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Chapter 270: Shared Experience
🕑 Added 2023-01-27 00:45:01 +0000 UTCChapter 270: Shared Experience
Derek didn’t have too much time to view all the notification he received, so he only glanced at the kill notification before dismissing it.
“Whew…” Derek rubbed the sweat off his brow. Just the one kill, split four ways between himself, Edgar, Jasper, and Tara, had given him just over two levels. There goes my trying not to level… He also felt that the wyvern he killed gave more experience points to him than a regular beast at level 250, but that was the first one he had slain, so he wasn’t sure. He would, however, find out soon enough.
Derek glanced indecisively at the corpse of the wyvern underneath himself. He wanted so much to dismantle the beast and store it in his storage devices. It was too big to store as a whole, and he wasn’t even sure he would be able to drag it into his Void Storage even if he wanted to without dismantling it first.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough time to do any of that. Edgar’s wyvern was already upon them, and when it saw its brethren lying dead on the ground, it let out a resounding shriek, which caused all the other surrounding beasts to do the same.
He checked his time. They had just over 40 minutes left to finish the fight if everything was the same as before.
‘I’ll get the attention of the lesser beasts, so you can take care of your wyvern,’ Derek sent to Edgar, who still floated above, preparing for the incoming wyvern.
‘Sounds good!’ the prince sent back.
With that, Derek entered Void Shift once again. This time, he didn’t need to bother about the adult wyvern. He could focus on all the other beasts.
He suddenly appeared before a group of 5 drakes flying behind the wyvern. To draw their attention, he didn’t need to do much, so he called upon an old skill he rarely used: Chain Lightning. The lightning surged from his fingertips and hit the leading drake before bouncing to the other drakes behind.
The skill didn’t do much, but it was enough for him to receive a deadly glare from each beast. Derek smiled and entered Void Shift again.
Edgar had already intercepted the fire wyvern and begun his struggle to tame the beast while Derek collected all the additional monsters in the surrounding. Once he was sure he had the ire of each beast, he turned and fled, leaving Edgar alone with his wyvern.
‘Good luck!’ he sent to Edgar. ‘If you need help, let me know.’
‘Will do,’ Edgar replied.
Now, Derek had a plan for the couple dozen monsters he had in tow. It was a plan that Avery probably wouldn’t be too fond of. The man was already dealing with dozens of beasts, including a wyvern, on his own, so a couple dozen more shouldn’t hurt, right?
After his success with the previous wyvern, he was more confident in dealing with the death attuned one. He was sure he wouldn’t have the ability to kill it by himself, but hopefully Avery would have an attack good enough to pierce its heart, just as Edgar had done.
Derek decided against using Void Shift to make his way to Avery. He didn’t want to chance one of the beasts breaking off from him and heading back to Edgar’s fight. It was, however, a long way to where Avery was. The man had chosen to lead his opponents far away from Derek’s own fight, which Derek appreciated.
At his top speed, without using Void Shift, Derek was able to get within the range of Avery’s battle in around three minutes.
‘The wind wyvern is down,’ Derek telepathically sent to Avery when he saw him.
‘And you decided it was a good idea to bring… what is that? 27 more monsters my way?’ Avery replied.
‘I figured you needed more of a challenge,’ Derek laughed.
‘Whatever… what’s the plan?’ Avery asked. Derek could tell that he was actually relieved that Derek had finally arrived.
Derek relayed his plan to Avery, adjusting for having another person to help. Once he was finished, Avery was quiet for a bit before he replied.
‘I can do that.’
‘Great!’
The two party members then set their plan in motion. Avery stopped on the ground, surrounded by a mob of monsters. He took a second to charge an arrow, then loosed it at the black wyvern above. The death attuned wyvern took this chance to launch one of its own breath attacks back at Avery.
Derek watched in awe as the enhanced arrow Avery had launched at the beast disintegrated before reaching the wyvern. He swallowed heavily, glad he had switched opponents before trying his old plan.
