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Chapter 61. Demon Hunting Mastermind
🕑 Added 2025-04-21 15:48:46 +0000 UTCRafe saw the hammer descending toward him and evaded it at the last possible moment using one of his new skills. He went to thrust but a blast of explosion mana had him turning to Parry an attack from Adrian.
The dwarf's main stat turned out to be dexterity, which he applied in very interesting ways. For example, with the head of his hammer stuck in the ground, he pushed himself along the haft and used the head an a pivot so the butt of it attacked Rafe's exposed back before he could react.
It was such controlled micro movements that made having all these stats become unhidden - and thus gain the ability to raise them - important. Rafe would definitely level a dexterity stat if it was visible on his status screen. It would help his fighting chances.
Adrian released another blast that Rafe intended to dodge even as he was reeling from the dwarf's hit. But the beam broke into several hundreds at the last moment and Rafe had to focus on batting them away one by one. He held his spear in both hands and applied his Parry skill, his Puppeteer's Rubber Body, and his Dodge skill as much as he could.
“Tch, applying three skills at once? As expected of the challenges of the tower,” Adrian scoffed.
How the man managed to turn what Rafe assumed to be a hint of praise and admiration into derision, he would never know.
Besides, Rafe was good, but he wasn't nearly skilled enough with internal energy manipulation to power three skills at once. He wasn't sure, but he believed that had something to do with the intelligence stat.
Intelligence did control memorisation and therefore Rafe concluded it must control things like what class of spells one could use. For example, F-ranked spells, no matter rarity tags, were often less complex and therefore easier to memorize than, say, E-ranked spells. You'd need higher intelligence to learn higher ranked spells. From his own observations, he'd seen that knowing spells wasn't enough though. Manipulating mana mattered a lot too. Manipulating stamina must have been under that category as well.
Otherwise why the hell were intelligence and wisdom stats everyone started with instead of hidden stats, even if warriors sometimes didn't get mana?
What Rafe was doing at the moment was applying his coordination stat to the maximum he could. It seemed as if time itself slowed down. As if, if he tried hard enough, he could split his brain into three or more and control all these skills at once. As it was, he was still too weak. He could only speed through it. Apply one skill one moment and even before its effect fully manifests apply the next in quick order.
He activated skills too fast it appeared he was doing it simultaneously. One day, he'd be able to do it, he was sure. Now was the time for practice.
He couldn't avoid getting a few hits though, as the tiny beams were just too many. Dividing the beam into many smaller rays meant its power was something Rafe could handle at least. And handle it did, diving straight back into the fray soon afterward. Dealing with veils was becoming second nature to him.
He had found a new weakness in his fighting, and he needed exploits. Right now he had his effective agility as the best counter, but he knew the only solution for the longer short term, before his class caught up and before his soul also leveled enough to not have stat caps, was overpowered equipment. He didn't know how strong the equipment he could handle was, but he would get the strongest stuff whenever possible.
Currently it was this spear and the armour he'd received with his portable wardrobe. With the quest system though, he knew he had a chance to fix this weakness and need eventually. Especially if credits were some kind of currency like he thought they were.
A third exploit towards the veil, Rafe had found, was killing intent. Basically, with his fine control of his aura and emotions, if all his attacks were not aimed to be lethal, if they were not critical hits, the veil would be weaker or sometimes wouldn't form at all. This meant Rafe had to target peripheral body parts like limbs, and was more focused on immobilisation than killing all told.
He broke the dwarf's left leg but the warrior was no stranger to pain. He had continued to swing his hammer through it. And he was still doing it consistently too. He broke the second leg and even with him completely immobilised the dwarf kept shouting profanities and swinging. Rafe wanted to ignore him and attack Adrian at that moment but the dwarf got too violent and Rafe was afraid he would hurt himself.
He disarmed the man, shared a look with Adrian who was focused on his partner with a frown.
“Berserker skill?” Rafe asked.
“Hell if I know,” Adrian said with a shrug.
“Why aren't you attacking me?” Rafe asked him curiously.
“Attack you now? When you're trying to help my teammate? I'm a man of honour, I'll have you know,” Adrian said in his over the top way. “Besides, we had to fight you together. The exact wording of the instructions made it sound like if one of us lost, we both did. I still have a tower to climb. Why the hell would I waste more effort than it is worth?”
“Um-hmm,” Rafe said, thinking this was quite like the Adrian he remembered.
He punched forward suddenly before the veil could so much as react. He broke the dwarf's nose.
