Chapter 168 – Floor 136 (1/2)

This 136th floor was of some sort of ruins.

Perhaps a city or a fortress, the wide stone paved pathway allowed ample space to fight.

Or perhaps ample space for a large monster to show itself. But the number of hits on [sense presence] suggested otherwise.

Taking the first turn to a wide street flanked by broken buildings, there stood a single figure in the middle of the path.

The figure stood twice as tall as I did, and was covered from head to toe in black plate armour and had a sword and shield in its arms.

[Adamantium Evocatus Shield-bearer].

As its name implied, the monster's shield was quite large. Almost as tall as it was and shaped like the outer wall of a half cylinder. Its eyes glowed red between the slit of its visor as it caught sight of me and took a ponderous step forward.

I could feel the stone floor shake slightly on each step it took.

As I raised my weapon and popped open the flask of blood on my belt, more armoured figures burst out of the rubble on each side.

Before they could form up and attack me, red fluid in the shape of shotel blades shot out to the left group. A high pitch whine echoed through the ruins as the spinning blades made of mana hardened blood ground through the black armour each of the figures wore.

The force of the impact made them stagger back, but while the magical attack continued its assault grinding through their armour, the others rushed me.

A spear thrust through where I stood only moments before. I grabbed its shaft with my off hand and simultaneously thrust out my weapon, the pointed tip of the bardiche's axe blade pierced my offender's chest plate with the loud screech of metal against metal.

But before my weapon could rend through my target fully, swords and axes swung in my direction.

Letting go of the enemy spear, I pushed off of my weapon and used my embedded opponent as an anchor to propel myself out of harm's way. As I landed on my feet and pulled my bardiche out of the rent hole of my enemy's broken armour, a huge round wall was thrust in my direction.

Holding my pole arm in both hands, I thrust its haft against the black metal charging at me.

A loud clang rung into my ears as the weight of the impact lifted me off of my feet, giving me some room to assess my situation when I regained my balance.

The enemies to my left were virtually defeated. Their armour cut and broken, revealing the shimmering metal that made up the inner body, now twitching as the residual mana escaped their broken cores.

Three enemies on the right, one who's inner body was revealed under its cracked armour, and two who were unharmed. Then finally the largest of them all, the shield-bearer, marched ahead of the others with its shield held in front of it.

The four that were shadowing the shield-bearer each only bore weapons. A spear, a sword, and an axe.

My eyes switched to the largest of the four remaining enemies as it raised its shield. Mana coalesced around it before it slammed the blunt object into the ground, sending shock waves of mana and dust all around.

The ground shook furiously, but not to the point that I would lose my balance.

I did loose sight of my enemies, but [sense presence] made sure that I was aware that the three smaller enemies immediately rushed me under the cover of the dust cloud.

My grip on the blood I had sent loose earlier hadn't been diminished in the slightest, I shot it all as a flat blade across the open street right into the side of the oncoming trio.

The crimson blade broke up on impact against their adamantium armour, but that was enough. They were unbalanced and were primed to be taken down with a single blow each.

I counter charged them, only for my foot to get caught on something hard.

It wasn't strong enough to stop me as it shattered, but the unexpected nature caused me to lose my balance, forcing me to halt my charge and divert to the side, only to be caught further unaware as my feet came upon broken ground.

The cracked but still flat stone ground had become a patchwork of broken rock. Aside from where I originally stood, every surface I stepped on was jagged and uneven.

I grit my teeth at the unexpected conundrum as the largest of the remaining monsters charged me, the others following only slightly behind it.

Once again, I gathered the blood I was using, this time into a sharpened cone. The scarlet bullet was shot out at the large monster, shock waves rippling through the air as it broke the sound barrier.

There was a sharp ping that echoed across the broken ruins all around us, and moments later the shield-bearer fell. It used its shield to support its ponderous body as its form was broken mid-stride.

I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. The monster's leg was firmly detached from its body at the knee.

And with an easy opening, I took advantage of it, driving the blood bullet back through the newly formed gap in its armour as it wrecked havoc, spinning and slicing as I flattened the projectile and drove it through the monster's body.

I was satisfied with what I had seen from my opponents, so it was time to end it before I made a serious mistake.

The three smaller enemies rushed ahead of its towering companion to thrust their weapons at me.

With my bardiche in both hands, I swung it down, only for the axe head to disappear from in front of me.

