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Limitless Path Chapter Two Hundred Eighteen
🕑 Added 2024-04-02 17:00:06 +0000 UTCThe girls immediately dropped to the floor, going into meditation instantly, understanding that this challenge was going to be about utilizing every single second to the best of their ability while using as little mana and stamina as possible. They used the entire two minutes to meditate and restore as much mana as possible before standing up to face four statues, all leaping into the arena at the same time. This fight was more difficult, but not really by much, as it was just about being careful and managing their stamina well.
The pattern repeated another time, with them resting for two minutes before five statues jumped down into the arena. They split them two and three, with Blood taking on more of the enemies, but simply by dint of her being faster and more nimble. Beth could likely take a lion's share of the enemies at this point with her high levels of skill and toughness, but their current routine was what they felt safest doing. Using as little mana as possible, moving as little as possible, just dodging at the last moment, and focusing on doing the most damage with the smallest of attacks.
The battle against the five statues was certainly longer, but it still passed with them sustaining no injuries. They sat and meditated immediately, catching every second of rest they possibly could. The next fight started exactly two minutes later, with six statues leaping down into the arena, forcing them to both fight one against three. The increased pressure forced them to excel, which cause Blood to have a bit of a revelation in how she used her claw ability. It was enough to push her immediately into Silver with the ability for, though she didn't know it, it was a way of using the ability that wasn't normally discovered by many users until making the transition to Gold.
In trying to both conserve her mana and deal as much damage as she possibly could, she had figured out a method of slashing that caused the energy waves of the skill to stack atop each other. This was no mere additive combination, either, as both the difficulty and power increased multiplicatively when stacking such attacks. It was something Blood found extremely difficult and did almost by chance the first time, having immense trouble replicating the feat a second time. The increase to the rank of Blood Queen's Claws was also both a boon and demerit, as the increased base power of the skill was nice, but having to relearn the mana usage of the skill, particularly in a difficult series of fights, was not just tedious but dangerous.
Blood's new level of skill helped them clear the six statues with greater ease, though Beth did take a hit or two, most of the force absorbed by her armor. She had only a little bruising, something she was able to entirely ignore at this point, and was on the ground and meditating as the last statue was crumbling to dust. Blood wasn't any slower, and the two of them waited for the next round of statues, Beth anticipating a nice seven statue spread.
What they got, however, was rather different than what Beth had expected, as only two statues stood up. These statues, however, had orange eyes instead of red, and Beth noticed that they were both standing on the second tier or level of seating. The first tier, in fact, was now completely devoid of statues, with only an empty ring where the beings had started out standing. The two new statues were just as quick to jump down, and the girls immediately engaged them in battle.
Beth hammered the statue in front of her, frowning as her mana steel gauntlets didn't do very much damage to the beast. It was certainly more than surface cracks, but it wasn't the kind of damage that her unenhanced punches had dealt to the red-eyed statues. It was pretty clear that these statues were stronger, though it seemed to be concentrated in their defenses, as they didn't appear any more skilled with their weapons than the previous 'tier.' They might have been just a hair stronger, but Beth wasn't really able to tell much, if any difference, between the red-eyed and orange-eyed statues in terms of STR stat.
The first fight took a little longer than what the same fight for the weaker statues had taken, but it still wasn't that difficult. Beth didn't look forward to what six of these would be like to work through in one round, but it did seem like the round didn't have individual timers, only a short timer on the rest between rounds. And speaking of the rest between rounds, they apparently got an entire extra free minute, now having a full three minutes to meditate instead of just two. Their rest was once again interrupted by three statues jumping down into the arena, landing with the exact same thump as they always did.
Three was harder than two, but not by that much, and it only took them a few extra minutes to take the group out. They were still trying to be stingy with their mana use, with Blood still struggling a little more with her mana conservation than Beth. It also didn't help that Blood had a tougher time dealing any noticeable damage without the use of any skill, making her have to expend more mana to keep up with Beth's damage output. Her speed was still vastly superior to everything else, only slightly beaten by Beth when Beth was using her Presence, and she could use that to stall out the enemies without burning much stamina, which was likely something they would have to start doing as the stage went on, based on what they were seeing of the remaining enemy ranks.
Three became four, four became five, and five became six. That wasn't the end of it, though, as six became seven, with an extra group compared to what the first tier of enemies presented. The group was definitely a tough fight, merely because of their toughness requiring the girls to spend an extended time in the fight. They tried to fight as smart as they could, knowing that the seven statues represented a good benchmark for how easily they could continue to conserve stamina. If they managed their mana well, but physically exhausted themselves in defeating a group of enemies, they would be in just as bad of a position as with depleted mana.
They got a slightly long rest after the last of the orange-eyed statues, which only served to make Beth slightly nervous. Still, she was sitting and meditating just as soon as the last of the seven statues they had been facing was crumbling to a cloying, ashy cloud of dust. They were desperately using every scrap of time they had to get their mana back, Beth once again silently grumbling that their meditation was far too low to actually aid in restoring more than a tiny trickle of stamina.
A very slight noise had her on her feet in a flash, looking up into the stands to see a pair of statues with yellow eyes standing up. They paused for only a second before leaping up and forward, slamming into the center of the arena with a rather heavy thud. Beth and Blood immediately rushed to engage, finding that the statues were just as tough if not tougher than the previous tier. This time, however, the statues displayed significantly more strength, hitting far harder than Beth when she wasn't running her Presence.
