And (N)one Shall Remain

“[Taunting Cry]! [None Shall Pass]!” yelled Ethan as he activated his skills one after another. They were on their penultimate day of dungeon delving, with the [Winged Scavenger Matriarch]’s lair just further ahead of them, so everyone took the chance to use their skills a bit more in the hopes of another level before the “boss” fight.

 

Ethan learned [None Shall Pass] after their battle with the patriarch a couple days ago. It was another defensive skill, one that reduced the damage he received while at the same time preventing a certain number of enemies from physically moving behind where he stood. Combined with his [Taunting Cry]  which increased his endurance and forced a number of enemies below a certain level to attack him, it made him a literal wall for the rest of the team to hide behind.

 

He moved very smoothly for someone his size and bulk, the pollaxe held in his hands alternately parrying blows away and at times delivering crushing strikes when he had the chance to do so. The shield hanging beside his left arm kept moving alongside his own movements, and he used it to catch several blows where he could. Others he took on his armor, with only a few doing him any real harm.

 

Not that he minded a little harm at the moment.

 

“[‘Tis Just a Flesh Wound]!” he yelled after a while, activating his newest skill which he gained just the day before. It was a rather masochistic skill in that the more damage Ethan took, the tougher he would be, which in turn synergized more with his other skills. Probably because he had been fighting primarily on the front lines and tanking the damage for the rest, the skills he learned also leaned towards defensive ones.

 

Sir Inolet had told them that the feats and actions they did during their leveling would partly determine the skills they got, after all.

 

“[Pierce the Heavens]! [Grasp the Soul]!” yelled Alissa as she activated both of her new skills at the same time as she flipped her grip on her long spear and hurled it towards the largest of the [Dire Winged Scavenger] they faced, a level 32 beast only slightly smaller than the [Winged Scavenger Patriarch] they killed mere days ago. 

 

A silvery sheen seemed to envelop the head of her spear, followed behind by another, more ghastly sheen that seemed to coil and twist around the weapon. As the spear left her hand, it flew straight towards her target, and struck it directly on the center of its chest. The spear pierced through the beast’s breastbone, its heart, then out through its spine where it stabbed deep into the stone walls of the cavern, leaving the utterly surprised, dying monster pinned by the spear like a butterfly in an insect collection.

 

Both of Alissa’s new skills were ones she learned in the past couple of days, at levels 16 and 17 respectively. During the fighting against the [Winged Scavenger Patriarch] she had felt the lack of offense that plagued the entire team over power beasts like those. Perhaps the system read her mind, as she received the two purely offensive skills shortly afterwards.

 

[Pierce the Heavens] had a very simple effect, in that it simply increased the penetrative power of a single attack by a rather large factor. On the other hand, [Grasp the Soul] granted additional damage to her attack that struck against the enemy’s Mind and Soul at the same time. Combining them together allowed her to pull off some very lethal attacks even against the sort of beasts they fought as they got closer to the Matriarch’s lair.

 

The only drawback was that the skills had rather long cooldowns still and took quite a bit of her mana to use. She knew that the cooldown situation would improve with more skill levels, but the mana situation was more problematic, as it was something she could only remedy by leveling up more. Then again, it was not like she had more mana than what it took to use each of her active skills once anyway before running dry, so their long cooldowns worked just fine for their situation.

 

Joshua had been quiet about whatever new skills he learned – he definitely learned something, though Magus Drummond was likely the only one to know about them – and still kept himself mostly isolated from the rest of the group unless he had to. Alissa only really saw him interact much with Vesta or Magus Drummond, and she wasn’t certain whether it was due to the lingering shock of being summoned into another world, or just him being a jerk.

 

Either way, he definitely got some skill that increased the oomph his magic attacks had. Where Joshua’s magic used to be more “incapacitating” at best, even against monsters in the 20s, he managed to land killing blows on the high-20s to early-30s monsters they fought now. It also seemed to tax him more, though, as she noticed how he had to rest after dishing out the same amount of spells as before, despite his growing mana pool.

 

That meant he either focused his free stats to other main stats – unlikely, she thought, knowing Joshua Smith – or his spells now cost a good bit more mana to use. The latter felt much more likely, all considered, since it was nearly a given that something with increased potency would also increase in cost. Her own active skills cost more to use with each level as well, and it would likely be a while more before she could use them more freely even if their cooldowns allowed it.

 

Alissa shelved those thoughts as she rushed towards the monster she had just pinned to the wall, her shield held before her while her other hand held one of her jarids, ready to throw. One of the monsters – a relatively weak one at level 26 – veered away from Ethan and moved towards her, only to receive a thrown jarid through its ribs.

 

That would probably result in a fatal injury over time, but she had no plans to waste that time, and instead took the moment where the beast reeled from its injury to hurl another of the short javelins. Her second throw landed directly in the beast’s right eye and pierced deep into its brain, dropping the beast on the spot like a puppet with its strings cut.

