Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 24

As time slowed and he looked for weaknesses, Aaron sent his arms phasing through the barrier again. It wasn’t too hard to catch another shieldbearer off-guard and yank them through. He was so much quicker than they that they screwed up sooner or later, and he could capitalize on it.

But it was an exhaustingly tiresome method of dealing with the defenses. And recharging his energy after doing each grab would burn through his supply of food faster than he cared to.

Aaron swooped by and grabbed a couple of the defenders, and a split second later, his companions attacked. But once more, the barrier rippled against the power of the combined volley, but not much else.

As if in response, the boss—Ramesses the Reincarnator—started to throw balls of crackling lightning out at them.

At first, the balls of lightning were surprisingly easy to dodge. So easy that Aaron was surprised they were coming from a mid D-grade. But a moment later, realized that the balls were more than they first seemed. The balls of lightning bounced across the room, and then hit the walls, and bounced right back. Not only that, but as they bounced around, arcing beams of lightning blasted off of them, causing energy explosions and flames to spread across the chamber.

That was manageable, though. The problem was that the balls of lightning just kept going, bouncing back and forth, and to make matters worse, Ramesses kept throwing them. Within seconds, there were several dozen of the lightning balls bouncing around the room, and each time they hit a wall, their speed seemed to increase.

Within a short moment, balls were zooming all over the place, sparking everything around them with bursts of bright lightning. And every second it was getting worse.

Not only that, but as Aaron glanced around, he realized that the barrier wasn’t just stopping them from attacking this Ramesses fellow, but had also sealed up the exits.

This was how it fought. It was going to fill the entire room with these bouncing lightning balls eventually, and there would be nowhere to run.

Feeling increasingly desperate, Aaron clashed with the barrier again. Not that it achieved much.

Sure, he could continue his little trick of grabbing the enemies and dragging them through the barrier, and then finishing them off. But there were dozens of the alien shieldbearers forming a defensive line, and he had a feeling it was going to take a while to get through them.

In the meantime, it was going to get impossible to keep dodging the ever-increasing number of balls.

And the situation went from problematic to bad when a couple of the balls bounced into one another, and set of an electrical explosion that caused a devastating shockwave of power.

Not even Aaron could dodge the power that exploded from the balls. And the surge of energy had come so fast that he hadn’t even activated his phase in time. The arcing beams of energy twisted and turned in the air, seeking out targets for their currents.

The lightning exploded into flames as it hit him, and he stumbled back a few steps. It wasn’t a serious wound, but it had shocked him, and it took a second to recover from the volt that made his body twitch uncontrollably.

Talia had blocked several zaps herself, thanks to her powerful shield Skill, but Zero and Soohyun were less lucky. And had fallen back to the rear of the room to lick their wounds as they did their best to avoid getting struck by another ball.

The lightning balls were a product of the boss, but the barriers were created by some kind of party Skill that all of the shield barriers were contributing to. It was a perfect example of the synergy Aaron realized their squad lacked.

If it were just Ramesses they were facing down, he would have already crushed the D-grade boss. But his lightning Skill paired perfectly with the barrier, creating an ultimate weapon.

That said, Aaron still had plenty of fight left in him. But he was a little worried about the others. Fighting and dodging made things difficult, and even Talia would start to struggle with energy output if she continued to block the lightning balls with her shield Skill.

“Stay back and focus on dodging!” Aaron yelled.

His party were elites themselves, and if they were focused on avoiding damage, he figured they should be safe enough. Besides, they had already proven that raw power alone wasn’t the solution to this problem.

He knew they could withstand this situation for a while. But Aaron’s thoughts were racing for a different reason.

They were trapped, and everyone on the floor knew where to find them. There couldn’t be a worse situation to be stuck in. And he knew they needed to find a solution to this immediately.

Soohyun slammed her enlarged sword with incredible power against the barrier, but once more, it was thrown back without any evidence of doing anything.

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Her attack had caused a significant shockwave to bellow out, and the force of it actually crushed the metal walls around them, indicating how much power was truly within her attacks.

But it didn’t break the barrier

“Back, I said! Worry about dodging!"

Soohyun didn’t need to be told a third time and did as he asked. It was clear her attacks were more powerful, but power wasn’t what was needed here.

Aaron bounced around, dodging lightning as he grabbed another shieldbearer and racked his mind for a better solution to their shitty problem.

