Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 407: Bone Fortress

I don't really have all that many items on me, I left most of them back in the hidey hole deep underground, I’ve only kept the most valuable ones on my person. For example, the stones I was given by Lissandra. As I fly I study the improvements she made to Mana Cycling. At the same time, I also do the mana exercises she showed me, focusing on the evil orb that I'm currently maintaining.

I thought of triggering the mana stone that would give me a Restrictive Training Emblem but knowing the cockroach queen it would immediately activate and nearly kill me. She wouldn't be so lax as to include an easy way to control it or change the difficulty. So I decide to use it after Beyond’s 3rd trial.

Going by my conversations with Lissandra, I have a strong suspicion that Beyond is an actual place I go to before returning to Hell difficulty. It’s an extremely dangerous place, but it’s also very rewarding, despite the fact that just being there takes a lot out of you. Well, I’ll see very soon.

Anyway, my flight passes quite nicely and I find the Bone Fortress right where Tess told me it would be.

I come upon dozens of buildings coiling around what seems to be the rib cage of some giant monster.

It's still night and the cold tears through me and in the sky offers the most beautiful starry view I ever saw, particularly with the purple nebula covering a huge part of the sky. Holding to the same pattern as before, the monsters don't seem to come out during the night so I don't even meet any on my way to the fortress.

As I close in on their fortifications I detect something that reminds me of a mana web enclosing their perimeter. A veritable mesh of weird threads all laced together and marks left hanging in the air. The bulk of it seems to be sensor arrays set to trigger a host of nasty traps. Many of them are sensitive to mana, some are tailored to detect heat or movement, and some seem to work in more peculiar ways.

My Mana Wavelength Irises activate and with a bit of help from [Resonance], I pass through the defenses and land on the ground. I have to repeat these steps multiple times, finding it interesting to see how others set their defenses.

In the end, they’ll turn out to be nothing too special, just a first line of defense, not really meant to stop people from entering, just a measure for detecting large groups and significant spikes of mana. Of course, as I move closer I sense more of them, some are hidden deep underground, and others are embedded in the boulders along the way.

Several are connected to a set of rib bones that seem to be covered in thousands of inscriptions, seemingly serving as a jerry rigged core. The bones are just that conductive.

Thanks to my efforts, I manage to enter the place fairly easily without anyone seeming to care. At first, it confuses me a bit but soon I notice groups of people and individuals going in and out at all times.

There isn't a huge number of people here, a few hundred at most. Plenty of them are level 200 and higher and I notice a few with level over 250 too.

“Who are you and where are you from, human?” one man says, interrupting my musings with his hand on my arm, and the tips of his fingers burying themselves into my body in a clear attempt to hurt me.

I look down at the stunningly short man and notice something strange about his legs, they’re scaled.

[Skybreaker - lvl ??]

So around 270? And some races I haven’t met till now. Did he sense me entering and took an interest?

I move and he moves as well, desperately trying to react to my movement. Even so, I'm faster, and with my body boosted by kinetic energy, I grab his arm and twist it, dislocating it. I let his punch hit my chest and watch with interest, as the resulting kinetic energy is absorbed and turned into mana in some extremely complicated fashion before flowing into my reservoir.

The efficiency is much better than I expected. Though it didn't absorb the full force of the blow and some percentage of the force still dealt damage, but it’s still fascinating to watch. Other than giving me free mana, it seems to be really good passive protection against blunt physical attacks. Though I don’t know how well it would fare against an edged weapon with a smaller point of impact.

My attacker rouses his mana and I pull him closer, still holding his arm. Unable to resist, he staggers towards me and my left hand hits his chin, sending a burst of kinetic energy through his skull and he staggers back.

Neither of us is using much mana in an effort to avoid affecting our surroundings.

I let him hit me several times, observing my unique epic passive in action.

It is fabulous, it is beautiful and I think I'm in love. It’s amazing passive defense and it also allows me to gain more mana. If I can make my body stronger to endure physical damage I could manage to continue fighting entirely without mana, the passive restoring my reserves as I absorb blows.

So I will try to mimic Potency with black mana, mimic Regeneration with this passive, and have Amplification as my attribute upgrade.

The system is indeed fair and beautiful.

With another punch, I send the man staggering back with a bloodied face. Yet even so, he smiles.

“You’re not bad, for a human,” he says, bearing his teeth.

The atmosphere around him changes and I see him getting ready to kill. There is no hesitation on his face.

Everyone in this place is a murderer or something worse, this moon serving as a dumping ground for them. There is also an effect covering the entire moon making it impossible for anything other than monsters to be born here. It's something I learned from the others.

So there is no real reason to be hesitant.

The man doesn't say anything else and attacks, his body radiating some field that seems to have oscillating effects. Anything that touches it gets destroyed. The stone under his feet starts crumbling, a wall of the building begins to crumble. Even some of the mana I left in the air crumbles and gets destroyed.

My [Resonance] supported by my eyes sees through it and when he reaches me his field has no effect, my skill countering it easily, much to his surprise.

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His head gets separated from his body by a quickly forming long dagger.

[You have defeated Skybreaker - lvl 273]

When I look around there are a few people watching the fight but no one seems to mind. Many of them just laugh and a small group even seem to exchange currency, seems like there were bets on the result of the fight.

“Mister, mister, are you going to take the body? If you don't want to deal with it I can take it. I’ll pay one small pouch of bone dust, there are even a few small pieces in it!” An older man chirps, rapidly approaching with long arms and legs. He’s very thin and his long hair is messy. His eyes are nervously ticking from side to side.