Avery had obviously done this maneuver against the massive beast many times, as it played out like an act. Avery would shoot an arrow from a stationary position, the giant wyvern would launch a black beam of death attuned energy at the archer while all the other beasts closed in on his position, then Avery would disappear and appear on the other side of the horde.
The wyvern would then abruptly cancel its attack to avoid killing its companions, then it would all start over again. Derek watched the play a few times while dodging in and out of the lesser beasts with Void Shift. He wanted to time everything just right.
Finally, he saw his chance. Every attack he had was off cooldown. He was ready.
Avery once again shot his arrow at the wyvern, which caused another breath attack to materialize from the beast’s maw. As soon as the beam was shot, Derek entered Void Shift. The dragonkin’s attention was on the ant pestering it from the ground, and was mid attack, if he approached from the side, just right, he should be able to get close enough to cancel his skill, then launch an attack before the beast breaks his Void Shift.
As quickly as he could, Derek pulled himself through the void ripples before finally appearing perpendicular to the firing wyvern’s head. He saw the beast’s eyes begin to turn his way, but he was already closer than ever before.
He instantly came out of Void Shift and loaded up his most deadly attack. Not to be outdone, though, the wyvern whipped its head faster than ever before, while simultaneously continuing with its attack. From no more than 25 feet away, Derek swung his halberd down with the power of Sweeping Slash, Channel Void, and Multi-Strike while being enhanced by his newly level 20 Heavy Weapons Mastery.
However, just before his attack hit the dragonkin, the breath attack just reached him. For a split second, the wyvern’s attack connected with his right arm holding the halberd, sending the oddest sensation that he had ever felt up his arm. Just as the wyvern’s attack reached him, so to did his attack on the wyvern.
The empowered Sweeping Slash connected perfectly on the right side of the wyvern’s face, causing the wyvern’s attack to shoot downwards before petering out. Derek took this opportunity to step forward and grab onto the wyvern’s head just after sending his halberd away.
He tried to grip a scale with his dominant right hand, but noticed he barely had any control of it. Still, without checking it out, he grasped the wyvern with his left hand instead and prepared for the fall, which came next.
During the few seconds that it took for the wyvern to fall, Derek glanced at his near unresponsive hand. To his horror, from his elbow to his fingertips, was immensely atrophied. His arm looked to be that of an extremely elderly person with bad nutrition. When he tried moving it, he could, but it took a lot of work for the arm to react to his brain’s commands.
Seconds later, the wyvern crashed into the ground. Because of the way it fell, the death attuned wyvern hit the ground much harder than its companion had, nearly knocking Derek off in the process. As soon as he was able, Derek punched the wyvern with his good hand. He had to think of a way to keep it stun locked. First, he cast Rejuvenation on his arm, but it didn’t seem to have any effect, he hadn’t actually lost any health from the beast’s attack.
His next instinct was to use his legs and feet to knee or kick the wyvern, but his position on the wyvern didn’t allow for that. The best he could do was wait for his good fist to become ready again, and keep attack over and over with his left hand. He thought about channeling his inner Silvi and head-butting the beast, but decided against it because he hadn’t practiced transferring the void to his forehead like he had to his fists.
Derek hit the beast in the temple, then quickly turned and threw up Absolute Nullify over his head, stopping any magical attacks from the lesser dragonkin from hitting him. He turned, then hit the wyvern again before tearing a space behind him with his Void Storage for extra protection. He hit the wyvern again, then tore another space open on the side of himself, covering himself even further with an unopened Time Prison.
Boxed in, he summoned a mana potion from his storage, but failed to grip it with his right hand. He barely caught it before it crashed onto the wyvern. Then, he gulped it down, restoring much of the mana he had used to on the three skills, especially Absolute Nullify, as it was a constant drain.
