Ebony's Fable

‘...Woah.’

“I’m impressed.” Ebony said.

The wall that trapped them was broken wide open. On the ground far up ahead was a mix of the earth that the wall was made of and pieces of the core golem. The only parts that could be differentiated were the parts with no longer glowing yellow veins.

…

There was no reply from Hector. He fell forward. Fainted. Ebony caught him before he hit the ground.

The ‘battle’ ended extremely quickly. To describe it simply, Hector ora’d the crap out of the core golem. Smashing it against the wall, crushing them into crumbs. Ebony personally felt that Hector was even faster than Scarlet, perhaps roughly equal to the fastest that he’d seen Scarlet go.

His final punch and scream ‘megaa paaaanch’ was especially impressive. Ebony couldn’t even tell what was going on in that attack. It was not his normal super panch that was ‘just’ a merging of physical forces to land at the same time.

The core golem tried to block and punch back when facing thousands and thousands of punches. Then Hector hit it with a super panch, sending it crashing into the back wall like how it kicked Hector. Hector continued with his barrage to push it further into the wall. The unresponsive golem gave Hector the chance for his mega panch. Blowing the entire golem and wall along with it, the debris flew on a long, long way forward.

It was like a tunnel boring machine went through this walkway. The entire 1 gir wide and tall walkway was widened a good margin for at least 3 girs or 15 metres long. Just the shockwave of the punch tore the earthen walkway apart.

Only then did Ebony realise that Scarlet and Ryley hadn't broken the wall behind them, where they came from. What took them so long? With Scarlet there, even with double the number of golems attacking, she would have been here already.

‘No…did she have any mana left? Or even any stamina to fight? She, she was still injured, wasn't she?’

He handed Hector over to Tuffock and went back to the wall.

‘Can I cut a wall apart? That’s just so anime like.’ Ebony thought. His sonic and gravity magic let his sword slash into the earth with more ease but the wall was incredibly tough. Ebony had to push through with Icebody Enhancement at full power and still had difficulty. That made Hector’s feat even more incredible. He was looking forward to when he got as destructive of an attack as Hector and Scarlet. Although it might not really fit him.

It was a little weird that he didn’t feel the heat he was expecting or maybe even an arrow flying towards him when he broke the wall.

Going through the hole big enough for a person to go through to see no signs of Scarlet or Ryley. There weren’t even signs of battle. It was just like when they walked past this area.

‘Did they turn back and return to the previous floor.’

“This is pretty bad.” Tuffock said without a stutter. Ebony couldn’t tell which Tuffock was talking, likely Tuffock 2 as he sounded so serious without a stutter.

“What’s wrong?”

“Noisy one got mana poisoning. And it’s pretty severe. He has dislocated shoulders and elbows too. A few pulled muscles.”

Ebony had heard of mana poisoning from Fergus. It was one of the reasons he never just had Icebody Enhancement run all day long. The thing was that he had not gotten affected by it yet, at least not that he was aware of.

Basically, more mana than your body can handle. Elemental or not, it only changed the symptoms. The most common example was when mages used enhancement magic with normal, pure mana. Because mages had weak or low Constitution and high Intelligence, their body couldn’t handle their own mana. The symptoms varied widely from person to person.

Hector’s countenance was turning purple. His arms, feet and even his whole body jerked awkwardly from time to time.

“Is there nothing you can do about it?”

“Even if a healer was here, they probably can’t do anything about it.”

“...”

“Mana poisoning isn’t usually so severe. Warriors who use enhancement magic have low intelligence and strong bodies, they don’t even have enough mana to use enhancement magic for long. Mages also don’t fight with enhancement magic like the three of you crazies. I don’t know how many elements he infused his own body with. And I thought he was the least crazy between the three of you. Fortunately, his body seems like it is capable of releasing his own mana. Perhaps it’s the nature of his class, he probably won’t die with the potion I fed him.”

“How long do you think he’ll be out for?” Ebony was glad he didn’t just let Hector kill himself by letting him show off.

