ALL NOVEL Chapter 340 - Race Against Time
Eric came to with a scream clawing out the back of his throat as his entire fortress seemed to tremble with his shout. His chest was pounding, waking up in a cold sweat. He gazed in dismay at his absolutely pulverized hammock, not to mention the gaping hole in the wall, from which he could catch sight of roaring and shouting as flashes of desperate dreams transformed to the immediate desperation of the moment.
“Eric! Help us!” Steve screamed, as a massive wolf opened a tiger sized maw to snap down upon Steve’s screaming form.
Before the boy flinched in a sudden spray of blood.
You have critically struck your opponent!
You have obliterated one Level 60 Shadow Wolf!
“Thank god, Eric! You have to….” Steve’s words stretched oddly as battle time and Speed Racer took over.
After witnessing firsthand the absolute nightmare world the goblins had doomed countless millions to, Eric able to act only in enhancing Lilly’s core with her master’s love… her father’s love… he finally had an outlet for the bitter fury roiling inside him.
The air filled with flashes of blinding flame and explosions of super-heated gore as Eric tore through the dozen wolves that had somehow managed to flank and corner his friends who for some reason were not on the miniature keep he had expressly made to protect them. Much to his heartfelt relief, for all that the air was ripe with the blood of his friends, not one had fallen to their enemies, and he would do everything in his power to keep it that way, no matter how they glared at him when the deed was done.
Congratulations! You have successfully slain eleven Shadow Wolves!
Experience Earned!
“Eric! Jeezus! What the fuck took you so long? We were screaming for ages!” Yuki glared at him with tears in her eyes as Richard once more pushed himself to the limit with a ward that had guarded everyone save Yuki and Steve, who had been successfully separated from his pack, so to speak.
Eric sighed and shook his head, not bothering to answer the question. “Why the hell aren’t you all turtled up on the tower?”
Emily’s look of desperate gratitude with Eric’s admittedly messy rescue turned to a furious glare. “What tower, you fuck? You totally destroyed it!”
Eric froze. His cheeks flushed, even as his Perception pinged with a dire warning.
Still, he couldn’t help but force himself to look, his guts twisting with dismay to find that Yuki was speaking the absolute truth. His wondrous tower of reinforced bone and stone, built to withstand any Yellow Tier threat less severe than a swarm of organized, vicious minotaurs that just wouldn’t quit, had indeed been reduced to rubble.
“What the fuck?”
“I know, Eric! What the fuck!” Yuki snapped. “Jeezus! If we had known you were going to thrash so fucking hard that you’d be tearing up our shelter… shit, and I thought you insisting on separate rooms was to give me a hint! Well hint taken. Being your lover would be a fucking death sentence!”
Eric winced at that. Because really, there was nothing he could say. With his monstrous Strength and Quickness working in tandem, he was pretty much generating the kinetic force of a cannon ball whenever he punched. At least the 12-pounders. To expect any girl to trust him enough to ever make love to her, let alone sleep next to him...
He would have hung his head in shame if death hadn’t chosen that moment to leap for a scowling Yuki’s back.
Quickness Check made!
You are Embracing your Wrath! Burst of Strength in effect! Your strength has been temporarily doubled! Warrior’s Might permanently in effect for + 50% damage multiplier!
Eric could taste sudden peril as the wolf seemed to appear right before Yuki as if by magic, because it was magic, now so close as massive jaws snapped for his face that Eric’s Identify could make out the 200+ stats in Strength, Vitality, and Quickness, with Finesse and Perception just half of that, but still deadly enough in a tooth and claw predator, moving at speeds that had assuredly disemboweled hundreds of opponents as Yuki screamed.
Yet all the frustrated wolf snapped upon was its own teeth, twisting about to glare Yuki’s way, a full foot further away than the predator had thought. As for Eric... the confusion in it’s eyes made it clear that it had seen no trace of him at all.
Not until the white hot meteor promising oblivion smashed into the side of its jaw, exploding it in a spray of super-heated gore, the follow-up strikes obliterating each of its ribs and sending the confused alpha wolf flying in the air as it underwent the abrupt transformation from confused predator to a meat bag exploding a heartbeat later in a massive fireball of white-hot flame.
Fire Fist successfully chained 14 times!
You have OBLITERATED your opponent!
You have single-handedly slain Alpha Shadow Wolf in Mortal Combat!
Alpha Shadow Wolf provides INSUFFICIENT CHALLENGE for you to forge yourself in the fires of conflict!
