Chapter 119 – Desperate Measures

They held their position for an hour while Tom recovered from skill exhaustion. It was not difficult as they only attacked one at a time with an average time between each assault of around four minutes. It was enough to restore himself, but barely.

In his nightly training sessions between healing Briana, he had tested his limits. Providing there were less than two uses of Intangible Power Strike every seven minutes, then he could recover from skill stress. Tom was convinced that it wasn’t a coincidence the waves came on four-minute intervals when more frequent ones would have overwhelmed him.

This floor was as much a construction of his fate as a challenge set by the rules of the dark hole trial. Little slices of luck made what would otherwise have been an impossible ask, achievable. He understood the limitations of his new skill. Four times at once was the limit he could push it. With his tier three dagger, he could also counter one of them head on in melee range and that meant theoretically he could probably take five at a time or at least in quick succession.  Not that he ever wanted to be in a position to check that.  

If circumstances fostered a sixth one onto them, they would be in trouble, but he was unconcerned regarding the threat of that outcome. His chances of success here were always based on favourable matchups, and the design of the floor was clear. If he pushed hard and fast, the size of the groups would increase, but providing they remained cautious the numbers wouldn’t swell to a level that would truly threaten them.

Finally, when he was fully recovered Tom got them moving forward once more. Progress was slower than earlier as he sought to reduce the chance of being overwhelmed by a flood of enemies.

Over three hours, they advanced another five hundred metres. Most battles were against only one opponent, but about a quarter of the time two at once would assault them. After the duos, he always paused to recover fully. While he would have liked to push faster, it wasn’t feasible given the constraints of his abilities and he guessed his equipment. His superior weapons laid unused in his inventory, and he knew they could speed things up if it became necessary.

Danger Sense went off and Tom threw up a hand. “Incoming.”

The others saw this signal, lowered their eyes and retreated five paces as planned. Tom put them out of his mind and searched for the cause of his skill’s warning.

It was a new threat. Once more it was camouflaged, a large head that was about the size of a washing machine followed by a tadpole like tail that was only a pace from end to end. It moved through the grass kind of like a snake would even though its anatomy was not conducive to that. Its tail was nowhere near long enough to create the sinuous movements it was producing. It clearly relied on magic for its locomotion.

It was almost as strange looking as the blankets had been.

When it closed within range of his magic, Tom was not surprised when his Lightning Javelin bounced off its surface. There was no flare of magic shielding. Its resistance came purely from natural armour. He was neither alarmed nor worried about the development.

It came closer, and he launched the rest of his free magic spells at it to the same result. This was going to be a physical fight. Tom had to admit he kind of liked the idea. He was excited to be able to blow off some steam.

Tom bounced lightly on the balls of his feet as he waited for it to make its first attack. It was ten metres away, then five, then three. He was ready for everything, but he still studied it. To his visual senses it was a plain ordinary rock with a suspicious crack spreading midway through it that looked like it could be a mouth.

It stopped and then seemed to sink into the earth. The motion was subtle, and it dropped no more than an inch, but it was enough to trigger his battle instincts. His need to move was bolstered by the alarms that went off in his mind as Danger Sense added its voice to the equation. To it forward meant death, not that his fighting experience would have let him do that. Interestingly, sideways was just as dangerous. In a blink, without making a conscious decision he threw himself backward, launching into a back flip to gain extra distance away from the threat.

There was a crack behind him and when he glanced back he saw the monster’s mouth closing over where he had just been standing.

Tom shivered at how fast it had moved. Without Danger Sense, he might have gone sideways, and he suspected it was capable of adjusting itself over a wide angle and if he had done that he might now be dead. Once it launched, it was too fast for someone of his rank to avoid, though it was possible Fateful Repositioning could help, but he didn’t have his automatic class teleports to save himself here like he had gotten in his last life. If he let himself be cornered in the wrong spot, he was vulnerable. Danger Sense became useless if it was too late for him to do anything to save himself.

The alarms had quietened, so he lunged forward and thrust with his weapon while activating Power Strike.

The glowing metal tip collided with the side of the boulder and then skated off the skin. The scratch in places was a couple of centimetres deep, but it was clear he hadn’t penetrated far enough to draw anything resembling blood.

Clinically, he retreated into his ready stance as he interpreted the results of his strike.

It was not positive. Maybe there would be weak spots on that tail that he could exploit, but his guess was that the head was nigh on untouchable and he feared the rest of the body would be the same..

The monster was sinking slightly into the ground again and Tom recognised the signs. Before Danger Sense went off, he was already retreating backwards. This time, he remained facing the creature and witnessed it blur forward. Its mouth briefly opening wide enough to swallow him whole before crunching down.