“...I don’t know. It could be anywhere from hours to a week. It really depends on his own body.”

“I see. I’ll carry him on my shield, one second.” Ebony casted Layered Ice Carapace and got Tuffock to place Hector on it after he laid it horizontally. Hector’s complexion was slowly turning less purple, the potion at work. It only healed his physical body and didn’t help it handle mana at all so it wasn’t all that effective. It was still better than nothing.

Ebony went ahead and popped Hector’s joints in place. He was quite the expert at bone setting dislocations, setting his own many times till date. Hector’s muscles would heal pretty quickly with the potions Tuffock managed to force feed.

“Scarlet and Ryley are gone as well.”

“What? Did they go back down?”

“Let’s backtrack a little, do you have any tracking skills?”

“No. I’m a damn stone mage, not a scout.”

“...I’ll try looking. Stand back a bit.”

At least Ebony didn’t have to deal with a nervous Tuffock that may or may not be panicking. Ebony himself was aware that he was telling himself to calm down. There were no signs of battle. That was the first good sign.

If they were ambushed by the same group of golems like the 3 of them had, he wasn’t sure if Scarlet could take them down in her current mana, stamina and body state. He was worried.

Rather than using his eyes, he cast Frost Mist Perception Sphere. With his Perception skills, they were better than sight at close range. He sensed every nook and cranny of the walkway. It was hard to say if there was anything different since he didn’t scrutinise everywhere he went.

It took some time since he never really trained his Tracking skill but he finally noticed something out of place.

There was a pretty deep, straight groove on the wall near the ground. Easily missed in the dim walkway. It ended abruptly where the wall met the floor.

“Tuffock, slam the wall hard. With a hammer or your stone hands, doesn’t matter.” Ebony put his ears against the walls.

Tuffock didn’t complain and did as Ebony asked.

Thank the wonderful power of stats that he wouldn’t go deaf from this. He always had sensitive ears, they were his weak spot.

They repeated this a few times on both sides, near the groove. Then Ebony got Tuffock to pound the ground with his hammer. He had his ear against the floor, fully concentrated.

“Again. As hard as you can.”

The stone hammer slammed into the ground. Ebony had his senses focused on where the hammer landed.

“It’s hollow. I think they fell. Start digging.” Ebony concluded.

It was thick but he was sure that there was space beneath the floor or fake floor. It was too bad his gravitational sense couldn’t sense through thick walls. Ebony had wondered what the dungeon shovel he brought was for other than digging waste holes but it seemed to come in handy now.

Surprised at how easily the shovel he bought dug into the ground. Obviously, he used Icebody Enhancement to speed things along. Tuffock had manipulated a giant shovel to do the same and even brought out a similar shovel that hung at the side of his bag. Ebony copied his idea, he cast another Layered Ice Carapace and got it to shovel as well.

Ebony suddenly remembered that they have callstones here and tried to contact Scarlet. He felt mana from the connected mana ores activate the callstone. He mentally picked Scarlet's ‘line’ which could be felt with his mana and the mental connection started once mana poured into the ‘line’.

He couldn’t sense mental mana so he didn’t know where it went but he heard that people hired mental mages to trace and track lost people through this connection to the other party’s callstone. However, once the connection started and they started speaking into it, he could feel the mana surrounding the mental ‘thread’ or ‘line’ of mana vibrate. He thought it would be possible to follow that thread through the surrounding mana vibrations.

Ebony clearly felt the connection when the callstone gave a soft ‘pinging’ sound. Scarlet didn’t pick up. Neither did Ryley. They either ignored it, were too busy fighting to answer, were sleeping or unconscious. Or dead. Ebony didn’t like any of the possibilities.

He sped up his digging. It was pretty weird. The shovel actually had an easier time stabbing into the ground than his Intelligence-powered shield.

They got deep enough to bury half of their body when the earth trembled a little, it was trying to fix itself.

Ebony didn’t let it, he quickly conjured ice mana to freeze the ground where they already dug. It slowed the earth trying to get back together. They increased their rate of digging. The earth recovered and closed in on them quicker as well.

