The Systemic Lands

Chapter 82: Day 210 – Ambush

I watched as twelve people arrived outside the dungeon. It was almost time for a reset. They really weren’t messing around about getting skills. I stepped out from behind a tree and was quickly spotted. I was to their East, Ruth and Tom were positioned to their South.

“Is this a private party or can anyone join?” I had been mentally preparing catchy lines over the last couple of days. Even if they were all going to die, no reason not to appear confident.

“Who are you? You aren’t one of the skilled. Where did you get that armor?” One of the men called out.

“I am Champion Michael and I purchased this armor for a considerable amount of points, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Lord Naran holds the rights to the dungeons. I am clearing it.” That was the same name I had learned from the person who had attacked me in Purgatory. The person the would be assassins had run away from.

“And what if I make my claim. A Champion is above a Lord, at least by my reckoning.” I took a step forward and several of the people readied their weapons.

“Champions can’t count apparently. There are twelve of us, two skilled, and then just you.” So, two people had skills, good to know. Pre-battle banter for the win.

“Ah, that is where I must correct you. A Champion is worth a hundred minions. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” I unleashed a barrage that they weren’t expecting. Four people went down screaming. I had used the conversation to get in close enough, so they were in easy range of my skill without any trees in the way.

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot,” Ruth used her skill and took out two people.

“Grass Blade.” The attack skewered a person in the side. That left five after the rapid attacks from multiple directions.

“Surrender or die!” One woman threw away her sword and raised her hands. A man also dropped his weapon and began to raise his hand as well. It was aiming for me. A trap!

“Fire Shot.” I dodged out of the way, only getting slightly singed.

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” Ruth used her skill another two times as well and soon only the woman was left alive. The rest of her companions had been melted. I walked over to her.

“Anyone else coming out here?” I asked while watching her hands carefully.

She looked quite green at her melting companions. “Uh, no. Lord Naran already declared who was getting skills. No one would dare argue with him. They might try, but that is why we brought such a large group.” She rambled on in what was obvious fear.

“I see, and the other dungeon?”

“Another group is already there. Like ours.”

“Annoying.” I asked more questions about the city of Truth and confirmed that there were twelve other skill holders, soon to be thirteen due to the other dungeon. There was a 50% tax, and anyone who didn’t contribute at least one crystal a day was killed as an example or raped to death. And people called me a villain. I was downright cuddly and personable compared to this place.

The woman here was old and ugly enough to escape that fate and was decent at killing slimes, hence she got a position as a minion. At least that is what I guessed about her. Not that it would matter.

“Acid Shot.” I melted her head and she collapsed to the ground dead. “I am clearing the dungeon. It should have reset.” I held a lantern in one hand and used Acid Shot with the other hand. It took about ten minutes to clear since I already knew what was in it.

I was offered the skills Wind Grip and Fire Shot. The upgrades to Acid Shot were far more interesting than those two skills. The options were silent, gestureless, and cost. I got the mental notice that with 5 upgrades, the cost would double to 10 energy, unless I chose cost.

I chose silent of course. I needed a lot more spirit and energy for my other two skills. I tried using the skill Acid Shot. I just had to mentally pull the trigger and make the hand gesture and the skill activated. My cast speed just doubled since I didn’t have to speak, and the hand gesture was simple and quick enough. An ‘Ok’ hand sign was incredibly simple to use and aim. Another reason I kept this skill over any of the others I had come across. The only better hand sign would be a finger gun and lowering my thumb.

I left the dungeon and explained the two options to Ruth and Tom.

“Good to know,” Ruth said. I wasn’t about to share my ability to silently cast just yet. That was an advantage I wasn’t going to give away until the situation was resolved.

“There was something else. A level two skill crystal can’t upgrade level three skills.”

“So, your Aqua Sphere and Air Burst need a higher-level dungeon?” Tom asked.

“Yes. So, you can’t get an amazing skill and then upgrade it with easy dungeons. Figures this place wouldn’t allow anything simple or easy.”

“We can talk about it later, let’s move.” We went North and ran into red flower flowerlands. They spat out fire, but the range was terrible, and the flower monster was slow. It was easy enough to kill them and press forward. We then pushed hard to the Northwest.

We skimmed by the city wall and ran into blue flowers. They spat out acid, the range was limited as with the fire flowers. We used our clubs, since I couldn’t keep up the skill spam with the higher cost. I still didn’t regret the choice.

I would also grab gestureless at 10 upgrades. The simple reason was that Acid Shot was going to be my core skill for a long time, perhaps forever. Well maybe not forever. It would be my go to skill when fighting other humans due to its speed and ease to cast. Once I got the upgrades it would be like a hose or machine gun.

Our current pace was too slow. We needed to move faster, so I pushed forward with my shield and sword, cutting the blue flowers down as quickly as possible. My iron shield and sword were becoming pitted, but speed was of the essence. I was not about to lose out on the second skill crystal.

The dungeon was fairly easy to spot, and I spotted the group ahead of us, but it appeared they had just reached the dungeon and they were resting. Lucky for me, bad for them. Thankfully the flowers were quite easy to kill or go around, which allowed my team and I to make great time to the dungeon.

