Chapter 85: Warming Up
Zarian hadn’t lived a great life before the Infinita Star System.
He’d grown up in the worst end of the foster care program. He’d existed as an outcast at school. He’d left the Marines with a bad conduct discharge. He’d lived on the streets for a while, with a little sister only he could see while his dark magic was emerging, all of which could’ve been made up or part of his craziness.
Months after opening a portal to another world, Zarian was having the time of his life. He was a legendary Level 60 Madness Wizard, jam-packed with aura circting inside and outside of his body. His mysticism was outrageously high, greater than the rest of his statsbined.
Mysticism enhanced the control of magic. It heightened magical ingenuity. It quickened the regeneration of aura. His Aura Channeler and Basic Aura Maniption traits worked better when he had higher Mysticism, enabling him to apply more of the brute force method with his aura.
Hell, he even had Void Mysticism, a trait that elevated void-based abilities by partially scaling with Mysticism. Void abilities mainly scaled with Wonder, so even there, Zarian’s Mysticism was king.
Not all of his abilities were optimized to run on Mysticism.
Adrenaline Jolt was the worst offender as a skill that only scaled with Agility, and it was already weakened as a Level 0 beta skill. But Zarian had aura maniption, and in a roundabout way, he could push all of his skills to their limit by having a huge foundation in Mysticism.
Would he always choose Mysticism over everything else?
Not always.He could use more points in Willpower and Wonder. Those two stats were key in multiple areas in his build. But for today, Zarian was gung ho to y up the mystical side to his profile.
After all, he had Straight Darkness +2 in his alpha section this time around. The alpha section also included Parasite Cloak +1, Spectral Spider Network +1, Summon Wizard Hat +1, and Grimoire of the Mad Voidling Prince for a maximum of five alpha skills.
His other skills, Grimoire of ck Magic 102, Grimoire of the Dread Mire Hell Gator, Tranquil Mind, Adrenaline Jolt, Willful Might, Wondrous Speed, Mystic Toughness, Rune Alteration, were in the beta section. They served as supportive abilities, even if some of them were Level 0s. He could boost them all with his aura maniption.
Thus, he was living up to his im as the most bullshit wizard across thends. And on this very morning, despite theck of darkness, he felt like he’d unshackled himself.
He felt like Goku when he removed his weighted clothing in a tournament fight against Tien. Sometimes it was easy to forget how stupidly powerful he was without restraints.
Zarian was quickly reminded of his overpowered nature when he watched a man who was older, higher in level, and more experienced than him take a void-enhanced dark bolt to the chest and get sted out of the sky.
The Purgehunt Rose plummeted like a streaking meteor toward a poorer and emptier district far across town, which Zarian had aimed for on purpose.
The initial impact of the bolt colliding with the antagonistic White Rose sent waves of thunderous force through the air. The Lovewar Barrier shimmered and rippled in the face of the eruption. The mist below billowed and ttened from the gale force windsing down.
Para the Parasite Cloak shifted and fanned out like wings, catching the explosive air waves to send Zarian corkscrewing around before entering a smooth glide during his descent. He had his hand on his face as heughed the whole time.
It was too bright and golden in the morning for such augh. But he sounded like a viin stalking through the night, his presence dimming the glory of a new day.
The twin suns seemed less impactfulpared to the dark shadow he cast upon the fighters below. Perhaps not physically, but definitely in the moral sense, at least when affecting the guys who weren’t on Zarian’s side.
The White Rose of Purehome tried to wrap a spherical barrier around Zarian from all sides. The solidified magic sphere closed in quickly to crush him into a pulp.
It was still too slow as Zarian’s Fractured Mind ran through the alien symbols and runes of the Void Step spell. He cast it right on time and took a quick and direct exit back to the street, leaving him uncrushed.
“Let me take a closer look at things just in case,” Zarian said merrily, hands in his leg pockets, which were convenient andfy.
Hannah hadn’t skipped out on anything when she designed the Wolf Dragon Hunter suits. The pockets had quality felt-lining, too.
