Knives & Levels - Chapter 93

“Don’t worry we’ve got this!” Julia yelled, reassuring Leon even as a group of phantoms rushed them. A group of phantoms that would have torn Julia and Colt apart a month ago in seconds.

With Julia's confident words hanging in the air, Colt focused on the approaching phantoms. The misty apparitions glided across Vanderbilt's once-familiar grounds, their hollow forms a perversion of the students who might have walked here years ago. His edict, Cut, wrapped thick around his weapon.

They rushed out from the looming college campus as if they haunted its deserted yard. Just years ago, this place would have been teeming with life, filled with students going about their day.

Now, with the frost, the only beings gracing its courtyard were these horrifying conjurations of death and mist.

Held in his hand, he felt the allure of the power, the promise that no matter what he faced, he could cleave it out of his way in a single clean slice.

The cold steel gave a heartbeat in his hand as it prepared along with him for battle. Now closing the short distance between them, the phantoms sped forward, drawn like moths to a flame as his soul flared out with power.

They looked like something out of a horror movie. Ghosts in the night, coming out of the fog, hellbent on consuming.

Emotionally, like before, they brought a weight of dread to a normal person, he could feel it tugging at that void in his body. Colt’s lack of fear made the emotions slip off like water… Others weren’t so lucky. From the corner of his eye, Colt caught Leon rushing back, fleeing into the darkness as he fled the oncoming hoard of ghosts.

Good. He didn't have to worry about defense with him as a magnet for the enemy, and that ally was gone from the fight.

The cut condensed on his blade, and its golden light flared outward, making the mist nearby flee from the power it put out like a flashlight in the dark.

It came easy, a loyal noble Edict. Ready to serve.

As Colt reached to them with his Soul, the other two were a little less eager to jump to his bidding. Trying to coerce them into action and prepare simultaneously made them fall apart; they refused to work together, and even with his Skill Thread Weaver, they refused to cooperate.

Momentum and Movement refused to come into a balance.

Fine.

Colt made a snap decision. He abandoned trying to grab Momentum and focused on what he knew, activating Movement.

The world slowed around him and turned into molasses as the coldness of the mist seeped into his skin. The edict within it lashed out like the phantoms before him, trying to fight back and assert its dominion over the world and him as it flowed thick in the air around this college.

Colt ignored it and Cut through its inferior authority and replaced it with the force of his will and Soul through his superior grasp of his Edicts.

The movement came gleefully as it embraced its full strength.

Colt rushed forward in a second, each step taking him forward like a jet stream as he flooded through the air, pulsing Mist outward as he ripped through as a current of flesh and speed, flashing through the mist. He was a knife and death.

Before the phantoms could react, he was before them, slashing down with the golden line of might, his wave rippling through the closet one and ripping it to shreds.

It vanished into the smoke around it as his cut severed it in half.

Yet it didn’t die.

The two wisps of a monster floated and then morphed as more mist condensed around them, forming into two separate beings. These were degraded and felt weaker than the original. 

From the shadows where Leon had retreated, Colt heard a faint gasp as the scout watched their coordinated assault. Fear, maybe, from seeing it reform even after taking a slice that had torn apart a house-sized mimic earlier today. 

My attacks aren’t good against these things.

Colt took another step back, which, enthralled by the Edict of Movement, brought him several steps away from his enemy before one of those claws scratched down.

Fast, too.

They were dangerous to move that quickly to him in the slowed state of time; four more were rapidly coming his way. As he processed the results of his attack, his Edict faded, and they moved even quicker. Colt slipped even further back, relying on the last vestiges of his power to make distance.

His knife twirled as he puzzled about how to handle this.

Raw power?

He could throw out several more cuts, repeatedly reducing and halving the enemy until nothing was left. But that would be too straining, and given they still had to return to New Nashville, it wouldn’t be great to blow all of his combat ability right now.

A quick inspection revealed that their levels ranged from the high 50s to the low 60s, which aligned with his level.

But, given that there were five of them and knowing that these were hard enemies to beat, Colt felt a bit of pressure.

The mist condensed around him.

In a second, a barrier of water solidified—appearing right between him and one of the Mist Phantoms that streaked forward like a comet of death in the darkness; Colt braced with his dagger, wrapping his Edict around it for an attack but didn’t retreat.

