It took Helo longer than he expected to find Grant’s party. Now it wasn’t for the obvious reason. I was because Helo’s skill upgrade made it so that he can’t use his movement kill freely. Well, now it is a boosting skill. Because of that he had to run the entire way without boosting his speed to clear gaps and move faster.
When it comes to Grant’s party hiding their tracks, it was pathetic. Grant focused so much on his ability to nullify sound, he was so proud how his party got the drop on Helo. But Helo could pick up their scent easily. It took a slight flaring of ‘Bloodline Awakening’ with a focus on enhancing his scent, then three minutes later he had proof that Grant abandoned his subordinates and went to the exit.
Finding the group itself was laughably easy. The person who was obscuring the sight of the party did it by conjuring some sort of dark aligned haze. Helo’s naked eyes have great dark vision, and pushing some dark affinity bloodline energy into his eyes makes his night vision perfect.
An illusion can work against Helo, but using dark mana, it was more like a billboard sign. After finding the party Helo went ahead of the group and found a good place to ambush them.
His first objective was to clear away the scout. That was the same person who threw a blade at him. This is also the first time that he is going to counter assassinate someone. This is something that he needs to learn how to do, it will be his true job while he is protecting Allie and Hinata.
They have already discussed finding two new guards. Hopefully a tank to cover for Kenneth when he is kicked out and someone who has some kind of defensive capabilities.
Cloaking his presence Helo starts looking for the scout. Sticking to the shadows and moving cautiously around boulders he does his best to remain hidden. After ten minutes of sneaking around Helo catches a slight wavering in his aura.
Turing around all he can see is the landscape of the volcano side. It is barrens and rocky with an angry orange glow. From a rock face to the left he sees a figure step out of the rock itself.
Pulling out his blades Helo is about to strike. The scout holds up his hands and starts slowly patting the air. “Hold on.” He says to Helo in an incredibly laid back and causal voice. “Slow your roll my dude.”
The extreme casualness the enemy scout speaks in, stops Helo abruptly. Tilting his head Helo’s flood’s his body with ‘Bloodline Awakening’ for only a moment. He has only had the skill for a few hours, but it is almost addictive for him to use it now. The feeling of rightness and strength is amazing. It hurts him to use the skill, but it also makes him feel like who he is supposed to be.
The scout backs up a step and lowers his center of gravity like he is talking down a wild cat. “I don’t know what that was, but it was like an invisible wave of heat. But instead of warmth, it is pure bestial intimidation. Now there is no need to get feisty.”
“What is happening?” Helo asks him. Using his awakening skill for a moment he focused all his senses on the man and all he got back was that the man isn’t interested in fighting.
“Three things kiddo.” Getting a glare from Helo he winces, “alright Helo, one my name is Tam. Two, I don’t want to fight you. Three, most of the people who are here were put into this company in the last year. It is filled with men who aren’t afraid to get their hand dirty.”
Feeling a bit sheepish Tam continues past three. “Ahhhh… Four, some of us were in this company initially, those of us that don’t like what the other guys do, we end up dead. I know I said three… but five, sometimes where you are hunting another hidden foe, one with unknown means of hiding, it is best to let them come to you.”
Of everything Tam said it was the last peace that sealed his survival. “Okay, let any of the other men who aren’t interested in Grant’s schemes know that in twenty minutes… I am killing him.”
Tam sinks into the ground with a final wave and disappears. A moment later his head reappears. “Oh, and six I don’t know who is pulling Grant’s strings. But someone is.”
Finding a spot that is about twenty minutes ahead of Grant, Helo sits in a good place to ambush and waits.
The exit of the dungeon is on the opposite side from the entrance. As you enter you see the volcano to the front left and the ocean to the front right. The exit is behind the volcano and is deep within the lava flows.
The exit is up a small rise and within a cave filled with magma. The path to the exit is on a thin walkway with a cliff to the left and a lava pool to the right. Helo found a ledge further up the thin walking path and intends to ambush Grant there.
Waiting the twenty minutes Helo can see the party round the corner around the cliff and look toward the exit. “Well, I told you they would be a good sacrifice.” Grant says. “Now we just have to get to the exit. Tam! Widen the path, it is too small.”
Grant says this when the path is big enough for two men to walk shoulder to shoulder. “Sir. I think it would be best if I conserve mana.”
At his statement Grant gives him a glare, he is about to chew the man out but Tam speaks first. “We don’t want to count our chickens, or whatever the phrase is. I should be in the back of the party to collapse the path.”
