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Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Five
🕑 Added 2024-01-17 18:00:01 +0000 UTCThey weren't given much time to think, as the five boss enemies spawned the instant the projection was finished speaking. Beth did have enough time to get a decent look at what they were up against before she started moving, knowing that sitting still wasn't going to do them any favors. The enemies were all uniformly at level one hundred three, and they were a real mixed bag. The first round they faced a golem, a troll, a salamander-type beast, a shadow panther, and something that Beth identified belatedly as a gargoyle.
The fight was going to be very tough, but Beth thought they were actually in a pretty good position. Her biggest concern was her stamina, as she knew she could crush a wave solo utilizing her Presence, but she doubted she could do that to ten waves, let alone the full twenty. And they were going to do the full twenty; the rewards for doing more beyond the minimum on a stage were way too good to pass up no matter the difficulty.
Beth decided on shaving the numbers down as easily as possible at first. She targeted the golem boss, a big lump of rock that looked as if it were chiseled from a cliffside. She didn't bother to summon her crown yet, sprinting around the boss in a wide circle to distance herself from the other enemies while luring them out of position. Blood had two of the enemies occupied herself, the troll and the gargoyle exchanging blows with the wolf in her human form, leaving only two enemies chasing Beth as she lined up on the golem. She burst forward with everything at maximum, using Swift to close the distance in a blink while running Beastly Body at the full strength she could manage. As she got close to the golem, she charged all four of her limbs with a huge dose of Crush, sliding around the powerful but obvious swipe of the golem's left arm at the last second.
She unloaded first one fist then the other into the torso of the beast, dancing around its right side to keep out of its range as well as starting to put it between herself and the other two bosses. After the second punch she maneuvered behind the golem with a large step and swung up her left leg in a high kick, delivering an enormous blow that sent stone spraying across the room like a shotgun. She wasn't done after that, spinning as she planted her left leg, rotating around fully to deliver a spinning roundhouse that finished her brutal work, shattering the torso of the golem like she had hit a pebble with a sledgehammer.
Though she had finished one of the bosses quickly, it had cost her over a third of her total mana reserves to do it. The upside was it had cost her practically no stamina, as delivering the four strikes to the beast's torso was nothing to her in terms of effort. It seemed like she would have to play a more complex game of balancing her resources from now on, considering that stamina was now something she could spend in huge quantities for a huge boost. Beth hadn't stopped moving in the meantime as she considered her options, knowing the salamander and the panther were still after her.
She had dealt with versions of both of these beasts before, and it seemed that was a bit of a theme for several of the stages, as the only thing out of this group they hadn't encountered before was the gargoyle-type creature. Divide and conquer seemed the best plan still, as the panther was quite fast while the salamander was much more of a trundler. She lured the panther across the room, glancing over to see Blood was holding up just fine against her own opponents. The wolf was having a bit of trouble with damaging the gargoyle, but the troll didn't have the defenses or even the regeneration necessary to keep up with the amount of damage Blood could now dish out.
Beth refocused on her own fight, clashing with the panther boss as it leapt at her. She stuck to her sword, deflecting claw swipes as she danced away from the beast, having trouble scoring a clean hit as the boss melded with the shadows to avoid the strikes. It wasn't as elusive as it perhaps thought it was, with Beth scoring a deep wound with a sudden lunge. She then disengaged to draw the panther away as the salamander had caught up again. They played a bit of a game of cat-and-mouse around the room, Beth glad they had a ton of space to work with.
Killing the panther was annoying, but she eventually got it done, showing that speed, especially combined with a skill that made the user phantom-like for a time, was powerful, but being a more complete allrounder was far better. The lack of skills in beasts, even bosses, as well as their lack of rationality still let a sapient being like Beth with a variety of skills and training triumph without experiencing too much danger. The bigger threat was still, for now, numbers overwhelming someone like Beth, either en masse or over time. She had basically gone through fighting a beast tide alone, just her and Blood in the midst of the beasts, and that had nearly done them in, though they wouldn't have died considering it was a special type of stage.
The troll was the next to fall, Blood having fought with quite a bit of skill and cunning, taking virtually no injuries in killing the first of her bosses. She was now slowly wearing down the gargoyle, its flesh like weathered stone resisting her slashes but not being totally impervious to them. Beth was having a far easier time with the salamander, though this one was swifter on its feet than what she was used to. Still, it took Beth far less time to take out the salamander than it took Blood to kill the gargoyle, though she let her companion finish the fight without help. Blood wasn't really in any danger from the last remaining boss, and it was some very valuable battle experience.
Once they had cleared the first round, the projection, which had disappeared during the battle, reappeared in the center of the room. Beth and Blood both ignored it for now, sitting down across from each other to begin meditating. They took close to an hour to refill their resources, mainly from Beth having expended quite a bit of mana, and not just on the golem, but also having used a decent bit on the other two bosses, especially the salamander. That was and likely for the next few rounds would remain their primary concern: the mana utilization. Beth was a little wary because their meditation, even her more powerful version, restored very little stamina in the copper ranks, meaning they would need to sleep to restore their stamina.
Once they were rested, they approached the projection, ready to start the next round. The projection was once again not very forthcoming, waiting stoically until they spoke to it, then replying with the least words and the least inflection possible. The start of round two had no fanfare heralding it, just a "round start," from the projection before it disappeared.
