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Chapter 464 - Luna
🕑 Added 2024-10-09 08:27:49 +0000 UTCEveryone evacuates the vicinity as the giant and Jean crash, their surroundings turning into craters and a storm of shockwaves.
Jean this time takes some hits in exchange for delivering his own. Each of his punches tears his flesh, skin, blood spraying into the air as his body is unable to endure the sheer power of his own attacks.
Surprisingly, his bones endure, none of them breaking even as the giant pummels him down, some mana surrounding these massive fists.
There is also some healing delivered by Lucien, who climbs onto Luna's back together with Leticia. While Luna runs away, avoiding attacks from a few surviving lurkers, Leticia weaves mana around them to defend and attack. She does so very quickly and precisely.
Another powerful lurker crashes against Savant, who radiates his domain into the area, the lurker’s body breaking apart even more from the sword made of that domain.
Noelle keeps dodging while shooting at the weaker lurkers, her projectiles barely stopped.
But Derick seems to have a problem. His opponent is a male lynthari with two swords and a crown floating over his head. The crown seems to be made of ice.
Neither Derick nor the lynthari move quickly, but their movements are both smooth, dangerous. There is also an immensely cold area around the two of them. Derick's breath mists in the air and the skin-tight barrier around his body gets frozen over constantly.
With a boost, I land nearby, armor surrounding my body.
The lynthari doesn’t even turn around, the constant barrage of his attacks pushing Derick, who blocks the swords with his forearms and shins, without even getting cut.
Then I sense that immense cold, the armor around my body freezing, and I find myself unable to move for a moment. Boosting my movements with kinetic energy, I take a step, frost breaking, and I infuse thermal energy into my armor. The pale blue mana gets a hint of golden thermal.
That's when the lynthari reacts for the first time.
The crown over his head spins and expands, the cold increasing much more. Even the ground covers in ice that feels nearly sticky, freezing my shoes to it when I take a step. And Derick ignores it. No armor around his body, no flames or heat. Just that skin-tight barrier, glowing tattoos, and incredibly short bursts of mana he uses to attack or disrupt.
More thermal energy surrounds me and I shoot a few mana projectiles, which freeze in the air, crumbling into fine particles when they crash against the lynthari.
One of the swords swings against me and meets with Flamebearer, flames meeting ice. I increase the output of the flames and boost my body, pushing against the sword.
And these golden flames of mine die off, unable to resist that concentrated cold. Following after, a strong pulse of cold shoots into the area as I release my thermal energy outside of my body, letting it burn.
That cold stops Derick just for a moment and one of the swords pieces of his leg, the frost quickly spreading before the man frees himself.
An ice projectile that was about to pierce me evaporates just in front of my heart, meeting the forearm I put there.
I have never felt so cold in my life.
Shrinking my domain, I stop trying to fight the cold surrounding me. Instead, I make my [Mana Domain] skin-tight, adding resonating mana to the mix. The armor around me disappears and I charge up heat just under my skin, and with a burst of kinetic energy through my body, I move to attack.
With nearly lazy movements that feel so elegant, the lynthari meets my axe with his swords, with each clash my axe, coated in golden flames, evaporates some of the ice which immediately turns into frozen mist to chill the air surrounding us.
The sword pierces through my foot and stabs into the ground. I duck and avoid another swing, and taking a step back, my feet break, entirely frozen and turned to ice.
I explode the remaining frozen part and use one of Lily’s healing marks, my feet quickly regrowing.
Derick takes the lynthari's attention, the swords clashing against him, his tattoos glowing brighter than ever. A few short exchanges and Derick staggers back, the lurker pulling a sword from Derick’s chest, the blade coated in blood.
A pulse of mana explodes from Derick and the frost-like effect disappears from his body, but the wound stays as the red-haired man attacks again, in cooperation with me.
My axe burrows into the lynthari’s side, and Derick caves in the lurker’s chest.
Within a blink, the field around the lurker shrinks, the area much smaller, but the cold becoming even worse. I can feel it in my chest, in my fingers that start turning blue even with my thermal energy. My movements are getting even slower and the mana around me keeps freezing and becoming extremely brittle.
Then the third person joins the attack.
Savant attacks from the back of the lurker. The broken Sword of Aeons restored with the orange light of [Dawn], which presses the lurker, the mana poisoning working even here, the lynthari’s skin showing effects of it.
