The Great Crestmaster

Aldrich looked at his new body and smiled, the armored husk was a very tough opponent and to figure out all his tricks he will probably have to die a few more times.

Aldrich hated the feeling of death, it was as disgusting as ever but he learned to accept it and harness the advantage of his immortality, now he was going to put it to full use.

That bizarre step which made him lose sight of the husk and the stamina stealing abilities were extremely dangerous. The armored husk proved that it could use them to lethal effect, the husk might not even be a grade zero being.

After all, only one good ability was good enough to make a monster, and the husk had two. In fact, for a split second Aldrich even considered pulling back, relocating the base and just hole up somewhere else.

But he was not whom he used to be, Aldrich analyzed the battle and put himself in place of the husk. If he had these terrifying skills he would have used them right away and ended the battle before it even started.

This meant that the husk couldn't just spam these skills, there were some conditions and limitations to these skills.

That was the conclusion that he had arrived at. Basically the armored husk was not a grade one being but not grade zero either, it was somewhere in between, half-step into grade one.

Now that was why Aldrich decided to use his essence orbs to upgrade the three attributes of Strength, Endurance and Vitality to level four.

He wanted to save those orbs for some other time but he no longer needed to, his focus was on defeating the armored husk as soon as possible.

His attributes now looked like this:

Name: Aldrich

Age: 15.5

Strength: 4

Agility: 4

Endurance: 4

Vitality: 4

Intelligence: 4

Spirit (black): 4

Essence: 24

Ether: 3

Abilities: eyes of insight LV.1

Condition: blood of ######

For some reason when all his attributes reached four the amount of Ether he had increased by one.

So what if the armored husk had some lame abilities? He also had an ability: immortality, unlike the the armored husk he had infinite lives. He could slowly figure out the limitations, habits and patterns of the armored husk.

He would whittle it down bit by bit and eventually he would destroy it all the same just like any other husk he encountered in this cursed nightmare town. He would show it the horror of fighting against an immortal!

This was not purely logical, nor was it illogical, Aldrich had already determined that he had met the qualifications to defeat it, so he was going to do just that.

His body was rippling with supernatural power, the synergy of the attributes when they were all on the same level gave him a boost. This was not an illusion he had felt that multiple times before.

Aldrich was even going to stop all other activities in the nightmare town, he was going to kill this husk no matter what, no matter how long it took, a week? Fine, a month? Good! A year? Not bad!

Aldrich wore his own armor and picked a short sword without a shield as it only hindered him in this fight.

He stood face to face with his opponent again and attacked. A side-step spinning attack, he landed a hit but it only dented the plate armor of his foe.

The armored husk was ready and sent a diagonal slash that made the air ripple with the force of the sword, but Aldrich ducked downward.

The sword missed its target, but it was difficult to stop such a strike in time so it collided with the wall of the room in the left side of the hallway and it cut through the wall material causing debris to scatter all over the place.

Aldrich cared little for the sharp pain on his cheek, instead he lunged away from the armored husk as if he was making his way to the staircase leading to the third floor.

The armored husk reacted in a hurry, and for a moment Aldrich saw a blur before he saw the armored husk seemingly materialize in front of him to block him from getting to the third floor.

But it was unsteady on its footing, Aldrich smirked in delight as he exploited that moment of weakness and slashed at the underside of the husk's left shoulder, where there was no plate and only leather.

Aldrich finally drew blood from his opponent. However, he had managed to slash off the husk's entire arm.

Unexpectedly his sword couldn't complete the job, as the arm flew in the air in a mixture of gore his sword got stuck in the joint bone of the husk.

Cursing under his breath Aldrich made to back off but it was far too late, the armored husk's eyes glowed red for a moment and Aldrich suddenly found himself as weak as an old man barely able to breath.

'Not this shit again!'

Aldrich was able to take two steps back and that was only because he had decided to abandon his sword, which was still lodged in the husk's shoulder.

Before he could do anything further he saw the husk's own sword cut him in half from the waist down, Aldrich didn't mind he just wanted to spit on it before he died but he couldn't even do that.

Aldrich awoke underneath the seal of Tindalor and held his chin in thought. He made some progress that was for sure, that was a good attempt.

He even had the tendency to overcome it, if not for the two skills it would have been a simple fight. But that was just the effect of skills, even with superior strength, skills could overcome that difference.

This time he knew for a fact that the armored husk was defending the third floor, and it was willing to even take some risks to prevent Aldrich from going up there.

What was there? Why was the husk so fixated on that task? Aldrich was undoubtedly a curious man by nature but in life there were things that one couldn't know.

No matter, the second thing he figured out was the disappearance skill, the husk was not actually disappearing and reappearing in a different place through magical means but it was a high speed movement.

Third before the husk used the stamina drainage skill it's eyes glowed red for a moment, this sign could serve Aldrich very well.

He had a feeling that there were even more flaws that he could find. Indeed anyone else who wasn't a Crestmaster would probably have no chance against it.

No, even some inexperienced Crestmasters might fall when faced with the sudden outburst of these skills. But he was different, if he lost he could just try until he got it right over and over.

One thing that surprised Aldrich mildly was that he wasn't expelled from the nightmare realm after he died twice in a raw.

The last time this happened he suffered from extreme exhaustion and was unable to enter the nightmare realm for a full day.

This probably had to do with his increased attributes, the difference between then and now was like night and day. This meant that he could probably endure at least one more death before he was expelled.

Not bad, this was a piece of good news but he decided against challenging the armored husk again today. He decided to call it a day and return to the real world.

He did not feel like experiencing that level of exhaustion again, and he wasn't free in his day to day life either. This wasn't like his carefree life from before, he had places to be.

So instead of blindly charging in he ought to take a step back and try challenging the armored husk again tomorrow, he didn't lose anything anyway.

****

Aldrich met the armored husk blow for blow and landed several hits, as shallow as they may be he didn't mind.

He baited the husk until forced it to follow him into the room on the right side of the hallway, one there it used the diagonal wide slash but Aldrich had already seen it coming and ducked low.

Taking this chance to attack the husk's lower body that was now vulnerable, the attack was powerful enough that it send the plate in the leggings of the armored husk flying.

Aldrich wanted to press his attack but he was too greedy and the husk's eyes glowed red for a moment and then Aldrich's back was penetrated by the long sword.

Despite wanting to dodge or do something his body was slow to react and a moments delay in battle was fatal.

Aldrich inflicted a deep wound in the husk's thigh, but he was pushed back and committed a moronic mistake of losing his sword.

Aldrich was pale for a moment before he wizened up and picked one of the swords that remained here from his previous attempt. Finally he dashed to the third floor's staircase and managed to take the armored husk by surprise.

He managed to destroy a chest piece in exchange for his life but Aldrich didn't mind, he was just putting in the work for his next attempt.

Aldrich returned to the real world pleased with himself, he put off the moss lamps and covered himself with the blankets when he suddenly shot up in a hurry.

He relit the moss lamps and poured himself a glass of water as he thought about something. What happened to the bodies?

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