The black-tar dragon refused to die. This was the first time Victor faced an opponent that lasted more than a few seconds. I can see why dragons are graded at ten points by the goddess, but… He looked at the corpse of the feminine silver dragon with brain pus trickling from a hole in her head. That dragon had to be centuries old, yet I killed it in one hit? The Hackers are the same, too…a sneaky claw to the head, and they are dead. He realized what truly mattered in this world. Stealth. Picking Netherborne came with noticeable disadvantages, such as the very world itself seeking his demise. But starting with a maxed-out Stealth skill and the ability to hover around made him the perfect killing machine. Dragon, king, or god. Every living thing would have a moment of weakness where they weren’t prepared to fight, and Stealth allowed Victor to capitalize on that chance.
But as with any creature specializing in Stealth, once the initiative was lost, Victor found himself at a significant disadvantage. He was reduced to occasional sneak attacks without hundreds of thousands of stat points to pour into a Doom Ray to obliterate this oversize lizard to the next dimension.
He could run; that was always an option. Assuming there were monsters to kill on the floors below, he could power up and return to finish the job. A few more attacks, and I will call it quits. I only have around an hour of life remaining… Victor saw an opening and emerged from Stealth just above the dragon. He quickly spent two hundred stat points on Spirit Movement to try and penetrate the dragon’s mana shield. His claw made contact, and the dragon’s mana surged to push him back. It burned like hell as Victor’s lifeforce was devoured. Failing to penetrate again, he vanished into the background and hovered a few meters away. Does everyone feel this pain when attacking a mana shield or only me? He was starting to debate if mana was the world’s power and the ambient mana in the air was slowly killing him like a poisonous gas.
While debating his next move, Victor saw a fireball soar through the air and hit the dragon. Unfortunately, it did nothing but briefly form a small hole in the dragon’s black mana shield. Seeing a possible way to defeat the darn dragon, he followed the trajectory and saw a defiant Alice standing next to the smashed-up Wiggles. She would look heroic if not for being in her underwear with a metal slave choker around her neck.
Victor saw mana swirl around the girl and go down her arm, the slight blue mist condensed on her burned palm, and another, more immense fireball formed. All right. Let’s do this. He was never one to turn down an opportunity, so he floated right next to the dragon and began chanting his Doom Ray. Half his remaining stats vanished into thin air. If this doesn’t work, I’m going straight back into the tunnel and devouring Genus.
Victor watched with anticipation as Alice raised her arm and, a moment later, hurled a fireball. The dragon didn’t even acknowledge such a weak spell and continued searching for any sign of Victor’s next attack. Victor grinned from the shadows at the dragon’s stupidity. It was so overwhelmingly confident in its superior abilities that it didn’t even regard the little human. The ball of orange flame sailed toward the dragon’s eye. It merely blinked in response, and the fireball once again drifted through the sheen of black mana that covered the dragon’s body and harmlessly dissipated on the dragon’s eyelid.
With the threat averted, the dragon opened its eye, and its vision went white. Victor used his superior control and threaded the purple lightning through the hand-size gap in the dragon’s defenses. A sizzling sound like a juicy steak on a barbecue filled the cavern as steam rose from the dragon’s eye socket. The black-tar dragon howled at the top of its lungs, and black flames erupted between its clenched teeth. Victor skillfully dodged the fire and noticed the dragon’s mana shield had briefly faltered. So it takes a mental effort to keep that shield going. No wonder the silver dragon didn’t have it running while it slept. He pressed the advantage and rammed his claw through the dragon’s eye and flash-froze the eye sludge and some of its brain nerves with Freezing Cone. Before proceeding with his assault, the dragon’s immense mana flared to life and danced across his scales.
The black-tar dragon shook the cavern as it crashed backward, smashing its head side to side while howling at the top of its lungs. It kept trying to claw at the ice in its exposed eye socket. The dragon’s mana chaotically flared up like spikes leaving many weak points. Victor bore with the pain and readied his final attack. He had mere minutes left of life and refused to die here.
[Name: Victor]
[Race: Netherborne]
[Level: 304]
[STR: 1680, DEX: 1680, CON: 1680, INT: 1680, WIS: 1680]
(Lifeforce Unstable - 0:27:59)
Victor had confirmed that stat points worked in mysterious ways for him. Crushing a dragon’s heart while so low on stats showed that they were merely the System’s way of trying to quantify his lifeforce. With his few remaining points, he made a spike of shadow magic around his claw and activated Spirit Movement before ramming the shadow spike through the dragon’s eye socket and straight into his brain. A thin layer of mana shrouded the dragon’s brain from magical interference, but Victor’s improvised spike smashed straight through. The level-up notification never came, so he toggled Annihilating Aura on for a mere second and then:
(Level up!)
A few stats got added and quickly vanished away with his spell expenditure.
[Name: Victor]
[Race: Netherborne]
[Level: 305] (Level up!)
[STR: 308, DEX: 308, CON: 308, INT: 308, WIS: 308]
(Lifeforce Unstable - 00:05:13)
A wash of relief filled Victor as he quickly cast Consume. A wisp of pure lifeforce so large it dwarfed even Victor surged through his arm and became condensed into his body.
[Name: Victor]
[Race: Netherborne]
[Level: 305] (Level up!)