It was definitely a case of having to be clear of the danger area before it activated the ability. Because the move was telegraphed, it was not dangerous now that he knew how to recognise the signs. As it stayed frozen to the spot like the previous time, Tom took the second he had to stab it with his spear. He hadn’t bothered with Power Strike so the thrust only left slight lines dug into its side.

He could land a hundred similar blows and not carve as deep as a single power strike infused one.

Cautiously, he once more settled into a defensive stance, waiting to see what it could do. Learning all the tricks of an enemy was an important first step to determining how to beat them.

It started wiggling, a different tell from the other one, and Tom instinctively backed away. Danger Sense screamed louder, and he followed his gut reaction and threw himself sideways.

Mouth open, it roared through the spot he had stood and finished its charge five metres beyond that. Tom ran at it and struck the base of the tail with Power Strike active. The spear, just like against the face, failed to penetrate. Considering the tail had looked the same as the rest of it Tom wasn’t surprised but he had hoped that some part of it would be more lightly armoured. Given its even greenish yellow consistent rock grain and no visible weaknesses, that hope was looking unlikely.

It did another one of the mini charges, and Tom assessed the entirety of the scene. He hadn’t noticed any pressure against his mind or any other signs of a psychic influence. “You can safely look, but don’t approach.” Tom warned them. With his sped-up perception, a small two times multiplier, it was easy enough to monitor both the monster and the surrounding landscapes.

Tom tested the creature for over three minutes to tease out if there were any other special attacks. There was either none or he couldn’t threaten it sufficiently to force it to use it.

“Have you got the rhythm he called out to Kang.”

His friend nodded. “Just the two specials, right? Both of which are telegraphed.”

“Yep. It feels like it’s probably going to have some sort of AOE spin as well, but as it’s just me harassing it, it hasn’t brought that out.”

The other boy agreed. “I’m wearing a bracelet. If it has something like that, I’ll know and will be able to avoid it. And I really think you need me to help you. Unless you want the glory of hacking through the armour yourself.”

“If we had an hour to spare we still wouldn’t do that. And given the number of I’m hungry we’ve got from Eloise we definitely don’t have that long.” Tom responded with a laugh. “Come on, let’s see you put your axe to use.”

Kang joined the fight.

Tom had been holding his own advanced attacks in reserve in case more of the blankets came, but the other reincarnator didn’t have the same restrictions.

His axe was wreathed with shadows and occasionally a red glow would over power the spell and those strikes were an extra level of destructiveness. Every time he swung Kang hacked slivers of the creature’s thick armour off like a woodchopper. Within a minute, he had carved out a small tree trunk worth of depth and about ten times what Tom had managed in his three minutes of effort.

Kang danced back and Tom smiled as he saw yellow blood floating into the sky. Every blow after that opened the wound further until there was a torrent of coloured liquid streaming up into the air.

It died a few seconds after.

“You want me to dissect it, right?” Kang asked.

“I’ll stand guard,” Tom agreed.

With a single-minded focus, the other boy went to work while Tom watched for enemies. The dissection took over half an hour, and he put down eleven blanket monsters while they waited.

Finally satisfied Kang stood. “That things built like a tank.”

“Anything noteworthy?

Kang grimaced slightly. “Not really. There’s no vulnerabilities to exploit. The weakest point is the sides of their head. If you focus the strikes there, then it’ll only take about a third of the blows to get through.”

“That’s it?”

The boy shrugged. “Yep. It’s a defensive beast.”

“It’s not like we have a choice of opponents. We know how to kill it and that’s all that matters. Let’s head back. I think we’ve done enough.”

“We’ve gone like three hours past lunchtime,” Eloise complained.

“Less than one,” Tom corrected her. “And it couldn’t be helped. We needed that information. But we can go back and eat now.”

They retreated having spent over six hours on the floor.

“Adam.” Kang demanded immediately when they emerged into their living room.

Six and a half percent.

It wasn’t as much as any of them would have liked from six hours of grinding, but it was progress and permanent progress even after the five percent penalty was applied. If Brianna hadn’t got injured and with normal improvement in their efficiency, they would have been able to clear the whole thing without doing anything exceptional. That was providing whatever third or fourth monster out there was not significantly more difficult to defeat than what they were currently facing.

After three days of hard fighting, they once more gathered together after returning from the floor.

“Adam.” Kang called out.

Twenty-one and a half percent.

Tom felt like hitting a wall. He glanced in concern at the now permanently pale and listless Briana. She was already starting to move more slowly than she had. She could still cast her Razor Water to shred the armour of the rock monsters, but if things went to shit, she wouldn’t be able to dodge anything.

