Chapter 120

Lykan

Powering Up

Lykan had long ago reached the point where he maxed out the blessings that the Gods could give him for improving his body. The sad part was, it wasn’t until he got near the end of maxing out his Attributes that he realized what it was the Gods looked for. He was certain that some people knew what the Gods wanted and kept the secrets of power to themselves and their families.

The Azani were the first group that came to mind, when thinking of groups that benefited the most from the blessings of the Gods. The fact that the Patriarch and his direct descendants were all powerhouses was an unspoken truth of the world. No one knew how they all got so powerful, yet even as Nayali was considered one of the weakest of the direct branch members was more than powerful enough to nearly cripple Lykan when they first fought.

Thinking back on the first duel with Nayali he had been outclassed in terms of power and attributes. Only by the miracle of multiple advanced skills did Lykan even survive the encounter, let alone win. Though that win was costly. Had he known back then that all he had to do was kill a few dozen dragons to be able to survive and he would have done so, easily. Yet he didn’t know, for no one spoke of such things.

Even now Lykan realized that he was being hypocritical, for he too knew the secret. He had known this fact for close to seven years, to get the Gods blessing was simple. Kill beings that are either Titans, or brought here by the Titans and you will be blessed by the Gods. Shutting down their constructs, like the qi pillars that occasionally pop up, or their dungeon labyrinths will also earn blessings from the Gods. It was all so easy.

Looking back, the Gods didn’t care about who ruled, nor why. All they cared about was the fact that a ruler would try to fix the land, which in this case basically meant purifying it of qi.

At this point having qi cultivators in the world was nearly impossible to avoid. This Lykan figured was why he had been seemingly selected by the Gods to undergo the transformation into a qi cultivator. While he did miss the versatility and protection that his mana had offered him. He found his new life was acceptable. He was after all able to fly with his mana.

In a way he felt bad for Brenna, as she would not be able to fly his way. Her entire race seemed to be lacking that deep spiritual connection to mana. Which in a way was a good thing, if she was to be a labyrinth diver, like him. He had watched her, tested her conviction. It was one thing to say you wanted to follow someone who protected you. It was another thing entirely to seemingly give up your full life and devote every waking moment to a new cause that didn’t quite make sense. In a way, that conviction to her word was what caused Lykan to begin offering meal supplements. He spiced her meals with qi, to see what effect it would have on her body.

To Lykan’s surprise, Brenna’s body seemed to be able to naturally absorb qi. Not just pulling the qi into her core for circulation, but into her bones and muscles. While Lykan had to focus on weaving qi strands into his body, hers did so naturally. While Lykan found it a process to change his very being, he saw the ease to which her body took to qi. He initially felt jealousy with her ease of qi, but soon got rid of that thought. He realized that she was perfect, a perfect assistant for what he wanted to do.

Rather than having to start from scratch and work her way up, like Lykan did. She would be able to start leagues and bounds ahead. In fact she was almost at the point where she could form her first core, despite her body’s constant stealing of qi. This was why Lykan decided to do his next phase of the plan right now.

Increased Attributes were great, as many skills one could learn and the speed with which one could learn skills and magical abilities often depended on different Attributes. All Attributes could be increased by killing creatures linked to the Titans, like killing the monsters of this labyrinth. The only problem was, one often needed high skills and magical abilities to even attempt to kill a monster that were part of the different biomes brought here by the titans. This meant that only the best of the best could then improve themselves, meaning only a scant few would be able to reach true greatness.

This was a vicious cycle that Lykan mentally referred to as the experience cycle. The cycle being one needed to have a great deal of aptitude and skills to begin with, in order to gain more Attributes. Then once one gained Attributes, gaining skills and magical abilities became easier, which then led to getting more Attributes.

Fortunately for Brenna, Lykan had his own ideas for how to break the cycle. The process would be simple, find the biggest, baddest monster of the labyrinth, and hold it down while Brenna killed it. The idea was simple enough, and Lykan found his Attributes, Skills, and Abilities more than capable of handling the task. The only problem was that most of the easy and mid-tier monsters were far weaker than Lykan had first thought. Most simply died by the process of extraction. This was not a complete waste however, as most of these monsters were used as the meals being fed to Brenna.

