Chapter 353: Clearing the Deep Wall Stratum (1/2)

It was only natural that the process of clearing the Deep Wall Stratum was not as easy as the forum post title suggested.

While it was just a descent overall speaking, Edward encountered something unexpected as he attempted to fly through the entire tunnel on his Blackfire Dragon.

First and foremost, the Nine-headed Birds and other monsters living in this stratum would attack him—although it was not too fierce and manageable for Edward, guarding against the attack still drains his strength.

But there was a bigger problem after dealing with the creatures’ attack.

Edward had tried to descend past the entire Deep Wall Stratum tunnel since his Blackfire Dragon wasn’t a real creature. Rapidly descending on it was equal to having a near-physical shield of flames beneath him, blocking the brunt of the damage of anything it crashed into halfway through the descent, even dealing critical hits on monsters like the Nine-headed Birds with physical collision and fire damage!

And yet, in the rapid descent quicker than free falling, Edward noticed that something wasn’t right.

He clearly wasn’t being attacked, but his HP bar was dropping quickly!

Upon a closer look, he noticed that there was a status called (Abyssal Curse, Grade 3] on his status bar.

After several tests, Edward ascertained the cause of the curse even though he didn’t know where it came from.

In a nutshell, the curse would come into effect when his descent exceeded a certain speed limit, and the curse could be categorized into several different grades.

Grade 1 causes fainting and nausea, but wouldn’t inflict any actual negative effects aside from that.

By Grade 2, the person would lose their sense of balance, their bodies being struck with a status similar to being ‘stunned’, although mage-grade Players like Edward who has stronger spirit stats was immune to a certain extent.

Grade 3 was the level at which Edward first sensed the Abyssal Curse itself. This grade was where physical damage started to be inflicted, presenting itself in the form of sweating blood—but thanks to the Players’ physicality, the blood sweat would directly vanish as it leaves the body and wouldn’t cause major blood loss.

Nonetheless, Edward attempted accelerating afterward, and discovered that there were two more grades of Abyssal Curse beyond grade three.

At Grade 4, the person would feel as if a fire was burning inside their body (doubtful since Edward feel that it could be a status exclusive to the class of Skyfire Heralds), with the person’s HP decreasing at a rate far quicker than at Grade 3, just as the spirit stats would decrease as well.

Grade 5 was the strongest level of the Abyssal Curse that Edward—or indeed the Blackfire Dragon-could make out through acceleration. Now, the Player’s spirit stat would drop wildly, their physical stats becoming erratic, increasing from to time instead of dropping straightaway.

Furthermore, the Grade 5 Abyssal Curse would inflict an additional unusual status called Melt. It was coupled with a percentage, although Edward’s HP was completely drained before he could reach 100% on two occasions, which was why he wouldn’t know what it actually does.