Monarch Chapter 203 (Patreon)

Chapter 203

The next week passed incredibly quickly for Rayne and the others as they continued entering the inner city each day, gradually becoming more accustomed to the pressure and exploring further into the ancient ruins.

They still weren't anywhere close to being able to move through the inner city at their normal speed, and Rayne doubted any of them would be able to run at their best even after spending several more weeks there, but the difference from their first day was obvious.

Weskins' potions helped tremendously, allowing them to remain under the pressure for several hours without suffering any serious effects, while their bodies slowly adapted to the strange weight surrounding them.

They were still exhausted by the time they returned each day.

But it was no longer the overwhelming exhaustion they had experienced when they first entered.

For Rayne, the experience genuinely started to feel like training.

He noticed that whenever they returned to the outer city, moving suddenly became much easier.

It felt as though someone had taken a heavy weight off his shoulders, and for a while after leaving the inner city, his body seemed lighter and more responsive than before.

He even found himself moving faster than he normally did, which made him believe that repeatedly forcing his body to operate under the pressure might eventually result in actual improvements to his physical stats.

When he mentioned the idea to the others, however, everyone except Bran looked at him as though he had lost his mind.

Rayne couldn't understand why they were so surprised. They already knew that repeated physical training could improve the body, and this was simply a much harsher form of training.

He genuinely believed that if they continued doing this every day, they might eventually gain one or two stats from the experience.

Bran, at least, seemed to understand what Rayne was talking about.

The old man didn't completely agree that they would gain stats, but he admitted that their bodies were clearly adapting, and that alone made the daily trips worthwhile.

More importantly, they were slowly expanding the area they had explored, moving through additional streets and searching more buildings as their endurance improved.

The results of that exploration were both good and bad.

The good part was that they were finally finding things that made the entire expedition feel worthwhile.

On one of their trips, Kesh discovered a hidden compartment inside an old building.

It was cleverly concealed behind a section of the wall, and when they opened it, they found a small box containing several knives that had somehow remained usable despite the centuries that had passed.

At first, Rayne thought they had simply found a collection of unusually well-preserved weapons, but the true value of the knives quickly became apparent when they discovered the small pressure points built into the handles.

By pressing them, a liquid would be released and coat the blade.

Poison.

They had no idea what type of poison the knives contained, and there was no simple way to test it without risking someone's life, but that hardly mattered.

The mechanism itself was valuable. The fact that someone in the ancient city had developed a weapon capable of storing poison inside its handle and releasing it directly onto the blade was enough to make it worth studying.

When Prince Caelan was informed about the discovery, even he admitted that they could potentially make a considerable amount of money from the knives alone.

There would undoubtedly be nobles, alchemists, craftsmen and scholars willing to pay simply for the opportunity to study how the mechanism worked.

Rayne had already come to the same conclusion.

He managed to acquire two of the knives for himself, intending to study them properly once they returned to Blackstone City.

If Dorin could understand the mechanism, perhaps he might even be able to reproduce it and create more once they were out of this hellhole.

The thought of having a reliable weapon that could apply poison without needing to carry a separate vial was certainly appealing.

Unfortunately, that was about as good as their discoveries became.

They found some old statues, decorative objects and other pieces that might have value, but they had no idea how much any of them were actually worth.

Without someone knowledgeable enough to examine them, taking anything back was mostly guesswork, and none of it was important enough to distract them from their main objective.

The bad part of their exploration was far less complicated.

It was the monsters.

The inner city contained far more creatures than the outer city.

The mana that saturated the city seemed to have affected almost everything that had survived here much worse, and the further they explored, the more obvious it became that the creatures of the inner city could not be judged by what they resembled.

On their third day, they encountered something that looked vaguely like a troll.

Only vaguely.

Its entire body was blackened and covered in ash-coloured skin, making it look as though it had spent centuries buried beneath the remains of a fire.

Several large lumps had grown from its head and shoulders, and when those lumps began moving, Rayne realized they weren't simply mutations.

Cockroach-like creatures crawled out of them.

Dozens of the things poured from the troll's body and immediately scattered across the battlefield.

They were incredibly fast, crawling over the troll's back and shoulders before rushing toward the group. They attempted to bite anything they could reach, forcing everyone to constantly watch their feet and armor.

Nate eventually resorted to simply banging his shield against the shoulders and backs of the others whenever he saw one of the creatures crawling across them, crushing the insects before they could bite anyone.

The strange creatures were troublesome, but the mutated troll itself was the real problem.

It wasn't particularly difficult to defeat in terms of its attacks. The problem was its body.

Its skin was absurdly thick.

Every blade that struck it dug into the flesh, and every spell that hit it left some form of damage, but none of them seemed to reach anything vital.

It was almost like fighting a living damage sponge.

They could keep cutting it apart, but the creature simply refused to fall.

Rayne quickly realized that brute force wasn't going to be enough.

Lyra, Jason and Andrew eventually managed to pin the troll down, using vines and sheer strength to keep its enormous body from getting back onto its feet.

That gave Rayne the opening he needed.

He climbed onto the creature and began cutting deeper into its chest, ignoring the resistance of its thick hide as he repeatedly drove his mana coated blade into the same area.

It took far longer than it should have.

The troll's body continued struggling beneath them, its limbs digging into the ground as it attempted to break free, while the strange cockroach-like creatures continued pouring from the lumps on its body.

