The Occupation Pt2

Chaos entity, that was something that Zekrom talked about when explaining the gateway and some of the history behind this place.

"What can you tell me about chaos entities?" I ask curiously, hoping for some more insider information.

[I can tell you to get back to work]

"Yes, ma'am," I acknowledge with a dejected lowering of my head while kicking at a frozen rock. The rock shattered into a glittery cloud of ice and dust. "Well," I say to get myself back on track while stretching my arms up over my head, "my skills won't train themselves! Let's get to cursing."

Taking advantage of the fact that the demons were still mostly trapped while fighting their new restrictions, I shrink my wings down to half size and then start blurring back and forth around the field form one breaking mound to the next. Each undead and demon I came to received a sound slap on the head or spank on the 'rear' carrying the Curse of Weakness.

After the first few dozen my skill was thoroughly processed and even grew to level three where the stat debuff grew from ten points to twelve and then to fourteen percent. This was only within the first ten seconds as the first demons were finally rising to their feet. After the first hundred had been smacked or spanked, my curse reached level four with a sixteen-percent debuff.

[Acquired Unarmed Skill: Open Handed]

[100XP]

[Open Handed Uninitiated: The open hand holds all the possibilities. Keep the pimp hand strong. Open handed strikes to an opponent now carry (10)% more force and damage while strikes to the head have a (20)% chance to daze opponents for two seconds. At higher levels, targeting an opponent's limbs can cause increasing slowness and even armor degradation. To Initiate, land one hundred Open Handed strikes]

Now the enemies were becoming ever so slightly harder to smack in the head. Not because they were back in action but because they were simply so tall. I moved so swiftly from one person to the other with my shortened wings augmenting my steps that they could not even turn their cursed heads to follow me.

I had no choice but to shamelessly spank each and every undead or demon In the area. At their level with their supposedly high intelligence races and AI, many of these beings began roaring and snarling after being demoralized with a spank. A few of them even spoke in different languages as if searching for one to curse me in.

At this point the wraiths were simply hanging back and enjoying the show, ignoring the hatred on the faces of their sentient ex-comrades. I, too, simply ignored everything about the demons except for their positions and locations. There were several that I still jumped up to land a sound slap across their faces that wore unfavorable expressions.

At my speeds in combat, my slaps and spanks landed roughly two hundred damage per hit depending on an individual's defenses. It was not hard to understand why more and more demons began thundering with a variety of voices and sounds while all taking slow and stuttering steps.

Within two minutes, every enemy in the area had been slapped with an indefinite length and varying strength of Weakness. After hundreds of demons had been struck by my magic hand, not only had the curse grown to level five where it rose straight to twenty-percent debuff but Open Handed also reached level two. The damage increase only went up by one percent but the daze chance went up to twenty-five percent

Once all of the demons had been struck and my skills had grown, I grew out my wings once again and flew up into the sky. Reaching half the height of the city's underground ceiling, I could clearly see where my party and the other clans were in confrontation with the demons.

As expected, the other clans looked thinner than earlier and was probably due to the fact that the wraiths were only just being cleaned up from among the players. Many players struggled to move as priests and certain other healers worked to break their curses or compensate for them with single-target buffs. My team, though, was still accounted for at the front.

Even as I watched, a pair of massive Spirit Slashes swept through the scenery with half of whatever health the demons had at the time. The fight would only last for another two minutes as long as the other clans held out. I had no idea where our people respawned at but I could only hope that it was in the dungeon because I had yet to see the fallen again.

Returning my attention below, I remain in the air and simply count the minutes. The curses I had spread out began disappearing after the following two minutes, showing that the first level had around three minutes of active time. The curse itself showed its effect the same as the slow effect of my staff, a vague shadowing or darkening of their body.

Once the first enemy's body cleared up, the 'cleansing' of the curse began spreading out like a sudden wave. After the first hundred were done, the rest continued showing signs while doing their best to fight the restrictions of the phantoms on their bodies. Despite the Taurian weapons and fighting style, I was well out of range of their abilities and little to fear.

Even with a hundred active bodies below me, there was nothing they could do and nowhere to go without their comrades. So, the half-freed enemies just milled about and gathered around together while trying to support the other cursed demons. The undead did not even bother moving, simply remaining stationary while awaiting orders.

I was tempted to drop down and see if I could not take over the undead, but the experience I would gain from such a thing was questionable. I had yet to receive any form of rewards for Channeling, the skill itself was only level four despite the amount of use it has seen. In this way, I was hesitant to assume control of the undead and lose maybe a few hundred experience sacks.

After five minutes, all of the demons below were freed from my curses and the undead were back in action my current Curse of Weakness not only deprived a person of twenty-five percent of their stats but also lasted for five minutes. Unless the curse was dispelled by dying, Weakness could be the bane of clans in other kinds of events than just these raids.

Now that the reclamation force was somewhat in gear again, the restricted undead began slowly piling together. Using their bodies and limbs for security and surface space, the undead gradually formed themselves into a giant stage or platform that was about ten feet tall. The demons tried to get up there to increase their range, but it was simply a waste of time.

During these two minutes, the others had been gradually reaching the end of their own combat while surrounded in the ruins of hundreds of bodies. From above, I had a pretty damn good view from which to appreciate the sheer carnage of almost a thousand enemies surrounding a group that looked to be only a dozen or so above a hundred.

I made sure to ask Melpomene for a short clip of that view before finally landing back down on the ground.

