The Pinnacle Warrior

“Astrid?”

“Yes?” Astrid answered Benedict, though she knew more or less what he was about to say.

“You have a problem, and I think I might hate you.”

“You do not hate her,” Muti said, shaking her head as she blitzed past the Bard. Her blades whipped through the air as she carved into the flank of the latest addition to the fight. This chimera was covered in scales, its head somewhat like a monkey’s and its body shaped like a centaur.

“You can’t tell me what I feel,” Benedict snapped back, focusing on the more aggressive application of Song of Victory. The three chimeras that surrounded the party hissed and reacted to his assault, and as they threw themselves at the backline once again, Skandr whipped his staff above his head in a circle, forming one of his newest storms around the beasts.

Nature mana surged from the trees all around the party, and thick roots burst from the ground. Astrid had no idea how, conceptually, this was a storm and not just some expression of the natural world, but she wasn’t going to argue with Skandr about it. Roots as thick around as a thigh burst from the ground in an undulation, not grasping anything in particular, though their only area of effect was in the circumference around the party where the monsters were. The earth and roots tumbled the monsters to the side, some of the roots smashing into the beasts and others wrapping around them.

From above, the leaves from the trees fell and started whirling in tight circles. Buzzing like an insect's wings, the leaves cut into the monsters with weaker natural protections. Seemingly, the mana-rich forest that they were standing in was consumed with anger and sought to destroy the chimeras. Helping that, the trees were strengthened by Skandr’s mana to be strong though to serve as weapons against the monsters

Felix smashed his shield into a monster that struggled to escape Skandr's spell. The frontliner had experimented with his Defender's Avatar Skill and was now able to limit his physical growth somewhat. Now, he was a hair less than three meters tall, and served as the immovable wall for the party. In front of him, a monster that resembled an insectoid rhinoceros was held back by the thrashing storm and his shield.

Astrid herself smashed her hammer into the third chimera twice and broke one of its forward legs. Each of the legs was long, nearly as long as Astrid was tall, and spindly. It had seven more, and the spiderlike body with a snail’s shell remained high up and out of Astrid’s immediate reach. Even so, it wasn’t out of danger, and as it shifted its stance to deal with its newly broken leg, Astrid pressed in. Going beneath its body, Astrid avoided an explosion of lava from its inverted head. The heat singed her back, and she pushed a Smite into her hammer with the water attribute.

Lava splashed against her legs, and along with how much mana Astrid had spent in the hour-long fight, she had plenty of wounds to recover from as well. She’d spent twelve charges of Physique over the course of this constant struggle for the past hour and a half, and one more charge returned to her as she prepared to kill this monster. She spent a charge of Physique, selecting Skandr, Muti, and Felix as the additional beneficiaries of the Skill's effect. Astrid felt a series of burns appear along her right side from Felix, a ringing headache from Skandr, and a bone-deep exhaustion from mana deficiency from Muti.

Then, all four were recovered, and she jumped up towards the insect-legged creature. Body Surge pushed her to be fast enough to make sure she made contact with the beast. As a Mithril tier, it was markedly stronger than her, and though it didn’t have a burst Skill of its own, it was more than capable of protecting itself from her. Usually.

This time, her hammer smashed into its body. What looked like a snail's shell burst open from her attack. The stony, molten shell burst apart, and water from Astrid’s hammer flooded the creature’s smoldering body. The hissing of water turning to steam filled the air as that same steam exploded in every direction. More than that, the wails of the chimera filled the air as its burning body was extinguished. It fell to the ground, and, with one more quick swing of the hammer, Astrid was able to dispatch the beast.

“Focus on the rhino,” Skandr commanded. “We might get a bit of a break if we cut through the last two fast enough.”

Nobody argued with that as they all pushed hard to take care of the six-legged rhino beast. Felix turned his attention towards the dragon-centaur as Skandr, Astrid, and Muti focused on dealing as much damage as fast as possible to the rhinoceros. Despite their single-minded focus and concerted effort, they weren’t able to fully kill the thing before two more chimeras started to approach.

“If I don’t hate you,” Benedict said, dancing around the ranged attacks that came his way, “then I at least hate Gabriel.”

Despite her gratitude for everything he had done and was actively doing, Astrid couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment as she dealt the killing blow to the closest monster. Both of the monsters that approached had wings, which always made things much harder, and she didn’t even pay attention to the kill notification that flashed in her eyes. Yes, it was higher tier than her. That didn’t matter. Her focus was deteriorating more by the second.

This was the second day since Astrid had complained about the party’s leveling rate to Gabriel. She had thought that they were busy before, killing somewhere over 30 monsters an hour. That, however, had allowed the party to take breaks, get rest when they could, and so on. It had been hard work, but nothing too terrible. What they were doing now was truly exhausting.