The orange blade clashes against that sword seemingly made of ice a few times, and with immense effort I force myself to move even though my body feels like a simple hit would break it just as my feet were broken. I swing the axe and bury it into the shoulder of the lynthari. I nearly empty my vortex core as thermal energy seeps into the lurker.
Derick grapples with the lynthari, twisting one of its arms until it breaks, putting it into a hold that forces one of its swords to clatter to the ground.
A burst of cold sends Savant staggering back before he can attack again, the sword in front of him glowing brightly in defense. His green eyes shine dangerously from behind the block.
Derick lets go to avoid the ice projectiles and the other sword stabs toward my head.
I teleport to the opposite side of the lynthari lurker where my Ley Line is stretched and deliver another swing with the axe, a brilliant gold exploding into the area.
A wall of ice shoots from the ground, and my flames crash against it, making me pull them back to the axe to reuse them.
The lurker ducks, and Savant's sword swings just over his head. The crown disappears entirely, and with it, the lurker turns even paler white. Even his own body coats in frost and as he takes step his arm and leg shatter into tiny particles of ice, but for that moment, all three of us freeze.
Thermal energy, kinetic energy, all my external mana are useless.
As the sword heads toward me, I activate the glove on my hand, copying the ability of the lurker.
I use that ice skill and add it to the immense cold that is already freezing the lynthari. And the same as us, he freezes as well, standing there on a single leg and with a sword just a few inches away from my face.
The first to move is Derick. He takes a small step, the ice falling off him, then another one.
With the last step, he swings his arm, an open fist hitting the lurker’s head, and mana is sent through, the head exploding into tiny frozen particles.
[You have defeated Reanimated Corpse - lvl 321]
As if it never existed, the extreme cold disappears, the air gradually heating up as the normal air rushes to the area.
I let thermal energy surge through my body and still feel that immense cold, even with all the heat I can use now.
Barely a minute passed since we attacked the group of ten lurkers and since the giant flew closer.
Jean is still fighting him and, other than that giant, only two lurkers are alive, dealt with by Luna, Leticia, and Noelle.
Meanwhile, the area around us is nearly unrecognizable. Gone are the buildings, and the ground is scarred by long tears and craters. In the middle of it all, these two fight, the giant riddled with bloody wounds, one arm broken, and the mana around his fists flickering.
Jean seems as enthusiastic as before. Blood covers his body and one eye is blinded, a massive hit turning half of his face into mangled meat. Even so, he punches the giant’s knee and it explodes into a gory mess, making the huge lurker kneel. He raises his forearms to block, but Jean's immense strength blasts them aside, leaving his guard wide open.
With a jump, Jean reaches the giant’s face and hits.
At that moment, the lurker snaps its mouth.
He doesn’t bite off Jean’s arm, instead, it stays in his mouth, the giant lurker unable to bite through.
Laughing maniacally, Jean doesn’t even try to pull the arm out. Instead, he swings his other one, his fist burrowing into the giant’s eye, pieces of flesh and liquid from the eyeball covering him.
And he swings it again and again until the giant stops moving and falls down.
The man then continues to punch the dead lurker’s teeth until he breaks enough of them to pull the arm out. It's nearly devoid of flesh, connected to his body only through the bone that is clearly visible.
“Lucien, my boy!”
“Got it, got it!” as if used to this, the boy shouts and the mark he put on Jean’s back activates, the wounds closing slowly.
“We have a minute before the group of twenty reaches us. Thirty seconds until the quickest of them get here!” Leticia warns us, already going through the equipment of dead lurkers.
Even as wounded as some of us are, everyone immediately does the same, with the only exception being Jean, who longingly stares at the body of the giant.
Ten seconds later, we start running.
***
After five minutes, I start checking the ways everyone covers their steps, and I have to say that Leticia might be even better than me.
Where I can remove the remaining mana, she is able to do it much more naturally, making it look nearly like ambient mana or mana that could have been there for weeks already.
I also have a strong suspicion she can somewhat delete our smell and some other lingering effects.
And when we reach the huge tower, we hide on one of the floors. While we wait, Lucien is going around and healing us. He doesn't put in a lot of effort but no one complains. His abilities might be needed later.
Luna, in her normal size now, keeps guard since if any one of us did that there would be some ways lurkers could use to track us.
Even though we killed plenty of lurkers and are easier to notice now, it’s still possible to stay hidden here for a few minutes. Any longer than that is impossible because of the risk.
“Aren’t named ones supposed to be rare?” Derrick rests against the wall, Noelle close to him.
“Want to bet you just jinxed it, and more of them will appear?” Noelle playfully pokes his side.
