Clarent's two mid-range skills had certainly left their mark on the still thrashing Endurance Sentinel. After all, how could it muster any will to fight back when it was set ablaze?
When you were on fire, you were focused on rolling around, your thoughts on how to put it off, not how to fight back against the one who set you aflame and was laughing uproariously while you thrashed like a fish out of the sea.
Clarent blew a puff of smoke as both abilities wreaked havoc upon the target, taking away 789,623,004 damage! This raised Clarent's gross total to 2,638,182,318, just under three billion damage!
Qiong Qi gazed down upon the Endurance Sentinel but made no moves. He simply observed it and waited for the right time to show off his own skills that were no worse than Clarent.
Now one might wonder, why was the Endurance Sentinel just taking these blows and not retaliating like the Strength Sentinel had? Well, the issue came from the nature of the monster itself.
The Endurance Sentinel was a member of the Sentinel race in name, but was not really treated as one of them. Due to its body's makeup and low sapience, it was treated as a beast of burden and practically domesticated.
So, it was basically a giant horse, but humanoid. It could counterattack, but that was hard given the constant onslaught of pain it was under from the attacks of the Morningstar Group.
Not to mention, the purpose of being sent here was to stall Draco's group. To cull this monster by even 25% would take weeks for the other trial takers. Even the Morningstar group managed to shave off less than 10 billion in a minute, which was only 1% of its total HP!
The score points for a perfect clear of the 13th floor would probably require them to perfectly vanquish the monster as quickly as possible and Draco realized this.
As such, he frowned and understood that while they could maintain this beatdown for about 25 minutes to achieve the 25% off and 100 minutes to kill the monster finally, that was a grind.
Of course, he knew that it was likely the case where - compared to others - that was lighting fast. However, the issue was that Draco did not know what the tower itself set as the target time to get a perfect score, so he couldn't afford to just whale away at it as usual.
It could be 15 minutes, it could be 1 day, it could be anything really. Common sense obviously said that it would be far longer than what The Morningstar Group would take to kill the entire monster, but it was better to be safe than sorry, no?
As such, Draco nodded towards Eva and retreated a little. He then gazed at the Endurance Sentinel with his pulsating red eyes that were from the ultimate God of Destruction, Caelo.
Energy surged into his eyes as a blackish light grew within them, glowing with a light-devouring hue. The Endurance Sentinel, which was shakily rising to its feet, suddenly froze and shuddered from its head to its toes, even the core of its soul trembling severely.
Feeling of death? No, if that were the case, it would display fear, not primordial terror.
What it sensed was the feeling of annihilation, of obliteration… of destruction.
Whatever came next, it knew it could not allow it. For what would become of it was nothing. It would simply cease to exist, body, soul, and spirit, everything that denoted its existences being cleaned from the slate of reality.
The Endurance Sentinel roared and tried to strike out at Draco, but its hands soon fell as its eyes glazed over. The two sexy caramel skinned-women Roma and Zaine were floating side by side, their hands stretched out as they cast a skill they both possessed.
｢Mirage - Passive skill
Effect: Enemies will be placed into a mirage that mirrors reality. This ability is unblockable, but the level of immersion an enemy would fall under is dependent on circumstance and will. Cannot be broken or dispelled.｣
Immediately, it saw itself back in the pastures of the Sentinel Lands, eating away at the hay in its stables while in the company of its friends and family. The previous minute where it had been subjected to pain and torture beyond anything it had ever felt was like a bad dream.
It simply smiled and shook it off, running out as the other Sentinels opened the stable doors for them to stretch their legs and play.
The warmth of the sun, the freshness of the grass beneath its feet, and the cool breeze that invigorated their hard bodies made it feel at peace, just sprinting with all its might, its boundless stamina not even being dented once.
Due to this beautiful lie, it was able to smile peacefully and happily even as the black beam from Draco's eyes lanced through it, turning its body into dust that slowly dissipated with the wind.
Immediately, Draco groaned and grabbed his head as he slowly lowered himself to the ground. His women looked concerned and rushed over to him, wondering what was wrong.
Eva frowned as she remembered the caveat that came with using that skill, which was why Draco didn't go firing it willy-nilly in the first place.
｢Active 1 - Omega: Fire out a blast of the purest Destruction Energy that can rend anything and everything under heaven within your Rank. No cooldown.
Note 1: Casting these skills will result in partial catatonia. ｣
At Rank 1, the penalty had been true death and at Rank 2, the penalty had been total catatonia. Now that it was only partial catatonia, the penalty was bearable since Draco had ways to alleviate it.
Draco still gripped his head as he resisted passing out and becoming half-stupid like a vegetative person. He then cast some spells on himself to fortify his mind while he used his bloodline's Dark Angel Inheritance to fight off the encroaching effects.
