blueteamnovel [354] 4.75 Final Flight VI
[354] 4.75 Final Flight VI
The moment Chloe releases her spell, the army of clankers returns fire with an absolute vengeance. With her temporarily drained of her stamina and unable to fight until she’s recovered, I choose to grab her and make a break for it. My [Reflect] barrier allows me to dodge the attacks— I guess the scrapped soldiers didn’t communicate that knowledge to the next wave of scrap metal. And by using the [Sphere] glyph to shape the barrier, I grant myself full protection as I cleave a path back the way we came. Though much like Chloe’s [Sanctuary], this spell eats my [Ether] at a prodigious pace.I fly high, spiraling around to evade enemy attacks as Chloe clutches her arms and legs around my waist and torso. She’s not yet ready to jump back in the fight, but that’s okay. I have an idea.
“What are you doing?” she asks. “Isn’t that where that whole army of bots is?”
“Yes it is. But I got the map of the place back then. There should be an access terminal near the ceiling.”
“Assuming that the tunnel isn’t swarming now that they know we have the map!”
“Well, Chloe, if you have a better idea, then I’m all ears. But don’t forget, we are also here to get Experience, and–”
“And it’ll do us all jack and shit if we get ourselves killed over it, love! Remember, you promised that you were going to do better about taking care of yourself.”
I sigh, spinning out of the way of a laser that grazes my left wing. “Fine. But do you have any better options?”
“Admittedly, no, I do not. But can you promise that no matter what happens, we will take heed of the fact that we can and will retreat if we find ourselves in over our heads. We have potions, we have my healing magic. We can regroup and keep fighting once we’ve had a chance to restore ourselves. But not if we get ourselves killed being greedy.”
“Okay.”
Chloe takes a deep breath and, now recovered, sprouts her wings once more and draws [Lumen] and [Aria] as we approach the chamber. With her wings illuminating the warehouse of a facility, I’m able to finally get a better sense of how many units we’re dealing with. Tens of thousands at least. And though these models are a class below that vicious Sentry Hulk outside in terms of offense and defense alike, that doesn’t mean they won’t pose a threat.
First things first, clearing out the aerial drones. Shut down their eyes, stifle the radio and light beams they are using to coordinate their attacks. Their advantage is in their precision and ability to seamlessly attack as a cohesive unit. Ours is in our individual power and the fact that we have such a wide range of potential attacking options. We also don’t have to worry about friendly fire, which has already taken out a few dozen of these units.
And area-of-effect attacks. Lots of area-of-effect damage. After downing a [Superior Ether Canister], Chloe bombards the field below us with [Radiant Purges] launched in rapid succession. Each one seems to be infused with her new ability to produce celestial fire, melting joints together and turning these undertuned pieces of junk into piles of molten slag.
Then I come in. One of the most consistent and brutal techniques for fighting with the System has been to combine as many status buffs, damage multipliers, and special abilities together to create absolutely ludicrous damage outputs. Especially because, in most instances, damage multipliers stack multiplicatively rather than additively. A hundred and fifty percent of a hundred and twenty percent totals a hundred and eighty, not a hundred and seventy.
In this case, I start with six weak [Elemental Ether Strikes], cycling through every element but fire. Each is tuned to the absolute bare minimum consumption of scarcely a hundred points of [Ether] apiece. Most of them fail even to stagger their targets.
Damaging my opponents, of course, is not the objective. Instead, as my [Elementalist’s Bandana] starts glowing, stripe by stripe, I’m charging up for the special effect of my headpiece, the [Rainbow Chain]. Thanks to the final effect, the [Ether] cost drops by half, allowing me to greatly overcharge the spell. And I also get a massive boost in the power of the [Fire] spell I’ve saved for last, to be boosted by another third thanks to the [Crimson Heart] beating within me.
Only once Chloe has returned to cover me do I begin building the spell matrix, forming a [Fire], [Intensity], [Expansion], and [Gravity] together to create an eruption of flame that should flatten out and spread throughout the base of the chamber. I consider using the [Persistence] glyph I found in those files, but discard it for two reasons. First, I’ve already promised Chloe at least twice that I would avoid using glyphs in battle that I haven’t tested thoroughly first. And more importantly, I don’t want these flames to linger and choke us out. Those might be robots, but we still need some amount of oxygen to breathe.
They are upon me by the time halfway through casting the spell. I flutter around to try to dodge, and Chloe’s [Mirage Swords] and the occasional [Piercing Beam] are able to blunt the worst of the damage heading my way. But, as is seemingly always the case these days, the majority of damage is borne by [Saintess’s Cloister], my armor— which is reflecting some of that damage back— my innate ability to preternaturally dodge, and my face. Chloe’s magic is healing me as fast as I’m being injured, but I really have no better option here. Sorry, love; as soon as you come up with a better path forward than this, I’d be glad to start work on it. I don’t exactly like smelling my own charred flesh up my nose either.
The attack is every bit as incendiary as I’d hoped. Rather than the flickering orange-red flames I’m accustomed to, these new floes surge with yellows and even hints of pure blinding white where my spell is most strongly concentrated.