“Your right. I might just give you a promotion Tam. More of you should stay behind and protect the rear.” He says it like they are doing the honorable thing, when he just wants a meat shield.
Of the five men one more steps forward. Tam and he nod, Helo assumes that this means he is the other person who isn’t interesting in Grant’s games. The four other men walk forward and from what Helo remembers they are an archer, ice mage, swordsman, and sound mage.
The ice mage is in the lead and followed by Grant. After him is the swordsman then the archer. Trying to make a quick plan, Helo decides to drop down on the front man and use his bloodline embowered ‘Forced Still’ to knock out Grant. Afterward he will have to fight the swordsman and archer.
This plan works for Helo because within the terrain, the person he was most worried about was the ice mage. Peering over the edge Helo watches as the group of four start to slowly make their way across the path. The ice mage is testing the ground as they walk across.
Standing tall on his ledge Helo waits for the mage to be directly under him before taking a single step forward and letting gravity do its work. Dropping straight down the thirty feet, the rocky cliff wall flashes by. As he is falling, he draws a kukri in one hand and a throwing knife in the other. The mage doesn’t see the strike coming and Helo lands on his shoulders facing Grant.
The blow drops the mage like a ton of rock and as the mage hits the ground Helo’s dagger lashes out with a ringing “PINnnng”. Surprised by the noise Helo is late to throw the bloodline empowered ‘Forced Still’ blade. Due to his momentary hesitation Grant’s reaction of ducking as soon as he heard the sound of something falling, saved his life.
The blade flies forth and the swordsman uses some kind of ‘Instinctual Parry’ skill deflects the throwing blade past his body. The blade sinks into the archer’s chest and the archer drops to the ground with his body and soul in a state of nothingness. The blade vanishes a moment later and blood starts to pool under the body of the immobile archer.
Feeling the ground shifting under his feet Helo looks down to see the ice mage covered by some kind of full body shield. The shield blocked his killing blow, but it also is keeping the mage frozen as the ground starts to crumble.
Jumping backward Helo can see the ground cracking and the mage starts to fall into the lava. Looking away from the soon to be dead mage, Helo has to scramble backward as the pathway continues to crumble. By the time the path is done falling apart there is a twenty feet gab between Helo and Grant.
Grant’s hands start to radiate a sickly green and clear mana. Knowing what that spell is Helo turns back and gets to the end of the path. Diving to the left Helo narrowly misses a lava flow. Over his head a spell screams past sounding like a pained animal.
The spell dissipates after a while and Grant has to have the final word and yells over the distance. “Ha! You thought you could kill me! Your nothing to me!”
After his yell he ushers his group backward and takes off toward the entrance. Helo isn’t sure why he would just leave when he is so close to the exit. But it seems like he thinks that his ability to hide and run is better than it truly is.
Laying on the group to calm his beating heart, he can feel the scalding heat coming from the glowing lava. Finally deciding to get up after the lave gets close enough to burn him. Helo just shakes his head and takes off again. Now he has to track the group back the other way.
With their higher levels, training, and skills Helo doesn’t want to fight the group at the same time. But all he really wants is Grant. Stopping his movement Helo follows that train of thought. Why am I so fixated on Grant…. He attacked me… No… He ambushed me… no… He has orders to kill me? Slowly making his way toward the cliff Helo start to climb. He wants to follow the top of the cliff and then loop around. This time he is going to attack them while they are dealing with ants.
After an hour Helo has passed Grant and his party and is now staying hundreds of meters ahead of the group. He is watching to strike while they are being attacked. For the next hour he tracks them and ponders why he seems to be obsessed with killing Grant.
After thinking back on the memory of Grant standing over him and belittling him, Helo’s bloodline flares up. His thought all focus on one thing. PREY. Standing frozen he finally realizes the why. It is his instincts that want some kind of retribution for how he was toyed with.
He doesn’t really care if someone tries to kill him. It is how this new world functions. They attack him, he kills them. It is the way of the world. Why he is fixating on Grant is that he didn’t just try to kill him, he wanted to torment him. In his mind you don’t play with your food. You hunt to kill.
Pondering that for a while, Helo can’t seem to find anything really wrong with his logic. It is just the way of the world. If his instincts don’t like excess cruelty, then who is he to judge.
This time Grant and his party travel along the front of the volcano. This is the side that is facing to ocean. Because of this their travel time to reach the entrance is considerably shorter.
But they are also fighting more ants. The back side is dark, rocky and barren. But the front side has some plant life and is where to ants are in a constant battle with the sea life. They are constantly attacked by groups of ants that are on their way to the battle at the ocean.
