Drake began chanting his defensive skills, his aura spreading out to try and find the assassin-like undead that had stabbed him.
Unfortunately for him though, there was no inkling as to where it had gone. Bjorn's sword had missed the mark, only crushing the paved sidewalk below. Chelsea's eyes darted every which way as she kept her bow drawn and ready, the tip of her arrow humming green.
"Drake!" Landin shouted helping shoulder Clotho up.
"You and everyone else get inside the house, this is a level 37 monster. You can't help me. Bjorn!" Drake shouted, "Keep them safe, and don't let anyone out."
A green sheen flashed around Drake as his chants completed yet there was still no sign of the undead.
Had it left? Or was it waiting for something? Drake thought and suddenly the sound of a gunshot rang out.
Normally Drake wouldn't even bat an eye at a regular bullet anymore, even in the tutorial with Sato's mana-infused bullets it was hardly a challenge, but this was different.
Drake reeled his head backward as he nearly folded backward to the ground, the sound of shattering porcelain sliding against the snow.
He raised his head infuriated, another bead of red falling from the center of his lip where his mask had protected him.
Drake growled, "That was my favorite piece of equipment you sack of shit!"
Begrudgingly Drake withdrew his Asuran Headwrap from his inventory to replace his broken mask, his hood flipped backward as he tied his long hair.
[Asuran War Headwrap [Rare] [F-Grade][Set Piece 1/6]
202 to 234 Physical Damage Reduction
178 to 193 Magic Damage Reduction
5% Increase to Critical Strikes
+20 to Dexterity, +10 to Endurance
Set Effects: Increases Health and Mana Regeneration by 20%. Increases Skill Proficiency Gain by 2%. Increases Defense Proficiency by 50% when surrounded by Enemies scaling from 10 to 100.
Requires a minimum of 2 Set pieces to activate Set Effect.
The armor of choice for warriors of the Asurans. Mana-infused threads and leather made from the fierce monsters of their homeworld Ran'tu Kai, these garbs offer defense to rival Dwarven-made Mana Steel Equipment. +20% defense proficiency.
He cursed once more as he readied himself for another shot, hoping to pinpoint where the shooter was with the next bullet.
A shot rang out again and Drake sidestepped into the street, his eyes straining to see the bullet as his hair turned a brilliant yellow, his arms flaring with golden light.
Screaming through the air was an elongated bullet with green mana trailing it and Drake's eyes tracked it back to a tree further down the main street.
But he had celebrated too soon, a piercing sensation gnawing at his side where he had been stabbed before.
Within the moment of impact from the blade, Drake had whipped around grabbing the dagger with a sneer and pulling the monster in.
"Persistent aren't we?!" Drake snarled, raising a fist, "Marked!"
Bringing his fist down, Drake was sure he would be able to kill the monster as it seemed to be an assassin and wouldn't have much vitality considering how swift it was. But to his dismay the bullet he had dodged curved.
In the last moment before it hit him, he reluctantly released the Amalgamation, raising his arms as they assimilated with his Martial skill and his hastily conjured earth attunement and endowment.
The bullet collided with his cross guard, spinning against his defenses, sparks flying every which way as he was thrown backward from the sheer force.
[Reprevial Charge Gained]
Drake grunted as he flipped backwards skidding against the street and digging his heels in to stop.
"What's going on, why are they so deep inside the city?" he wondered, "What is this city lord doing!?"
Then the door to his family home swung open nearly making Chelsea fall forward from the force, Sah Ul's head popping out with a steely gaze, the handle of her obsidian-colored axe poking out.
"Patriarch!" she shouted.
"Stay back! You can't deal with these monsters and if you join it wouldn't be a fair fight," he yelled back, keeping his focus on the surroundings, listening for another shot.
But what came wasn't the clapping of another bullet, but the grumbling and rumbling of something stomping next to him, the ground quaking.
"What now…?"
Crashing through the buildings of the side street a massive monster at least two stories busted through an apartment building across the street.
[Stiched Brutal Amalgamation Level 38]
"Just one after another," Drake smiled, despite his continually worsening situation.
"Drake!!" Bjorn yelled out, "Something's wrong with their stats! It keeps shifting, bro!" he shouted, his eyes a pure white.
"Shifting?" Drake asked, looking at the Brutal monster.
The monster swiveled its head in a broken fashion, jerking as if it was struggling to move the parts that had been used to create it. Its multiple eyes moved like a chameleon's, looking every which way in search of something until one eye found Drake, and its four mouths changed into an upturned smile showing yellowed, white, and rotten black teeth.
Drake grimaced as he saw the display. The Brutal was different than the Umbral Amalgamation, having several whole arms instead of just hands stitched together. And each one was a bulking mess like someone had just slapped together arm after arm to increase the sheer amount of muscle on each of the four.
The Brutal stomped forward carving divots into the ground from its apparent weight as it charged Drake.