He was curious to see how Julia’s abilities would play out against an enemy like this.

The moment that the misty phantom seemed to hit the barrier that Julia put up, its limb vanished as if sucked into the thin barrier of water.

The monster let out a screech. The sound was like a broken rock scraping against a chalkboard as it pulled back its damaged arm. It looked in complete and utter disarray at the damage wrought by the barrier.

Ah. Wow.

Colt smiled as Julia burst forward with another jet stream of water at a second phantom, tearing through its chest with a hole. This attack didn’t lead to the enemy splitting; it reared back with another ear-breaking screech, and the magic left its lasting marks on the enemy.

She’s great against them. Colt realized as he watched the after-effects, trying to piece together just what had happened and why.

The water pulled the very beings of these creatures apart, unraveling them like a loose thread before the water mage’s might and authority over the situation. Colt sensed it, feeling that her attacks hit them twofold. Empowered by her Edict of Surge, Julia countered whatever Edict was present in the mist they drew from.

Then, she challenged their dominion over water—at least, that’s what he thought was happening. To be honest, that was just conjecture.

Given she was a mage of water and the environment, he couldn’t picture a better setting to give her an advantage over a battlefield.

All of these factors combined, had the result of tearing them apart in a way that he simply couldn’t do. And, given a part of it no doubt lay in magic, Colt could only guess exactly what mechanism made her so deadly against them.

Whatever the reason, it was clear that she overrode their authority to exist in the world.

We have the advantage.

Julia, unlike him, could tear them to pieces easily. It was like him versus one of those slow, lumbering monsters. Though they resisted his slices and physical attacks, she dished out a hard counter.

And knowing that, Colt rethought his tactics.

If his attacks were less effective, simply dividing them and letting them reform, then it became easy. Don’t attack with the intent to kill.

All he had to do was shepherd them in and make a choke point for Julia to maximize her damage.

With this in mind, he activated Movement again, his heart pounding as the adrenaline rushed forward.

He cut, his waves of death hitting at different angles, forcing the phantoms to dodge and drawing them to him as he flexed more of his soul, which they were intent on chasing down and consuming. When one got close, he repositioned, darting forward in a burst of speed that manipulated them on the battlefield.

Stacking them into the perfect places to give Julia clean shots.

He saw a burst of magic—balls of water cleaving through the ethereal forms of the phantoms, leaving holes in them that refused to reform.

With each pull of his Movement, he manipulated them, relying on their determination to lock him down and feast on his soul.

Like this, Colt became a conductor of the battle. Each movement was primed to move his pieces in the right place to give Julia the shots she needed to defeat their enemy.

More bursts of water slammed into them as they fought; sweat coated him as he circled around on another, as he saved his Cut for the occasions when he needed to weaken a particular phantom or set up another burst of water.

Then, though these things were hard to kill, the inevitable happened.

———

You have defeated Wandering Frozen Phantom (reduced) - Level 60

———

He got a notification as she hit one with a particularly nasty attack by Julia. The woman had conjured a bubble of water around a weakened enemy and then condensed it in a quick pulse, turning it into the size of a basketball.

Leaving nothing behind.

Colt flashed around, knife slashing, renewed by seeing the death of their first enemy. Pulling deeply on his Edicts to keep the focus on him. It made for a simple battle. Avoid letting them get too close. Hit them to keep their attention and then set up shots for his mage to attack.

It was the best kind of strategy, simple and foolproof.

Though they multiply when slashed, they began to fall, one by one, disappearing to water as they broke apart under the force of magic and vanished away.

With the inevitably of a wave washing over a beach, so too did the phantoms fall away to the might and force of the water being wielded by Colt’s mage.

One by one, they died.

Within five minutes, they dispatched the crowd of phantoms without sustaining injury. It was a feat in itself, though it had its cost.

Colt paused and sucked in a cold breath, feeling the ice penetrate his lungs, and then welcomed the flash of notifications, even as the exhaustion of back-to-back uses of Movement made his limbs tremble and his soul strain.

———

You have defeated Wandering Frozen Phantom  - Level 61

You have defeated Wandering Frozen Phantom (reduced) - Level 57

…

Olympic Physique (Intermediate) has gained a level!

You have leveled up!

You have 3 Stat points to spend. You have gained 1 point of Dexterity and 1 point of Soul.