Helo isn’t feeling particularly rushed. He is in between them and the exit and is taking the time to study their tactics.
It was only a few minutes later that Helo looked down on the group from closer to the volcano peak. From the left Grant and his party were making a bloody path to the entrance. From the right an Ant Guardian was leading a troop of what Helo now can identify as Ant Spewers.
Thirty minutes later the two groups meet. The Guardian has five Spewers and a horde of Fire Ants with it. They hit the party with a splash of lava and a wave of limbs. The Spewers don’t care about friendly fire; the Fire Ants are immune to the lave. Getting coated in the Spewers attacks only makes the Fire Ants more deadly.
The fight is in a sort of stalemate. Helo was right to be wary of the ice mage. Without the mage Grant’s group loses all of their control abilities and area of effect attacks. With out the ice mages help the fighting is not progressing. The group can kill an endless wave of Fire Ants. But the Guardian is stopping them from reaching the Spewers.
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Grant is standing in the back and casting spells to confuse, disorientate and hypnotize. Every once in a while, an ant turns on its allies and starts fighting with the party.
Helo watches the fighting and as the party starts to tire from the never-ending wave of ants he strikes. The ending is anticlimactic for Helo. Grant was easy to sneak up on and only required a single dagger to put down.
In the end he died glaring at his supposed allies as they fled from the fight. On of the men shouts over his shoulder, “Sorry boss. Just how these things go.”
Watching the rest of the party leave Helo doesn’t feel much. He is tired and hungry. He could hunt them all down and kill them. But he is just going to tell Graham and he will deal with it.
Storing the corpse Helo ducks behind a rock and vanishes into the night. The Guardian ant sends out the fast-tracking ants, but it is like he only existed for the few seconds that he attacked Grant. Then all signs of his presence vanished.
“Akhm, aghhh, god damn. FUCK!” Rich says as he pulls himself free from the lava. His ‘Autonomous Ice Shield’ saved his life. The ice mana was capable of resisting the lava, but getting out took his entire mana pool. When he would use his ice to cool the lava it would start to harden. So, escaping turned into a long process.
“The fuck is that kid.” He says as he crawls to the exit of the cavern. “I need to get the fuck outa here.”
Name: Helo
Tier 1
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 23
Stats: 300
- Str: 21 (+5%)
- Agl: 48 (+15%)
- Dex:32 (+15%)
- Per: 41 (+30%)
- Vit: 58 (+40%)
- End: 21 (+15%)
- Int: 21 (+5%)
- Will: 58 (+40%)
Looking at his stats as he exits the dungeon Helo is happy to see that he at least gained another level. Other than getting ambushed by what he assumes are allies, he also upgraded a skill and turned his ‘Dagger Mastery’ into the ‘Twin Fang’ style.
All in all, it was a pretty eventful day. Feeling drained and tired Helo stumble jogs his way to the main house. Once he gets there, he pulls a pen and paper from his storage and write a quick note.
Whoever gets this,
He tried to kill me with an entire company of 30 men.
Good luck,
Helo.
The note is sloppily written and there is blood on the edges of the paper from Helo’s hands, but it seems good enough for him. Dropping the body one the ground Helo pins the note to the corpse with a knife on the man's hip and head home.
Getting home Helo enters the room to find most of the party in the living room and watching a movie. Stumbling into the house Helo is really starting to feel the strain his skill puts on his body and soul.
“How was hunting?” Alli calls from her place on the couch. Not getting a response she looks back. “Are you okay?!?”
“Ambushed. Tired. Dirty.” Helo mumbles out. Not even stopping he stumbles up the stairs and directly into his room. Following him into his room Lelai, Alli and Hinata enter to see him stripping off his clothes.
The two humanoid girls’ blush. Alli covers her eyes with gaps in the fingers and Hinata turns her back. Looking at her friend Hinata smacks her arm and forces her to turn.
Helo is ignoring them all and enters his bathroom. Rinsing himself off quickly, he wastes little time before entering the bath. Lelai has no issues with his nudity and jumps in with him.
From outside the room Hinata calls out to him. “I’m fine.” Helo says while closing his eyes and tilting his head to the ceiling. The warmth from the bath is comforting to his body. Finally relaxing Helo hopes that the next few weeks are much calmer for him. “But we should clear out the ant nest.”
“About that. Due to the constant combat on the floor, it is being designated a high danger zone. Most of the dungeon is considered above average in difficulty. But the 34th floor is now much harder.” Alli says. She sent a message to Elder Anthony, and he made the choice to change its classification.