The next series of five bosses appeared scattered around the room, with Beth and Blood starting to move even as they analyzed what they were up against. The next five opponents were another mix of the familiar and the new, with three of them being beasts the girls had fought before. One was the absolute classic, a massive kobold with a maul, while one was a huge boar, with the final being an armored hobgoblin. They had two opponents that they hadn't seen in any form before this point, with one being a type of lizard that stood several feet off the ground, with thick, spiked legs and a massive wedge of a head. The second was some kind of weird, four-armed giant with long-handled axes gripped in each of its four hands. The beast looked to be made of some kind of marble or smooth stone, and it lumbered slowly towards Beth from the far corner of the room.
Beth took on the stone man, the lizard, and the boar, while Blood had easily gotten the attention of the kobold and armored hobgoblin. Beth definitely thought Blood had the easier fight, especially considering how good her armor was now in her human form. Combine that with her incredible speed and DEX, plus her new and highly powerful claw skill, and Blood had the upper hand on the two she fought from the very start. She was so much at an advantage that she killed the kobold in a single minute, a frenetic exchange of strikes, wherein Blood ducked and dodged every swing of the kobold while slashing apart its arms and neck, seeing her left facing only the hobgoblin. The beast's armor slowed her down, but its speed was far below hers, nor were its skills or capabilities with its single sword anything to write home about. Blood spent a few minutes cutting and slashing, clawing about the arm armor of the beast before she was able to tear its left arm off entirely. The fight was decided from there, with the wolf-eared woman moving to help her companion afterwards.
Beth was having a bit of a tougher time, as the only beast she was facing that had even a moderate bit of speed was the boar and separating it from the other two wasn't as easy as she'd thought. Still, she wound up dealing the most damage to the boar, able to move her attention away from it entirely as Blood leapt upon it. Beth took on the four-armed stone man while dodging the large lizard, keeping the stone boss between her and the lizard. Her particular style got a huge workout, Beth swinging at a ridiculous speed to block and deflect all four axes before lashing out with a punch or a kick. She was a bit more tactical with her use of mana here, not burning huge chunks of her reservoir on taking the stone axe fiend out quickly, instead wearing it down over time with precise strikes. Funnily enough, its anatomy didn't seem particularly optimized, as it had some trouble blocking the center of its torso, even considering it had four arms to work with. Beth used this to her advantage, punching its chest whenever she got the chance, as well as taking several opportunities to land powerful strikes to its shoulder joints. When she shattered the upper left shoulder socket, the fight was all but finished, as she was already able to outperform the beast when it had four arms, let alone three.
Once the stone man was dealt with, Beth and Blood teamed up on the lizard, finding its scales to be extremely tough. It was also a menace with its tail, able to slash out at them in an instant with a resounding snap, the thick cylinder of muscle able to move at a surprising speed with the force of a runaway truck. Yet, despite that powerful natural weapon, and even considering its hardened defenses, the girls were able to kill it relatively quickly. The problem was its head, as it wasn’t very easily able to turn or maneuver the massive wedge of scale, bone, and teeth. The brain was not among the list of strong points Beth thought of as it seemed to be quite lacking in that department, even for a beast, and they were able to take advantage of that and its poorly flexible head and neck to flense its eyes. Blood got a slightly lucky shot that ended the fight, leaping through the air and slashing out with her new skill, the lizard turning to look towards her as the skill flew at it, allowing one of the blood energy claws to fly directly into its damaged left eye.
Beth sat with a sigh as the corpses of the bosses faded away, a little mentally tired but otherwise fine, her well over one hundred END holding up strong so far. They were only ten percent of the way through the stage at that point so she shouldn't grow complacent yet, but even considering the amount of time and effort it took to wear down five bosses, they were doing remarkably well. They had both gained a level from that last fight and put their points in before meditating for just a dozen minutes or so. When they felt sufficiently rested, they moved over to the projection and asked to start the third round.
This round was a bit of a curveball, as all five bosses that appeared were essentially identical; the same type of beast, of the same level, and roughly the same size and power. What had surrounded the two girls was a group of five giant apes, fairly similar in appearance to gorillas, though they were much larger and far, far stronger. The great apes charged them as soon as they appeared, only giving Beth just enough time to identify one before they were embroiled in battle.
Level 104 Great Ape Savage
The savage appellation was well earned, as the beasts fought with a great, unrelenting fury from the moment they appeared until the moment they were put down. They pressured the two girls greatly, and Beth already had to revise what she had just been thinking a round earlier, seeing as how the great apes were not just terrifically strong, but they were also fast and agile. They still couldn't shine a candle to Blood with their speed nor their fine motor control, but it was certainly enough that Beth found herself getting pushed back. The only real advantage that she brought to bear, without calling on her Presence, was her weapon, and the apes struggled to deal with her sword. She didn’t bother with the flame enchantment, as had held true for a while, considering how it didn't really do much if the enemy wasn’t a plant or ice aligned. The reach and cutting power of the sword, plus the addition of further options in regard to technique was all the advantage she needed from a good blade, and she used it to the utmost.
Dodging punches and kicks from the apes, she slashed at joints and cut open hands, always trying to position herself to keep from getting surrounded. The flesh of the beasts was tough, but Beth's sword was remarkably sharp, whatever kind of hardened mana steel that made up the blade difficult to dull, keeping a powerful cutting-edge slice after slice. The first ape fell to her blade after a handful of minutes of dodged kicks, blocked punches, and one rather foolish headbutt, the lack of focus on her from the beast giving her the opportunity to bury the center of her blade in its neck. She activated Monstrous Blow only after the sword had sunk in, nearly decapitating the creature with a massive, wrenching twist of her muscles.
Comments
Herogh0st
Tftc, with those numbers, i hope there are a good few levels to be had.
