13 Chapter 13

I walked through the tunnels of the seventh floor until I found a room that could work for what I wanted to do. I first spent about half an hour destroying the walls of the room as best as I could so that no monsters could spawn from the walls behind me. Once that was done, I walked out to the mouth of the room and waited. After a few minutes, three large ants walked into sight, their mandibles clacking loudly as they moved along the tunnel. I grinned as they were the perfect amount to start off with. I moved into the open and whistled, causing the three red ants to look up sharply and begin to charge toward me. 

I fell back through the entrance to the room and waited, electricity already crackling in my off-hand. The first ant burst into the room to be met by a concentrated stream of power from my hand. However, contrary to what I expected to happen, the electricity rippled over the ant's body and left it singed, but mostly unharmed. That wasn't good. The ant, enraged at getting wounded, ran at me, sharp mandibles booming as they slammed shut and then opened again. I ducked back and channeled more power, feeling the now familiar pounding emanating from the back of my mind. I pushed the feeling away with my willpower as I channeled my power into my arms and forced them to take on a metallic structure. 

I then channeled more power to my body, moving in a blur and slamming my blade into the side of the ant's head. Its thick carapace splintered as I stuck, my blade crushing more than splitting, even with my empowered arms and force. That's when I knew I might have been a bit overconfident, especially when the two other ants entered the room and began to rush me at the same time. I took a deep breath and stepped back, putting the corpse of the first ants between me and its compatriots. I then rushed forward and launched off the corpse and arced through the air, raising my metal arms and my tightly gripped sword high.

I came down to the sound of shattering chitin as my blow shattered one ant's head, turning it into mush. However, I felt a sharp pain in my side and looked down to find a mandible sticking through my stomach. I grunted as I channeled more power to rip the vitality out of the dead monster at my feet. I only had a moment to gather power and divert it to fix the damage to my body before I had to duck as there was a loud SNAP where my head had just been. Pain flared as I pulled back, ripping the mandible free from my side, along with a nauseating amount of blood. I commanded the blood to stop leaving my body as I turned to face the last ant. 

I panted and felt lightheaded, though I reached out and continued to siphon energy from the dead monster below me. I brought my blade up with my other hand to thrust and slash at the amt before me to little effect. My blade merely slid off the ant's carapace, unable to find purchase. The ant also wasn't a static target. It ducked and sprung forward, trying to crush me with the weight of its body or impale me with one of its many legs. I managed to stumble or hop out of its way every time until I tried to gather enough power to punch through its shell. Before I could ready myself, I was brought to my knees by searing mental pain. Blood spurted from my nose, but I rose in spite of the pain and mental fog that now tried to cloud my mind.

My moment of weakness was noticed by the ant, which I found barring down on me, mandibles already closing to crush my bones. I reached off instinct and grabbed before they could close on me. I strained hard as I held myself from being crushed, the metal on my arms fading as I could no longer keep up the power for the transformation. I gave one final push and managed to pull the mandibles apart fully, then I tried to go even further. The ant screamed and redoubled its efforts to crush me, leading me back to the same position I was in a few seconds before. After a few moments of straining hard and realizing that I was going to lose, I reached into the ant's body with my power and burst a single vessel in its heart with most of the power I had left. 

At first, nothing happened, but then I was gradually able to overpower the ant until I ripped off its mandibles and shoved them through its eyes and deep into its skull. I took a moment to collect myself and catch my breath before I quickly harvested the stones. After that, I ripped the lingering vitality out of the monsters and used it to heal myself completely, though the vitality I gained was considerably reduced to what I would have received if they were alive. Of course, that didn't fix my searing mental pain and the risk of burning my own mind out, but I wasn't going to be severely weakened anymore. 

I made my way out and up toward the surface right before six more ants emerged from the walls and converged on the room I was just in. I took my time making my way out of the dungeon. Before I actually exited, I stopped on the first floor and found a pack of three goblins. My head still violently throbbed, but I was easily able to subdue them. Then, I cut off their limbs, gouged out their eyes, and ripped off their lower jaws. I was mindful of being quick, so I extended their lives with biomancy before shoving magic stones down their throats. As I fed the three goblins more and more, I felt their power explode. Eventually, one trashed, splintering the stone around it easily, so I took that as my sign to execute them and harvest their cores before they became too powerful.

 Once that was done, I ascended the last flight of stairs out of the dungeon, then just kept walking up until I arrived at my apartment. I was too tired to wash myself off before collapsing into my bed, so I simply put a sheet on the floor and then covered myself with a blanket. The pain behind my eyes had now faded to merely a pulsating pain that spread through my brain like the roots of a tree. For now, I just wanted to take a quick nap and allow my mind to recover before doing any rituals or thinking about the mistakes I made. I closed my eyes and willingly surrendered to the darkness.

. . .

I awoke to golden rays of evening light spilling across my apartment. I rubbed my eyes, but the pain in my head had long since faded. The first thing I did was draw a bath and clean myself off. While I was soaking, I considered what I had done wrong today. Obviously, I had been a bit overconfident, but mainly I have no idea how my powers interact with monsters in the dungeon. I had been surprised twice today by how my powers interact with specific monsters. Since things had gone so well with the War Shadows, I had just assumed that it would be the same with the Killer Ants, but it wasn't. Another problem is that I don't have enough mana to keep up with what I am capable of doing psychically. I decided that for now, I would go all in on magic power and focus on maxing out my other stats later.

I also knew that from now on, I should be more conscious of how my powers interact with each specific monster in the dungeon. That is something that I should have been doing from the start, but now I want to be extra careful to avoid another repeat of today. I also was too narrow minded in how I was applying my abilities. I am only focusing on the basic applications and techniques of each major discipline, but I know from the lore that there is more that I can do with generating electricity alone. Creating shields, weapons, and other such constructs are all things I know are possible, but I haven't been implementing them. I honestly thought that I would be able to stroll through the dungeon easily with these abilities alone without needing to innovate or adapt.

My first step to improving myself for further trips into the dungeon would be to perform the ritual to extract mana from the three empowered magic stones I created. So, I walked to my study, took the board with the carved ritual circles on it, and placed it flat on the floor. Then, I placed the three magic stones in their designated spots before stepping into the center circle and activating the ritual.

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Two Things:

1.) What should his sword be called? I was thinking of Exterminatus, but I'll take other suggestions, though I want it to be in reference to either 40k or Fantasy.

. . .

2.) Should the sword have an ability other than boosting his psychic power? Like the psychic flames of the Emperor's sword, some sort of in-built life leech, or anything like that. I'm willing to take suggestions for the ability, but I like the psychic flame idea if I go with an ability.