Solteer cursed at himself for following the plan of a human child, now he was left to fight the majority of the Succubus's servants on his own.
He circled back to have his talons slashing at the Succubus again as quickly as he could. Even a monster would feel the pain of heavy cuts across her face, she would have been recoiling for at least a few milliseconds before defending herself again. Or so he thought.
Each and every time he nicked at her limbs or body, the Succubus would swipe at him immediately after. She ignored the injuries and just screamed at the hawk with a horrifying banshee wail. Even some of the goblins and gnomes flinched at their goddess's shrieks.
Her screams weren't in pain, just anger. She twisted her body at inhuman angles, swinging at Solteer the moment he tried to turn around. He barely avoiding getting his wings clipped from her sharp nails yet again.
'How is she still functioning? I nearly tore out her eyes the first time around.' Solteer looked at the carved up face of the Succubus and watched as she let out a menacing glare of pure hatred.
Her wounds started from her chin and ended deep inside her brow. The three long talon marks were leaking a heavy pink syrup like substance before stitching themselves back together and stopping the flow, the scars didn't even stay behind. All the other cuts Solteer made were doing the same, She was back to normal in just a few moments.
Solteer could see the Succubus was regenerating at a rate that was twice as fast as Galahad's strange mana orb trick.
'I guess it's time for Skyreign to take the throne, because I'm not making it out of here alive.' Solteer thought as he nose dived at the demon once again.
*****
Galahad felt himself tumbling while falling through the pitch black hole with the gnome still ravaging at his leg.
'Of all the stupid shit to happen this week. This is probably in the top ten list.'
Galahad's plan was ruined the moment he was stabbed in the leg, it was only an additional feeling of salt rubbed in the wound when he fell into the hole.
A few seconds passed before Galahad had no idea which way was up anymore. He couldn't see anything in the dark and all he felt was the gnome trying to blindly tear apart his right leg.
Galahad punched at the gnome randomly and felt it's nose break after a few solid hits. The little bastard let go and left Galahad to free fall on his own.
'Guess it doesn't matter we're about to plummet to our deaths anyway.' He thought. Then he felt something strange on top of the sensation of weightlessness
He didn't feel fear, it was the lack of fear. His mind seemed to refuse to focus on the fact he was dying. Instead, Galahad only felt the need to analyze and move on.
'Maybe I've lost the ability to feel fear. Or it's just my mind has been broken to the point of high-functioning insanity. At this point, I shouldn't be bothered with wondering about this.' The whistling of the wind began to end, indicating the bottom was coming up.
Galahad was bracing himself for the impact that would kill him, hopefully in an instant. What he expected was nothing like the result.
The bottom was encased in the remains of so many goblins, gnomes, and other monsters; the melted glob at the bottom acted like an impact cushion for Galahad's fall.
The melted carcasses stopped the impact from killing Galahad, but it didn't stop him from breaking multiple ribs and earn himself a large amount of internal bruising. Suddenly the pain in his leg and neck weren't the worst problems he was dealing with.
Galahad laid there for a moment before slowly and painfully raising himself out of the gross snow angel he made in the gelatinous muck of monster remains. Once he was out of the indent, he realized the rock was still jammed into his leg and was bleeding profusely.
'Great, now I'm going to bleed to death from a low level fucker that looks way too much like dad's beard.'
Shortly after Galahad hitting the pool of remains, the little gnome hit the improvised impact cushion too. It's not so sturdy body let out a sickening crunch as it made contact.
Galahad thought it died in an instant, but then he heard it start violently coughing out blood. The two of them survived the fall, the only difference was the gnome didn't have as much time left.
Galahad looked across the darkness at the dying gnome and chuckled to himself. "You know, you're probably thinking this is the worst thing to ever happen to you, but I think I've had it a little bit more worse than just dying in a shithole."
The gnome only garbled out more blood in response, Galahad kept talking to it without a care in his tone.
"I've been blown up, burned, hit, stabbed, shot at, and strapped to a bed with drugs pumped into my stomach. It's been an really unpleasant last couple of weeks."
The gnome's breathing was no longer audible, just a few wet heaves now.
"But what's worst of all." He said before letting his head collapse back in the muck. "Is have been getting hungrier and hungrier ever since this mess started."
The gnome was now gone, its breathing stopped. Galahad just let the conversation end there. Through the darkness, he could clearly see the text window pop up:
[ Do you wish to consume mana orbs? ] [ Yes ][ No ]
[ gnome lvl. 3 ] [ +45 XP ]
"Sure why not." Galahad breathed out. He wasn't going to escape; why not die from blood loss with his killer vanquished in his stomach.
The blue smoke of the little mana flowed across the pit and lit up the walls enough for Galahad to see how bad his leg's condition was. The smoke honed in on his leg and tried to heal that instead of his neck, but small amount from just one little gnome couldn't do much against his entire upper leg.
The jagged rock was still deep in his leg, surrounded in scratch marks, every mark was bleeding profusely. The damage was leaving a pool of blood slowly growing across the black sludge, telling Galahad that he wouldn't survive the next ten minutes or so.
[ 65/500 XP ] lvl. 5 Showed up in the progress bar on the top of his view before disappearing when the blue light faded.
"It's a shame I couldn't see what this weird skill was capable of doing, I would have liked to at least seen what multiple classes felt like or figure out how that black orb did this to me."
Galahad let his hands sink and squeeze the sludge as he awaited death to take him. As his hands sank beneath the surface, his ring finger came in contact with something solid.
[ Do you wish to consume mana orbs? ] [ Yes ] [ No ]
[ goblins lvl. 2 ] [ +30 XP ]
"Huh?" No goblins tumbled in with Galahad, where did this come from?
