Chapter 229: Advanced Shield Mastery Pt.1

Quest: Close the Voidrift within 15 minutes.

Objective: 0/1 Voidrift closed

Quest Giver: Advanced Mastery Dungeon

Reward: Shield Mastery(Advanced)

Difficulty: Extreme (III)

Restrictions: Shield Mastery(Intermediate): 150

Entering Unique Dungeon: Altar of the Maelstrom

Dungeon Option 1: Dying in this dungeon will reset the dungeon and eject you. Re-entry is possible after 1 minute.

Dungeon Option 2: Your equipment and available skills are altered while within this dungeon. Only Shield Mastery related skills, items, and abilities will be usable.

Dungeon Option 3: Pain threshold is set to and locked at 10 for the duration of this dungeon.

Dungeon Option 4: Attacks that hit your shields or guards will deal no damage.

Aegis quickly read the messages, then looked downward to confirm his claws had been removed from his hands. In addition, his red, salamander scaled leather armor was replaced by plain simple leather armor, and his mithral shield was replaced by a plain iron shield. A second later, the black darkness that surrounded him disappeared, and he appeared in the middle of a ruined street.

Everything around him was frozen and unmoving, but a countdown timer appeared in his peripheral vision.

Dungeon Will begin in 10… 9…

It was counting down the start of the scenario. Aegis had 10 seconds to take in his surroundings before everything would unfreeze and go into motion. In front of him, he saw 3 soldiers wearing equipment identical to his own, though unlike him they had spears. In the middle of the three, an elven priestess with long shining silver hair and pointed ears protruding out from under it was standing. All four of the NPCs were tagged as Elite and were frozen in poses that implied they were rushing toward down the streets in front of them.

Aegis looked down the street to get a sense of where they were heading - the ruins reminded him heavily of Belmiure in terms of the structures that lined the streets. Made of obsidian blocks, most of the buildings were crumbling to pieces, but unlike in Belmiure, the destruction appeared recent. The furniture within the buildings was not decaying or decrepit, and several of the buildings were on fire. Smoke was rising up in pillars all over the city, but it had nowhere to go as they were in a deep underground cavern - somewhere in the underrealm.

Despite all of these similarities though, with a few quick glances Aegis could tell that this wasn’t Belmiure exactly, but instead a city of possibly the same civilization in ancient times.

More distressing was that threats that Aegis was able to quickly perceive. The streets ahead of them on which the NPCS appeared to be running lead right up to a giant obsidian block chapel, of which the roof had been torn off and gigantic creatures were pouring out of it into the skies above the burning city. Aegis hadn’t countered many void creatures thus far, aside from Mosmir. There were Mosmir’s present, he saw them frozen in place as they scurried out of the destroyed chapel, but they were a minority and barely seemed to be a threat compared to the size of the other gigantic creatures climbing out of the building.

“Close the voidrift.” Aegis said to himself, taking a deep breath as his eyes glanced between the elven priestess, and the chapel. “She’s the closer. Gotta keep her alive.”

Dungeon will begin in 3… 2…

He fastened the straps on his ironshield onto his left arm tightly.

“Simple in concept…” he mumbled to himself, cracking his neck and preparing for the dungeon to begin.

1… 0.

The dungeon unfroze. Aegis broke into a sprint to keep up with the Priestess and three other knights that ran alongside her.

“If we don’t close it quickly, there won’t be anything left!” The priestess called out frantically. The guards were visibly terrified of continuing forward towards the chapel, but the priestess ran with determination. Aegis knew he couldn’t afford to hesitate, based on Baffo and Uggard’s descriptions of the quest. The sound of screaming filled his ears from the surrounding city. The familiar scurrying of Mosmir stampeding around the nearby streets caused the ground to quake, while vicious roars of peculiar void entities filled the skies.

One particular void creature, resembling a giant black stingray, suddenly burst out of the chapel a few 100 meters in front of them. It was initially small, with its side flaps furled inward, but as it got further into the sky above the city, it unfurled its flaps and extended a long razorsharp tail out of its back.

It had no eyes and no visible mouth, and its skin was odd - like a shimmering reflection of a night sky that was mesmerizing to stare at.

“DO NOT LOOK AT IT!” The priestess shouted in terror. Aegis quickly complied, looking down back towards the priestess, but one of the three guards was not so quick to follow his instructions. Mesmerized by the skin of the void stingray, he stopped running forward alongside the others and began staring blankly up at the void stingray, whilst its body seemed to expand in size as it soared high above the city within the gigantic underrealm cavern.

Seconds later, his skin went black, and shimmered in the same way as the void stingray. Then, he began to evaporate, his essence flying upwards towards the creature as his armor and shield fell to the ground - and his body was added to the creature as it grew in size.

“Fuck me.” Aegis mumbled to himself, as this single instance reminded him just how terrifying void creatures were, even in comparison to abysslings. Before he could fully take it all in, though, a Mosmir Soldier suddenly burst through the walls of one of the obsidian buildings lining the street, extending its pincers out in an attempt to slash at the Priestess. Aegis reacted quickly and dashed forward, swinging his shield up at the pincers and managed to brace the attack. Following this, though, another Mosmir appeared atop the buildings on the opposite side of the street, scurrying along the roofs.

