MM - Chapter 46 - CURIOSITY KILLED THE… NO, IT WAS GREED

Raine returned their rude greeting with a Lunge of his own. He blasted straight into the air, rotated sideways, then Lunged again to bring himself clear of their encirclement. All three were barreling down on him when he landed, their masterful footwork and high attributes allowing them to easily keep pace.

Outnumbered, down most of his health, and over a quarter of his Discipline, Raine made the only viable decision and fled. He ran backwards, his two-handed mace flashing into existence, its weight solid in his hands. 

A Parry saved him from a third Lunge. He sidestepped a razor-quick stab and slash combo from the next undead, then leaned back to narrowly avoid a slice aimed at his neck from the third. He planted a foot on its chest, staring down its empty-eyed, cerulean gaze, and Leaped backward.

They flew away from each other and he spun mid-air. Landing, he utilized the dash he’d copied from the very first skeleton in the desert to create a sliver of distance. The armsmen didn’t give up, jaws clacking wildly mere meters behind. When space weakened, and he shot forward far too fast for them to keep up, they retreated.

Returning to the edge of the gentle slope, Raine eyed the three undead from a safe distance. They had retreated back into the crater where they stood idly for a minute before activating an advanced concealment skill. Catching his breath and wiping the sheen of sweat from his brow, Raine assumed a meditative position—the only way to trigger Natural Regeneration. The defenseless posture would restore a measly five percent of his health every ten minutes. Outside of his last remaining health potion, and his aspect that already brought him to fifty percent, it was his only method of recovery.

Just before the first tick, a flash of light at the center of the crater expanded into a roaring, circular wall of flames that rushed outward. He grit his teeth, refusing to move while staring at his quest log’s timer. The fire drew closer, sweeping across the burnt land, ensuring the ground remained devoid of all life. Four seconds before it arrived, soothing energy swept through him. [+21]

Raine jumped to his feet and Leaped high into the air. The four-meter-tall wave of destruction swept beneath him. He landed on freshly crisped ground, his and the skeleton’s footprints wiped clean. With a frustrated growl, Raine chased after the wall of fire until it ended at the very edge of the dead lands. Positioning himself outside its reach, he resumed his meditative posture.

Nearly two hours passed in relative peace, interposed by the occasional wave of blistering death that stopped well short of him. Every second felt like ten, and the temptation to use his last health potion was extreme, but he had no idea what else was in store for him inside the crater. There was also a high probability that the mountain held the final challenge so he couldn’t afford to act recklessly just because of his blunder.

The shield failed twice, both times releasing fresh paths to the void nearby. He wasn’t completely idle, spending most of the time reviewing his footage, trying to spot any sign of the skeleton that ambushed him. It was obvious they were using an advanced stealth skill. Not only were they completely invisible, it also seemed to make them immune to the waves of fire. Worse still, the spot he’d seen the three disappear at was wiped clean of all traces when the flames passed it.

Frustrated, Raine finished healing and returned to the crater. He circled it until he found the spot he knew the three armsmen should be, then waited. The flames came right on schedule and he prepared to jump over them. As they swept by the skeletons, for the briefest of moments, he caught their outline silhouetted within the conflagration.

Landing, Raine rushed forward. The staff he'd bought at the auction house made an appearance. 

[Kallnenko Branch: Common Gray - LVL 5: (AP +15) (AS -.25) (DEF +10) (PHY +4) (Durability 35/35)]

He released a Rupture that struck all three. Their stealth faded, two taking critical hits. The chase began again. Heavily utilizing Discipline and martial techniques, Raine barely kept ahead, whittling them down with Ruptures. He purposefully missed with the last attack, leaving one alive.

Closing the distance, he familiarized himself with its rapid jabs and slashes. Ten minutes of frantic combat later, he gave up glimpsing its special attack. With the next wave of fire coming soon, he quickly dispatched the annoying elite and positioned himself in one direction, and his VRVod recorder in another.

When the fire came, he jumped it, already noting on his zoomed in map the location of two distant groups of hidden foes. Checking his recording, he found another. When he took the first step toward the nearest group, the shield above flickered, plunging the mystic land into darkness.

He felt it on his skin before he heard it, a gentle suction that pulled at his arm. Every muscle in his body accelerated to the left as he stepped. A ripping sensation traveled the length of his right arm, feeling exactly like the time he'd been pulled in two by a giant. With mad desperation in his eyes and a roar on his lips, Raine swung toward the fissure, activating Parry.

A powerful blast kicked him in the stomach and tossed him end over end through the air. He landed on his back, freshly sizzling charcoal burning his neck as he slid. Leaping to his feet, he frantically patted his intact arm.

