LimitlessPath
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Limitless Path Chapter Two Hundred Eighteen
🕑 Added 2024-05-07 17:00:01 +0000 UTCLeaving the building, she adjusted her armor, frowning as her breath frosted heavily in front of her. She inhaled deeply, the cold air not quite enough to make her cough, but sharp enough that even with her resistances it was into the edge of unpleasant. Turning towards the way that Blood had gone a handful of minutes ago, she moved out, walking around the first building she had looted and heading down a narrow passage.
She walked for another minute before stopping and listening, figuring out that it was Blood right as the lupine woman appeared beside her. She looked over and Blood made a shushing motion and gestured for Beth to follow her. Beth did her best to step quietly and followed in Blood's footsteps, moving between several buildings and around something that looked like a shattered rock formation. Blood led her to the back of a single-story building and gestured to climb up by using a chest-high box that was sitting against the wall, allowing them to climb without making the motion too obviously or noisily.
Once they were on the roof, Blood gestured ahead, and Beth peered across the roof, seeing another one-story building in front of them and to the side. It only occluded their vision slightly, allowing Beth to see what Blood had found, glowing in the intermediate distance. She had a little trouble at first figuring out just what exactly she was looking at, but it became much clearer after focusing for a minute and examining it with a critical eye, revealing some kind of dome made of energy. The dome was almost entirely solid and Beth saw that it seemed to be made of some dark blue kind of energy, the dark color and solidness of the construct not letting her see anything about what was inside. She could see at least half a dozen pyramids around the base of the dome that seemed to be emitting light from their tips and were partially embedded in the field, likely the generators responsible for the field itself. She was sure there were more of them that she couldn't see spread out around the base of the energy field, but she wasn't sure how that was going to help her.
'What do you think?' Beth asked through their connection.
'I think we need to consult the firey one about this,' Blood replied.
'Ha! You mean Lyrissa?' Beth asked.
'Yes, the one that oozes heat and sex appeal.'
'Where'd you learn 'sex appeal'? Do I have to restrict your wallscreen access?' Beth joked.
'Not funny,' Blood grumped, elbowing her in the ribs.
'You think there's danger?' Beth asked, looking around to see if she could see if there was anything dangerous in the immediate area.
'Possibly elites. Or stronger,' Blood replied.
Beth indicated for Blood to move down and continue to scout, stashing her own blade in her necklace while moving to the edge of the roof. She squatted down while Blood slunk forward and slipped over the edge of the roof, padding around the building in front of them and moving closer to the forcefield. Nothing happened as she approached, even when she was within arm's length of the field, and she proceeded to circle around the field, moving further out from the dome before paralleling it.
Beth stayed crouched on the edge of the roof and watched Blood as well as observed the surroundings, trying to make sure nothing snuck up on them. Tense minutes passed as Blood moved through the area and out of sight, Beth waiting and watching, listening for any movement or strange sounds. For such a large area with so many beasts present, it was eerily quiet when they weren't actively engaged in battle.
'Brutes!' was all Beth got from Blood and, frankly, was all she needed. She leapt from the roof, hitting the ground already running, her near-four hundred STR allowing her to propel herself across the ground at an absolutely blistering speed not even counting Swift or Beastly Body, both of which she used to arrive at the fight faster. She found Blood had made it around the forcefield dome far enough that she had to run the opposite direction from which the wolf had circled to reach her faster. Her companion was engaged with five or six kobolds, Beth having a hard time getting an accurate count at first because of the nine cave brutes, including one that appeared to be an elite. She examined that one even as she struck another at the outside of their formation:
Level 130 Savage Cave Brute
Well, that certainly wasn't going to be good, but it might just provide her the challenge she had been craving. She grabbed two cave brutes that were in front of her, one by the left arm and one by the right leg and pulled, lifting the two huge beasts off their feet and hurling them forward and to the sides, using them as two makeshift bowling balls. The massive beasts crashed through the ranks of enemies chasing Blood, knocking other brutes sprawling and entirely crushing two kobolds in the process. The two kobolds weren't dead, but they were seriously injured and, lacking the regeneration of the thick-skinned, fat-limbed brutes, were basically already out of the fight.