Galahad sat up and fished out the orb to confirm the it was actually right next to him. Sure enough it was a mana orb. The little thing had settled into the sludge for quite a while, it was still caked in old, dried remains when he yanked it out.
He let it light up the bottom of the pit like before and the walls were glowing blue again. This time, he dug his hands into the mushy floor instead of watching the smoke enter into his leg again. His hands came back up with a fistful of clumps in each palm.
[ Do you wish to consume mana orbs? ] [ Yes ] [ No ]
[ goblin lvl. 2 ] [ +30 XP ]
[ goblin lvl. 1 ] [ +25 XP ]
[ goblin lvl. 2 ] [ +30 XP ]
[ gnome lvl. 3 ] [ +45 XP ]
"Where are all these things . . . Oh gods. I'm laying in a mound of dead shit." Galahad felt stupid that he hadn't realized the purpose of the pits.
He had just watched the Succubus throw a dead goblin in one of the holes. They were meant solely to dispose of the bodies and leave their mana orbs behind. Mana orbs he could use to survive.
Galahad kept consuming one at a time to keep the glow visible enough for him to search. Within ten seconds, he found thirteen orbs ranging between one to three, and the progress bar was soon filled up to reach level six. His body released a pulse of yellow sparks.
[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 6 ] All attributes +3
Mana orbs lvl. 6 or below can now be consumed.
Health Points +10
Galahad watched the white progress bar go down to zero and change to [ 15/600 XP ] lvl. 6
"Hang on Chicken Roast, I'm coming back." Galahad pushed himself to keep working, despite the broken ribs and possible internal bleeding. The scratches around his leg were mostly pink scars now, and all that was left was the internal injuries, plus the rock itself.
Galahad had to dig elbow deep in the muck before he find anymore, his resources were starting to dwindle now. It took him over thirty seconds this time to find eighteen mana orbs that filled his six-hundred XP and nearly fixed the rest of his internal bruising.
[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 7 ] All attributes +3
Mana orbs lvl. 7 or below can now be consumed.
Health Points +10
His progress bar reset once again, now he needed seven-hundred XP to reach his last goal. If this weird mana orb eating system followed the rules of adventure classes, he should unlock his class at level eight.
Galahad needed to go farther and fish out enough to get to level eight, luckily he had the earnings of Solteer's earlier fights to help out. He grabbed the pouch out of his coat pocket and consumed whatever wasn't labelled as locked.
All he could consume was two level seven silver rats, and go back to digging shoulder deep for goblins and gnomes. In total, a minute and a half passed as Galahad went from level five, to level eight. He fell on his side once he saw just enough XP fill up the progress bar request.
[ 700/700 XP ] lvl.7
A bell went off in his head.
[ Congratulations: You've leveled up to lvl. 8 ] All attributes +8
Mana orbs lvl. 8 or below can now be consumed.
Health Points +10
Class 1 of 4 unlocked
[ Choose a New Class? ] [ Yes ][ No ]
'As much as I wanna have rare summoner powers, I won't even know how to use them. The only way I'm getting out of here is with strength.' Galahad made up his mind, he was about to be the first person to learn what it felt like to go from a support mage to a battle class adventurer.
"Yes." All the text in his view disappeared. This time the text that formed was in golden colors, not white.
[ Choose New Class or Cancel ]
[ Magician Class ]
[ Battle Class ]
[ Creation Class ]
[ Summoner Class ]
"Battle Class." He declared. He prayed it was something useful in the moment. If it was an archer or defensive class, he wouldn't be able to much without specialized gear. His only hope was something barehanded combat based or gave him strength and speed his friends used to have. It was the first time Galahad hoped he wouldn't be a support based adventurer.
His fingers were crossed, until He felt the familiar sensation sparks about to erupt from his body. The sparks felt normal, then it changed to something he didn't recognize, something more violent and not normal at all. The energy stopped halfway through releasing from his body, but kept building up.
It was if someone put a cork on Galahad's level up, and let the pressure build up inside him. Galahad's body began to grow really warm, then hot, and then past the point of unnaturally hot. The sweat on his body broke out all over and transitioned to steam right after.
"Shit, shit shit shi—GEAHHHHHH!" Galahad started to scream as his body was unbearably hot to the point of raising the pit's area temperature up ten degrees.
Right when Galahad thought he was about to pass out for thousandth time since the black orb exploded, then the pain stopped like someone hit an off switch.
He stood up unsteadily in the dark, not sure if the pain was real for a moment. Then his body released an explosive amount of red sparks in every direction. His body became a giant flash-grenade of light, forcing Galahad shut his eyes; but not even his eyelids were able to stop him from being blinded by the red flooding his vision.
'Red? I've only ever seen yellow sparks.' He thought while trying to avert his eyes at his own body's transformation. With his eyes shut, he saw more text emerge:
[ Congratulations: Class 1 of 4 Unlocked ]
- Battle Class skills unlocked
- Titles unlocked
- Consume orbs lvl. 8 or below
[ New Skill unlocked: Fury and Fyre ] [ +200 XP ]
A skill. Galahad's surprise was immediately surpassed by the fact he had a skill the moment he 'reclassed' himself. He couldn't have asked for one at a better time, now he was fighting with something once he got out of the hole.
"Ha, perfect. Now how does that work?" He tried to feel the power for the skill push out of his soul, but nothing was obviously new about his body. Turns out he merely needed to think about it before his limbs started humming with power.
The pit was now glowing bright red again, only this time it stayed red. Galahad looked down at his hands, marveling at the unnatural sight, describing the scene the only way he knew how.
"Holy shit." With cursing.