When the ground floor was above his head level, the ground broke. By the time they had a hole big enough for them on the ground, now the ceiling closed up.

Both of them immediately felt the difference between where they were previously and where they were now. The molten ground and walls and scorching heat told them who had been here. Ebony had gotten more used to intense heat but that didn’t mean he liked it.

They were now in a…walkway again. The only difference was that they were below the walkway they were in earlier and that the area was hot. There was a wall on one side but one didn’t need tracking skills to know where Scarlet travelled.

It had been about an hour or less since their fight. She probably hasn't recovered much mana yet. Let’s say she had 300 points in Wisdom, her mana regeneration would be 300 mana per hour… having thought this made Ebony think how sad the normal mana regeneration rate was.

He got Tuffock to hop on the shield he casted for shovelling and sped down the walkway. Heat and molten earth didn’t go on far. Ebony knew Scarlet was practically out of mana after their fight.

No dilemma there. There was only one direction to go. There were signs of battle that were slowly repaired.

Ebony didn’t slow down but never appeared to have gotten closer. Sometimes, golems will stand in the way but there was no wall-closing trap. If there were a small number of golems he would just run past them, his shields carrying Tuffock and Hector flying above them.

They chased but always stop after some time, returning to where they came from. Tuffock provided fire support when he had to fight. Ebony’s membrane kept topaz off him. There was no core golem showing up again. Normal golems couldn’t even touch him.

He realised that the walkway was not really straight. If only slightly, it curved. It was also elevated by an almost unnoticeable amount. After travelling for almost an hour, Ebony estimated that he ran 6 to 7 full circles or laps. His Mental Map envisions it to be like a spiral coil walkway. One that was freaking enormous.

They tried calling Scarlet and Ryley multiple times to no avail. They were definitely within range as he could feel it connect but neither were picking up.

In Ebony’s imagination, if the dungeon was a tower then this 4th floor was a spiral along the outer walls of the dungeon tower. With too much free time on his mind, he mental calculated some stuff. Like their speed of climbing up stairs from one floor to another, the time taken to do so. Estimating the distance or height of one floor and also the distance or height of the stairs from one floor to another.

It was inconclusive. The height of each floor was hard to estimate, only the mountain range was one where they climbed up. The 1st to the 2nd floor and 2nd to 3rd floor had a longer flight of stairs than when they went through from the 3rd floor to the 4th floor. So there was a chance each floor was about the same height.

Ebony then guessed that this walkway floor would have another 40 to 50 full laps before he reached the top. It was a much wider distance because, if he was right about running on the outer walls of a tower, then he was running along the circumference and not just straight up like climbing the mountain.

One thing that didn’t make sense to him was that if that was true then the floor he broke through to get down here was just bringing them back to step one or wherever they came from. After running so many laps, he didn’t encounter the area that Hector destroyed. There was also a chance that all of that had been repaired before he made it back there.

Another point was that after they came down the hole they dug, the back was just a wall and no stairs to the 3rd floor to be found.

‘Wait. Was that wall one of the trap walls that the dungeon used to trap us…’ It was possible. Ebony wasn’t going to run all the way back to confirm that.

If his deduction was right, he could just destroy the ceiling and he would be using a shortcut that can save many hours of running. Too bad it wasn’t possible for him. The floor they dug was almost 2 metres thick. If it was normal earth, sure no problem. Dungeon magic nonsense? Ebony’s running was probably a faster method, digging upwards was probably more difficult as well.

Ebony ran into a party once. He didn’t recognise them, all 5 of them being level 100. Unevolved. They scowled and asked Ebony to stay back when he first saw them. They were harvesting the topaz limbs and fragments. They were not the most polite humans, dwarf and wolfman he had seen. Still, he asked if a masked lady swordswoman and an archer came through.

They were all sorts of rude. Shouting at him, telling him stuff like ‘know your place’ and ‘why should we tell you?’ like they owned the place. Even going so far as to stop them when he wanted to overtake them. Calling ‘dibs’ on the topaz golems.

