Chapter 81: Lightning Devastation

It wasn’t hard to get to the doors, a straight path after descending a small flight of stairs. The bigger problem was the small army of changed humans. Killing them was one thing, and with Red and Luke, they could survive their attacks, but it felt wrong. With the knowledge that they were people, it made it harder to commit to carving their way past them.

“We have to do it. It’s the only way to save everyone else, and you all know it.”

Red spoke up, meeting each of their faces in turn. The words were true but didn’t make the situation any better. Jill said as much too.

“I don’t care if I know it. I still can’t…”

She didn’t finish her statement, instead, she shut her mouth leaving the rest unsaid. Mash knew what she wanted to say, but kept his mouth closed as well. No words would change their actions. Earlier, Jill had teleported Luke beside the half-turned child, to see if he could heal them with his soul magic, but it didn’t work. Whatever the changes had done to them, had broken their souls as well. The way Luke described it made it sound like their souls were torn apart like scraps of paper. Mash wondered if the attack that had hit him had done the same, but Luke said he didn’t know since they had dealt with it so quickly.

Mash decided he would treat these people as already being dead and stepped down the stairs. The others followed somberly behind him. He thought of something and spoke aloud for the benefit of his friends.

“Priscilla, please give me the biggest, most powerful attack you can think of.”

The others looked at him but nodded along in agreement. They didn’t care about the levels or rewards, instead just wanting to finish this quickly. Luke and Jill would fall behind, as they lacked powerful area attacks like Mash and Red, but they gave no protest to his plan. None of them wanted to kill these people, even if the class system was being generous with its levels.

Priscilla told him that it would take a minute and would drain him rapidly. Any monsters that lived would likely rush towards them, but he didn’t care. Jill, Luke, and Red could handle those and followed her outline with his energy. It started by forming a large version of Priscilla but mutated into a broken mess where the mouth would normally be. It was smaller than he expected but the internal design was different from anything he had done before. Lightning bounced around inside as he started producing it. More and more energy vibrated within his creation, parts of the lightning were visible through the wood.

Quickly, faster than ever before, he had drained the majority of his energy. Priscilla didn’t stop though and continued to ask for more. Mash followed her instructions, as she sent him the message.

“Don’t stop, keep pouring energy out. Even after your skill triggers, try to resist falling unconscious for as long as possible.”

Priscilla sounded strained but managed to send the message across clearly. Without any reason to disagree, Mash did so, feeling the effects of persist kick in during the process. When it happened, he felt like he could go forever but knew why he shouldn’t. The more energy he used after the skill was triggered, the longer he would be unconscious for. So, he stopped when he felt like it would be too dangerous to continue, letting the unconsciousness of the skill claim him. He would leave the rest to the others.

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Luke’s P.O.V

Luke had never seen this creation from Mash, and he shivered a bit at the sinister design. After getting to know Mash, Luke knew that he wasn’t a monster or evil, but his techniques were all monstrous. This one was particularly bad. It started as a normal replica of Priscilla, it was weird that he was familiar to those now, but it had changed into a broken head section with many sharp points sprouting from where the head would be. Furthermore, it sounded like it was growling as he poured his mana into it. It shook too, making it feel particularly alive, and even without a skill for it, he knew not to stand near that thing. Red wanted to fire a volley of blood needles but needed to get prepared for the melee that would follow Mash’s attack.

Even with all of Mash’s power, he couldn’t kill all the monsters here. That was a frightening notion, as he saw Mash kill over a thousand monsters yesterday. Luke knew that he was not the powerhouse of the group and recognized that Mash was the best against hordes of monsters, but yesterday's fight had been ridiculous. That was not something anyone at their rank should be able to accomplish. Luke would normally write something like that off as Mash’s luck in his skills and items, but he knew better than that. Mash trained inhumanely hard and sought out every opportunity to get stronger. His idea of a break had been to train under Jack and explore dungeons. This visit to the capital had quickly become just as busy as their usual routine, maybe even busier.

Well, that was a topic he could bring up later, for now, he watched as Mash’s creation seemed to be changing color from the power within, a bluish tint shining within the wood. Luke watched the monsters, there were easily over a hundred of the things, and they were lined up nicely for Mash’s attack.

