Chapter 184

Gaining Undercurrents (I)

Both Cain and Emma had to be extremely careful -- Cain even swiftly fashioned new Skills that didn’t deal a lot of damage while Emma removed most of her equipment from fear of accidentally flattening someone with an ordinary attack. After all, Cain surmised that the highest level of the group in front of them was somewhere in mid-twenties. Just a single ‘Coiling Storm’ was likely enough to obliterate half the group in the blink of an eye since a monster at level 25 and a person at level 25 had insanely different Health values. Cain suspected that nobody even cracked 2000.

As such, Cain didn’t even bother creating any ‘attacking’ skills -- mostly control that, occasionally, came with the miserable 200-300 damage affix.

“I just don’t understand something,” Emma pondered aloud. “Those two kids likely told them it was us who killed that big-ass thing. What in the ever-loving-scream-of-fucks makes them believe they can actually fight us, then?”

“Why not ask them?” Cain said.

“Considering they’re en-route to surround us like this is some common, everyday robbery, I don’t think they’re that interested in talking.”

“Not like,” Cain corrected. “This is some common, everyday robbery. And thus, it shall go folly!”

“Ugh...”

Cain casually used the skill he’d just created on the spot, consuming a good chunk of his Mana in the process.

//Anti-gravity Field(C)

Cast: Instant

Mana Cost: 150 per target within the Field

Cooldown: 1min

Use: Set out an anti-gravity field within 60 yards of yourself; for the next 13 seconds, you can control the strength at will, affecting targets of your choice. Enemies stronger than you can easily resist the effects, while those close in strength to you will adapt quickly.//

For the dramatic purposes, Cain also let the field affect the ground beneath; a surge of energy exploded with him at the center, rousing the booming winds. Earth cracked and splintered as chunks of dirt began to rise against the laws of gravity; they, however, didn’t remain solitary for too long -- within a couple of seconds, everyone else except for Emma found themselves launched good twenty feet into the air against their wills, at the mercy of rousing winds like withes.

Aghast, screams began to echo out and even Emma froze, glancing back; Cain looked a bit too much like a villain at the moment, his lips cracked into a wide grin, winds ruffling his hair and clothes, chunks of earth forming and floating around him. To top it off, he also had hands in his pockets.

“Dude,” she mumbled. “Jesus, chill. You’re having too much fun.”

“Oh, come on,” he rolled his eyes at her. “You’re just jealous.”

“... fuck. I actually kinda am.” Emma sighed.

Ten seconds passed quickly and Cain lowered everyone; each and every person remained plastered against the ground, not moving an inch. There was a lot of unsavory smells combining into an even more unsavory aroma, prompting Emma to frown and quickly glance at Cain who, sighing, fashioned a swift Skill to ‘lock up’ the stench as he didn’t have access to ‘Wind’.

Cain and Emma quickly went around the group and continued forward, having not said a single word to them.

“That class of yours really is fucking overpowered. You can just create whatever you want with no worry at all.” Emma said.

“Eh, it has it drawbacks,” Cain shrugged. “We just haven’t faced a powerful-enough enemy. I’m actually many, many times weaker now than I’ve been before. I’m far more reliant on items, titles, and even discovering new, Classless Skills than I’ve been before. Plus, I genuinely have no fucking idea how to unlock extra Elements. Most of my future class knowledge has been rendered moot, actually.”

“Oh, yeah,” Emma seemed to have just realized that. “Damn, now you have to rely on your talents? We’re fucked.”

“Ouch.”

“This was nice,” she said after having finished laughing. “I don’t think we’ve spent time like this, just the two of us... probably since we were both like 20.”

“... can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Ever... ever though about having another kid?”

“...” Emma stopped and looked at him, a strange look in her eyes.

“W-what?”

“Dude... are you... are you addicted to just increasing the number of kids you have?”

“... what?”

“I mean, sure, Lana’s your only biological one,” Emma said. “But you have like 4-5 on the side. And I’m like 100% certain you’ll keep adopting them. To make it easier, I think you should just open up the orphanage and have your pickings directly.”

“Why do you make it sound creepy?!!”

“Ha ha ha,” Emma laughed merrily as the two continued walking. “I’ll be honest, C’ -- I adore this new version of you. And Lana... Lana likely worships it. Even when it’s just the two of us, she can’t stop yapping about ‘daddy this, daddy that’. Don’t get me wrong,” she added in a slightly heavier tone. “I can’t be happy about all the hell you went through... but I can at least be happy with its outcome. Without it, our little girl would have likely grown up into the type that marries a guy named ‘Bones’ and gets pregnant at the age of 16 only to die from heroin overdose by the time she’s 25.”

“... holy shit, that went dark real fucking fast.”

“That’s what she said--wait, no, that makes no sense...”