 

The [Dire Winged Scavenger] she pinned to the wall was not dead yet, as it still tried to struggle, if weakly. Alissa ended its suffering as she took another jarid and stabbed it through the roof of the creature’s mouth until the point ended in its brain cavity. She gave it a stir for good measure, before she planted one boot against the creature’s abdomen and grabbed the shaft of her spear with her hand.

 

Alissa stumbled backwards and almost fell when she finally pulled out her spear from the stone wall, but managed to regain her balance just in time to meet the charge of a [Winged Scavenger Reaper], a higher-level variant of the Winged Scavenger that had lost its wings’ functionality in exchange for long, wickedly sharp claws that tipped its sturdier arms.

 

The beast came from her right, and its claws were already too close for Alissa to turn around and block with her shield. Instead, she caught half the claws with the shaft of her spear, while she turned to present her armor to the rest. The claws that struck her armor made her feel as if someone just shoved her there, but they failed to do any meaningful damage to the steel plate.

 

As she kept the beast’s claw bound with her spear, Alissa ducked beneath the arm and stepped in closer to the beast – their long arms meant that they had trouble dealing with enemies up close – until she was too close for its claws to be able to threaten her. The beast reacted much like she predicted it would, as it opened its jaws wide and tried to bite her with its fangs.

 

Instead, Alissa struck the beast’s lower jaw with the top edge of her shield in a fierce uppercut that slammed both halves of the beast’s jaws together and must have rattled its brain. She followed it up with a front kick that struck the beast’s abdomen and pushed it back, still dazed from the first blow, and finished it with a thrust from her spear. 

 

Her spear went into the base of the beast’s throat and pierced through its muscles and sinew with ease. Angled upwards, the thrust kept going until the point of Alissa’s spear protruded from the back of the base of the beast’s skull, the fierce thrust having separated the skull from the spine and effectively decapitating the monster.

 

Alissa turned around, ready for more, when she noticed that all the remaining monsters were being taken care of. The guards from both sides worked together and took down most of the lower level beasts already, with only a couple left being finished up. The highest level ones were left for the [Heroes] and they too had made short work of those beasts.

 

Joshua stood to one side of the fighting with his hands resting on his knees, panting heavily, which was a sign of mana overuse. Not far from him lay the corpse of two higher leveled monsters, both of them having been roasted to a crisp from the inside, with many electrical scorch marks on their carcasses. He must have even resorted to his crossbow for the last one, as it had a bolt protruding from its chest, and Joshua still held the weapon in his hands.

 

On his side, Ethan had cornered the last of the monsters against the wall, his skills working in tandem to prevent the beast from escaping, while he struck at it repeatedly with his pollaxe. One of the beast’s arms already laid limp against its side, and it desperately flailed its other wing-arm around in its attempt to stave off its fate.

 

Ethan was having none of that, however, as after one swipe he just shoulder-tackled the beast, pinning its arm between his shield and the monster’s own torso, before he drove the long spike at the top of his weapon into the beast’s nostril and up its brain. While that killed the beast just fine, Alissa doubted that Ethan expected the dying beast to reflexively sneeze at him as he removed the spike.

 

Which naturally coated Ethan’s face with a layer of blood and gooey brain matter.

 

“Oh god, jeez, fuck, gross!” he complained as he spat out some of the goo that went into his mouth and tried his best to wipe the rest of the mess from his face with his gloved hand. Alissa didn’t bother to hold back her laughter and just openly laughed at the comical face he made while he tried to clean his face as best he could.

 

Not that she looked much better. Alissa was covered from head to toe in blood and grime from the creatures she killed as well, if to a lesser extent than Ethan. Joshua was comparatively cleaner since he stayed at range, but even he started to look a bit dirty as well by then. After all, they had been in the dungeon for nearly a week, and the dungeon apparently didn’t come with amenities like showers or baths.

 

Who would have guessed?

 

Either way, Alissa suspected that her nose had grown numb to their own stench by then. The locals looked positively unbothered by the prospect, though she doubted they were any cleaner. Chances were they were just more used to such a prospect, given how dungeoning was a part of life for them, since from what Alissa saw at the royal castle, this world’s hygiene standards was quite high for its relatively medieval technology.

 

All those thoughts took a backseat when the message she had been waiting for came at last, though. Apparently the highest-level beast she killed had taken its time dying, to the point that it only registered after the fight was over.

 

You have defeated [Great Winged Scavenger Lvl24]!

…

…

…

You have defeated [Winged Scavenger Reaper Lvl29]!

You have defeated [Dire Winged Scavenger Lvl32]!

You have gained bonus experience for defeating an enemy of a higher tier than yourself!

You have leveled to level 19! +1 Free Major stat point gained! +1 Willpower Gained, +1 Intuition Gained, +1 Sanity Gained!