For well over an hour, up to even two, without a break, the party fought against chimeras incessantly. The monsters constantly came forward, throwing themselves with reckless abandon at the party. Different monster types and threats came from every direction. There was no way to tell just what kind of monster would come next, and twice already, the party had been forced into a fighting retreat as Gabriel brought a monster too strong for them to deal with into the fight. That had been particularly harrowing, with the monster lapping at their heels, snapping and shooting bolts of lightning at them.

Suffice to say, Benedict’s frustration was not unwarranted, even though the party's kill rate continued to climb to nearly double what it had been before. In exchange, they were all constantly burning through potions, even with Restful Reverberations and liberal uses of Physique helping them all to recover. The only exception to this was Astrid, who was forcing herself to be more conservative with her resources. Even so, a couple times an hour she’d toss one of the electric-blue manaberries into her mouth and help herself recover. It didn’t matter that they were fruits and not actually potions, the party was quickly reaching the limits of how much their bodies could deal with in terms of taking in so many recovery items. Whether they were fruits or not, at a certain point, the party would run the risk of poisoning themselves with too much mana.

The party continued fighting against the three chimeras and, just a few moments later, as the dragon-centaur thing fell, Astrid allowed herself a tired smile as an additional notification flashed in her vision:

Total level: 86 (799,997/800,000) => 87 (1,284/810,000)

The frustration and difficulty that they were all facing didn’t feel quite so bad as she gained the third level in two days. In those few, limited moments where she wasn’t actively fighting or sleeping, Astrid knew that she had unreasonable expectations for how much experience she was gaining and how fast. She wanted to press on even faster than she had been until now, and she had no conceivable reason to expect that it should have been possible. All that was in spite of the fact that Mithril tiers gave significantly less experience than Astrid expected. 

After all, the jump from the experience granted by a level 20 Bronze to level 21 Iron was from 66 to 250, and from Iron to Steel was from 740 to 1,500. Now, the jump wasn’t even as high numerically from 90 to 91 as it had been from 50 to 51. The proportions of experience granted within Mithril and the growing requirements from one level to the next as Gabriel had explained didn’t matter, not for now.

Instead of continuing to think about that, Astrid simply focused on the progress they were making. It hadn’t been very much time, not really, and they were, at this rate, just a few levels away from reaching their goal.

“So, once we see our evolution quests,” Skandr said as the party ate their lunch, “will we decide if we stick around for too much longer? If each evolution is going to take too long, are we planning on sticking around?”

The rest of the party looked at her, and, knowing that her answer was perhaps the most influential in terms of deciding where they were going to go, Astrid groaned. She flopped onto her back, the cot creaking under her as she sighed and looked towards where she knew Gabriel was. She could hear his and Liora’s words both cautioning her, and she couldn’t bring herself to ignore them.

“Unless the quests are unreasonably long,” Astrid said, sighing, “I think we should probably stay here and try to finish them as fast as possible before going.”

“Not to be asinine about it, but what do you mean by ‘unreasonably long’?” he insisted. “Because we’re going to need to make a decision eventually.”

“We don’t need to make the decision right now, though,” Astrid countered.

Most of the rest of the party seemed to agree with her, and Skandr shrugged. “If you’re making that decision, then I’ll standing by it.”

“Good,” Gabriel said, appearing out of nowhere. “Now, you all are high enough level to start to take on some more challenging monsters.”

None of the Wanderers answered him, though they all turned and stared. Finally, after about ten seconds of delay, Astrid asked, “Are you saying that we are going to fight some Bosses now?”

“Those don’t exist in the Dungeon proper,” Gabriel shook his head. “That is, outside of raids, and you all would die to a raid Boss.”

“I’ve heard of those,” Astrid said, unable to help herself. “What exactly makes something a raid Boss?”

“Basically,” Gabriel said, strapping his helmet and scratching the stubble along his jaw, “a raid occurs when there’s the remnants of a surge within the Dungeon. Like I said, when we saw the mana spout, the mana comes from somewhere, and it’s not the Dungeon itself. Deeper parts of the Dungeon, where there are higher-tier monsters than even Adamantine, are in closer contact with where that mana comes from. But that’s not what we’re talking about.

“Mana spouts don’t last forever. While they stick around, the monsters in that area are almost always irregulars, so they give that bonus experience. Then, the mana spout runs dry or disappears, or whatever, and the supercharged monsters that lived there fight over the dregs that remain. Finally, a single monster is left in a place where the mana is too thin for them, and they set off to find somewhere else that they can survive without suffering from mana deficiency.

“That’s a raid Boss.”

Astrid’s eyebrows climbed up to her hairline, and she agreed with Gabriel’s conclusion: they were not ready for a raid Boss that could be found around here.

“So where are you going to take us?” Astrid asked.

“To where there’re some irregulars,” he said, grinning. “However, they’re not going to be chimeras, but something else.”

Astrid blinked twice, staring at the man whose smile was unbothered by her obvious frustration.