Finally after a few tries, Lykan decided that only the largest and deadliest of monsters would suffice. The only problem, the monster in question was a modified earth-wyrm dragon. While dragons themselves were not an issue, what was an issue was the burrowing capabilities of these earth-wyrm dragons. Many had ways of digging through earth like they were swimming through ocean waves. Even luring them out with food seemed to be tough as none wanted to deal with an Apex predator like Lykan. Even going invisible didn’t help as the monsters, while having eyes didn’t seem to use them. Instead they seemed to use the organs to detect heat, which Lykan still hadn’t gotten the hang of hiding from. So it was that earth-wyrm dragons proved to be particularly elusive, especially given that Lykan couldn’t just kill the monsters. Instead, he not only had to get them to the surface, but then knock them out so he could drag them up the few floors to where Brenna was practicing.

Slurp.

The wyrm was so long that part of it still needed to be dragged on the ground. What was odd, or at least a part that Lykan found odd was the way the wyrm was still wet. It was wet and slimy the way a real earth worm would, though hundreds of times larger and more ferocious than the one that was native to the planet.

“Warning. Containment Breach. Warning!”

The alarms went up, as the facility responded with an alarm. Sighing to himself Lykan realized his mistake. The active alerts like this were only related to the facilities that were the most active. Normally removing a biome creature would not be a problem, though looking back it might have been a problem, but the facility didn’t have enough energy to worry about such aspects. Regardless of the case, the facility had recognized the breach and Lykan knew from experience that he had to respond before defensive mechanisms awoke to kill the creature he had worked so hard to remove from the biome. Fortunately Lykan found the response needed for such an event years ago, while hunting for food.

“Lab specimen.” Lykan answered back in the high wood elf language.

With that the alarms that had begun to blare, settled down and the hallways were once again quiet. Off in the distance he could hear people yelling in dwarven. Fortunately for Lykan he went through an emergency hatch that sealed right behind him once he and his still semi-unconscious specimen went through. That was another thing about these facilities, they were all the same. The emergency hatches were all in the same areas. The sections of walls that could be turned into doors, and then back to walls were all the same. Even the layouts of the different biomes and control and training rooms were the same. There were still a few facilities that Lykan didn’t quite understand, but he figured having someone else to explain himself and what he thought of different places would be a great boon. Which was only more of a reason why he wanted to have someone like Brenna by his side.

Lykan got to the training room, and just like always he took a moment to scan the far room for qi. This was the most basic way to use his Magical Ability of Qi Sensing, but he had grown by leaps and bounds by doing such simple things.

Rustle.

The monster was stirring, fortunately for Lykan it seemed that Brenna just failed in her movement tasks. So Lykan used this moment to open up the door and walk through. He wondered how much of an increase Brenna would be able to gain by this process. So he pulled the giant serpent in, then to his surprise the serpent coiled up and prepared to strike. Lykan was about to strike when he heard Brenna scream out.

Quickly turning his attention to Brenna to see if she was alright, he lost sight of the monster within his grasp. One quick glance showed she was okay, but the deed was done as the monster was already in motion. Like a coiled spring the monster lunged forward and mouth open wide snapped its mouth shut around Lykan. At least it tried to.

Moving quickly, Lykan too his bo-staff that had been mostly held under his arm during this process, and infused the staff with qi. Then moving quickly spun the staff around, so it would brace itself within the giant earth-wyrm’s maw.

CHOMP!

The maw clamped down, but then there was a grinding as Lykan turned the staff to its widest point. At this the wyrm let out a hiss of pain, but Lykan kept turning the glowing staff. Within half a second the staff had been turned and the serpent’s jaw was forced wide, too wide to remove the staff easily. A long tongue shot forward, trying to dislodge the splinter from its mouth, only to find its tongue getting seared off by intense heat that was pulsing through the staff.

“Strike it.” Lykan shouted, not knowing how much longer he could keep the stupid creature from trying to kill itself. Already, its tongue was sliced off, while the top and bottom of its mouth were being burnt away from the areas where it touched the burning hot staff.

Self-skewered. That was the word Lykan would use to describe the current predicament that the serpent found itself in. The monster tried to pull away, but Lykan reached out and grabbed the burnt husk of a tongue before it could. The staff was too hot, and as it was currently if the serpent pulled away it would only rip out most of its mouth in the process. If it did that, then Lykan didn’t know if he could hold it still long enough for Brenna to get a killing blow in.

Thwack, squish. Thwack, squish.