It lunged down at them, attempting to slash at one of the other guards who hadn’t noticed its arrival. Aegis wiggled his fingers to cast guard and projected a shield in front of the guard and stopped the abduction. Just as the dungeon had said, he took no damage from either attack, and had a feeling that based on his armor he’d die in one hit if he ended up failing to block an attack with his shield.

The Mosmir soldiers were not about to give up after two failed attacks, though, and they began scurrying after the group as they continued running forward towards the chapel. Aegis covered their rears, blocking several more strikes from the pursuing Mosmir soldiers who were unfortunately much faster than the group. It was only several blocked strikes later that he heard a familiar air sucking, warping sound coming from the area in front of the group.

Aegis turned his head to look in front of the priestess and two guards, seeing that a Mosmir Voidreader had teleported onto the road in front of them, cutting off their path towards the chapel while simultaneously charging up a voidball within its shimmering black pincers and preparing it to fire it at them. The priestess and two guards froze, staring at it fearfully.

“Fuck if I’m gonna try blocking that shit ever again.” Aegis shouted, glancing between the terrified guards and yanking a spear out of one of their hands, then thrusting it over the Priestess’ head in the direction of the voidreaver. He recalled that any attacks directed at a Mosmir Voidreaver would interrupt its voidbeam attack as it would teleport away to dodge it.

It worked - as the poorly thrown spear flew through the air towards the voidreaver, it teleported off of the street and onto the roof of a nearby building, clearing the path before them.

“Go, run!” Aegis shouted desperately at the NPCs. Being Elite, they were able to overcome their fear thanks to his words while simultaneously AEgis was forced to turn back and focus on blocking two more strikes from the Mosmir soldiers behind him. After blocking them, the NPCs ran forward, and the familiar humming of a charging void beam could be heard from the voidreaver that now stood atop a building lining the street. This time, it was aiming its beam in Aegis’ direction.

He briefly glanced up at it, sighed in frustration, then bent his knees and prepared for what he had to do next.

Aegis jumped backwards to avoid two swipes of Mosmir pincers from the Soldiers, then dashed to the side as the Voidreavers beam shot out from its pincers and blasted into the obsidian paved street where he’d been standing. The beam was a channeled effect, meaning that so long as nothing interrupted the voidreaver, it would continue to aim the beam towards Aegis.

The last time he’d fought these, he had his companions with him to interrupt them, though. This time, he had nothing. The voidreaver adjusted the path of the beam as it blasted along the street, following Aegis and forcing him to continue running from it. The beam moved slower than Aegis, but wasn’t slow by any means as it pursued him, making a disturbing, sound absorbing hum that silenced the sound of Aegis’ own footsteps as his leather shoes tapped on the streets nearby.

“Keep running!” Aegis tried to shout to the NPCs in front of him, but his voice too was seemingly absorbed by the void beam nearby. He partially hoped that at least, with the voidbeam now chasing after him from behind, that the soldiers wouldn’t pursue. But he soon learned that the beam had no effect on the Mosmir Soldiers, and they completely ignored and ran through it to attempt to lunge out at Aegis from behind with their pincers. He was forced to spin around and block their strikes with his shield before continuing forward behind the others.

In that time, unfortunately, another Mosmir voidreaver had teleported onto the street ahead of them and began charging up a beam. Following Aegis lead, this time the other guard copied his attack by throwing his spear forward at the Mosmir. It worked - interrupting its beam and forcing it to teleport away to a nearby building before beginning to channel its beam. This one however wasn’t aiming its beam at Aegis, but at the guard who’d thrown the spear at it.

“Get ready, it’s aiming at you!” Aegis called out, but his voice was absorbed by the pursuing beam behind him. The guard continued rushing forward alongside the other guard and priestess, unsuspectingly, as Aegis saw the second voidreavers beam charge up and aim at him. Aegis contemplated using guard to block it, but he knew being hit by that beam would be a game over for this quest - that couldn’t possibly be the answer.

In his moment of hesitation, the voidreaver fired its beam and hit the guard, causing him to stop running and fall to his knees in pain. Aegis had no voice but to keep running past him, leaving him behind, as he still had a beam pursuing him alongside the two soldiers.

They were closing in on the chapel now, and thankfully after a few meters more of running, Aegis’ managed to cut off line of sight with the voidreaver that had been aiming its beam at him. Furthermore, the voidreaver had seemed to lose interest and didn’t teleport to get closer and attack again but rather teleported deeper into the city, leaving Aegis with just the two pursuing Mosmir soldiers.

But just as they came up onto the small staircase leading into the front entrance of the destroyed chapel, a flood of black liquid came pouring out of it, splashing down the stairs towards them. The moment the liquid appeared, both Mosmir soldiers screeched in terror and stopped pursing Aegis. Instead, they both turned tail and fled from the liquid as Aegis looked forward and saw it spilling out over the streets towards the final guard and the priestess.