Beth hadn't stopped, able to execute the amazing feat of strength while still on the move, and she plowed into the disorientated enemies. Her first targets were the remaining kobolds, able to quickly kill one of them before the rest of the beasts got themselves picked up and straightened out. It was only thanks to her high skills, combat skill level, and the element of surprise that she could take one down in just a few seconds and handful of punches, but she didn't slack on the remaining three. She deflected a strike from one of the brutes, grunting at the force on her arm, before spinning around the creature and smashing the leg of a kobold.
She danced between the enemies, not as nimbly as Blood, but still doing well enough to minimize the amount of blows she absorbed. Staying light on her feet, she crashed into a third kobold, leaving it injured just like the one she had left with a wounded leg. She then darted back to that one, smashing her armored shin into the already damaged leg before snapping two quick punches into the side of its head. That was followed by darting to an uninjured kobold and bashing it twice with Crush, smashing one of its arms into a bloody pulp.
So it went, Beth moving back and forth as she dealt out rampant devastation while Blood clawed and rent and tore. The two were a whirlwind of destruction, slowly tearing apart all the beasts arrayed against them. The rest fell with some time and effort, but the Savage was the real problem of the group. It was far more durable than anything else they had encountered, at least in terms of what was in the kobold area, and its regeneration skill was also further enhanced. They had to save the creature for last just so that it wouldn't fully heal itself whenever they got distracted with other beasts interrupting their focus on it.
Beth fought it head-on with her fists alone, taking the chance to both practice her Unarmed as well as Celestial Annihilation. Her first task was to actually practice using the skill through just her body, as she had started to get a feel for it with her sword. Now, she cycled her mana, following the pattern of the skill before concentrating the energy in her right fist. She lashed out and struck the Savage in the left elbow, the mana bursting out of her fist on impact and ripping apart the flesh of the beast.
Beth realized after a second that the mana hadn't just ripped apart the flesh of the beast, but had totally destroyed what it had hit. The fact there wasn't any flesh flying away from the wound was what gave it away, Beth's keen eye seeing that there was just nothing left of what she had hit. It also seemed to slow the creature's regeneration a little, though Beth wasn't sure if that was an effect of the skill overall or because generating new flesh was more difficult than repairing damaged flesh.
Beth continued to experiment while they fought, the beast's regeneration making it almost perfect for her to test out her new ability on. Blood, at the same time, was maneuvering around the outside of the combat, throwing a few claw attacks in while she monitored the perimeter to make sure no more beasts joined the fray. Luckily for them, it seemed the enemies down here were clumped in groups with a decent amount of space in between, so even their rather noisy battle didn't attract anymore attention.
Beth tried something else as she dodged the huge, sweeping swings from the brute, gathering mana in her right arm again before concentrating it in her hand. This time she darted back, creating some space as the beast roared at her before throwing out a textbook right straight punch. At the peak of the punch, where her fist would normally contact the flesh of her foe, a golden burst of energy shot out from her knuckles. The energy was solid and concentrated, a small, glowing bar of dense mana that flew forward and smashed into the right side of the beast's torso. The mana punched into the beast, not exploding outward like some of Soph's attacks would do on impact, but digging in, rending and annihilating everything it hit.
Beth was both elated and concerned by the attack, for a number of reason. She was elated to have a long-range attack in her arsenal, something that she could fire off from potentially hundreds of feet away and still dish out big damage. She was concerned because that attack had taken quite a bit of mana, not just to form the attack, but it had even drained a little more mana as it flew from her fist. She assumed, though she would have to experiment more, that it was due to the attack needing her to supply a bit more mana to keep the attack cohesive. She wondered if she could figure out a way to make the attack self-contained so that it didn't pull more mana from her. She'd have to consult with Soph and some of the Enforcers to see if there was a better way to use the skill or maybe if she needed to change it. She wasn't even sure if modifying a skill was possible or even necessary, considering Crush as an example; the more she had learned about the skill, the more she had learned it could do and she could do with it while it was still the same skill.
