After swiftly dispatching the Wanderers that appeared from the faucets, Zane reached Level 19. These things provided far better EXP than the Level 7 and 8 Undead Knights from the catacombs Dungeon, making farming them a good source of leveling up. Not only that, their signature skill was the fact that their bodies were intangible to attacks—which meant if Zane could Devour them…
He smiled darkly at the thought. No physical attacks would be able to do anything against him if that happened.
The only problem was that these Wanderers didn't have any bodies after they died. How was Zane supposed to use [Devour] on them?
Deciding to try it anyway, Zane walked over to where he'd killed the first Wanderer, right beside the now-bisected toilet. Then, angling his palm downwards, he concentrated mana around his hand.
'Devour.'
Immediately, thick black energy began arising from the ground, and entered his body through his palm. A second later, the familiar notification of a successful skill cast appeared before Zane's eyes.
[Loch Wanderer (Lv. 18) — Devoured.]
[Untouchable — Skill Obtained!]
"As expected…"
Opening his System, Zane quickly went over the skill's effects, just to confirm that it did indeed do what he thought it would.
[Untouchable]
[Type: Active]
[Tier: A]
[Consume mana to become completely intangible for a second. While in this state, every second spent will cost exponentially more mana, and continuous re-activations within a five second timeframe will have the same effect.]
'Hm… I see. So mana will be a big problem with this skill, just like [Invisibility].'
That was only natural. To be able to render oneself completely intangible was a powerful skill that manipulated the very space of the dimension, and it only made sense for that to cost a lot of mana.
To test, Zane activated the skill in his mind. He intended to just use it for a split second to see how the ability worked, but the moment the skill activated, he suddenly felt himself sinking.
"Wha—?!"
That's right: he was untouchable—to everything, the floor included. As such, he was now falling directly into the floor that he'd been standing on just moments before.
"Tch…!"
Quickly, Zane [Teleported] out, and canceled the skill before anything drastic happened. After landing on solid ground again, he let out a sigh.
"To think that would happen…"
To be fair, it should've been within his calculations. The skill description never explicitly mentioned that he would only become untouchable to incoming attacks, after all. Given his weight compared to that of a liquid-state Wanderer, it was only natural that he would sink straight through the floor due to how gravity worked.
In the end, it was a bit of a disappointment, but it would seem this skill was not as useful as Zane had originally thought. Even if he were to use it in the air or something, his weapon would most likely fall out of his hand the moment he activated the skill. An ability like this would only be helpful in very niche, life-or-death situations.
Just as he was about to exit his System, however, a notification suddenly appeared before Zane. It was one he'd encountered before, but a surprise nonetheless.
[Notice: A synergy has been detected between two (or more) of your skills.]
[Invisibility // Untouchable]
[Would you like to combine them now to free up more space for Devour?]
'Oh…? Now this is interesting.'
After some hesitation, Zane thought 'Yes' in his head. The holographic screen changed, replaced by new lines of text.
[The skills have been successfully combined.]
[New skill: Nihility]
[Type: Active]
[Tier: S]
[After a brief channel, enter an alternate dimension where you can see everything, but nothing can see you or affect you. Every second spent in this alternate dimension uses 60 mana, and you can cancel the effect to return to the real world at any time. Useful for scouting, spying, and evading traps.]
"I see… the two A-tier skills evolved into a single S-tier. Neat."
The new skill itself was quite neat as well, of course. Unfortunately, just like before, the skill wouldn't be useful for defense in combat, given the brief channel time that it has. Although it was only for a split second, in a fight, that split second was enough to kill. However, if Zane were to use this for offense, it could potentially work quite well.
Just then, the sound of water leaking from the faucet could be heard once more. Zane, having already experienced this once, sighed and closed out of his System.
"Again? Seriously… I was going to get to you eventually, but I guess you're just this eager to die, huh?"
Smiling like a demon, Zane whipped out his daggers, charged with Abyssal energy, and cut.
*****
After about half an hour's worth of free roam around the subway station, Zane was still repeating the same process that he'd been doing for the past thirty minutes.
There was no end to these bastards.
He didn't know where they came from, but if it wasn't for his strong mental, he probably would've already long lost count of how many he'd slaughtered.
"… Thirty-four. How many more are there?"
By now, he was Level 21, and had a plethora of SP to spend. Unfortunately, due to how relentlessly these Wanderers were coming at him, there was no chance to rest and distribute his points. Thirty-four wasn't exactly a high number, but the problem here was that even after killing that many, their numbers didn't seem to dwindle at all. Zane felt that no matter how many he slaughtered, the same amount would come attacking him in the next wave.
It was almost like… for every Wanderer he killed, another was spawning somewhere.
But as much as one might say so, Dungeons were not video games. Mobs did not respawn after killing them, and the 'player' did not have infinite stamina. Zane was running low on mana and energy both, and soon, he would not have enough mana to use another [Abyssal Dagger Art] technique. If it came to that point, then he was dead meat.
The slaughter was fun while it lasted. But now, the tides have shifted once more.
As Zane walked, he thought. The amount of coordination that these creatures had was certainly not normal, given their clear lack of intelligence. They were just running at him head-on even after seeing him kill their allies with ease, after all. They didn't even try to change up the tactic a bit.
Instead, it seemed like they were following orders—orders from someone or something that could see the entire Dungeon, every room, every corner. That's why no matter where Zane hid, he would be found. It was only a matter of time before the Wanderers reached there.
Then there was the whole 'respawning' thing as well. If Zane's guess was correct, whatever this commander-like being was, it was also responsible for bringing in more Loch Wanderers from their realm, so Zane would continue to fight a never-ending war. If he wanted to win this, he had to locate the one giving the orders—the boss of this Dungeon.
Through various means, Zane could narrow down the attributes of this 'thing' quite a bit. For one, it obviously existed in this world, not the Wanderers' own special realm. Actually, it was probably somewhere in between dimensions, probably both. After all, it needed to be here to see where Zane was, but also in the other realm to recruit and give orders to its soldiers. Second, this being was most likely not very powerful on its own, combat-wise. If that was the case, it would've already came for Zane the moment he figured out how to fight against the Wanderers, instead of pointlessly sending more pawns to their inevitable death.
And since this whole place mirrored the layout of a subway station…
… Well. There's only one place to check, isn't there?