“You’re not gonna tell us what kind of monsters it’s gonna be, are you?”

“Of course not.”

Astrid sighed, but with the rest of her party joining in with her, nobody had any real complaints. Instead, they prepared themselves for the upcoming journey, and as they all nodded their approval to Astrid, prepared themselves to go. With that confirmation, Astrid took a deep breath and stood up before staring into the older man’s eyes and giving a tight smile.

“Lead the way.”

***

“I’ve heard of them, but this is the first time I’ve seen one.”

“Well, stories aren’t going to take care of actually fighting the hydra. This is the fifth irregular monster we’re facing. Let’s just get it taken care of and move on to the next. So, Benedict, are you just gonna look at it or are you going to help us plan?”

“Sure, leader,” he answered, sass dripping from his voice. “Three heads right now, looks like. If we destroy one, two grow back in its place, but fire can help keep that from happening. Acidic blood, likes to live in swampy areas. Anything else I’m missing?”

“Stories I’ve heard say that they can breathe poison as well,” Astrid added. “I think that’s about it, right?”

“That’s all for now,” Skandr agreed. “Now, are we ready to give it a try?”

The rest of the party agreed, and again, Astrid was struck by the fact that she wasn’t interested in fighting a legendary hydra. Yes, it was Mithril tier and an irregular on top of that, but she couldn’t bring herself to be excited. This was just another step on this accelerated path that the party was following to be guaranteed as high of quality of Classes as possible. Gabriel had been dragging them from one location to the next, bringing them to slaughter dozens of monsters between locations. Over the course of the last day, they’d all gained another level, bringing them all to level 88 and nearly to 89. There was something to be said about fighting swarms of monsters, given how much experience they gave so quickly. With the reminder from Benedict that fire would be necessary for actually killing the creature, she was reminded of how grateful she was for Smite and how versatile of a Skill it had been. Regardless, that was the end of her thoughts on these upcoming fights.

As a group, the Wanderers walked down the slope towards the den of the hydra. It lived in a vast swamp with sporadic trees growing here and there, and its three heads emerged from the water, each looking lazily around and evaluating any potential approaching threats. It seemed to be entirely unworried, but as soon as it saw motion, two heads fixated on the approaching creatures while the third looked around for any additional ambushers. When it saw the party approaching, the body started to lumber from the water, showing a surprisingly squat torso with short, thick legs that seemed more well adapted for swimming than for crawling.

“Felix, you’re on the front lines,” Astrid reminded, though it was an unnecessary statement. Each member of the party came together to fill their own niche, and, with several other fights already behind them, it was almost difficult to be entirely focused. After a week of fighting hard against waves of monsters, now their quick journeys to the next irregular monster to kill had made this last day feel different, but Gabriel had told them all that it would be the last irregular monster for them to fight. It was, according to him, level 96, and, due to its draconic nature, would be the most difficult fight so far.

With each of the party members ready for the fight, they rushed forward.

***

Astrid panted, rushing forward towards the last head. Somehow, despite their preparations, burning the stumps with fire and trying to limit what they were capable of, the hydra had quickly wound up with seven snapping heads, the fangs dripping poison as two of the heads occupied themselves with creating a constant impenetrable poisonous mist around it. Finally, they figured out how to overcome the beast, and now, after using six charges of Physique and Skandr being wounded and forced to retreat a hundred meters away, the fight was drawing to a close.

With a roar, Astrid ducked under the snapping pair of jaws, its blood splattering down and burning her neck. She screamed in pain as she rushed forward and ignored the injury she’d taken. The monster’s legs, though stumpy and thick, were plenty fast enough to take a chunk out of somebody who came too close, as Felix had learned. She made sure to avoid the dripping blood and swiping paws, and finally got onto the beast’s back. A thick frill ran down each neck and came together on its back, protecting the beast from her easiest avenues of attack.

Even so, she’d learned what to do, and with a flurry of strikes enhanced by Smite and Spectral Graviton, Astrid smashed through the monster’s defenses and left it stumbling in pain. Her weapon smashed into the wound again and again until the flesh was ripped and torn and she could smash her hammer into the wound again. Then, with Smite flaring bright, the wound was cauterized and Muti appeared.

The Barbarian’s blades fell and, with the irregular monster’s defenses largely broken through, the fight was over. The beast’s neck tendons were broken, and the head fell to the ground. Before it could recover or grow an additional head, Astrid and Muti fell on it with a dozen flashes of flame. Muti disengaged first, hissing in pain from the constant splatter of acidic blood like rain, but Astrid continued hammering until the kill notification came alongside an additional surprise.

Swamp Hydra slain. 11,000 experience gained, split among party.

Total level: 88 (818,232/820,000) => 89 (432/830,000)

Two levels left, and then they would be seeing their evolution options. It couldn’t come fast enough.

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