Ebony couldn’t be bothered with them. He easily stepped past them like they weren’t there. They chased, only the archer and rogue even managed to see his back. He did not expect them to shoot at him, the walkway wasn’t so narrow that he couldn’t dodge.

The archer was even persistent enough to shoot at Tuffock and Hector. He didn’t have time to show them who’s boss, nor did he care enough to go back and bully them. Tuffock casted a stone wall that was pretty thin but covered almost the entire 5 by 5 walkway, to Tuffock and Elcra’s measurement it would be 1 by 1. That wasn’t the point though.

The two of them believed that that was the end of the drama but the archer’s and rogue’s persistence was commendable. The stone wall was destroyed and the acher sent multiple arrows at them.

“Tch! Trash must be removed after all.” Tuffock 2 started chanting. Ebony didn’t find it necessary to stop him. It was only natural to attack back if they were attacked. He took care of helping Tuffock evade by shifting his shield around. It was easy to see the trajectory of their shots. They didn’t have a mage either.

If it was Fergus, even the current Ebony didn’t know if he could avoid the invisible arrows that could change directions. Well, maybe with a thick Frost Mist around he could easily feel where the arrows were. Being able to dodge them right after sensing them enter his mist was a different issue.

Could Ebony feel the gravitational waves of wind arrows? Probably not… he might be able to feel the vibrations they caused in the atmospheric mana though.

Ebony was wondering what took Tuffock so long as it had been almost a full 10 seconds.

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Stubborn Archer Lvl 100].’

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Swift Rogue Lvl 100].’

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Warrior Lvl 100].’

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Heavy Warrior Lvl 100].’

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Apprentice Shield Knight Lvl 100].’

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Earthen-Topaz Fist Golem Lvl 100], enemy 10 levels or more above your own. Experience concentration too high to dilute completely, additional experience gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Partial experience gained for assistance in killing [Earthen-Topaz Fist Golem Lvl 100], enemy 10 levels or more above your own. Experience concentration too high to dilute completely, additional experience gained.

‘Ting’ ‘Meditative Swordsman of Frostblaze level up 88 - 89, 10 stat points gained.’

‘Ting’ ‘Mana Meister level up 85 - 86, 1 Wisdom stat gained.’

‘...’ Right after he thought that he was answered with a couple of notifications.

A huge burst of wind blew against Ebony as his control of the Layered Ice Carapace that Tuffock and Hector were on was tested. The shockwave from whatever spell Tuffock cast was strong enough to knock his shields forward, opposite of where Tuffock was aiming.

A glance back was enough to show Ebony that Tuffock unleashed a large barrage of not spikes but stone lances that polka-dotted the entire walkway with blood and debris. None of their bodies in one piece. The [Apprentice Shield Knight] which Ebony hasn’t seen the ‘knight’ Class before had his entire body skewered into the ground with a thick stone lance through his chest and head. Well. Whatever was left of the mush his head had been pulverised into.

The other bodies were in a similar or worse state where none were in one piece. Dozens if not over a hundred of lances littered the walkway.

‘How much mana would that take?’ Was the first thought Ebony had. His second thought being, what to add his 10 additional stat points to. Only his third thought was about asking Tuffock why he had to go as far as to kill them all. The fourth was how he didn’t feel a single bit guilty or sad over their deaths, his ‘assistance’ was merely dodging or helping Tuffock and Hector dodge a few arrows.

But if it was Ebony, he would only sentence the archer to death based on how he aimed to kill. The others… he would likely hold off killing them if they didn’t have such intentions of harming or killing him.

All these were just tough words Ebony thought to himself. He had never killed anyone till date. Could he kill a person if it really came down to it? Ebony didn’t doubt for a second that he would be able to. What was the difference between a monster trying to kill him and a person trying to do the same? Ebony couldn’t see a difference.

Would he feel guilty after that? Who knows? Could he stay as calm as usual? Who knows? Even Ebony himself would not be sure till he actually kills a person. Somehow, he thought the day when he had to would come sooner or later.