Chapter 249: Closing The Trap (Patreon)

One day Granesh tried to hide in the Abyss from William Oh, plunging into the deepest dark well of the underworld, thinking that he would surely never find him.

William Oh was already there.

-          Jason Salazar

“There!” Anna shouted, pointing to the east. There were thousands of her watching the entire 10th Floor, their range surpassing even Will’s.

Issue Lockdown Bounty (11,000) Influence?

Yes

Enter target name, alias and/or description.

Will entered Void’s description and name, pressing the accept button a moment later.

By the time he’d finished Void was already gone.

“Damn, he’s already gone.” Will said, waiting for his next opportunity. Since Anna had an eye on every Floor within range, that opportunity would be soon.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve spotted him too slow.” Anna said with a frown.

“It would’ve been nice to catch him here, but don’t beat yourself up about it. He managed to slip between two bounty assignments. I was repeating the bounty as fast as I could this whole time hoping I could catch him. It’s good that you spotted him at all, because now we know what direction he’s going.”

“…Seventh floor!” Anna said.

Will bought himself and Loth a Door.

15404 -> 13404 Influence remaining.

The two of them dove through their Doors, the humid heat of the 7th Floor assaulting him the instant they arrived on the jungle Floor.

Personal Door purchases are now on cooldown (7 days)

“That way,” Bee said, dropping down from a nearby tree and pointing.

“Gotcha.”

Will picked up Loth and propelled both of them at top speed, using himself as a shield against the wall of air continually pounding against them.

A moment later, Vincent’s marker showed up at the edge of his map, and Will oriented on it, Arriving in front of Void in a matter of seconds.

Unlike the time Will had dragged Travis along behind him at max speed to visit the fae huntress, the wake of sound behind them wasn’t strong enough to toss them around, less of an explosion and more of a dramatic flurry of wind.

The Ring of Traversal’s fringe benefits.

“Son…of a bitch.” Vincent groaned from where he knelt, a spot of bile on the jungle floor in front of him.

“I doubt it, but I don’t know enough to say for sure,” Will said, limbering up to continue their fight While Loth faded back, gaining distance and impregnating the ground with traps.

“It was the illusionist, wasn’t it?” Vincent asked.

“If he risks his life and dumps all his Charge at once, he can make something pretty close to the real thing.” Will replied.

“Hah.”

Travis could get Lord-level power, but he had to gamble everything every time he did it, and eventually that gamble wouldn’t go his way. Travis was as aware of that as anyone else.

Mark Wyrd isn’t on this Floor right now. We assumed the worm would never be able to make it this deep in one go, which was a reasonable assumption when it wasn’t a Lord.

“…I’m curious. How did you become a Lord when that body was a Vassal anyway?”

Might as well buy Loth a few seconds of setup time. It was all she needed.

“The System stores a lot of information in your Class and not in itself. It needs to be as lightweight as possible, so it offloads the burden onto the Climber of keeping track of various things. Normally the most important things are stored where they don’t expect the climber to mess with them,” Vincent said, tapping his skull. “This creates exploits for the risk-tolerant.”

Neat.

Ghoul, Marksman and that tall sailor guy from the 6th Floor were on the 8th. They would drop in in a matter of minutes, and then the five of them would dogpile this bastard until the worm was dead.

Will just needed to prevent it from escaping.

“Well, I guess we should get started,” Vincent said, wiping his mouth with th aback of his hand before climbing to his feet.

Will ducked out of the way as a burning fae manifested behind him and tried to cut his head off.

Will tried to twist and hit it with the wand, but Vincent warded him off with a faefire explosion, forcing him to dance aside.

Blessed Steel  braided wire burst out of the nearby tree and snapped out with a violent CRACK, reaching its top speed right against Vincent’s ribs.

Vincent flew back, crashing through several trees while the nearby fae undead’s chest collapsed.

Will regained his balance and leveled the wand on its target, only for the Fae to skitter out of the way, leaping behind a nearby tree even as its crushed chest fixed itself.

It was that manner of moving at full speed with a mortal wound that gave away the creature’s undead nature.

Phantom Eye

88 Charges remaining

Will sent the Phantom Eye towards Vincent while he continued to harry the fae. There was a brutal exchange of blows that turned several massive trees into so much pulp as Will attempted to pin the fae down long enough to take it out of the fight.

Eventually Will was in the perfect position to hit Vincent in the ankle with a chakram just as the undead was setting their foot down.

Vincent passed the damage on, and the undead’s ankle rolled as he was preparing to push off and change direction.

In that instant, Will landed a direct shot on his chest with the de-fireproofer.

Gotta get a better name for that.

The instant the condensed packet of Miasmatic structures impacted the undead, Will saw her built-in layer of fireproofing get shredded, and…

The flame aura surrounding the undead winked out like a snuffed candle.

“…Shit.” There goes the easy way.

“Wasn’t that hard to figure out.” The well-dressed fae butler said, kicking off a hardwood and shooting straight towards Will.

Guess I need a different method, Will thought as he manipulated the terrain around him.

Will lensed the air between them to change his apparent location by a foot, causing the fae’s attack to miss, charging in and landing a brutal counter.

…which did almost nothing.

Damn, these guys are tough. Almost as tough as Vincent.

“Are you an illusionist too now, William Oh!?”  The undead demanded with a snarl, dropping their sword and aiming for a claw to his face,

Rather than back up, Will lunged forward, catching the forearm rather than the sudden pointy claws.

He shoved off and skipped backwards, managing to tug himself out of the way as an attack flew past him, shredding more jungle-wood.

