《Awakening of a Monster》Chapter 12 - Weapon
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Amon looked at the storage room and felt the hidden killing intent and bloodlust from the multitude of weapons hidden within it.
Feeling the air full of those things, Amon felt like he was a fish in water; he felt at home. The others, however, were all pale and seemed like they were being pressured massively. Amon was surprised to see Lilith, a Demon like him, being pressured as well.
Sasha was the only person other than Amon that didn't seem pressured but she didn't seem as unfettered as Amon, however.
Sasha gave the others a bracelet that seemed to take the pressure for them before they all walked in. As they entered the first floor, Sasha started explaining about the storage room "As you can feel it, this place has a Field around it that takes the inherent bloodlust from a weapon and boosts it and focuses it on whoever enters here." everyone had expressions of realization on their faces.
Seeing that they understood, Sasha carried on "There are 5 floors, each with more and more pressure and bloodlust on it but the higher the floor, the better the weapons you'll find up there. But beware, each time you enter a floor, your bracelets won't block any of the pressure for a full minute, so you'll have to withstand it on your own." Sasha's word caused a bit of surprise to flash across the others faces.
They were under the impression that they'd just be walking in and picking a weapon, not being tested once again.
Amon, not wanting to wait, entered the storage room before all the others, seemingly excited at the thought of getting a weapon.
As he entered the first floor, Amon instantly disregarded it and walked up the stairs to the second floor; the first floor didn't affect him so the weapons must be pretty trashy. If anyone knew what he'd just thought, they'd go completely red in anger. Every weapon in the storage room was superior in quality to normal weapons regardless of the floor it was from.
Amon also skipped past the second floor as the pressure just felt a little more thick, not stopping any of his movements, so he disregarded the weapons on this floor as well. The same went for the third floor as well.
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But when Amon reached the fourth floor, the pressure increased by so much that even Amon's knees buckled a little. Amon felt like he was on an ancient battlefield, surrounded by mountains of corpses and rivers of blood but contrary to what a normal person would look like, Amon had a crazily excited face as he wondered; If this is what the fourth floor is like, what's the fifth floor gonna be like?
Amon got used to the pressure slowly as he walked up the staircase to the fifth floor, as he was walking he felt something weird happen.
His body's cells seemed to be ravenously devouring the surrounding bloodlust, as they'd finally found something akin to a delicacy to them. The bloodlust seemed to feed his cells, and these cells seemed to generate endless energy and vitality.
Amon was surprised by this and decided to try something out when he reached the fifth floor.
At the top of the staircase, Amon looked into the fifth floor without entering it. What he saw were many peerless weapons, each with a description next to them and each weapon seemed like it was bathed in oceans of blood and personally made mountains of corpses which would reach the skies.
Amon took his first step into the floor and felt the pressure all hit him at once, it was at least twentyfold more intense than the pressure on the fourth floor. But this didn't deter Amon in the slightest, he instead walked a few more steps in and sat down in a meditating position.
Running his Breathing Technique, Amon saw that not only did he drag in Magic Energy, but he also pulled in some kind of Blood energy as well.
The Blood energy nourished his bones, muscles and the rest of his body and what wasn't absorbed by his body immediately was kept inside his cells and would be absorbed over time when the cells needed extra energy.
After storing as much Blood energy as he could, Amon was pleased with his stronger body which allowed him to better resist the pressure.
In fact, it wasn't his body strength that helped him resist the pressure but because his affinity to Blood was constantly being upgraded by absorbing the Blood energy and this allowed him to walk through the bloodlust and pressure that came with it like it wasn't there in the first place.
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Amon looked around at the weapons, seeing slender swords and rapiers which he instantly crossed off the list because they looked like they'd snap under his strength.
The next thing he looked at was the big swords, like massive slabs of sharpened metal. Amon was tempted for a brief moment before moving onto the next section of weapons. While these weapons would show the full potential of his power, he had no weapons training and he'd be behind others who have training in the weapons if he decided to pick up a weapon now.
So Amon had one option; Gauntlets.
These would help him use his hand to hand techniques without him having to worry about his fingers getting chopped off by some bladed weapon. The only problem with that was that there didn't seem to be any Gauntlets on the fifth floor.
After looking all over the floor, Amon finally found what he wanted and excitement bubbled up from his core when he saw it.
The pair of gauntlets looked incredibly unique. Mainly because they didn't just cover the hands and forearms but would cover all the way up to the shoulder. They were as black as night and could only really be seen because of the light reflecting off of them.
On the elbow, there was a black spike protruding from it, it curved slightly towards the shoulder joint. Each segment of armor looked incredibly sharp and looked like not much could cause it to be dented or even scratched. It didn't even look like it'd be possible for someone to move their arm with it on because of it's lack of joint openings which allowed movement, instead it just looked like plates of sharp metal stuck together.
The hands of the gauntlet looked exactly like a person's hands except that the knuckles were armored heavily protruded like they were made to cause damage.
Amon walked over to the Gauntlets and picked them up before putting them on. They were a bit tight but before he could try and take them off, they latched into his skin causing him to let out a roar of pain.
The sound of metal bending and tearing sounded out throughout the entirety of the fifth floor, along with roars of pain as well.
Before long, Amon felt the pain slowly stopping and looked at the gauntlets on his arms that had grown in size to fit his arms perfectly. Amon looked at the fingertips and willed his claws to come out.