Drake raised a hand, a crimson magic circle forming in the blink of an eye.
"Maluwat… Flare Arrow."
The circle sparked to life a massive white flaming arrow appearing and condensed into a sizzling weapon of destruction.
In that instant, Drake fired it unhesitantly at the charging monster.
The arrow shot forward evaporating the snow below it and drying the air on its way to its target.
But Drake's eyes widened as he saw the arrow sputter out the closer it got to the Brutal eventually blithering weakly against its skin leaving on a small black singe.
"What? Magic Nullification? No… reduction?" he gaped.
But the Brutal wasn't waiting for Drake to figure it out as its massive purplish arm slammed against his face, and ran him across the ground, tearing up the asphalt and earth below.
Drake grunted putting power into his Tattoos as he slammed his fist into the side of the massive arm holding him.
The blow did nothing to make the Brutal flinch but Drake didn't give up, throwing another punch into the side of the monster as his hair turned a fiery red.
[Reprevial Charge Gained]
One more red spiraled golden-tinted fist into the side of the Amalgamation's arm and it simply went limp, releasing Drake. But not before another arm grabbed him by the chest picking him up and slamming him into the ground taking the air out of his lungs.
Drake had enough. He consumed a charge teleporting behind the monster.
"Heretical Attunement Fire, Heretical Attunement Lightning! Quad Fold Asura!"
Two magic circles appeared instantly to either side of Drake sparking to life and manifesting two lightning javelins that attached at his shoulders, his hair shimmering and split between red and yellow.
"To the death!" Drake growled, eating the 48-hour cooldown to finish one of the three monsters quickly.
He reared back his fist throwing it into the side of the Brutal's head. At the moment of contact, it flipped forward from the impact slamming into the ground, and creating a massive crater in the middle of the street.
Drake landed on the back of the Brutal's massive body, ready to lay into the monster, but its head turned and Drake paused unable to move as he heard what it said.
"D-daddy..?"
Drake flinched, "W-what did you say?"
The Brutal's body shifted and spun around grabbing Drake by the throat and squeezing against him, but Drake was unperturbed now that he had used one of his longest skill cooldowns.
"I-it hu-rts. J.am…e. W-here a..m…I?" the Brutal muttered from one of its mouths.
Drake looked back at the monster with cold eyes.
"I see… There are still parts of the people they used in there, aren't there…"
His blood boiled, the elation from the fight waning, overtaken by sheer anger.
"How far will they go?!" he roared, the Brutal throwing Drake down the street, kicking up snow, asphalt, dirt, and finally slamming into a tree.
[Reprevial Charge Gained]
Drake looked upwards, spotting the last of the three, an elongated barrel of flesh pointing at him.
[Stitched Ambush Amalgamation Level 35]
Drake remained slumped against the tree. Staring down the barrel of the last monster. Instead of an arm, the monster had a flesh-made sniper barrel protruding from its shoulder, a huge fleshy sack at the end. On its face, it only had one massive eye, a small red glass-like reticle covering it.
"W-welcome back p-papa…" the Amalgamation groaned in a child's voice.
Drake bit his lip as the sound of air being sucked into the fleshy sack of the monster wooshed as it pulled around him.
He stared down the barrel with cold eyes, a green magic circle forming in front of his face.
The crack and snap of another bullet being fired rang out, this time being shot from point blank.
Drake's magic circle crackled with power as a thunderous torrent sounded from the galing winds that formed from the spell.
Ignoring the quickly depleting mana in his peripherals, Drake glowered at the bullet spinning at a frightening speed right in front of his face, only stopped by the green magic circle with a miniature twister of air and snow fighting against it.
"I'm sorry. I don't know who you people were before this, but I have to win. I'm sorry I couldn't stop this before it happened…"
The Ambush Amalgamation chittered its teeth together, its head snapping to a 45-degree angle as it eyed Drake curiously.
"H-ho-me.. I w-want to go h-h-ome…"
Drake closed his eyes, "Yeah. Just wait a little longer, I'll send you there. So you can all rest. I'll make these vampire pricks suffer."
The sound of the winds ripped through the air carrying his voice, the bullet beginning to stall against the spell only to reverse, spinning in the opposite direction stuck in the torrential winds that Drake had created.
"Leave the rest to me. No more sympathy, not until it's done."
Drake's eyes opened, his aura and skills flexing, freezing the Amalgamation in place as the bullet continued to spin picking up speed until the mana bullet began to glow red hot.
"No more holding back. Heretical Endowment Septenarius."
Drake's magic bloomed to life, six more magic circles forming and shattering in an instant next to him, his two lightning arms vanishing into his endowment as his hair shimmered to reflect his elements only to bleed together into a golden light.
He pushed mana into his tattoos grabbing the end of the Amalgamation's barrel, holding it in place his other hand pointed like a gun at the center of its chest, as the bullet tilted in the same direction.
"Tatsumaki."
