Assassinate Wonderwind [Book 1 Completed!]

“The devs are really not subtle with power creep anymore, are they?” Veyra asked.

The Astral Shadow (Level 531) guarded the mausoleum entrance with claws the size of daggers. The creature was vaguely humanoid by shape with an odd skin texture: a see-through starscape, like a human-shaped portal to outer space. If not for the purple glowing veins giving shape to its limbs, it would have been genuinely difficult to distinguish from its dark surroundings.

It still blended well to the purple flowers of the cavernous jungle. The fifth level of Caverns Of Creation was one of my favorite areas by visual design. Insects blinked in the dark vegetation like magical fireflies. Trees grew fruit-like orbs that acted as dim natural lamps. The lightwork in the area created a truly pleasant atmosphere.

Visual design was just about the only thing I liked about the fifth level. Dark places, beautiful though they were, frequently contained ambushes, from snakes hidden in the bushes, to mushrooms that spread poison when stepped on. Even the top guilds had trouble clearing space for themselves here, which wasn't surprising with an average monster level of 489.

Veyra and I stared down at the Astral Shadow from our vantage point just outside its aggro range. When we first met one, I’d been excited to see what its attack patterns were, until the thing killed me through [Shadow Dash], when I was a shadow.

The Astral Shadows were not only almost the same level as Shaltar, but they also had an ability to deal damage to non-physical entities. In practical terms, that meant they could harm me through [Shadow Dash].

“I can’t tell you how much I hate these guys,” I said.

“You’re getting better at fighting them, though,” Veyra said. “We’ll beat it this time.”

“Did we clear everything around it?”

“We should have,” Veyra said. “This is as ready as we’ll get.”

As in, we had spent the last hour clearing any small critters in the vicinity, like a Star Snake (Level 421), and a bunch of Shell Grubs (Level 459). Those overgrown mantis-like monsters were the most common enemies here. We’d cleared four of them from the area, but there was no guarantee we wouldn’t suddenly find one more. Just one addition to the fight would ruin our strategy against the Astral Shadow.

We’d tried all sorts of strategies to fight these things with most leading to our deaths. Our next idea required a lot of empty space for kiting, and I also needed to fight without mistakes for ten minutes straight.

I stretched my legs and spun my dagger and sickle. My gearset was still the same as the one I’d fought Dragrath with after the guild wipe outside Shaltar's castle. The only upgrades came through spirits. I now had twelve out of the twenty-five spirit slots filled. Most of them were minor stat buffs, but Veyra had gotten one decent spirit against these little dudes. As was typical, she was the one getting all the good loot these days.

Spirit Of Adula

Rarity: Large Spirit

Abilities:

Adula’s Blessing: The power of Adula, the Demigoddess of Starscapes, lingers in lost spirits. Gain 25% resistance to Astral Damage, and deal 50% more damage to Astral type monsters. Dark Magic deals 15% extra Astral Damage. Duration: 60 seconds. Cooldown: 300 seconds.

The buff only lasted for sixty seconds, but it was better than nothing. The fight would last long enough that the cooldown would come back mid-way through.

I tossed a teleportation stone behind me in case we needed to come back here after a death time-out. After one final stretch, I said, “Here goes nothing.”

I took a step forward and activated my spirits, entering its aggro range.

As soon as I did, the Astral Shadow flickered, its figure disappearing.

I dodged to the left prematurely as it teleported to my face. Its claws cut the air where I’d just been. I threw a quick counter-attack with Arcana Mimic Dagger to its stomach. I landed a perfect hit, but its health bar didn’t move.

This would be a long fight. I began stacking [Evisceration] and [Haunt]—the effect of my sickle.

If I didn’t get one-shotted right now, that was. The Astral Shadow swung, and its claws practically teleported through the motion, performing a slash faster than any human could react. I dodged only because I fought at the very edge of its range, where the tip of the claw was a quarter of an inch away from cutting my chin open.

I repeated that three more times in two heartbeats as the monster flicked its other hand, alternating between each hand for two more near instant attacks.

