Weapons of Mass Destruction

The muscleman, annoying boy healer, Leticia, and good girl Luna have all been marked by the fight. Well, other than the boy who looks like he came from a walk. The big musclehead has terrible burns across his hand and forearms, but he doesn’t seem to mind, in fact, he’s smiling brightly right now.

“What a fight! That little man sure packed some heat!” As he talks, I watch the burns on his arms heal even without any support from the boy.

His natural regeneration might be even higher than Lily’s. However, I still don’t think he comes anywhere close to matching her high Constitution, leading me to think it’s some kind of powerful trait or skill at work, be it active or passive.

Leticia, meanwhile, has been blinded in one eye, a terrible burn taking up half of her face, and the golden retriever doesn’t look much better. Luna is missing one of her legs with the same sort of burns surrounding the injury.

Noticing my look, the woman smiles, “I will be fine. That lurker was just faster than expected.”

It’s at this point that Noelle speaks up, joining the conversation, “Noname fought Rookie Killer. He’s gotten quite famous for bombarding newbies and causing trouble for weaker expedition teams, but he’s not that strong. We got attacked by Specter, one of the more dangerous ones, and he ran away. But I don’t know the one who fought you.”

“They fought a vyssari woman, another named one called Blazing Shortie,” Savant speaks up, having already recovered, his wounds have closed at the very least, his bearing unchanged.

“That fits pretty well!” Our musclehead says, smiling, and shoving the boy next to him. “Go and heal her.”

For a moment, I think the boy might refuse, but he just sighs and approaches Leticia, who thanks him and lets him touch her face.

The wound closes quickly, and it doesn’t seem to cause the boy much trouble. The mana feels similar to Lily’s. It’s no different when he restores the golden retriever’s missing leg, the bone growing in first, only to be quickly covered in nerves, tendons, flesh, skin, and finally, fur.

He doesn’t seem to push himself, so it’s hard to estimate how he compares to our petite maniac.

Then we continue moving on our way.

We pass by another small ruined city, a huge crater in the side of a mountain, and a big field filled with spikes piercing into the ground, and breaking the otherwise uniform surface.

When we eventually do meet two more lurkers, they go down easily, these ones having been much more in line with beginners who got in over their heads.

As promised, I’m the one to deliver the finishing blow, thus making future lurkers more attracted to me as time goes on.

When we meet three more, one of them dies near instantly, torn apart by a barrage of attacks from Noelle and me.

Leticia is great at manipulating mana. Her shields have perfect timing, and she forms them incredibly quickly. Even then, they’re none too shabby, seeming more than capable of enduring even more powerful attacks.

However she hasn’t really pressed the attack thus far, so I don’t know what her full capabilities are.

As for the resident musclehead, I watch as he jumps in feet first to face a lurker in a set of heavy armor.

The winner of the 1st round’s tournament is surprisingly nimble and doesn’t face down attacks if he doesn’t need to. His fights don’t usually take long either.

I watch as he pounds the armor, denting it as if it were made of aluminum foil. And after taking a few quick steps, he follows up the strike with a knee kick.

The lurker in armor creates a greatsword with mana and takes a swing, which the bald man dodges nimbly. Then repeating the maneuver, his next hit strikes the flat of the blade, snapping the weapon in the middle, before the following kick sends the lurker flying, slamming it into a boulder.

Grabbing a stone from the ground, the man throws it at full force, the impact sounding like an explosion as the stone explodes into a cloud of dust from the sheer force, sending reverberations through the air.

“You can finish him,” he tells me, sounding disappointed, no different from the fight before.

I let one of my javelins pierce the unmoving lurker, its armor rendered useless.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 253]

We start moving again, and as we progress, more and more lurkers head our way, attracted by the annoying mechanic that defines this floor. The more we kill, the worse it gets, and we aren’t even halfway through.

As much as we can, we avoid killing them, often leaving lurkers behind crippled and missing limbs.

We could have done it before, but I think the others wanted to be sure I would keep my word. Just to know they’d have someone willing to serve as a decoy if needed, while they escape. I think it’s only fair, and it’s exactly what I offered to them.

Nearly a day passes like that as we continue on, setting a slower pace than my previous expedition. My stay token is about to end so before I can disappear back to the 6th floor, I use another 1-day stay token. Leaving me with two more 1-day stay tokens and one 3-day stay token.

We lower our speed as the others take the opportunity to acclimatize themselves and explore the floor and make themselves familiar with its dangers. We do some tests on the lurkers as well, curious to learn just how much of the original person remains in them.

Another half a day passes like that, and the more I observe this group, the more curious I am. We stand around, chewing our food, with a barrier surrounding the first somewhat stable house we could find. Taking a short break.

So, who other than me and Savant could be a Champion candidate? I can’t sense the title from anyone else. If there does happen to be anyone else with the title, they’re probably taking full advantage of the function allowing them to hide it.

As we eat, while Luna and Leticia keep watch, I get a great idea.

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“Are you a Champion candidate, CarrotCake?” I ask directly.

His healer seems like he is about to spit out the food he is chewing, but the tall man laughs.

“I’m not. Some weird guy on the 2nd floor wanted to declare me one, but I rejected it because it sounded suspicious. Like, why the hell would I let someone declare me a Champion candidate or something when I don’t even know who they are?”

Is he messing with me?

“Are you serious?” Derick also seems unbelieving.

“Champion this, Absolute that, Candidate non Candidate, Rulers, blights, radiances, and other bullshit. Who cares?” The bald man shrugs, his teeth exposed in a wide smile. “I let my group deal with all that so that I can just fight.”

Huh, I could respect that. He might not be that bad.

