“What now?”

It was a good question, wasn’t it?

They were stuck in the middle of the lake with the massive champion hidden in the depths and no way forward. In the very worst scenario, Keynes would pick Esopp up and fly him back to the coast but that would defeat the purpose of their mission.

After an hour, the situation started to get tiresome and Keynes tested a few ideas, most of them didn’t work out but then Alice brought up an interesting notion.

I think there is a purpose to the way this champion behaves…

She pointed out that the champion had tried to separate Keynes and Esopp and hadn’t threatened them directly as long as they were together. It appeared that this particular champion and challenge had a ‘weakness’.

“We can trick it,” Keynes said. “I believe it wanted to separate us for a reason. I can vanish from its senses without leaving the spot.”

Esopp mulled over the idea for a while then gave Keynes a go ahead. They were running out of patience and anything was better than waiting for the night to end. While a day would make the champion vanish, it would be replaced by countless smaller and not less dangerous creatures.

Keynes activated [Spiritual Ghost] and as he and Alice had predicted, the champion reacted immediately. Thin and half transparent tendrils shot out of the water and began creeping over the iceberg like vines. The main body of the champion also came nearer the surface.

“How close is it?” Esopp asked.

“Fifty metres below us, why?”

“When it’s going to be about ten metres, get out of here as fast as you can.”

So Esopp was going to use [Shatter] to explode the iceberg. That was an interesting idea for him to explore further. If he could create ice either through [Create Ice] or freeze [Create Water] and then use [Shatter] on the ice shards, it’d give him a path to create a powerful area damage spell.

“Ten metres,” Keynes said and not waiting for Esopp’s reaction, fled. As he flew, he realised he hadn’t asked Esopp if it was even safe for the other man. Then a deafening explosion rocked the lake behind Keynes. He had to dive into the water to avoid sharp shards.

The rush of essence told him that the champion was killed.

Bonus Mission (Kill all the sub-boss’ champions by yourself) has failed.

The message confirmed that it was the third and the last champion in the dominion. The failure to take it out stung Keynes a bit but he’d come to peace with the fact that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish much here.

A few moments later, he found Esopp unharmed drifting on a small iceberg. He must have created it after the first iceberg had shattered.

Without the champion, the unnatural currents vanished, leaving the lake to the whims of nature. They had no more issues getting to the island. Keynes half-expected the swarm to attack them but that wasn’t the case.

The island was itself rocky and almost vertical, but with receding darkness and very uneven surface, the rocky wall was easy to climb. On top of it, they found a thick forest surrounded by the natural wall of rock, the one they stood on.

The whole basin area before them looked strangely peaceful but unnaturally so. There was no chirping, humming or even rustling of leaves. Still, the forest looked healthy and lush.

“What now?” Esopp asked, earning himself a scowl.

“You like asking that, aren’t you?”

Esopp shrugged.

“I can barely see and it’s not like I’m going to be very useful to you once it comes to fighting the actual boss here.”

Keynes frowned. He didn’t expect this from Esopp but he sensed a hint of worry coming from the other man. It was unusual for Esopp to be so reckless with his emotions and Keynes gave him a long, musing look before they resumed their conversation.

“You’re worried you can die here.”

It wasn’t a question. Keynes felt it in his bones. He might have not seen it earlier because he had [Night Sight] and [Flight] and could always leave this place if things got hairy but others didn’t possess the same level of convenience and backup. And it wasn’t even their fault. The resources were extremely scarce. But not for Keynes.

He felt something hardened in him; a conviction.

He had to build a better, stronger and smarter team. People he could rely on, people he could trust his life with. Keynes didn’t tell any of this to Esopp. Not yet at least. It wasn’t the right moment for such a conversation and Keynes wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to accomplish this. On one hand, he could ask Wagner and others to find the candidates for him, on the other, there was something inciting about finding the right people on his own. He didn’t discard either option.

“I am,” Esopp admitted as he slowly sat down on a boulder with his legs crossed. “Serrata wasn’t wrong to leave, you know? This place is a deadly trap and we are like flies lured to sweet stuff hidden in the middle of a massive spider’s web. Before crossing the lake, I wasn’t so worried as I am now. That thing in the water was downright scary. It…”

Esopp fell silent then, after a shiver cut through his body, spoke up again.

“It invaded my mind and was one step from stopping me from activating [Shatter].”

I’d be a disaster, Keynes mused grimly. Mind attacks were bothersome.

“How close to the Medium stage?” he asked, steering the conversation away from the depressing outlook.

“Close.”

They stayed on the rocky wall for a while, recharging their stamina and mana. Once the first light broke out, they descended into the forest.

You have reached the first global sub-boss lair.

*

The lair has been reached.

The global message was sent out to all 103 people still inside the dominion.

“If Sael’s here, he will come,” Esopp grimaced. “And that’s the last thing we want.”

“He’ll try to ambush us and use his [Blink] to take you out first.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’d do.”

It was annoying to worry about other ascenders rather than the sub-boss itself but the dominion had made it clear from the start that every contender here was in competition.

At face value, the forest looked ordinary but it didn’t last long as the trees came to life and the two ascenders were forced to fight for their lives. At the periphery of Keynes’s senses, something flitted around, refusing to get closer. Alice was useless here, unfortunately. The whole forest was a spiritually blank slate to her.

“Trees again,” Esopp muttered. “I really need fire spells.”

