Chapter 38: ...Blighttown...
I stepped through the fog gate with the dragonslayer sling over my shoulder. I heard and felt the quakes caused by the gaping dragon dragging itself toward me but my stride remained firm.
I cast {Sunlight Blade} on the dragonslayer, which the dragonslayer promptly absorbed and enhanced the miracle, covering itself in a layer of wild crimson lightning.
"Roaaaerrhhh!" *Swing!*
When we both reached the middle of the clearing the gaping dragon swung down his titanic appendage down on me.
{Deadman Style} + {Dreadnaought} + {Sunlight Blade} =
"{Dragon Cleaver}!"
*Split!* *Booooooommmm!!!* "Raaaaaargghhhhh!!!"
Forcing all of my muscles to limits while pumping the dragonslayer full of lightning I swung down and split the gaping dragon's entire arm apart.
/Its screams sound like music./
"Let's pick up the pace shall we?"
{Bullet dash}!
*Slice!* *Roar!*
I poised my blade to the side and dashed with combustion, creating a giant gash on the side of the dragon where flesh was melting from the anti-dragon lightning covering the blade. The dragon tried to slam down its middle leg down on me but I readied the dragon slayer and blocked the hit.
*Clang!*
My knees buckled but I didn't falter. I unsummoned the Dragonslayer and jumped to the side as the hand slammed down where I stood prior. And the moment it hit the floor I resummoned the dragonslayer and recast sunlight blade, after which I slammed it down, severing the dragon's hand.
*Roarrr!*
''You know if I wasn't immortal I'd be deaf by now you big bastard!''
{Bullet Dash}!
*Crash!!!*
I narrowly avoided a mouth slam by the dragon by using bullet dash. But now, annoyingly, my focus was starting to run low. I reorientated myself just in time to not get slammed by one of the dragon's wings smashing down on me.
Keeping my rhythm I focused on circling the dragon as I avoided its attacks and landed giant slashes on its large body. I got hit a few times due to fighting recklessly, smashing nearly all of my bones to a pulp but thankfully it wasn't instant death so after chugging over 4 estus per hit and stabilizing my body using dreadnought I was back on my feet.
But just as I was about to chop off its second front leg I was caught by it.
The dragon then proceeded to crush me with its overwhelming strength and threw me into its gaping maw. And chomped down.
...
''{Force}!''
*BOOOMMM!!!*
Suddenly the gaping dragon's mouth forcefully opened as thousands of shards of teeth, as well as a fuckton of blood and guts, spewed out along with me wearing armor with dubious amounts of holes. My countermeasure against getting chomped had worked wonders. Seeing as the gaping dragon started flailing around in agony.
Problem: Its flailing started causing earthquakes which were causing giant boulders to drop from the ceiling and walls as well as the pillars collapsing. I needed to end this before I got crushed by a boulder.
Using focus with all my might I felt the world slow down in my perception. My eyes strained but it was manageable, I don't have the focus nor the luxury to drag this fight out much longer.
'{Dash}!'
Pushing my body to the limit once again, exhausting most of my stamina I jumped onto a falling boulder. Then jumped off that one onto a higher one. When I reached the highest one I finally reached above the dragon in height.
I orientated myself on the rock toward the dragon and shot off.
'{Bullet Dash}!'
I angled the sword down as I plummeted toward the dragon at insane speeds. I inserted the last of my focus into the blade and plunged it into the gaping dragon's torso. Piercing through its heart and frying it inside out.
[VICTORY ACHIEVED]
<You have slain the {Gaping Dragon} +1 humanity +20,000souls >
<You have completed the quest {Challenge: The Gaping Dragon} >
<Rewards:
-20,000souls
-Dragon king axe >
I sat atop the corpse of the dragon while I examined the rewards. I didn't even bother looting the corpse now as I was dead tired. Some of my skills leveled up too. The Blighttown key was also inserted into my inventory.
After catching my breath I stored the gap g dragon and used homeward to get back to the Firelink shrine. After resting sufficiently it was time to explore blight town.
...
Remember what I had said about blight town not being able to be worse than the depths?