———

Colt looked at the notification. Level 60 was a major milestone, with it came a flush of power and pride. There was something to hitting those big, even numbers that gave him profound satisfaction. It was another assurance that in this new world, he was rapidly developing and securing his and his allies' future… So much had been given to get here, sacrifice and danger in abundance.

To see him finally reach this level… He was no longer the same person who first wandered those dungeon alleys in the kitchen, scared for his life.

Not only that, but the Olympic Mandate increase was always a welcome surprise to see. What the system determined as a victory appeared to become less common now as it increased. Fighting against the mimics hadn't been enough to bring the skill up.

As Colt took in a deep breath and felt the almost freezing sweat on his chest and head, he reluctantly conceded that this had been more of a challenge.

Slowly, he felt the tension ease as he stared at the looming monstrosity of the building left behind by its guardian phantoms.

This place, then, Julia had said, was a dungeon, and it certainly looked fitting for a dungeon. He’d been getting the impression that whatever this ‘system’ was, it took a shine to convert places that had significance in their previous world into dungeons. It was a running theory, and seeing the information they now had access to in New Nashville appeared correct.

The why, he could only guess at.

Colt tucked his hands in his pockets, feeling like cold bricks as they succumbed to the overwhelming cold here. Now, without the rush of the fight, he felt the chill.

Before him, with its towering architecture, this college—at least that’s what a sign nearby said, gave a very distinctive English gothic feel. The red brickwork in the night was a monstrous dull brown. If he had a more imaginative mind, he might have thought that some ancient wizard was up there, housed in one of the looming towers that marked the top of the building.

Actually, for all he knew, there could be some wizard up there.

“Leon.” Julia said, her voice traveling in the mist, “You’re fine; we’ve dealt with the monsters.”

There was silence, and then, finally, their scout spoke. “…We should have just went back.”

Colt turned to see the man stalk back out of the darkness, protected in the battle; not that it had been in doubt, but he’d made the right move, running from the confrontation and letting Julia and him deal with the enemies.

“We found the place, right?”

Julia sampled the air again and gave a slow nod, “The best I can tell, the magic is coming from this building. If the theory about it coming from a dungeon is right, then this would be it.”

Colt raised an eyebrow as he looked at Leon.

The man grumbled and gave a shiver, pulling his jacket closer as he looked at the looming college. It wasn’t hard to imagine the place being filled with more of those phantoms, even though that wasn’t how the magic worked. As he stared, his eyes flashed with a golden hue, then Leon spoke. “This is a dungeon. Let me have a look at the door and collect the information… But… Well… It seems we did it.”

Good. Colt sighed as Leon went to do just that, boldly moving through the mist. Both he and Julia followed behind, eyes keen on any phantoms that might appear and cause problems. Yet there were none. Together, they walked right up to the door.

And then, Leon reached outward, eyes flashing gold once more.

He stared at it in silence, his hand trembling.

“What is it?” Colt asked.

There was silence as Leon walked backward, retreating almost like he’d seen the mouth of a demon opening up to eat him whole.

“Its… The rank is C… This is the highest dungeon we’ve seen.” His voice stopped as he looked at the two of them. “I think… I think this might be beyond you to take care of. I’ve seen teams of level forties die in D- dungeons… And this…”

Leon took quick steps away, not turning his eyes from the door he’d scanned. He moved as if afraid some monstrous beast might step out and turn him into a paste on the pavement. Julia remained at his side, tight-lipped as she took in the location. He saw a trace of fear there; it was logical to be afraid. They had thought maybe this place would be D+ ranked—maybe C-… But this was a whole grade and a half above anything they’d dealt with before.

Colt looked up at the dungeon, a sense of wonder in his gut.

This place screamed danger, sure.

But also, with danger came opportunity.

“Let’s get back and make our report,” Colt said, forcing his attention away. It was the middle of the night, and they’d done what they needed to. Now, it was time to retreat, strategize, and then move forward. Julia agreed, and together with their scout, they pulled away from the looming danger of their future.

It wouldn't be easy, but Colt had never sought the easy path—not since the system had upended their world. He looked over his shoulder at the campus as they left, knowing he would return. In this C-rank dungeon lay not just danger, but answers. And perhaps, finally, a chance to understand why their world had changed.