Paragon of Skills

Part of why Jacob is sick is that the plan he has put in motion puts his entire body in enormous physical stress from…

He shakes his head.

“You okay?” Nimirea asks from beside him.

“Of course, peachy,” Jacob replies with a smile feeling his lungs barely working and his heartbeat slowing dangerously. “Let’s take five.”

Jacob looks across the Champions and takes several deep breaths, circulating Mana across his body in order for him not to faint and, possibly, die.

He goes into a panic for a few moments, not knowing what to do when his body stops responding for several moments.

Liuthkrav had warned him about this.

His Senior Brother, the Mithril Golem, had warned him that to try and save everybody, there was a good chance that he might die.

And not a good chance in a funny way.

Jacob feels his organs fail in real time.

Yet, it is the only way to protect everybody around him.

Several Weeks Prior, before destroying the Cultists’ control over the Dungeon

“The Dungeon won’t show you the Advanced Grounds—ever. Not if it’s being controlled by the Cultists,” Liuthkrav says, looking straight into Jacob’s eyes.

They’re in a shimmering barrier of gaseous Mithril that the Golem generated.

“I am fairly sure the Dungeon is still asleep and that it won’t be able to hear anything from you, Jacob, but… the fact that the Advanced Grounds haven’t shown up yet, it means that this is an Apostle.”

“A what?” Jacob’s eyes go wide. “Like… a person controlling the Dungeon?”

Liuthkrav shakes his head.

“No. Primordial Gods do not interact with mortals the way other Divine beings do. They care nothing for them. Cultists of Apocalypse, in fact, are… slaves. They have enslaved themselves in a way they don’t even understand.”

“Senior Brother, I’m confused.”

“I know,” Liuthkrav sighs. “My master spent his lifetime finding out as much as possible about the Primordial Gods—he considered them the real threat to this world. And he found out that while Evil Gods hand down contracts, in which you can exchange your soul to the Divine in order to receive power, the Primordial Gods operate on a whole different level. You already know they take and twist souls into monsters.”

“Yeah?”

“They take their servants’ souls in the same way. Most Cultists of Primordial Gods have been sent into a psychotic state where they cannot discern truth from illusion. Their power gain, unlike borrowing power from an Evil God, is temporary. The Primordial Gods don’t recognize mortals. Mortals just happen to brush upon their power and gain incredible power themselves upon contact. Yet, they are slowly cannibalized by that power. They don’t even know it. And what’s happening here is that. The Dungeon needs to consume the Cultists. Until then, it won’t fully awaken. Once it does—and it specifically requires their souls, and, potentially, of their family, which explains why Lady Ashenvale tried to kill her children, compelled by the Dungeon—it will reveal its full power. From that moment, Jacob…”

Jacob, seeing Liuthkrav’s reticence to keep talking, feels a pang of fear.

“What, Senior Brother?”

“This is… this is not the kind of opponent you can face. I’m sorry… this might be it. The Dungeon will awaken at some point since the Cultists are slowly dying, not even knowing they are. And once they do, no one here is remotely strong enough to face what the Dungeon will unleash.”

The room is a deep alcove of the Ashenmere mine, somewhere no Knight has bothered to map. A single oil lamp throws thin orange light on the curved stone walls. Inside the shimmering Mithril barrier the Golem has erected, the silence is the heavy kind only old stone can hold. Liuthkrav sits across from Jacob at a small worktable, his sculpted Mithril features catching the lamplight every time he breathes. He does not need to breathe.

Jacob, who’s sitting on a chair, at the table with the Mithril Golem, asks, “you’re not messing with me, are you?”

Liuthkrav shakes his head.

“Well, fuck,” Jacob says, getting up, putting his hands on his hips. “Explain exactly what’s going to happen. In detail.”

“The Apostle, Lyra, will slowly grow in power, and generate an army that nobody here can take. It will start with Nightmares made of Mithril, stronger versions of what you have already been facing. But then, soon, you will meet real non-humanoid Nightmares. They’re not called that because of the weak representations of mortals that Apocalypse mocks her enemies with.”

Jacob falls silent.

“How strong are the Mithril versions?”

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“All of them are around Early Imperium Rank. The monsters that will come after that will all be Intermediate to Advanced Imperium Rank. Lyra will keep sending them against you to keep you busy, letting you believe those are the real threat. Then, in her chambers, she’ll be spawning the real Nightmares. Any of those against one of the Knights you command—it will be a slaughter, no matter what.”

Every word feels like boiling lead poured over Jacob’s back.

“Can’t we do anything?”

“If it were any other Primordial God, you might have had a chance, but Apocalypse, Jacob, is also the one who created the Grimoire.”

“Wait, what?” Jacob’s eyes suddenly went wide. “My Grimoire?!”

“All the Apostles of Apocalypse have a degree of power that equals the Grimoire in most aspects. It’s not as crystallized, but it’s way broader. Lyra will be able to read the intentions, the thoughts, and the future of those entering the Dungeon. That’s why, no matter how much you plan, you’ll not be able to defeat her.”

“So… the Dungeon will bait us around, build an army of things that will eventually overwhelm us, and we can’t do anything.”

“I’m not even sure you can face the normal Mithril Nightmares without heavy losses, Jacob.”

“I just… wait. They’re made of Mithril?”

“Yeah, and—“

“I’ll take the Mithril, fuse with the Imperium, and forge weapons and armor that those below Imperium can use thanks to the properties of Mithril.”

Liuthkrav opens and closes his mouth several times.

“Well… that would work. Expensive. But it would work. But still, how do you plan on taking on the stronger monsters?”

