The Fool's Freedom

Alan flew to the side, thin walls of shadows appearing to his side and trying to block the savage attack of the creature. The whip of crystal threads didn’t seem like it would exhaust itself. [Shadow Creation] was working overtime and Alan felt his mind grow heavy from the effort to shape so much mana so quickly. It was weird touching a limit once again, and in such a situation, but there was no time to dwell on it.

He hit the wall hard and felt the passive shield covering fully crumble. His right shoulder and the part below were hurt without him even realizing, but thankfully he had reacted in time, lessening the impact and putting some distance between himself and the threads. The attack hadn’t been strong enough to make [Mortal Peril] warn him, which was troublesome. It was dangerous, but not dangerous enough apparently.

The spider still stood in place, its crystalline head moving side to side as if it was trying to get a good look if it was even capable of that.

Alan poured some mana into the shadow shield to recharge it, summoned the [Shepherd’s Shroud] to boost his will, and showed his teeth. The whispers grew stronger yet, excited by the danger and the bloodthirst raising in his very being. They urged him to sink his blades of darkness into the new foe – the first worthy one he had met in their eyes.

He didn’t need much encouragement. [Void Step] brought him out of the way of the threads that swung again like a medieval mace at him. They were difficult to see in the dim light of the crystal walls and ceiling, and they couldn’t be sensed at all, which made dodging them that more difficult.

Alan took out his staff and doing what he did best, made Cole’s day even worse. He had stolen plenty of Vitality now, and while it hadn’t been his intention to make the process so speedy and torturous, [Sacrificial Attack] was just too good to pass.

The boosted [Void Pierce] hit the crystal spider and the creature reacted sharply. It moved with tremendous speed directly toward Alan, making him rethink his strategy as his attack was cut short. Still, the boosted [Void Pierce] had done quite a bit of damage, managing to crack the crystal carapace of the spider and break a small piece of it.

Attacking like that seemed to have been a mistake though. Now that the spider knew he had ranged capabilities that could hurt it, it seemed hell-bent on doing the job itself rather than only using its strange threads to attack. Not that it gave them up. The pressure skyrocketed and Alan’s mind went blank from the effort.

He dodged it all, to the best of his ability. The threads were difficult to predict, but leaving some shadows floating in a small radius around himself, and spreading his will around him almost like a dome, proved to be enough. He could sense them break his weak [Shadow Creations] and his spread Will acted like an alarm, in a way, allowing him to react in time as it touched upon the threads and tried to weaken them.

Still, the spider was too fast for his liking. It caught up easily by maneuvering with its many legs. They were made of crystal as well, but a lot of Jaderin’s shine was gone. Thankfully, it didn’t look like the spider had any of the iron on it. Alan wasn’t completely certain but his guess was that the smelted ore was what allowed the panther people to store his skill and use it. Having a creature of this caliber do so sounded like an awful time.

One of the limbs stabbed into the earth, right where Alan had been standing. [Void Step] allowed him to move to the side in time. He cursed in his mind and unleashed a charged shadow slash at the thing. While scary its limbs looked like a prime target. They were not completely covered, and the crystal on the spider was harder than the one found on the walls or lugged around by the kobolds. Denser, perhaps, as if the thing had somehow half-smelted it, molding it to itself.

The shadow slash left a large cut on the carapace, but once again it was a shallow thing. It was somewhat of a repeat of the fight with the Earthshell Trihorn, where he had to bombard it with skills for a long time while dodging its attacks.

However, the spider was quick and had range. Alan felt the strain after a few minutes. His strategy was not feasible for a prolonged combat, no matter how deep his mana pool went, and how strong his will was. The exhaustion was ever so slightly going to creep in, and the spider didn’t look like it was hurting at all.

It kept chasing Alan and destroying the ruins and rocky walls in the process. Each shadow slash or [Void Pierce] was met with slashes of the almost invisible whip of threads and the spider’s spear-like limbs.

This is unsustainable. Alan gritted his teeth and ran deeper into the cavern, opting to stop circling the great beast and look for solutions. The soft light of the ceiling gave him enough to work with. He turned back to see if the spider was following. In a straight line, he was still faster than it, even without the frequent use of [Void Step].

However, what he saw made curses climb his throat and stop at the tip of his tongue. The spider stood still for a second, crouching down, before leaping with strength that made dirt and rock fly everywhere.

Alan barely turned in time, using [Void Step] and crashing into a nearby carved wall, as the spider landed a meter from where he had been and unleashed a flurry of attacks with its limbs.

Without pause the creature lunged for him again. Alan’s staff disappeared in an instant as shadows coalesced around his arms, turning into light but sturdy shields that broke after each impact of the many limbs.

He tried to deflect rather than take the strike head. The creature’s strength left his limbs numb and aching. Managing to use [Void Step] to slip through Alan just booked it, without turning back this time.

To fuel [Chains of the Dark Servants] he needed quite a large amount, and he wasn’t even sure they could grab onto the fast spider. Cole’s Vitality was finite, and currently, Alan had no other sources of Vitality – a mistake he was bound to correct once he was done with this fight.

No thoughts of losing or death passed through his mind. It was simply not an option. Not after everything.

