Soul of the Warrior

Chapter 288: Stone Cold

Reivyn stood with the other members of his Party on the ramp leading to the next floor. Teilon had gone ahead to scout as much as he could, his phasing ability allowing him to walk through obstacles to enhance his Stealth Skills. Reivyn had tried telling Teilon they had just been joking about making him go scout ahead, but he insisted on doing it anyway. He had a solid argument in wanting to challenge himself for Skill growth.

With Refix’s regimen of training, everyone in the Party was well ahead of their Tier on Skill Levels. Refix instilled a mindset of never growing complacent with their Skill Levels, and even though Teilon liked to complain, he always participated fully. The benefits of living under Refix’s tutelage showed themselves with Teilon being able to successfully sneak through a Tier 5 Dungeon while still being on the lower end of Tier 4.

When it came to Skills, typically Tier 5 was the range where people were coming up on the ceiling of Level 100 and working on a breakthrough. Teilon wasn’t quite at that level, yet, but he wasn’t far off. Another couple dozen Skill Levels in some of his Stealth Skills would see him pushing past the limit, and he was already experimenting with his Phasing Ability he gained from his Class together with his Stealth Skills in unique ways in preparation for reaching Skill Level 100.

The typical “genius” could expect to reach around Level 70 in their best Skill by the end of Tier 4. Even Serilla had stalled out in the 60’s with her Swords Skill before joining up with Reivyn and his family, though she was only at the start of Tier 4. Reivyn’s group consistently shattered the mold when it came to Classers, saying nothing of Reivyn himself.

Teilon’s head popped out through the wall next to Reviyn, glancing back and forth to orient himself before stepping completely through. Reivyn had Sensed him coming, so he wasn’t alarmed, but the other Party members perked up at his sudden appearance.

“There are twenty basilisks on the floor, with a brood mother variant as the boss at the end,” Teilon said. “The beasts are mostly just lazing about, but a few of them walk back and forth along the corridors. The brood mother has dozens of eggs, some already cracked open, but most sitting whole, and I can only assume they’ll have some sort of part to play in the boss fight.”

“They’ll either hatch with little basilisks to distract us or they’re props used to antagonize the brood mother,” Refix commented. “So we should either destroy the eggs quickly, or avoid them as much as possible.”

“That narrows things down,” Reivyn chuckled. “How much of a nuisance do you think freshly hatched baby basilisks could cause?”

“It depends on how their petrification ability works. If they can enhance each others’ abilities by focusing on the same person, then it could be a problem, especially if their ability is fully powered at birth.”

“Well, it’s time to find out how strong their ability is and whether it affects us based on Tier or Stats,” Reivyn declared. “We’ll figure out the eggs during the fight.”

With that Reivyn made his way to the front of the Party. Refix followed closely behind in order to snatch him out of danger in case the petrification was too powerful. The two moved forward along the corridor at Teilon’s direction to intercept one of the patrolling lizards. The rest of the Party trailed behind a ways to intervene if necessary but not take the beasts attention away from Reivyn.

The second floor had an almost identical layout to the one below it. There was one long, main corridor with several intersections of branching tunnels heading off perpendicular in each direction. It was clearly a man-made cave, though Reivyn could sense pockets carved out that were either veins of metals mined out or natural pockets tunneled into.

Reivyn sensed the first patrolling basilisk amble toward them from the tunnel on the right as they approached the first intersection. He held up a closed fist to let everyone know to hold position as they waited for the beast to come into view.

The basilisk made a whoofing sound as it spotted Reivyn standing in the corridor before immediately charging forward. It let out an aggressive bark as it picked up momentum, and it’s eyes flashed with bright light as it focused its attention on Reivyn.

Reivyn felt as if something physical impacted him, and his joints locked up for a second. He grunted with effort as he flexed his muscles while cycling his Mana through his body to shrug off the effect. When his internal Mana made contact with whatever it was the basilisk’s ability hit him with, it felt like his Mana was trying to wash an oily substance off of his body. With his high Skill in manipulating Mana, he took a hold of the intrusive substance and pushed it out of his body.