“Damn it. But since we started… when I get home, I’ll open a nice café or restaurant. Oh, and by the way, these are pictures of my kids, aren’t they cute…” He mimes taking a photo out of his wallet.
Noelle laughs and pushes him away, “I’m sure I’d know if you had any kids.”
“I’m a handsome young man, women are throwing themselves at me, maybe something happened behind your back.”
“If that’s the case, lurkers would be the least of your problems, Mr. Handsome young man,” she says with a final poke before turning to Leticia. “Luna scared me for a moment there, she grew so big.”
“Right!” Leticia smiles happily. “She’s really good at all of this, and sometimes I think it was her who got brought into Hell Difficulty, and I just got caught in this all with her.”
Luna patiently waits as Leticia squats and squishes the golden retriever’s cheeks together. Even so, I can see her tail wagging.
Somehow, I disagree with Leticia. Just from seeing the way she handles mana, it’s obvious she “belongs” here just like the rest of us.
“Why are you so shy?” Leticia asks her golden retriever. “I think you could say something now.”
“Leticia, sometimes I think it’s me who’s human. Maybe really you were the dog, and our minds got swapped when we were summoned.”
Everyone stops what they’re doing, all staring at the retriever from whom the sentence came. It’s not telepathic or anything. It’s just a human voice that sounds in the air as the retriever opens her mouth. The mouth isn’t moving, mimicking the act of talking. Instead, it’s just open, but the voice comes from it.
The voice is womanly, very soft and soothing. The kind you could imagine singing lullabies.
Leticia doesn’t seem shocked at all, and she smiles even more. “I wouldn’t mind it at all! Should I try barking and asking for pets?”
“Please don’t do that, Leticia, you’re embarrassing yourself,” Luna says, sitting down and lifting one of her paws, licking it while glancing at us. She reacts to the silence. “Really? This surprises you after all we've seen?”
***
Comments
Funny guy
Danks fur da chappie!
Ádám Balogh
It is obvious that Nat is wrong, he is not a future Absolute but a future Ruler as he wants to eat the highest quality deer jerky and will probably get it as a courting gift for Luna
Bartlomiej Głowacki
Nat combined mana manipulation few times so he is behind in levels with it and he also have 2 primordial energies to work on, so he cant spend time improving only his mana.
Youkai-sama
Let me guess, he's also 2-weeks from retirement?
Zaim İpek
This isn't relevant to this chapter, but I think I realized something about Biscuit. Nat feels uncomfortable and insecure around others who have more power than he does or at least could seriously threaten him if they wanted to. I think this is the primary reason Biscuit shows only the minimum amount necessary of his abilities at any given time. I think Nat's discomfort with talkative people and conversation in general is also a primary motivation for Biscuits minimal use of language. Another good indicator that I didn't think much of at the time is Biscuit's disciple. Ruby paired Masters and Disciples accordingly. Biscuit's disciple being the strongest of the disciples may actually be a more significant indicator than I previously thought. I think wolf pup lied when he said he was stronger than Biscuit, but Biscuit was more skilled with the primordial energy they both share. I think his level may be higher, but Biscuit's actual abilities were definitely far beyond his disciple, at least as much as Nat's abilities were ahead of Vega. You can't tell me otherwise. I think he was saying what Biscuit told him to say. Remember they were communicating very fast, specifically too fast for Nat to keep up. I think that was also intentional. Biscuit probably has all his skills in the high 70s and 80s, and I don't even know how many he has. I'd like him to get a crown skill. A doggy with a magical crown just seems right.
Zaim İpek
Bruh, the author doesn't think that deeply about this stuff. It's not passive cooling. It's active cooling. So it's beyond Primordial. Primordial thermal (at least how Nat uses it as our only example) is a passive ability. He used it actively exactly once, and the author immediately regretted it because it felt too powerful too soon. And now Primordial Thermal energy works passively via mostly convection. It has actually gotten progressively weaker as the story goes on, which is interesting. But that's not important. The Lurker's ability was active cooling using a field effect that actively slowed down atomic and intermolecular motion within the field. That's why the feeling instantly vanished when he died. If it was passive cooling, that wouldn't have happened. Is there some kind of elemental thing going on? The crown suggests yes. What is that crown called? Probably something dumb like "Cool Crown" or "Cold Crown" which both seem stupider the longer I look at them. What is "cold" element? The way it works here is basically the way Primordial thermal energy used to work in the beginning before it was changed to become a weaker skill. Soooo maybe it's called something like anti-thermal, even though that doesn't make any sense at all because it's literally just regular thermal energy control but done with enough precision to phase cancel. Very inneficient btw if they could have just pulled the thermal energy instead. But since it's its own element (probably) it's probably anti-thermal. And for the sake of balance, there is probably some anti-primordial lighting element as well. There is probably an anti-mana while we are at it. None of it needs to make sense.