The bullet gave a deafening boom, kicking up dust and snow in the surroundings as it flew forward tearing a hole so large in the chest of the monster that it left it in two pieces. Its upper half spinning backwards as it bounced against the snow-covered ground hitting a small fence of a neighboring house.
[You have defeated Stitched Ambush Amalgamation [E-Rank] Level 35] [Experience Earned]
[Congratulations! You have increased to Elemental Miller level 28] [140 Free Points have been awarded]
Drake threw himself upwards, turning his head in the direction of the large Brutal Amalgamation with eyes of indifference.
The monster took a step backward, somehow the feeling of fear piercing its lifeless emotionless expression. But just as quickly as it flashed on its stitched disfigured face it was wiped away as the grotesque smile of before was painted across its multiple mouths of discolored teeth.
Drake took a low stance ready to sprint forward. When the Umbral Amalgamation shimmered into view next to the Brutal one, only long enough for the Brutal Amalgamation to grab it in one of its enormous hands throwing it forward as it shimmered back out of sight.
But.
"That was a mistake. For the thrill of battle,' Drake said evenly his hand going palm up into the air, "Attunement Fire," a flash of red burned, swirling around him, burning off any crusted blood and the remainder of his torn hoodie in a blaze of white revealing his armor, golden hair, and tattoos in all their majesty.
"Ame-no-Nuboko," a magic circle of brown formed above his palm a jet-black spear forming.
In the fraction it took for it to fully manifest Drake gripped it hurling it forward as it snapped against the air. He stepped forward and tracked the Umbral with his marked skill his stats once again shooting upward with his skill as he flew forward in tandem with his spear.
With a burst of wind, he came to an abrupt halt with a downward swing of his fist into the air below him, finding purchase against the seemingly nothingness of the empty space. Only to hear the cracking and splitting of bones as the Umbral Amalgamation shimmered back into view.
The monster immediately flew downward embedding itself into the asphalt.
Drake in the same motion spun several times grabbing the flung spear trailing behind him with a snap then throwing the spear downward with somber execution, another snap and crack of the air.
The sound of the spear digging into the earth through the monster echoed through the street, Drake hovering with his magic above the crater it had created.
"Still alive?" Drake raised his hand a massive white magic circle spreading out above him.
The magic circle split turning into 40 separate circles each one a spear of ice forming as the sound of shattering glass chimed from them.
"Ice Block, Partizan."
Drake threw his hand down the spears flying down in a cacophony of the smashing ice, breaking of earth, and wrenching of dead flesh as they burred one after another down the crater, kicking up a cloud of fragmented ice.
[You have subjugated Stitched Umbral Amalgamation [E-Rank] Level 37] [Experience earned]
He didn't have time to dwell on the kill notification, the sound of the hulking Brutal Amalgamation storming forward at him.
Drake looked at his Status, his reserves low from the last spell sitting at 20% Health, 10% Mana, and 15% Stamina, but thanks to his regeneration it was quickly ticking upwards.
He popped one of his few remaining health potions into his hand, uncorking it and downing the vial bringing his health back to an even 50% showing just how large his health pool was now compared to before.
Using his last reprevial charge he flashed forward appearing right in front of the Brutal, throwing a white flaming empowered fist right into the huge monster's gut, bringing it a few inches above the ground.
The Brutal only grunted out of necessity, the air that filled its lungs leaving its body, but its working three arms all convened right onto Drake grabbing at him wherever they could.
Drake was unperturbed, throwing another punch into the solar plexes of the monster before its feet were able to reach the ground, throwing it even further above the street.
And then another and another, stringing together a combination of blows bringing it hovering helplessly in the air as Drake layed into it from below.
The sound of each blow sent out a shockwave into the area clearing the street and houses of snow after Drake had dug into the pitiful monster for more than ten seconds of unrelenting strikes.
Somehow the Brutal still held on, its body glowing in a red sheen from the use of a skill.
Drake flexed his aura removing whatever was allowing it to remain functional. Once he did his blows began to show real damage as the arms of the Almagamation began to tear apart, unable to withstand the damage despite its sheer vindictiveness to hold onto Drake.
The fight was over, the monster was flung into the air, and only one broken arm still attached. Its health clearly below 15% as Drake could see the crimson silhouette of his execution skill outline the monster.
As the Amalgamation began to plummet to the earth Drake raised a single palm his arm glowing a deep blood red that wisped and flickered like sinister hellfire.
The monster careened to the street and only a moment before impact Drake brought down his palm in a chop.
"Death. Is. Nigh. Asuran's Punishment!"
His hand being brought down deafened the area, slicing through the monster and sending a hellfire red arc of power down the street cutting a divote that exposed the ground until it slammed into nearby buildings bisecting them as they slid from their foundations crashing to the ground.
[You have subjugated Stitched Brutal Amalgamation [E-Rank] Level 38] [Experience Earned]