Ch 19:- Dark Below
Rayne dreamt of a valley.
He dreamt of a small and narrow valley, cutting through the mountains forming a long pathway with remnants of an old road. Here and there, weathered paved stones could be seen through the snow. The whole thing looked eerie with the night sky as the radiant moon bathed the valley and mountains in it's ghostly, pale light.
Suddenly, the moon fell over the horizon. The sun rose from the west, streaked across the sky and disappeared in the east. Snowflakes jumped from the ground and returned into the embrace of clouds. Rayne realized that he was seeing the flow of time in reverse with each passing second the pace of time started to speed up beyond comprehension until all he saw was a blur.
Time stopped, and then resumed to its usual pace.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare realm. Prepare for your First Trial…]
In a small room a young boy with pale white skin and black hair around the age group of 15 could be seen lying on the bed. His eyes fluttered open revealing a pair of ruby like eyes, slowly the boy rose up from the bed, rising up he started to inspect his body then he started to walk around the room a bit before doing some light stretching as if he was trying to familiarize himself with his own body, then all of a sudden he started to perform various boxing along with various taekwondo moves as a warm up.
'Hum everything seems okay about this body other than the odd feeling of being unfamiliarity,' Rayne thought.
[It is normal for first timer to feel this way you should be thankful that you at least got a human body.]
'What do you mean by human body are trying to imply that there were chances of me becoming other creature,' Rayne asked.
[Yes, there is.]
'Sigh, I should think about this later let's see during the reverse time thing I was only able to make out a few thing first I am in a mountain range or I think I am at least in one other than that I don't know a thing great what a useful information,' Rayne thought.
The room which he was currently living in didn't look good by any standard it looked worn out but that was not his concern what caught his eye was the night stand that was situated just beside the small bed at the corner of the room, on it a pair of gloves along with a gun which looked very similar to flintlock if his memory served right. Rayne moved toward the nightstand and picked up the gloves, it looked like it was made out of leather and on the front portion of the wrist a metallic plate was attached, intrigued he decided to use his inspect skill on it.
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Item: Hunter Gloves
Item Description:One of the standard articles of hunter attire. A fine piece of hunter attire that provides stable defence to anyone facing beastly threat.
Effect: +5 Defence
Durability: 77/100
Enchantment: None
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'Oh, it's a piece of armour and it also add +5 to my durability stats, but is it the only piece of armour?' Rayne thought and decided to wear it in case any danger strikes, after that he looked down at himself and decide to inspect the clothes he was wearing.
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Item: Hunter Garb(Incomplete)
Item Description: A fine piece of vest made of a newly discovered material that provides stable defence to anyone facing beastly threat.
Effect: +18 Defence
Durability: 45/50
Enchantment: None
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'Holy s*** this armour has such a high defence but why does it say incomplete.' Rayne exclaimed mentally.
[If you turn to your right side you would see a door and beside that door is a stand on which the missing piece is hanged.]
Hearing Rayne immediately turned towards his right and sure enough there was a trench coat along with a hat hanging on the stand thinking that it was not an important piece
he decided to concentrate on the pistol first, picking it up he inspected it although he doesn't have high hopes for it.
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Item: Adele
Item Description: A debt of blood must be paid with blood.
It may look like a normal flintlock pistol but it is not it only look like one it is a special kind of pistol crafted by Agure the legendary blacksmith under the command of Komori Clan's head, it was given to Rassa the sole heir of the Clan before his death.
Attack Damage: +10(Physical), +5(Magical)
Durability: 89/100
Enchantment: [Rain of Blood], [Blood Infusion]
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Seeing the description and stats Rayne at first was stunned then he became excited then confused.
'Grace who is Rassa and what is the story behind this Komori clan? and also show me info about the enchantments,' Rayne asked.
[To know about Rassa and Komori clan a 10 minute long presentation has been prepared would you like to play it first.]
[Yes/No]
'Uhm...No, I will check it out later,' Rayne said mentally.
[Then would you like to know about enchantment only.]
