Chapter 86 - 84: Rewards
The beast roared and pulled back as dozens of vines grabbed onto its forelegs at once while others beat mercilessly at it. All of the plants got all the power Tulland could spare. While that wasn't enough to keep the beast from breaking away from them by rearing up hard and tearing the plants out by the roots, it was more than enough of a delay that the beast had to replant its legs in the exact the same place.
When it came back down, it was immediately swamped with more plants, who were a bit late to the party. Some of the plants were torn so badly by the beast's trashing that they died in the attempt, but most got some level of hold and continued to climb and bind as the monster continued to struggle against them.
Not enough, though. Tulland was stabbing any visible bit of flesh, ducking back further into his farm every time the beast freed itself for a weak attack, and doing his level best to keep it occupied enough that it couldn't work on the plants for too long. But it was just too big and too strong for that to work entirely. It's biting them off now. There are tons of them and it's still biting them off.
The beast was digging through the farm trying to get to Tulland, taking damage from every plant it touched but slowly and surely making progress towards shattering the entire plot's fighting capability. In the meantime, it was taking on damage, but almost entirely damage to its extremities, where such things affected its overall life force the least.
Tulland watched it struggle and felt like he was on the first floor, watching an extremely overpowered enemy tear through the days and weeks of planting in mere moments.
By the time the beast finally broke through to the other side of the farming plot, almost every plant in the secondary farm was destroyed. The beast's legs were bloodied, but the body was more or less intact. The head wasn't hurt at all.
Just looking in that moment, Tulland would have panicked and given up if it wasn't for the fact that the beast stopped for the first time and shook its head, like it was trying to clear its vision and mind for the rest of the fight. It wouldn't have had to do that, he figured, if it wasn't clouded in the first place.
The second thing was that the beast was much, much slower now. Using the handful of Acheflowers he had picked from the trees during the rest, Tulland kept up a steady series of explosions into the monster's head, just enough to keep its vision somewhat blocked and its rage at all-time highs.
Come on. If it will just follow, this is done.
Are you sure?
I'm sure. It's still taking damage from the vines it can't reach. I just need to not give it a chance to regenerate and I'll win.
And if it doesn't follow?
Tulland gripped his Farmer's Tool a little tighter. Then I go for broke and hope for the best. I won't get a better chance.
Yelling and harassing the beast, Tulland led it forward step by step, trying his hardest to keep the beast's eyes firmly on him and not what was about to happen. When they finally got to his primary farm, it was too angry to see what it was getting into and took the plunge. This would absolutely destroy the farm, but Tulland couldn't care less. He hadn't spent enough time on this floor to even need the farm for power-generation purposes.
Instead, he juiced it with an application of Primal Growth firmly aimed at power-enhancement instead of actually making the plants grow or be healthier. And by the time the first line of Giant's Hair vines started pulling the monster's legs down, it knew it was in trouble. It tried to rear up to break them, only to find that for the first time it couldn't. It had whatever amount of slack the vines gave it to move around with, and nothing more. Better yet, that slack was slowly tightening in.
Tulland furiously stabbed at the beast's legs while this happened, moving behind it to attack the joints on the mostly intact rear legs. He was just poking holes at it's base, driving it forward as it desperately tried to evade his hits. Every inch it shuffled into his farm meant another plant wrapping it up, poking it, and sapping at its life force.
And then, finally, it toppled. The beast roared and resisted as long as it could, but when it eventually got pushed far enough into the plot for the planted Clubber Vines to hit its ailing legs, it was too much. It staggered, couldn't recover from the movement, and then crashed into the dirt headfirst where dozens of his vines began to wrap its head and neck.
You could just leave it for the farm to finish.
I'm not taking any chances. Tulland grabbed a handful of the beast's fur and used it as a handhold as he leapt upwards onto its back. I'm going to end this now.
It wasn't a single hit. By the time the animal stopped moving, Tulland had driven his pitchfork down into the general brain stem area of the monster's neck so many times he could barely feel his own arms. But it finally, truly went down, confirmed by a message from The Infinite that popped up mercifully quickly as it collapsed.
| Level Complete! While The Infinite was aware of the sheer destructive power of your farm, it pretended not to for the sake of this challenge. And let it be said that holding back the farm's powers until the last wave was the right call. Compensating for what amounted to a field of death would have been buffs that were bigger and wider-ranging in their applicability. By the tenth wave, you would have been dealing with a much more resistant, resilient threat. But you didn't. By carefully rationing your power, you allowed The Infinite to enhance each wave to the maximum fair or only slightly unfair level it considered allowable, also maximizing your own rewards. You have already noticed that your leveling has been put on hold for the entirety of this floor. This was for a purpose, and you have a choice in the exact way that progress is paid out. The first option is to accept all the experience you would normally have gotten by doing the kind of thing you've been doing in this level, multiplied a bit to acknowledge that the level itself was completed. It will represent a fine chunk of growth. The second choice you can select is to allow the Dungeon System to take a more in-depth assessment of your overall performance on this level, and to issue you a prize from a random range of performance-appropriate options. While there is a degree of randomness to this decision, the resulting item is guaranteed to at least be useful to your class, if not necessarily the most useful item you could have received.
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