Thick meaty slashes could be heard. With each strike a ray of light would shine brightly within the cavern that Lykan now found himself in. Each one caused the monster to wriggle in pain, but Lykan held the burnt tongue firm, as he released the heat he was pushing into the staff and now just held the staff down with his feet while he tried to keep the wyrm from wriggling too much.

It was a long bloody fight. Brenna clearly needed more practice with the axe as many slashes either bounced off or skidded wildly. Especially as Brenna began to tire.

Smack.

“Ahh!” Brenna screamed as the monster clearly used its flailing tail to strike at Brenna.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Brenna said, as she got to her feet. With Lykan’s Qi Sensing, he could see the entire battle playing out. And finally decided to offer guidance.

“Strike it in between the eyes. That is where its brain will be.”

“What about you? Will you be okay?” Brenna asked.

Shaking his head, Lykan rolled his eyes. He had already been here at the heart of the battle for how long now? And now she asked if he would be okay?

“I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Okay.” Brenna said, before she let out a “Hiya!”

“Grr-ah!”

“Watch out, it is preparing to strike again.” Lykan shouted out, as he saw the tail coiling up to strike out again.

Brenna looked up and was able to dodge the incoming strike this time as she darted around, striking the underside of the jaw. This time she used a downward strike that opened up a meter long gash that allowed her to see Lykan. Her face brightened as she saw Lykan, only to fall to a look of confusion a moment later.

“You, you are okay?” She asked. Lykan who was just holding his position with a nonchalant attitude confused Brenna.

“Are you going to kill this thing, or not?” Lykan asked, burnt tongue in his hand as he locked eyes with Brenna. Brenna now visibly confused answered the only way she could.

“Right.” With that Brenna raised her axe again and swung out. Then having to dodge the tail again made her way to the top of the head where she once again tried to break her way into the cranial lobe of the beast.

It was a long, overly taxing fight, but finally after what felt like hours the beast finally stopped moving. There was a long silence, before Lykan asked.

Panting.

“Did you get a blessing from the Gods?”

“Huh?” Brenna asked, it was clear she was panting and likely still focused on the fight. So focused that she failed to notice. “WOOHOO!” She screamed excitedly. “Plus two to all Attributes.” She shouted out.

“Plus, two?” Lykan asked. He knew these were the ultimate predators of this place. He himself had a blessing for plus seven to all attributes when he accidentally killed the last one, not that the blessing did anything. But plus two?

“Yes, I assisted with killing a greater beast.” She said.

“Ah, an assist will only get you partial Attributes.” Lykan said out loud.

“Wait, but how will you get out?” Brenna asked as she went around to the underside of the maw, the one where Lykan could still be seen. Lykan for his part just reached for the hole and began tearing apart the strips of flesh until an opening wide enough for him to get through was available. He was covered in grime and some type of oily residue that caused him to stink fiercely.

“You um…” Brenna began trying to congratulate him on surviving, only to move her hands over her nose to block the smell.

“I’m going to go clean myself.” Lykan said, pulling his staff out of the hole at the base of the serpent’s lip. “Keep practicing.”

With that Lykan began to leave the training area. Then as an afterthought he dragged the earth-wyrm carcass out as well. It left a bloody slime filled trail in its wake.

“Cleaning Droid needed.” Lykan said, and with that the walls opened up and a number of cylindrical devices came from the wall.

“Eek!” Brenna shouted.

The sound was so comical that Lykan couldn’t help but laugh. He turned to lock eyes with Brenna as if to ask, are you serious?

Seeing his eyes, she visibly tensed up. Then looked down in shame.

“They are just cleaning drones, completely harmless.” Lykan said in dwarven. Only after he left did he realize that Brenna had no real way of knowing what those things were. Still it was fairly funny. Also he thought she could use the experience for keeping him in that beast’s mouth for so long. Now that he could feel the cool air blow on the slowly drying slime on his arms and neck he felt disgusting.

So it was that he left the training areas. Went through the different emergency exits, passing by different groups of dwarfs who were out to prove their name. All while dragging a dead and bleeding earth-wyrm wherever he went.

The dwarfs who saw him wanted to speak, to ask what he was doing, but all ultimately just shut their mouths and watched as the man nonchalantly passed them. All while seemingly oblivious to their being there. To his defense he didn’t pay the dwarfs any mind, as he was solely looking for a room where he could shower and clean up from the slime that was causing his clothing to stick to his body.