'Yes, show me,'
[Enchantment: Rain of Blood
Description: The bullets are created from the wielder's blood, and as such, can rain on the enemies for as long as the marksman has any left in their veins.]
[Enchantment: Blood Infusion
Description: Infuse blood with bullets to further strengthen it.]
'The Rain of blood enchantment is actually similar to one of the skill I learned <blood bullet> and the later is very simple,'Rayne thought.
Rayne stored the gun inside his inventory then he started to summon it to check the speed of summoning and it was almost instantaneous making Rayne sigh in relief.
'Okay the summoning speed seems to be around one to two seconds which shouldn't be a problem until some one with high agility stats sneak attack on me now the main problem is where is the bullets I still need them to use this where is it hmm...,' Rayne thought at that time he spotted a strap of a small bag peeking out from under the bed, he picked it up at that time a system message appeared.
[Store Traveller backpack and sort out the item in inventory.]
[Yes/No]
'Yes, I guess,'
[Sorting complete! view inventory.]
Seeing this Rayne immediately summoned his inventory.
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[INVENTORY]
-Standard cloth set ×3
-Fasting pills ×10
-Blood replenishing pills ×5
-Water canteen(1 litre) ×1
-Gunpowder ×20
-Iron bullets ×64
-Syringe set ×2
-Tattered book ×1
-Traveller backpack ×1
-Chicken nuggets ×59
-Cheese pasta ×5
-Mineral water(1.5 litre)×5
-Pocket knife ×1
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After checking his inventory Rayne was satisfied to see the number of bullets because he has a feeling that he will be needing them very soon. All of a sudden the sound of explosion going off *BOOM*was heard and then his room started to shake violently as if a terrible earthquake was happening he looked to his right then to his left, he was right now thinking only one thing.
'What do I do! what do I do! this is extremely frustrating.'
Rayne let out a deep breath then dashed toward the hater and picked up the trench coat and hat before jumping out of the window and landing softly on the ground with a roll without much difficulty. As soon as he stood up he felt the ground underneath him became soft, he swiftly turned back and what he saw horrified him, behind him the earth itself was crumbling and several human and houses were falling into dark abyssal depth, it looked as if the pit itself was bottomless and it was expanding as minutes goes by waking up from his stupor he started to run the opposite direction with all his power, as he was running he shouted out loud.
"Grace quick equip!"
As soon as he spoke those words the hat and coat disappeared from sight before weaving itself on his body with a divine shine.
As he was running he saw the entrance of the town at that moment inside him a flicker of hope was born, a hope that he would survive this and would not be falling to his death today. Rayne's heart sank as he witnessed before his eyes only the land in front of him front started to crumble as the land he was running on became unstable, not giving up hope he sprinted forward with all his strength before leaping forward as the final piece of ground under him vanished and he fell. As he was falling he thought about digging his finger nails into the solid rock and coincidentally his nails hardened and extended forward assuming a more claw like shape and dug into the wall slowing down his descend before coming to a stop.
Rayne breathing was ragged his stamina was exhausted but then also with every ounce of his willpower he started to climb up using his nails, as he was a few feet away from reaching the surface the earth again trembled signifying that all the stone houses as well as the land may have hit the bottom. Rayne hastened his climb to the surface but he failed on major thing the gateway or the entrance of the town the arch of the gateway was mainly made of stone as for the door it was made up of iron spear connected together was leaning forward as if it would fall any second and it surely did. As Rayne dug his nails once again another trembling sound reverberated through out the pit but this time it caused the gateway to fall, seeing this he narrowly avoided the bricks and the iron spears. Suddenly he felt an extreme amount of pain in his chest as his grip on the wall started to loosen and blood started to rise in his throat along with difficulty in breathing, he looked down and sure enough there was a spear lodged into his chest.
'I thought that I dodged it but then how did it~~~' Rayne thought process was getting slurred as his vision was getting blurry before losing consciousness due to extreme pain and exhaustion making him finally lose his grip on the wall and falling into the dark below.