Not that it mattered to Keynes. A rift monster was a rift monster. Given the slightest change, it would tear Keynes to pieces without any remorse. Such a course of action was unacceptable.
The lord charged, using [Flight] or similar skill. Keynes dodged and as he came out of the roll he had to duck lest the lord’s dagger would cut his head off. The monster was fast. He kept attacking using the dagger for now. Keynes stayed on defence, trying to figure out the attack pattern of the lord.
It’s only Level 6. There must be a limit to the abilities it possesses. It made no sense for Level 6 monsters to be this much stronger than Level 5.
A few minutes into the dance of a cat and mouse, Keynes decided to make his move. He wanted to test out some things but he needed to get rid of the dagger first. As the lord overextended, trying to pierce Keynes’s heart, Keynes unleashed his spiritual aura in a very small radius. The lord froze while Keynes caught the hand holding the dagger, by the wrist and twisted. The lord released the dagger, which Keynes promptly caught and put into his spatial bag. The lord roared, furious, and broke out of the spiritual paralysis. He threw himself at Keynes, all the nails, growing by a centimetre, becoming sharp.
Shit.
Keynes couldn’t tank the hit even with his experimental spiritual armour so once again he dodged, enraging the lord further.
“Stay still and die, maggot,” the monster said, as he helplessly swiped his newly formed fangs at Keynes.
“No thanks,” Keynes replied, smirking.
Keynes pulled the lord’s dagger out of his spatial bag and sliced the monster’s extended arm at wrist. The cut was shallow as the lord pulled the hand at shocking speed.
“Insolence!” the lord roared. The wound on his wrist healed, and a second later a spear made out of blood appeared above the lord’s head. His face showed derision as he hurled the spear toward Keynes.
Really, is that all?
It was not. At the same time as the spear shot at Keynes, a blood aura locked on Keynes.
Debuff acquired!
The strength of the debuff decreased by 50% (Pure Body effect).
- Blood Authority (strong) debuff.
Your will is weakened.
Not happening.
Keynes used the active part of [Pure Body] to remove the debuff completely, and sidestepped the spear by a few centimetres. He could actually smell the metallic odour of the blood in the air as it moved past him. An idea crossed Keynes’s mind, could he snatch the blood spear as well? But the moment the spear hit the ground it dissolved into a puddle of blood. The lord gave Keynes no time to catch a breath as he threw himself at Keynes one again, the lord’s aura increased in strength but [Pure Body] kept the debuff at bay.
Unfortunately, Keynes had to keep [Pure Body] up as only the active component of the skill was capable of fully removing the debuff. Deactivating it would reinstate the Blood Authority, but [Pure Body] wasn’t the cheapest of skills. It would eventually drain all Keynes’s mana. On the other hand, it wasn’t like the lord could keep endlessly. Even the rift monsters were bound by the fundamental rules of the System. Though Keynes didn’t know how much mana rift monsters possessed, but he didn’t believe it should be much more than ascenders had.
The lord’s attacks became more vicious but also less coordinated and less precise. A faint red glow appeared in the lord’s eyes. Keynes remained on defence but he knew that the lord was on some kind of a timer. With each second, the creature’s strength and speed increased but he sensed the lord’s lifeforce was withering away.
So the lord was literally burning his life away in exchange for power. In just a few seconds, Keynes faced a true beast. The lord’s human features vanished. His fingers became long and ended with sharp claws; his face became a grotesque mix of a bat, gargoyle and human; his body bent over, skin pulled over thin muscles and bones.
Despite the new wizened appearance of the lord, Keynes fought for his life. Without access to attribute enhancing skills like [Empower] or any rift gear with attribute stats on it, Keynes had to solely rely on his base attributes. As he came dangerously close to being skewered by the clawed hand of the lord a few times, an itching urgency to use [Chaos Aura] only magnified. Keynes knew he could end this fight just like that but he refused to take an easy option. There must be more to him than [Chaos Aura]. But each time Keynes tried to counter-attack, he came close to losing his head.
That fucking lord, Keynes snapped in his head as he dived to the right, as the lord’s claws obliterated a tree where Keynes had stood.
The lord stomped and Keynes rolled away, only to be forced to roll again and again.
Okay, this isn’t fun anymore, he muttered to himself.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
[Chaos Aura] unfurled, but tightly controlled by spiritual aura, it hit the lord square in the face. He resisted for 1 second before it melted. A rush of essence informed Keynes that the lord was dead.
“You took your sweet time,” Kora said, standing in the air. She was smirking at him.
