Overpowered Wizard

Zarian was almost tempted to bring in the full party after reading the expanded details. This was one hell of a lair crawl, and it connected to Corma’s lore.

Ruvaria was already a terrifying figure of history, but apparently there was always more to learn. Had she left this orc alone on purpose? Or had the Star System interjected to use the orc as a challenge?

Nonetheless, Zarian figured Naomi wanted this lair mostly for herself since the others had already benefited from the fight against the Arch Cherub. Besides, despite the unique challenges, this was still a more manageable battle compared to Metatron.

Ruvaria had set him up to face this before she officially became his dear teacher.

The warp energy infused with the landscape that was messing with teleportation efforts was nothing new. He’d faced warp energy while crawling Hannah’s artificial dungeon. He’d faced it again while crawling the hyperbolic time dungeon to prove his worth to Ruvaria officially.

Ruvaria predicted this day would come and had me trained so I wouldn’t be caught blindsided, Zarian thought. However, I think I’m going to have an easier time than even my teacher would expect. Just like every other monstrous person with lots of power, I bet she underestimated how stupidly determined Naomi Washington can be.

Finally, the bombardment wiped out the last dregs of their cover. Another crimson bolt the size of an intercontinental ballistic missile flew straight at them.

Zarian and Para didn’t bother defending themselves. They let Naomi take over in that aspect. With one step forward, the Rumble Psion became a human streak of power, both psychic and physical.

She punched the crimson missile so hard that all the shockwave from the eruption moved away from her and Zarian. Then she kicked off the air using her Psychokinesis +2 and punched another crimson missile that tried to fly past her.

The following eruption struck a third missile that came in behind the second missile. The third one blew up as Naomi kicked off the air again and played point air defense against the giant crimson energy projectiles.

Zarian nodded in satisfaction at her efforts before turning his attention to the source of the heavy bombardment. He focused his Aura Mastery + Identify down one narrow direction, covering multiple miles, before he caught the missile launching creature from afar.

He couldn’t get a solid physical description of it other than it reminded him of a floating hot-air balloon, but he got the next best thing. He gained some in-depth info.

<Godless Watcher, Monster, Level 95 Wrathful Artillerist (Epic). Best Alpha Skill: Red Artillery Shot +2 (Level 46). Best Trait: Bombarding Range Finder (Epic). Best Stat: 413 Wonder.>

<Godless Watcher, Expanded Details: This was once a watchful familiar that would warn its master of danger, especially from the type that came from the sky. This monster is now far removed from those humble beginnings and is something utterly destructive, wrathful, and highly, highly faithful.>

The new information Zarian could pull from living targets of his Aura Mastery + Identify combo was fascinating.

It would’ve been too much info for the version of Zarian that was younger and less capable at the start of his Star System life.

Now that he’d built himself up, he could treat all of this info as pivotal pieces to hinge his plans on. Or he could just treat it all as nifty lore while his prime focus remained on the creative game plans he could come up with.

No, he would not use Overwhelming Darkness.

He really didn’t need it this time.

For the case of the godless watcher, he let Naomi get in a workout as she punched against a high level alpha skill that was nearly a +3. Meanwhile, Zarian invited Para to help him create a counter offensive that he could shoot from miles away.

Zarian held his hands apart in front of his chest, palms facing each other. Para formed another pair of arms from behind Zaria’s shoulders. Her claw-tipped bone hands hovered over Zarian’s hands.

Together, they combined Zarian’s aura as a guide with Para’s aura as the main weapon. This was because of Zarian having the best control and Para having an extra part of her aura that was directly tied to hunger and feasting on aura and magic.

They poured their two distinct auras, one of mastery and one of hunger, into a tight ball. Then Zarian infused more and more darkness into the aura projectile using his Dark Affinity and the dark enchantments from his bottoms.

Next up, the duo cast some spells together, starting with Black Fire, then Void Authority, then Void Layer. The hard part was keeping half of Black Fire free while the other half of Black Fire fused with Void Layer to create void fire. The original Black fire targeted vitality while void fire targeted aura directly, making them highly effective in suppressing and weakening targets.

Zarian and Para’s arms trembled from the powerful combination of auras and spells. Black, gray, and ghostly translucent flames licked out from between their hands. A deep and heavy darkness warped the sunlight and the crimson glow of the Blood Prairies from around them.

It seemed like they were ready to shoot their combined conjuration, but wait, there was more.

The spectral spiders had kept themselves busy around Zarian and Para. The spiders webbed up a set of gravity runes on all four arms and created a specific enchantment. Then the spiders triggered the gravity enchantment, which led to the conjuration glowing with a foreboding purple light while becoming many times denser.

“Naomi! Get behind me in three. Two. One,” Zarian said. “Firing for effect.”