The two continued to chatter randomly as they made their way back, reaching the exit-entrance of the Tower swiftly enough and, coincidentally, landing out in the dead of the night, using it as a cover to sneak back into the compound as well as their apartments.

Though Cain had experimented some on their journey, he wasn’t entirely satisfied; his current style was, simply put, too boring. It had way too much downtime, where he’d be just standing around, doing nothing, which was almost antithetical to how he fought before the class ‘change’. He sighed, uncapping a can of beer as he sat onto the balcony while Emma went to sleep immediately. Lunging his legs over onto the railing, he looked up in silence, pondering. In many ways, he had to retrograde; keep the hard-hitters, but subside them with smaller chunks that allow a much freer style. After all, unless it was bosses, his current combo is even beyond an overkill in terms of the damage output -- it was simply not efficient. Furthermore, it was actually better to create skills which dealt flat 400-500 damage without Intelligence co-efficient since they’d effectively deal more damage over time due to their lower Mana demands.

Cain suddenly frowned; he’d grown exponentially more sensitive to Mana fluctuations since his Awakening, allowing to sense even the tiniest of changes within almost 20 miles radius. He tempered it, however, since he would have been bombarded with signals otherwise. As such, it was actually a rarity for something to trigger his senses -- but it happened.

Some four miles from his current position, he sensed abrupt choir of swelling Mana bursts -- sixty in total. They began low but grew at increased frequency, causing his heart to freeze for a moment. Abruptly creating a new Skill for flight, he flung himself from the balcony and took to the night’s sky, creating another skill in the process that allowed him to see long-distance.

His eyes bore through the miles of distance and locked onto a shadow-covered nook of the city where roughly hundred-and-fifty souls were currently standing, sixty of them charging a variety of Skills. It didn’t take him long to realize that those skills were aimed directly at the compound beneath him and no matter how tall and sturdy those walls were... they and buildings they were guarding would crumble.

Shit, he grumbled inwardly -- he began shuffling forward rapidly, creating a series of shielding Skills while also creating a whole heap of low-cost, low-damage skills. By the time he reached the outer walls of the compound, the first arsenal of the charged Skills came undone, flung toward him. With a low cry, he summoned the first series of shields.

//Spatial Devourer(C+)

Charges: 2

Cast: Instant

Mana Cost: 450

Cooldown: 15s

Use: Create a spatial shield at the targeted location that will swallow up to 4 offensive Skills of equal level, or 12 of lower level. Cannot swallow skills of higher level.//

Two ‘invisible’ shields appeared straight ahead of Cain just in time to meet the first set of 18 Skills -- luckily, every single skill in the world at the moment would be classified as ‘lower tier’ than any of Cain’s, even if their grades were higher, simply because he’d undergone his awakening.

At the same time, he launched a Skill of his own -- not offensive one, but a flare-inspired one that flew up high into the sky and burst into a booming explosion of light and sound. At the same time, he fashioned yet another worthless, utility Skill -- one that empowered his voice.

“WAKE UP, CITY OF ANGELS,” he screamed as loudly as he could, while also firing off ‘Infernal Starlight’ at the clumped-up group since the skill could strike up to 27 enemies, which was the highest count of all he had. “WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!!!”

His voice, in conjunction with the blinding light that turned the night into a day for a moment, worked wonders to wake the City up -- especially those just behind him as, a mere few seconds later, Senna, Jamal, Daniel, Emma, Kramer, Sigmund, and even Rick and good two hundred other Conquerors acting as guards of the compound came streaming out, startled. The first one to reach Cain was Senna as she could use her weapons to fly, with the others lagging slightly behind.

“What’s happening?” she asked worriedly.

“There’s a group of peeps attacking us,” Cain explained simply, just as ‘Infernal Starlight’ lurched through the smoky cover, revealing a set of confused and appropriately horrified souls. Arms dug out from the nether’s inferno, each terrifying in its own right, slapping the life out of everyone it touched. After all, each slap of the arm dealt approximately 1000 damage, and, outside of freak tanks like Emma and Kramer to a certain degree, most other people, even high-leveled ones, would be lucky to even hit 3000 health altogether. Since most of the Classes arms were attacking weren’t tanks but one version or another of long-ranged attackers, they began dying like flies.

“... the fuck did you wake us up for?!” Senna growled as she watched the ‘attackers’ die one after another, feeling somewhat bad for them even. “Shit, I was having a sweet dream, man!”

“Dude, I’m running out of Mana, go round up the rest; I don’t wanna kill ‘em all, I want some answers too! Shit, I was having a nice, deep thought session when the bastards attacked... my whole night is ruined, I tells ya!”

“Oh, shut the--” Senna, strangely enough, held back, clamping down. Cain noticed that she’d stopped cursing as much, at least in front of him -- and especially at him. “Khm, fine, I’ll just round ‘em up while you explain to the entire city why you acted like the biggest coward in the world. Be right back...”