Sam turned to Dia and Janik, grabbing hold of both of them in the hopes that he didn’t need to go alone this time. Parts of him didn’t want to subject them to this but... other parts of him didn’t want to be alone.
“I got a message about conditions again,” Sam explained, his earlier annoyed nonchalant tone fading rapidly as thoughts of the last Solo Dungeon flashed in his eyes.
“What, what’s going to happen, is it saying something else?” Janik asked in a hurry.
Dia was panicking, not seeming to gasp about what was going on, but having Sam grab onto her like that only had her grab back.
“I don’t k-” Sam started explaining that he didn’t know what was going to happen, but mid-sentence, he realised that he was breathing water.
Panicking he started swimming upwards but it didn’t take many seconds for him to simply hit a stone ceiling. Much like the top of the underwater hallways in the Dungeons, there was just water here, no air. Suppressing his body’s attempt to cough with all his might he managed to get the mask pressed against his face. This let him cough and fill the mask with the water his lungs had taken in, but the constant airflow within the mask pressed that out of its valves, letting him cough as much as he wanted as he fastened the mask to his head properly.
Even though his coughing didn’t seem to be entirely done, just having the mask on, and being able to breathe lowered his stress dramatically. At least enough to look around and confirm that nobody came with him. He was somewhat relieved they didn’t come with him, but other parts of him hated that he was alone in this underwater cave.
The underwater area he was in felt similar to the Boss room in the first Dungeon, it was illuminated by crystals in the walls, which due to the water between him and the far walls dimmed into darkness. But around him and at a considerable distance, there was at least diffused light.
“Ah, of course...” Sam commented dryly as he saw a shadow barely move in the water far away from him.
[ Dungeon clear conditions:
Kill the Hydra Swarm: 0/1 ]
“Excusemewhat?” Sam blurted out in a single word as he saw the name in the mission. There were no conditions, no list of rewards, no nothing.
Looking around he started panicking slightly, looking for a way out, a place to hide or... anything. Though this was underwater and not the same as the last dungeon, it had a similar feel to it. But rather than spawning in a creature, there seemed to already be one here. Or rather, since it was a Swarm, a group of creatures.
He subconsciously started to scratch his arm as he pulled himself to the side towards one of the walls for a sense of security and not being out in the open. Though he handled the insects in the wave dungeon fine in the end it had made its mark in his subconscious. Ending up near a wall there wasn’t much to hide behind or in, he activated the Invisibility skill in case that helped, and now he just needed to wait for the enemy to come close enough.
And close enough it came.
As the shadow in the distance came closer it let Sam see more and more details. It was a nightmarish aquatic creature. Dozens of constantly writhing tentacles trailed after a bloated, scaly mass. Fanged maws opened and closed across its surface, emitting guttural growls. Its entire body pulsed unnaturally.
[ Hydra Swarm
Level: 10
STR: 30
DEX: 40
VIT: 40
SPT: 0
HP: 105 000 / 105 000
Damage: Tentacle Barrage 90, Crushing Grasp 350, Bizarre Regeneration 300, Whip Flurry 360.
Defence: 200
Abilities: HP Boon, STR boon, Dex Boon, Vit Boon, Tentacle Barrage, Crushing Grasp, Bizarre Regeneration, Whip Flurry, Elemental Defence. ]
[ Tentacle Barrage: Flail a barrage of attacks at a target. ]
[ Crushing Grasp: Crush a target in your strong grasp. ]
[ Bizarre Regeneration: Regenerate health every few seconds. ]
[ Whip Flurry: An AOE attack that attacks indiscriminately around you. ]
Sam had to focus to not shout out in his mask in anger and surprise. How was this thing level 10? Over a hundred thousand health, a high level of health regeneration and good defences? Just what was this thing? Even with Sam’s broken balance didn’t have anywhere near this damage or survival when he was at level 10.
The only consolation was that it seemed like it hadn’t seen Sam, he was pressed against the cave wall like a bubble of sorts, so perhaps it, or they, didn’t have the best eyesight. But what should he do?
He pondered this for a moment as the collection of creatures, who seemed to work like a single entity rather than many individuals, left back into the deeper part of the water. Sam needed to decide on what to do. Though he didn’t have any rush as far as breathable air was considered, he had plenty of Aether Crystals, the problem was in water and food. He was surrounded by water but it was all salt. He had food and water in the Item Box, but it was all in containers or packages that didn’t exactly work well with being underwater. Unless he could find air somewhere, there was nothing he could do.
Considering options, he wondered if he could use the oxygen-creation function of the mask, but he didn’t understand how it worked properly. It created air inside itself, but it also handled the exhaled CO2 as there were little to no bubbles coming out of it. And when he put it on underwater it purged the water without making a lot of turbulent bubbles, so... They had crafted this thing quite well but it didn’t help him much for this.