An unexpected question comes from him. “And you, Noname? Are you one of those Candidate thingies?”

The question sounds innocent, but the way he’s looking at me makes it clear that the way I answer will allow him to put me in a box. To understand me better.

“Yup,” I reply.

Satisfied, he nods without pressing further.

He is also an Adept of Pride and the same as I can sense it from him, he can sense it from me.

“My name is Jean, and this is Lucien.” He says, slapping the boy next to him with his massive arm, nearly causing him to choke on his food.

“You goddamn dumbass, tell him your name if you want, but why did you have to give him mine as well!” the boy complains without an ounce of hesitation.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t worry about such useless stuff.” He crows, adding in another slap before turning back to me. “During the second tournament, we will fight,” he declares.

"Sure."

That makes me remember a certain cockroach who promised to join. That tournament will certainly be one huge mess.

“Luna says there’s a group of 10 lurkers approaching; they’re heading right for us,” Leticia announces.

Jean doesn’t even bother exiting through the door and instead opts to blow off the entire side of the house with a single punch, forcing us to exit before it caves in on us.

“Any strong ones?” Derick asks as we get to running.

“Two, maybe three,” Leticia quickly announces and immediately stops, her feet burying themselves in the ground. “Twenty more approaching from the direction we were just running.”

Oh boy.

“We could head in the direction we came from and try to get around them,” Derick says, rolling up his sleeves, displaying a number of tattoos with designs I haven’t seen yet densely covering his entire arms—fingers, palms, forearms, every inch of exposed skin. He then continues, rolling up his pants, revealing a similar set of tattoos covering his legs.

“That would make both groups join and follow us. Noelle interjects. Leticia, is Luna sure they are heading right at us?” Noelle asks, taking the bow off her back, as a string made of mana appears and bending the bow into position.

Her forearms, as it turns out, are covered in their own set of tattoos, which begin sparking with white and red primordial lightning.

“Yes,” Leticia confirms.

“It’s time to have some fun, gals and boys.” CarrotCake—Jean—seems to be getting excited as he turns to the boy. “Give me a mark, Lucien.”

With a defeated sigh, the boy slaps the enormous man on the back, and I sense a flash of mana and a healing aura, establishing some sort of connection between the two of them.

No one says anything, but all of us start heading in the direction of the smaller group.

“Noname, I won’t hold back this time,” Derick tells me, his tattoos radiating more and more mana with each step he takes.

“Sure.” He better not, we need to kill them quickly.

I take a few more steps and boost myself high into the air.

Even from this distance, a lurker manages to attack me, and I duck to the side, as a massive icicle sails off into the distance.

Someone touches my mind, but that’s it. My passive renders the attack useless, and I detect the attacker, deciding to deal with them first.

First, I shoot dozens of threads of [Ley Line] into the area, immediate attempts at disrupting them pulse out from two different sources, but neither one has any hope of getting rid of them.

As the group of ten lurkers enters my view, I dodge a few more attacks and block a few with my barrier.

The group splits up to cover a bigger area, some staying behind to attack from a distance while the others move into melee range. There is no sense of cooperation. Just like zombies, they just group together and attack similar targets.

My first tricolored orb explodes in the middle of a group of five melee attackers, throwing a few of them to the side while two manage to endure the attack. One of them, likely a named one, even shrugs it off, its armor made of mana absorbing the blast as he rushes toward Jean.

The huge man welcomes the lurker with a powerful punch that destroys the ground in a massive area, and tears apart the lurker in a single blow, leaving nothing behind.

With it goes most of Jean’s arm, reducing it to a mass of ragged and profusely bleeding flesh, but the wound closes quickly. And I notice that not a single bone is broken.

Savant is already attacking the lurker I threw the orb against, his movements much more dangerous than they were during the tournament, without even activating his domain.

Teleporting through my anchor, I reach the lynthari woman who used some sort of mental attack before.

She attacks me and her mental assault crashes against me again, as she follows up with a wave of oscillating mana spinning around her and cutting the area around her to ribbons.

Mana armor forms around my body, taking deep cuts across the surface, but by boosting my body with kinetic energy, I manage to take a few steps. Foot burrowing into the ground, as I twist my waist, redirecting all the force through my body and releasing it in short bursts.

The lynthari’s chest caves in, forcing her to stagger back, but there’s no sense of pain in her eyes.

Another step and swing of my hand separates her head from her body.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 261]

I teleport away, and a barrage of attacks crashes into the place I was standing, mostly ice projectiles that seem to radiate immense cold into the area around them.

A pulse of mana erupts outwards from me, detecting the positions of my group and the lurkers, As I compress a huge amount of mana and send five tricolored orbs through my Ley Lines.

Five powerful explosions reverberate through the air, preceding a heatwave followed by a shockwave and an implosion.

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 241]

[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 253]

[Lvl 278 > Lvl 279]

The air is still shaking, reverberating, when I sense one more signature heading from the direction of the group of 20 lurkers. A signature that moves at incredible speed, passing a distance that would take other lurkers at least a few minutes in mere seconds.

It lands in the middle of the group, the enormous wings made of mana on its back disappearing as the figure slows to a walk.

The figure is one of the races I met on the entrance floor, twice as tall as me, and while they still have humanoid proportions, they feel off on someone of this size.

[Reanimated Corpse - lvl ???]

Leticia shouts something, and Luna grows in size until the golden retriever is as big as a horse. The legs elongate, along with a maw that shows off a dangerous set of teeth. But before Luna can attack the lurker, the musclehead tackles her with his shoulder, sending the retriever to the side.

“Mine!” he laughs maniacally as the muscles on his body bulge.

His skin tears, the air around him seems to shake, and he crashes into the giant lurker with a huge shockwave.