“We’ve made progress.” Kang said neutrally. “Seven percent per day in fact. That’s good.” His fists were clenched and his nostrils were flaring. His body language did not match the tone or words that he was speaking.  “Theoretically.” He stopped talking and looked down. Bit his lips and then stared up at the sky for a number of long moments. His eyes, when they met Tom’s were desperate. “We’re already doing twelve-hour shifts. We can’t do more. You can do the maths as well as me. That’s eleven days, maybe as few as nine if efficiency increases. That’s Nine days Tom it might as well be fifty,” Unbidden he glanced at the wan Briana. “You said you had a trump card. It’s time to use it.”

“I was going to raise this as well. I’ll use it tomorrow. We’ll finish the trial tomorrow.”

“What is it?” Kang asked.

Tom shook his head. “You’ll find out when I use it.”

 The other reincarnator thought about that answer for a moment. “Fair enough. I trust you.”

“Why can’t you tell us?” Eloise demanded. “Bri, has a right to know.”

Tom said nothing.

“Tell us what power you’ve been hiding.”

“Eloise,” Kang said gently. “Do you know about titles?”

She nodded, bright eyed and serious.

“If Tom’s not telling us something, it’s for a similar reason.”

“But it’s Briana’s life on the line.”

“No, Eloise, you’re hearing but not listening. We could tell you about titles, but it would cost you. I’m assuming this is similar.”

“It is.” Tom volunteered.

“That’s dragon shit.”

“Language,” Kang warned her. “And it might very well be. But I trust Tom to have his reasons. We will wait until he is ready to tell us. He has a reason for his silence.”

Something about his tone shut her up and the next day they lined up with Kang and Eloise wearing backpacks filled with food.

“We’re not exiting once we start,” Tom told them. “We defeat it this run or we die.”

“That’s a little dramatic.” Kang protested.

“The only way I leave this floor is dead or victorious.” Tom stated and stared Kang down, making it clear there was no room for compromise.

“Is this about your trump card?”

Tom wisely chose not to answer.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

A minute later, they emerged into what they had found was a permanently sunlit valley. The sun never moved no matter how long they were here.

“Okay, we’re in Tom now. Can you spill it.”

“I got weapons on previous floors.”

“That’s it? That’s what you’re being mysterious about?” Kang asked, sounding bemused.

“It can only be used for one instance of the floor and when it’s out of my spatial storage, its durability decays. The moment we start using it we’re committing to continuing to the end. Because if we can’t beat a floor with a tier three weapon, we definitely won’t be able to beat it without one.”

“Weapons?” Kang said dubiously.

“Yes, two of them,one from each floor,” Tom corrected. “And they’re bound to me.” It was a bald faced lie, but Kang had neither the identification skill or social ability to allow him to expose it. “You’ll see them once I start using them.”

“Why did you get them instead of me?”

“I believe that’s obvious and if you want to know you can ask Adam once we get out of here.”

“I think I might.” Kang shot back clearly annoyed by the conversation. “I just don’t understand why we wouldn’t get one each.”

“You don’t have a spatial storage.”

“I’m sure Adam could have worked around that.”

“Well, I don’t know. You’ll just have to ask him. Now, today we’re going to push faster. I want to beat the boss before dinner.”

With his intention stated, he set a fast pace. With the first blanket, he didn’t use magic. Instead, he charged it and leapt at it with the tier three dagger in his hands. He reached it just as it was stopping its mind attack and before it could reconfigure into its smaller form to attack effectively. The blade broke the shields and then a free Bolt, his weakest spell, stunned it. “Its down.” He yelled and the other two ran to butcher it.

With it dead, they moved forward as fast as Briana could walk. The blankets started coming in pairs and Tom only paralyzed the condensed form one and physically threw himself at the one using the mind attacks.

Then, the duos turned to trios, and Tom forced himself to slow down.

They still pushed. Rock monster types joined the mix they were fighting. They weren’t a danger until they came with other monsters and even then it wasn’t difficult to bait to a location that Briana could splash them and do sufficient damage to their armour to let Tom or Kang take it down in a few blows.

The mixed team of attackers slowed them slightly, but they were still setting a blistering pace.

The third monster variety was added to the mix. Tom wasn’t concerned it was something they had fought previously, and they knew how to kill it. The creature was a long-range magical attack variety. They were tricky but only rank seven so easily countered if you had the right skills, which Danger Sense counted as. By using it or paying attention to the changes in thickness of the air, he was able to easily avoid its vaporising attacks and cross the thirty metres he needed to throw a Lightning Javelin. Then once they were stunned Tom could keep running or use the physical javelins to kill them from range. He usually went with the remote option, so he didn’t stray too far from the others. The ranged method worked because it usually only took two hits to eliminate them.

They had a break for lunch.

“How far do you think we’ve got?” Kang asked.