A dazed Eric gazed at the remains of the massive alpha wolf that had radiated such fearsome killing intent. A creature with a Strength and Quickness that could have easily spelled Yuki’s end. Yet when Eric had embraced his fury, seizing the Vor and striking with the same desperate abandon as he had when his soul had been fused to BunBun’s… his daughters… channeling that same desperate fear, terror, and fury… there hadn’t been the hard, fist-bruising resistance he had for some reason expected. The wolf’s monstrous bones, despite its fearsome aura, had shattered like glass, shrapnel that had then shredded his foe from the inside out a heartbeat before Eric had filled it with white hot flame. Flame completely free of all essence, Eric doing all he could to reveal as little of himself as he could to potential enemy seers and other foes, now that he knew just how insanely devious and malevolent the Bloodtear Syndicate truly was.
As much as the Snicklit tribe had first made an appearance as short-sighted self-serving buffoons, extremely clever at contracts and very little else, it had become painfully clear that they were just the foil to the killing blade that Bloodtear always kept close at hand.
Eric shook his head, still having trouble accepting how quickly and utterly his foe had just fallen to him.
“Jeezus fuck! What was that?” Jack was gazing at Eric with a look that perfectly straddled the midline between admiration and fear.
Eric tried to look innocent. “What was what?”
Jack scowled. “That wolf… Eric, we’re not blind. Yet that monster hid himself in shadow so well that we didn’t have a clue, and the instant it reveals itself, its radiating such a fucking sick aura that we’re all frozen, knowing we’re as good as dead! Then a second later…” He jabbed his finger at the gory mess that Eric immediately put in his ES Space, thinking it a fine addition to his future revenant army which he would most DEFINITELY be building up, and very soon, and fuck all the Goblin edicts to hell and back.
Eric shrugged. “He looked a lot tougher than he actually was.”
“Bullshit,” Yuki said with a ragged smile. “But we’ll let that little lie go. Won’t we, guys?”
A pale-faced Steve jerked a nod, letting a gently smiling Eric hoist him up. “Damn right we will. Now if my hero has gotten his beauty sleep, maybe we can get the hell out of here?”
The night erupted with the howls of multiple wolves. Hundreds of them, all now convening on their camp sight.
Eric smirked into the darkness. “Considering that I’m actually better off not grinding until I’ve increased my cultivation rank with some serious badass opponents, I’m all for a hasty retreat.”
Then he froze, the rush of the moment giving way to what had utterly consumed him less than a minute ago. The realization that time was rapidly running out.
He turned his suddenly strained smile an exhausted Rich’s way. “Sorry I needed to crash so bad, fearless leader, leaving you all to fend for yourselves in the middle of wolf central. So please, let me make it up to you with an all expense paid trip right to Queensland Territory!’
Richard scowled, exchanging a look with Emily. “Eric, you do know that’s in the heart of Sylvan Territory, right?”
Emily’s gaze hardened. “Until just a few days ago, we were basically at war with your clan, Eric. It’s one thing to find common ground and yes, friendship, because you did save our lives. But to expect us to throw ourselves at the feet of people who just a few days ago were…”
Eric raised a clenched fist, cutting her off. “The person who rules the Sylvan Alliance is my sister. As much a New Yorker as any of you. A girl you already know from the half dozen movies she starred in that I hear you all talking about when you think I’m not paying attention. She’s someone who will do everything she can to assure a world where the average Jane and Joe has even more autonomy than they did in the corporatocracy we had all lived in, just a few years ago.”
Eric caught all their gazes, some awkward, some nodding right along with him.
“And more to the point, the Bloodtear Syndicate’s about to pull some really, really twisted shit that’s going to cost thousands upon thousands of young elves their lives. So let me get to the point. I’m going there as fast as I can, and I don’t want to leave a single one of you behind. If you want to split ways when we’re closer to Freetown than Queensland, that’s cool, I totally get it. But the Eric Express is leaving in exactly thirty seconds, and I’m not slowing down for anything.”
Eric was surprised by how quickly they all hopped in his bone velimobile after he made his pronouncement. Even Emily who was always glaring at him with a confusing mix of irritation and desire, couldn’t seem to scoot into the veli fast enough, and he pretended he hadn’t just seen a snarky Interface message regarding a successful Intimidation check.
That hadn’t been his intent. He just wanted to convey how urgent the situation truly was.
“Okay, okay! Don’t get your britches in a twist, Orcbane,” Jack snarked. “Just let us get seated and… fuck! Slow down!”
But Eric would do no such thing, not after having wasted a full precious handful of minutes already. Instead, he raced like the wind, desperate to reach Queensland before Greed, diabolical asshole that he was, could put Sloth’s hideous plan into effect and tear free the souls of nearly four hundred thousand innocent elves hoping for a better life, as ‘payment’ for their souls being routed through the god-awful forge that the goblins had twisted Greystone’s largest volcano into.