One option could be to inhale in the mask, take it off and exhale, then repeat this a bunch of times until he made enough air for it to form a pocket somewhere. That would be a major hassle but it would at least be doable, he just needed a ceiling-part that was concave enough to keep the bubble. But that was something he could consider later, right now he wasn’t hungry or thirsty, so he could try to find a spot for a camp before he dove into worrying about fighting this thing.
Pulling himself around this place with his Psyhands, he had great control over his movements. Looking like a collection of bubbles floating around it gave him a decent stealth, at least in his mind. He did this for quite some time, looking for a good place to set up camp or create an air pocket, but even after what he felt like hours of this, he couldn’t find a good spot that was out of the way for the Hydra, since he didn’t want to get an unsolicited visitor to his bubble.
Having only circled the exterior, he hadn’t gotten a chance to check the central area as that was where the swarm was. But he needed to approach it at some point. Much like the earlier Solo Dungeon, there was no proper place to hide. The only gamble he had was that he could stay hidden with Invisibility and attack it at the same time. Failing that he would just have to fight as much as he could... but that raised a question.
If he got hurt, could he use potions underwater?
He could use Vital Recovery, but that required him to be aware of his breath and at least somewhat calm... in combat that was probably not going to happen.
Before he could take advantage of any testing or try to check out the more central part of the area, the creature seemed to notice something. It suddenly stopped casually swimming around and twitched towards Sam, standing still for a few seconds before barrelling towards him.
Panic washed over Sam, what did he do? What happened? He didn’t do anything as far as he knew, perhaps it was something else?
This wishful thinking was quickly shot down as it was heading straight towards Sam.
[ Telekinetic boost active. Time remaining: 57 / 57 seconds ]
Pulling himself sideways he used the dramatically increased power of his Psyhands with the boost to get out of the way faster. It barely had him avoid getting crushed between the Hydra and the stone walls of the cave. With incredible strength and dexterity, it turned around and sent several tentacles towards him.
[ Armour, Defence 80 has lowered the damage. ]
[ Barbed Retribution: 30% damage was reflected. (3) ]
[ HP: 295 / 305 ██████████ ]
The second, third, fourth and other attacks were still incoming in a barrage of attacks. Sam cut Energy to his Invisibility and manifested his full Swarm, triggering Active Defence his various hands intercepted the incoming attacks with surprise ease. They didn’t do any damage to it but they stopped the tentacles from reaching and hitting Sam.
He could feel a small smile grow on his lips, he had tested the Active Defence skill in the Wave Dungeon earlier, so he knew how it worked but he had never used it in a real scenario like this. This skill had two weaknesses, one was that you could only parry and deflect as many attacks as you had attacks of your own, this was why Janik could only handle two at once. Sam could handle, with his current swarm of weapons, 43, swapping good weapons for quantity this could go up to 57. The second drawback was that the weapons used to parry with, could not be used to attack with, Sam could overcome this with the same quantity.
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Using his advantage, he dedicated 20 of his 43 weapons to parry and defend him. As the tentacles came haphazardly flailing towards his body, a controlled attack moved to intercept and redirect the danger, cancelling the attacking force or redirecting it to become harmless.
Doing it this way cut out half of his weapons, but it didn’t affect the higher damaging ones. As his defending hands were doing their job, Sam sent everything else towards anything he could attack as a single, Clustered Strike.
Not many crits this time, but it did trigger the Defence penetration of Void Fang, the ignition of the Emberslash blade which was instantly extinguished, and the life drain of the Vampiric Blade.
[ HP: 301 / 305 ██████████ ]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 103 555 / 105 000 ]
Since most things had died in one volley, or he hadn’t hurt before, he had forgotten that Void Fang healed him every time he hit something with it, it also applied a stacking damage over time effect. Though Sam considered using one of Elara’s venom toothpicks, the Hydra’s Vitality of 40 would make that wasted.
Another thing that made this more annoying was Bizarre Regeneration, powerful regenerations made everything worse when the enemy had it.
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 103 855 / 105 000 ]
The worst part was that the healing-blocking effect of Void Fang didn’t seem to affect it. The skill on Void Fang rea that it would disable healing effects after hit. Perhaps that’s the bizarre aspect of it?
Not being able to hide, but being able to parry, put Sam into offence mode. He had to focus as he could only parry the things he knew of, and he was lucky that there was light in here. Blade after blade, Psyhand after Psyhand, made contact with incoming tentacles. Each wave of flesh was met with a wave of weapons, darkening the water between them by the second.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 5 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 102 485 / 105 000 ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 10 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 101 137 / 105 000 ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 10 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 101 337 / 105 000 ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 15 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 99 872 / 105 000 ]
Attacks landed again and again, Sam continued parrying the best he could and for now, it was working. The healing kicked in and returned a chunk of health, and though it was very satisfying seeing its health under 100 000, he also knew it would be short-lived.
