Project Seraphina [LitRPG, Magitech, GL]

[336] 4.57 Ancient Lake VI

Hank steps forward into the next portion of the cavern, with the two of us following a few paces behind.  A smaller, weaker version of the monster Chloe just fought appears before us.  Chloe, still worn out from her attack, stands with one of her two longswords buried into the ground as a makeshift cane, while I stand beside her, ready to leap to her defense at a moment’s notice.  “I regret to inform you that none of my techniques are so flashy as what you two have managed to gain for yourselves.  I cannot accelerate myself and strike with the speed and momentum of pure light.  Nor can I bend space itself to my whim and slip into the boundary between the dimensions.  Instead, I prefer subtlety and subterfuge.”

He takes a deep breath, but otherwise remains motionless as the rock beast sizes him up.  Twelve feet and dozens of tons of rock pulsing with magmatic force, looking down upon not quite six feet of a man whose form grows fuzzy and indistinct as it seems to melt into its environment.  When I look upon him through [Valkyrion’s Perception], pain wells up in my eyes and brain, as though both are recoiling at the prospect of seeing something not meant to be seen.

“Are you okay, love?” Chloe asks.

“Your father seems to have a rather nasty anti-perception Skill.  I–  I seem to be getting a feedback loop from trying to understand it.”

“You know, Sera, it’s a little funny.  Two months ago, I would have told you to stop hurting yourself like this.  Now, however, after seeing everything you keep putting yourself through, and the fact that you keep doing it again and again, I think you might be a real masochist.”

“Wait, What?”  I gasp.

“I don’t necessarily like that sort of thing, but for you, I will try to set my personal preferences aside and work with your kinks.”

“I–  I don’t mean…”

Chloe pokes my shoulder.  “I kid.  But in all seriousness, I know trying to ask you to not hurt yourself while testing out your Skills and abilities is a futile effort.  And frankly, considering that your methods have proven effective, I don’t know if I would.  Just, you know, be careful, else you might die for real, beyond even my power to bring you back from the abyss of death.”

“Thanks, Chloe.  I’m more thankful every day to have you standing by my side.”

It’s a struggle to try to make out anything Hank is doing on the field of battle.  So far as my eyes are trying to tell me, he’s just standing there motionless while the beast throws random attacks at him from every direction.  Random attacks that phase right through his apparent form.  A form which, so far as I can tell, is completely identical to his normal body— possessing the same shape, the same mass, the same concentration of Ether emanating outward.

If not for the tiny strip of Ether and shadow that connects his soul to the shell he’s constructed— one deliberately and painstakingly obfuscated at that— I wouldn’t have noticed he had done anything at all.

“So what happens now?” Chloe asks.  “He’s not doing anything but standing there and dodging.”

“He’s definitely doing something.  Some combination of Skills that masks his true presence while creating an illusion from shadows to serve as a decoy.”

“That’s… just a shadow?”

“I’m guessing he has three or four Skills all working in tandem to create this effect.  Maybe a couple of those Skills have fused together, maybe not.”

[Your [Valkyrion’s Perception (Rank X)] has upgraded to [Valkyrion’s Perception (Rank XII)].]

And that’s the other reason why my psyche has taken a turn for the masochistic.  How could it not, whenever bringing my body to the brink of death and then healing it only makes me stronger and better equipped to protect those I care about from the next threats to emerge?  I…  Maybe Chloe is right and there are going to be a lot more people with some interesting quirks, so to speak, in the coming months and years.

Hank’s true form appears in my perception for a fraction of a second, materializing on the reverse of the monster’s torso.  A brief groan from said monster, and then again, nothing.  Perhaps there’s some weakness on its back that could have been exploited.  I pose the question to Chloe, who answers with a shrug.

“Dunno.  [Lightspeed Slash] doesn’t seem to care all that much about the target’s defenses.”

“We should probably make sure it can’t be blunted aside by a simple mirror, though.”

“Actually, it might be nice if it could.  I could think of some ways to bypass enemy defenses if I could, say, reflect myself off a large standing mirror that you keep in your [Inventory].”

“Maybe the [Reflect] Glyph itself would work.  I’d like to test it out, except I’m not keen on getting cut in half–”

Chloe glares at me.

“–For no reason.  Which, okay, fair enough, this is a reason, but it wouldn’t be leading to–”  I sigh.  “Sure, we’ll test it out.  Just please try not to remove anything vital.  It doesn’t exactly feel amazing, you know.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Our banter is interrupted by the sound of the creature roaring, though said noises are less roars and more pained whimpers.  Whatever Hank did a moment ago has taken effect, and the creature is disintegrating from the inside, apparently.  Its body appears, through my Skills, to be hollow and losing mass rapidly as its body is carved apart and its internals turned into so much dust and pace.  This is in accordance with how I believed Hank would fight, given what he’d demonstrated to this point.

But the reality of the situation is far worse.  Being hollowed out and having one’s insides ground to dust, all while still remaining technically alive and with a mind capable of recognizing what’s going on?  I suppose I have a notion of what it feels like after my fight with Dilortha, but being reduced to such a state is a haunting feeling.  Imagining the same thing, only without knowing I have someone available to heal me after, is its own special brand of horror.

Hank reappears next to us, a solemn gaze upon his face.  His double remains visible and the creature continues to attack it with weakened strikes that reflect the fact that it is only alive by a technicality and its own mind trying to move in spite of its brain and its body.  This too gives out, and within ten seconds, the creature collapses, lifeless and motionless.

