I quickly pull its Status before I hit it with everything I have to see if any bright ideas come to mind.
Xypharoth (Level 538 Evolved Ravager Manta)
Health: 945600/945600
Mana: 65930/65930
Conditions: Ascended Regeneration, Ascended Inviolate, Mana Field, Gravity Field, Colossus, Reality Warp, Enemy of My Enemy, Elemental Mastery, more…
Fuck - almost a million Health, exceptionally high regeneration, control of Mana, gravity, reality, and the elements plus who knows what else. I slam a grappling hook down into its hide and to my surprise it bounces off as I drift up into space. Earth is in the distance like a small marble I can see past Xypharoth. I manifest a grappling hook again, this time with the sharpest point I can possibly make, hardened with all the force I can pour in, and trigger Imbued Strike on it then throw it with all my Strength. To my relief the point sinks in deep and I quickly whip myself down while its blood boils away into space.
As my feet hit its surface, gravitational forces crush me down and raw Mana tries to rip me apart while the fabric of space ripples. It takes me a split second to get control of myself as even my Unbreakable bones buckle and my Dimensional Forge armor begins to crumple. My panic spikes but I bear down and burst out of myself with my Affinities and everything my Class provides to lock down my Domain around me. Perfect Focus strains as I push it to rip apart all the attacks Xypharoth throws at me as its massive frame ripples and surges.
Earth comes closer and closer as I’m buffeted with attacks as I slowly get control, then stagger as my Danger Sense pushes hard on me from all sides as horrid, twisted creatures rupture out of Xypharoth’s hide all around me. Instinctively I blast them all with a pulse of Resonant Strike and the chain reaction from it causes eruptions of flesh in Xypharoth that don’t cause mass destruction inside it. Even at the accelerated speed of my Perceptions, its hide visibly heals fast enough to begin to seal over.
Health: 15190/15190 Stamina: 29890/30380
Current Ambient Mana Level (AML): 12 +67 (Gift of Gaia)
Physical regeneration rate: 1292973 /min --> 21550 /sec
The Mana and Affinities flowing through me feel strong as I hold my Domain everywhere around me to nullify Xypharoth’s attacks, other than where it overlaps with the massive creature where it’s a bit unstable, fighting directly against it. I make sure to keep Stamina in reserve and chain trigger Resonant Strike five times down into Xypharoth, pushing with my Domain to open up and disrupt the hide as I boost the Skill beyond its usual parameters to lay down destruction deeper and deeper down into its Mana-infused flesh.
The resonant energy of my Skill is partly blunted and dispersed by the Evolved Ravager Manta’s massive Constitution, Skills, and Resistances that war against the molecular level disruption of Resonant Strike. I drive my Perceptions and Mana Affinity deep down to the bow wave of my Skill and with time slowed down by Perfect Focus I try to sense what’s happening. Xypharoth’s hide flexes violently and it surges ahead but even with only part of my attention on it I am stable and strong between my grappling hook and my control of everything around me. Intense lightning and searing heat blast me through my Domain while my attention isn’t on dismantling new attacks. My teeth rattle a bit, but my Resistances and regeneration handle it as the slowed second ticks past and my Health and Stamina are back to full.
I glance up to see we’re approaching the Earth quickly. It’s time to pull out all the stops. I reach out past my Domain in front of us and call hundreds of Edges into being in a geometric pattern, each Edge about the size of my hand with a sharp point. Xypharoth rips through the immovable folds in space and its momentum keeps us going. The Edges burrow tunnels right through its body and shred its flesh, but it’s only a small area compared to the wingspan of over two kilometers. I take a split second and lay down more Edges, pushing with my Affinity. It’s a strain holding my Domain and doing it and I can feel my body being ripped apart and healed almost instantaneously just like Xypharoth is doing.
I trigger Resonant Strike another five times, going deeper. I don’t even know if this thing has organs or a brain that I can target. I stretch my enhanced Perception out to the maximum, leveraging my innate Class abilities, and find no heart beating. I drop another three Resonant Strikes chained together into the creature and my Stamina ticks back up so I drop another five. My Health is see-sawing without dipping much, but my mind is overloaded holding everything together while I try to focus enough to find a weakness.