“I was testing something,” Keynes replied, getting to his feet.
“Uhum, I bet you did.” Her smirk didn’t waver.
Keynes shook his head and deactivated [Chaos Aura] and [Pure Body]. He glanced at where the mangled body of the lord lay. To think that this broken thing was capable of tearing apart a Level 5 Perfect State ascender.
“You should have let it kill itself with [Pact of Blood],” Alice said.
Keynes frowned, a little confused by his spiritual spirit’s words. He didn’t know why she said that, so he decided to stay quiet and let her explain. Kora descended but didn’t land on the ground; a show-off.
“You don’t see it?” Alice asked, now she was acting confused. “Fine, I will tell you.” Now she was acting all superior and pompous. That little imp!
He exchanged a glance with Kora who only shrugged as she nonchalantly hung in the air.
“If you let it die from [Pact of Blood] you’d be rewarded with some sort of blood gem. I can’t say what the blood gem would be for but given the spiritual signature left by this monster, it seems significant.”
A reward for letting the monster kill itself? At the first it sounded ridiculous but when Keynes reminded himself how difficult the lord after transformation had been, it made a bit of sense to be rewarded for surviving the onslaught.
“It is strange that the rift doesn’t inform us about it upon entering,” Kora said.
“Because it is not a modifier of a rift. It is something else,” Alice replied. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out once we clear this rift.”
It sounded like she was onto something but she was holding out. Fine. He wasn’t going to press her.
The three of them ascended above the trees. In the distance, the castle stood silently on the hill, but Keynes felt a sense of hunger coming out of there. This place didn’t feel like a rift at all.
“You want to go straight to the castle?” Kora asked, as if reading Keynes’s mind.
“Can you sense it?” he asked her.
“The castle? Yeah. It feels like there is something inside. Can’t make out exactly what I feel.”
“It is blood hunger,” Alice chimed in.
“Blood hunger?” Keynes asked. “Sounds like vampirism.”
“I’m very sure there is a difference between the two,” she said. “They are not alike.”
“Can you tell us what’s the difference?” Kora inquired but Alice shook her head.
“So, shall we?” Kore nodded toward the castle. “Or you want to go through the rest of these annoying monsters?”
“Yeah, let’s clear the rift first. Get the magical stones to Rell to investigate and then we will hit the castle.”
***
It was easier said than done. It always was. It took them several hours clearing the entire forest from the slaves and lesser members. There were no more lords unfortunately. Keynes wanted badly to learn what the blood gem was.
A surprising discovery was that there was a massive field between the forest and the hill with the castle. It looked cultivated, with a low stone fence and dirt road leading up to the castle.
Not a single monster in sight.
“Let’s go…” Keynes took a step and paused.
“Wait, what is this?” Keynes asked.
Kora and Alice froze as well. They saw it too. He’d encountered a quest during the Dominion of Monsters event but they had a different format than this. Why? He inquired Alice about, hoping that her newly found knowledge would shed some light on the issue.
“Quests are… somewhat complicated. In this case, the quest is nothing else but the rift event and is different from the other quests.”
“So, the difference is that this quest works only inside a rift?” Kora asked for clarification.
“And only for this single instance. Rift quests aren’t like normal quests. I’m not sure why they are called quests in the first place. They should be called something else.”
“It’s fine,” Keynes said, stopping Alice from spiralling into a monologue. “It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s get on with the rift quest and get out of here.”
Keynes grew weary of the rift despite a few surprises. But they spent almost 6 hours already. A far too long to stay in a single instance of a rift.
I wonder what the High Level rifts look like. I guess until Level 10, rifts won’t change that much but Level 11 rifts… Something is telling that at this Level things take a turn for much worse than I can imagine.
Keynes and Kora accepted the rift quest and immediately, the sensation Keynes had felt earlier multiplied by an order of magnitude. There was no debuff notification but the feeling didn’t seem peaceful either. It had a stench of wrongness, lingering at the back of Keynes’s mind.
They progressed forward, slowly, watching their perimeter. They had a constant sense of being watched.
“Look,” Kora whispered and pointed at the moon. It had a reddish hue.
“Typical.” Keynes’s attempt at humour didn’t do anything to alleviate the fact that he was on edge. This isn’t like me. Why am I suddenly worried about a Level 6 rift?
“Maybe because it is dangerous? You just have a weird relationship with danger so you don’t understand that inside a rift, death is always one mistake away. This aura just magnifies what normal ascenders feel.”
Really? Didn’t cross my mind, Keynes replied then realised that he was still in a coping mode.