Zaim İpek
Probably not at first, but after Nat made a point about it, that's probably when Biscuit started copying him in stat distribution. I think Biscuit is doing better with the body training though. I think Biscuit took note the first few times Nat did tempering and probably figured out a way to develop his own body much better than what Nat was doing. I would be extremely interested to see Lissandra's comments on Biscuit's methods. I wonder how he compares to those fancy pets of noble ladies. I'm biased, but I think Biscuit is probably even more talented than those noble lady pets. He may not be as good as whatever super-dog started in beyond, but he is at least the next best after that dog. I think Biscuit is more talented than Luna. . . . probably. Hard to tell since we have seen neither of them really push to their limits. Biscuit was pulling his punches in the tournament because he didn't want to cross the line from being competitive to being viscious and mean. I would like to see if Biscuit could train his mana control to be even more sneaky and stealthy to the point that the white sand doesn't react. I think he could do it if he tried.
Zaim İpek
"Asshole" and "Food" are real words. So is "I Require Sustenance." Biscuit is using exactly the amount of words he wants to use. Being a dog, he doesn't really think in terms of language structure. It's extremely inneficient for communication. He can communicate much more and much faster via direct mental link. It just requires someone with a mind advanced enough on the receiving end to take advantage of how much Biscuit can convey at once. Biscuits mind seems to move much faster than most of the humans. Now that Nat got his brain upgraded with the recent arcane passive, I think Biscuit will start using higher bandwidth when communicating with him and use more complex concepts. I don't know why the universe in this story works this way for animals and not humans, but Biscuit's mind seems to have rapidly evolved and gone far beyond his human companions in a very short time. Humans seem to get a relatively small amount of mental enhancement from the system compared to what these two dogs have gotten. But his mind seems to be beyond his own personality or ego. His capabilities have expanded faster than his knowledge of how he wants to develop himself or how to best use his new powers. His priorities are still the same. Eat tasty food, protect the pack, and play with friends. He doesn't have big goals like Nat. At least not yet. If he finds out that there is a cosmic super-deer as a universal ruler, that may be enough motivation to clearly direct his development. But using human language just doesn't seem important. It was never important before, and he remembers his former human relationships fondly. He got lots of emotional fulfillment without verbal language, and he still does. Unless his priorities change, I don't see him becoming fully verbal. If he is incentivized with some deer jerky on the other hand, he will probably become the most talkative member of the group. But he also knows that talking makes Nat uncomfortable, so there is still good incentive to be silent. I think he takes pride in being an emotional support and feels like it's an important role only he can properly fill.
Orion
Excellent
Kevin McGuire
Good job, Luna you blew Biscuit's secret. Now he'll have to use real words instead of being lazy.
Dreyday
Dear God @Poutine what are you a programmer, engineer? That is too much math & science. I give up.
Poutine Au Syrop d'érable
TL;DR There's two good options: <0 Kelvin temperature exist, leading to an abstract and more powerful law of "negative". Primordial Cold exist, being the simplest one to execute lore wise, with the least implications. And the third option, which cause Primordial Thermal Energy to work in a super convoluted way. Because otherwise, cold is piss poor and capped at
Poutine Au Syrop d'érable
Nah. Primordial Ice must exist. Heat can to infinite temperature, only maxed by a temperature so high it breaks physics, and the hardcap is when it destroy the universe. But even then, it could go above it, just what would be accomplished? Whereas Cold goes to -273C. Absolute cold isn't doing the damages dude's ice did to a rat, let alone a regular person, let alone lvl 250 people. -273C would still take hours if not days to freeze you solid. And you would need a lot of it. A slight brush would do less damage then accidentaly touching the oven metal with your finger. Unless Primordial Thermal Energy is something that cause damage logarithmically, as in. At t0, it does no damage. At t0+c it does x fire damage damage. At t0+c^k it cost kx fire damage. And at 1/c^k it cost xk frost damage. Or at 1/c it does bc frost damage. Basically, you would need to create thermal energy such frost damage is proportional to the relative nearness to 0K. Or at least f(n) proportional. So that getting twice as close to absolute zero would cause f(2) times the frost damage. Where f(x) is an always increasing function, with f(1)=1 and ?f(0)=0? And f(x<0) is undefined. ------ Anyway, you'd need primordial thermal energy to work in a very weird way to cause damage like that, and the explanation for how it works, even with the least restrictive math model possible, would still be hard to construct. ---- In general, in stories, because of that, it's always better to separate frost and cold termal energy. Or else, what you do is allow negative Kelvin Temperature. That would be much easier then the explanation above. It would require a little bit of reality bending, but that part is easily chalki-table by saying it's magic and primordial energy. But it would imply that someone who learns cold powers, will also learn how to create a negative where there's only positive. Basically creating a debt thats sucks up everything near. And that would mean gaining some understanding into the law of "negative". Hence, a master of cold, if he learns gravity magic, would one day learn how to create negative mass. It's not just about reversing. It's about making a positive property negative when it doesn't make sense physically, due to a slight bend in reality.