Hinata speaks up next. “We told you about how territory and floor bosses are created from a single monster gaining power above its floor. This happens when an entire floor gains strength. The thing with Queen Ants is that they grow stronger when their colonies fight. When they gain levels so do the next batch of eggs.”
“Makes sense then.” Helo says. “There are at least three different kinds of ants. The ones on the surface are the grunts.”
The rest of Helo’s bath he talks to the girls while they sit in the couch area in his room. Alli spends some time looking over Helo’s enchanting notes. The desk in the corner of his room near his desk is filled with his ideas.
“How is your enchanting going?” She asks while holding up a dagger that seems to be sparking with little bits of electricity. All around the desk she can see designs for different weapons and armor.
“Good. The clothes you gave me, my naginata, and my kukri are all unenchanted or only partially enchanted. I asked Shelby for help, but she said that an enchanter need to create their own tools. I think she is just lazy. Anyway, I have been working on making enchantments for them.” The girls can hear his voice get muffled as the sounds of him getting out the bath can be heard. He is drying his hair with a towel.
Pulling out a pair of joggers Helo covers waist and exits the room. Looking around he can see Hinata sitting casually while Aiko server her tea and Alli is spinning in his desk chair while waving his enchanting tests around.
The rest of the night goes by nicely as everyone spends time together.
The next day Helo wakes up to late to go for a run, stretching in bed his entire body feels sore. Not the good kind like after a satisfying workout. But the calf clenching agony of shin splints over his entire body.
Clenching his muscles for every movement Helo gets out of bed like a seventy-three-year-old man with arthritis that spent his youth as a punching bag for a heavy weight boxer. His body and mind both don’t want to do anything.
Hobbling his way down the stairs Helo eventually makes it into the kitchen at finds the entire team eating. “You look like you’re on the brink of death.” Gabi bluntly says as she sees Helo.
Luna is going over some notes and ask, “What happened to you?”
“New skill.” Helo croaks out. “Strains my body and mind.”
Looking around the room, he tries to find Kenneth. Hinata notices his look and asks him. “Kenneth, right?” Getting a nod she continues, “He hasn’t shown up all morning, at it is already past nine. Practice should have started already.”
Everyone goes back to their lazing around, usually it is Helo that starts the meditation time. Sitting down with his food he is about to start eating when the door bells rings. Alli just shouts come in and goes back to playing a video game with Gabi. Helo doesn’t even know when the two left the table.
Micah walks in the room followed by James the General of the Clan defenses. Everyone is used to Micah being around, he would join them for meals while training Helo. But, James is a different thing.
“Don’t you all worry. Were only gonna be in your hair for a little while.” James says as he leaves against the wall.
“Did you really leave a dead body on my doorstep. With the man’s own knife stabbing a note to his chest” Micah asks Helo with a stern look.
The rest of the party look at Helo in surprise. They had not heard that part of the story. Only that he left the body with the clan leaders. Helo just shrugs and scratches his neck.
“Haaaaaa. Whatever. The man had a locked storage pouch. But it didn’t take a clan enchanter long to break it. The man was actually the captain of a guard contingent. He showed great promise but has a lot of disciplinary issues. We don’t know who he was working for. He had a communication orb. It was made to be an encrypted channel and provide communications while within difficult to reach places. Like a dungeon.” Micah says to him. “He had to have had a backer with means, a locked storage pouch and a communication orb are not standard equipment.”
“Were going through all his belongings and his entire team. Over a fourth of them made it out alive. Only a few of them stayed in the valley, most left. They told the gate guards they were heading home. We sent units to find their homes, but they will have most likely disappeared.” James says with a frustrated tone.
“Said they were on a mission from Graham. A few mentioned that they had doubts but the others remaining just said they were doing what they were told. The squad leaders have all disappeared. All of them except a man called Tam.” James says while pulling out a tub of chew. Packing his lip, he stops to take a moment and continues. “We will tell you once we have more information.”
Aiko comes down the stairs with a pile of laundry. “Did Kenneth go on a trip with Calain?”
“What do you mean?” Micah cuts in. His gaze turned intense, and Aiko is having trouble talking. He softens his gaze, “You’re not in trouble but this might be important.”
“Well, some of his things are gone. He hasn’t been here all morning.” Aiko says.
James nods his head like he connected some dots. “Makes sense. How else would they know you were alone.”
Speaking up Helo says. “I don’t think Tam was in on it. He actually tried to stop some of the other men from attacking me.”
