novelraw Chapter 211: The Motherlode
Chapter 211: The Motherlode
Neither Ignotus nor Dante had anticipated such a hidden force.
The scale of this group of Demons—hidden entirely from the Academy’s sight—was staggering. Even after Ignotus, his cohort, and Dante had thinned the herd, slaughtering their way through the tunnels, so many remained.
They crawled out of the cracks and poured out of hidden chambers. Fanatics driven by a deranged zeal, throwing themselves at the shadow squads with zero regard for self-preservation.
If the rest of the students knew how close they had come to extinction... well, there would be a lot of wet pants in the first-year dorms tonight.
The thought of what could have unfolded without their interference sent a shiver down even the headmaster’s spine.
The death of everything in this region would have been a guarantee.
Perhaps an entire map would have needed redrawing.
But that timeline had been averted... barely.
Dante stood alone in the myocardium of the dungeon.
He had ordered his people to carry the unconscious students and the black cat out.
They were gone, whisked away to safety, leaving him to face the Greater Demon alone.
It was only natural that he remained behind. He was the headmaster, cleaning up House-ending terrors was in his job description.
Panic was far from his mind.
His heartbeat was steady, his breathing even.
Instead, the word repeating in his mind was ’Caution.’
Dante had to minimize the damage.
If he let this fight spill over, the shockwaves alone would collapse the dungeon and kill everyone still evacuating the upper levels.
His eyes stared at the far end of the chamber, where the Greater Demon was recovering from Ignotus’s frenzy. It was standing up, all of its heads hissing and screaming.
It seemed stronger now, the awakening truly complete.
The power radiating from it warped the air, twisting the light into nauseating spirals.
There was no doubt about it: this was the most dangerous creature to emerge in the past decade.
"Hm, it appears I will have to put in actual effort."
After looking up at the ceiling and then at the monster, Dante raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
Both sound and light died.
The connection to the outside world was severed.
The dungeon, the region, and the students—they were all gone.
The world could no longer see them.
It was time to go all out.
***
White.
Everything was white.
Ignotus blinked, his eyelids feeling incredibly heavy.
The sterile smell hit him first, forcing him wide awake.
He groaned, trying to sit up, but his body felt like it had been put through a wood chipper, glued back together, and then run over by a few carriages, with Eris on his chest.
Ignotus looked around.
"...a medical hub."
A massive sense of déjà vu washed over him. Waking up in a hospital bed after doing something incredibly reckless? Yeah, that felt familiar; it was practically his routine.
He painfully turned his head to the right.
There was a row of beds.
Lykos was there, wrapped in so many bandages he looked twice his normal size. Mer was snoring loudly, one leg in a cast. Ulv was out cold, something stuck in his arm. Gaia, Nora, and Aur looked a little better, but...
They all looked like Hell.
They were breathing at least, so Ignotus didn’t complain.
"Yeah..."
He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
"They survived."
That fact was a miracle in and of itself.
Flopping his head back onto the pillow, he stared at the ceiling.
He felt completely drained. His Runes were silent, and his Divinity reserves were empty.
Ignotus was alive with barely any injuries, but only just.
Closing his eyes, he drifted back into the void, calling upon a familiar sound he grew to like.
The sound that made all the pain, all the blood, and all the near-death experiences worth it.
Ding!
A bright, holographic screen materialized above his face, flashing with triumphant text.
—
╔════════╗
║OVERFLOW!║
╚════════╝
╔════════════╗
║☆ LEVEL UP X 5 ☆║
╚════════════╝
[You’ve Felled a Lesser Demon (Sixth Class)]
[You’ve Helped Fell a Lesser Demon (Fifth Class)]
[You’ve Helped Fell a Greater Demon (Fourth Class)]
[SF = 10000]
[Ordination: 40 → 45]
[+ 15 STAT POINTS!]
—
’...damn. That’s a fat stack.’
Ignotus mentally high-fived himself.
He wasn’t even fighting the Greater Demon directly for most of the fight, but the system had counted his final, frenzied attack and survival against the odds.
Ding!
—
╔══════════════╗
║QUEST COMPLETED!║
╚══════════════╝
[You Have Survived The Greater Demon’s Wrath]
[+ 10 STAT POINTS!]
—
’Damn, damn. Twenty-five points. That’s very good.’
—
╔══════════════╗
║Heretic Saint System║
╚══════════════╝
{Ordination: 45}
[• SF: 1,258 / 2,203 •]
{Health Points}
[• HP: 1660 / 1660 → 2095 / 2095 •]
{Divinity}
[• D: 1766 / 1766 → 2350 / 2350 •]
{Statistics}
[Strength] 30 → 35 (D → D+) (Academy Avg: C+)
[Intelligence] 42 → 50(C- → C) (Academy Avg: C+)
[Willpower] 43 → 50 (C- → C) (Academy Avg: C+)
[Speed] 50 (C) (Academy Avg: B-)
[Endurance] 40 → 45 (C-) (Academy Avg: B-)
[Appearance] 70 (B+) (Academy Avg: C)
[Personality] -1 (G) (Academy Avg: C)
[Luck] 60 (B) (Academy Avg: C)
—
"Oh, that’s the motherlode."
Ignotus had already allocated the extra points.
Seven points went for Willpower, eight for Intelligence.
That was the fifteen he’d gotten from his level up, instantly pushing both stats to 50 (C rank).
From the remaining ten points of the quest reward, five went into Strength, and the last five into Endurance.
It was all great... but there was one thing to note.
Squinting at his C ranks for Willpower and Intelligence, he saw that he’d hit a bit of a roadblock.
’I guess I need to actually advance into Class Eight, Shepherd, to reach C+, or, well, above the fifty mark.’
It made sense; he was already far too strong for a Priest, his stats matching those of most Shepherds.
Ignotus expected this, especially when looking at the Academy average, which was C and higher for most stats. That average was mainly carried by the higher-tier classes in the Academy: Shepherd, Banneret, and Elder.
Students were mainly Priests, no stronger than Shepherds.
Those stronger than that were no longer called students but branched off. Either continuing with the Academy, becoming Inquisitors who worked for them, or continuing with their own House, officially leaving the Academy.
Anyhow, Ignotus’s level had increased so fast that he was nearly as strong as Lothar now, a professor. Even though he was supposed to have slowed down drastically by this point, he still tore through it all.
What would have taken years had taken him a bit more than two months.
But he wasn’t the only one; he was sure his fellows were much stronger now.
They had survived, and survival meant growth!
’It won’t be long before the entire realm moves as fast as I do, or at least inch closer to that outcome.’
Things were picking up, and it would no longer be the relatively peaceful realm they knew. And ’relatively’ was a key word there because even though there was war everywhere, compared to what was coming, this was nothing at all.
To prepare for that, he would need to do something big at the coming festival.
But he had to be in one piece by then, and so...
He closed his eyes and went deep into his Soul.
It was time to check the damage and see how his Goddess was doing.