I can't believe that worked. How does a hole in reality count as a physical attack? Why am I questioning it? Never spurn the hand that passes you antivenom!

The lights returned and he found the largest rift he'd seen so far. Unsure if its size was his fault or just another sign his time was running short, Raine got to work. With more than a little anxiety to work off, he tracked down all the armsman he'd located with the help of the flames and whittled away their health. On the second fight, he was lucky enough to get Cassidy's Comet and made sure to keep it by allowing one of the undead to chase him the entire time.

The last to die dropped its skull. Having expected the unwelcome sight, he could only sigh and consign himself to tracking down every single one of them. Hoping to optimize his time, Raine split the crater into two sections; one inner circle, and one outer. He worked his way around the outside in overlapping sections, making damn sure he didn't miss any.

Carefully advancing to the center of the inner section, Raine finally saw what was creating the expanding rings of fire. Stuck in the ground, a gnarled old staff released a steady blaze from its top. It was surrounded by a bubble of force that distorted the air, and seeing it made his skin crawl and his eyes light up with greed.

That's no simple weapon… I want it. If one of the rifts forms on top of it, and it vanishes, taking its flames with it, I'll be so screwed.

A few minutes passed before the staff's fires were sucked inside, then exploded outward in a cleansing ring. He jumped it, recording the locations of the nearest hidden armsmen. When he approached the first, it dropped stealth early. This armsman wore robes instead of armor and swung a wand his direction.

Raine's eyes flew wide and he dove to the side, narrowly evading the tiny ball of flames that zipped by his head. With the distance it attacked from being less than the distance of its three nearest companions, approaching would be a terrible plan.

Dancing back with shuffling steps to make aiming harder, he pulled the monster well clear of its allies before rushing in to engage. When he closed within three meters, its wand emitted a blue sheen. Before he could even curse, it thrust the weapon into the charred soil and a rapidly expanding cone of frost shot toward him.

Raine had personally seen and read about hundreds of classes. He knew a plethora of skills by heart, especially those from lower tier classes. Even though these armsman had some amazing skills, the likelihood of them having access to a true, omnidirectional AOE was right around zero percent.

He didn't have time to actively process the reason he Lunged towards the caster. His instincts, honed from countless battles, simply knew what to do. He flew forward at a slight angle, narrowly cutting between the expanding cone and its origin. He rolled to his feet right as the wand descended toward his head.

Parry threw it off course, the redirected force sending the skeleton hurtling face first into the ground. Rupture and Final Gambit crushed its skull to dust.

Raine checked the angles of the cone painted in ice on the ground, then waved his hand in the air to find the projected height. Satisfied, he pulled the next skeleton in a similar fashion, unsurprised when it turned out to be a caster as well. This one fired bolts of ‘slow’ moving lightning from its staff, not activating any skills beyond the basic Elemental Blast right up until it fell to pieces under a barrage of heavy mace blows.

The fights with the casters were both frustrating and cumbersome. The staff wielders had a column-shaped AOE, similar to the two-handed swords. A boosted sidestep was plenty to get around the threat. The real challenge was the need to pull them one at a time while dodging multiple flung elements, turning every encounter into a slog. With how much the pace of time in the mystic land slowed while fighting, each encounter really only took seconds at most. 

Despite this, Raine was quickly growing exhausted. The high stakes, and continual combat for multiple hours on end took its toll in the form of full-body sweats and short, uneven breaths. There was no way he could stop though. Even a short break outside the game could lead to catastrophic failure in the environment. He pushed through the fatigue, steadily eliminating one frustrating foe after another.

By the time the fifth skull dropped, he was panting with one hand on a knee, sweat dripping. It could have been the thick heat radiating from the nearby staff, but he didn't think so.

I'm definitely exceeding the safety thresholds. But no warning yet? Why? 

Shaking the useless thoughts free, Raine looked for the idol. There was only scorched ground and the staff, still safely behind its bubble. Unsure, but with no other ideas, he placed a hand against the shimmering surface.

[May Korahn’s judging gaze reveal your salvation]

Easy enough.

Pulling out the skulls, Raine quickly positioned them in the locations he'd found them, with the staff acting as the mountain in the center. The moment the fifteenth's glowing sockets peered at the bubble, it flickered and vanished. 

The heat released from the staff intensified ten-fold, washing over Raine and crisping his skin. He didn't dare cry out as the blaze would roast his lungs, massively increasing his discomfort. [-15] Assuming the staff was in fact the third idol, Raine took a step toward it, intending to store it before it could do more damage.

