Anima: A Divine Dungeon Series (Artorian's Archives Book 6)

by Dennis Vanderkerken

  So much for an all-natural hunt. Then again, being bright and shiny in a landscape of wet and dark was essentially a euphemism for his life. There was never going to be any hiding.

  Wondering how to stop the mana-hungry ray, the line fizzled out when he thought as much. Well, that was no fair. Couldn’t activate the abilities with thought, but you could stop them that way? On second consideration, that was incredibly reasonable.

  Snapping his jaws, he realized his cheeks felt sore. Li-Torian ground his teeth together. Head shaking around for proper bearings as he wondered what the floppy thing at the front of his face was. “Why ish my twongue nwumb.”

  The words slurred out, and the tongue in question hung aimlessly from the front of his mouth. Unable to react to his will as it blepped. Well, that’s just not nice! Fine, another one then. Not from the mouth. Let’s see, what does this do? “[Solar Flare]!”

  Oh sweet Cal! Where did a third of his mana bar just go? He was glad to be solidly planted, because his form buckled under the pressure of the effect he’d just sent skywards. The rain stopped quickly. Well that wasn’t so bad. Rising temperatures in the area surged from nippy all the way up to unpleasantly toasty. The mud under his feet hardened. “Uh oh.”

  Unpleasantly toasty turned into burnt toast, and the ground baked to brick as oppressive heat bore down on it. His form buckled more, honest-to-Cal cracks forming along the frame of his temporary construct. Why had he used something fire-related when Decorum had told him the boar they were up against was fire resistant? Well… fire resistant. Not fire immune. Ember was very clear on the difference.

  Also slated as a very clear difference was the threat index that the boars considered between Decorum, and the shiny cub version. Their communicative horror sounds spoke volumes of the topic.

  Decorum was big. Easy to notice. Slicing boars to ribbons with claws of pressured air that were longer in reach than anticipated. Decorum killed a good dozen of them with a swipe. That tiny bright one? That little sucker just wiped half of their second wave with a single ability, if not more. In addition, it had injured Mokono. Who survived only by being smart and burrowing underground.

  The priority list for who should be fought shifted. This was why, when Artorian looked at the horde again, they were charging him! His form cracked some more. That told him it wasn’t going to hold, meaning he would take actual damage from that point on.

  How about… how about no? Sifting through the options as the squealing masses—who cried like broken engines—made quick work of the distance. He just picked one of the suggested abilities as the oppressive heat on the soon-to-be-desert increased. Life wasn’t going to fare that well with the heat of the flare currently lying over them. The boars, even with their protections, were having trouble breathing. “Decorum! Get out of Dodge!”

  Artorian had meant to say ‘get out of the way,’ but thought of the word ‘dodge’ last minute. Decorum glanced, and pogo-hopped into the air on tiny clouds he made below himself. Well, look at who was being a copycat now.

  He didn’t have time to be quippy. “[Sparkle Wave]!”

  The violin hanging in the air changed its tune. Artorian’s liger construct shattered when the ability went off, peppering the air to form fifteen-foot-high concentric rings of glitter that shot outwards in waves.

  Artorian fell from the cavity in the liger that he’d been stored in, mind solidly home in his child shape now that he could not keep it extended anymore. He landed on his feet, then spun in place as the violin kicked up a tune that made him think of a transformation sequence. He wasn’t some kind of magical girl, but the tune was just so abysally catchy. Given that he was mid spin, he stopped on a dime just to pose, hoping that last ability would actually be something useful…

  When the boars charged through the outer ring of hanging glitter, the particles shimmered. The boars didn’t care, and raged onwards! The shimmering particles—superheated from the flare effect still in play—snapped their metaphorical fingers and shot the posing youth some finger-arrows, revealing that, just like his pose, they were sharp.

  Sharp, and immobile.

