40
1039 Words
He wasn’t sure if it was a new type of death squad, but he shuddered to think of what they could have done if they were Tier 14 instead of alleged Tier 12s.
The four of them would have almost certainly died if that had been the case.
Again, he thought about Tiering up, but he shied away from the idea.
Had they come this far just to fail and Tier up at the last possible moment?
Matt rejected that notion.
It had just been one bad fight, after a long string of victories through Minkalla. There had been setbacks of various degrees, less than total wins, but they had conquered everything set before them until now and profited enormously from it.
Except…that was how it almost always was, wasn’t it? There was no gradual increase in challenge until someone found their limit, with the option to leave before they got overwhelmed. For fighting other delvers, most people fared just fine, one way or another, until they ran into one of the big fish in this small pond and were promptly eaten. Matt had personally ended the lives of dozens without giving them any chance to retreat when it became obvious he would overpower them, to speak nothing of the people who had died near instantly to his more powerful abilities.
They had lost this fight, convincingly, and they had come close to losing much more than that. He could prepare, make items or plans to help counter the group, but they could do the same against him. The biggest change in relative power that might occur in the near future was for members of the opposing group to fail their Folded Reflections challenge, and have their Concepts replaced with ones that were worse and unfamiliar to them.
It was something of a distant hope, but always possible.
Better skills and items for escape were feasible though, and that was something he could definitely work on before any more encounters.
Even if it meant they would just run away faster next time, instead of standing their ground. Long Zhiyuan had proved the efficacy of that strategy, and it was something they’d outright practiced for. Minkalla was eminently survivable, so long as you were careful to not overextend. It was a hard thing to balance, since he didn’t want to escape from his fight against his copy at the end of the floor. He needed to win, and without serious injury.
Still, Matt was worried.
They had taken serious injuries during this fight that would take weeks, if not months, to recover from. At least for the injuries they could heal.
Aster’s tail wouldn’t be regrowing until they got her to a proper healer, and while Liz’s enhanced healing meant that she’d have basically full functionality in her right arm within a few days, he wouldn’t be surprised if it would be sore for months, or effectively the entire rest of the time they were in Minkalla. That her left arm would require higher-tier healing than they could find here was basically a given, but Liz still pushed herself to use it as much as possible. His own teeth were gone as well, but that felt less important for the time they had.
Thinking of time, he pulled out the hourglass from their earlier delve and sent mana into it.
The spiritual strain was instantly noticeable, but he pushed through it and focused on meditating through the growing uncomfortableness. The others would be dealing with the same strain, but he was the only one with a skill that seriously stressed his spirit, which limited how much he could use the item right now.
He wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long, but it allowed his team to recover that bit faster, which might mean the difference between life and death in the next encounter.
Pain was nothing new to Matt.
Discomfort was an old friend.
Seeing his friends so badly hurt was unacceptable.
He was durable and hard to kill; he should have been the one to take those blows.
Despite knowing how unrealistic it was, he wanted to be the center of the battlefield. If everyone was focused on him, they wouldn’t be attacking Liz and Aster.
He hadn’t even seen the attack that had so badly burned Susanne and Aster, and that ate at him.
Matt didn’t have an easy answer, but he was used to working through problems and started figuring out ways to draw all the attention, and therefore attacks, to himself.
His gravity gauntlets were a good start, and with the cultivation core of the black hole, he had a few ideas sparking. He also really needed to improve the second set of enchantments on his sword, and seeing Long Zhiyuan’s armor in action today had given him some interesting prospects.
While the others slept, he started tinkering.
8
Matt roused with a groan as Liz gently shook him awake.
Everything hurt, so he immediately channeled [Endurance] to help alleviate the aches and pains.
But where the skill normally washed away soreness like this, it did little more than mute the injuries thanks to the healing cooldown his body was accruing. It didn’t do anything for the spiritual strain he was feeling either, and after pushing the time accelerator, he was feeling like a worn dish rag.
Getting up, he found Susanne eating a small breakfast of savory oatmeal with a battered-looking Aster. Bowls for himself and Liz were already set out.
Sitting down with Liz, they quietly ate until Aster finished and asked, “What did you do to your gloves?”
Matt didn’t need to look down to see what everyone else was looking at. And he couldn’t really argue that it was an odd sight to behold.
Embedded into a spare set of armor, he had carved a hole in the center of the chest to place the cultivation core of the black hole.
It was then linked to his gravity gauntlets through a bundle of conduit running down his arms. Considering the work was both rushed and intentionally temporary for both the gauntlets and the core, it looked sloppy.
But it worked, and that was all that really mattered.
- Writer