Knowing the undead had the lowest loot value- at least to me- I decided to target the peons of the reclamation force who were currently trapped in position. My mana was full from doing nothing but flying, so I had plenty to spare. All but five hundred points of it was poured into my staff as I flapped forward along the ground.

Channeling Soulfire and Spirit Eruption into my staff with almost two thousand mana apiece behind them, I blur right up to the side of the tall undead platform and thrust my staff forward like a headless spear. As soon as contact was made, I released the magic. Once the magic was released, something akin to a jet's bomb landing took place.

The explosion of Spirit Eruption combined with the warped damage values of Soulfire bloomed outward from the end of my staff, ashing away most of the undead in its way. The sudden expansion of bright white energy would have normally blinded me for a moment or two, but so many bodies simply cindered away that the soot and ash in the air actually helped the screen the light.

Some of the outer sides and front where I struck remained, but everything but these two tenths or fifth of the overall undead remaining was simply empty space with near-dying demons caught by the top of the explosion were falling through. Many of the demons around the edges and still on the ground were in better conditions, but many of those within the vicinity had been seared by the spiritual combustion to some extent while I myself was rejuvenated by the warmth.

Staggering back from my own attack as a brief wave of mental fatigue blurs my thoughts and vision, I quickly stand myself up straight and steady a second later while watching the enemy. All of them were still restricted and slow, but that was probably not the only reason why none of them were rushing forward. Their AI were trying to reassess this new hell.

Having drummed up most of another level from the undead I had killed while my two skills themselves skyrocket, I was content to sit back and wait to see how long the rest of the restriction curse lasted. The geckos were capable of a passive one percent per second health regen, but all of the Taurians had been centered on the platform. All of them could barely stand.

Realizing after another two minutes that it would be a while before either the restrictions were off or my company arrived, I decide to enjoy myself in other ways by looking for anything I might have missed during the cathedral siege. Namely, the parts of attributes of my enemies. First up, geckos.

I consumed an entire gecko for started, not at once because I needed to immobilize it by removing its limbs and tail first. After eating the parts and finishing the entire screaming body, I acquired only the production ability to create 'Clear-Cut Keratin'. I was a little disappointed after having hoped for their innate mana projection ability, but there were still more.

After three more snacks I finally got what I was looking for.

[Assimilated: Wicked Warding]

[+200XP]

[Wicked Warding LVL1: Native to all reptilian sand demons, Wicked Warding is a skill that allows one to project their mana into a tangible shield or wall. The larger the mana projection, the weaker it is. Can currently project a body sized shield with health drawn from sustained MP and a PDEF buffer value worth (10)% of the caster's combined Willpower and Endurance]

I was honestly beginning to believe that I would never acquire the skill after two geckos being consumed, but after the fourth I was more than pleasantly surprised. The fact that I could learn the innate skills of these demon races was interesting enough since I was under the impression that I could not acquire another race's special skills. Demons were still mobs!

[Assimilating: Lesser Taurian x3]

[Assimilated: +5% Darkness Resistance]

[Assimilated: +10 Endurance]

[Assimilated: Hyper Coordinated]

[Assimilated: +10 Agility]

[Assimilated: +10% Earth Affinity]

[+1200XP]

After consuming three whole rat-face centaurs that were burnt mostly to death already I received a surprising number of buffs, more than any other time I had used Devour and Assimilate on an enemy. I was pretty sure the most buffs I had gotten from a specific species or creature had been three for one. Now I got five for three!

Everything I got was pretty much self-explanatory, like stats and resistance or affinity. However, Hyper Coordinated required sifting through my skills to find out more. Instead of a skill it was simply a perk I picked up from the four-armed Taurian species that increased my attack speed and efficiency when using more than one weapon at a time.

Since I had turned Hauntings into a giant two-hand weapon and was currently using a staff, the perk itself was not currently that beneficial. However, I could always switch to dual wielding or find other ways to wield multiple weapons. To that end, I set to work using the demons as training material for the Telekinesis I learned on the forum.

The restrictions on using the uninitiated skill were rough at first, minimizing the amount of damage I could put out so even the near-dead Taurians took more than one smack. However, once I had lifted a dozen bodies and initiated the skill things started picking up speed. With Telekinesis, I could use Hauntings in both hands AND Hyper Coordinated with magic.

Telekinesis still had some restrictions at level three, such as only thirty-percent of my Strength being applied and slow transitioning between attacks. Luckily, all of the demons were wounded and restricted so there was little resistance.

It took two hundred of the remaining demons to get Telekinesis up to level five which had half of my Strength and acquired an attacking perk that allowed me to manipulate multiple flying objects at once. With Hyper Coordinated, I could already use two weapons like my staff and a large crystalline dagger before the perk. After the perk, I could hold my staff in my hands and swing all four of my golem's swords with my mind.

The synergy between the coordination perk and the combat style Telekinesis perk had literally doubled my ability with weapons and more than doubled my damage output. Even if this skill did not reach my max Strength, being able to use an estimated ten weapons at max level was equal to five of my fighting in any one location.

Dividing my magic between the weapons for things like Spirit Slash or St. Elmo's Fire was pretty restricted, leaving me only able to cast one sword skill at a time unless I was activating the weapon's innate skills. These weapons, though, were already missing about a third of their own energies from the earlier siege efforts so I did not use them further,

Could I recharge the weapons? Certainly! Could taking them to the divine pool for a material Cleansing and recharging have greater benefits? I hoped so!

*