  As a result, the rampaging horde cut themselves to shreds by battering through the stationary defense, suffering a swift end. The boars felt a thousand cuts as they barged into a field of dots they should have patiently dodged between. Each sparkly particle didn’t do much damage individually, and the added fire damage was a laugh. But when you had more of them hanging in the air than could be reasonably counted over a year, perhaps it was best to proceed with caution and avoid the unmoving little flecks of sharpness. It wasn’t like they were trying to do anything. They just hung there, being fabulous.

  The charging wave died before a single boar got within an arm’s length of Artorian. The innermost defensive circle barely expended, which was a pleasant sight. What was a touch unpleasant was the smell. Lots of meat cooked on the ground made Artorian pull a face. Were there descriptions to these attacks that he could look up? Surely there was something that didn’t require him to default to random testing. Preferably an option that didn’t need him to sit down in a workshop with twenty screens open to puzzle it out. He was still sour about that piece of magnetic pyrite.

  On the plus side, no more enemies coming at him! On the downside, he was stuck in his own flare effect, and a shimmering field that didn’t discriminate. He’d get cut just as easily if he moved through them. Be nice if they would just turn off.

  He slapped his forehead, and the effects faded. The oppressive heat removed itself, and he could swear the sparkles performed a spin before winking, and winking out. Newfound bonus, no more mana drain! Newfound downside, his vanished reserves! The bar was so small that he got snappy. “Show me how much these abyss-cracked abilities cost!”

  He stamped his foot, yelling at nobody as the ground under him crumpled a few inches. The land rumbled. It was easy to forget his stats were A-ranker sized, even if he didn’t come up to an average person’s shoulder. No prompt came up for his outburst, but Decorum did come down from his bouncy clouds. Artorian sighed. “I’m sorry, my friend. I’ll try going hunting with you again when the form I take doesn’t take such a shine.”

  Decorum didn’t reply, his eyes focused as vertical slits. He crouched on impact with the ground, attention off in the distance. He surveyed a hill that had suspiciously survived the trampling.

  Artorian turned to look, and noted the oddity. Now that didn’t make sense. Those boars were big, and all the other hills had flattened. Then the hill stood up, and Mokono shook himself to clear his hide of wanton dirt. Had this clever brat dug under to protect himself from the flare, shimmers, and the ray? That cheeky waffle! With a strong exhale through the nose that erupted into a steam cloud, Mokono visibly taunted them.

  Glancing at his dwindling reserves, Artorian figured he’d have to punch the thing. Great. Because that tended to turn out well. However, he noticed that Decorum was itching to attack. So why was he holding back? A few glances between the eye-locked region bosses, and he understood what both were waiting for.

  A sign to start.

  Decorum wanted this win. Mokono wanted this win. Artorian just smiled, and addressed his friend. Dropping the flag? He could do that for them. “Get ‘em.”

  Decorum was gone in a flurry of wind! Gashing the landscape as he shot forwards. He roared, and the boar countered. Erupting with that terrible dead engine noise in reply. Artorian winced as their initial clash made impact. *Aiii…* not good. Decorum wasn’t the only one hiding his reach, as the iron tusk of the boar reshaped mid-charge. Decorum’s claw swipe grazed, and at best nicked, Mokono’s hide.

  The violin slowed its song, and Artorian snapped his vision around at the distraction. The music had been a cutesy background feature at first, but now it was irritating. “Alright, what is making that racket?”

  The sight took him out of the fight when he located the source, cutting through the invisibility effect by cheating with his maximized perception. A
n Imp sat on a wide, ornate throne that hovered in the sky. Far too large for its tiny bum as the small demon playing tore up the musical instrument with such feverish skill that Artorian considered it a crime of passion.

  “A demon?”

  The golden violin’s tune screeched, a wrong note hiccuping as the player’s arm jerked, notes falling off as he ended his personal jam. Paganini was invisible. He knew he was invisible. Nothing less than a Sage quality perception, [Inspect], [Reveal], or [Locate] had even the slightest hope of giving him away. Now this kid was staring right at him. A kid had deduced his actual species at a glance, and looked royally pissed.