More creatures erupt all around me and I blast them with a Resonant Strike. It takes a split second for it to lock on and I feel that the whole resonance of them has changed since last time. Does this thing have the ability to alter its very nature with Mana as a defence mechanism against my Skills?
We’re entering Earth’s atmosphere and bank sharply to my right then spin at a mind-blowing rate. I’m thrown from my feet and slam into the hide then reassert my Domain including its position on Xypharoth with a massive surge of will. Disoriented, I wait a second for my mind to clear and send my Perceptions out with my Mana Affinity looking for flows of Mana or electrical impulses or something that might indicate how this thing functions. It’s still biological, but so alien and massive it’s hard to comprehend. I find hundreds of points all through it like knots larger than me that seem to be like hubs for Mana flows.
I strain as Xypharoth heals the damage I’ve done to it at a rapid pace. It seems like a stalemate, but that’s a loss for us since when it gets to Spain I won’t be able to stop it from destroying everything and everyone. On a hunch I dig down deep within myself and call up that raging river that touches Dark Mana that I’m only just starting to understand and add it to my Perceptions. My mind sears and feels split between all the things I’m trying to do. My Domain wavers and crushing, ripping energy almost overwhelms me before I grit my teeth and push it back, reasserting control. My overclocked Perceptions almost immediately find five Mana hubs inside the creature, four positioned evenly around its maw closer to the underside and a large one halfway between its maw and its four-pronged tail.
That’s my target.
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The Mana nexus is hundreds of meters away so I trigger Omnipresent and form a Portal right on top of it, overlaying it in my mind’s eye, and then manifest a Portal then step through and anchor myself. Gravity and wind resistance are both starting to get stronger and a massive, swirling storm starts to form around Xypharoth like a huge weather system is being whipped together in a matter of seconds. The air is alive with supercharged particles as I rip open the hide below me with a Sword and chain trigger Resonant Strike down into it. There’s only so deep I can force it every few seconds so I drop a metric fuckton of explosives down inside the giant hole I’m opening up and step back. They all detonate without much effect; compared to the power of Resonant Strike against a creature like this they’re just not able to overcome its Resistances.
Instead, I leap into the cavernous hole of vaporized alien flesh and chain trigger Resonant Strike again and again. Each time I get closer to my target as the wound on top of me heals over, driven by Xypharoth’s enormous regeneration rates. Inside the massive beast I keep going like a virus aiming right for its brain. It’s fucked up and messy as Resonant Strike vaporises flesh into mist inside the gaping hole I’m in, but I’m encased in my armor and I dive down into the liquid to keep going.
Suddenly my Mana Affinity reacts as Eldritch Mana from Xypharoth’s underside surges through the body all around me and strikes me viciously then grabs me like a tractor beam and pulls me toward the maw. Xypharoth destroys its own body around me to accelerate the speed so I call my Swords to my hands and plunge them deep into the body then extend them as far as they can go and alter their shape using Dimensional Forge to be more like massive parachutes made of monofilament wire. For 20 meters on either side of me everything is carved up, but still I’m moving toward the maw. I flex my Mana Affinity and try to release its hold, piling my connection with Dark Mana behind it, but it’s unfamiliar Mana that’s difficult to grasp and I’m out of time.
As I begin to trigger Omnipresent a flash of destructive energy hits me as I spill into the inside of Xypharoth’s maw from the wrong side. My body feels torn apart and my Health plummets as warning notifications scroll madly in the corner of my vision. The corrosive, void, entropic, and death energies from a Level 500+ Monster concentrated in the heart of its destructive power are too much for even my Resistances and I plunge right through all my Health even with my Survivor Title as my flesh is ripped from my bones.
A cool wash floods over me as Runic Recall is triggered and the invulnerability kicks in. It's a heartstopping Skill since the only time it triggers is when I’m literally about to die. At these AMLs I’ll only have a second until my Health is back to full and the Skill releases, so I have to act fast despite the scrambled feeling in my brain. Without having to worry about protecting myself, I focus completely on attack and equip a jetpack then blast Resonant Strike after Resonant Strike in front of me in a narrow beam. I shoot down the beam like a bullet down a gun barrel hoping my sky-high Luck is with me and smash into the large Mana nexus between the maw and the four-pronged tail, triggering another Resonant Strike all around me that destroys everything as then I blast right up through the hide and find myself ejected into midair, disoriented and whipping around in a spin. The air and storm surrounding Xypharoth takes me and flings me away at hundreds of miles an hour.
