Chapter 88 - He Who Would Undo the Heavens (II)

Chapter 88

He Who Would Undo the Heavens (II)

Delilah observed from the side the duo’s ‘training session’.

Rather than a training session, it looked like an old man bullying a kid and having a bit too much doing it. Elijah was forced to run, roll, fall, spit, scream, and cry for hours on end every day, only occasionally being afforded a temporary respite, but even still he never complained. If anything, he cut the breaks short and got back into it. The level of determination was rather inspiring, so much so that it ignited even Delilah’s desire to join in. However, after a brief thought, she recognised she had no business being anywhere close to the ‘training session’. Her Class was abysmal in combat, and Ethan never even asked her to participate. All she had to do was create portals–and she swore she would become the best at it.

Elijah fell down on his back, beyond tired. His lungs felt as though they were on fire, and every breath was shallower than the last. If that was it, it would perhaps be bearable; however, beyond that, his entire body was weeping–his calves were cramping, his arms weighed as much as a barrel of lead, and even his mind was misty and foggy, in desperate need of a break.

“We’ll stop here,” Ethan said. “There’s about ten hours before the second wave. Rest, recover, and catch a good sleep.”

“... I can do better,” Elijah said, using sheer willpower to force himself to sit up. However, even just thinking about standing caused him to nearly vomit. It was impossible.

“Baby steps,” Ethan smirked. “I’ll carve you properly, bit by bit, into a statue that will terrify the world. You just have to be patient.”

Elijah remained silent, taking a bottle of water from his inventory and drinking half of it in one go. Though he felt the improvements on his body, especially considering what he was like when had just Awakened, he still couldn't catch a glimpse of Ethan. If anything, he was only becoming more and more aware of the gap between the two.

He wasn’t dispirited, however–after all, the man in front of him had already fought for over twenty years, surviving the hell once before. It’d be strange if Elijah could measure up to that. In the end, he at least had the point to strive for–the absolute best of the best.

Ten hours passed by in a flash.

Elijah felt completely rested–despite everything, he was superhuman. Not to mention ten hours, he was fine even after just a short, four-hour-long sleep. All his aches vanished, replaced by a sturdier layer of muscles. By now, the only trace of his former chubbiness lay in his face, where the cheeks were still round and plump.

"Go back," Ethan ordered as the countdown fell below one minute. "You can buff me and shield me at your own discretion. I'll purposefully make mistakes, so consider this a test of your judgment."

“Will… will you be fine?” Delilah asked, worried.

“Of course,” Ethan grinned. “There ain’t anything in the world that can kill me.”

While Delilah blindly believed it, Elijah was less certain. Ethan had already mentioned that creature within the Tunnel inside the city–the very one they were trying to prevent from opening. It was apocalyptic, supposedly, and if it could scare Ethan… it could terrify Elijah.

The countdown ended and the world hummed–deep in the voyage of darkness, malformed shapes began to form, one after another, as though spat by the void that did not want them. Ugly things, one by one, rained out and crawled toward Ethan who remained at the centre of the entire arena. Blood began to congeal around him, and his figure, incomparably tiny to the torrent of the monsters, stood firm and unbending.

Drawing a sword, Ethan didn’t wait for the monsters to approach him and instead rushed toward them, jumping in their midst whilst they were still being formed. The golden flash of the sword was blended with the bloody crimson, slashing out through the darkness and unmaking the things that should have never been made. The grotesque things didn’t even cry out in pain–but the limbs did wiggle and wriggle, and the eyes did violently blink and move across the bundle of flesh.

Whole eyeballs, the size of a grown adult, fell out and rolled like balls on a beach, their irises widening before darkness cradled them.

Elijah stepped forward and began to buff and shield Ethan–as the latter said, occasionally, he’d let himself be attacked, revealing a gap. Elijah recognised those moments perfectly, managing to shield him just in time. They’d already tested Clockwork Homeostasis, Elijah's Core ability, and it was as Ethan supposed–it had the ability to restore anything, be that living flesh or an inanimate object, to its 'optimal form'. However, there were naturally some restrictions; from their brief test, that ability had a 'memory' of around 10 minutes, meaning that it would select the most optimal state within the last ten minutes to restore the person or the object. The number would likely go up as the ability levelled, but for now, it was really just a 'revive' of sorts.

Of course, they didn’t go that far in their tests–even Ethan wasn’t insane enough to kill himself just to see whether Elijah could revive him, but, in theory, it should be possible.

