SB: Chapter 262 – I Have Seen Death, And It Was Ugly (Patreon)

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I took my time resting and looking over the maps and asking the golem more questions, while Boris exercised off to the side of the room and Ozy rested.

“The Ascender Shaft is out, since it leads directly into the Heartforge Bastion. But there are two staircases,” I said to myself. It was time to man up and see how bad things were down there.

This time, I took my time going into the Crucible Spire and then locating the correct staircase. I wanted to reach the bottom near the Soul Array Hall and the waste conduits. The staircase was intact with only minor damage.

My Danger Sense also kept increasing as I descended. Just before I reached the bottom, I paused. My Trap Detection was triggering. I carefully inspected the area multiple times, but I couldn’t spot what was setting me off. I slowly backed up and then returned to my original spot.

There was definitely something in front of me that my Mana was subconsciously picking up, but I wasn’t able to discern. I carefully backed up one step and sat down.

It took three hours of constant scanning before I finally realized what I was sensing. The Mana in front of me was slightly denser and had a slightly different quality than the surroundings. It was likely a very weak sensory skill that once triggered would wake up the monster.

Monsters rarely slept, but it did happen. For a monster outside the dungeon like this, it probably wanted to conserve Mana so it limited its sensory field. Once disturbed, I had no doubt it would instantly go full power and cover the entire complex with its Mana to locate any intruders.

I slowly approached the barrier of Mana. It was time to put my anti-divination skills to work. I slowly lowered a single finger, using the tip to just touch the surface of the monster’s Mana. I slowly altered the profile of my Mana to match and slowly began moving my hand into the hostile Mana.

Once my entire hand was inside, I began to retract it and adjust the Mana my body was giving off. I was using all three of the anti-divination skills I had picked up from the gnomes. Veil was altering the Mana after it came out of my body. Mask was limiting the amount that came out to as little as possible. Finally, Obscure was changing my Mana perfectly to blend in with the environment.

It wasn’t fully possible to alter one’s Mana before it left one’s body. That was why Obscure needed to be used on top of Veil. The monster would just sense its Mana with no interruption, while I was a person sized shape inside of it. These skills were meant to counter divination, but that was just a more specialized and sensitive branch of sensing skills.

The problem was my control. It would take time to improve my skills. They were only Tier 1 at a lower level while the monster was using a high tier sensory skill, most likely Tier 4 if I had to guess based on the complexity.

Just covering my hand was a challenge. I would have to remove anything with Mana in it like my spatial pouch, equipment, and armor and even then it would be an incredible challenge to blend in. But that was my only chance to see the monster and get a better understanding if there was any chance of defeating it.

After understanding what I had to do, I spent every day for the next ten days, relentlessly working on those skills, slowly moving my body in and out of the monster’s sensory skill. I had also noticed that occasionally the Mana field would shift.

The first time that happened, I was incredibly lucky, having just removed an arm and a foot from the sensory skill. I then tracked the next change and it appeared after 31 hours. The one after that came after 27 hours. I missed the one after that, but I was ready for them.

I got a slight warning due to my Danger Sense spiking slightly beforehand. At the end of the ten days, I had improved my skills enough and adjusted to the monster’s sensory field that I felt confident in attempting to scan the monster.

Status Analysis didn’t use active Mana on a target but was a line of sight divination skill that focused on revealing status information. Since the monster hadn’t picked up on the Compass Of Desire or my recent efforts, I felt fairly confident it wouldn’t detect me using such a skill as I tried to gain as much information as I could.

Managing my breathing very carefully with Empowered Breathing I made my way into the monster’s sensory skill in full just after it had shifted the Mana used as part of the skill. While I felt confident about adjusting my Mana quickly, better to wait until there was a safe period to enter the sensory skill and reduce the risk of being detected.

The Soul Array Hall was filled with various devices and glass containers that were empty except for some dust. I turned right and exited the large room and made my way through the hallway towards the Heartforge Bastion.

I ignored the doors on the sides. I was here to see the monster, not search for items at the moment. The large double doors leading into the Heartforge Bastion were partially shattered. Looking inside, there was the glow of some magma running through various devices and a large shadowed figure in the center of the room.

The monster wasn’t moving, no that was wrong. It was breathing slightly. A physical based monster based on its shape, unlike the last one. The monster was easily over level 300 and I began using my skills on it, as its information unraveled before me over a couple of hours.

