With the timer for the quest completion ticking down, Cynrik cleared wave after wave of enemies. At the same time, Brance continued ushering the group of frightened and emaciated children through the portal.
The two brothers had realized earlier on that not only were they sharing the XP gained from Cynrik’s kills, but they were also sharing the Stat awards. So, while Cynrik was left doing all the work, Brance was reaping free benefits.
Cynrik wasn’t really upset about carrying his brother to him, so long as they both got stronger, everything was fine. Now they were that much closer to breaking through Tier-0 and into a different realm of power.
In total, he had savagely destroyed three more waves of people, gaining not only a level but a massive increase to his Stats. Using the lull in enemy waves, Cynrik was casually sitting atop a throne made of corpses. The wall behind him was layered heavily with the bodies of those who opposed him. Giving a sniff to the air, he couldn’t help but think about how it smelled like BBQ.
‘Tobs, condense all the award notifications into a bite-sized packet for me.’ Then, crossing his left leg over his right and reclining on the bodies of his victims, Cynrik casually made a request of the system.
-You have killed (17) Tier-0 Demi-Humans-
-You have killed (12) Tier 1 Demi-Humans-
-You have obtained 48000 Essence-
-You have leveled up-
-You have obtained 4 DEX, 5 AGI, 8 STR, 5 INT, 4 VIT, 3 MIND points.-
-You have obtained 29 KIN points-
-Your Killing Intent has evolved, allowing the Host to exert 3G worth of force on a target(s)-
– (17) Tier-0, and (12) Tier-1 Mana Codex’s located would you like to extract them Y/N –
A euphoric surge of energy flowed through Cynrik as he watched his Stats increase. Except for his MIND, all of his Stats had passed 50 and were quickly closing in on the 100 milestones. However, as his eyes scanned over them, he felt disgusted at how several odd numbers had appeared. Cynrik distributed his newly acquired Stat points into those specific Stats to make them wholly rounded figures to remedy this as best as possible. Leaving him with a single point leftover and only his MIND being annoying incomplete.
: STATS :
: HP 600/600 :
: Mana 386/386 :
: Stamina 300/300 :
: Stat Points- 1:
: Skill Points- 35 :
: Strength- 50 :
: Dexterity- 80 : (+4)
: Agility- 80 :
: Intelligence- 60 : (+2)
: Vitality- 60 : (+1)
: Mind- 41 :
: Killing Intent- 93 – 3G :
‘Eh, win some, lose some, I’ll eventually get that fucking MIND Stat up.’ Exhaling loudly, Cynrik closed his eyes and tried to rest as much as possible. Even though his HP, MP, and STAM had all fully recovered, the mental strain from constant combat was beginning to take its toll thanks to him leveling up. Cynrik unconsciously twirled three marble-sized Tier-1 Codex’s in his left hand and moved his closed eyes towards the lobby with Mana Sight active. It had been chaos upstairs since five teams had gone down and been subsequently eliminated by him.
He had been keeping tabs on the number of bodies accumulating in the lobby and had watched as that number was slowly chipped away. Initially, when they arrived at the Haylon’s Shadow base, he had counted roughly a hundred people. Still, that number had slowly been wiped down to only a fraction of what it originally was. The only trouble was that now all that remained was the high leveled and tiered beings.
Seeing the cluster of remaining XP milling around the lobby frantically above him, Cynrik had to resist the impulse to suddenly rush up there and start a massacre. His rational brain was warning him against this course of action, while his irrational lizard brain was screaming, “DO IT!”
[Hey, almost done down here; how’s it looking upstairs?] Brance’s sudden interruption pulled Cynrik out of his daydream. It caused him to look downstairs, into the basement, where his brother was.
[All good up here, five waves dispatched so far, looks like there’s only a handful left upstairs. But the remaining guys are all high-level Tier-1. You’ve only got what like ten more kids to send through; once you’re done with that, I’ll figure out something depending on what the next part of the chain quest is. So go ahead and allocate your free points, and send me over your Stat profile.]
[Yeah, alright. Also… I’ve been meaning to ask for a while now, but… what’s that smell? A couple of minutes ago, it got pretty hot down here, and now there’s a weird smell, almost like BBQ.] Brance contorted his face as he looked towards the staircase several feet away from him.
[Ah… that’s the bodies I charred with my new special attack. Don’t mind it, just keep doin what your doin.] Chuckling to himself, Cynrik waved his hand dismissively to himself and waited for Brance’s reply.
Downstairs, Brance narrowed his eyes as he heard about Cynrik basically cooking his opponents and decided to just ignore that fact before setting about distributing his 31 Stat points. Unlike Cynrik, who was in combat, he didn’t currently require a sudden massive boost in power, so he had been saving the points from the quest and his level up. However, after hearing about the challenge they would face after the kids were teleported away, he decided to dump his points. The first thing he did was push his VIT up to its current cap of 90 and then did the same to his STR. This alone ate up a large chunk of his points, leaving only nine remaining.
Taking a second to look over his Stat profile, he eventually decided to put the remaining points into his INT, since currently, it was his lowest Stat. However, the instant he distributed these points, he was almost overwhelmed by the sudden burst of energy flowing through his body as two of his Stats hit 90. Taking a deep breath and then slowly exhaling, he sent over his new Stat profile to Cynrik and set about pushing the final group of children into the teleport.
: STATS :
: HP 900/900 :
: Mana 296/296 :
: Stamina 450/450 :
: Stat Points- 0 :
: Skill Points- 15 :
: Strength- 90 : (+15)
: Dexterity- 52 :
: Agility- 51 :
: Intelligence- 44 : (+9)
: Vitality- 90 : (+7)
: Mind- 36 :
: Killing Intent- 78 – 3g :
Upon receiving Brance’s Stat profile, he loudly sucked his teeth in a judgmental manner. With enemies still around and giving free stat points, he just couldn’t understand why his brother would waste the opportunity to save his points by wasting them on capping specific stats. While he could follow his brother’s train of thought when it came to getting stronger, he couldn’t allow himself to waste the opportunity being presented to him on a silver platter.
‘Whatever, it’s his loss, not mine.’ With a swipe of his left hand, Cynrik closed the notifications he had opened and reclined into the charred corpse he was presently using as a throne, and monitored the situation upstairs.
Unlike the young boy in the stairwell, Myer lost his mind in rage. He had sent group after group to handle the unknown enemy in the basement, only to lose contact with them shortly after. Aside from the building fury in his chest, in the back of his mind, fear was running rampant. This whole fiasco had caused him to lose a ridiculous number of his master’s slaves and had zero results to show for it. However, what worried him the most wasn’t the loss of these slaves but the power demonstrated by this hidden enemy. It’s one thing to assassinate sleeping people, but this being had defeated over 30 people in a head-on confrontation. Not just that, but upon seeing how quickly this threat eliminated the Tier-0 teams, Myer had started sending down the low-level Tier-1 beings under his command. But even those people had been silenced not long after.
This fact presented Myer with only two possible answers; the first was that this entity was a high-level Tier-1 being exceptionally well-versed in combat and could easily take care of lower-level and Tiered beings. Myer wouldn’t have to worry if this was the case since he could just send his entire elite squad down to remove this pesky rat. The second possibility was what he was beginning to fear. What if this being was beyond Tier-1. If this was the case… Myer didn’t want to even think about the potential losses he would incur if he sent his elite team down to the battle.