The limits of his skill set once again reared their ugly heads at him. His curses, while absolutely insane, were useless against the spider. He had no marks prepared, and even if he did something told him it would not go well trying to place one through the Jaderin Ore carapace.

[Curse of Buried Shadows] had yet to be tested on a monster, but for some reason, Alan didn’t like his chances with that one either. It made use of one’s intellect and connections, of one’s regrets and fears.

I need more substantial firepower. No more rituals or situational curses. His passive effects were his biggest strength, and as long as [Shadow Creation] grew stronger he would be able to shape it as he wished. However, solid shadows were not enough of an edge, no matter how great the manipulation.

They were weaker than steel and didn’t have the inherent strengths of the more naturally formed elements. Infusing them with his will somewhat bridged that gap, but it was also unsustainable and difficult to do when he had to react in the manner of milliseconds.

Yet another wall of shadows tried to stop the whip of crystal threads that descended from a weird direction. It crumbled quickly, giving Alan only a few moments to get out of the way. He tried to see the source of the threads. They were swinging, rather than coming like a projectile, that much was certain. He wondered that the crystalline thread was not breaking apart, but perhaps it was a whole another form of the strange ore the Dungeon was centered about.

This can’t go on. Dodging and rolling and blocking with his shadows and will wasn’t working, and whatever attacks he managed to sneak in weren’t enough to do substantial damage to the spider. He tried going for its legs, but that didn’t work either as the compressed ore seemed to swallow parts of the mana just moments before the skill hit. Alan decided it was worthless to try and do anything with [Sacrificial Attack].

For a moment he imagined what Cole must be feeling, but the thought was squashed down as the spider once again descended, sending flying rocks everywhere. Alan widened the distance once again and frowned. There was one thing that was certain to work, but the price was too much.

Could it be my own strength is not enough? He hated borrowing, which was one of the reasons he had not taken a Patron despite everything. Why he had chosen [Warlock] at all, remained a mystery to this day.

Alan used [Void Step] each five to six seconds while rushing madly and dodging the invisible threads that came into his bubble of rampaging will. He knew it was eating away at the crystal threads, but it was not fast enough to make a difference.

He climbed on a piece of ruin in a corner of the cavern when there was enough distance and turned around, staring at the spider with displeasure. The monster seemed to have calmed down. Its prey was cornered now, after all. For a few seconds, the attacks ceased, and the crystal spider moved its blocky head from side to side as if it were mocking him.

We’ll see who will have the last laugh.

Shadows built around him like thick clouds until only his front was left open for the spider. They billowed around him and each second drained more and more of his remaining mana. He had a lot, but the supply was not endless. It was just a measure to buy him some time.

Tome of Spirit Skills (Unique)

An item made long ago by a madman, who deemed it defective and threw it away in a strange sea. It found its way to the enigmatic spirit tinker Odu of the Wavy Mists. The Tome has been remade by the one who found it to better suit the human it was given to.

The Tome can store the skills of both spirits and non-spirits.

The number of pages taken by a single skill depends on its complexity and strength.

To store a skill, cast it on one of the free pages.

Current skills held: 1

Free pages: 29/40

Current casts of Hateful Mist Cut (11) left: 3

Feed skill crystals to the Tome to make it grow.

You can draw mana from the tome to supplement your own.

Establish Spirit Domain was gone, which was a slight surprise but made sense since Alan had already done that and it didn’t seem like a repeatable thing. Spirt real estate was bound to be quite expensive.

He reached for the only skill held in the book and remembered the sea from the vision, having been cut apart as if by a godly blade.

The first thing that came was hate. Visceral, call-consuming, suffocating hate. It made Alan shake from the effort to hold on to his own mind and for a brief moment, it overwhelmed the whispering shadows and all that made him who he was, threatening to replace it all.

Then it passed unto the skill forming above the Tome.

Mana started churning like mad and pouring out. It was more than he could provide even if that was all he did, which was a surprise again. The number of pages the skill took, had previously made Alan think that it was of the (Ancient) grade. However, that didn’t seem to be the case now. The skill was stronger… much stronger. Or he simply didn’t understand what an attack at the (Ancient) grade could do.

The air shook and became hazy as mists started crawling on the ceiling, the ground, and through every near nook and cranny. The sight briefly reminded Alan of the Spirit World and the place where he met the spirits each time, which was probably some sort of a barrier. Despite him having a domain there now, he was still unsure about the real thing. The mists rose and the spider seemed to sense the danger and turned to flee. It was too late though. The skill had locked on.

Space trembled as the mists converged together into a simple sword that swung as if held by an illusory hand. Threads fell cut from the ceiling, revealing a giant net hidden by the glow of ore. Then, the spider, and most of the cavern were no more.

The monster fell, split into two even halves as if someone had precisely measured everything. A thin cut went from the ceiling to the ground, bisecting the cavern into two and making the whole place shake lightly. A slew of system messages rained in the back of Alan’s mind, but he had no time to focus on them.

Oh, fuck. He beelined for the corpse while dodging the falling ore and threads of crystal web. He hoped the cut was thin and smooth enough that it wouldn’t make the whole cavern collapse.