The metal magically moved out of the way of the claws that were making their way out of Amon's fingertips and once the claws were fully extended, the metal moved across the claws, supporting it like an exoskeleton but it didn't cover the whole claw, it left the edges and tip free of the metal covering.
Amon's claws blended perfectly with the gauntlet now, not only in color but also in appearance. The gauntlets looked like the arms of a fierce Demon, rather than metal gauntlets.
Amon, having picked his weapon, walked towards the stairs while reviewing some basic information he gained when the gauntlets merged with him.
The Gauntlets were called [Gauntlets of Abaddon] which explained Amon's sense of affinity with them. They were made up of a living metal that once merged with a host would grow stronger with them, Amon also learned that every weapon on the fifth floor was made of living metal and would merge with a user if they had an affinity.
Once he walked down to the fourth floor, he saw the others trudging up the stairs like Zombies. When they saw the carefree Amon, with his Demonic-looking Gauntlets, they could only look at him in Envy.
Amon smirked at their expressions before telling them to try and get weapons on the fifth floor because they were far superior to the rest of the weapons in the storage room.
After they nodded and carried on, Amon kept walking down the stairs until he came to the exit, where he walked out and decided to test the destructive power of his newly-acquired Gauntlets.
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The Abyssal Dungeon
The world of Vol, a huge, bountiful plane where the only constant is life, in its many, many forms. One such form is a dungeon core, a peculiar little gemstone, and the focus of our attention. Watch as this otherwise unremarkable gem awakens in one of the most resplendant places in Vol, an aptly named Mana Reef, and how it turns its simple hole in the ocean floor into something truly unique, all while the rest of the world is forced to deal with its growth. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is my first venture into writing for fun, and I'm hoping to keep this running until I run out of juice. With that said, I very much enjoy dungeon core novels, and wanted to do one a bit outside the norm. Hope you enjoy! If you want to come stop by the discord, I know we'd all be more than happy to welcome you! https://discord.gg/pcR5g5XX8h
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8 123NOVA INTERIT.US
It's 2063, and the town along with much of the nation are in disarray. The decay started years before the Great Event. Our town still had hope thanks to the five families, who'd created a blockchain based water distribution system for the locals, a valuable secret hidden from the Global Water Commission and their network of mercenaries. Earlier in the mid-2040's, right after the state secessions of Idaho, Montana, and Texas, the Global Council of Water Commissioners made their deals and moved into towns throughout the country. They called it "the integration." The Commission and their contractors integrated with municipal water departments, using their organized network to invade like parasites on local services. It all coincided with the 29th Amendment to the United States Constitution, later referred to as the Regional Trident Plan. Nova is a story about survival, power structures, the turning of relationships, and the networking between people and the systems to which they belong. It’s about A.I. blockchain possibility, and its potential for human betterment versus our detriment. It’s about the question of whether or not we need to be saved from ourselves, and by who or what? The Great Event at the end of the first chapter might just be what actually saves us. The epilogue will take place in 2517. This scene is fully sketched and the full arc of the novel is set. I expect to finish Nova Interitus by summer of 2023. This is realist hard-sci-fi dystopian fiction. I hope you find Nova to be a challenging and consuming story. This is not something I planned to write. It all came to me in a dream and I haven't been able to stop writing it. This Royal Road posting is basically a beta test with chapters and drafts to get some feedback and see if there's any readership for this narrative. For the full experience read Nova on Substack. I will be narrating a podcast version later this year there. https://novainteritus.substack.com/
8 143Other Tales of En
Welcome to The Other Tales of En, a place where I put short stories that didn't get to be told in the main series. These are scenes and tales of characters I just had to have more of, moments I needed to see, and self-indulgent interactions. I hope you love them as much as I do! Chapters are labelled with initials of the Tale first and have notes for their beginning and end. Any chance of spoilers are listed for each tale below as well as their initials. TABLE OF CONTENTS Tale 1: Taff and Adon (T&A) The tale of when Taff and Adon first met. Slight spoilers for Starchild but not really, let's just say Adon's version of the story in Stormspeaker wasn't *quite* accurate ;) Tale 2: Vai and Echa (V&E) The tale of the meeting everyone tried to prevent. It was bound to happen and this is how it went. Spoilers for Children of the Bear, particularly Fiona's Tale, I recommend reading when you are finished with that series. Tale 3 [IN PROGRESS]: Echa and Tryst (E&T) The tale of how the cowardly pirate and the bitter slave fell in love.
8 144Scraprats
The name's Eileen, I'm a scraprat, that means my job is to track down all those rotten hulks people leave all over the cosmos. Maybe even sometimes the crew with them. As for the ship? She's the Reliance, one-time Dreadnought class warship, now, floating scrapyard. Apparently, somebody decided after all these years she's worth something, so let's try to keep her from being used to repay my debts so I can keep repaying, no ship, no job, no little luxuries like air, or water. No mean feat when your fees are due to go to Tyr, he makes most loan sharks seem like goldfish, and will take payment by the installment plan. (I like all my installments, especially ones like kidneys, and tech replacements are pricey.) So let's make a to do list 1. fix ship 2. pay off the "loans". 3. Try not to get hunted down for the technology my ship planted in me without telling me............. Well that's new.
8 207Wizards Go Muggle
Being forced to attend a school full of muggles had never been in Harry's plan for Fifth year. Having to hide his secret along with protecting his new-found muggle friends from the return of You-Know-Who was proving to one of the most difficult tasks the Boy Who Lived would face. Will he be able to maintain his secret? Or is this the end of it all?(5th Year)(Cover by Pottertrash99)
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