In response, it released a flare of power that smashed into his chest. [-100] Raine winced, turning his face to the side as his sweat evaporated in an instant. Holding his breath, he hopped two steps closer at once. A pulse of orange light ran from the bottom of the weapon to the top. He sidestepped but it hit him dead on as if he were standing still. [-200]

Thought so. Two steps bad, got it. Well, you probably think you're hot shit, but you clearly don't know the lady who sent me here as well as I do. Crafty old bag had your Ncode from the start.

Raine was still five steps short of reaching the weapon when it thrummed again, washing him with a wave of hot air. [-15] With less than a hundred health remaining, Raine grinned at the gnarled staff. Less than a second later, Greater Werewolf’s Regeneration kicked in. [+42] Five seconds later, his health increased again while the staff remained dormant. He got a third tick before another puny wave of damage hit him.

Cautious as ever, Raine let his health hit fifty percent before taking another step. Additionally, he made sure he would get a tick of regeneration before the staff released its tick of damage. He took the expected one hundred damage before repeating the healing again. Unfortunately, this wasn't considered combat by his cursed ring, or he could have used a weapon to boost his max health beyond four hundred and twenty.

Three steps short, the staff underwent a significant change. Between one blink and the next, raging blue flames shot from one end of its top, revealing that it wasn't a staff at all, but a scythe. Along with the appearance of the blade came damage that turned Raine's heart into a drumline. [-200]

His regeneration ticked, bringing a brief respite. [+42] The steady heat being released doubled, melting his skin and armor together. He grit his teeth, screaming under his breath. His eyesight went dark and he didn't dare imagine the gruesome sight of what his face must look like. A wave of healing washed through him again, restoring enough that he could see. His eyes flew to the log, finding the thirty passive damage he took.

He tried to swallow the hard, dry lump in his throat, knowing he would have died if not for perfectly timing his regeneration. A realization came to him like a bolt of lightning; he hadn't timed this recent insanity with the regularly scheduled waves of fire that blasted across the entire zone. A glance at his log let him know he was screwed.

Without hesitating, he pulled the last healing potion from his inventory, ripped off the cork, and slammed it back. Another tick of passive damage radiated pain through him again but he didn't care. His eyes were glued to his health bar and the second he had over two hundred, he took another step. Twenty agonizing seconds later he took another. Instantly, his hand snapped out to grab the staff right as its entire length began to glow a solid fiery orange.

Slumping to his knees, Raine panted with his head hung low. He stared at the blistered and cracked skin of his hands, watching as it slowly healed. Looking up, he saw the shield high in the sky and was reminded that he wasn't done yet.

He took a deep, ratcheting breath, knowing the game should have already ejected him with how frayed his nerves were. Accessing his inventory, he read the description of the scythe, his groggy mind unable to fully comprehend what he was reading.

[Khoran's Judgment - Heavenly Amethyst - Level 75 - Soulbound (AP +750) (EP +1000) (PTC +150) (FNS +100) (ACU +100) (PHY +150) (CNC +175)]

[Innate Skill 1 - Khoran's Justice: None who cross Khoran live to see his justice manifest. Slam the butt of Khoran's Judgment into the ground to summon a meteor dealing 5000% damage (Cooldown: One hour)]

[Innate Skill 2 - Khoran's Fury: Release the fury of Khoran. Extends a blade of living flames for 5 minutes that deals 2000% damage on contact and inflict an additional DOT for 50% damage; stacks five times (Cooldown: Once per day)]

[Innate Skill 3 - Khoran's Gaze: Praise Khoran to receive his guidance. Reveals a nearby treasure (Cooldown: Once per day)]

With shaking hands, Raine withdrew the weapon from his inventory. He couldn’t equip it due to the massive level disparity but that didn’t stop him from holding it. He couldn’t believe he had found something so rare and powerful. Every bit of suffering he’d gone through inside the mystic land had been worth it a hundred times over. Not even in the past did he own a weapon so grand. Sure, his equipment at the end had been better, barely, but this was half the level of that gear!

“Praise Khoran indeed!” Raine chuckled darkly, unable to stand the fact he had to wait to equip such an immaculate masterpiece.

Suddenly, the weapon shone brilliantly in his grip and a beam of purple light was released from its tip. It shot toward the distant mountain and where it struck, an illusionary wall vanished. A cave was revealed. From within, a lustrous blue sheen too radiant to come from a single source spilled forth to paint the surroundings.

Raine’s chuckle turned to outright guffaws tinged with madness as the shield in the sky surged with a disturbing pulse of power before collapsing for good.