At least until Eric and his daughter had had their say. Yet he knew that transformation or no… Greed would still claim the elves’ souls, out of absolute spite, even if they would now do him no good at all… assuming he even knew what had happened.
Eric prayed that his foe did not, plausible only because the former foul chapel of bones had been so filled with System warping magics that Eric wouldn’t be surprised if Greed and Sloth hardly communicated at all.
But this was Greed, head of a Syndicate that seemed to be nearly as well informed as a first world intelligence agency of just a handful of years ago. And if that we’re the case…
Eric felt a cold shiver of dread, compelling his legs to go even faster than they presently were, never mind the desperate screams of his companions.
To distract himself from his growing sense of dread, and the guilt he felt about terrifying his friends as he summoned his gravity minimizing and wind enhancing magics once more before dashing off at what was now well over 200 miles an hour, he tried to figure out the puzzle with the wolf, and earlier, to a lesser extent, how quickly he had taken down the supposedly deadly Calvin The Destroyer.
He was undeniably strong, and the right synergistic enhancements, as any Exile’s Path streamer knew, could lead to absolutely devastating combo attacks as one progressed. But still, how fragile his last handful of opponents had been, most particularly the wolves, made no sense unless they were far weaker than Orange-tier beasts in stretched-out areas should be… or he was far stronger.
A part of him wanted to avoid even looking at his character sheet, for fear he would regret, even for a moment, the choice he had made to spare Lilly’s life, no matter how tempting that awful sweet injection of promised power had been.
Yet just thinking of that beautiful young woman who now looked so much like him with the addition of quirky ears that he knew could unleash some devastating magics, filled his heart with a warmth he had no words for. He didn’t know if it was a father’s love, exactly, but he sure as heck knew if that girl with the twinkling eyes and cheeky smile who now looked so much like him was in trouble… he’d move heaven and earth to save her, as he had before.
As she had saved him, when he had been perilously close to being forever lost in the void after pushing his luck one time too many and rupturing a delve full of monsters far more challenging than these wolves.
And with that thought, he flashed a bleak smile, knowing he would feel no regrets at having put that beautiful girl before personal power, no matter how his stats were compared to the bonus 225 he could have earned in three of them at the cost of an entire world once claimed by the goblins… and a girl he had claimed as his own.
The hell with that.
Paladin power all the way.
And if he needed more power? He’d claim every fucking territory in New York state. Hell, he’d claim the entire fucking world.
And leave it better off than it had ever been before.
“Alright, enough stalling. We felt something tearing free a hell of a lot of essence from us. But it can’t be as bad as you think. Check your fucking character sheet!”
“Eric! Why the fuck are you yelling at yourself?” Yuki snapped. “At least turn off group chat so we don’t here you over this fucking wind, you madman! And while your at it, slow the fuck down!”
But Eric paid her no mind, instead pulling up a condensed version of his character sheet with one corner of his mind’s eye as the rest of his focus was on gaining more speed without crashing and killing his friends.
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Eric Silver Level 63 Primal Adventurer
Rank 30 Cultivator (Death’s Disciple)
Level 31 Master Necromancer
Physical Characteristics
Strength – 358
Vitality – 369
Finesse – 289
Quickness – 498
Appearance – 29
Mental Characteristics
Scholarship – 27
Perception – 274
Willpower – 93
Charisma – 15
Potency Pools
Arcane Potential – 204
(Mana Pool = 2453)
Spiritual Energy – 305
(Qi Pool =3668)
Psionic Potency – 21
(Psion Pool = 261)
Soul Reserves – 112
Stamina – 3692 Points
Health – 4980 Points
Resistances & Recovery
Physical Resistance – 70
Physical Regeneration – 36.9 health per second
Elemental Resistance – 37
Qi Resistance – 58
Mental Resistance – 35
30% Bonus to all Strength points above 300
30% Bonus to all Vitality points above 300
30% Bonus to all Quickness points above 300.
20% Bonus to all Spiritual Energy points above 200.
10% Additional bonus to all ability points earned! (Additive with all other modifiers. Bronze Duelist.)
10% Additional bonus to all ability points earned (Additive with all other modifiers: Internplanetary Contender!)
Physical Age = 18 Years (+ 32 years, 10 months, 12 days, & 4 hours that Arcane Magics cannot restore! Superhuman vitality allows you to keep your youth, even if you’re now burning your candle at both ends! Note! Your meridians now anchor 12 Divine Tier Spirit Peaches. Life expectancy has increased by 12($%^&^%) years!)
________________________________
Eric lurched for an instant, and that was nearly enough to send his bone veli cartwheeling through the sky.
