CCTnovel Chapter 445: Stranded
Chapter 445: Stranded
Chapter 445: Stranded
Our trek across the bridge goes much the same as before - we get the same uneasy feeling and the same liquid darkness below, with something seeming to reach out and caress our feet. This time, no one dies, having experienced it before seems to have helped. It doesn’t change the fact that when we cross, everyone exhales, clothes sticking to their bodies, covered in cold sweat.
We reach the SDAT and kill a few monsters along the way. Spiders mostly, as they spin those thin and powerful threads. Most of them are well into the 200s and tend to be the sneaky type, preferring to trap their opponents. Their main strategy tends to revolve around the many types of threads they weave into their webs.
There are, of course, the ones that can cut you apart, should you walk into them, though they’re extremely tough they don’t hold up well against fire.
Then there are the ones coated in a terrible toxin that rots through your skin on contact.
And rarely, we encounter a thicker thread, that seems to have the sole purpose of being impossible to get rid of without cutting away any clothes and skin they come into contact with. The sticky ones also are usually the longest and tend to hang freely from surfaces, entangling you further as you struggle.
[You have defeated Grymlok Spider - lvl 261]
[You have defeated Grymlok Spider - lvl 269]
[You have defeated Grymlok Spider - lvl 233]
[You have defeated Grymlok Spider - lvl 241]
[Lvl 260 > Lvl 261]
For me, they’re not much trouble, and once I’ve managed to locate a few early on, I know what to look for and find it trivial to snipe them down from a safe distance.
The webs are a different matter. And everyone, including me, has trouble detecting them given their near transparency, there is no mana in them, and most of them are razor thin.
Sophie is working on improvements to her web that should make it easier to find them, and I watch her progress eagerly, ready to steal her ideas and try to implement it into my scans.
Along the way, we find a few bodies, either cut apart or rotted to mush, we even a few even tangled in the web, glued to the stone of the walls, still alive and unable to move.
The web clings viciously to any and everything, and pulling it down tears flesh; burning it is even worse. The web seems to emit some strange substance when it burns, causing extreme pain.
It's an unusually nasty thing, even with our broad range of experience, we never come up with an easy way to remove it without causing even more harm.
The man we free dies on our way back, succumbing to his wounds and shock, and likely whatever toxin was in the thread.
We could have let Lily heal him, or she could have use [Disintegration] to destroy the web at a high cost to her mana. It's possible I could have done something with my [Resonance] or Izzy’s unique application of flame and subclass could have spared the man his burns while we removed the thread.
Yet we didn't.
We leave the body behind for the monsters to eat. But we don't forget to poison it with a skill from one of Famir's men with the hope that some of the monsters will be just dumb enough to eat it and weak enough to die from the poison.
A few hours later, we’ve set up for another round of beating from Maya and the twins, even Tess gets a few hits in this time.
It might be only me, but they seem to be getting bored of it, well, maybe except Maya, who seems intrigued, trying out a variety of techniques, and asking which ones net me the most mana.
I oblige, and she keeps changing her stance, and I notice a slight difference in her attacks. She’s still only using the pure strength of her body. Sometimes she also asks me to stand up and tries to target different areas.
Seeing her progress, I think some of these attacks would cause damage if she uses her mana, and if she used her [Boost], she could probably hurt me. Her [Boost] in combination with [Focus] seems to make for a great combo, not just for massive armors.
We’ve warned people not to fall asleep, but some already had before we got back, and we weren't able to wake them up. They still seem to be sleeping, but it’s creepy. They do not shift, they breathe calmly, and they do not react to the pain or Sophie's mind-blending efforts.
The cause of their state is a mystery; we couldn’t find a single hint.
There aren't many passengers left either. I think there were around 200 of us in total when we got here, and now it's closer to 100.
Yes, some went to explore underground before our small expedition went after them, but that still doesn’t account for all the missing. They’ve just disappeared, no one knows where they went, and no one’s brave or curious enough to go and look for them.