I remember the people grinding the bones of the giant serpent that were resting against the pyramid and to hear him tell it it might be the same here.

“Sure, why not.” I say, reaching out with my hand, and as the man shows his crooked smile and starts giving me the pouch I add, “If the bone dust is fake I will find you. I’ve already marked you.”

That makes him stop and I can sense his heart beating widely.

When I move my hand to grab the pouch he quickly pulls it back and giggles, “My bad, mister! I was about to give you the wrong one!”

The pouch he gives me this time is smaller and he watches as I take it. There is a dagger coated with poison strapped to his body and I see his hand twitching towards it.

Before he grabs it his eyes meet mine and I return his gaze.

Very slowly he lets his arms fall along his body. Instead, he turns to the corpse and goes through the pockets.

“Here, mister.” He gives me all of the things he finds in them and grabs the legs of the body, quickly pulling it away.

I take a look at the items I received but most of them aren't even worth mentioning. Only the bone dust seems somewhat interesting and I add it to my bag with the increasing number of curious things I can live without.

There is also a bag with very valuable items such as the alloy from Nevan, mana stones from Lissandra, and some interesting pieces of metal. I also have Flamebearer strapped to my back. I thought of taking a voidsteel blade with me as I still have a few of them I didn't sell, but I decided against it and left them in the hidey hole for future experiments along with some of the other metals.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - I'm at the place

Soph (Hell, group 4) - Sset is busy. You’re early. We’re due to start in around 18 hours.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - I will locate the portal in the meantime and examine the place.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - good idea. But they might have a backup they can activate if the original one fails so please hold off on destroying it until we attack.

NotAaron (Hell, group 4) - fuck I can't wait to deal with these shits.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - make sure to take as much revenge as you can. If they escape try to mark them for us to hunt later.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - as if they could ever escape Sset, she could snipe them from miles away. I will also try to find the Black Tower’s portal and we destroy it in sync with you Noname. Not one of the fuckers will be escaping.

Izzy (Hell, group 4) - language!

I ignore the rest of the conversation and turn off the Community. A small group of people has gathered before me, this time they’re all human. All three of them.

Their levels are lower than mine, but I sense five more signatures nearby. Most of them feel ready for a fight.

I don't know why but it feels weirdly comfortable. So far no one has shown me even a hint of goodwill and everyone I’ve met has been dead set on robbing, killing, or scamming me. For some twisted reason, I can’t help but enjoy that.

I continue wordlessly on my way, without any concern for the trio blocking that direction. My mana rouses itself within my body along with the energies stored in my core.

They just curse, jumping out of my way. Even so, none of them attack me, they even hold their mana secure inside of their bodies, as the ones trying to hide follow suit.

Somehow I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed but I continue to delve deeper into the Bone Fortress. At the same time, I carefully send my senses into the area. I can't really attack the place before I find the teleporting array. I don't think I could quickly get rid of everyone without at least a few of them sensing me preparing to attack.

If I were to try they would probably use the array and move to the Black Tower which would only cause trouble for the rest of my group.

Sure, there are ways to deal with it. I could just use the array to follow them to the Black Tower but there’s also a chance they would destroy it to keep me from doing so. It's not much trouble so I can wait the 18 hours Sophie requested.

And it's interesting most of the people here don't seem to mind my active [Mana Crown]. I get a few looks but it's probably being thought of as a bluff, they probably don't sense the amount of mana I’ve already stored inside.

There is also another reason I have it active though. I’m hoping to fish out someone who knows what it is so I can ask questions and learn more about it. That would be nice.

As I reach one of the taller rib bones, the one with the least buildings around I stop for a moment. A presence that’s followed me ever since I entered the fortress is still there, following me while staying out of sight.

The bone is white and the surface is extremely smooth, either it’s always been like this, or every bone has been scraped of imperfections on the surface to be turned into that bone dust. I poke it a few times and send my senses inside, finding, to my surprise, that the bone is even more mana conductive than I expected.

Estimating the level of the being it belonged to is difficult but I would say something akin to the remains of the snake resting on the pyramid.

Creating a dagger out of my mana I make it very dense and as sharp as possible. The dagger ends up noticeably heavy and not far off from being turned into a tricolored bomb. Even so, I can’t even slightly damage the bone. The dagger's tip just grinds against the surface and there isn't even a scratch left behind.

That might be why it seems to be used as currency here. I wonder what they use it for.

I activate my eyes and [Resonance] for a moment and create the sharpest edge I can on my dagger.

It takes a decent chunk of my mana and even some kinetic energy but bit by bit I cut into the bone and after a few minutes cut off a piece as long as my finger. Quickly storing it away I rouse my mana again and reach to cut out more.

“That’s enough,” the voice from behind me sounds, my creepy stalker.

[Ember Knight - lvl ??]

The man is short, barely reaching my chest. Interestingly though his legs aren't human-like; they resemble those of a lizard, slim, nimble, and covered in black scales. Otherwise, he seems fairly normal.

When I do not answer he continues, “I have been watching you ever since you came and have a few questions. Where are you from? Who sent you? What is your name, and position? Who are you looking for and how the hell did you manage to remove such a big piece of bone so quickly? Answer."

Like the others before him, he’s posturing rather aggressively. It's not that he’s underestimating me, instead, like the men before, he just feels wild, ready to attack even an enemy stronger than himself.

Even so, I push my annoyance with the man away. Just for a few more hours or until I find the array. I'm searching for it even now.

“I'm from Ruminous Border. My name is Elydor,” I introduce myself.