[STR: 108308, DEX: 108308, CON: 108308, INT: 108308, WIS: 108308]
(Lifeforce Unstable - 30:05:00)
[Skills:]
[Consume X]
[Raise Undead X]
[Shadow Magic X]
[Annihilating Aura X]
[Freezing Cone VII]
[Stealth X]
[Doom Ray X]
[Spirit Movement VI] (Level up!)
With a decent amount of lifeforce to play with, Victor used his Raise Undead skill on Wiggles. A plume of green smoke shot out of his hand, and within this cloud of smoke, bones and teeth reformed and merged with Wiggles’ smashed-up body. Alice staggered to the side to avoid flying debris and collapsed on her butt while breathing heavily and nestling a burned hand. She then did some hand movements, and Victor saw a mass of mana surge through the air and condense into a tornado around her body as if she was a funnel. Immense power radiated from her body as she glowed briefly blue. Even though the tornado produced no wind, Alice’s hair whipped around, and her pink eyes gleamed as blue mana crackled through her veins.
As Wiggles finished reforming, Victor checked the party status screen.
[Name: Alice] (Leader)
[Race: Human]
[Level: 30] (Level up! x10)
[STR: 48(+10), DEX: 60(+10), CON: 30(+10), INT: 108(+20), WIS: 100(+20)]
(Weak) (Slave)
[Name: UNKNOWN]
[Race: UNKNOWN]
[Level: 305] (Level up!)
[STR: 108307, DEX: 108307, CON: 108307, INT: 108307, WIS: 108307]
(Lifeforce Unstable - 30:04:59)
ραпdα Йᴏνêl(сòm)
[Name: Terry]
[ERROR: CONNECTION LOST]
Victor nodded his head in understanding. Somehow, likely due to the fireball, Alice had gained a large amount of exp and levelled up a lot. He watched Alice’s transformation with interest. Her stats seemed to increase a single point per level, but she gained two in the stats that match up with being a mage. Although I can only see her name and level, I suspect Alice is some kind of mage? Perhaps a fire mage, judging by the fact she threw such an accurate and weird fireball that ignored the dragon’s mana shield… This world is becoming weirder and weirder. First, Hackers that could directly manipulate the System appeared, and now fireballs are glitching through magical defenses? No, glitching isn’t the right word… It just went through somehow. Victor had unleashed his entire arsenal of skills upon that dragon’s shield and not even left a scratch. Alice obviously had some sought of unique skill that created that phenomenon.
The mana tornado dissipated and left a very healthy-looking Alice behind. Her face was flushed a healthy red, and she had fattened out slightly. She was still slim, but she was less ghastly to look at. She seemed giddy as her finger danced across screens that Victor couldn’t see with intense concentration. She would pause with her finger in the air every few seconds with a smile before scowling at something else. It was amusing, but Victor had other issues to worry about.
More dragons were fast approaching. Like oversize bats, the beat of their heavy, leathery wings echoed down the corridor. From this distance, Victor couldn’t tell how many were coming nor how strong they were. With the surprising difficulty of the fight with the black dragon fresh in his mind, he decided a tactical retreat further into the dungeon was necessary.
To Victor’s surprise, an out-of-breath Genus shot up from the hole in the cavern’s center, with Henry cresting the hole’s ridge a second later.
“Henry, pick up Alice and secure her. We are retreating deeper into the dungeon. Genus, you may follow us or converse with your dragon friends.” Victor’s voice surprised everyone as he was currently hidden with Stealth, and there were two dead Senior dragon corpses.
Genus took one look down the corridor and vigorously shook his head. “I will follow you, Voice.”
“Very well,” Victor replied. He needed to buy some time for their retreat. He needed Wiggles digging potential, so using him as a sacrificial pawn was a no-go. So what other option did he have besides the two almost mint condition dragon corpses at his floating feet?
With some hesitance, he cast Raise Undead on the black dragon as it had given him the most trouble and was a tough bastard to kill. Some lifeforce vanished, but it was much less than the lifeforce required to create Wiggles. Further proof that the condition of the corpse directly affected spells cost. Without much evidence of being dead, other than the holes in their skulls and blood-soaked scales, the zombie dragons rose to serve their new overlord.
“What do you desire?” the silver-scaled dragoness asked in a snarl.
So they can speak, as expected of dragons. Victor was happy to have another fully sentient type of undead other than the humans. The goblins could also speak, but they still acted like mindless drones. This confirms my theory that a monster’s intelligence directly affects their undead form.
“I desire protection. Guard the tunnel, and do not let a single dragon pass.” Victor’s ancient voice echoed through the corridor, and the two dragons bowed.
Genus was already gliding down the corridor with his golden wings spread wide. Henry was charging below with Alice clutching his waist with one hand, and her other was dancing in the air across invisible screens.
Victor mentally commanded Wiggles, and the enormous earthworm barreled down the corridor, spraying dust as it went and causing the ceiling to rumble.
The two zombie dragons, positioned side by side, focused on their first and final order. Their demise was inevitable, yet they stood proud and strong to defend the one who killed them mere moments ago.
Magic is terrifying when you think about it…dragons reduced to guard dogs with a wave of my hand. Victor shook his head and quickly followed behind his group; it was time to power level.
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