Hikari used White Light Healing on him, which also helped greatly. Roma also cast some healing Mystic Arts on him while Zaine simply formed a mind tether with Draco that allowed her to share some of his burden, where Eva did the same as well.
After about 30 seconds, they managed to fight off the penalty for the skill, which was something amazing. It was only possible to go against a Divine item's penalty with something of the Divine tier, but the chemistry of their abilities allowed them to bypass this in a way.
In the meantime, a gust of wind containing the remnant power of the Endurance Sentinel flowed into their bodies, enlivening and empowering them greatly. Since they were seven and it had only been one monster, they all gained the usual 14% experience.
Only Zaine gained a level as she was at level 105, 86%. With 14%, she was now level 106, 0%, and had gained just 1 stat point which she graciously placed into Strength, bringing it to 15 points.
Immediately after, the floor began to decompose and the group were shown the results of their battle in terms of the floor's completion.
｢Congratulations on completing: Tower of Babylon Thirteenth Floor
Time elapsed: 0:1:02
Objectives complete: All
Assessment: EX+
Reward:
17,000 Score Points
1 Treasure Selection Reward - Peak Bronze Grade｣
With 17,000 score points bagged, Draco was now at 141,350 score points on the leaderboard and 376,437 overall.
When they returned to the castle, Draco directly entered the Inner Universe and called over his Four Beauties. They arrived at Eva's Heavenly Palace and sat together in the main hall.
"Right, in order to make the subsequent floors easy, I think its best that I use my Eyes of Caelo to obliterate any foes that are stand in our way." Draco began with a smile.
"But, as you noticed, the penalty requires time to resolve and would not be useful if dealing with more than one enemy at a time. So, the best way to make it useful is to have one of us have a healing or restoration ability at the Divine Rank." Draco pointed out with a smile.
Zaine nodded in understanding, then gazed at Hikari. "I guess Hikari would be the best choice for this then."
Hikari blinked then pointed to her own nose with confusion. "Me?"
Draco chuckled. "That's right Hikari. A while back we got enough resources to help you break through the barrier of a Supreme Rank Dragon to a Divine one. This will only give you the State of Being and Source Origin of a Divine Rank Dragon, but not the Combat Rank."
"This means that your skills and abilities will have the aura, trait, and energy of a Divine spell, but will not have the power of one. So, your White Light Healing, White Light Blessing, and co will not see any increase in raw effectiveness, but they will be able to affect Divine Rank things like barriers, penalties, beings, etc." Draco explained calmly.
Hikari listened, nodding along before finally asking. "Will it help you, Draco?"
Draco paused, then nodded. "Not just me, but the whole family."
Hikari then clapped happily. "Then let's do it!"
The other four just gazed at her silently, making Hikari wonder if she said something funny. In the end, Eva just hugged Hikari gently and stroked her silky white hair.
"Hikari, it is a blessing to have you in our family." Eva said with heartfelt love, Zaine, Roma, and Draco nodding synchronously in agreement.
Hikari just blushed in the end, but was happy to be acknowledged by her only remaining family in this world. Clarent was her biological brother, and he was considered part of the Morningstar Family anyway.
Draco then took out the resources Hikari needed to upgrade her Source Origin to the Divine Rank. As one could expect, they were Divine resources themselves, with the inclusion of Divine Energy crystals.
Hikari then gazed at Draco with a mixture of excitement and anticipation. "So, what do I need to do?"
Draco smiled and explained the process. "Clear your mind and activate both your State of Being and Source Origin. Use your State of Being to connect with the resources and absorb them directly into your Source Origin. They will be processed by it and the resulting energy would allow it to break the barrier between Supreme Rank and Divine Rank, ascending upwards."
Roma was surprised to hear this. "Sounds simple."
Draco nodded towards her. "Humans and humanoid species don't have such a convenient method of ascension, but Dragons like Hikari and Clarent only need energy to climb as their Source Origins and State of Beings are near perfect."
Draco shrugged. "If other species could easily climb and not have to use unique and convoluted methods, the Dragon Race would not have taken number 1 and they definitely would not have had the most Divine Rank entities among the entire races in the old era."
Zaine tapped her lip with an amused smile. "Hmm, makes sense. It's the ease at which Dragons climb the ranks which left other species in the dust, and set them as a supreme race above all."
Eva sighed. "It was also this fact which incurred jealousy and led to the events that broke the old era apart."
There was a somber silence in the room for a bit before Draco prompted Hikari to begin the absorption. All eyes fell on the Dragoness as everyone wanted to see how she would achieve her purpose.
Hikari slowly transformed into her full White Dragon body as the State of Being tendrils from her body reached out to grab the resources placed before her. This was extremely easy for her not just because she was a dragon, but because of her Spirit stat which was absurdly high.
Spirit was the stat that decided mana regeneration, and that was the meta of it obviously, but what about the organic reasoning? Well, Spirit was the stat that denoted the strength of one's State of Being and their control over it.
