Chapter 461 (1/2)

Drake winced as he pressed his mouth into the hole in the skull that formed his helmet, his lips brushing up against the dried vomit from earlier overexertion. Well, that and the absolute disgust of watching the sentient monster that was Maelstrom rip through hundreds of monsters, leaving their bodies broken, their fluids turning this open field into a marsh.

Lucifer’s reveal of his ability to fucking teleport was something of a shock, but more than that, Drake found himself dumbfounded 10 seconds later when he realized he had been prepared to completely brush off that impressive display of the System’s disparity in power.

What have I become, Drake wondered, checking his weapons, focusing his Skill to touch his armor, that such inhuman displays only become worthy of a fleeting curiosity?

Then again, Drake was hard pressed to understand what had happened to him over the past month. His Bone Armor had almost tripled in summoning speed and also doubled in size. On his shoulders were huge, spiked protuberances of bones and a Mana operated bone tail swirled behind him. It had taken a few hours of practice in order to understand how it could be used for balance and as a weapon, but the excruciating grind of battling every day had quickly made such actions second nature.

In spite of the fact that the armor had grown to such a huge size, Drake didn’t find the operation of it difficult. If anything, he felt weird… connected to the bone armor. Like, when he wasn’t wearing it, he wasn’t truly himself.

It was a disturbing thought, for other reasons entirely.

After Clarissa unleashed the Maelstrom, the strange spark in her hand rapidly expanded to a swirling cloud, and then to a monster made of wind, sleet, and thunder, with tornados for arms and legs. It did not slow as it hit the monster lines, and instead just flailed its wild arms left and right, laying out dozens of monsters with each strike.

The main weakness of such a Skill, Drake soon saw, was that the beast couldn’t easily alter its own momentum. Once the enemies realized this the Death Cultists and the few remaining monsters not caught up in its swirling wind avoided it, and it roared with a blast of chilling wind, furious that it could be foiled like this.

The secondary weakness, Drake observed was that Clarissa had to constantly channel her Mana into it to keep it going. And very quickly, once it was clear the enemies were dodging it, she ceased feeding Mana into it, panting lightly, her chest rising and falling.

Ace joined Drake and Lucifer at the front of their party, standing in the front lines of their new formation. Annie’s archery had basically depleted most of the Dintan people that were manning the walls, and all that remained behind them were a wounded Rhaidon and a furious Zith, or Gemma, or whatever, who were not able to match Alana while she was wearing her Valkyrie Helm.

Thea stood with Ptolemy, Annie, and Rose, rubbing Chrysanthemum’s muzzle and whispering words of encouragement after the beast had been forced to bear the brunt of the Grey Death Cultist’s Wither spells.

Ace cracked his knuckles, grinning. “It’s a good day in a Dungeon where the scent of death covers up the smell of a sweaty man who hasn’t showered in a month, eh?”

This was the point that Drake vomited a little, the acrid bile flowing out of his lips and sticking to the inside of his helmet. If Drake could go back in time… but alas, he was stuck with his previous mistakes. Besides, he couldn’t deny that Ace was absolutely rancid at this point, having spent a lot of their fights in the past up to his elbows in the organs of their enemies, and the thought of comparing him to the dismembered and whimpering corpses in front of them…

Truly, Sydney was right to distance herself from this madman. The only question was whether she was right to retain a strange fascination with the Ghosthound…

But then Rose started barking out orders, pointing out the monsters that were using powerful Skills, and Annie began to calmly shoot her arrows forward, having recovered from her previous displaying. Drinking slowly to avoid oversaturating her body, Clarissa continued to rip through their store of Mana Potions, restoring herself to a fighting state.

Then the lines approached close enough to be dangerous, and Ace, Lucifer, and Thea rushed forward, hitting the monsters and Death Cultists like bowling balls, smashing them apart. Chrysanthemum roamed, and Drake stayed back, mopping up the remnants that slipped past, protecting Rose and Clarissa from close range combat.

Earlier in their Raid Dungeon dive, Drake had also considered Annie one of those people he needed to protect. But then a troll had knocked him to the side, and rushed towards the group. Cool as a cucumber, Annie had drawn an arrow, walked forward, dodged the troll’s strike, and slit its throat.