Naomi kicked her feet forward and shot down from the air like a rocket. She landed with a heavy impact somewhere behind Zarian before he and Para pushed their hands forward.

A split second before the payload left their mystical grasp, Zarian created a hard aura wall to shield himself and Naomi.

The recoil destroyed the aura wall, blasted Zarian backward, and sent him slamming into Naomi, who caught him. Then with her mighty Strength, she held onto him while sliding backwards.

A roaring back-blast of wind rolled over them, which left Zarian feeling like an armored meat shield, his limbs flopping in a rag doll manner. Naomi kept such a tight hug around his waist that she crushed portions of his torso and gave his ribs a few hairline fractures.

Once the back-blast died down, Naomi gently placed Zarian on his feet. Para and his high vitality patched him up at a quick pace. He checked his notification and saw the effect before the sound wave from the distant impact reached them with a dull roar.

<You’ve defeated a Godless Watcher Monster, Level 95 Wrathful Artillerist!>

“That thing is called a Godless Watcher, Level 95 Wrathful Artillerist. It looks like a demon hot air-balloon and can shoot big explosive energy shots. There might be more of those,” Zarian said, as a cloak formed from behind his back armor.

“Heh, now you tell me after killing it,” Naomi said. “Good shot, by the way.”

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“Thanks.”

With a flap of the cloak, Para dropped stacks of corpses and boxes of food. Zarian grabbed a few boxes and handed them to Naomi. She took them graciously, sat down, and gobbled down the warm food. Zarian powered through a bunch while Para ate in the background.

“Mm, thanks for the food. It helps my meditation skill a lot,” Naomi said. “By the way, we didn’t get to say hi, Para. You okay?”

“I’m quite fine, actually. Thank you for asking, Naomi,” Para said, speaking through a mouth on Zarian’s chest plate. “I’m not actively speaking in these moments, since I’m focused on observing our surroundings by multiple means. In fact, there will be an attack from below us in about two minutes. Chimera ghouls are burrowing up from underground.”

Para could spread little hairs that could burrow just about anywhere. She kept aware of things from weird angles that even Zarian might overlook when he was focused on one particular direction, such as whatever was forward.

Para even gave him some new info using Aura Mastery + Identify.

<Chimera Ghouls, Monsters, Level 87 to 93 Crazed Swarmers (Epic). Best Alpha Skill: Wild Acid Force +2 (Level 36). Best Trait: Blood Prairie Evolution (Epic). Best Stat: 398 Agility.>

<Chimera Ghouls, Expanded Details: These heinous creatures are leftover survivors from the dark and twisted experiments of their master. They’re mainly fast and strong, but they have considerable growth in Wonder, too. It’s as if they still have faith in their monster of a master.>

This use of Aura Mastery + Identify was interesting. The system had given Para and him a sweep of multiple monsters, all of which were Chimera Ghouls burrowing below the surface.

He saw where their levels ranged between. But it looked like the system gave him the best alpha skill of the bunch and its highest advancement and level.

The same went for the best trait and best stat among the bunch. Even the lore spoke of how unusually high their Wonder stat was, although that was probably their third highest stat on average.

That was still significant. They had a good amount of speed and strength paired with some decent luck on their side, making them more faithful and supernaturally sensitive.

Zarian glanced at Naomi. “Did a lot of your scars come from these guys?”

“About a third of them,” Naomi said. “They keep getting a lucky hit here and there when they’re fast enough. They also have this acidic energy stuff that can burn through armor both physical and magical. They came at us in huge waves in the beginning when Ezda, the other gnoll elders, and their best fighters were escorting me here. Eventually, it became too much when that godless watcher kept shooting at us.”

Zarian nodded. “I wish I was here earlier. I would’ve made a difference, huh?”

“Yeah, you would’ve. But you’re here now. So what are you going to do about them, hm?” Naomi waggled her eyebrows. “You won’t let them add more scars on me, would you?”

Zarian finished wolfing down his share of food. Para finished her share of bodies before he summoned more spiders.

Half of the spiders quickly sprayed down the initial framework of a large spell array. The other half sprayed arcane webbing at Zarian directly.

He pushed his aura into the web strands and caught them mid air, which was made effortless by how well Aura Mastery worked with Spectral Spider Network +2. Thus, he held mastery over the spider webbing.

How and when did he come up with that? He hadn’t thought of it before until he felt especially motivated right now.

He shot into the air using more Aura Mastery. Arcane webbing twirled mystically around him as a bright blue tapestry that clashed with the crimson glow of the Blood Prairies.

He gestured with his hands like a mystical conductor and lay down the strands where he needed them. As half of his spectral spiders finished their part of the gravity spell array, Zarian did his part with the speed and accuracy of a well-learned wizard.