It literally only took a second to rid himself of the petrification ability, and he was only semi-stunned for a fraction of a second, but in high-level combat, that could be deadly. It was something he would have to warn the others about and watch out for. Having multiple vanguards able to draw the attention of the beasts would be helpful.

The basilisk noticed its petrification ability didn’t work on Reivyn, or at least that it didn’t stick, and it seemed to be personally offended that it failed to lock down his movements. It ducked its head and charged forward.

The basilisk was a strange creature. It was a six-legged beast, but it didn’t look insectoid. It was more like a snake had grown additional legs along its long torso to increase its mobility. If one of these things grows even larger, will it continue to grow additional pairs of legs to fill in the gaps? Reivyn idly thought before focusing his mind on the fight to come.

“It’s ability can cause minor disruptions if we’re not careful, but I’ll go into further details after we take it out,” Reivyn quickly relayed to his father. The entire point of him stepping forward like this was to test the ability, so he needed to give some information right away to alleviate his father’s worry.

Refix grunted in affirmation as he stepped up next to his son. Refix readied his weapon while sending out his ethereal arsenal as Reivyn began attacking the basilisk with frozen beams. Lizards were cold-blooded, so Reivyn began his magical attacks with that thought in mind. If the lizards were susceptible to the cold, it might slow them down and lock their movements up just like they attempted to do to their prey.

Reivyn momentarily smirked at the irony as he braced for the impact of the charge.

The basilisk slammed into Reivyn’s shield and reared up on it’s back four legs. It attempted to slash at Reivyn with its front claws while trying to bite through the shield. Its arms - legs? - were longer than they appeared from when it was walking on all six legs, and Reivyn had to quickly slam his shield to the side while taking a backstep to avoid the beast from simply reaching around his shield. He slashed its arm with his sword as he dodged the beast.

With nothing directly in front of it to counterbalance its weight, the basilisk once more fell on its front limbs. It barked in annoyance as it charged forward once again.

Refix sidled up along its flank and began stabbing at its joints while his ethereal weapons began slashing and bashing into its scales. The scales were just as potent in their defense as the giant snake they had fought several days ago, but the two could tell it had much less vitality. The slashing and bludgeon strikes didn’t do much to the basilisk, so Refix dismissed those types of weapons from the ones swirling around and focused on trying to pierce through the scales and any gaps that could be found.

The rest of the Party quickly caught up with them. They noticed the tactic Refix employed and moved around to surround the beast, poking with piercing attacks in its sides. Kimberly got a bit too close to the rear, and the basilisk's tail whipped around, knocking into her side. She was able to utilize her Spear Dancing ability to move with the momentum, though, and only grunted a bit in pain instead of getting flung away with a serious injury.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Teilon noticed the danger of the tail and took in the sharp spikes on top of the beast, so he had to constantly dash in, stab, and dash back out. He knew everyone’s Skills and moves, so he expertly weaved around everyone attacking the beast.

Kimberly finally got control of her body, but the brood mother flashed her with another gaze. Before she could get into a proper stance, she was once more stunned in place. Refix was a whirlwind in front of her, directing, dodging, parrying, and harassing the brood mother to protect Kimberly from being eviscerated.

Reivyn made his decision to try something different with his Spells, and he weaved some Traveler Affinity into his Ice Beams. The frozen beams took on a semi-ethereal state and bypassed the Mana shield and struck the beast in the joint above her middle leg. He could see the frozen Mana spread around the target, and the beast momentarily stopped.

It glanced back at its side before glancing at Reivyn. A flare of Mana coursed through the creatures body and the freezing effect stopped advancing, but the brood mother quickly determined it would need to focus too much of its concentration on fighting against the effects of the cold to completely neutralize it. It let some of the cold affect its joint and turned back to trying to get past Refix to Kimberly.

With his Divine Sense, Reivyn noticed a single egg in each of the batches start to shake.

“Watch the eggs!” He shouted.