“Interesting,” I said.  “I had imagined you’d fight with shadows directly, using them like whips and dissolving your body in order to prevent damage from physical attacks.  I did not realize how many anti-perception Skills you had and how you would use them to disorient your opponent.  Although I am curious, if you don’t mind sharing.  Exactly what did you do to the creature to attack it from the inside?”

“A small crack in the creature’s back.  I suspect some sort of stoma-like structure to allow it to exchange and absorb air or magma or whatever other substances it relies on to fuel its biology.  Once I was able to attach my shadows to it, it was a matter of burrowing inside until I found the heart, and then cracking it.  Far more efficient than trying to cut right through the hardened hull.  Unfortunately, that comes at the cost of not actually being able to harvest the heart.”

He turns back away from us and begins toward what seems to be our destination: a large stone temple of some sort, though why the System put such a structure in place, I cannot say.

He does his best not to show any sign of discomfort, but I can tell from the sound of his breathing and the near-imperceptible limp in his gait that he’s suffering from mild [Ether Strain] as a result of that display.  That, and the lack of the shadow field  he’s been using since we left the laboratory this morning, which might also be contributing to the fatigue.  It may not have won any hype competitions against our ‘flashier’ Skills, but it wasn’t nearly as ‘efficient’ as he liked to present it.

“You think we’re going to be assailed by more of these creatures en route to the temple?” Chloe asks.

“Not likely,” Hank says, not turning around.  “I don’t sense any more of them approaching.  Do you?”

“I don’t,” I say.  “If anything, they are staying away.  It’s almost like they’ve decided not to impede our progress, but instead invite us directly into the main area.  I’m guessing it’s a trap, and I’m certainly not one to deny such a welcoming invitation.”

“No, you certainly are not, Sera,” Hank says.  “But can we please formulate an actual plan this time?  Preferably one that doesn’t involve layers of deceiving me?”

“I will take the front,” Chloe says.

“No,” I say.  “Hank is right about at least one thing.  You are the healer, and while you have the strongest armor of us I think–”  I glare at Hank, who says nothing to contradict, so I continue.  “I also have the highest level, and with that, higher [Vitality] and [Health].”  Switching to telepathy, I continue to Chloe alone.  “Plus, the effects of [Angelic Bond] double the efficacy of [Saintess’s Cloister] when cast upon me.”

“In short, I believe I can sustain the most damage without dying.”  I don’t have either [Seraphina Overlimit] or [Death Defied] available as backups, but the logic holds even in their absence, and I’ve never been the type to let a little risk slow me down.  “And as a result, I’m the best front-person for the job.”

Chloe opens her mouth to interject, but Hank stops her.  “In this case, I believe Sera is correct.  I can understand your desire to prove yourself, but none of us have any more [Potions of Healing] on us and even if we did, the healer must be protected.  Once the healer goes down, the rest of the party is not far behind her.”

My girlfriend opens her mouth to protest, only to close them wordlessly.

“Then that much is settled,” Hank says.  “Sera shall serve as our vanguard and I will continue to act as the rearguard.  Now that we’ve all seen more or less how each other fights and each other’s strengths and weaknesses, we can be far more effective as a cohesive party.”

“Do you have any precautions against [Light] magic?” I ask.  “I can’t imagine your [Darkness] magic much likes being exposed to it, and I become more vulnerable while in subspace.  Since Chloe makes heavy use of the element, if there’s any risks, we should be aware of them now.”

He hesitates for a moment.  “You’re right, loath though I am to admit it.  That’s part of the reason I’m feeling more drained than normal.”

“You…  You’re allergic to the light, aren’t you?” I ask.  “Hence why your laboratory is pitch black, you only appeared in the dead of night, and this entire floor and the magmatic glow of all this molten rock has left you with a limp and feeling queasy.”

“‘Allergic’ might not be quite the right word, but…  That’s more or less the lot of it.  There will likely be no more morning strolls or lazy beach afternoons for me going forward.”

“I’m so sorry, Dad,” Chloe says.

Hank just shakes his head.  “This is the path I walk and the class I chose for myself.  If I have any regrets, it’s that I have been able to do nearly enough to protect you two.  And Leece.”

“But–”

“There’s no more buts,” Hank says, cutting Chloe off with a curt tone.  “We’re here.  And it looks like we’ve got quite the puzzle waiting for us.”

I look at the underground temple before us.  Five towers still standing, in various states of repair, along with seven more ruined towers, surround a grand cathedral a hundred feet high at least.  On the ground are artifacts of a civilization that appears long-gone and probably never existed at all in this world, a relic of another timeline brought to Earth by the System.  Nothing of value— I slip on my [Artificer’s Glasses] to confirm as much, sighing at the lack of additional loot.

The main gate leading into the central chamber— maybe an altar of some sort; [Valkyrion’s Perception] avails me not— is sealed.  Five beacons of energy, one each sent from each of the five, coalesce at a single point on the large double doors, where the gathered [Ether] then spreads out to form a powerful barrier that prevents access.  The barrier seems to be a much stronger version of my [Repulsion] Skill, resisting every physical and magical attack I throw at it, although I don’t push too hard.

“So, I suppose we have to clear these mini towers to get to the main boss?” Chloe asks.

“That would seem to be the case,” Hank says.  “We should hurry, though–”

I cut him off.  I really don’t want to deal with five more mini dungeons that are going to take goddesses only know how long to slowly work our way through.  So instead, I fly up to the gathering point of the coalesced energy and, with twelve hundred points of [Ether] behind it, I use the reversed [Seal] glyph I reverse-engineered alongside my [Dimensional Seal] Skill.

The barrier shatters into a million pieces, and the door creaks open soon after.

“I didn’t think we had the time for more of that crap, so I took another path.  Shall we be on our way?”