Beth was getting the impression that this stage was designed as the ultimate endurance test, even more so than the beast tides. They now had four minutes between fights, but each fight was escalating in brutality, culminating in an absolute war against a group of eight yellow-eyed statues. It was a twenty minute grind to slowly chip through that group, with both the girls starting to feel just a slight bit tired by the end. That weariness was slightly alleviated by the extended break after the last of the yellow-eyed statues was chalky powder, with the two able to actually get a little stamina back from the long meditation.
It was no surprise to Beth when she noticed two statues standing up on the fourth tier of the 'stands,' nor was it shocking to see their eyes glowing green. It appeared they were slowing pulverizing their way through the rainbow in terms of difficulty, and these new statues were no exception in that department. They were as tough as the oranges, as strong as the yellows, and now much quicker and more agile to boot. This challenged Blood more than Beth, though the addition of her very solid mana steel armor was a great help in keeping her in one piece. The pressure of the more powerful statues did force Blood to expend more mana, the lupine woman still working on mana management with her upgraded skill.
The brutal quarrying operation stretched into hours, burning through their mana and a large bit of stamina. The meditation breaks just weren't really cutting it, and Beth was motivated to lock herself in the suite when they got done with this whole Trial and just meditate for a year. The skill was so vital, and so hard to level, that she needed to spend more time working on it outside of just those times she needed it to regenerate. Though she wasn't sure if she could spend more than an hour at a time working on the skill without going a little stir crazy.
Those were thoughts for another time, and Beth re-centered herself as two blue-eyed statues animated before leaping down into the arena. They had already improved in defenses, strength, and speed, so she wasn't really sure what was left for them, other than being cranked up to a ridiculous level, but they were certainly about to find out. She rushed forward as usual, carefully observing the opponent but also not giving them time to act as she forced the fight to move on her terms.
The blue-eyed statue met her attack head-on, not wavering in the slightest, and at first Beth didn't really detect any differences. It had the elevated defenses, strength, and agility that the previous tier of statues had, and didn't really display anything else. She exchanged a rapid series of blows with the beast, watching as its flesh of sculpted stone cracked and chipped. It was only once it had taken some significant damage that she found out what the difference with the blue-eyed statues was, that being their ability to infuse their bodies with mana. It was something similar to a beserking skill, not nearly at the level of a Presence, but enough to increase their strength and agility by a noticeable percent.
Beth started employing her Presence a little more liberally to counter the enhancing effect of the statues' mana boost. She knew, just from looking at the stands, that this wasn't the last tier of statues they would face, but there was really nothing else she could do, other than be sparing. If there was one thing this stage was teaching above all else, it was to be totally sparing in the use of every resource at one's disposal. They were definitely glad for that resource conservation in the final fight of this tier, as facing off against nine blue-eyed statues was an extreme test even if they had been totally fresh, and totally fresh they were not. Pounding those nine statues into rubble took more than twenty-five minutes of hyper-focused, ultra precise combat, and both girls needed sleep afterwards, though they had to settle for meditation.
The stage was at least somewhat kind, in that it gave them plenty of time after that last battle at the blue-eyed tier to rest. They went undisturbed for multiple hours, allowing them to fully refill on mana and partially refresh their stamina, though they would still be going into the next tier slightly tired. Beth wasn't fully confident as two purple-eyed statues stood up and leapt into the arena, considering what fresh hell this would be with whatever cheat they would have enabled at this point.
That fresh hell wasn't immediately obvious, but Beth realized after a minute of fighting the first statue of this tier what was happening. The statues were far more skilled with their weapons than any of the statues had been before, though it still wasn't enough to really push Beth in a one-on-one situation. She estimated the purple-eyed statues were somewhere around Journeyman[2] or Journeyman[3] with their weapons, something that could definitely push someone unprepared. Then again, someone who made it to stage twenty-five of the Tiral wouldn't be an unprepared novice, even if they might still lack experience. She was also glad yet again for all of her experiences up to this point, particularly all the grueling combat they had undergone, preparing her for such an intense series of battles.
The first three fights passed with a buildup of difficulty, and fight four was where it became especially difficult. They were fortunately able to rest somewhat longer between each fight, but they were still really wearing down by that point, and fighting two of the very powerful, and now more skilled, statues at once was quite difficult. It wasn't as bad for Beth, whose skills were rather high given her age and time spent adventuring, likely a result of some natural affinity for battle that Beth had always possessed. It set her ahead of many others, even of several that were a handful of years older, but her overall battle experience was still slightly lacking when compared to true top-tier elite. Blood was having a much more difficult time, as she was having trouble directly clashing with the statues. Her weaponskill was only at the top of Apprentice, and the statues were now too skilled for her to easily get strikes in on without taking damage herself.
Blood didn't give up, of course, nor did she rely on Beth for help. Despite how much she complained about training, when they were actually in a fight, she always gave it everything she had and more. She used the experience as a touchstone, refining her skills ever further as the statues pushed her to her limit constantly. She was eventually able to critically damage one of the two statues she was fighting, though she wasn't able to kill either of them before Beth had finished both of her opponents. As much as Blood reveled in a good fight, and a good hunt, she was more than happy to have her sister aid her in battle. She understood they needed to actually complete the stages, and that they were plenty of opportunities to fight still waiting for them even in this stage.
And speaking of more opportunities to fight, they took advantage of every last second of the break between fights to rest before they were assaulted by five statues. Beth wound up picking up the slack here, as she wanted to relieve some of the pressure off Blood so she wasn't totally overwhelmed. Fighting three statues did take her longer than fighting two, but that just gave Blood more time under the exact right amount of pressure for her to excel.