Will checked on where Loth was harrying Vincent.

Another undead had joined the fight, but it seemed like the two of them were unable to even locate where Loth was, merely weathering the onslaught of traps as the environment around then rapidly became their enemy.

“Taking the hand back!” Will shouted to alert Loth that he’d be withdrawing support for a moment.

An instant later, he manifested several chakram from the Phantom Hand’s Dimensional Storage and launched them at the charging fae.

The fae butler’s fancy clothes were shredded in an instant as the chakram embedded themselves in the harder-than-steel creature, sending it spinning away.

Will charged forward with the intention of finishing it off, but was warded off by the second undead.

To re-balance the battle, Vincent had sent the other one after him.

Five got disabled, there should only be two left, but I can’t take it for granted.

Will went on the back foot, pummeling the fae in the white dress with manifested projectiles while the butler recovered.

I wanted to pin him to a tree with swords.

Will hadn’t thought of using his protectiles to staple enemies to the ground, but if he had sharpened poles of Blessed Steel about eight feet long in his Phantom hand, he might be able to disable them simply by pinning them to the ground.

Their Resistance was exceptional, but their strength was only slightly above average. If they were bound to the ground by their own flesh, they wouldn’t be strong enough to chew through it.

You only think of some things in the middle of a fight.

Well, I suppose their master could free them pretty easily.

Vincent could reshape them at will, after all, but if he could get them away from his perception he wouldn’t…

Ah, he could just dismiss and re-summon them. Damn this bastard is annoying.

Will caught a moment to breath by flinging the two undead away from himself.

“How’s he coming?”

“I’ve been trying to standardize how hard I hit him, and where. It’s imprecise due to the nature of the battlefield, but I’m certain he’s getting tougher as the fight goes on. Not by much, but it’s gradually piling up.” Loth’s voice emerged from a nearby swarm of insects humming wings.

“So we don’t have to kill the undead first?” Will mused aloud.

“It seems not.” Loth replied, and instant before the two Undead came charging back in.

Neither of them were using their flame auras anymore, so Will stored the wand.

Dimensional Storage

87 Charges remaining.

Removing the fae wasn’t the whole reason he wanted to fight them alone. According to Kyle and his own observations, the undead weren’t entirely happy with their current master.

“By the way,” Will said, as he danced around them, maintaining distance and cutting them up with projectiles from Phantom Hand. “I got a breadbox.”

The two Fae glanced at each other.

The butler charged at him, sending a Climber hand-sign for ‘Area around us’

“Too weak.” The white gown-wearing woman said as she arrived behind Will, aiming to cut him off from behind.

Will leapt straight up and sprinted into the sky before diving back down into the canopy, the dense branches bending out of the way as a result of his Aspect and the Ring of Traversal.

The wrist-thick branches snapped back, slowing his pursuers long enough for Will to think about what they’d said.

Area around us too weak?

Are they saying that the surroundings are too soft to pull off squishing the worm? It’s a creature from the upper levels, so rock probably isn’t that strong compared to it. Oh, maybe they’re warning me that slamming him against the ground wouldn’t work. They’re making sure I have the right plan.

“Too weak!?” Will demanded. Turning to face them as they burst through the canopy. “Try this!”

Will stopped holding back and manifested a Blessed Steel cannonball directly into the fae butler’s face at the highest speed Phantom Hand could manage.

The butler’s neck snapped and it went flying backwards through three trees before burying the earth below, causing a concussive blast and a deep grumbling from the earth as it adjusted to the new wound in its surface.

“I see.” The gown-wearing fae said, staring down at the cavernous hole in the ground. “When do you think we would ever fall for that again?”

I.E. when can we use it against Vincent? She was looking for a hint on timing their betrayal. They would only get one chance, after all.

“If we caught your master’s back unguarded, surely you would take the hit to protect him.”

The signal will be a back attack, brace yourself up against him to provide a sturdier striking surface.

“But it doesn’t matter. In a matter of minutes, our reinforcements will arrive from the 8th Floor.”

And that back attack will happen soon after the other Lords arrive and Vincent becomes flustered. That’ll make the gap we need.

“I see, then I’d better end you quickly!” the fae shouted as she charged forward, swinging her claws with abandon while cackling with laughter. “Our deepest desire has always been the demise of William Oh, and you have no idea how grateful I am that I alone can be the instrument of our revenge!”

…I’m not sure how to translate that.

Perhaps ‘I still hate you and we’d gladly betray you if it resulted in your death,’ or ‘Just kidding, we were playing you the whole time and now we’re going to tell Vincent about your silly plan.’

In any case...

“Off, witch!” Will shouted, kicking the woman in the ribcage, not doing any damage, but sending her flying backwards and giving him some breathing room.

As she fell, Will peppered her with projectiles with Phantom Hand before the butler rose from the crater and rejoined the battle.

Will checked his map and spotted the Wyrd Stronghold a few miles to the south.

Can’t let them get close to that.

They’d only just wrenched the hostages out of Vincent’s group. No sense letting them grab another.

Will started leading them further north, laying waste to swaths of the jungle as they battled through the dense foliage.

Loth either knew where the Stronghold was or she’d simply read his intent, because she pushed Vincent further north as well, keeping rough pace with Will, while the two of them struggled to deal any lasting damage to these damn-near indestructible undead.

A few minutes of pushing them north later, a streak of white shot through the air as a glowing arrow lodged itself into the undead.

“Afternoon, Will!” Ghoul’s voice called from above. “I hear you’re having quite the day!”