“Eric, what the fuck, man?”
“Sorry!”
Fortunately, his absolutely insane Finesse and Perception, both just a couple power levels away from hitting the sweet, sweet, 300 threshold he was aiming for, were enough to allow him to recover, synergizing with Quickness to slow his perception of time whenever adrenaline flooded his system, like when he was fighting monstrous alpha wolves that moved way too slowly for their supposed stats, or when he came terrifyingly close to killing five fragile lives depending on him to NOT fuck up… it was enough for him to laugh off what could otherwise have been absolute tragedy.
“Sorry, guys!”
“If you’re sorry, then slow the fuck down!” Emily screamed through their party interface.
Eric’s rueful grin that none of them could see, only sense, froze into rigid determination. “Sorry, Emily, that’s just not happening.”
He sensed his friend’s flinch at the steel in his voice.
“Eric, why?”
He swallowed at the unspoken plea in Yuki’s voice, yet he didn’t dare break his rhythm or the flow of his breathing, as his lungs heaved like bellows, and his legs burned almost as bad as when he used to do sprints with Vincent. Only now, with regeneration in play, it meant that the agony was constant and he had no excuse to surrender to exhaustion as he pushed himself for even more desperate speed. Speed in the form of quickness that would soon hit fucking 500!! And he was just one single challenging duel as a cultivator or a couple points of his primary class if he took the easy route away from achieving that incredible milestone. And if he had difficulties keeping 300 stats out of the public eye, he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that he wouldn’t be gaining notoriety with what he suspected was the next rank in the Fibonacci sequence that he sensed his ascending planet was using to award incredibly sweet stat modifiers to the very few in any given region who achieved elite stats.
Considering how often that sequence was found in nature, he supposed it only made sense that Terra itself was following that pattern.
“Eric!”
“Four hundred thousand elves are about to have their souls torn out of their bodies and sent on a first class ticket to hell, if we don’t get to Queensland in time!” Eric admitted at last, though without any sub-vocalizations, and specifically excluding Ron, as he always did, in their party chat. Just in case that party member… ex party member? Was somehow still listening in.
The dead silence he heard as good-natured cursing and complaining froze on everyone’s mental lips somehow made the ache in his lungs and the fire in his thighs that much more visceral, for all that he was primarily focused on not tripping over obstacles or potholes as he shifted from waist-high grass to the far shorter scrub covering a former highway making a straight shot towards the horizon in exactly the direction Eric had to go.
Even beyond the burn of a good workout that had passed the threshold to absolutely brutal, he was far too worried about the fate of countless lives once more resting on his and now his daughter’s shoulders to properly enjoy the glorious panorama of endless pine forests and fields flying by, countless herds of giant elk and tiger-sized wolves barely having time to react before he had shot past them. And with him no longer instinctively cloaking his potency to the limited extent that he could… those that could react were now fleeing in any direction save towards him.
“Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Serious as the grave my kid almost fell into, Yuki. Now I gotta concentrate. We’re still going too slow.”
“What? Fucking hell, Eric, you’re a dad? Then why the fuck are you goofing off and risking your life with us, when you should be taking care of your family?”
Eric wheezed a chuckle. “Long fucking story, Yuki. And no time to tell it.”
Eric could suddenly sense the judging stares his friends? Hopefully friends were sending his way, no doubt deciding for themselves if a hotblooded wildcard like him who had somehow managed to tear up his own reinforced keep tossing and turning with insane stats should even be allowed anywhere near a child, let a lone be a parent himself. An uncomfortable experience to say the least, which gave him a sudden acute pang of sympathy for all the teenage moms who had chosen to sacrifice so much for the sake of their precious little ones, only to be forever judged by the smirks, stares, or subtle cold shoulders of countless others.
He wondered how often Rica had had to endure pointed looks even if, hopefully, most of the time people were pretty chill and understanding. Because it only took one judgy asshole to ruin one’s entire morning, though a supportive hug from a friend or loved one could hopefully keep that from spoiling an entire day. And how many young moms had no decent support in their lives at all? That the one super charming story book hero that they were hoping would sweep them off their feet because they had no one else instead turned out to be a fast-talking player looking for a bit of fun and no more?
Eric quickly shook himself free of such speculation or worrying about his friends stares, wrenching his focus back where it belonged. He had a deadline to meet and Queensland was still several territories away, according to his interface.
And if the unexpected timer counting down the 400,000 souls being added to the Sylvan Alliance Faction that had suddenly popped up in his conquest interface map was anything to go by, he had just a handful of hours before they had all arrived and Greed and his cackling cohorts would immediately collected their due.