“Sixty percent.” He guessed and then focused as he felt a twinge from Danger Sense. He still had time, but something potentially dangerous was coming.

“Is there going to be a fourth enemy?”

He bit his sandwich as he experienced a familiar pressure on his mind. When he glanced at Kang, the other boy’s eyes had rolled back, and he had collapsed unconscious.

“Yes, there is.” Tom said simply and went to meet the new opponent type. It looked like a greener version of the rock monster. But the time dilation it gave him was a three times perception boost instead of two, so it was fifty percent faster than its weaker cousins. With his allies comatose he didn’t bother with pretences and his spear appeared in his hands.

Instantly the lag between him sending commands to his muscles and them obeying him was reduced. If he had to guess, he could move a quarter faster.

He charged the monster, mainly to keep it away from the others. Apart from its extra speed and its long distance mind attack, it was no different from its lesser kind. With the tier three spears in his hand, every blow was like it had a full power strike infusing it. His thrusts tore chunks off it and he concentrated on this left side. In three minutes he had torn through the thinner armour and yellow blood streamed toward the sky.

He went and sat next to the others. Three minutes later they woke up. “Your fourth monster.” Tom nodded at the dead creature about twenty metres away. It was noticeably different from the other rock monsters they had been fighting.

“Did it get a visual lock?”

“No.”

“Damn,” Kang cursed clearly annoyed at being removed from the fight so casually. “Anything else?”

“It was about fifty percent faster.”

“And you were able to fight it?” he asked amazed.

“My trump card equalised the difference.”

“The dragon spear,” Kang said thoughtfully. “I’ve seen you use it.”

“Yep. It gives me a speed boost.”

They finished their food and pushed on. With the addition of the extra monster type, it was not smooth. Every time one of them appeared they were delayed for at least six minutes and usually longer, as the other monsters that came with it forced him to burn skills to defeat them.

Everyone was injured. Eloise suffered a badly bruised side with broken ribs when she got grazed by a rock charge. She cried for thirty minutes, which was the time it took for Tom to build up enough mana reserves to fix her.

The monsters were relentless and the closer they got the greater the challenge they faced. The injuries stacked up.

Finally, they reached the boss.

Brianna was near death. For the last three hours, he hadn’t had the mana to spare to heal her, and the lack of maintenance showed. Eloise had lost half of her leg and walked with a prosthetic cobbled together out of blanket monster parts and part of the remote spell caster.

Kang, apart from Tom was the least injured, and he was only missing two fingers.

The girls, even once they were physically healed were never going to be the same again. You didn’t experience the level of trauma they had just gone through without consequences. Especially when you were only six.

“This is it.” Kang said grimly, looking into the room.

There was a single enemy waiting for him.

It was a larger version of the fourth type of monster. While his analysis ability wasn’t up to the task, there was a lot that he could tell. It would be fast, a three to four times dilation, based on other floor bosses. Its mind attack would disable the others instantly, and it would have the two telegraphed major attacks that they knew of, and probably one more beyond that. “You know you’re going to be incapacitated.”

“I know. We know,” Kang agreed. “We’re dependent on you. Winning.”

Tom nodded. While part of him wanted to do a heart to heart as this was the last opportunity that they would have to speak openly with each other he knew doing so would be a bad idea. Even with her pain removed, Briana was close to death, Eloise was suffering, and Kang had too many unanswered questions about the tier three spear. “Well, I guess I’ll see you back Existentia.” He looked at the girls and particularly at Briana. “When I finish this fight, you’ll be healed to full. I’m sorry this happened.”

“So am I.” Briana burst into tears. He gave her a big hug but only reapplied the free spell to stop her pain rather than correcting any of the other symptoms. All of his magic was needed for the approaching fight. “Thank you for coming for me, Tom. I shouldn’t have accepted. Wanting to know was childish and selfish.”

“We screwed up first, Briana. This is on Kang and me. We put you in this situation where you felt you had no choice but to ask. The great news is that when we get back to Existentia, you can relax about knowing we’re reincarnators. You won’t be capable of betraying us and I’m so happy I’ll be able to be myself around you.”

“Me too.” Kang said quietly.

“I’m still sorry. We didn’t have to go through this.”

“I know it’s been painful, but the rewards will be worth it. Now I have a boss to fight.”

Brushing away his own tears, he strode into the room. Time slowed as the boss focused on him and he could feel the three people behind him toppling over from their sitting position. It was time to end this.

AG. I know this is not a cliff hanger but it also kind of is. We all want to know what the final rewards are, including myself, though I've known the gist of them from the start but haven't finalised the details yet. When chapter 120 (Monday's chapter) is complete I'll post it as soon as possible however today (saturday) I have family stuff all day so its 40 to 60 hours away.