stared at Zed with a calculated hate in his eyes. His armor of earth and stone was beaten and broken. There were too many places where his skin showed, places that were still falling apart. Even his sword was too broken to be called a sword.

“You’re still standing,” Abed said. “You’re sturdy for your rank. But increasing your category won’t help you. Not when you’re just a Beta rank.”

Zed was very certain he had a quip for that, a fancy comeback befitting of his wit and charming personality. He wasn’t sure what the words were but knew his mouth didn’t need his focus to say them, so he let it speak for him.

He opened his mouth and let out a snarl.

Abed’s head cocked to the side in confusion.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked, curious.

Zed wondered if that was worry he heard in the man’s voice. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. He was done crafting his runes.

Zed brought his hands together in front of him and linked them with a simple sigil, birthing a new rune. Then he activated it.

· You have cast compound rune [Fire Force].

· [Fire Force] has applied effect [Fire flood].

Abed’s eyes widened in horror as the rune activated.

A spark of fire burst from Zed’s hands and spread into a wave of fire that blinded his vision, blotting out everything in front of him. An impaired vision was nothing to Zed. After all, it wasn’t like he could see anything but red.

· You have absorbed [Blood mana] +14.

· Excess [Blood mana] detected.

· Involuntary skill activation detected.

· Skill [Bloodwrath] is in effect.

· Skill [Bloodwrath] has applied multiple effects on you.

· You have gained a temporary Aptitude boost: +8 to all Aptitudes.

· You are [Enraged].

Zed drowned in a sea of red as flames from his rune scorched the earth and anger swallowed him.