Just then, from the one side he hadn’t covered, the side showing the body of the beast; he saw a giant drill-like attack hit the body of the wyvern, aimed directly at where its heart should be. The attack stopped as it hit the softer scales covering the wyvern’s underbelly, but it continued spinning rapidly.
Derek punched the wyvern again. This time, he could see the light and focus beginning to reappear in its eyes. His combination attack was finally wearing off.
The drill-like attack actually broke through the dragon’s underbelly, surprising Derek. Unfortunately, the attack lost its steam and began to slow. Then, much to his delight, another of the same attacks followed in behind the first, creating an even bigger wound. After a few seconds, blood began gushing out of the injury.
Derek summoned the halberd and caught it with his left hand before channeling the void into the blade and using Sweeping Slash. The blade connected, the skill went off, then; the blade shattered. Derek felt his heart drop from his chest as pieces of the halberd began to fall like dust all around him. He didn’t have another heavy weapon that could withstand his channeling. The extra damage from Sweeping Slash would be rendered basically useless.
He looked over to the attack from Avery, and saw the man in the distance with his bow drawn and aimed at the wyvern, another drill forming from it. He moved side to side, avoiding a wyrm that erupted from the ground beside him.
Avery seemed to see what happened with Derek’s weapon, and their eyes met. Avery gave Derek a toothy grin and ran his tongue over his top teeth. Then, his bow disappeared from his hands, losing the built up energy in the process.
The next thing Derek knew, Avery disappeared from his sight. Derek stared at the spot where Avery had just been standing, but he was gone. Derek had no way of tracing his movement when he used his max speed.
Multi-Strike was still half a minute from cooldown, and Derek didn’t have anything he could do other than keep the beast stunned for a short amount of time longer.
But, because Avery was gone, there was nobody to distract the other beasts around, and multiple attacks flew at Derek from the side he hadn’t covered. Luckily, Absolute Nullify had a magnetic property that pulled most of the attacks toward it, causing them to miss Derek. Still, he was peppered by multiple flames.
Finally, the wyvern awakened with a roar, his single-handed attacks no longer able to keep it stunned. Derek kicked off of its head and moved in the direction of his Void Storage. The wyvern flung its head in his direction, and Derek moved.
By some form of luck, and the wyvern’s rage at being stun locked, his backup plan, if one could call it that, worked. The creature’s head disappeared into his storage, and Derek quickly pulled it shut like curtains.
It didn’t have the effect he wanted, though. He hoped beyond all hope that it would cut the beast’s head off, but it hadn’t. At most, it had caused the beast to become stuck.
Derek entered Void Shift and disappeared into the air high above to get away from the multitude of lesser dragonkin that were closing in on him. Then, he canceled Absolute Nullify and watched the wyvern in awe.
It jerked and kicked and flapped its wings, trying to get unstuck, but it couldn’t. For a split second, Derek thought it would be trapped there, and after the hour was up, if all the monster’s left, it would be a sitting duck. Those thoughts were soon destroyed as Derek saw something all too familiar to him.
The space around the Void Storage began to splinter. Then, cracks spread out like cobwebs. The wyvern was breaking through the void just like a void beast.
Derek took a deep breath and looked at his arm, which was looking slightly better. He tried to close his fist, and it did, though slowly. It would take some time, but it would heal.
The wyvern jerked its body one last time, and the cracks spread even further and began to fall. Derek prepared to enter Void Shift, but then the wyvern rag dolled and fell to the ground, lifeless.
The next moment, a dagger appeared from the wyvern’s belly and cut. Soon, Derek realized where Avery had gone. The man stood dripping, covered in viscera, next to the beast. He looked up at Derek, then started laughing. Derek couldn’t help but smile. That man was crazy.
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Just a heads up. I'll be pulling the chapters corresponding to book two off here, RR, and SH next week in preparations for book two on amazon.
Comments
BloodStorm
I already grabbed book 2 audiobook
Justin Drake
TYFTC
Josh Cothran
XD
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