Zarian laid down the last strand and made a quick landing outside of the trap seconds before the Chimera Ghoul broke through the surface. Naomi jogged to his side, and the spiders activated the gravity spell array. A small mountain’s worth of dirt and rock flew upward along with over a hundred Chimera Ghouls.

Each chimera was a fusion of undead gnolls, wulvers, raptors, and many other predatory pack creatures that called the Blood Prairies home. They flailed around with multiple limbs, multiple heads, and multiple legs that clawed and snapped about.

When the spell array ended, the rapid ascent of the earth and chimeras slowed before reversing course.

Zarian cast his Quagmire Pit spell on leveled ground that was next to the hole. It seemed like most of the descending debris and the chimeras would miss the pit and land back in the hole. That was until Naomi walked up under the raining mess and raised her hands.

Instead of using her combined stats and abilities to punch her problems, she formed a solid psychic slope with her Psychokinesis +2. This, of course, was hard for her. Her profile focused on combat at the price of utility, so attempting a more creative approach came with growing pains.

But that was okay, because Zarian was here.

He had multiple ways to help.

He used Aura Mastery to solidify the air under Naomi’s slope, providing her with extra support. Then he used Aura Mastery to pump aura down the spider network, straight into Naomi’s mind spider, down into her body, and into the specific profile runes that attached Psychokinesis +2 to her soul.

From there, he provided a steady push that gave Naomi’s skill more power without disrupting her. That last part was key. Without enough focus or care, Zarian could jam up Naomi’s skill instead of boosting it.

The results spoke for themselves. Tons and tons of rubble came crashing down on their combined slope conjuration and sent tumbling rocks and screeching chimeras into the Quagmire Pit.

The quicksand-like bog swallowed up the rubble along with the thrashing chimeras. Some of the chimeras would’ve delayed their sinking if it wasn’t for all the rubble still crashing down on top of them, pushing them under the surface.

Zarian waited until they caught everything in the Quagmire Pit. Then he did a trick he had never attempted before until now.

He handed the spell cast of Quagmire Pit from his structured portion of his mind to the unraveled portion that was merged with Para. He took a step back and let Para cast the next part of the folktale combo, Dread Mire Bite.

A massive maw that was mostly invisible came crashing up with tons of rock and chimeras caught in the wake. The jaws snapped together to demolish and rip apart everything between its teeth.

Then, with no hesitation, Para cast Dread Mire Bellow as a follow up.

The scaly maw of the mighty creature flashed into appearance before uttering an explosive roar with such volume, the noise resounded far and wide across the entire lair. The shockwave and terror factor curved around Zarian and Naomi, leaving them unaffected.

The same couldn’t be said for the chimeras. The Dread Mire Bellow thoroughly brutalized and traumatized the ones that still remained alive.

Naomi shot out waves of psychic force to knock away debris and body parts. She stayed by Zarian’s side until things settled down. Then she braced herself a little before emitting a small psychic explosion from her feet, launching high into the air.

She hit the zenith of her launch, looked down, and sent her Mind Spike +2 down at the survivors for a quick finish. Multiple heads burst apart like they had small sticks of dynamite going off inside of their skulls.

<You’ve defeated 103 Chimera Ghoul Monsters, Level 87 to 93 Crazed Swarmers!>

No level up, I see. We are truly facing the grind now, Zarian thought. I guess this is what you can expect on your way to Level 100.

That was okay. The skill levels were growing. But he didn’t want to look at them now. He would examine them at the end of the lair crawl.

Naomi fell back down with her bare feet pointed toward a patch of crimson grass. With a twitch of her toes, she shot down a blast of psychic force that countered her fall.

She made a soft landing and walked over to Zarian with a hand on her hip and a smirk on her face.

“I felt that,” Naomi said. “The way you went inside of me and made my skill better. I felt all of that.”

“You like?” he asked.

“Yeah, I do.” She glanced toward the heart of the lair. More monsters, strange dark magic, and other foul things waited for them. “That was crazy what we did.”

“It’s rare to see you get that creative,” Zarian admitted, thinking back to the psychokinetic slope.

She shrugged at him. “I saw how you set that up. I felt the idea through the spider network. I went for it, and it worked. But if there’s one thing I can criticize, big tactics like those remove the grind factor a lot.”

Zarian reached out and flicked Naomi on the nose. She blinked in surprise before letting out a small growl. She waited for him to make his case.

“You’re tough as hell, Naomi. Scary, too. You’re so determined to keep rising it makes me feel like I’m lazy. But don’t get so one-track minded all the time, okay? There’s more to the adventures than the grind.”

Naomi shook her head. “I like the grind. I like the impossible pursuit. I might not be as creative as you, but I’ll grow stronger and stronger as I keep grinding. But…”

“But?”

“That stuff we just did was pretty cool. I don’t mind you showing me more of that as long as we can mix in the grind with it.”

“Sure, I can work with that.”