Hyperion Evergrowing-Chapter 202: Pride

Leif felt the weight of anxiety and fear fall away from Lucia as his power healed her wounds. He also felt himself relax now that he knew she was safe, but with how much pain was lacerating his soul it was hard to find comfort in their current situation. She wasn’t the only one present who was injured, several were in far more critical situations, and vitality faded from the dozen corpses of those he had been too slow to save.

He tapped the gilded wood bracers around his arms, drawing the last scrap of lifeforce from them to feed the last dregs of his cultivation. Leif hadn’t felt this weak in… perhaps forever, usually he faced the exact opposite of the current problem. His soul was on the verge of tearing itself apart with the burn of constant skill overuse, and even his aura felt faint and dispersed from how he had strained it to delay the killing blow of the elemental.

But what was worse than his current condition, was that even having reunited with his self-appointed charge, a gnawing sense of frustration and anger of how close things had come to disaster bubbled within him. If he had teeth, or a working jaw, Leif knew he would be grinding them. He and Lucia had only found the dungeon by accident as they climbed the Varan mountains, and he had been overly arrogant in assuming he could march into a fight that largely countered him in every way, and come away unscathed. A week of barely avoiding being crushed to death in an increasingly claustrophobic series of tunnels that the dungeon isolated and trapped him within had not been a fun experience.

If anything, his conviction to never go underground was proving to once again be a perfectly reasonable choice. Leif just wished he didn’t keep forgetting. Well, not forgetting, it was hard to do that with his enhanced memory, more breaking the promise he had made to himself repeatedly.

First it was the Mythhold below Pherin, then the dungeon that had claimed it. The sewers and cavern system below the town of Klos where he had hunted down three Republic operatives fleeing after their act of terrorism, and finally the temple complex buried below one of the Academy’s four islands. The scion grumbled internally, before turning his mind back to the task at hand.

His thought process slowed back to normal as he shifted his focus from [Intelligence] to [Spirit], feeling the strain on his soul wane slightly as he did so. There were things to do, and he had an audience. One powerful enemy, twenty some lives.

“Lucia.” He said, stepping away from her and towards the gargantuan stone elemental. He gestured towards the smaller monsters he had impaled with conjured limbs of golden energy. “Finish them off for me, would you?”

The wooden sword he had created for her returned to her hand as he commanded it with a thought, and Lucia nodded as she wiped her fringe out of her eyes. Leif targeted her with his core skill, [Benevolent Actions] making her [Might] attribute surge as it more than doubled, tripled, quadrupled. Then he echoed the effect, switching his skill over to empower her [Alacrity] as well. Lucia’s orange eyes widened as strength flooded her, then she grinned wickedly and shot forward.

Off she goes. Leif thought, watching proudly for a few seconds as the girl butchered her way through four elementals in the time it took for someone to breathe. It wasn’t perfect, one needed a certain balance of their attributes to effectively move and fight, and Lucia would strain herself mentally and physically as her body and mind struggled to keep up. But they had tested this extensively over the past few months of travel, and even with his constantly escalating [Charisma] attribute and the growth he had achieved in only the past few days, Leif was confident that she could handle it.

Blood stained the floor of the stone passage, and it seemed to flow towards his feet. He drew it up into himself, feeling the energy of the recently fallen trickle up his leg before spreading through the rest of his body. It was like trying to put out a burning house with a cup of water, but every drop would help.

Next he shifted his attention to the wounded, even though it caused him great pain, golden limbs racing towards them, weaving around fallen chunks of stone. He touched over a dozen of the worst off, then activated [Surge of Life and Growth]. He deliberately didn’t enhance the skill with any cultivated vitality, but the effect was immediate and potent even without it.

Leif’s soul screamed in protest, and he mentally noted that particular skill as being off limits for the time being. Well, they should all be off limits, but he couldn’t in good conscience let these people die when healing them was within his power. He strode forward, plucking a manifesting Mana shard from one of the elementals Lucia had just destroyed out of the air and sending it to his spatial storage ring. The massive creature of stone who’s arm he had just shattered was quickly recovering, the broken limb reforming from the remains of its younger, and weaker siblings.

This was why he hated elementals, killing them was almost impossible. Instead of death, they broke apart, knowing that in time the materials that constituted their bodies would reform. Maybe it was ironic that a creature like him would complain about near immortality, but Leif was too tired to care.

The scion hopped up onto the strange barrier that circled the chamber and pulled the very last javelin made of compressed gilded wood from his ring. Leif made it hover above his head and just off to the side as he reached up and sent cultivated vitality in the weapon as it began to spin, its tip aimed at the elemental. The projectile shone with a blindingly golden light as his will tightened around it, preventing it from detonating from the sudden rush of healing energy that made its structure want to rapidly expand. Then, switching his focus from [Spirit] to [Willpower], Leif used [Wood Manipulation] to shoot the javelin with enough force to punch a hole through the walls of Ahle-ho.

The dungeon shook with the force of the impact as the projectile slammed into the monster’s centre of mass, but he didn’t think for a moment that it was dead. He ran forward, punching an ivory fist through the chest of a monster Lucia hadn’t gotten to yet as he did so. The titanic mass of rock roared and reflexively swung down at him, the air parting around the massive hand with a howl. He didn’t consider himself particularly speedy, nor was he faster than several tonnes of stone with enough power and mass behind it to deal enough damage that, with most of his defenses down, would likely end in his death. He wasn’t fast enough, but he could be.

