Unbound Deathlord_Obliteration, Page 33

  I healed the guys and checked our defenses. The tanks were still holding and I only now realized how much better this room was defensively; it took only two tanks to block the doorway compared to the three required to hold the previous one. Plus, the limited space made it much harder for the elites to handle their weapons.

  I went back to meditating but this time, when I felt the heat of the ring, I just ignored its suggestions and kept my eyes closed.

  After another hour of healing and meditating, Daggers and Bear had full stamina bars, while I had a hundred MP and ten fire morbs ready to become firebombs.

  Daggers told me. The zombies obeyed.

  Excited, I got up, got close to the doorway, took the spider ring from the bag, and threw it as far as I could.

  With no bolts firing at minotaurs, the ring was sure to catch their attention. I crossed my arms and waited for the fun.

  The wait didn't last long. In less than a minute, a minotaur screamed in pain. Soon, it seemed to be getting taller but in fact its legs were being replaced by long spider legs.

  It was a very short transformation. In mere moments, it had gone from a screaming minotaur to a silent abomination. Its lower body was gone, replaced by huge, black, scaly spider legs. It now towered over the nearby minotaurs, even taller than the elite.

  The thing wasn't stupid; it jumped and stepped over the armored minotaurs to get to the mages. Once there, it began to murder them all.

  I remembered something. If it wasn't something impressive, it was just stupid for them to not use armor.

  Daggers took one of the minotaur mage's robes from inside her cloak and threw at me.

  Silk Robe of the Adept Minotaur Mage

  » +10 Mage (Minotaurs-only)

  » +5 Mage (Non-Minotaurs-only)

  » No bonuses to Expert Mages or above

  » Cannot be worn with chest armor

  Well, I could see the appeal. If I was a minotaur and had hundreds of others to protect me from harm, I would probably wear it. Sadly, it was useless for me.

  The Fallen Spider had already killed two of the minotaur mages. It was tearing into another mage while being attacked by several more when a pulsating light gray morb and a dark grey morb appeared over its head and entered one of the mage corpses.

  I couldn't see it clearly, but I remembered the Fallen Spider under the White Spider Inn raising her slain minions as undead.

  This Fallen Spider was much more aggressive. Manhart had said something about the one under the Inn being born from a rat, while this was born from a minotaur. I guess I should have expected the difference in power.

  "Ugly-face, you shouldn't have!" Bear said to my side.

  "Sorry?" I didn't get it.

  "You were worried only the guys on the third floor wouldn't be enough and decided to give me more strong enemies to kill." He punched my shoulder. "You charmer! I really might be falling for you now!"

  I just sighed and kept watching the Spider.

  "That is bad, sir," Daggers said. She was invisible next to me.

  "What?" I asked.

  "What if the spider revives the dead elites?"

  "Shit."

  Indeed, the Fallen Spider was close to some elites' bodies. However, it didn't seem interested in reviving them. I sighed in relief.

  "Maybe it can only revive someone who has been killed by it or its spider minions."

  The mino-spider's upper body was still wearing armor but its legs were being wrecked by spells and bolts. It didn't take long before one leg was mangled and the monster started limping.

  Daggers said.

  he said and rushed at the door.

  He had lost his greatsword somewhere but it wasn't a problem. Before he made it out of the room, he had already started glowing orange. He had gone Feral and wouldn't have been able to use a weapon anyway.

  He jumped on one of the minotaurs in the doorway and was wildly bashing its face in with his armored fists, as he pinned it on the floor with his body. His agility was noticeably higher than when he'd fought the elite and the punches clearly had more strength behind them.

  Considering that Feral zombies couldn't use weapons, the increased attributes seemed like an okay tradeoff.

  Instead of killing the fallen minotaur, he got up and jumped on the next.

  Just then, Daggers became visible. She was killing another minotaur with thrusts to its neck, piercing its armor. Then before the minotaur Bear had tackled could rise from the floor, Daggers jumped on it, killed it, then proceeded to run across the heads and shoulders of the hundreds of minotaurs in the direction of the mages.

  And I was left there, with nothing better to do than throw my already amassed firebombs and fireballs at the minotaurs.

  For some reason, throwing magic around wasn't as exciting as I had expected when I first started playing.

  I mean, yes, creating a sphere of fire out of thin air was okay, and using it to explode my foes was interesting. Healing my allies was useful and throwing death itself in magic form at enemies wasn't bad. Being the greatest damage dealer of the group was good for my ego, and killing others before they could even get close to me had its appeal.

  But still...

  Who am I kidding?! This is awesome!

  I grinned excitedly while my firebombs flew and exploded amongst the minotaurs. Their shields were a pain in the ass, but their armor was worthless in the face of my firebombs which dealt almost three hundred and seventy damage at its epicenter when I was holding the mage staff.

  I rained fire over my enemies and I loved every second of it.