In an instant he was blinded, a white light erupting from somewhere. His eyes stung, and he started healing them reflexively. But then a sound came, and he fell backward as his eardrums burst. Luke barely thought, activating his buffs and starting to heal himself rapidly. Someone had attacked them, and Mash had been completely vulnerable. Panicked, he sprung to his feet in a quick motion, waiting for his eyes to heal. It only took a few heartbeats to heal, but it felt like it lasted an eternity. Then he saw it and froze, realization dawning on him. They had not been attacked; it was the opposite. Mash’s attack had been so powerful, that they were damaged by the residual effects of it. Red was already moving heal Mash, whose ears were bleeding freely. He was the closest to the attack, and was in urgent need of care, as he had no energy to heal his own wounds. Luke grabbed Jill, who was shaking her head and stumbling about blindly.

He had to dodge as she almost attacked him, though she managed to stop herself when the healing started. Luke looked over the battlefield next, taking in the sight that he had glimpsed before. Most of the monsters were dead, the floors and walls scored with burns, and some metal had even started melting in places. The front of Mash’s weapon was torn to pieces, but it had done its jobs. The monsters that got hit, were simply missing parts of their body, and every creature at least seemed damaged by the attack. A few were missing their human portions, and some had holes pushing through their entire body. Others were burned husks of once-living creatures, and several were letting out wails of pain. He didn’t know that they could make those sounds.

None of the sights could compare to the smell though. The smell of burning hair and flesh was intense, flooding his nostrils. He could feel the bile rising but kept it down. He would soon be in the thick of it, fighting those things at close range. At first, they had been concerned about him doing that, but they had tested it in the orphanage, and they found that whatever their attacks did, didn’t break through his soul defense skill. That fact would mean that he would be the sole defense for this fight, and he had to protect an unconscious Mash. The monsters didn’t rush them though, they still seemed stunned by the attack Mash had fired.

Luke couldn’t blame the things. Mash’s attack had to have been at least one or two ranks above what he should’ve been able to manage. If they could do that again for the warden, he didn’t think it would be much of a worry. In fact, they should probably do something like that for other dungeons as well. Although, that wouldn’t help the rest of them gain levels. Luke was curious to see how many levels Mash would gain from that attack, but that was a concern for later. He needed to clean up the rest of the things.

It wasn’t difficult to work to kill the remaining monsters, as they were mostly still stunned by Mash’s attack. The work was grueling though, as it involved trudging through patches of burning goopy flesh and killing monsters that only fought back when they got close. Any one of them could handle the monsters in a one-on-one fight and did exactly that killing the monsters three at a time.

It took around ten minutes to finish the remaining monsters, and each of them had gained at least two levels from the remaining monsters. That was a lot considering each fight was easy, and there weren’t that many monsters left. It really did seem like the class system or the one who made it was being generous to them for some reason. Luke guessed it probably had to with Mash, it was an assumption that tended to work in most situations.

Honestly, that was one of the reasons Luke liked sticking with Mash. He seemed to have a talent for finding himself in complex situations. Sure, they were in danger a lot, but he truly felt like he was living the life of an adventurer with Mash. Even if there were some bad parts, Luke didn’t think he would want to go back. He had asked around the past couple of days, trying to find a house for his parents. On the first day, he was simply refused and not allowed to purchase any of the houses around where Mash’s family was. However, the kingdom's sellers changed their tunes as they realized who Luke was associated with. From Mash’s family to his newfound position, Luke had several of the sellers he met with giving him incredible deals on the homes. He made his way back to Mash now, excited to hear about how many levels he gained.

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Mash’s P.O.V

Well, the result was expected and unexpected at the same time. Mash had killed a lot of the creatures, that much was obvious based on the carnage he saw below. He watched as his friends finished off the remaining monsters, amazed by the devastation of his attack. Priscilla had informed him that he managed to achieve the same power as her attack from before, and he was shocked to hear that. He didn’t think he could manage that without the wyvern scale, but it seemed unnecessary now.

The biggest concern for him now was leveling and recovery. For some reason or another, they had been gaining levels more rapidly within this dungeon and bet that his brother was in a similar situation. Not to mention the fact that his brother was able to enter the other dungeon, meant that these dungeons were actually for a rank above them. Either that or this wasn’t a real dungeon and there was another reason for the expedient level-ups. Too many questions, but now was not the time to figure out answers. Priscilla’s agitation at his aimless thoughts only reminded him of the fact. Focusing inwards he started the level up.

Name: Mash Class: Scale Wood Devourer

Level: 51 → 54

Health: 1190 / 1300

Energy: 79 / 2000

Fortitude: 124 → 124 + 6 → 130

Endurance: 82

Strength: 80 → + 5 → 85

Agility: 80 → + 4 → 84

Intelligence: 120 → 121

Wisdom: 71

Charisma: 65

Free Stats: 0 → 15 → 0