The first [Hex Of Dawnbreak] spawned under us. The spell decreased elemental resistances—with the ability to penetrate the number to the negatives. Once there, Veyra’s mythic boots further decreased resistances. Negative resistances scaled exponentially well with her ultimate, [Time Freeze]. Stacking the hex was crucial for this to work.

We first had to push the monster’s resistances to zero, which was easier said than done. She’d calculated the numbers, and she required a total of sixty three hits of the hex before a level five hundred Astral Shadow was taken to zero—and ideally more to bring it further to the negatives. With a two second cooldown on each hex, I had a lot of dodging to do to keep the monster active.

The first phase required perfect precision and prediction, but I survived by repeating the same trick over and over again. I kept positioning at the very edge of the monster’s range, where I prompted it to throw an attack. At the edge of its range, I was just nimble enough to dodge.

By the tenth attack dodged, it usually mixed in its next move. It teleported behind me.

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That one was undodgeable, and I was forced to [Shadow Dash] to have the speed just to get out of its reach.

[The Snare Of The Creator - Casting a movement ability near a Celestial Traveler has slowed you by 35% for 5 seconds.]

My legs suddenly felt like the heaviest things in the world, yet I was forced to keep it aggroed, or it would kill Veyra in a second. She hadn’t practiced dancing at the edge of an opponent’s range like I had in Art Of Steel. I kept at it, but felt my stamina already lowering.

My single marks of [Haunt] and [Eviscerate] were about to run out. We’d deemed it necessary for me to keep both of those active. I tossed my dagger to graze its leg, dealing no damage but keeping my stacks up. Both would be essential later to finish it off.

Veyra kept spamming the hex, hitting both me and the monster. I would get one-shotted regardless of my resistances, so I just tanked her hex. My were had fallen to negative 1642 when, finally, the Astral Shadow reached zero, with thirty-two stacks of [Eviscerate] applied. We kept hitting it, though, pushing its stats further to the negatives.

The process continued. Veyra spammed dozens of mana potions worth of resistance debuffs, while I stayed in rhythm, dodging the impossible attacks in an almost systematic challenge of endurance. My elemental resistances reached negative five thousand, then six and seven thousand.

Just a little bit more! I thought through gritted teeth. My heart pumped like a machine, muscles about to give up. I had no idea how long I’d been dodging for. I could only hope it was enough. Stamina was really the limiting factor against these monsters.

“Cast it!” I shouted.

“Got it!” Veyra shouted.

The first step of our plan: Veyra ran away, out of the monster’s aggro range. Casting an ultimate prompted the Astral Shadow to teleport to the mage for a kill, which we couldn’t afford. Only when outside, Veyra began casting [Time Freeze], charging it to the maximum.

She dipped into a portal, and the nuke hit.

An explosive crunch of frost snapped the season to chilly winter. The purple leaves turned to ice blue as the air particles themselves froze. Veyra’s ultimate ripped into the Astral Shadow, [Staggering] its posture and bringing its health to 34%.

She followed immediately with [Absolute Zero], while I activated [Eviscerate] and swung with all of the remaining stamina I still had. The sharp hook of my sickle pierced through its head, and the fifty-three stacks of evisceration I'd managed to land blew open for a critical strike.

Its health bar fell to 13%, and the motherfucker activated its second phase. It flickered as it teleported behind me.

[Absolute Zero] hit at the perfect time, the perfect location, [Freezing] it. In no world should have Veyra been able to CC a level 531 monster, but the negative resistances also affected the threshold for [Freezing] opponents. She double-cast [Hex Of Dawnbreak] and [Ray Of Time], burning through its health bar, as I landed one final hit to its head.

A ghastly sound-effect of souls screaming came as [Harvester Of Souls] finally procced.

Harvester Of Souls (Passive): When Haunt’s life drain exceeds the target’s remaining health, landing a critical strike activates Harvester Of Souls. Execute target and gain 25% of target’s All Stats for 30 seconds.

The Astral Shadow cracked like glass, and the orb-like planets inside it clattered onto the ground. A loot orb floated over its corpse.

[You Have Leveled Up!]

[You Have Leveled Up!]

[You Have Leveled Up!]