Beth stopped her musings as the beast charged her, rocketing forward and attempting to flatten her with its massive bulk. She wasn't one to be outdone in the STR department, however, slamming her left foot down and pushing, throwing herself to the right and far out of the path of the creature. She leapt back in as the brute struggled to turn quickly enough to keep up with her movements, hammering her fist into beast's side as it tried to spin and smash her head with a backhand. Beth merely ducked, bending her knees and slightly twisting her waist to move her head down and out of the way while still maintaining her stance and facing the creature. She pounded her fists into its side again, activating her new skill with both punches, a classic one-two combo that vaporized flesh and muscle where it landed.
The beast roared in pain and rage and leapt at her, quite literally, as it tried to body slam her, squishing her under its massive bulk. Beth always kept her head up in a fight, however, and she understood the opponents intention as soon as its muscles started to shift and coil, leaping back with a huge thrust from both her legs. She rocketed back across the open area, coming up with a crazy idea and executing it as she flew above the rocky ground, charging her right leg with mana and spinning in the air, firing off a long, thin bar of solid golden mana with her new skill. The beam hit the Savage right as it was starting to push itself up, the beast looking up at the incoming attack and starting to roar. By pure chance, Beth had fired the attack at the perfect height to smash into the beast's neck, vaporizing a large chunk of flesh.
It wasn't enough to kill the beast, even with a big section of its neck missing, but it certainly slowed it down. Slow enough that the girls were able to tear it apart before it could stand again, Blood joining in to finish the fight quickly. Beth sat on a slab of stone at the edge of the area to meditate while Blood started to tear open the corpses looking for their cores. She spent fifteen minutes recovering a little mana before Blood was done with her dissection practice, the two of them moving together to inspect the energy field.
The pyramids at the base of the energy dome were far more complex than the pillars that made up the teleportation array at the end of the other tunnel. And that was saying something, considering the pillars were themselves a fairly complex work, taking into account they governed a far range, two-way teleportation system. The pyramids were utterly covered in runescript, to the point where they literally pulsated with power. Beth could only recognize a couple of the dozens of runes that covered the pyramids, and those were just the basic runes for shield and area and force. Those runes were all interlinked with many other runes, and there were whole sequences that she had no idea of what they did or why they were on the objects. She made sure to take copious pictures of the pyramids, finding that her phone, which Jaq had modified to charge slightly off ambient mana, charged instantly when she took it out. The mana around the pyramids was thick enough she could feel it in the air, though it wasn't dense enough to be visible.
Beth couldn't see any visible signs of any way to interact with the pyramids or the shield, so she assumed it must have something to do with the runes themselves. When she was finally satisfied that they had documented everything thoroughly, she indicated for Blood to start scouting again while paging through the runes on her phone. She waited a time before following Blood's trail, moving through the cavern as quietly as she could. It was not particularly quiet, but at least she wasn't thumping around like some kind of brainless brute.
This time when Blood found her, Beth was a little surprised, but she hid it well, only a slight widening of her eyes giving it away. Blood again motioned her to be quiet and follow, and the two made their way through another part of the cavern, Blood indicating there was an area with beasts just to their side that they were avoiding. Beth raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, even mentally, just following the lupine woman as she brought her to a different area. This time, it took longer to reach, as Blood led Beth to a section of the cavern very close to the back wall.
Comments
Garrett Byers
There's a lot more to scouting than what a few basic instincts she has can provide her. She's better than some others who don't have any knowledge or skill at all, but she's not an instant expert just because she has wolfish ancestry.
René Zörnig
Shouldn't Blood be an excellent scout as wolf?
SDCard
Thanks for the chapter!
bladepony games
Thanks for the chapter
