Chapter 135: Unkindly Altar [I]
After clearing the sixth phase, Lucy and her spider entered the seventh.
〖You have entered the final phase: Reinforced Shelter Chamber!〗
The floor was cracked, pipes ran through the walls, and lights flickered everywhere. Lucy asked Lilith to use Vent again to find out where Derek and those students were. Lilith’s findings told her that they weren’t that far, but to get them, she must slay these monsters they left behind for her.
Armored Scorpions came out of faulty filters. They were big, and the tips of their tails were swollen with acid.
"Lllith, these things aren’t even worth getting serious over," Lucy sighed. "Nevertheless, take the high ground while I lock down the flanks!"
HIISSSS! SPLICCH!
The Scorpions lunged at the summoner and summon, hissing and throwing venom everywhere with their stingers.
As Lucy strategized, she went for the sides while her beast crawled across the ceiling.
"Lillith, Blacken!"
As fast as lightning, the Malefic Spider moved from one place to another, then used its fangs on a scorpion’s head. The Malefic Spider’s venom was more deadly than the Armored Scorpion’s, so the scorpion died.
Lucy’s beast did this same thing to the other scorpions, giving Lucy a lot of XP.
Meanwhile, Lucy was exhilarated because she didn’t even know her spider could do that move. Her insight into her beast was improving.
As she thought about this, Makeshift Hyenas came again, bigger than the ones from the last phase. They still had their grotesque jaws, but machine parts replaced their teeth now, so any bite from them could take out an arm.
Lucy waited until they were close enough, then ordered Lillith to attack them. First, she asked Blacken again from her beast, then Petrifying Gaze. With Petrifying Gaze doing its job, Lillith can mow down the monsters without risking getting bitten.
More notifications of XP came in Lucy’s system.
She’s confident she would make it to Lv. 36 in no time, and maybe Lv. 40 by the start of next week.
Lv. 50 was considered the standard for a summoner after finishing the academy. Then, you’re supposed to reach Lv. 150 afterwards by doing what hunters do. The good thing is that it’s faster to go from Lv. 50 to Lv. 150 than from Lv. 0 to Lv. 50.
That’s why "Summoner Level" is not taken as an authentic metric of comparison after you’re done with the academy.
Back to her fight, Lucy squinted her eyes as familiar silhouettes came out of the darkness, making skittering sounds. Six legs. Six eyes.
Even Lilith narrowed her eyes!
Spiders!
"You call those spiders?" Lucy giggled at the cluster of Shelter Spiders with wires for legs and visors for every eye. "Don’t take it personally, Lilith. They’re nowhere near as strong as you!"
On command, Lilith came in front of Lucy to protect her, then she used Malefic Molt that leaves behind a husk that looks like her (Lilith herself), to keep protecting Lucy while she attacks.
"Paralytic Gaze!" Lucy ordered.
However, the Shelter Spiders had visors on, so that won’t work.
So, Lucy improvised with "Odor!" This command tells Lilith to release a chemical that triggers a fear response and even kills over time.
As the creatures panicked and fell to the floor because of Lilith’s excretions, Lucy asked for Blacken again, and Lilith devoured the spiders one after the other, wires, everything.
Now that the path was clear, Lucy asked Lilith for the third time to use Vent. Then, she ran into the chamber, followed by Lilith, hoping that Derek and those students from Montclair weren’t fighting each other.
When she got there, she saw that they were finally almost done clearing this zone, because Derek was currently fighting the boss, a Fortified Crocodile.
The fight was at its climax because the Fortified Crocodile was a big threat.
The body of the Fortified Crocodile was made of tungsten, and its jaws were hydraulic. As a result, impenetrable defense was the boss monster’s gimmick, and a very fast jaw-snapping skill was its killer move.
With a swipe of its tail that could crush artillery, the Fortified Crocodile wanted to kill Derek as cruelly as possible. However, Derek was good at evading things, because the attributes of his summon influenced his own physical capabilities. So, the croc’s tail delivered its damage to the surroundings instead.
CRASHH!
"Mordred, Corrosive Dilations!" Derek instructed as he escaped the crumbling.
At the moment, Mordred was some meters away because Derek’s attempt to mimic the Fortified Crocodile failed. It failed because Derek wasn’t focused and his Aeon was relatively low, so this affected Mordred’s ability to do what he instructed.
So, Derek thought he should ask for something different because the Fortified Crocodile won’t wait for him to replenish.
With Corrosive Dilations, Mordred could absorb physical attacks and turn them back at the aggressor. Since it was close to the Fortified Crocodile, it did as Derek instructed quicker than Derek’s math. But it still worked. Instead of taking the crocodile’s raw strength head-on, the Abomination Slime absorbed the attack through its jelly-like body by making its body as big as a ship’s sail in the first place.
BAM!
The crocodile’s jaw snapped shut with enough force to shatter diamonds, and this tore Mordred into pieces.
But as a slime, Mordred used that to its advantage and began wrapping itself around the croc’s snout before Derek instructed, "Caustic Suffocation!" when he saw the opportunity his slime created!