Keynes couldn’t agree more. Even something simple like [Fireball] would make fighting trees less of a chore. The large trees were deadly but their attacks were slow and predictable. Especially to Keynes with his photographic memory and rapid learning buffs. Soon, the Vampiric Shortsword chopped and cut off thinner branches and roots, while Esopp froze and shattered the remaining trunks. His Talent was quite powerful even against the trees.

Interestingly, the dominion monsters, unlike the rift monsters, came with many different variations of the same subset of skills. In general, the trees had regeneration and durability related skills. It made the monsters’ attacks less dangerous but killing them was annoyingly hard.

On top of that, the dominion drained their stamina faster here and having all the monsters grouped up, quickly turned the attention of the entire lair on them. First came smaller, squirrel-like creatures, fast and evasive. Their attacks weren’t much but like the swarm above, killing them drained mana a bit faster than it should and Keynes was forced to keep using the shortsword, which was against his plans.

After the first thirty minutes of constant battling, both men had to climb up the rocky wall and out of the forest. Strangely, the monsters didn’t follow them.

Keynes breathed hard, cursing his lack of preparedness. Esopp fared better only because of [Endurance]. They took a position that allowed them to see any upcoming threats and rested.

When they felt ready, they hit the forest hard. This time, they were able to stand their ground despite the influx of monsters from the other parts of the forest. The key to this was to clear the trees and build up obstacles for the remaining ones. The trees proved to be poor with motion. Even freezing their bottom parts was enough to stagger them. And it had an additional benefit, as long as they didn’t kill the monsters, the Hateful Slayer wouldn’t activate and overwhelm them.

Gaming the system a little, the duo was able to reach the halfway point when they stopped to catch their breath. It was also the moment their enemy decided to reveal himself.

Syberius Sael [Blink]ed in between them and as they’d predicted went after Esopp first.

The Level 8 was faster and stronger than either Keynes and Esopp but Syberius’s attack, while passed through Esopp’s defence, didn’t manage to knock him out. This gave Keynes an opening and he blasted his spiritual aura with all might he was left with.

If not for the dominion’s debuff’s Keynes would surely be able to do more than annoy the Level 8. While his spiritual attack was mostly shrugged off by Syberius Sael, it stirred the forest around them. Monsters answered Keynes’s unintentional invitation to play.

“That was stupid,” Syberius Sael hissed then [Blink]ed out of the clearing, into the sky where he was immediately swarmed with little flying monsters.

“You alright?” Keynes asked, not peeling his eyes off Syberius. That man wasn’t going to leave them alone.

“Sort of,” Esopp mumbled and Keynes felt that the other man had been hurt. Without innate regeneration, Esopp wouldn’t be able to recover his health, endangering his life. Not all was lost though. Keynes still had the Liquid Health flask. It only recovered 25% of max HP but that was better than nothing. Keynes had hoped to keep it to the very end and use it in a case of emergency but he wanted Esopp in the fight with the sub-boss.

“Catch,” he threw the bottle to Esopp. “Drink it.”

“That’s better,” Esopp said, joining Keynes in his observation. After a moment, he asked. “What’s he doing?”

“He must have killed a few of those little monsters too many and doesn’t have mana to [Blink] away. I guess, his [Flight] will stop working and he’ll drop into the forest.”

“Do you want to find and eliminate him?”

Keynes shook his head.

“Without mana, he won’t survive.”

“I am not so sure,” Esopp massaged his cheek where a bruise remained. “His speed surprised me. He must have a lot of good items on him. It’d be a shame to leave them here.”

Keynes considered the idea but eventually rejected it. Whatever items Syberius had were not worth their effort. And if Esopp was right, it would bring them into a direct confrontation with Syberius Sael again, which neither man wanted. It turned out that their wishes didn’t amount for much and as Keynes had predicted, Syberius Sael ran out of mana and dropped to the ground but did so near them.

Neither Keynes nor Esopp engaged him though as the monsters reached them first and they were forced to defend their position. They felt Syberius’s [Poison Aura] spread but thankfully it didn’t reach them. While idle, auras weren’t draining mana or stamina, they were uncontrollable in a way that could cause more harm than good. This was especially true in Keynes’s case where his [Chaos Aura] would also affect the environment around him. If Syberius’s [Poison Aura] worked the same or similarly to Vivena’s then it would only affect the living creatures, leaving the environment untouched.

But right now, the fact that Syberius Sael could use [Poison Aura] to kill the monsters worked against him. Keynes and Esopp saw the opportunity there and went for it. Keynes used [Spiritual Ghost] while Esopp froze every monster that approached him, creating an igloo of sorts.

The moment the first bunch of creatures dropped dead to [Poison Aura] the dam broke and hundreds of monsters were lured by the Hateful Slayer debuff. Syberius raged, doing everything he could but he was out of mana and the number of monsters only grew as his aura killed everything around him.

Keynes watched him from the top of the igloo. It wasn’t the prettiest way to go as the Level 8 was quite durable and the amount of monsters needed to overwhelm him was substantial. If not for the debuffs, Keynes was sure that Syberius Sael would have gotten out of this alive.

But today it was not meant to be. It was also a showcase of what would happen if Esopp and Keynes were to kill the monsters mindlessly…

Keynes frowned as something was happening beneath him.

Noooo…

I think Esopp Earl has reached the Medium stage.

That was the worst timing ever!