In terms of mana regeneration, the State of Being would passively absorb prana in the air and convert it to mana per how powerful the Spirit was.
Of course, Spirit was only the 'CPU' of the State of Being, and in some ways, the 'Storage'. It controlled the finesse and effectiveness of using the State of Being, but the objective quality of the State of Being itself was decided by one's race.
Long story short, a human being with 500 Spirit was not the same as a Dragon with 500 Spirit. No matter how the human felt it was unfair, they would not be able to surpass the Dragon in terms of overall power, as they had a higher quality state of Being, even though both sides had the same level of finesse and control.
Draco switched on his Eyes of Caelo and watched Hikari absorbed the resources into her Source Origin. As the eyes could let him see anything within his Rank, and Hikari was precisely within his Rank, he had no problems achieving this.
He gazed at her Source Origin that was currently heating up like a furnace, trying to break down these material resources that had just been dragged in. Its effectiveness in this regard was too high as a member of the Dragon race, easily turning these things into the composite energy required.
This energy swirled within her Source Origin and was condensed into a single amount, which was the size of a cube. This cube hovered in the center of her Source Origin before exploding like a nuclear device.
The spread of energy was so great that anyone would have expected Hikari to blow up, but she showed no reaction and neither did her Source Origin. It did not expand nor quiver, but after a second, it contracted by one level.
Surprisingly, the explosive energy was not lost, and had been squeezed back into a cube shape that was the same relative size as before. It then exploded once more and the process repeated itself, this time there was noticeable energy loss.
This occurred repeatedly within the span of a few seconds, and the size of the Source Origin shrunk along with the cube to the point where Draco had to magnify his sight to see it.
When it finally came to an end, the Source Origin was as small as a pea, while in the center of it, there was a small dot the size of an atom which was entirely made up of whitish energy that radiated power and purity.
Hikari had become a Divine Rank Dragon!
Well, rather she had obtained the Source Origin of one. She was different from Clarent, who had both the Divine Source Origin and the Divine Combat Rank in his prime.
The reason why Clarent was treated as having such a smooth path was because he had both. The Divine Combat Rank had gifted him Divine Power and had elevated the state of his spirit and soul, while the Divine Source Origin had elevated his body and energy.
In other words, if Hikari were to die now, she would have to start from scratch and would not be treated as an ex-Divine Dragon if she only had her soul left, because her soul was still normal.
Once she crossed Rank 7 and entered Divinity the proper way, her soul would be elevated to Divine Status, and she could enjoy the benefits Clarent did when he was still a Dragon Soul.
There was no system announcement for Hikari achieving this as she had not actually crossed the threshold, and not to mention that they were in the Inner Universe which was a wholly different place from the Western Fantasy section.
It was attached to it, but also seen as its own separate thing, so while the general laws of the Western Fantasy section applied here, as Draco had said, it was his domain.
To simplify, you could treat it as if being in the Inner Universe was like being in the midst of a Unique Quest.
Draco gazed at the glowing Hikari whose Draconic body grew a size or two while her ridges became sleeker and more streamlined. In Dragon terms, and from Draco's Draconic point of view, you could say Hikari grew from her look of being age 20-21 to looking like she was 25.
She also looked sexier in Dragon terms, which made Draco nod his head. Once she solidified her ascension, Hikari opened her eyes and retook her human form, though her body was slightly taller and less chubby in certain places.
The other three surrounded her and touched her all over, feeling out her changes. This made Hikari blush and protest, all of which fell onto deaf ears as she was molested by her sister-wives.
Draco just looked on with respectful eyes, totally not drooling with infernal lust. Of course not!
He then coughed and pointed out that they should head to the next floor in order to continue with their climb. This saved Hikari as the other three let her go temporarily, but made it known they would be back for her later.
Hikari could only gaze to the sky and sigh in lament. This was the fate of being too spectacular after all…
Not realizing that she had begun adopting traits of her family, especially her brother and husband, Hikari followed the group as they entered the 14th floor.
Here, they noticed that they were seated on horseback over a battlefield that was below the hill they were standing on. The battlefield itself was horrifying, a mixture of blood, mush, and gore as many humans and humanoids had been crushed into paste by the opposing group of Sentinels that they fought.
The opposing group had only a fraction of the total number of the defending group, but it seemed to make no difference in the grand scheme of things.
It was a massacre.
Author's Note: Sigh!
At the end of the day, every banquet must come to an end.
The past few weeks, I have generally been enjoying life, meeting friends, going out, and generally living life in order to relax.
Even that crummy editor, Devils, is out on a honeymoon of sorts.
But it isn't and wasn't meant to last forever. Starting next month, Guild Wars and Darius Supreme will resume regular daily updates as I settle back into NEET life.
To prove this, I will be participating in the event I hate most, Win-Win.
