Chapter 70: Alone Into The Dark Street
Theo had long since left the Sixth Wall behind, and by midnight he was sitting on a roof with his knees up, thinking through his line of action.
The one reasonable thing to do was to help the people find their hope back, to prove to them that they could fight again. But so far, he also believed that he would be lying to them.
So he preferred if he did this on his own.
’Am I not being overconfident, thinking that I can actually do shit on my own.’
He did feel like he was. At the same time, he also felt like if there was one place where he might fare far better, it was right here on the battlefield.
His wives were not here, so he had nothing he desperately wanted to protect. He didn’t need to make calculated risks or decisions, protecting some doors or running away. Here there was only one answer he had.
Fight.
Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.
He needed to fight until he survived. He might have nothing to protect here, but he had wives to return home to. So he was allowed to do any and everything but die.
Theo sighed and glanced over the common sword the man had taken to his shabby workshop and helped him polish. In the dark it was still nothing much to look at, plain steel with a grain running through it and a nick near the guard that no amount of stone was ever going to take out. But it held what little light there was along its length and gave it back.
[Common Longsword]
[Rank: Common (★★★)]
[Type: Combat]
[Description: Some cheap sword, forged with a plain steel dug from a random mountain on floor 1]
[Effect(s): Attack Power ~ 45 (125)]
’This is actually cool. Who would’ve thought he was a good smith. Is this the reward of the investment? Free Investment that does not have to do with me being bound to them?’
Theo shook his head.
’Don’t think so. I didn’t particularly do anything to him. I think it’s something deeper. But I guess. I’ll find out later.’
Theo shifted his gaze when he heard a terrifying scream reach him out of the depth of the darkness, thin at first and then not thin at all, and then nothing.
He kept his eyes open the whole while and carefully studied the Inheritor, and he could already discern some things about the creature.
Even in his inexperience.
Because Theo had seen a lot of subjugation clips, even some taken in the Tower. He knew what to expect, which contributed to how he had dealt with the Hornback Serpents. When facing a group of monsters, as a group, by the way. The most important thing should be cutting their lead.
Cutting the lead throws off the rest of the monsters. Monsters are usually not intelligent, which greatly depends on their rank. But even when they are all low ranks, the ones that have established themselves as the group’s commander naturally serve as a point of coercion for the entire group.
Once that point is cut, the group scatters, which makes the hunting very easy. As long as the Heroes are careful and follow the rules even afterwards. It wasn’t news that entire parties of Heroes have been wiped out even after destroying the pillar of the monster groups, often times called the Champion.
But this strange tide of monsters did not move like they were being coerced. This was something Theo would never have seen if he didn’t have such special eyes.
Aside from the obvious gains of the Genesis Eyes, there was the fact that its attention to detail was insane. Because of that, Theo could see from that far away the staggering synchronization that every dead human walked with. A step that landed in one street landed in the next street at the same time, and in the one after that, all the way down until the sound stopped being footsteps at all and became one long roll of noise coming up the hill at him.
They moved all at once, hands and limbs. But there was something also different.
That was because when Brandy and his team engaged a section of the horde, wanting to lay siege from the side and tear their way to the Champion as any reasonable Hero would do, specific undeads were sent to counter them. Fiercely strong, bulwarks of a thing, and Brandy and his team drowned in the assault. The tide closed over the place where they had been and kept walking, and it did not slow down to do it. It was the last scream of one running away that Theo had just heard.
Thanks to them though, Theo had discovered that this creature was just a single one, and was a very, very difficult one at that.
’Yeah, no shit, they were pretty useless. I wonder when the next set of stupid people will file along and try something new.’
Theo glanced back. It didn’t seem like anyone was ready to answer the call. The Sixth Wall sat quiet behind him with its lamps burning low along the top of it.
Then he turned forward.
’Except me I guess...’
He slowly straightened from the roof, and the tiles shifted under his boots and settled again.
’There’s no way the monster will be able to inhabit so many thousands of people and use their potential to the fullest and there won’t be some drawback, and conditions. Even if the Tower is supposed to be cruel, this is supposed to be a Trial entry to floor 1 not 10.’
He sighed.
He knew, somewhere amidst the tide, the real thing was hidden there. The problem was that there were too many of them, and they were too hollow, so Genesis Eyes was being deceived. The eye kept sliding off one dead face and onto the next and finding the same nothing waiting behind both.
So Theo decided that he would have to push forth his plan. He was sure that somewhere along unraveling them, something would change.
The question now, though, was whether he was capable of fighting the caliber of people that were in the horde. After all, these were soldiers with far more experience than him, and the monster inhabiting them was supposed to be using their abilities with far greater accuracy than even they could manage when they were alive.
Theo chuckled dryly.
’I think, I’m sort of cooked.’
There was one advantage that he had though.
It was dark.
Dark enough that the streets under the roofline had no bottom to them, and the horde down there was a movement in it rather than a thing with faces.
Theo inhaled and exhaled and descended into the darkness of the street. The lamps did not reach down that far.
[Your mastery of Shadow Sword has increased]
[Sub-skill: Shadow Movement has been created]