The others had to keep them away while Rayne continued cutting.

Eventually, he reached the heart, and drove his blade straight through it.

The moment the attack landed, the troll's movements changed.

Its enormous body twitched several times before finally becoming still, and despite the damage it had suffered everywhere else, it was only after its heart had been pierced that it truly stopped trying to get back up.

Rayne had honestly hoped that he would get some sort of skill from killing the mutated troll.

Something like [Trollskin] would have been useful, especially considering how ridiculously thick the creature's hide had been, but unfortunately, nothing like that happened.

In the end, all he received from the battle was a single point in Vitality. It wasn't much, but he wasn't going to complain. The troll was dead, and that was what mattered.

Other than the mutated troll, they didn't encounter any particularly major fights during the rest of their exploration.

That didn't mean the inner city was peaceful, however.

Fighting had slowly become a daily part of their routine as they moved through the streets, with something constantly appearing from the ruins to force them into another battle.

There were smaller frog-like creatures that attacked from puddles and collapsed buildings, strange bats that flew out from dark interiors, and the plants were already something they had become familiar with after their first day.

Most of these creatures weren't strong enough to pose a serious threat to Rayne's group, but they were troublesome enough to keep everyone alert.

Rayne also deliberately avoided killing everything they encountered whenever possible.

Instead, he focused more on moving around the battlefield and dealing with anything that threatened the others while allowing his party members to handle the majority of the kills.

He had no reason to take all the experience for himself when they were the ones who needed it more.

The difference between Rayne and the others was becoming increasingly obvious as well.

His inflated stats made the pressure of the inner city considerably easier for him to deal with compared to most of the group.

Andrew was probably in a similar situation, given his own level and physical abilities, while Lyra had the advantage of being a mage and therefore didn't need to move nearly as much during most battles.

She could remain behind the others and control the battlefield with her magic while they dealt with whatever approached them.

Weskins was also just standing around while Dorin was getting used to the pressure better than anyone else.

Rayne's party was different.

Nate, Jason, Bran, Kesh and Heins were all capable soldiers, but the inner-city pressure had reduced their physical performance considerably.

Rayne therefore started controlling the battlefield more often, not because he thought they were incapable, but because letting them follow his movements gave them another way to gradually adapt.

He would move through the battlefield, taking care of their defences while still giving them opportunities to fight and gain experience.

Slowly, they began doing better.

Their movements became smoother, their breathing became steadier and the pressure that had once made every step feel like an effort gradually became something they could tolerate without thinking about it constantly.

They were still nowhere near their normal abilities, though.

Compared to how they would perform outside the inner city, Rayne estimated that they were operating at around eighty percent of their usual strength.

And it didn't look like they would be increasing that number anytime soon.

The pressure was simply too strong.

Rayne couldn't do much about it except continue exposing himself and the others to the environment, so that was exactly what they did.

Every day they entered the inner city, spent several hours exploring and fighting, then returned before their bodies were pushed too far. It wasn't the most exciting method of training, but it was working.

His own improvement was perhaps the clearest example.

[War Pulse] had been extremely difficult to use during their first day in the inner city.

The pressure had interfered with his perception so badly that activating the skill for even a short period had caused a sharp headache.

Extending its range had been even worse, forcing him to deactivate it before he could properly survey the surrounding area.

After days of repeated use, however, that had changed.

The headaches were still there, but they had become almost bearable.

Rayne could now stretch [War Pulse] considerably farther than he had been able to on the first day, although he still couldn't reach the full range he was accustomed to.

More importantly, he could maintain it for around twenty minutes before the headache became too uncomfortable.

That was a massive improvement.

Twenty minutes might not have sounded like much, but compared to the first day, it was enough for Rayne to consider the difference significant.

If he continued training his perception in this environment, perhaps he could eventually use [War Pulse] without the inner-city pressure interfering with it at all.

Despite that improvement, though, Rayne still hadn't discovered anything that explained the strange things he had sensed before.

He continued looking around whenever he used [War Pulse], especially after remembering the silhouette from the outer city and the strange distortion he had seen on the rooftop. Yet nothing ever appeared.

No person. No strange movement. Nothing.

It was beginning to seem increasingly likely that he had simply imagined both incidents.

The first could have been an adventurer moving through the ruins, while the second might have been some kind of distortion caused by the strange environment.

Rayne couldn't prove either explanation, but after spending so many days in the inner city without finding anyone watching them, he had to admit that there was a good chance his instincts had simply been wrong.

That didn't mean he was going to stop paying attention.

If anything, Rayne had learned enough from his experiences to know that ignoring his instincts simply because he couldn't explain them was a terrible idea.

He would continue looking around and remain alert, even if there was nothing there to find.

The problem was that they were moving faster now.

As their bodies adapted to the pressure, they could cover more ground each day, which meant Rayne had less time to stop and carefully survey every street and rooftop.

Their objective was still the Lost Sanctum, and they couldn't spend the entire expedition searching for something that might not even exist.

So Rayne kept moving.

Day after day, they explored deeper into the inner city, searching buildings, fighting monsters and slowly becoming more familiar with the ancient ruins.

Their progress wasn't fast by normal standards, but considering the environment they were dealing with, Rayne was satisfied with how far they had come.

Then, eventually, the day arrived when they reached the edge of the area they had been deliberately avoiding to venture into the magical fog.