  The Fallen Spider quickly lost two more legs and tried to get away from the minotaurs. The five mages it had killed had been brought back from the dead and then killed again by the minotaurs. They, and the spider who had raised them, simply couldn't resist the attacks from all sides.

  Thing is, the big bad spider above everyone was too easy of a target; hundreds of minotaur crossbowmen and tens of mages attacked it, it's hard to imagine anything could have survived in such an environment. It was already impressive that it had resisted as long as it had; having a better body as a host really made the Spider Ring's creature stronger.

  It was trying to flee, but Daggers apparently wasn't interested in hunting it through the castle. She was moving to intercept it, jumping on minotaurs heads as if they were a solid pathway.

  Valia didn't allow you to tear off an enemy's armor — unless there was a skill for it that I hadn't heard of — but Bear couldn't care less: he had found a unique weakness in the lightsteel armor: the armpit. It horrified everyone as he broke minotaur's shoulders to get their arms out of the way and ate their armpits.

  I kept throwing fireballs at whomever seemed like a good target.

  Daggers reached the Fallen Spider, shadowed mid-air and crouched on its shoulders as she tore into its head. It was a slaughter, and the spider was soon dead.

  Bear was still eating his enemies. He kept moving, crouching, and knocking the minotaurs down before attacking them, which made it impossible for the crossbowmen to even target him. Only those nearest could attack him, but his armor was damn good and he regenerated HP and stamina as he ate his fallen foes.

  After killing the Spider, Daggers severed the hand wearing the ring and ran back my way. She was halfway through when she stumbled and fell in the middle of the enemies.

  Fireballs for you, fireballs for you, fireballs for everyone!

  When using skills or in feral mode, Bear was simply too strong. He just couldn't be killed by anything less than a well coordinated attack. The sea of hundreds of minotaurs around him was just food for his regeneration, it was the perfect battlefield for him.

  Daggers jumped back up from where she had fa
llen and kept coming. She finally sprang through the doorway, threw the hand to me, and dropped to the floor. There, she turned to the minotaurs.

  she said, She threw herself at the minotaurs.

  The zombies cheered and about half of them went out. The other half had too little stamina or too little HP. Or were just too lazy.

  Turtle and Eleven got to the doorway but just crossed their arms and leaned against the archway to support their bodies in a relaxed manner, with the minotaurs pressed back by our countercharge. It was the first time our defensive line had nothing to do. Bear was still an unkillable machine and Daggers was still a goddess of death.

  For the next half hour, the Castle experienced a genocide. Hundreds of minotaurs were killed with no quarter given. Those who tried to surrender were killed or eaten. All the zombies had eventually gone feral, but with so many targets they didn't even get close to me.

  The minotaurs eventually tried to flee, but Daggers commanded a few of the zombies to end their Feral state and guard the door.

  It was beautiful.

  In between shooting arrows, I took the ring off the finger of the severed hand and stored it away. It hadn't been as helpful as I'd hoped, but it had killed nearly a half dozen mages and made a pretty good distraction for a little while.

  Finally, the last minotaur died and we all cheered loudly.

  Almost immediately, exclamation points appeared on the edge of my vision.

  First, I checked the one with the letter 'A' and an arrow upwards.

  Intelligence increased to 30 (+1)

  Choosing the right tactics, strategies, and surviving, are marks of a true genius.

  » MP: 2420 (+150)

  (Items disregarded)

  Charisma increased to 19 (+1)

  You earned the trust of your subordinates with sweet words and bold actions.

  Next, I checked the one with the letter 'T.'

  Adept Mage increased to 11 (+1)

  » +11% effectiveness to spells

  » +1% resistance to all magical elements, except divine

  Commander increased to 2 (+1)

  You have proven you can lead your people to victory.

  » Swap time: 5 minutes

  Healer increased to 2 (+1)

  No one enjoys helping others more than you.

  » +2% healing effectiveness

  » Minimum extra healing: +2 HP

  Meditator increased to 2 (+1)

  Introspection allows you to better understand the mystical nature of meditation.

  » +10% MP recovery rate while meditating

  » Minimum: +2 MP per minute

  Tactician increased to 2 (+1)

  Creating grand strategies is wonderful, but only a true tactician can create a clever gambit in the middle of a battle to gift his troops with victory.

  To all members of a party you are the leader of, except you:

  » +1% increase damage

  Level up!

  Current level: 35

  HP, MP and stamina restored

  I was finally moving forward, and not regaining the levels I lost when I died. It felt great! After reading the prompts, I looked back at the battlefield.

  Before me was a creepy scene: hundreds of corpses, all bloodied, broken, or partially eaten. Zombies were hunched over the bodies, eating their fill or removing body parts for later consumption. Daggers, with her cloak drawn about her, stood still in the middle of it all, like a reaper.

  And it still wasn't enough to satiate my anger at the damn beasts.

  I said after taking a photo using the VirBridge built-in function.

  They were slavers, and in my book, there was only one acceptable fate for them:

  Death!