“We will keep that in mind.” James says while turning to the door. “Well, have a great day.”
Back in the house the party is looking at one another. “Could he have really done it?” Gabi asks.
Looking at another Hinata and Helo decide to speak up. “We have been planning on getting rid of him soon.” Hinata says. “He was disruptive and competitive in a bad way. He might have been the best Tank in our generation, but he is also an ass.”
Everyone looks at Hinata in surprise, she just swore. “He also lied about his skill.” Helo says.
From here they tell the group about their suspicions and proof. How he tried to kill Luna and Helo. The rest of the party are a mix of astonishment and acceptance. Helo is surprised by how easily everyone just… gets over it. It seems like they all agreed that they are not very surprised. Telling the group that he wasn’t expecting them to be so accepting, it is Gabi who resonds.
“An asshole doing asshole things, it’s what assholes do.” At that everyone nods. They have a moment of intense bonding over their comradery and disgust for assholes.
It is broken by Lelai running in from outside with a live mole in her mouth. She drops the creature on Alli’s lap and Alli’s scream breaks the silence that was starting to turn awkward.
With that the group put everything behind them and went back to their day. It didn’t take much for Helo to get the group to start their training. Claiming that today was an easy day, he spent most of the time resting.
The next weeks went by quickly for Helo and the party. Snowfall in the mountains started to pile up and Helo learned just how different having stats and skills makes someone.
He remembers all the fluffy coats and shivering that people did. But here, in BrightMoon territory coats are more of a fashion statement and defensive item. They are not needed to keep people from freezing.
Even Helo with an endurance of twenty-one has twice the endurance of a peak human. So, if he is freezing thirty-two-degrees now he is just fine wearing his light sweatshirts.
The BrightMoon clan leadership declared the 34th dungeon floor a ‘Special Location’. With the increasing powers on the floor, it is easier to get rewards and items. So, they are trying to milk it for all it is worth. Dungeon items are known to be extremely efficient and have unique abilities. Many breakthroughs in crafting are done from the study of Dungeon loot.
This means that Helo keeps going back to the 34th floor for all his personal dungeon runs. The ants are numerous, a higher level, and the Ant Queen is somehow an Alpha.
His growth has skyrocketed from this opportunity. The growth of his team is starting to slow. Monsters give less experience as you reach the end of a tier. Peak tier monsters are hard to find, and growth slows to a crawl.
Helo has reached Level 29 over this time. He has noticed that he is gaining less from each enemy. This makes him wonder if there are some kind of decreasing returns when it comes to killing the same creature. At the same time his other training is going well, enchanting and even learning things like etiquette.
The growth of his skills is about what he expected. Getting his skill ‘Bleeding Cut’ to become ‘Defiled Wound’ was pretty simple. He focused on having the skill last longer and have a negative effect on healing.
His skill ‘Fang Extension’ was much more difficult to upgrade. Going from uncommon to rare is a much larger jump than common to uncommon. But after a lot of effort and using concepts from the ‘Moon-Staff’ style and ‘Twin Fang’ style Helo’s ‘Fang Extension’ became ‘Dark Fang Manifestation’.
This skill takes the idea of extending his blade, but it creates a new blade made from dark energy. Helo even found that with some effort he can manipulate the blade with his mind. He uses his control over the dark energy to do it.
Defiled Wound (Uncommon): Upon inflicting damage inject rampant energy into a wound that resists healing. Keeps wound open and promotes bleeding.
Dark Fang Manifestation (Rare): Manifest a dagger made from mental and dark aligned energy. Can be used to extend any weapons damage or create a separate weapon (Only in the shape of a dagger). Dagger can be used as a conduit for your other abilities.
Happy with his new skills he knows that he won’t be upgrading his rare skills for a long time. They are all at the lowest point of rare tier and the skill’s structure is to rigid for Helo to manipulate.
The rest of the team has gained a few levels each. Alli is at level 36, Hinata 37, Luna 33, Aiko 34, Gabi at 35 and Cody is at 34. Each has made gains in their skills and abilities. But none of them have the ease that Helo does with getting their skills to rare. His pseudo rare class helps him get his skills to the bottom of rare.
Lelai has even grown to level 32. Helo was worried about her having dramatic mutations, so he held her back. But now that she has fully acclimated to mist mana, he isn’t worried about it anymore. The only mutation she has is that her fur is now a bluish grey color. Around level thirty she even learned how to turn a portion of her body into mist for a moment. The ability drains her reserves, and she can only change the size of a single leg. But the skill has promise.