We also got onto their path they had cleared, so we barely had to fight anymore once we hit the city and caught their trail, which was a big factor in catching up to them. My energy was decent enough. “Good to go?” Ruth and Tom both gave an affirmative.

“What the hell, who are you?” One of the men said and all ten stood up to turn and face me. That was rude. I am a who, not a what.

“I am Champion Michael, by the authority of the Triumvirate, you are enemy combatants due to the declaration of war. Surrender or your lives are forfeit.” They were forfeit regardless since taking prisoners was impossible, but I wanted to give people the illusion that they could surrender.

“Ten against three, idiot, Rock Lance.” I hand gesture was quick as well as the words.

I swung my iron shield in front of me and tanked the blow. I stumbled back a bit but was okay. Acid Shot. Acid Shot. The rest of the people had rushed me. The impact from my skill melted two people and splattered over another three people that were right next to them. Those people fell to the ground screaming.

“Grass Blade!”

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” Dammit, I forgot about the silent casting.

More people went down as my companions followed up. “Rock Lance!” I braced myself again and this time wasn’t forced back when spike of stone shot out of the ground and hit my shield. It did leave another sizable dent.

“Acid Shot. Acid Shot.” That finished off this group.

I got the lantern off the cart, quickly lit it up and then went right into the dungeon. It was cleared out as I raced through the tunnels and chambers. I at one intersection I took the left tunnel and quickly backtracked when I saw flower growing on the side of the tunnel. Not that way.

I went the other way and raced forward until I reached the boss room door where two people were readying to enter in some torch light. I had made it just in time.

There was shock on their faces as I rushed forward and stabbed one in the chest. “Acid Shot.” I wiped out the second. We were barely in time, but we made it. I also said my skill out loud. It was something I needed to stop doing. I shook my head slightly, not the time. I could practice silent casting later. I pushed open the boss door. Inside were several blue, red, and yellow flowers. There was a large brown flower in the center.

I waited for half an hour to regain my energy. I then swept the room with Acid Shot. I didn’t get to see what the large brown flower did, probably some version of Rock Lance. The yellow flowers spat balls of light, similar to the yellow slimes.

The moment my acid touched the flowers they wilted away. I guess that is what dying for a flower monster is called, death energy too over powered. They didn’t have enough flower power to stop my barrage. Even the level 2 monster was no match.

A skill crystal appeared. Light Bubble and Rock Lance. A skill to light things up. I would have taken it as a fourth utility skill, but I only had three skill slots. They were all full as well. My upgrade choices for Acid Shot mirrored my first choice, power, speed, or cohesion. I chose power again. With the increased cost, a power boost was more valuable. Still, it was painful to leave a light generating skill behind.

With that done, I exited the dungeon and gave Tom and Ruth a heads up on what happened. I came, I saw, and I melted everything in my path. With both dungeon groups wiped, it was almost time to move in on Truth. We made our way West. There was one more thing I wanted to see. I had purposely avoided it until now based on what I had learned.

After cresting a hill covered with small non-monster white flowers and killing a yellow flower monster, I saw it. There was a nothingness beyond a certain point. To the North a crack in the landscape extended from that nothingness into the flowerlands.

There was utter silence as we just stared at the visage before us for at least an entire minute. The land just disappeared and there was just blackness. A deep blackness that reminded me of vantablack, the blackest black to exist.

“Like someone just knifed the land,” Tom finally said.

“No weathering either, took me a moment to figure out what was throwing me off,” Ruth added, and I nodded at that. The cut was too straight to be natural, and the edge of the land into the abyss was also a straight cut into the landscape.

“Like an eldritch abomination, or a crack in reality itself. Could this be a bug in the Almighty System?” I wondered.

We slowly approached the edge, and a strong, cold wind began to push against us. The ground eventually just gave way to stone that slopped down at an angle for around 10 feet or 3 meters into a completely black void. After that nothing that could be seen. Even at the very end of the crack, the two edges touched and then it was straight plummet.

The far side just had a flat sheet wall. Line of sight was blocked pretty quickly by just a thick inky blackness. I was glad I didn’t get to see how thick the Systemic Land was, that would have given me nightmares.

It wasn’t space, since space had stars. This was just pitch black. I lit up a spare torch we had and tossed it out into the void. It felt more liquid than gas. Oh, if that was oil like the shadow pit dungeon, then I might have just blown everything up. Ooops.

I watched the torch arc into the blackness and held my breath. Hoping I just didn’t explode the entire world. The flames began to flicker heavily, as the torch fell down. It was visible until it passed beyond sight of the edge of the ground. There was just a cold wind from the void, no monsters, nothing else. Also, an inky blackness that appeared to consume anything that went into it without noise or notice.

“That is really disturbing,” Tom muttered.

“Is there even a bottom?” Ruth asked.

“No. At least from what was discovered. The city of Truth tried lowering people. The people go madder the deeper they are lowered until they kill themselves, by biting their tongue or trashing about enough to break their neck.” Human experimentation as well. It was like Truth wanted to check all the villain boxes. Still that kind of information was useful to have. I shuddered but it didn’t feel cold.

“OK, now I am even more disturbed,” Tom said.

“I wanted to see this place with my own eyes, I honestly couldn’t believe when it was described. Let’s go.” We turned around and walked away.