The robots try to mount a defense, but against this level of heat, there is nothing they can do but succumb and melt in a death I’d imagine would be brutally painful were these creatures of flesh and blood. As it is, I feel not a twinge of guilt as the attack spreads through the hallway, melts through the floor, and burns through the sandy soil underneath before eventually solidifying and then dissipating.
I breathe heavily and the deoxygenation of the room isn’t helping matters. There are still more of these robots who managed to survive, either by clinging to the walls or standing overtop heaps of their fallen or just having the capacity for flight or at least massive air time.
“Fight or flee?” I ask Chloe. “I’m at about a sixth of my maximum [Ether] after that little stunt.”
“I’m at about a quarter, so… I think this is where we vacate the premises and fall back for now.”
In accordance with Chloe’s decision, I make my way up along the panels on the ceiling, looking for that darned panel for airflow and exhaust. The drones from before don’t make it easy, though. Their numbers have been whittled down considerably, but both of us are feeling the fatigue and Chloe’s starting to suffer from [Ether Strain], something I sometimes forget exists for most people because I’ve been immune to it for so long now.
Where is it, where is it, I think to myself. It should be right around here. It has to be… No, was all this data planted? Am I walking into another trap? I start to tense, my palms clamming up. Only once I realize my sense of orientation had gotten flipped at some point and I locate the shaft on the opposite side of the chamber do I finally truly exhale.
Chloe clutches onto me tighter as I yank the panel down off the ceiling, pausing only long enough to cut down a couple of buzzing insectoid drones which decide to add to my daily misery. The two of us sneak into the tight quarters, then I weld the panel back where it had once been. Not for a second do I believe it will stop the creatures from chasing us, but if it buys us even a few seconds of confusion, it’ll be well worth it.
We float slowly upward, making as little sound as possible. Chloe’s eyes drift upward toward any sign of ambush, while my focus is solely down below toward our pursuit.
“Can we get to the core chamber from here?” Chloe asks.
“No,” I say, recalling from memory the map I’d sketched. “But we can get close.”
“So we’re just going to hang out in here for a little bit and recover our stamina?”
“I doubt we’ll be able to stay for as long as either of us would like. Although it is a damn shame; I have a feeling I got a metric fuckton of Experience from all that.”
“How much?”
Comfortable enough for at least a few moments to gaze at those notifications piling up and deal with the incessant nagging, I turn my focus to the windows appearing in my sight in rapid succession. Must be thousands of them… probably tens of thousands of them. Considering just how much destruction I caused to that hive with my little stunt, I’m not surprised. Going through them one by one, I’m nearly overwhelmed, and so, with a bit of mental effort, I collapse all the notifications down into a summary.
[You have slain 17,245 Worker Droids (Levels ranging from 52 to 57). You have gained a boosted 155,205 Experience.]
Damn. Both that there were so many down there that got smelted by my attack, and that they only gave me about nine Experience apiece. I guess even the added threat of such a numerical disadvantage doesn’t make up for the 20 to 25 level difference between them and me.
[You have slain 47 Sentry Drones (Levels ranging from 58 to 61). You have gained a boosted 5,800 Experience.]
A little better, a bit over a hundred apiece. Not great, but certainly better than a sharp stick in the eye.
[You have slain 549 Guardian Workers (Levels ranging from 60 to 63). You have gained a boosted 82,350 Experience].
And these are worth a buck fifty. Hard to believe that level 63 creatures were giving me Experience in the six digits just a few days ago. I guess that levels aren’t everything, though. If they are individually weak, with bad classes, weak Skills, and poor stat spreads, then they won’t be enough of a threat, levels be damned.
[You have slain 2 Guardian Hulks (Level 66, 67). You have gained a boosted 52,500 Experience.]
And now that we’re getting into second ascension creatures, we are once again seeing individual Experience values worth more than a pittance. And finally.
[You have slain a Titanium Hulk (Level 70). You have gained a boosted 600,000 Experience.]
My eyes raise at that. I suppose this titanium creature is the equivalent of a metal slime— a generally difficult to defeat being that gives a commensurately large amount of Experience. Probably would have run or hidden or disappeared in short order, been nearly impossible to find even if I knew to look for it, and had an incredible defense that would have been nearly impervious to all attacks. But the nature of simply melting everything in a slagstorm managed to catch the little bastard before it could pull an expeditious retreat. How incredibly delicious, and fortuitous for me.
And now, for those juicy, sweet levels. Plus, I have finally crossed that milestone of ten million Experience.
[You have gained enough Experience to reach Level 80 (From 77). [Strength] +3, [Vitality] +3. Please assign free stat points. (Remaining: 33)]
[Maximum Health increases by [Vitality] x 2 + Current Level + Rand[1,3] = (459, 464, 465)]
[Maximum Ether increases by [Mind] + Current Level + Rand[0,2] = (312, 316, 316)]
[Level: 80; Experience: 10,892,204; To Next: 425,966]
[Current Stats: [Health]: 9,751 / 18,422; [Ether]: 3,236 / 13,480]
[Current Stats: [Strength]: 405 (Base: 162); [Speed]: 405 (Base: 162); [Vitality]: 480 (Base: 192); [Mind]: 588 (Base: 235)]