Instead, the blade appeared behind the sword wielder as my mana bent space itself, warping the space in front of me with the space behind one of the monsters. As my weapon's blade came in contact its target, a shock wave rippled through my body as my feet was lifted slightly into the air.

The screech of metal on metal rippled almost visibly as adamantium shards flew in all directions as the monster's armour shattered.

Shrapnel buried itself into the stone environment or pinged off of the broken corpses around me before the sword wielding figure lifelessly fell to its knees.

Undeterred from its companion's violent demise, the spear user thrust its weapon straight at me.

But unconcerned by it, I simply turned my eyes at the last of the three opponents as I let my mana do the work on this half-broken figure.

Rather than hit me when I chose to not dodge, the spear head instead warped and bent onto itself, the force of the monster's thrust being turned against itself as the spear went through the broken gap in the monster's armour as I bent the space the spear occupied, brute force overcoming the monster's anima with my much higher intelligence stat.

The axe wielding figure continued towards me, weapon raised, undeterred from the fact that it was the only one left.

But as it swung it's weapon down, I simply took two quick steps in and pressed my hand against the monster's chest. With a bit of concentration, I forcibly pushed my mana into its body, past the innate resistance of the adamantium armour, past its own resistance against outside mana, and straight into its core, corrupting its programming with nothing but white noise.

The last figure grew still as its body lost the instructions it needed to move.

Satisfied with my work, I refilled my blood flask from one of the jars I carried, as well as took a quick victory sip before I went on to collect the monster drops and moved on. It was a bit unfortunate that the monsters on this floor were of the non-living variety.

Flesh and blood monsters were easier to deal with as my blood stores were refilled as I killed my enemies, no matter how much MP my attacks consumed.

But it was a minor annoyance, and the progress I was making was quite nice.

A grin crept onto my lips as I picked up my drops and headed out to the next part of the floor.

Sigh

Things started off pretty well, but as I reflected back on my day while cleaning up in the fountain room, I considered what I would need to do.

That first fight was relatively easy. I came to understand the sort of monsters that inhabited the floor, as well as what it took to beat them. It wasn't like I had encountered every variety of that floor's monsters in that first engagement, but it did give me a good idea of what to expect, and my expectations weren't betrayed.

The floor was filled with all sorts of golem like automatae wearing heavy plate armour.

Breaking through the armour wasn't a big deal, my stats made sure of that.

Nor were the varieties I had encountered. A few ranged monsters later on, from archers to javelin throwers in addition to what I had faced at first.

But as I should have expected, the numbers were a problem.

The further I progressed on the floor, the greater the number of enemies I faced at once. At first there was seven, which quickly became ten.

By the time I turned back, I was facing over twenty at once, and I was at best halfway through the floor.

It was possible that I would be able to finish the floor was I was, but it was a bit greater of a risk than what I wanted. It was better for me to raise my level a bit more before trying to finish the floor.

That, and...

Sigh

My eyes landed on the objects leaning against the fountain.

”Njordr's going to kill me.”

There stood the bardiche the titan blacksmith had made for me. The whole thing made of adamantium for both destructive power and durability.

Except the shaft had fractured and the axe head flattened.

It was a mistake to pit an adamantium weapon so directly against adamantium armour.

Njordr's work was clearly a higher level compared to the armour of these monsters, but even then it could only take so much punishment. After a dozen or two encounters, the axe head was noticeably warped, and a few more later, the shaft had snapped under the strain.

But it wasn't like I had found a stronger material I could use to have Harja make a new weapon out of.

(Should I just have him make a bunch?)

He'd probably be pretty pissed if I asked that though. Treating a person's work that they put their sweat and tears into as disposable didn't make me feel good, let alone the person who put in so much effort in making it.

(Maybe I should just stop using weapons?)

I didn't like it. This bardiche was so helpful, but against these monsters it couldn't last as it was.

Sigh

I picked up and put away the pieces of the broken weapon before making my way out of the dungeon.

As I had estimated, it was about evening when the last vestiges of the sun's daily assault reflected off of the red sky above.

It would soon be time for me to go home, but before then, I headed into the city.

In even just these last few years, the Hourai Commonwealth had grown quite a bit.

As I walked through the streets, giving a smile or a wave to those who stopped to greet me, I couldn't help but notice it.

The city had grown so lively in only a handful of years.