On the plus side, he still needed a movement Skill, and dodging the ever-increasing number of bouncing lightning balls was admittedly, pretty good training. He was bouncing around himself, going wall to wall, and shooting around the massive room with bursts of mana from his feet. But more importantly, the ever-increasing number of attacks was forcing him to push himself. And if that wasn’t good enough to earn a nice, shiny new Skill, he wasn’t sure what was.

As he did this, he swooped by the barrier once again, phasing a hand through and grabbing hold of one shieldbearer after another, and dragging them out. He ended them with quick punches and then threw them at the lightning balls, causing them to explode.

This little technique helped him cull the number of lightning balls before they got too much to handle. But in truth, it was only stalling for time. He needed to come up with something better.

But maybe he could get a [ Bombardier Fist ] through the barrier, he thought. And on the next swoop, he attempted just that. Instead of grabbing one of the defenders, he shot his fist out after phasing it through the barrier and shot it toward his enemies.

Unfortunately, firing attacks from afar wasn’t very effective. The problem was that their defenses were multilayered. Even if he got past the barrier itself, he still needed his attacks to penetrate the shield wall beyond it. And when he tried, his [ Bombardier Fist ] exploded against the shields, leaving no visible damage.

This wasn’t good. The longer this fight dragged on, the greater the chance of somebody gate-crashing them.

But while [ Bombardier Fist ] hadn’t worked, it had given him an idea. Perhaps he could do something similar, albeit with a different Skill.

Attacking again, he swung at the barrier with a powerful strike and phased his fist straight through. Then, once his fist was through the barrier, he activated [ Soul Shattering Strike ] and released [ Wraith Phase ]. The result was his fist being cut off by the barrier, and continuing with the momentum of his swing at impressive speed.

Aaron’s theory had proven correct. While the shield wall beyond the barrier was impressive for blocking raw damage, it wasn’t so well versed for defending against soul attacks, and his severed fist flew over the shieldbearers and slammed straight into Ramesses with the full power of a [ Soul Shattering Strike ].

The effect of his attack didn’t last long. It had lost efficacy over distance, but it was enough to bring the barrier down for a second or two, and that was enough for Aaron to pass through it and go on a rampage.

Finally, he had found a way to outsmart this irritating style, and there was nothing that would stop him now.

Within seconds, he was beating his way through the crowds of shieldbearers, and the moment he was within range, he flung himself forward. Pouncing for the cloud-mounted man at the rear of the small army.

As he closed in on his target, lightning streaked across his body, opening some minor wounds before he phased again, passing through several attacks as he readied a fist.

He had done well to find a weakness and push through. But Ramesses was a boss for a reason, and he was far from defenseless. The moment Aaron was within range and throwing his fists, he realized what the final line of defense was.

As his fists collided with the little man, sparks of lightning exploded, electrifying him each time he hit the D-grade boss.

Dodging and phasing were great, but they did little when the damage was being applied on contact. There was nothing he could do now but outlast the D-grade boss. Luckily, that was exactly what he planned to do.

A mad grin came over his face as he started punching harder and faster, his own flesh melting away as he crippled the boss.

The shieldbearers had attempted to come to their leader’s aid, but Talia, Soohyun, and Zero had thrown themselves straight back into the fray the moment the shield had been broken and were quickly decimating what remained of the small army.

It had been hard fought, and Aaron realized that he had underestimated the boss. But victory was theirs, and the enemy was quickly wilting beneath their attacks.

But just as Aaron’s spirits were rising, and he felt the tides turning their way, he spotted something rather unusual.

A sludgy, purple toxin was trickling down the stairs that led from one of the passages behind the army, and it was quickly spreading throughout the room as if it had a life of its own.

What now?

Aaron shook his head as he landed the killing blow. As sweet as victory was, he did not like the look of this.

And only a moment later, he spotted the source of the ink. Casually walking out from the passage was a humanoid creature that appeared part octopus. Her tentacles pointed at them, their tips lined by deadly barbs dripping poison.

But worst of all, he recognized this figure. It was Raksha Tiksus Vakmal. The second-highest-ranked person on their world, and the strongest of the thal’kesh, the one they called queen of the depths back during the trials.

Aaron swallowed and clenched his fists as he gathered himself, ready for another fight.

This wasn’t just anybody, and her thick purplish lips curling into a smile told him that she wasn’t too scared of facing down the top-scoring trial participant from their world.

In truth, Aaron had expected this day to come eventually. It was the nature of sharing a world with a deadly alien species. But what he didn’t expect to see was several humans walking out from the passage shortly after the eldritch horror that stared him down.

“Aaron Dober, we need to talk,” she said.

“Talk?”