24 Chapter 24
Thanks to those who commented on the survey in the last chapter. Just so nobody is confused if they go back and don't see it, I'll delete the surveys after a while since it will annoy me in the future if people comment on picking a name (or whatever I was asking about) when I'm already past that mentally and story-wise.
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The week leading up to Denatus passed slowly but peacefully. I was taking things easy and began to read books about history, magic, monsters, and anything else that caught my eye. Reading books written by the natives of this world offered me a great deal more insight into cultural norms and the little quirks of each race. 'In hindsight, I probably should have done this first,' I thought as I finished a book titled An Outsider's Guide to Elven Culture. However, just because I was taking things a bit easier didn't mean I wasn't still grinding in the dungeon.
I still spent around six to seven hours a day in the dungeon, focusing on maxing out my stats. Endurance was the first one that maxed out soon after my Magic stat. Strength, Agility, and Dexterity all increased at roughly the same pace whenever I trained. By the end of the week and with dozens of hours spent in the dungeon, just before leaving for the Denatus, Hephestus updated my status to find all of my stats at S999. All that was left was to complete an incredible feat.
"Are you going to try and complete the feat today?" she asked, as she carefully molded her crimson hair while looking into a large mirror that had been brought into her office for this occasion.
"Perhaps," I said, sitting in one of the chairs adjacent to the goddess as she straightened out her dress, "I'm not sure what I should aim for the level up, though. An incredible feat is extremely vague." I complained.
"Fight an Infant Dragon or something," she suggested distractedly, rubbing at a spot on her dress.
"The spawns are too unpredictable," I said, leaning back in my chair and wracking my brain for what would be counted as incredible, "Maybe if I fight three Silverbacks barehanded," I mused.
"That sounds like assisted suicide to me," Hephaestus said, turning to me, "I didn't craft you that blade so you could die before you even level up."
"Hmm," I considered, hearing her words but feeling like I was on to something.
"Well, I have to get going," she said, "You better be alive and in one piece when I return tonight,"
"I live to serve!" I said, bowing deeply and theatrically before walking over to the door.
She rolled her one eye but gave me a nod as I left the office, passing two guards outside the door. After a round of nods from each of us, I was off and down the steps of Babel. The walk to the dungeon was already so ingrained in me that I walked on autopilot mode to the first floor. There, dozens of level 1 adventurers scurried around this way and that. It was one of the busiest days that I had ever seen in the dungeon so far. As a seasoned-looking adventurer passed me, I called out to her.
"Hey, sorry to bother you, but is this a special occasion?" I asked, gesturing to the crowds.
She just shrugged, "I heard there was an influx of new blood in Orario recently," she said before moving on.
'Huh, so it does just get busy sometimes,' I thought as I maneuvered through the Upper Floors until I reached the 12th floor. The mists were much denser than on the tenth floor, making it even harder to see, but that ability to see into the Warp for or less trivialized the mists. I could see the growing souls of the monsters in the Warp, making them stand out like an adult in a crowd of toddlers. The hardest part would be to find the specific targets that I wanted.
Fateweaver and my armor dropped into my inventory as I moved toward the densest patch of souls I could find. However, when I moved closer and was able to see through the mists, I realized that this may have been a bad idea. Two Silverbacks and three Hard Armors were seemingly in a standoff as I approached, but my appearance seemed to give them a common enemy to fight. I cursed as one Siverback screamed and launched itself at me. I barely had enough time to activate Warp Speed and duck under the lunge.
The second one reached down and pulled a chunk of stone from the floor before hurling it at me, giving me flashbacks to the Beast Titan throwing stones into the oncoming scouts and just blowing them apart along with their horses. Luckily for me, I turned out to be more like Levi than the cannon fodder in that scene. I evaded the rock and rushed forward, my arms taking on a metallic luster as I jumped and looked to blind the Silverback, but a Hard Armor launched itself in the way, and there was a scream of metal on metal as my attack was halted.
The Hard Armor's shell was dented and cracked, but it was still fully functional. That was when the rest of the monsters finally converged around me, completely encircling me. The situation took another nosedive when two more Silverbacks emerged from the mists around me. Suddenly, the situation turned from me trying to level up to actually fighting for my life. Fateweaver dropped into my hand and blazed to life as I prepared to attack. Killing lightning crackled along the blade as I rushed forward.
Two Hard Armors cried and rushed toward me as well, claws extended and ripping. I took a glancing blow from the first but drove my blade deep into its belly, flash-cooking its insides. That allowed the second one to lunge and rip its sharp talons along my chest, drawing blood. I tried to respond by ripping out its vitality, but the Silverbacks towered above me and tried to play whack-a-mole with my body. Large fists and feet stomped and blasted small craters all around me.
I rolled away, but they followed my movements. With only enough time for one attack, I pointed the tip of my blade up at one of the massive monkey's heads. A concentrated blast of electricity directly vaporized flesh, bone, and muscle cleanly, leaving no trace behind. That attack cost me as the massive fist of a Silverback blasted me away and into a wall. Bones splinted, and organs took dangerous impacts inside of me, causing pain to flood my entire body.
Despite the injury and the literal dent that my body put into a stone wall, I continued moving to avoid dying as a Hard Armor smashed into the wall where I had just been. I half turned and blasted lightning at it, charring it, but not being able to finish it before the apes were back on me again while I was focused on knitting tissue and bones back together inside my body. My saving grace was that they often hit each other in their attempts to hit me as I danced among them.
Once I was mostly healed, I struck out and cleaved clean through the achilles tendon of one of the monsters. The Silverback fell with a roar of pain, allowing me to plunge Fateweaver up through the roof of its mouth and into its brain. With the aid of my sword, I ripped a massive chunk of the dying monster's vitality out and absorbed it, healing most of my wounds. With that, there were only two of each kind of monster left, but I was also forced to abandon Fateweaver in the corpse to avoid getting turned into mush by the combined assault of the remaining Silverbacks.
I had to duck a massive haymaker from one Silverback, leading to me being put right into the path of a Hard Armor. I grunted as I was forced to pivot to catch the creature's taloned arms in my grasp before it could eviscerate me. Roaring, I ignored as the second Hard Amor plunged claws deep into my back and snapped the arms of the one I was holding back, then brought my hands to either side of its head and caved in its skull. All the while, he claws deeper, wreaking havoc on my back.
The next Silverback blow caught me and the Hard Amor, tossing us away. Blood fountained from my body, but with the vitality I had ripped out, I was able to stem the worst of my wounds. Fortunately, we had both been tossed away by the attack, and the Hard Armor was more dazed than me. I shoved my hands into its mouth and grabbed its upper jaw and lower jaw with one hand each. Using my leverage and Warp-empowered strength, I heaved the creature over and began to pull it apart.
As the two Silverbacks charged, there was a snap as I folded the Hard Armor's head backward, like when bending a laptop the wrong way. By this point, blood loss was getting to me, and my head was pounding from both the damage I was taking and drawing deeply on the warp in quick succession, so I needed to end this quickly. I dismissed my Iron Arms and focused all my power on sprinting to Fateweaver, where it was still embedded in the corpse of the Silverback.
Ripping it free, I channeled all my remaining power into the blade and let out a massive wave of blue flame that consumed everything in the surrounding area. I had enough time to store Fateweaver in my inventory before I went into Mind Down and fell to the ground unconscious.