I rescind that statement.
In fact, if I could I would travel back in time to that moment and beat myself to death.
This place, blight town. is incomparably worse.
I have a question: How do diseases smell like?
Well even just stepping into the very beginning of Blighttown answered my question. Just breathing here made me feel sick. The air is so stale and so humid at the same time it's disgusting, it feels like the very air sticks to your lungs and nose.
And the creatures that dwelled here were just as bad, if not worse than the atmosphere. That is to say, they were absolutely disgusting to the very limit. They were all deformed by the 'blight' with pale skin and emaciated bodies. Especially their faces. They looked more like corpses of fish people than actual former humans. Thankfully they were incredibly fragile to me. I could easily splatter the head of one like a water balloon with my fist. But the lack of danger did little to suppress the disgust.
The barbarian variety wasn't much better, only slightly. They were hulking 2-meter tall fat, malformed beings wearing tribal-like outfits and wielding giant clubs. And just like everything here its face was nightmare material.
It's because of shit like this that I haven't gotten a night's rest in what feels like over half a year.
Surprisingly the barbarians, in terms of pure strength were only marginally stronger than my base stats. So even the hulking brute wasn't a threat. Except for my sanity.
I feel nothing but contempt and disgust for this place and the enemies it harbors.
In fact. I hated this place so much I didn't even use my weapons lest they get infected or something. And I didn't even need to.
With my power at this point, against opponents like this, weapons weren't needed.
All I needed to do was to raise my hand, point it toward the brute and speak one simple phrase in my mind.
'{Combustion}'
Thanks to my insane proficiency, along with the power of my pyromancy flame the result was quite powerful.
*Booomm!!!* *Splat!*
All it took was a simple gesture and thought along with some focus to completely obliterate the upper half of the diseased barbarian.
Indeed it was that simple to obliterate something. I didn't even have to try. I just walked forward blasting any in my way to kingdom come and grabbing any obvious loot.
But then it happened.
Either by coincidence or my dogshit luck, a toxic dart somehow slipped through the gap in my armor and into my body.
A minute later I felt like I had every disease in the world at once. Nausea, puking blood you name it I had it. In fact, poison resistance was literally rising by the minute. And when I saw the cheeky fucker holding the blowgun so did my temper.
I'm pretty sure if I hadn't stuffed my throat full of blooming purple moss(Which tasted like wet dust) I would've died a very, very painful death. But the death I was about to give to the poison dart man would be far, far worse.
And true to my word when I reached the dart blower I disposed of every enemy that could interfere. Then I ripped off its toes and fingers one by one. Then its limbs, I used heal to keep it alive as I did so. After that all that was left was a struggling torso I showed my hand down its throat and used combustion to pop it like a balloon.
Other than that ordeal there was nothing much that posed me trouble along the way I also got to see the... unique(?) scenery. I admit it looks rather cool from away, but when you are swarmed by disgusting blight goblings and barbarians it is /really/ hard to appreciate the scenery.
And as for the smell I ripped out my nose again because there isn't a goddammed force in lordran who can force me to smell that for more than an hour.
There were also the giant bugs wielding flaming tentacles but they didn't even manage to scratch me with my armor and high flame resistance. Getting to the first bonfire was an absolute nightmare. Blighttown might be less confusing than the depths but it sure as hell made it up with the nightmare materials.
Did I mention the falling hazards? I know this place was built by a bunch of sick people or something but goddammit people haven't you heard about handrails? Actually, fuck handrails this place basically only has walls against the wall and _not_ toward the 50-meter drop to certain death.
Hell, even I fell here. Twice. If I couldn't save myself using combustion to boost myself back up I probably would have dismantled the entire damn town with my bare hands.
But I think the thing that described my pain the best was this.
< Intermediate Poison Resistance lv. 2 >
It was at elementary level 3 when I came here. Forget about what I said about the depths, bring a modern man and leave him alone in blight town in about an hour and you would discover like 100 new diseases.
It wasn't just poison resistance either my flame resistance rose as well from the fire-spitting dwoggos. All in all, I would rate Blighttown a -6/10.
Fuck this place.
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