Dispelling the strange thoughts, Elijah continued to support the figure that was dancing in the midst of the raining flesh and gore–there were dozens of monstrosities rushing toward the singular man, but he was unmoving. Every flash of the sword signalled the death of at least four or five monsters, while the flying, blood-buried blades continued to reap lives at an accelerated rate.

Ethan was rather ecstatic–the more he fought, the stronger he got. This was the true nature of the Class–one-on-one, the Class was rather weak, and many of its shortcomings were evident. However, surrounded by a mass of foes, he felt at home–his Health never dropped below 1000, while his damage continued to spike. By his estimates, the monsters had around 1,600 and 2,000 Health, but they were dying in just a few hits–and they were dying in mass.

Minutes ticked by, and though blood soaked his entire being and dried on his flesh, Ethan hardly felt tired–even being clawed at and bitten and ripped, he healed in seconds, his stamina seemingly inexhaustible.

All 60 monsters eventually fell–all within just thirty minutes–signalling the end of the wave. A set of notifications flashed before Ethan, informing him that he’d levelled up to 27, gotten +4 to Vitality, and earned the ‘Survivor’ title.

[Survivor – Common – increases resistance to Poisons, Diseases, and Ailments by 15%. Chance of infection lowered by 40%]

It wasn’t that great of a title–especially for Ethan–but it was a decent one for the two kids that accompanied him, especially Delilah. She was not only young, but her Class did nothing to actually improve her body. Any title that increased her survivability was godsent, effectively, and Ethan had long since planned on taking her on a journey to farm every last one of them.

Additionally, having reached Level 27, Ethan unlocked a new feature and one more passive ability. The feature was simply called ‘Hunt’, but because of just how far ahead Ethan was in terms of Level curve, just like the still-worthless ‘Daily Quest’ feature, ‘Hunt’ was also temporarily just a fancy name. From what he recalled, the first ‘empowered’ Relic Hunt event would only happen about three years into the future, which was also when the ‘Hunt’ feature would come into prominence. For now, though, he put it in the back of his head.

The passive ability, too, wasn’t particularly flashy, as the next set of abilities that would unlock at Level 30 would be Class-defining.

[Rivermend (Passive) – improves the efficiency of all Blood-related active spells by 1% per 5% of missing Health, up to 15%]

It was a bit vague, as were a lot of similar passive abilities, but in the end, it was just another passive boost to the spells. It was a bit unlucky, however, since Ethan's health rarely dropped below 90% simply because of how much raw Health he had, but considering the absurd level of difficulty for some of the later waves, it might actually come into play.

As for Elijah, he also unlocked one more passive ability which was rather decent: every time he shielded a target, there was a 10% chance that the shield would bounce to the nearest friendly target at 70% efficiency.

It was becoming more and more evident that Elijah's Class was not meant for small groups–it was likely meant to support entire squadrons if not even legions. After all, all of his Spells were still just Level 1, and his Level was quite low. Not to mention that he hadn't comprehended the First Law, which would unilaterally ascend his Class. Just like Ethan wasn't meant for small skirmishes but for massive wars, Elijah was the same.

However, it was becoming a problem–Ethan had noticed it before, but it was becoming rather worrisome. While having Classes that were absurdly good at war-scale battles was amazing, especially as there wouldn’t be a lack of Tunnels with those settings, it was also beyond necessary to have Classes that were beyond specialised in either single-target damage or single-target healing or shielding. After all, while Elijah’s buffs and shields were prominent, they were meant for multiple people. As such, their efficiency per person wasn’t amazingly great.

I’m being greedy, Ethan shook his head, using Hemomancy to clean his body of blood. But he had to be greedy–everything was accelerated, and he was already struggling to keep up, even with his knowledge. No… that was wrong. His knowledge of the first few years was actually extremely limited and he only really knew the rough outline of the events that transpired as well as the news that shellshocked the entire world. As for the little things, such as some less-known Tunnels or figures or even conflicts, he was entirely blind to them. For instance, when he came upon the world stage, there was a crater in the middle of Frankfurt with a diameter of roughly ten miles, over half the city's size. He, however, never learned how that crater came to be–no matter who he asked, either they, too, didn’t know, or they simply pretended they never heard the question.

As such, he had to be greedy. He had to hunt down all the golden sons and daughters and rope them in, no matter how. There was only so much he could do on his own, and that was becoming more and more evident as time went by. Even with the Class that seemed all but designed to be able to walk the path alone, that was just a temporary illusion. No man was an island, and nowhere did that echo louder than in the future where Terrors reigned the globe, their might celestial.