"Finally..." Derek whispered, looking at the Fortified Crocodile struggling to fight his slime.
Gill slits, mouth, nose. Whatever opening that Mordred could find, it would infuse acid into them and burn the Fortified Crocodile from its internal organs. Soon, the metal body of the croc began to emit vapor because it was getting hot from the inside out.
Derek instructed the slime to form appendages that hold the croc’s limbs so it would stop thrashing around.
That was the last straw; hence, the Fortified Crocodile died, body smoking as it fell to the floor.
〖You have slain a boss monster: Fortified Crocodile!〗
〖Congratulations! You have cleared a Monster Zone!〗
"Point of correction. Not just any monster zone—a Yellow-ranked Monster Zone!"
Everybody was relieved.
They had done it. Despite the argument, the division of this final phase, and a boss monster this strong, nobody lost a life.
"Damn! I got 8,700 points from this zone. I’m at Rank #33 on the leaderboard!"
"I’m behind you at #34!"
"What’s there to celebrate? We would’ve gotten much more if we had killed the boss ourselves."
The first student who celebrated replied, "But we still got points."
"Not enough," the third said. "Prince Derek took the entire boss."
Meanwhile, Derek heard them but didn’t care. He was satisfied with his points, so whatever they got was their business.
But Lucy is a different person compared to him. She knows what happened wasn’t right, so she wanted to compensate the other students to prevent bad blood anywhere.
"Queen Lucretia, please, next time, sincerely tell us you want to rob us," one of the Monctlair students said as Lucy walked up to them. She saw his beast—Death Mosquito—on his shoulders, and thought it resembled him, but she kept that to herself.
"You came here first; thus, I don’t think it’s fair that you lost the final phase," Lucy said as they looked at her expectantly. "So, I’ll make up for it by giving your party two Blue-Ranked monster zones. You can keep all the points and rewards from those zones."
The students looked at one another before the same boy who had complained about Derek nodded.
"That sounds fair. We can accept that."
"Phew..." Lucy said to herself. "At least this matter is settled. Derek is so ignorant about what happens when many people are against you."
Meanwhile, Derek’s attention was captured by something fantastic.
〖Item: Unkindly Fragment〗
〖Description: The seventh fragment. Used as a key for the Unkindly Altar.〗
He got this as a reward after slaying the Fortified Crocodile.
It looked like a jigsaw piece but more spiritual.
If not for the Description, Derek would’ve tossed this thing for Mordred to devour.
"Used as a key for the Unkindly Altar," he read. "So, where is the Unkindly Altar?"
Nothing looked like an altar here. This boss chamber was just a mix of metal, concrete, earth, and faulty machinery. But Derek looked around carefully until he saw a modest bump in the ground that could serve as an altar.
He went to it, and his suspicion was confirmed.
〖Unkindly Altar Discovered!〗
〖A sealed altar containing a special reward. Seven Unkindly Fragments are required to unlock the seal.〗
〖Warning: Unlocking the altar will summon the Guardian.〗
〖Guardian: Unkindly Basilisk.〗
Derek was interested.
He looked at the fragment in his hand, then at the altar.
He had only one fragment.
This fragment was one of seven pieces needed to unlock the altar, and the reward inside must be valuable enough to require a guardian. That guardian was another source of points too if you killed it.
A special reward and more points? Derek had no reason to back down from this challenge. The only problem was that he had one fragment and needed six more.
Where are the six more? After consideration, it’s very likely the four students had them because they came into this zone first and must’ve picked them up on their way.
If they had found the other six, then the Unkindly Altar was already theirs to open!
So, as everyone turned to leave, Derek’s voice cut through.
"Hold on. I have the seventh fragment," he said, holding up the piece. "Hand over the other six so we can unlock the seal."
The Montclair students stopped, staring at him like he had lost his mind.
"Are you serious right now?" one spat, shaking his head. "We cleared those phases and found those fragments. We aren’t giving you anything."
"Think logically," Derek urged them. "The altar summons a Basilisk. We kill it, open the seal, and share the special rewards and point pool."
"You just don’t quit, do you?’ another student scoffed. "If it’s a single-user item, you’ll just take it by force like you took the boss! We’d rather sell the six fragments for cold cash than hand them over to you."
Lucy closed her eyes, a headache coming on.
This was turning into a disaster.
Tch!
Derek’s patience was thinner than a strand of hair, so he became angry.
He accumulated as much Aeon as he had left to intimidate them. He also buffed his Abomination Slime so it could get bigger for the moment and look necrotic.
"Give me the fragments," Derek demanded, taking threatening steps forward. "Don’t test me."
The Montclair group flinched from his aura, but they stood their ground.
"Go ahead, attack us! Hurt a student outside a sanctioned duel during the Trials and see how fast the Academy disqualifies and expels you!"
Derek stopped, then started to calm down.
He would kiss the Dux and the Confederacy goodbye if he attacked other students in the Trials. Unfortunately, they were right.
So for the first time, Derek’s power didn’t give him what he wanted.