“Oi, thanks for that,” the dwarf said a few minutes later, after he'd recovered enough to talk again. “This was no easy challenge, I tell you. It was no easy challenge at all.”
It wasn't long after that his two opponents started making preparations to leave. He watched as Adrian dissipated, just like the woman from the landing below had said he would. Rafe found himself falling to his knees for some reason, fisting his hands and looking up towards the top he couldn't see. It rose all the way to the clouds, this tower did, and he wasn't even half away towards the clouds.
He was so tired. Both emotionally and physically. He had tried to distract himself since the previous room, but seeing Devila die, that powerful woman, seeing her sacrifice herself. Knowing she was probably on this tower, knowing he might get to see her.
Considering that he might only see her face flicker as the shadow chose a different form. Considering she might not remember him. Considering her image might dissipate like Adrian's.
“Argh!” Rafe said, feeling wetness trickle from his now injured hands.
The pressure was getting too heavy. The stress of it all. Unbidden, his eyes strayed to the ground which he could see from any point on the stairs which had no railing to speak of. It would be so easy to just jump down and end this trial. It would be so easy.
But Rafe had decided a long time ago, even when he'd lost his memories, that suicide was a step too far for him. Unless there was no choice, he would climb. He would climb and find what he may where he may.
With a heavy breath, Rafe settled down to wait.
‘Ding’ Side Quest completed
Reward: Will be received at the end of the floor.
Your skill Dodge has reached level 7.
Your skill Parry has reached level 213.
You have gained +1 stat to intelligence.
You have gained +1 stat to coordination.
Rafe frowned at the last two notifications. Improved understanding, or maybe improved application of stats improved them? He wasn't sure why they had improved, but then his stats had been growing even in the trial when he could not level up. Besides, he had about twenty one stat points he had yet to distribute.
It was on the seventh floor, the next floor, that he finally found the rest of them. Almost all of them. He did not know the first two women, but then he saw Quin's subtly scaled face, and then Andragoth right after, and Aska, and Lowa the silent assassin, and then finally the image settled. On Raedis.
Rafe was confused at first. It had settled too fast. It had settled much faster here than it had on any other landing.
His heart had started to pump once he'd recognised Quin, and it had started to sink with every face he recognised. When it stopped, he was caught off guard. He had been expecting it to continue, to show only one more face he had yet to see. It had stopped on Raedis though. Somehow he couldn't help but feel bitter about that.
“Why…why…why?!!”
Rafe took a deep breath. He couldn't allow himself to spiral now. He activated his skill to distract himself.
Name: Raedis Agripa
Class: Hell-forged Brawler (rare) lvl. 55
Race: Demon
Strongest stat: Strength: 252
Strongest skill: Demonic fist (epic lvl.35) Swathed with violet demonic energy, your punches leach off an opponent's health and stamina, feeding a percentage of it into user's pools. Amount stolen increases with increase in skill level.
Trait: Hell-forged (All mana converted to demonic energy)
“A trait?” Rafe questioned.
It was the first time he'd seen something like that. He couldn't tell the difference between it and something like a skill or ability. But there must have been one. Too bad the opponent he was fighting, though he knew him well enough, was not the most loquacious.
The demon grunted in response to Rafe's out loud question. Rafe shrugged and started to get ready for the fight. This was just a fight like any other. And he'd sparred against the demon hundreds of times before.
He'd never used this demonic energy as far as Rafe could remember.
“Which means you were always holding back,” Rafe grinned.
Raedis had always been a good sport. He didn't interrupt Rafe as he put his things away. The gigantic demon only studied the smaller man. He was calm and supremely confident in his own power. Rafe admired his self-confidence.
“I will beat you at your own game, demon,” Rafe promised as he fisted his hands. “And just for you, I will not use any weapons. Let's fight with our hands then. Show me all you have. Show me this demonic energy of yours!”
A frown had started growing on the demon's face with Rafe's increasingly unhinged speech. At the end the demon watched him approach.
“You talk a lot, little man,” the demon said calmly.
Then he moved. Rafe met him in the middle of the landing. They both looked unarmed, but between throwing his fist and it almost landing, Raedis had already palmed a punching knife. Rafe hadn't even seen it.
“You must have dexterity too?” Rafe commented as he narrowly moved his head to avoid the punch.
He threw a left handed teasing jab that was deftly dodged before Raedis tried a right hook. Rafe went to dodge downwards and inwards, and that was when he saw the knee coming. He brought up his hands to protect his face but he was still pushed back up due to Raedis’ superior strength.