CptJimmy42
Luna will become Biscuit's new big sister, just like how Nat has a big sister, he'll want to copy him. I secretly bet Biscuit also went all in with mana with some kind of mana improvement just to follow after his best friend Nat.
Zaim İpek
It will probably happen, but it will probably also be a very friendly fight where they both stop before hurting the other.
Zaim İpek
Nat should find a way to persuade Leticia to give him lessons on mana manipulation. Her mana manipulation seems like it's around lvl 70. Every single thing she does with mana seems to be faster, smoother, and generally higher lvl than what Nat is capable of right now. He could probably offer her some items or something in exchange. She is obviously a natural genius at mana, but I also wonder what kind of training she does. Genius alone doesn't produce those kinds of results without lots of effort. I'm curious about Luna's sound manipulation ability. She is only using it as a voice now, but that could be an extremely effective weapon. And as soon as Biscuit sees it, he will learn how to do it and just call everyone an asshole. 😂 I think Luna will instantly fall in love with Biscuit when she sees him in the tournament, because he is such a handsome boy. She will be all "Notice me, senpai! Kyaaa!".
Andrew
Thank you!
TBONEMAN
biscuit vs luna during the next tournament
Ken Horne
(Asshole!)
Augustus
It could also be a variation of a thermal or heat crown with the mana crown storing mana this crown could have been alter to rapidly absorb heat allowing the wielder to freeze things.
anonymous patreon
Absorbing kinetic energy from movements of his opponent becomes more difficult the stronger that enemy is. They can have passive or active skills or traits against that. Against certain opponents it’s just more effective for Nat to do something else he is more used to. Ofc it could still work if he spends more time working on it. I just like when other characters are also powerful and might have way to counteract abilities Nat has - it’s more logical that way - for some characters i also like to think of their “build” and their weaknesses and the ways they went about to negate these weaknesses
Tsorov
We always knew that Nat wasn't perfect in all regards. As for Primordial ice: I don't think it exist, it is after all just the abscense of thermal mana. The most important factor was the ice crown. We know all crowns except mana have special abilities, or at least known special abitilies, the ability to freeze mana would fit right in
ZaA
Is Nat just not absorbing enemies kinetic energy anymore or what? Feels like you were heading in the direction of freezing enemies by stealing their kinetic energy and then just stopped using it for that. Using it to absorb someone's energy and then return that into countering the movement of what's left would make physical builds basically useless against him, and if he can detect the energy he should be able to sense all movement within his range, even if it doesn't involve mana. Hope he works in his kinetic energy cause it's an insanely strong thing that you/your character is basically just using as fire.. so much.. potential (wink wink)
Midy
Luna herself making sounds by vibrating air with telekinesis ?
Oskar Malim
Biscuit best doggo in the tutorial.
Dreyday
Primordial ice element then? Surprised that lurker was such a challenge to Nat. Although lately it’s starting to feel like Nat has more well rounded abilities and not just a mana maniac. First he was practicing his kinetic energy, is he going to be practicing thermal after this round of beyond? Will he now learn primordial ice as well? Seems like Leticia and Derrick have a better grasp on mana than Nat does in some regards.
Belmont Igneul
Luna is a bit sassy
Mato
Woof!
Dandaveeto
I would love to see when Luna meets biscuit
jj
Did Lucien give Luna a human larynx? Is Nat playing a prank through Ley Line? Or is there a Mind Mage lurker that has taken control of the group and started a group hallucination? Tune in tomorrow to find out!!