“Watch out, Priestess Ysilda!” The guard shouted, moving to stand in front of her and putting his shield down to block the liquid from touching her.

“No, do not touch it!” The priestess cried out, backing away frantically towards Aegis who stood behind her. The guard heard her warning too late, and the moment the black liquid came into contact with him, tiny oily tendrils shot up out of the liquid and grappled him on multiple parts of his body, yanking him down into the liquid where his body and equipment were quickly dissolved.

Aegis looked forward and saw that the liquid still kept coming - it was flowing out of the chapel like an endless wave, but at the same time knew they needed to somehow continue forward.

“Guard.” Aegis projected his shield vertically in front of them, like a platform. “Get on!” Aegis called out to the Priestess, jumping up onto the shield projection as it hovered a meter above the ground. Aegis jumped up first, then held his hand out for her to take. She listened, taking his hand, and he pulled her up onto the shield to stand on it with him, holding her tight so that neither would fall off as the black liquid flowed over the obsidian streets that they’d been standing on.

“I’m going to hold you and jump, don’t resist.” Aegis explained, and she nodded understandingly. He held her tightly in his arms and jumped off of his shield projection as its 2 second duration was up, then quickly recast a new projection below them, slightly higher than the previous one.

In the small moment that there was no projection of his shield beneath their feet, the black liquid attempted to shoot out oily tendrils up at them, but his new projection had been formed quick enough to block them.

“Wait for it to pass.” Aegis explained, and she nodded, but her eyes then suddenly went wide.

“Behind you!” She called out, causing Aegis to spin around on his small platform of footing where he saw a voidreaver had teleported to the roof of a nearby building and was aiming at them.

“Of course.” Aegis sighed in frustration. A second later, the beam finished charging and shot out towards them. Aegis quickly lifted the light elven priestess up off her feet, holding her cradled in his arms as she allowed it to happen, then jumped to the side out of the path of the void beam while simultaneously recasting his shield projection beneath his feet at a new location.

The voidbeam missed, but the reaver continued to angle it to pursue Aegis, curving it through the air. He was limited in directions he could jump to avoid it, as the tall walls of the ruined chapel were on his right, and his left was the voidbeam. He bent his knees as the beam closed in, then used all of his character's strength stat to launch himself high into the air, several meters up above the beam. Once high, he recast his shield projection and watched the voidreaver curve the beam upwards in pursuit.

To his right, he saw the possibility of jumping into the chapel through its broken roof after another leap, so did exactly that. He jumped up with great strength onto a fourth shield projection, which gave him a view into the chapel over the top of its destroyed front wall.

From here, the void rift in question came into view. A black mass of swirling wild magical energy of which the void creatures were spilling out of en-masse. Some of the creatures were somehow, luckily, destroying each other as they squeezed out of the rift, but this resulted in absolute chaos within the chapel itself.

“How close to you need to be to close the rift?” Aegis asked her as the pair looked down into the chapel with wide eyes.

“Within 5 meters.” The priestess explained.

“Right.” Aegis rolled his eyes, glancing between the rift and the voidbeam still being angled towards him. He took a deep breath, then jumped off of his shield projection onto the top of the ruined walls of the chapel. As the voidreaver curved its beam towards him this time, it crashed into the outside wall of the chapel and began disintegrating it, but Aegis didn’t stick around and quickly jumped down into the chapel, falling 8 meters to the floor in a spot he saw the black liquid had vacated.

The voidreaver’s beam canceled on Aegis once he jumped down, as he’d broken line of sight with the voidreaver, while simultaneously the last of the black liquid creature had finished seeping out of the chapel through the door. The moment Aegis landed on the stone floor of the chapel, several meters away from the rift, he saw three Mosmir’ soldiers hiss and chitter in his direction, scurrying out of the rift. Aegis raised his shield and prepared to block their attacks, but before they got close enough to him to strike, suddenly three gigantic reptilian heads shot out of the rift behind the Mosmir and snapped their gigantic fangs around the Mosmir, crunching into their hard chitinous bodies and killing them instantly. Only one of the three heads had a red name floating above them, labeled [Void Hydra(ELITE) - Level 180)]

“Don’t move.” The priestess quickly whispered. Aegis understood and complied immediately as they watched the rest of the Void Hydra’s gigantic body stomp out of the rift, gulping down the bodies of the Mosmir soldiers in a single bite. Aegis could see the lumps in the hydra’s three throats as it swallowed their corpses, simultaneously raising its three heads up above the walls of the chapel. Once it had, the center head let out a violent roar that was amplified by the other heads joining in. Aegis and the priestess remained completely still, as Aegis recalled many void and underrealm creatures lived in pitch darkness and therefore likely had strangely adapted methods of perception.

“He made it to the chapel on his first try.” Baffo commented, as he and Uggard sat side by side on the bench outside, elbows on their knees and chins on their hands. Both had Aegis’ livestream open in their livestream viewers, watching intensely with serious expressions on their face.

“That kid’s something else. But, that was just the easy part.” Uggard took a deep breath.