He was too off balance to avoid the linked arms that hit the back of his flying form and sent him careening back onto the ground. He found himself a full metre away, and in a ditch he'd dig with his own body. On this hard concrete floor.
“Wow, that felt like being hit by a truck, probably,” Rafe said.
These fights did not have lots of rules, and Rafe was fighting someone stronger than him in a fighting style his opponent favoured. He had expected injuries. He hadn't expected the injuries would come two seconds (probably microseconds really) into their clash though.
He had come prepared. He needed something to take his mind off things, and a few hours long slugfest seemed like the exact thing the doctor ordered. He took a health potion. He watched as his health count started to tick up. At some point, potions would be unable to fill his whole health pool in one go. His pool was still low enough now that they should for at least the foreseeable future.
He hadn't used enough stamina yet to justify spending another potion on that.
A punch landed on the back of his head even though Raedis was just starting to launch himself in real time. Rafe dived forward and rolled twice on the ground before plopping himself back up in style. His precognition always kicked in at the most random moments.
He took a stance and waved at a frozen Raedis.
“Shall we continue this little dance,” he said, unfisting one of his hands to make a come hither gesture.
The demon only grunted as he charged, not showing any reaction to the provocation.
They clashed again. Again. They exchanged blows for hours. Rafe managed to avoid getting dibilitating injuries from stupid miscalculations for a bit, but he still got a few. It was telling of his fighting accumen that he only used three more health potions over what must have been six hours, taking the potion cool downs into account.
‘Ding’ Your skill Unarmed combat has grown to level 28
Your skill Skyholm's fighting proficiency has grown to level 37.
Your skill Dodge has grown to level 10.
Your skill Heavy blow has grown to level 251.
Your skill Parry has grown to level 216.
Gaining all those levels in all those skills was proof of the effort he'd put in thus far. And he had improved, beating Raedis out with his agility focus and how he swiftly switched between active skills.
He rained punches on the demon's raised guard, pushing him back a step. Raedis took it a step further to gain some space. Rafe had all the momentum. With Rafe's latest punch missing its mark, he was left unbalanced. Raedis charged a strong punch with his right, swinging it with all his might.
Rafe couldn't block that. He couldn't apply his Parry skill to gently guide the punch away from himself as he'd been doing throughout the exchange. He could only retreat in the face of that, never stopping his bobbing and weaving.
Raedis watched Rafe, who had used a Dash to retreat, bend over his knees and breathe in a rush. The demon did not attack immediately as he had been doing throughout the fight. Instead he stayed where he was and studied Rafe as he had been at the beginning of the fight.
“This is a waste of time,” the demon declared.
“You.. you're…telling me?” Rafe gasped out.
“Your punches are barely able to land, and when they do hurt less than would a needle’s sting. You have barely tasted my endurance. And yet I can hardly defeat you,” the demon continued, the last bit thoughtful.
In order to avoid the whole issue with veils and all, Rafe had fought the whole thing as a sparring match, never really intending to do much harm against the demon. He couldn't pierce a level fifty rare class holder's veil as he was now. Even his spec augmenting weapons would struggle to injure Raedis. So he hadn't even tried. He could only shrug at the demon's speculation.
“Hey, I could beat you if I went all out,” he joked.
The demon raised a brow. “Indeed? Maybe this challenge was put here to bar my path forward, and not on this dastardly stair case. No. You would bar me from proceeding up the tower?”
Rafe frowned. “How would I?”
“By wasting my time. By causing the madness to come for me if I do not give up my climb.”
Rafe tilted his head, not quite understanding. That was when the realisation hit him. The time dilation.
He smiled and lifted his hands. “Hah, you got me, you bastard!”
The demon only nodded. “Even if I win, you wouldn't mind. For you will rob me of my chance to earn the greater rewards above. How…heinous?”
“Um, yeah, haha. Behold my master piece of a plan!” Rafe said, playing into his opponent's misunderstanding.
“Yes. Truly despicable. You wanted to behold my demonic energy, did you not?”
Rafe frowned as he heard that. He had never had this acquaintance of his speak so much. And there was an eloquence there that was not as forced as Adrian's. He wanted to ask if Raedis was some kind of noble but then a blinding violet light distracted him.
The scar like tattoos on the demon's body started to shine, reminding Rafe of his own tattoos that had become rather mundane since their last growth spurt. The tattoos no longer moved or gleamed at all.
He cast the distraction from his mind as he watched the violet flame engulfing the demon's body die down. All that remained were his fists. One of the punching knives he'd not resheathed fell down. A melted, blackened piece of sludge. Rafe gulped as he acknowledged this might not have been the best idea.