Deathtrap is their safe haven. The old rusty Sand-Defensive Air Transport even fell on its side with a big hole in it. It’s just laying there in this huge cavern that we can't even light fully and no one can be bothered or seems to have the will to waste mana doing so.
“Nope, I thought of it first.”
“I... I see.”
“Yup, I’ll either make these blue brothers prepare some forms for me and move it, or I get them to teach me how to get mana off my clothes and do it on my own, but that would still cost the mana I would need to use to stabilize my crown and leave it behind.”
“Let me know, I would love to see how they did that.”
“No problem.” I nod.
With that, Sophie continues to stare at the small piles of white sand while absentmindedly playing with the piece of clay that is Golem Heart.
“Nat,” she calls quietly after a while.
“Yes?”
“We shouldn’t speak to the Champion again. Maybe we could destroy the bridge so no one can. Izzy’s terrified of him, and she feels like there’s something else here with us.”
“I agree with you for the most part. But let's keep the bridge for now, just ask Tess to have someone guard the path leading to.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Two days pass and no one goes too far away from Deathtrap, and that might be the only reason no one else dies. Well, other than the ones who fell asleep. The ones with the lowest levels die in their sleep; we never did manage to wake them. The cause of death is unknown.
There are also more and more monsters crawling in the darkness around Deathtrap. Dozens and hundreds of monsters, patrolling in groups. Grymlok Spiders place their threads all over the place. The smaller monsters keep releasing their poisonous smoke.
We’re avoiding using mana as much as we can. Plenty of people with higher physical stats just throw rocks at the monsters, it tends to be enough to kill or seriously wound them.
For some reason, I find it funny just how effective the primitive tactic turns out to be.
I also keep getting my daily dose of beating. At this point, I think most of the passengers at least suspect what it’s for, but the mana I'm getting outweighs the risk of them knowing.
And now, Sophie, Dravos, Drekar, Izzy, Min-Jae, the twins, Noodle, Biscuit, and I are all grouped, a good distance away from the mold we managed to prepare and fill with white sand.
The mold is something Min-Jae and Tess made using their skills. A formed and twisted piece of metal. There are also a few wires of mana-conductive metal placed in between the sand that fills the form. The wires have some basic inscriptions on them, but we don't know how much of them will survive the heat.
The weapon we came up with is a spear, a long inscribed metal rod I made. At the end of that rod, sits a mold filled with sand and inscribed wire, with the purpose of forming the blade of the spear out of the molten sand.
It's the first attempt, so I don't expect it to end well; and then there are the haters who, if they knew, would be there screaming at us for doing this in the situation we find ourselves in. They can screw off.
I let out a concentrated stream of golden energy and point it at the mold.
Just like all the times before, the white sand fails to react to the primordial energy, and I gradually, over the next few minutes, narrow the stream and increase the heat.
The white sand slowly rises to temperature, glowing a bright, hot, red, but it takes longer than expected but it does eventually melt. It takes quite a bit of thermal energy, but at this point, it's just too late to stop.
So I continue, and over the following minutes, the sand starts melting just as it reaches a white-hot glow. The texture of the sand changes, oozing from its gritty and granular state to a more viscous and glass-like pool. Small bubbles form and pop as trapped air escapes, and more than anything, it begins to remind me of burning hot lava.
My golden flames light the area, and the heat can be felt even from this distance.
The final result is a pool of molten, glowing, liquid glass that shimmers in shades of yellow and white. It’s at this point that I cut off the flames, and the area darkens once more without their illumination, the only light comes from the molten sand and Sophie's lightbox.
The molten white sand solidifies into glass in the form as it cools, its surface rough and irregular. To be honest, it's ugly as hell.
Mana-Reactive Spear (Upper Epic) - This spear ignores mana-based defenses and absorbs mana on impact, sharpening its edge against physical armor and barriers. It becomes progressively more effective with each moment it absorbs mana, but if pushed too far, it will shatter explosively, scattering a mist of fine, cutting particles capable of causing great harm over a wide area.
But as I look at the finished weapon, I have to wonder. What would happen if I stabbed the Champion with it? Would the altered sand forming its blade activate the fail safes in this place?