The White Rose of Purgehunt was still alive. He was a tough guy. But he was no spring chicken, so he didn’t bounce back just yet.
That gave Zarian time to see the cmity his party of Floridians and skeletons brought to the table against the Royal Guard. Zarian was also there to act as a deterrent to the White Rose of Purehome by throwing a constant volley of thunderous dark bolts at the barrier-user so his people could do their work.
Already, the mist around the main area of fighting was clearing, which meant Arnold of Ambrose was doing his job of giving the White Rose of Kingsblood a hard time. The breaking of the mist, at least in some spots, was important for one of Zarian’s key party members as they fought the kingdom’s most elite fighting force below the White Roses.
The Royal Guards were in the high Level 50s. They were armored like knights of fantasy with a mix of oiled leather and polished steel. They wore an insignia of a golden rose on their breastte. They each wielded halberds as their chief weapons whileing equipped with swords and knives as backup.
They didn’t use special abilities like the White Roses. But their knightly abilities came with rare-quality power and well-practiced technique drilled into them for years. By all means, they should be the better of the Outsiders who’d only known this world for a few months.
But the Outsiders were simply stronger and more spectacr. Their legendary sses, and even their one epic ss, were leaps and bounds better than the rare sses of the Royal Guards.
Additionally, all of the Level 0 skills Zarian had copied into their profiles made them greater than the sum of their parts. They were faster, mightier, and tougher than they should be, even if only a little bit more than the norm. But that was more than enough to make a difference plus everything else they had in their advantage.
Bianca made the Royal Guards look like they were ten levels below her andplete amateurs. The Level 43 Light Princess took on six of them on her own. All at once.
Her many-colored elven dress fluttered and glimmered in the wake of her speedy movements as she reached up and caught the shining morning light breaking through the weakening mist. She pulled away streams and bands of honey-gold light as she frolicked around, between pockets of magic mist and murderous men, which was an image that Zarian thought deserved to be illustrated in arge and fancy painting.
The Royal Guards rushed her with explosive movements. Halberds swung in and thrust toward her body as each attacker leveraged their superhuman speed and strength.
They all struck with so much force they would easily crush boulders or smash down fortified walls. They could shake an entire hillside, let alone the street, with those hits. But all of their blows passed through nothing but mist, air, and an illusion of light.
Bianca reappeared behind two of the Royal Guards. In her hands, currents of morning light bent into solid forms until she held twin light sabers, both curved with a hard and hot edge, one for each hand.
With a flourish, she pivoted about, her twin sabers shing. She cut through the enchanted armor of the Royal Guards. Her attacks weren’t instant deaths, but the way she had the injured men backpedaling, their armor melting where they she had cut them, gave reason for Zarian to believe Bianca could dominate just fine.
The same was said for Gilbert and Hannah, who turned out to be a surprisingly excellent duo while around each other. Gilbertunched off his eight-legged steed and crashed into a Royal Guard with his Hardened Silk Tower Shield. Hended in a position to defend the back of Icicle, the gnoll skeleton Runic Freezer.
The more Gilbert fought in the defense of others while working with his steed, the more dynamic and incredible the Knighted Healer could be. Better yet, his Sleipnir matched his physicality and kicked and stomped at the Royal Guard with a bestial aggression.
Still, the Royal Guards had more years of experience than him and his steed. They could still overwhelm him if they could surround him.
But the Royal Guards had other problems, one of which was Hannah, as she purposefully hacked the enchantments of their armor and twisted their runes against the Royal Guards. She made it harder for them to move. She made their weapons weaker. She made every enemy who used an enchantment in her vicinity be more vulnerable.
Better yet, that wasn’t the most dangerous part about her now. She’d picked up a lot from crawling the Devouring Librarian Dungeon, such as learning to shoot a destructive green-tinted beam from her Runic Gauntlet.