Though this was repetitive and kind of lacklustre, it was working. Sam was feeling good about his odds with this kind of trade. Though the Hydra healed 300 every few seconds, by that time he had done over 2000 damage in return, even though it had 200 Defence and Elemental resistance.
Its attack pattern changed dramatically, a few tentacles had coiled together and were sent out as a whip. Sam parried it the best he could but the change of movement caught him off guard. The tentacles coiled around him and squeezed hard.
[ Armour, Defence 80 has lowered the damage. ]
[ Barbed Retribution: 30% damage was reflected. (30) ]
[ HP: 35 / 305 █????????? ]
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 20 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 99 822 / 105 000 ]
Bringing all his weapons back he attacked the group of tentacles holding him in place.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 25 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 98 050 / 105 000 ]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 98 350 / 105 000 ]
The damage was good and Void Rot had now hit its max stack. However right after the damage was dealt the regeneration kicked in. At the moment Sam was satisfied that he was let go.
He needed a way to fight this thing, normal attacks should be enough but if he missed another one of... almost anything., he was done. A crit slap would be more than enough to take him out as well, he couldn’t take more hits and needed a more surefire way. He needed to protect himself and attack at the same time. On autopilot he shifted his Aura Points, putting 10 points into Defence and the remaining into Barrier. This lifted his Defence rating to 90, being able to handle any non-crit attacks by the barrage, and the barrier gave him 75 extra HP. Not enough to handle the larger attacks but it gave him a tiny peace of mind.
The best idea he had was the lawnmower from before, spinning the weapons around him at rapid speed would create an impossible-to-penetrate area around him, it would cut anything attacking him, doing damage, as it also protected him.
As he was thinking this, something else moved into his mind. He didn’t know why it felt better to consider it as it didn’t tick any of the needed boxes but he felt the need to try.
Manifesting all his hands near the Hydra, Sam took out a single, cheap dagger from his Item Box. Not knowing all the physics behind it, he knew that water and fast-moving objects weren’t always friends, so he made sure that there was practically no distance between his dagger and the Hydra’s body.
[ Telekinetic boost active. Time remaining: 55 / 57 seconds ]
Stacking up all the Psyhands and triggering the Launch created an underwater explosion. The initial speed and interaction between the dagger and water made a cavitation bubble around itself and the point of contact. The tremendous speed the dagger suddenly launched with, sent it through the whole of the creature. A gnarly-looking entry wound which was further traumatized from the collapsing bubble and a horrifying exit wound on the other side of it left the bent and broken dagger sink like the scrap it had become. Considerable blood and gore were pulsing out of both the entry and exit wounds.
The creature screeched out with a sound Sam had never heard, not that he expected an aquatic creature to ‘scream’. Twitching and writhing in pain it darted away from him at great speed.
[ Void Rot has triggered on target: 25 damage.]
[ Hydra Swarm HP: 98 320 / 105 000 ]
“It only did five damage?” Sam caught himself vocalizing his thoughts. This didn’t make sense, the amount of damage this did was considerably higher than the other attacks, but the others did hundreds, if not a thousand damage.
Wanting to go after it, he didn’t risk it in his low health condition. One good swipe and he was fucked. If it feared him or needed to recharge its health, he would just have to accept that it would come back to full health if it gave him the needed time to heal his own.
It wasn’t easy to control his breathing in this scenario, not only from fear of getting hit and being in active combat but also from the slight excitement from the max-powered launch.
Several seconds later he managed to control his breath and calm down, triggering Vital Recovery. It took some long seconds but he finally found himself back in full health!
As he was focusing on his breath, his mind also wandered a little. What was with the mismatch of the damage done versus the damage listed? That massive wound could never just be five damage. It had taken many hits through their fight and this was the first time it reacted like that, retreated. But, being back at full health he moved the Aura Points into the Barrier, giving him a 125 HP shield. In his mind, Mathematically it was better to do it this way for now.
Grabbing himself with all his Psyhands he started following the monster, he was going to repeat the effect and see how it went by doing that a few times. The only negative side was that it locked up all his hands for a brief moment, meaning this was a single-target thing. In this case, it worked fine as long as he didn’t need to defend himself.
The massive size of the creature and the illumination made finding it easy enough. Even if that was a problem it was bright enough to follow the blood in the water, Sam’s limited tracking skills could do this easily. It didn’t take long before he found himself nearing his attack range.
“Salutations, fucker!” Sam smiled as the creature’s main body came into the range of his Area. There was a rush of adrenaline in Sam’s body, his mind rushed with the feeling of being the source of fear rather than on the other side.
A mix of revenge and intrigue woke up in his mind, moving his Aura Points from the Barrier he created a single Aura Blade.
“I bring gifts!”