  With a swift glance at his own status screen, Artorian raised a momentary brow. His mana bar was refilling all on its own? How… convenient. The reason why it recovered by itself would need to be puzzled out later. For now, there was a growing rage that demanded tending.

 

  Chapter Thirty

  *Boom*.

  Artorian’s launch turned the dry, cracked dirt into a full-on crater. Just the force of an A-rank two body alone was more than enough to severely damage and destroy Midgard-quality ground. The nearby lake received a new location for water to accumulate as the impact force shattered the underground, forming a vast, new aquifer.

  The Imp screeched, his instrument and accompanying stick thrown into the air as his throne turned and zipped away. The instruments vanished into particles. Must have been a use of the [Instrument] ability.

  While Decorum and Mokono hacked it out in the forest-turned-wasteland below, the demon hurriedly escaped for dear life as the angriest twelve-year-old in existence refused to let up. The very air around the boy burned out of being as the system constantly worked to convert his auric functions into Pylon applications.

  Eternium’s displeasure grew further as the Administrator-titled one failed to keep himself to the desired order. On the plus side, it meant this would be automated in the future. On the downside, this shouldn’t have happened to begin with! Eternium had been stoic with Cal when it came to telling people that they could not use their cultivation abilities in his Soul Space. It was the system or bust! As a minor inconvenience, that information wasn’t entirely correct. A person could use their natural cultivation abilities in Eternium, he just didn’t like it. Thus he had asked Cal to tell them it couldn’t be done, purely to dissuade them from even trying. Then there was this Imp-chasing pain in his Core.

  Stay within the rules, you abyss-hating problem child! Eternium fussed as he automated ever more Auric options, shunting over far more work to the support crew. Yet, if he personally had to forcibly automate every last single cultivator function purely so it adhered to his system of Order, he would! He procedurally would! Blast this tier seven-twenty Law playing hooky. Had it been one tier lower—just one lower—Artorian would have been entirely unable to circumvent Eternium’s rules. That meant there were four nails in his coffin now. *Uuuugh*.

  Eternium considered asking Cal how Wood Elves—even though they were now something else—had not only gotten Laws, but particularly how they’d gotten those three. Please let it not have been that Cal was bored. He didn’t get the chance as the core in question rushed in with his own questions.

  Cal bit his metaphorical thumb.

  Artorian was thankful that there was no need for a reply when the connection clicked shut. All he would have done was bellow with seething rage. He was livid. Eternium’s watchful gaze winked out to hurry off elsewhere. Artorian no longer felt the pressure, nor the bristling on the back of his neck. Weird how those sensations still happened even in a body that shouldn’t reasonably be capable of it. No, that wasn’t right. It happened, so it was clearly capable. Incarnate forms were so much stranger than A-rank bodies. He’d get used to it one day. A little more and he would have this Imp by the… “Neck! Got you!”

  Paganini the small demon screeched, his tiny arms and legs wiggling on a potbellied frame. It chittered at him like some kind of deformed squirrel. Artorian didn’t speak Abyssal. Or was it Demonic? Or maybe the language was called ‘scree-scree,’ based on the Imp’s noises. Know what? He liked scree-scree.

  The Imp squirmed, but had a hairball’s hope to get free from the statistics clamping him tight. Breathing was currently off the table, and fright-based statuses populated on the demon’s character screen. Which quickly became visible when the Administrator Invocation ripped the information out of him. Literally tearing the status screen out of the demon’s being to have it available. Abyss just using [Inspect].

  Fire burgeoned from his nostrils upon heavy exhale as Artorian scanned the sheet. He was not happy. A motion of the hand pulled up his store screen, and his voice commanded it directly. Several windows populated, each asking for something that the youth snapped his way through. “Administrator access. Deity options. Language Cores. Relevant language for touched creature. Select. Purchase. Confirm.”