Hannah achieved the first kill before the rest of the party by striking a man in his exposed face where his helmet didn’t cover. She stripped him of his vitality so fast the skin and flesh weren’t done melting off his skull before the corpse dropped.
Naomi came in second by a close margin. It took her a few seconds to pummel a Royal Guard into the cobblestone with raining punches that shook up the street.
By the time she finished and faced other Royal Guards with their halberds swinging down at her like guillotines, she left the ttened tin can armor and mushy remains in a deep crater.
This tale has been uwfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Hannah got the first kill,” Zarian said casually through a spectral spider on Naomi’s shoulder.
He was still walking around while shooting heavy dark bolts at the White Rose of Purehome. He figured he had enough time to instigate a little and see the results.
Zarian wasn’t disappointed.
“DAMMIT!” Naomi roared, letting go of her calm.
She turned her frustration inward while constructing a wall of force around her body with her Psychokinesis skill. She condensed it, hardened it, until she had a barrier lined along the edges of her body, matching with some enchantments on her Wolf Dragon Hunter suit, doubling up on her defense.
That way, when the Royal Guards hammered and hacked at her with their halberds, thebination of psionic energy and advanced enchantments knocked away their blows and kept her unharmed.
Still, the Royal Guards kept mming their halberds at her with so much force the street rocked and Naomi sunk downward. They hammered and hammered until they broke the street underneath and fell into the storm drain and underground tunnels below, creating arge pitfall.
A few secondster, the sound of an implosion resonated from the pitfall. Aura rushed outward and inward in a split second’s time.
Zarian paid sharp attention to the magnificence of Naomi’s foolhardy but optimal Aura Ignition/First Stage. The epic trait flooded her body with rapid streams of aura that wanted to tear her apart. But until she fell under the pressure, the first stage of Aura Ignition boosted her physicality to incredible heights.
The Royal Guards who’d fallen into the pit with her, trapping themselves with a beast of a woman, screamed like they were facing an enormous monster. Their voices were drowned out by Naomi’s roar as she went berserk on them.
Each of her strikes shook the entire street and the nearest walls and foundations of the mansionpounds in the area. Every screaming man stuck underground with her faced a armor-ttening, flesh-sttering death.
The nearest Royal Guards to the carnage were losing confidence, losing discipline behind their formation, and losing theirrades rapidly, which was not only the fault of Zarian’s party members, the four Floridians who stuck with him.
The skeletons, led by Loner, were doing their part to tip the scales by ganging up on individual Royal Guards.
Unlike the Floridians, the skeletons didn’t portray themselves as the strongest of their ss around. Instead, they focused on being efficient and monstrous, attacking any gap in the Royal Guards’ armor while beating on them with all of their various abilities.
Mighty used his enchanted Strength to grapple a Royal Guard down while mer poured elemental embers into the man’s face. Glowy shed Royal Guards with searing light while other skeletons attacked from behind, using team-based tactics.
Loner was the only skeleton who attacked with his own power in direct one-on-one situations with Royal Guards, which were almost even except for Loner having the benefit of Hannah’s wide-reaching enchanting on the field.
Inevitably, the Royal Guards fell to Hannah’s maniptions of their own runes while Loner’s enchantments rose in effectiveness as he pummeled his foes with huge vibrating blows.
Not everything was perfect for Zarian’s party. Bianca couldn’t avoid every hit from the experienced Royal Guards. Hannah suffered blows that threw her off her feet and sent her tumbling around like a rag doll. Naomi was tearing herself apart while maintaining her Aura Ignition and hitting way too far above her own toughness. And, of course, Gilbert took the greatest amount of punishment as he charged into the Royal Guards like he had a death wish.
That worked out perfectly fine, because the more Gilbert rued damage, the mightier his Strength and healing grew. He fixed up the others lickety split and capitalized on another new skill of his: Sacrificial Blow.
Gilbert punched a Royal Guard so hard the breastte folded inward and the man flew backward as quick as a fast ball.
The Sacrificial Blow skill grew stronger the more Gilbert invested his own health into the skill or took damage while exchanging a blow.