The shaking eggs quickly started to crack, then pieces crumbled off, followed by a tiny basilisk crawling out. The tiny basilisks immediately focused their attention where their mother was and flashed their gazes at Refix. If Refix hadn’t been engaged in front of Kimberly, the baby basilisks might not have mistook the target of her ire, and Kimberly could have been in serious trouble. As it was, the babies were nowhere strong enough to affect Refix, and he simply flushed any of the invading Mana away with a casual flex of his Mana.

The brood mother shrieked in frustration, but she had no way to direct her babies.

Reivyn turned and threw an Ice Javelin through the skull of the nearest baby basilisk. The brood mother hissed and shrieked again, clawing with renewed energy at Refix to try and get around him to Reviyn, now. Kimberly was abandoned from her mind as she sought to avenge her baby.

The skin tone of the giant basilisk took on a red hue for a moment that slowly faded as she struggled against Refix. Once the slight red color completely faded, the basilisk seemed to come back to her senses and she once more sent a gaze at Kimberly who had finally assumed a ready stance. She was unable to move another step forward after that, but at least she had a stable stance, now.

Hmmm....

Reivyn summoned five more javelins and impaled the other five baby basilisks all at once. The brood mother came to a stop and turned a baleful gaze on Reivyn. Her maw opened and a deep roar, unlike the high-pitched shrieks, reverberated throughout the chamber. Her body turned a solid red and began vibrating at high speed.

The brood mother suddenly curled up into a bawl, her head and undersides completely covered by the superior scales coated in a Mana shield, the spikes prominent on her back. She then took off rolling around the room, still careful to avoid her own eggs, in a dizzying display of speed as she turned into a whirlwind and tried to bowl over all the intruders with her large body and spiked back.

Reivyn used his Mana to throw up a shield around all his Party members as everyone took a defensive position to try and avoid being crushed or stabbed. The brood mother moved too fast for them to land any kind of attack on her, and it was so sudden that nobody had time to group up for a better defensible position. Teilon simply dashed away and jumped into the way, the brood mother slamming into the solid object after briefly targeting him.

Cuts and bruises appeared on everyone’s bodies as they fended off the berserk attack, the Mana shield and other defensive gear incapable of completely stopping her attacks. The berserk thrashing lasted for approximately thirty seconds before the red tint on her skin finally faded and she returned to normal, exiting her rolly-polly stance.

The Party quickly reengaged the basilisk to prevent her from taking advantage of any momentary opening in their formation, and the battle continued as before.

“Alright, note to self, don’t kill all the baby basilisks at once,” Reivyn yelled out. “I guess we figured out the mechanic of the eggs.”

Nobody laughed at his quip, but he did see Teilon’s mouth tug into a quick smile as he once more dashed forward from his hiding spot in the wall.

With the tactics of the brood mother and the mechanics of the fight created by the System figured out, it was only a matter of whittling the defense of the brood mother down. They kept up the assault, Reivyn taking care to only kill the baby basilisks that continued to hatch whenever the brood mother’s complexion was completely normal and only one at a time.

The scales were chipped away, the Mana shield was burned through, all the baby basilisks were hatched and dispatched, and the inner vitality of the brood mother was finally exposed. Her health was quickly decimated, and before long, the brood mother gave a final shriek as she collapsed, dead.

The Party relaxed, everyone panting for breath, including the Casters who didn’t have to move around a whole lot. Kimberly was actually the freshest member of the Party, but she was still exhausted from having to exercise her low-Level Mana Manipulation throughout the entire encounter. Her fight was completely different than everyone else’s in the room.

“Yeah!” Reivyn pumped his fist in the air. Everyone turned to look at him with curiosity. “What? That fight was actually pretty exciting. That’s the most fun I’ve had in a fight in a long time. It wasn’t something we could just brute-force our way through.”

Everyone contemplated his words. Chuckles slowly filled the room before turning into full-blown laughter.

“Yeah, I guess danger is the spice of life,” Teilon shrugged his shoulders.