Vorunhusk The Soul ShredderLevel: 327/488Experience: 1,791,652,986,592,165/ 28,070,999,148,372,700

Healing: 9,230/9,230 +287,281Stamina: 2,590/2,590 +482,291Mana: 6,820/6,820 +828,422

Class: Tier 7, Greater Annihilator (Violet)Effect: Soul Skills (+1600%)

Vitality: 923 ()Endurance: 259 ()Strength: 321 ()Agility: 401 ()Perception: 382()Mind: 142 ()Magic: 682 ()Focus: 199 ()Free Points: 0

T2: Focused Regeneration(100)

T3: Soul Insight(100), Soul Strike(100), Soul Gaze(100)

T4: Sensory Field(100), Combat Intuition(80)

T5: Null Aura(75), Mana Conversion(60), Point Compression(60), Ethereal Consolidated Aura(15)

T6: Vorunhusk Soul Shred(30)

Looking at the monster’s status was a lesson in utter despair. The only good news, if it could be called that, was that its skill list was incredibly limited. But the skills listed were enough to put fear in anyone along with the boost to its points.

The monster was oversaturated with Mana from the primary motivator. All monsters consumed Mana to replenish their points and survive, since they were more Mana than physical matter. The monster would be considered fat in the point sense, but its body wouldn’t be damaged due to Mana Conversion and Point Compression.

That Tier 6 skill combined with its class was an instant death attack. Even my mother would not be able to survive a skill like that. But any Tier 6 skill would kill me instantly regardless. The problem were the support skills. I wasn’t sure what Soul Gaze did, but it was likely some vision based attack, since the skill name had the word gaze in it.

Sensory Field was a step above Sensory Aura and Combat Intuition was a very advanced version of Danger Sense. Field implied a static range, but a stronger version of the skill than a basic aura type skill. I had seen such names before, but the skill chains to get those skills were complicated and not something I had needed to worry about. I just knew they were strong skills.

Then the Tier 5 skills were worse than the Tier 6 skill in my opinion. Null Aura countered any spell skill or any skill that used Mana. Then Ethereal Consolidated Aura allowed the monster to phase itself through physical objects and counter any melee damage. The term consolidated when used with an aura skill meant that the aura could be shaped to limit Mana expenditure.

It was immune to both physical and magical attacks as long as it had enough Mana. For any other monster that might be a problem, but Vorunhusk The Soul Shredder had insane stats, coming in at 3,309. That put it at the level of 165 in comparison to a human adventurer. It was a monster on par with my mother in terms of stats, even if it had a very limited range of skills.

The monster was huge, the size of a magical carriage, built like a deformed humanoid from what I could tell. Trying to kill it directly was absolutely impossible. Even without the insane reserve of stat points, it would still be impossible.

After getting the information, I checked the main treasury room, but there was nothing inside, of course. Any sane person would never leave valuable treasures behind in the Soul Forge before escaping.

As for Mana flow, the monster had accessed the main conduit that the primary motivator sent power throughout the entire complex. Basically the main Mana conduits ran under the Heartforge Bastion for the highest level of crafting. The monster had basically tapped into that, blocking any Mana from the primary motivator from reaching the rest of the complex.

I could try to lure it away and then destroy the sword, but I doubted that would work. Sensory Field and Combat Intuition were both incredibly powerful skills. Even more so when used in conjunction. The high skill levels also showed the monster was no slouch in using what it had.

Leaving the underground area and then the Crucible Spire, I was deep in thought. Even if I lined up the most powerful attack, I wouldn’t be able to kill the monster. The stats were just too high. Even a complete decapitation might not kill it.

And the moment it sensed an attack, it would make itself immune to both Mana and physical attacks. I now understood why the demons on this continent didn’t bother with fighting this nonsense monster. It was too strong and countered too much. On top of that its main attack would one hit kill anything it struck.

My mother’s Dawnbreaker Destruction might be able to hurt it as a Tier 6 skill that consumed Mana to empower itself. But I wasn’t about to get that skill any time soon. That was a long time away and I didn’t have the stats to support such a powerful skill.

Well time to think outside the box a bit and consult with the resident expert on an insane idea I had. If it was possible, this would go from a disaster to a massive boom.

My mother was too focused on killing and fighting. While she could think of other things when she had been alive, her combat methods were innovations around that fact. While she had Stillness and that skill chain as well, it was just another means of focused combat.

She knew this, but she couldn’t change her fighting style after so long. I also knew that was why she wanted me to have a broad education and learn lots of different skills. She might not have spoken fondly about other supreme legends, but she recognized the inherent advantages their skill choices gave them.

The more options I had, the easier a fight became, even if it didn’t end up being a standard fight. I would need to take this approach with Vorunhusk. I would have to look up named monsters when I got back to the College. In the Dean’s List there had been a book about The Beast. I might have to spend some money to read about that.

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