The only thing Gilbert was missing was a proper weapon. None of Hannah’s enchantments could take advantage of Gilbert’s unique build just yet. But at least Gilbert was finding his groove and keeping the party healthy regardless of mistakes made.
Even with all of that, there were still a few too many Royal Guards for Zarian’s liking. The enemy even had a healer on their side, which mitigated some of the damage and deaths they would’ve suffered faster.
While Zarian’s party was talented and amazing, the Royal Guards had just enough experience and numbers on their side to push for their own luck and turn things around. Hence, why Zarian waited for the turning point where one or two Royal Guards could catch his people off guard and dismantle them.
“First, their healer,” Zarian said.
Zarian pointed his finger and shot the healer of the Royal Guards through his armor with a dark bullet. He hit the healer’s heart and sent the dark bullet bursting out the back of the man’s armor.
Healer, eliminated.
Zarian then turned and shot another Royal Guard in the forehead, making his entire head explode along with his helmet. That guy had a special skill for swinging out magic crescents from a distance. He’d struck Hannah a few too many times for Zarian’s liking and nearly lopped her head off.
Crescent man, eliminated.
Zarian shot two more Royal Guards because they were acting too smart and looking for opportunities to strike down Bianca from behind. Then Zarian gave one Royal Guard the upward spike treatment before he could swing an extremely powerful blow to Gilbert’s neck and behead his party’s main healer.
Smarty pants one, smarty pants two, and the would-be beheader, all eliminated.
Zarian was about to kill another one when Naomi veered with a sudden turn and flew in like a streakinget covered in ming and crackling greenish blue aura. She hit Zarian’s next target so hard his entire body burst apart like someone taking a hammer to a watermelon.
Naomi kept barreling around like crazy. Not always urate. Definitely a little out of control. But she was making a tremendous impact. She ensured there was no recovering or rallying of the Royal Guards.
So much so, she cleared more of the mist through the sheer force of her wild rampage. She allowed more morning light to beam down. And with more light, Bianca seriously started to snow ball now, wielding her dual light sabers and chargedser beams. She sliced deeper and hotter through Royal Guards with a swing of her sabers, and she shot the ones who tried to escape her with intense beams of light that either killed them instantly or had them screaming in pain before they died.
All of that was quite scary since Bianca was a bare-foot princess on the street. She wasn’t even using the enchantments of her fancy dress.
Granted, it was scary for others. For Zarian, it was all quite glorious.
“Okay, they don’t need me any further. I don’t even have to supply them with extra aura.” Feeling proud with his party’s impressive showing, Zarian turned to the White Rose of Purehome he kept pinned with a constant assault of heavy dark bolts
He hadn’t stopped streaming out heavy dark bolts the moment he’de down to watch over his party and help with a few troublesome spots here and there.
He also wanted to see how Arnold was doing against the White Rose of Kingsblood, and it looked like the honorable old man was having a dandy time, shing out arcs of silver crescents and leaving behind silver fields in his wake.
A different, more contemptible old man cussed angrily while trying to hit and strangle Arnold with streams of controlled mist. Arnold wouldn’t let that happen and kept hounding the White Rose of Kingsblood.
Clearly, there was some bad blood between the two old men, and Arnold was getting the better of his rival.
Now that Zarian thought about it, he imagined the Good God Serveserf would be opposed to the Good God Kingsblood based on the people they represented. Regardless of them being on the side of good and order, it wouldn’t be a stretch that Serveserf and Kingsblood were rivals.
Zarian didn’t always care about the gods, and in many ways, he disliked some of their practices. But he did find the nature of the game and the alignments interesting the further he dove into it.
But those were considerations for another time. He should spend most of his Fractured Mind on the fight, such as turning his full attention to the Purehome Rose.
“Isn’t this just fun? This is the type of stuff you see in movies or anime that makes you wonder what it would be like to be in the middle of it.” Zarian chuckled. “Apparently, when you have enough power and battlefield awareness, it’s like the most adrenaline filled amusement park you can be in. But more violent, bloody, and magical.”
