The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 309

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The nightmare tutorial scenario he had encountered on his weapons mastery merging attempt turned out to be suitable. Rather than another trial of shapeshifting and twisted emotions against the gorzerk, Ronan found himself face to face with two enormous beasts that seemed to be a hybrid abomination formed from an eagle, a lizard, a tiger, and some kind of goat. Wherever the hell they came from, Ronan planned to send them back with extreme prejudice, but only after using them as a whetstone for his developing weapons masteries.

He had realised that there might be no more steps in between what he had now and what came next, or perhaps he just couldn’t reach the requirements to merge the masteries he had. I wonder if there is a qualitative upgrade to Perfectionist based on merging masteries? I’ve got four right now, so…

Ronan couldn’t finish that thought because the monsters pounced together, both of the hybrid beasts uttering strange bestial cries as they struck. One slashed with the claws of a tiger, while the other pecked at him with an eagle’s beak. While both seemed to be formed from the same set of animals, they had different parts in different places. Ronan was able to beat them back with relative ease.

However, even after taking them out and also defeating the five new hybrids in stage 2, all Ronan received were tier increases to his existing masteries. Thrown weapons increased to II, and piercing weapons went up to IV. That was all down to him fighting at range against the hybrids in stage 2 after they used their wings to take to the air. Only one of them lacked that particular avian part and was forced to charge him on the ground, but it had taken a single spear-thrust empowered with Arcane Piercing Strike to fell the beast.

Ronan realised he was barking up the wrong tree. When stage 3 began, he started down a different avenue of improvement. If he wasn’t able to yet merge his weapon masteries, then he would need to focus on the rest of them. He had a few ideas for how to get started.

Ronan appeared in the middle of a rocky ridge. A storm was raging and he couldn’t see that far in front of him. The sky was filled with grey clouds and a constant patter of rain made the ground slippery. With his stats and his ability to form mana platforms at precise angles and different shapes, it wasn’t a challenge for him to move, but sensing his foes was another matter.

It was the perfect place to train his more sense-related masteries. Breath, meditation, focus, perception, and possibly even stealth. He suspected that all of them or most of them could be merged into another more advanced mastery.

Ronan was squinting into the distance to try and spot one of the monsters to begin practicing when a sudden shift in the clouds alerted him to an approaching foe. He barely had time to duck as the hybrid swept past his position, claws grabbing at the empty space he had just occupied a moment prior.

Ronan conjured a sword and turned to face the flying monster as it swung around and corrected its path for a second pass. While focusing on the sudden encounter, he heard a gentle gust from behind. Without checking he conjured a knife and flung it behind him, enchanting the blade with fire—one of the new enchantments he had acquired during his training iterations. He heard a screech and felt a gentle heat on his back that rapidly diminished. The other monster took the opportunity to charge. Ronan closed his eyes.

If he was going to do this, he would do it properly. He focused on his breathing, ensuring it was steady and aligned with the pulsing flow of his mana. He listened for the sound of the monster flying towards him and even tried to feel for the mana inside its body, the latter of which was far more difficult. He could hear its wings beat, but waited until the very last moment to unleash a devastating swing with his sword.

He felt a sharp pain rake down his back, but at the same time a pained squawk from in front. He didn’t open his eyes, wanting to take this test to the extremes. The best way to push masteries ahead, he had found, was to break the limits of what he was capable of.

With his weapons that meant trying new forms of attack and understanding them better during difficult battles, but with the masteries he was currently merging it meant something entirely different. He even wondered if he might have to unlock a new sense in order to merge the many masteries. That was something he could only speculate on and not know for sure.

Another wingbeat came from his left and Ronan swung the sword while sending a mana bolt flying towards the source of the sound. He heard two cries of pain in quick succession. Another gust of wind blew towards him and he stepped to the side to dodge, only for a huge weight to crash into his chest and knock him backwards.

He hit the rock hard. His head snapped back and smashed into a rock. His mind reeled. Ronan unleashed a blastwave of mana in every direction. He felt the damage to his own body, but it was a worthwhile move. Plenty of avian screeches sounded out at the same time.

Ronan stood up and opened his eyes. There was a huge mangled corpse to his right, as well as a few more dead abominations littered around the rocks. Blood and gore coated a lot of the ridge, but it was already being washed away by the heavy downpour.

There were still four monsters hovering in the air, nursing wounds while glaring at Ronan with angry gazes. It seemed that they were pack hunters, with almost a dozen of the things appearing to attack the moment he became entangled in battle with just one of the noisy things.

In the corner of his vision a few notifications blinked for his attention. Ronan didn’t bother to check them. He could take stock of his gains once the battle was over. He memorised the positions of the flying monsters and closed his eyes once more. Then he sent out four mana bolts in rapid succession. He only heard two cries of pain and felt a huge gathering of mana from his left. Ronan waited until the moment it was sent flying towards him before using Dispel, unravelling the spell in a puff of mana. Then he conjured a spear and thrust it upwards and to the right just in time to pierce right through a charging monster.

At least it should have gone through a monster if his senses weren’t lying to him. Ronan did hear two chimes. He trusted himself and ripped the spear out before taking a combat stance. He listened closely, and heard the beating of wings. There was another sound, like gravel being crunched underfoot.

Which made no sense because there was no gravel nearby and the monsters didn’t even have feet for the most part. Even the few that didn’t have bird claws had lizard or lion feet, neither of which would have made the sound that Ronan was hearing. He realised what it was a moment too late as he felt a gust of wind over his shoulder. He ducked under the claw grab, only for something to stab into his stomach. The jagged edge of the monster’s weapon tore at his skin, but failed to properly penetrate.

He swung the spear around, hearing a shrill screech as he felt some resistance in his hands that gripped the shaft. Another chime followed, the third, leaving just a single monster remaining.

Ronan heard the beating of wings. A few seconds passed and the sound slowly grew quieter. With a frown he opened his eyes and realised the monster had vanished. He tensed, expecting an ambush, when he spotted a silhouette flying into the grey clouds. The coward had fled. It’s probably gone to get reinforcements to come back and kill me. The stage definitely isn’t over yet, but I can take some time to go over my gains.

You have killed [Chimeric Griffin Lv.45] x8!

Enemy killed with a critical hit, 2.8x experience gained!

…

You have leveled up to Lv.53!

Congratulations for reaching Lv.50!

…

There was a litany of notifications, but the most important were the fact he had reached level 50 for a class evolution and the slew of mastery increases. Ronan scrolled through them, hoping he’d done enough to merge some more of his masteries.

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