  A Core appeared in Artorian’s hand as points he currently couldn’t care less about drained from a pool that didn’t matter. The Core immediately pressed to his forehead, and he knew. The voice box in his Incarnate form twisted into an entirely different amalgam altogether as normal vocal cords just weren’t up to snuff.

  To speak scree-scree, there were sounds and intonations that a human mouth could simply never hope to achieve. The Imp’s health bar bled away from suffocation damage until suddenly the grip loosened, allowing it a life-saving breath.

  Horror and Terror status effects flicked into activity on the Imp’s status sheet. As the youth suddenly spoke impeccable Fernalis. Or, as it was likely going to be named in the future: scree-scree. “You have a choice. You can silently follow me until you answer my questions. Or I can introduce you to my old compatriot, Snap.”

  The Imp nearly broke his arm from how swiftly it shot a single, stubby digit into the air. It was unable to lie, escape, or really do much else other than it was told with all the terrible status effects it was suffering from. Paganini thought to himself: Option one, please, dear Eternium. Option one.

  The Imp deliberately chose not to speak, as the word ‘silent’ had been mentioned in the demand. Paganini needed zero explanation, nor further threat on what might occur if he didn’t follow this order to the letter.

  Artorian let go, and the Imp shivered on its throne. From basic inspection, it was the throne that could fly, when given direction from the one seated. The throne was also allowing the seated to remain under a very advanced set of illusory effects. Neat. The youth turned, and shot back towards Decorum at Mach two.

  Concussive booms rocked the air, but the Imp couldn’t pay attention to that as it clung to the plush seat for dear life. Mushed against the upholstery with squinty eyes as the transport chair followed the direction: ‘Follow that one at all costs.’ When the throne stopped, the Imp was certain its heartbeat had as well. It had never managed to push the throne to move at those speeds on his own.

  Artorian commanded. “Stay.”

  The Imp couldn’t reply, but did as ordered. Artorian would not be distracted further from quality Decorum time. Landing on the ground with a thud, the situation looked grim. His friend was losing, and Mokono was barely at half health. Artorian decided he had some residual anger that needed to be worked off, and would you look at that. A convenient target.

  Inspecting Decorum, he read the name of the ability that allowed the massive liger to bump up his reach. “Gale Claw? Shoul
d have seen that coming. I’ve got air as an affinity channel, but it’s not my strongest suit. No reason to experiment much here. Let’s deconstruct that other one from earlier instead. Shining Ray? Let’s see. If I think of it not as a claw extending from my hand, but rather as a construct that goes above and overlaps my hand on a categorically larger scale, then apply the energy in the shape of a claw, I should get an Eternium conversion for the bits the initial Pylons don’t compensate for. Here we go, let’s do this mid-stride. [Shining Claw]!”

  The Pylons worked to combine the desired effects, learning a new ability in the process that an empty Pylon took upon itself to exemplify.

  *Boom*.

  Another new crater in the ground made it rain dirt and debris, the youth gone from his spot at Mach two. Mid-flight, he opened and closed his fingers to test the construct forming over them. The twelve-foot-long claws that hovered a good two or three feet away from his entire left arm copied the motion. Excellent.

  Shining laser streaks cut through the air as Artorian attacked. The swift slice left residual lines of light behind as he yelled loud while mid-transit to get the Boss beast’s attention. Mokono did turn his head, but only in time for five elongated claws to carve through its face and flank.

  Mokono didn’t have time to react. The attack had come and gone faster than it could respond to. To its great relief, Mokono’s Ironhide ability had saved it from a majority of the piercing and slashing damage. The celestial element, on the other hand, had left some nasty wounds.

  Artorian hadn’t considered using a celestial infusion with hostile intent before. When he made a wide U-turn after a quick wingover, he was intrigued to find that the claws still functioned as intended. Deep gashes visibly scored the boss’ flank; though rather than harm Mokono further, the added celestial damage merely prevented those wounds from mending, healing, or being otherwise affected in a way that would alter them. That lasting damage changed Mokono’s base state, and his new Maximum Health took a sharp nosedive because of it.