  * * *

  For the rest of the day we opened every room in the castle, from the second floor downwards, until we were back to the Magic Garden.

  There was too much loot to be carried and we had to prioritize what we thought would be more valuable, leaving the other stuff in a pile on the ground floor.

  We found no resistance coming from outside the castle. The building was completely sealed off, without a single window, and the now closed gate didn't react when Bear struck it anymore than the stone walls would have. As long as it stayed closed, we were as safe as we could be.

  Just as our minotaur hunting party arrived at the Magic Garden, red text started blinking in the middle of my view.

  Priority broadcast received on your phone network.

  Say 'Receive' to see it.

  My VirBridge was linked to my phone so the message itself wasn't strange at all. What I found strange was the content. I had only ever received 'priority broadcasts' when entering military zones.

  "Receive," I said.

  Priority Broadcast

  From: NAC Armed Forces

  To: All

  This is a priority broadcast by the NAC Marine Corps.

  You are entering a Protected Zone.

  It is unlawful to enter this area without permission of the Zone Commander.

  Use of deadly force authorized.

  Good old Marines, always to the point.

  I had to logout to see what that was about.

  * * *

  I took the VirBridge off my head and looked through the window.

  There were no Humvees escorting my sedan anymore. The car was cruising down the road on the mansion grounds, we'd just passed the large entry gates. Pine trees stretched towards the sky on both sides of the road and a huge garden could be seen beyond them.

  The road led to a large fountain with a Chinese dragon statue in the middle, the car moved around it to stop in front of the four story mansion — for the most part one floor was actually used.

  According to grandfather, the McHolen family was broke. But he meant broke by his standards; we probably still had tens or hundreds of millions in assets, and this place was the most valuable residential asset we owned: what the family referred to as our "Ancestral Home". It might as well be called the Old People's Home.

  The driver opened the door for me and I stepped out. A butler was there at the bottom of the short flight of steps, and to each side a pair of armed Marines stood guard.

  "Long time no see, Jeeves," I said. It wasn't the butler's name, but I enjoyed the archaic reference too much to resist.

  He was a forty-year-old half-bald grizzled man. He had almost been fired when he dyed his hair the first time. Grandfather believed a butler with white hair added to the stately feeling of the house or some other bullshit like that. Cadbury wore a traditional butler's tuxedo and his posture was better than the last woman to win Miss Commonwealth.

  "Mister Jack Thorn," he nodded. "Senator Thorn requests your presence."

  Senator, huh?

  A layman would think it would be impossible for an unelected man to become a senator. In truth, it was incredibly simple: the elected senator only had to step down. One could then simply bribe the Governor who would be in charge of appointing temporary replacements, and just like that you were a senator, at least until the next elections. Of course, under Martial Law, who knew how long they might postpone even having elections.

  "Lead the way," I said, instead of just walking in. I wasn't sure if grandfather would be in his office and it was only polite to allow the butler to do his job. Although I would be living in the mansion, I would be a guest, not a true resident.

  He did as instructed. The entrance hall was designed to impress: paintings by famous artists in elegantly hand carved frames, an elaborate gilt bronze crystal chandelier, a few doubtlessly priceless vases rested in alcoves around the room and the floor was critically endangered rosewood in a striking herringbone pattern though the majority of it was covered by an enormous Persian rug.

  A big mahogany staircase was at
the back of the room, leading to the second floor. We turned right before it and entered a corridor instead.

  Large windows with luxurious red curtains and a few small sculptures on pedestals could be seen throughout the corridor. We passed by three doors before coming to an open one. The old man was in his office after all.

  "Thanks, Cadbury," I said.

  "My pleasure," he replied and left.

  I looked inside the office. Grandfather was in there, not sitting behind his antique desk — which he had told me many times had once belonged to a President of the former United States, though I'd never cared to remember which one — but on one of the sofas in the room instead, a cup of coffee upon the small table before him.

  His room was a mix of impressive and practical. I knew he had never read all the books on the bookshelves — which occupied two entire walls — but I had seen him reference them when researching something a few times before. This room was luxuriously carpeted and I knew for a fact that he had a holo-projection system installed.

  The NAC flag was displayed behind his desk, as most politicians did, was a clear statement for anyone who knew how to read it. 'I'm a patriot; this is the country I screw the least,' it said.

  He used the sofas for meetings which required more subtly and sat behind the desk to appear more imposing when he wanted to give direct orders.

  I sat on the sofa opposite his. We looked into each other's eyes.

  "Harris will bring your coffee in a moment," he said.

  "Thanks. So, Senator?" I replied.

  "Former Senator White was kind enough to provide me with his position."

  He smiled, as I considered the fact that the White family did nothing without my family's say-so.

  "What about the Marines?" I asked.

  "The Pentagon deemed that protection of our country's leaders during the pacification efforts was necessary."

  "Yeah, I'm sure the Pentagon is loving babysitting your ass." I crossed my arms. "So, what do you want?"