“The wicked madness you speak of shall not taint me, evil one. I have the power of Purehome, and she will deliver upon me boons so I can destroy you, miscreant,” grunted the White Rose of Purehome from behind his magic barriers.
“You have no idea how many mortals and gods are gunning to destroy me, dude.” Zarian jerked a thumb behind him. “Such as the tool bag falling in.”
“BE PURGED, FOUL EVIL!” Shouted the White Rose of Purgehunt, falling back into the picture with a super leap at Zarian’s back.
The Purgehunt Rose held his javelin more like arge ming sword now. His entire body was wreathed in mes while buffed up with extra muscr might. He must’ve taken a second boon to enhance both his ming power and his physicality, because he was falling down hard on Zarian.
Meanwhile, the sound of a divine woman’s voice sang down from the heavens. All the nearby homes trembled. Zarian felt oppressed, crushed down on, and suffocated, but he stood his ground and endured.
The Purehome Rose glowed with an ethereal light as he received a divine boon. He pushed his barrier forward with renewed vigor and sent it as a hammering wave flying toward Zarian’s body.
With a flying barriering at his front and a ming sword falling at his back, Zarian looked like he was stuck between death and more death, at least from a different point of view. From Zarian’s view, things were getting more interesting.
He hooked his thumbs into his leg pockets as a dark pir rose in front of the flying barrier and a dark beam shot up at an angle from Zarian’s feet.
The dark pir and the flying barrier collided with the force of a destructive bomb, obliterating the street section, knocking down the nearest walls, and sending Royal Guards and skeletons tumbling off their feet. The skeletons recovered the fastest even if they had to reassemble themselves.
The dark beam and ming sword collided, and the sword remained mighty while cutting through the dark beam for a split second, but then the sword fell short of touching Zarian’s head. The dark beam became the victor of the struggle and sent the Purgehunt Rose flying off like a streakinget once again.
He wouldn’t fall alone this time around as Zarian cast Void Step twice.
The first cast ced him in front of the shocked Purehome Rose. Zarian grabbed the strongest guardian of the Eternal Garden Kingdom by the neck with a grip so intense the thin barrier close to the man’s neck crackled under Zarian’s grasp.
The second cast of Void Step took Zarian and the Purehome Rose on a ride through the void, where the emptiness and eternal darkness ravaged the body and sanity of the Purehome Rose until they both reentered regr reality.
Just as Zarian had predicted, a power that was far beyond their mortal limits kept him from leaving the Purehome Rose in the void, forcing them both to exit together.
That had to be the Star System enforcing certain limits.
Zarian didn’t mind, because he had other ns for the Purehome Rose. One of them was to disconnect him from his goddess’s influence for a split second. Then, with the second cast of Void Step, they caught up to the Purgehunt Rose.
Zarian grinned wolfishly in the deep shade under his wide-brimmed wizard hat. He shot Straight Darkness from the soles of his boots. His Parasite Cloak wavered like a huge tattered g as he choke-mmed the Purehome Rose into the Purgehunt Rose while they were still midair.
The moment they made contact, Zarian condensed his aura with his Dark Affinity and entrapped them in a heavy sphere of darkness that sent them all careening down into the poorer and emptier district for a meteoric double body m. The entire area trembled from the force, and nearby abandoned factories and warehouses crumbled or made groaning noises as part of their supports and walls copsed.
Zarian cast Void Step a third time to exit the cater he’d hammered both White Roses through. Para formed a throne of flesh, spines, and jagged teeth. He sat down and crossed his ankle over his knee while he propped his elbow on the armrest, chin on palm. His grimoires hovered around him, each book of spells exuding palpable power that foretold of their capabilities.
Zarianughed as he boasted aloud.
“Don’t worry! I’ll let you recover and call on your gods again if you can. It’ll be a shame to end this early when I just finished warming up.”