Chapter 180: Swarm
A tuna-faced man walks from the ocean.
It’s a bit of a bizarre thing to see, someone coated in seaweed, with a fish-face, covered in scale, holding a spear with a tip made from bronze. Then he charges at me.
A moment later, his legs disintegrate.
[Deconstruction 23 > 24]
“Ow,” I say, feeling the way my mana burnt its way through me. I’m not yet used to having so much of it, so I overfilled the spell a bit. Oops. I cast another heal, stitching my body back together, as Richard hands me a cereal bar. She made them herself, using some syrup she bought back in the city. They’re nice.
One of the fish-people coats their spear in lightning, which I very rapidly put a stop to.
[Class up! Vesselsmith 9 > 10]
Another five points trickle into my vessel stat, enhancing my already monstrous amount of mana. I breathe, then shatter another spell cast towards us. [Annexation] picks up the pieces, feeding them to my memory and, in turn, my mantle. Tiny pieces of essence flood me.
Soon, maybe I’ll learn to charge my own headphones.
But for now, I really need Bay to come up here already.
“Snow, a little help?” Anna yells. I look over to find her in a one-on-one with an especially big fish guy, swinging a claymore, forcing the girl to consistently retreat. I stretch out my hand, casting [Suppression], and instantly he slows down.
Again, my mana charrs my insides just a little, more of it pouring through me than my frail form can handle. I frown, reinforcing my attunement loop to keep it under control. My control is lacking, but it’s nothing a bit of practice can’t fix. To do just that, I summon a dozen needles, floating around me.
The constructs themselves are simple, the solidified mana coming easily, especially after breaking the second threshold on [Solidification]. But controlling all of them is mentally taxing. Nevertheless, I send them into the fight like a swarm of angry, anti-magic bees.
We mop up the rest of the fish-people rather quickly. Richard takes a few bites from the bodies, and still, I’m not quite sure how she fights. She mostly seems to spit attacks used against her back and rely on her physical body. Which is… remarkably strong, to be honest. She moves very fast, and hits rather hard.
“Richard?” I ask.
“Mh?” she asks, mouth full.
“Do you want a knife? Or, like, four?”
Her eyes light up, all six of them. The little blue alien nods very quickly, chelicerae twitching at her excitement. “I will take many knives. Burning ones.”
I smile at her, and nod. “Sure. If we find any, I’ll happily enchant them for you. Otherwise, we’ll have to buy ones on the outside.”
“No problem,” Richard says, that same glint in her eyes. “I will find knives I enjoy.”
And with that, we walk on.
- - -
This floor really is a lot simpler. The enemies, made to be such by this minor monolith, always crawl from the water. They’re usually around level 30, with some champions reaching the 60s. But the champions are easy to pick out, since they’re the only ones casting proper skills.
Isn’t that a strange thought? These monsters seem a lot stronger than their levels would make me assume. They’re tough, and fast, and hit hard. But they often don’t cast skills - or only very instinctual ones. Maybe some of them have [Bite] or [Cut] or something, but if so, they’re not very creative with them.
Which, well, is kind of expected. Shame, though, because deconstructing skills is one of my ways of earning essence. I guess my best work is still as an anti-person special weapon. Weird thought, that.
But I disregard it as we walk further along the beach, occasionally drinking from my refilling phial. I’ve still not figured out the enchantments on that item. They’re extraordinarily clever, and even after breaking another one, I’m not done. Hopefully, I can… legally acquire some more, soon.
I look behind me, towards where we entered the floor. Just in case.
A few minutes later, Sylves nods. “They’re here!” she says, hovering high in the sky. She free falls downward for a few seconds, before catching herself with a spiral of wind, her dress and hair fluttering. “I can’t tell who it is - aside from Raven. Raven’s obvious. Big edgy feather-coat.”
“As we expected, then,” Opal says with a small grin. “Wish we could leave some landmines for them.”
Shaking my head gently, I reply. “We don’t wanna give away that I’m not actually a shadow-mage.”
“Fair. Can I go stab ‘em, tho?” Opal asks in response.
Thatch is the one to calm them down, pulling at their coat. “Eyes forward, heroine,” he says. “We’ll look for a better chance.”
“An ambush?” Bofoy asks, then smiles faintly. “How devious.”
The zoof seems rather pleased at the notion though. Hm. I shoot one of my mana-needles off into the distance, stabbing into a fish-guy before they even leave the ocean, their mana brushing against the edges of my [Observation]. Since I have mana to spare, I make more and more needles, ensuring that I’m always a little underneath topped up. To efficiently use my regeneration, and all that.
By now there’s a swarm of them hanging around me. Whenever I have focus to spare, I try to manipulate them, adding additional mana. By now, some of the needles are slowly growing into flying spears. At the same time, they disintegrate into ambient mana - held together by my will, and with me patching up their flaws consistently.
Still, I do feel really awesome. Shooting needles and lances at enemies the others can’t even see yet, having a swarm of projectiles hovering around me… it’s really dang cool.
Opal has a sword, Inu gets armor, Sylves gets to be a faerie, and Thatch has the pseudo-shapeshifting thing going. In a way, all of those are pretty cool. But I think I’m the coolest, still.
“Nah, I’m way more awesome,” Opal says from next to me. I stare at them, and they just grin. “What? It was written all over your face.”
“It really, really wasn’t,” Anna says, her own lips pressed into a tight line. She glares at Opal, who just tilts their head in response, confused. Then, the girl turns away with a stomp, heading to fight the fish-people I haven’t stabbed yet.
- - -
Come evening, Bofoy informs us that they’ve found the way to the next floor. It’s on a little island, just off the coast, and when Thatch narrows his eyes, staring ahead, he nods and confirms it. So, in a very reasonable scenario that is not at all excessive, I use an entirely normal amount of mana to make a small boat.
Okay. Calling it a boat is very generous. It’s… a vessel. It has the very rough shape of a boat, a narrow front and a wide back. But it’s also a lot more smooth than a real boat, without any seats, ridges, or anything fancy like that. And it’s disintegrating quickly, so it takes a chunk of mana to maintain, especially when I take a seat in it.
An entirely reasonable bit of mana, that doesn’t at all burn my insides a bit. Trey looks down at the ocean through it, the brave boy being one of the first to sit down in it. I see the hair on the back of his neck rise as he looks through the translucent bottom of the boat. “Okay, that’s a little scary,” he admits quietly.
Not too long after, everyone else joins us in the vessel. Opal smirks, even as they and Inu are assigned rowing duty. Opal shifts their sword into a somewhat suitable shape, and Inu punches the water, generating momentum-vortices or something like that. Slowly but surely, we begin to crawl forward.
And we even make it half way before a very large, very hungry flesh-eating whale slams into the bottom of the boat, cracking it in half, sending us into the wet darkness. Except, of course, Sylves, who quickly saves Trey and Anna as well, lifting them into the air.
“Why not m-”
I don’t get to finish the sentence. The rest of the words turn to bubbles as I fall into the water.