Chapter 41: Trash compactor (1/2)
The group of four blinked or flew towards the other side before landing in the entrance to the next hallway. Upon landing Ilea asked Edwin how many more trap rooms she should expect.
“I don’t know. Sorry...” he said. And that was that. They continued with Ilea leading the way.
Ten minutes of walking later, they came up on an entrance. Looking inside, the same walls were made with the same white stone. Nothing else seemed to be out of the ordinary. The room was around fifty by fifty meters while being nearly twenty meters high. The only thing other than some runes and magic lights in the room was a door on the other end and a pedestal in the middle of the room.
“Peculiar...” Edwin mumbled. “Go and try to activate the pedestal. We’ll support you from the doorway if necessary.” he said. Ilea nodded and walked inside the room.
“Go Ilea!” Felicia shouted, a big smile on her face. “Don’t get stabbed again!”
‘Well that’s encouraging...’ Ilea thought but smiled nonetheless as she put her hand on the pedestal and let some mana seep inside. ‘Whatcha got for me this time dwarves?’
Some runes lit up and a rumble could be heard near the doorway. Edwin seemed to have activated some buffs and dragged the other two behind while jumping back himself. A fraction of a second later, the doorway was closed by stone. From this distance Ilea couldn’t tell that the doorway had ever existed.
“A room for myself then hmm?” looked to the noise on her right and wasn’t surprised to see a sword guardian exiting from another opening in the wall that closed and vanished as fast as it had opened.
‘Oh hello there my friend...’ she smiled at the sword guardian before her.
[Taleen Guardian – lvl ??]
“You’re quite perfect for some testing...” she said and looked back towards where she had entered the room. She hoped Edwin wouldn’t break through immediately. With his somewhat cautious approach towards the traps so far she assumed though that she had some time at least.
And the risk of being found out was worth it to her to see how much she’d changed. Ilea walked towards the sword guardian that was unfolding its torso. Her Azarinth Sphere was becoming a constant companion after Edwin’s suggestion. State of Azarinth activated at full power, increasing her speed, strength and resilience just like her senses of smell, her hearing and her sight.
This alone was still covered by her mana regeneration. The blue runes shone from the holes in her more and more battered armor, at least her boots were still fine. Ilea took a deep breath and let it out again.
She looked down on herself as lines of firey dark red color formed on her body. She let her backpack fall to the ground and threw the mace a couple meters away. ‘Form of Ember…’ she thought as the mace clanged on the stone floor.
A dark yellow and red glow intertwined with blue runes on her body as the healer changed into a fighting stance, her blue eyes focusing on her adversary.
Her resiliance, speed and dexterity more than doubled again from their level before activating State of Azarinth. She also felt how her passive Ashen skills sharpened her senses even further.
A mist of ash formed around her, slightly obscuring the warrior beneath. “Shroud of Ash...” she whispered. A warm feeling spread through her, comfortable in the ash’s embrace.
“Ash surge...” she said out loud just when the guardian sped up to attack her. It seemed weird to her how slowly the machine was moving compared to when she faced one of them for the first time. ‘I really have grown...’ she thought and smiled just when a mist of ash and ember surged outwards from her, shrouding the space in heated cinders.
Her vision was perfectly fine though, combined with her sphere the enemy stood before her as if it stood in the hot summer sun. A blade cut through the ashen mist, missing Ilea by a couple centimeters. Another blade and then another joined the assault as her senses went into overdrive. Dodging with the smallest margin, Ilea made her way slightly backwards before she stopped.
The human and the machine engaged in a dance of blades as one sought to kill and the other sought only to avoid the reaper. At least at first. Twenty seconds later, an opening was seen by the woman and a punch enhanced with both Destruction and Wave of Ember rocked through the dwarven creation.
It recoiled for the fraction of a second before moving in again. With each passing second, Ilea could comprehend the pattern better and better. The time between her attacks shrunk down with each attack she delivered until finally her attacks and dodges reached an even amount.
Twenty five fully powered attacks were needed until with the final one, the Guardian faltered, it’s blades and legs uselessly clattering to the ground before the healer. She breathed out, balling her hands into fists again before moving into her initial stance.
Two doors opened this time, her enemies doubling. Ilea stood there, looking at the sword guardians approaching her while unfolding their torsos. She opened one of her fists and gestured for them to come. And so they did.
The adventurer danced skillfully between the twelve blades, a mist of ash following the blue and fiery glow that came from her form. The sound of air being slashed and powerful punches hitting metal filled the room with noise, music in the ears of the dancing warrior.
With two enemies it took longer for her to find openings and she started using her blink ability sparingly in between. The enemies still fell to her assault, their lifeless bodies of cold metal falling to the ground before four guardians entered from unseen chambers in the walls.
Ilea continued on, dodging and fighting but four guardians at once proved too much for her senses. When clustered together more than twenty blades came at her at once until finally one of them hit their mark. Ilea blinked away, blood dripping from the cut on her shoulder.
She looked at it and grinned, the shallow wound closing before her eyes in seconds. ‘Guess I don’t have to be THAT careful anymore...’ she thought, thanking her new defensive skills that changed a previously fatal attack into a mere kitchen accident.
The fight dragged on for another five minutes, her enemies slowly losing numbers as her power only grew. The last one fell to her knee hitting the creature from below. She breathed out and went back into a stance.
‘ding’ ‘You have defeated [Taleen Guardian] x 7’
‘bing’ ‘Azarinth Healer has reached level 111. 5 Stat points awarded.’
‘bing’ ‘Ash Wielder has reached level 106. 5 Stat points awarded.’
‘ding’ ‘Shroud of Ash reaches lvl 2’
‘No new skills to chose from at least...’ Ilea thought as she relaxed her stance. She had mixed feelings about that. Azarinth healer only gave her skills incredibly rarely while Fire Enhancer just covered her in skills. ‘I’d rather have rare but good skills though...’ she shelved that thought for now and looked at the wreckage before her.
‘He won’t believe that I killed them with the classes and skills he thinks I have...’ her thought was interrupted by a familiar noise as spears shot out from the ground upwards. Two things surprised Ilea as it happened. One, time didn’t slow down which meant the spear that was currently moving upwards to pierce her wouldn’t take more than 75% of her life force.
Two, she saw the spears moving upwards and was able to move her body slightly to dodge them. Not quite fast enough though as the spear below her scratched her leg. The word scratch was key here as the spears that previously punched through her skin, muscle and bone now didn’t even manage to completely get through her skin.
“You’re repeating yourself dwarves...” she said out loud, moving to dodge the spear that would inevitably try to pierce her from between the other spikes. Using the same tactic as before, she simply started punching the spears, bending them out of shape much faster than previously.
After damaging ten of the spears something different happened though. ‘Where’s the fire?’ she thought as the walls started to rumble. Contrary to the expected firestorm the walls on each side of the room started to slowly close in on her.