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Leif focused on [Intelligence] to give his mind the time he needed to calculate the trajectory of the attack, then he switched to [Might] and kicked off the ground, cracking the stone beneath his feet as he leaped to the side. [Alacrity] came next, and with [Inspiring Tenacity and Prowess], when Leif landed he was more than capable of keeping his balance as he kept running.

The sound of the elemental’s blow impacting the floor of the dungeon just behind him was like a clap of thunder, and the stone ground bucked up as a new crater was formed. Ranged attacks from the adventurer’s rained down onto the monster, and he felt their intent and emotions, though they seemed further away, more diffuse than he was used to. Leif also felt the attention of the titanic monster shift off of him for an instant as distractions impacted onto its head and torso.

Leif burst forward and struck at the elemental’s leg, his fists cracking stone as he hit once, twice, three times. He moved again as a barrage of sharpened stones whistled past his head, wishing he could activate [The Amber Path] without ripping his soul in half. With the suppressing pressure of the dungeon monster beginning to bear down upon him, doing so would likely result in his death as the aftermath of breaking a skill rendered him incapacitated.

The creature activated a skill that caused a forest of stone spears to erupt from the ground. Leif felt the attack in the elemental’s intent, but he didn’t have time to dodge. The spikes broke against his body as he retreated, at worst leaving inch deep gashes across his legs and arms. His wooden body was styled to resemble armour, but that illusion would quickly fall apart if anyone studied him closely.

Leif switched to [Spirit] and broke free from the hundred stone spears, buying himself time to recover. The elemental tried to crush him twice more, but he dodged each time. It's learning. He thought, barely escaping the colossal fist that crashed into the ground next to him. It was disconcerting to be so small compared to what he was fighting, Leif knew his body had been growing as he had leveled over the past three months, and it had become increasingly uncommon for him to be dwarfed by opponents. He would still pass for human, hopefully, but that was only with him compressing his form to keep it down to size.

He shattered one of the elemental’s arms at the elbow, making the hulking creature let out a deafening roar. The monster backed up, but he could already see it beginning to absorb the fragments of its defeated kin to restore itself once again. Leif mentally tallied his options, but it was looking grim. A bomb of compressed wood could devastate his current opponent, but he had used up his last one breaking through a dungeon wall. It was behind them, maybe a kilometre down the tunnel, the magic he had infused into its creation having returned it to its pre-expanded state by now.

Assuming the dungeon hasn’t buried it, it could work. Leif thought, jumping up and over the wall of steps. He quickly assessed the human forces, noting their injuries and their fear.

Lucia was panting heavily, and Leif could tell that the massive amount of bonus attributes he had bestowed onto her had worn off. Three teens, probably around her age, were staring between her and himself in nothing short of stunned awe. Lucia stumbled on a loose stone, and one of the teens, a girl with curly red hair, held out her hand and somehow caught her even though over five metres separated them. Lucia nodded in thanks.

That’s good. Leif thought. He’d been trying to get the orphan to open up around other children, but Lucia usually distanced herself. A boy, his hair was also red, but that was due to most of his head being covered in blood, said something to Lucia as he grinned.

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“Retreat down the tunnel!” Leif yelled, running towards the group. Thankfully the elemental didn’t seem interested in pursuing, though that would change once it had reconstituted from the damage it had sustained.

It likely doesn’t care to rush, it knows we’re trapped down here. He thought, sensing an almost amused presence brush up against his own.

“Retreat?” A woman with a noble aura said, sounding both exhausted and offended at the same time. “Now is the perfect chance to bring it down!”

“No.” Leif barked. “Move, now.”

She spluttered, and he felt her aura prod his own. The sheer difference in their power made the analysis skill she used fail, which was amusing considering how diminished he currently was.

He would like to check the relative experience of the people arrayed before him, but using any skill, even one as relatively light such as [Sympathy From Experience], was not a good idea in his current state. Leif summoned a tattered cloak from his storage ring and slung it over his shoulders.

“Who… No, nevermind. What exactly is your plan?” An older man in battered plate armour said, half dried blood coating the side of his face. His aura also had traces of nobility, which immediately put Leif on guard.

That’s probably not fair. He thought, looking back at the still recovering elemental. I don’t know any of these people. They came down into the dungeon, so I probably shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

“My plan.” He said, striding forward as the crowd parted around him. “Is to retrieve a weapon I left deeper in the dungeon. It’s our best chance, any questions?”

“Other than why you didn’t bring it with you?” The old man asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I was in a rush, and you’ll see why when we find it. Besides, I passed several of your more cowardly compatriots on the way down this death trap of a passage, we should reunite with them.”

“I still don’t know why we’re not staying to fight.” The younger noblewoman said, hurrying to keep up. The whole group was moving now, none eager to wait for the elemental to return its attention to them.

“Because.” Leif said, trying not to let his exhausted irritation into his voice as he picked up speed. He probably failed. He found that he didn’t care. “When the elemental decides to detonate its body, sending a wave of stone blasting in every direction, you will all die.”

“T- they can do that?”

“Only the strong ones.” Leif said. “You’ll have to trust me when I say that it isn’t a fun thing to experience.”

Lucia materialised beside him with a burst of speed. Her sword was gone, likely in her skill created storage, and her broken mask was clutched to her chest. “I knew you were alive. I just knew it.” She looked ragged, her eyes bloodshot and her usually neatly tied hair was a mess. Leif was just glad she was alive.

“I appreciate the confidence, but it’s been a closer call than I’d like.” He laughed, draining his bracers of what little vitality they had recovered. “I miss sunlight. And grass.”

She smiled, but he could tell she was worried. “I’m glad.”

“Chin up, we’ll be fine.” Leif said.

He hoped he was telling the truth.