“Champions and Dark Champions. Now that I know about this, I’ll stay out of the Dungeon so it won’t be able to read my mind, and then as soon as the Advanced Grounds open, I’ll use Augusta’s Dark Door to lead a blitz attack on the Dungeon Core and destroy it thanks to all our Rainbow Skills. If Lyra tries to block us, I can just have Kaelrik cut through—“

“Lyra can turn off your Rainbow Skills.”

Jacob’s mouth, mid-sentence, stays open.

“No. Are you… No…”

“She’ll do so only once you enter the Boss Room. And even though the Dark Champions and the Champions plan to reach Diamond Rank with an Imperium Rank Skill, they don’t have the time to grow into their power enough. They would need to have an Adamantite Rank Skill Crystal and reach True Diamond to have a chance at overpowering Lyra’s creatures. But it’s impossible to generate the kind of power you guys need to kill the Boss. And there are no Adamantite Skill Crystals here. Much less ones that would make a meaningful difference for any of you.”

“What… does she have any weaknesses at all?”

“Since you guys have Rainbow Skills, that makes her reading any of you harder. The more Skills and the more powerful they are, the more they muddy her ability to read any of you. Nimirea will probably be very hard to read for her, and the same goes for Sabrina. But it’s still too few Skills. It would literally take hundreds of Skills together at True Diamond in order to muddy the waters enough to stop her from reading you.”

“Yeah, and the Over-Skilling would kill you,” Jacob sighs. “That amount of Skills would be toxic to anybody.”

“Yes, it would take a person willing to die just in order to hide one person’s hand. Because even if you managed to hide your thoughts, you wouldn’t be able to communicate your plan to anyone entering the Dungeon with you. You, alone, would have to bear such a burden. And even then, what would be your plan?”

Jacob sits back down, looks down at his sword, and then at his chest. Then, hiding his face in his hands, elbows on the table, he groans.

“Jacob. What are you thinking?” Liuthkrav sees the otherworldly tiredness that appeared on Jacob and frowns. He also recognizes that he’s thinking something, scheming.

“I guess it’s time to change my fighting style, huh?” Jacob smiles, pained, looking at Liuthkrav. “I… I have an idea. Get me a piece of paper, please. We’ll need to write down stuff.”

“Jacob, even if you hide your plan from her, whatever it is, the Over-Skilling would kill you.”

“I guess I’ll fucking die then,” Jacob replies, irritated, to Liuthkrav. “I—I don’t want to, Senior Brother. Believe it or not, I don’t want to fucking die. But there’s only one thing I can think of that could work. So, let’s get me some pen and paper and work it out, please?”

Lyra watches with glee as her Mithril Nightmare Shredder of Apocalypse finally meets with the Heir’s group.

Jacob Cloud is so sick that he’s pathetically lying down. Whatever he’s done to himself is slowly taking him out, which Lyra rejoices for. He might have gone down the Over-Skilling road, something that her Goddess has seen before in Dungeons such as this. Arrogant martyrs think they can save everybody by just hiding their thoughts, Skills, and plans from her.

If Lyra had to guess, Jacob Cloud thought he could orchestrate all of his Skills with his Grimoire. Clearly, he has Rafnov’s heritage, but not his teachings. He might have somehow found out about Over-Skilling, but it won’t do anything for him.

The Shredder has an insectoid form, like a scolopendra, and dozens of Mithril blades, made of so much Mithril that for a mortal its carcass would be invaluable.

“This is where the walls close in, Jacob Cloud.”

Now that the main threat to her victory has finally fallen in her lap, she can trigger the next step.

[Lyra has enabled the Road of Trials.]

[You must make your way to the Boss Room or die.]

The group of Champions and Dark Champions turns around to see that the path they came from suddenly becomes barred. The bald woman with the Dark Door screams.

“Jacob, I can’t activate my Dark Door!”

Lyra tells the Shredder to wait, so that she can savor their panic, so that she can see the panic that her Goddess never got to see in Rafnov’s eyes. This is Lyra’s gift to her Lady.

“Oh no,” Jacob says. “Now we can’t escape.”

Yet, his voice sounds… quite relaxed?

Lyra frowns.

“He must be faking it,” she tells herself from inside the giant Dungeon Core.

Now that she’s activated the Road of Trials, she has essentially created a Karmic Bond with the Champions and Dark Champions so that they must come to meet her greatest child, the Boss of the Dungeon.

Lyra smiles in her titanic greatness.

“I will slowly disable all of your Rainbow Skills, one by one, starting with those Dragonkins—“

“Asterion, use your Rainbow Skill.”

Before the Dark Champions can attack, before Lyra can do anything.

A line appears through the Shredder, who just stays stationary, waiting to receive orders from his Mother. But Lyra, caught on the backfoot, is conjuring the deactivation of the defensive Rainbow Skill of Korrath and the one of Zorathul… she did not foresee Jacob ordering one of his to use that.

The next moment, the Shredder is separated in two, killed in one hit.

Her Intermediate Imperium Rank creature.

“Luck,” Lyra scoffs. “I’ll send two more and then, right when he’s about to order his Highblood to attack, disable his Skill and plunge him in despair.”

Yet, as she summons two more Mithril Nightmare Shredders of Apocalypse, she suddenly sees Jacob rising on his feet, unsteady, and creating many mandalas of Primordial Magic over the dead Shredder.

“What is he—“ The mandala slowly absorbs the Mithril and coalesces it into several ingots. “I’ll take this. Stupid Dungeon. It’s really giving out free Mithril, huh? Man, it must be stupid as hell.”

“INSOLENT BRAT!” Lyra trembles and, instead of waiting to slowly plunge the enemy into despair like she had initially planned, she unearths a dozen Shredders at once. “GO AND KILL THEM ALL! I WANT THEM TO SUFFER!”

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