I collapsed onto the ground, chest moving rapidly from heavy breaths. The [Soft Recovery] from a level-up, bringing me to level 368, hardly helped. “Holy shit…” I wheezed. “We did it. That was a goddamn workout!”

“Nice work,” Veyra said. She also shook her head and blinked herself back to reality. Quick- and dual-casting non-stop for ten minutes straight was just about the most intensive workout for the brain that existed. Veyra always said that the skill was like drawing and a rhythm game combined in imagination, and she was just about the best in the world at it.

I finally managed a laugh. “Are we the first to defeat one of these?”

“No way,” Veyra said. “Zenith Protocol defeated a level 525 Astral Shadow. Level 531 might be the highest, though.”

While still breathing heavily, I grabbed the loot orb.

[You have received: Galactic Orb (Epic Crafting Material), Small Soulshard (???)]

I frowned. “It’s garbage. A small soulshard and that’s about it.”

“Yeah… I expected that. It's insane how this is just a basic monster. The XP is good at least.”

I sighed and sat with my back against a tree. With the monster dead, the mausoleum entrance glimmered at us. Our reward was merely a chance to tackle a dungeon with even harder monsters.

I smirked at Veyra to make it obvious I was joking and said, “So we’re trying the mausoleums again? It’s pretty obvious the good loot is in there.”

Veyra snorted, shaking her head. “Sure, if you want to spend tomorrow recovering gear pieces.”

The mausoleum was another thing I loved aesthetically. The entrance was dark with small spires from a gothic church. The lamps burned, not with flames, but some odd space texture that glimmered like stars. I wasn’t sure why Wind Virtual decided to go with a space theme for an underground cavern, but I found it appealing regardless.

While pushing myself up, I noticed that a dungeon quest had appeared.

Dungeon Quest: Mausoleum Of Fallen Gods (SS Ranked Dungeon) (Recommended Level: 370+)

Quest Details: ???

Completion Conditions: Investigate the dungeon and defeat its evil.

Quest Reward: +800 million experience divided by contribution.

Multiple similar mausoleums were spread across the jungle. A week ago, I’d managed to sneak past the Astral Shadow defending one. I placed a teleportation stone inside, and we began clearing down.

We lasted a whopping five minutes before a monster on all fours blasted us back to the menu screen before I even saw its name tag. Its level started with a six, though, and it could also kill me through [Shadow Dash]. Retrieving our gear pieces took us almost a full day.

“I wonder, do the devs even expect the game to be cleared this year?” Veyra said. “Wonderwind Two will come out first. This is looking like another one of those areas that just sits until people are high enough level. Except, whoever stays to hunt the final boss will fall behind for Wonderwind Two.”

“We’ve still got seven months. Five until Worlds.”

Seven months. That was roughly the amount I’d known Veyra for. I’d now dated her for five months. So much had changed in that time, to the point that my life was practically unrecognizable next to the one I lived before.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I still played Wonderwind for hours upon hours straight, and I mostly ate cup noodles, but hey, at least I could now do 27 push-ups instead of 3.

Veyra checked the time from the system menu, a tired look in her eyes. “Oh. We’ve been playing for ten and a half hours.”

That brought a smile out of both of us. “I think I’m also ready to call it a day. Good session.”

“We’re probably still falling behind.” She watched the mausoleum entrance for a moment, unhappy. Our expertise was usually clearing dungeons above our weight class, but the fifth level was too insane even for our standards. For now, we were forced to clear monsters in the Wilderness at a snail’s pace. I would have been upset by that, but every other top guild had the same problem. The fifth level was just too hard.

“Today was fun,” Veyra said. “I’ll be up at around noon tomorrow if my pod lets me in. We'll have to figure out a solution to speed up progress...”

“I'll see if I can think of something. ”

“Somehow, I feel like you won't be coming up with anything at all.” She smirked at me.

“Eh, I'll go consult you in my dreams to see if you're smarter.” I smiled back at her. “See you tomorrow. Love you.”

“Love you,” she responded, now without hesitation and without avoiding eye contact. I smiled, and we logged off.

I woke up in the goblin’s nest that my room in the attic had turned to.