A second later, an age with Perfect Focus and my experience, I reorient myself and see Xypharoth continuing on, only a few seconds from Spain. Flesh and organic matter are raining down from it, but I can already see everything I’ve done is not nearly enough to stop it.
Xypharoth (Level 538 Evolved Ravager Manta)
Health: 452900/945600
Mana: 38010/65930
Conditions: Ascended Regeneration, Ascended Inviolate, Mana Field, Gravity Field, Colossus, Reality Warp, Enemy of My Enemy, Elemental Mastery, more…
My Runic Recall’s expended, Xypharoth is almost at Spain, and my most powerful Skill hasn’t been enough. I’m rattled but trigger Omnipresent and Portal onto Xypharoth’s back again. The hide hardens and shifts below me then I can feel the Eldritch Mana building up below. I glance at my Status sheet, out of ideas, until I realize there’s another form of Evolved attack I haven’t tried yet.
I gather my will and dig as deep down inside myself as I can, glad I’ve invested as many Attribute points in Aura as I have, then trigger Psychic Eruption at Xypharoth. I pour every ounce of Dark Mana and integrated power I can through the connection as I feel my Skill link with its bizzare alien mind and rip into it like a thousand needles being pushed into hard packed earth. My Health plummets as the damage from overclocking the Skill hits me hard, but I hold on and trigger it again then again. And more. Ten, twenty, thirty times as my Stamina ticks back up by another 21000 and my Health see-saws as my regeneration tries to tackle what I’m doing to myself.
Another second and I trigger Psychic Eruption another 15 times while I pour everything I have into it. My Health redlines and my Survivor Title kicks in, slowing the internal damage down. I scream hoarsely, a shell of a human held together only by will, Mana, and my Class Abilities and Skills. Then below me Xypharoth shudders and the storm around us starts to drain away. I’m suddenly in freefall and can’t connect Psychic Eruption to Xypharoth’s mind. A second ticks by and my body is repaired but I’m still shaking and then slam into Xypharoth as it slams into the Alboran Sea. The massive impact shoots water all around me high into the air and a huge wave surges toward Almeria as Xypharoth starts to sink down into the water.
I open the kill notification, not quite believing it. Then I open the next one as I sink below the surface myself and drop down like a stone.
Level Up!
You have reached Level 7 as a Dark Mana Knight
+30 Aura, +20 Mana, +60 free Attribute points to assign
You have 60 free Attribute points to assign
Would you like to allocate them now?
(Y/N)
You have 4 unallocated Class Skill points
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(Y/N)
Based on what just happened I drop all 30 Attribute points into Aura again, increasing my ability to overclock my Skills further, and 30 points into Constitution which drives my Class differentiation and my Stamina pool. The four Class Skill points into Perfect Focus to bring it up to 8, further increasing my ability to slow down time and accelerate my movements, as long as my Strength can keep up.
I keep sinking deeper below the surface and the surroundings get darker and darker. I dismiss my Dimensional Forge armor; it might be a small risk but right now I don’t care… the cold water and building pressure of the ocean as I close my eyes feels refreshing and soothing. I just try to ‘be’ for a little bit. Around me and below me creatures of all Levels are swarming and trying to rip into Xypharoth’s carcass. There’s enough of it ripped apart they might get at some of the Mana rich flesh but I wonder if any of them are actually high enough Level to chew it or break a piece off. Some large ocean Monsters cruise near me but when I let loose with my Charisma and Aura they all give me a wide berth and focus on the bigger prize. I can’t exactly fit it into my Inventory. Perhaps some enterprising humans will mount an expedition down to the bottom of the ocean to harvest it, if there’s anything left and they can survive.
As I sink down, my bones and body way too dense to float even this deep, messages pour in over my Group Party Chat. They fall into three general categories of ‘holy fuck’, ‘thank you’, and ‘you’re still alive’. And one that stands out more than the others, from Syvox.
“Well done, kid. I’m going to find out how you did it.”
A problem for another day.
Weary, I trigger Omnipresent and form a Portal to Spain. There’s still plenty of Ravager Manta to put down and the rest of a broken invasion to turn back.