World Keeper

Chapter 989: The Hero’s Epic

After I finished absorbing the tokens, I took my time exploring the list of abilities one by one, looking to see if there was anything that truly stood out to me. Honestly… there was nothing that would revolutionize my fighting style or increase my strength by a large amount. I had wanted the Still Mirror seed just because it matched my style, but even then didn’t think I’d use it too much.

As for the other abilities of the seed? There was the power to create portals, survival in a vacuum, and other things like that. Most of the abilities were things that would only be useful to me as a Monster Tamer, a class that I hadn’t focused much on since Fafnir.

The abilities that I obtained that would be the most powerful were Natural Energy Attunement and Natural Energy Reinforcement. With these two enhancements, my ‘talent’ as a Druid or Shaman had increased drastically. However, that was all there was. Those two abilities alone were not enough for me to consider changing my fighting style.

“You sure you don’t want our help with this one?” Petra asked, looking at the nearby slime girl as they stood at the base of a giant mountain. “It’d be tough with just one person, right?”

Lifre snickered, checking over her equipment. “That’s the whole point! If it’s not a challenge, it’s not a trial! The fact that it’s a trial is what makes it worth doing.” Lifre had been spending quite a bit of time in Fragments of Acidia with her Virtual Self lately, getting all of her equipment upgraded to divine artifacts.

The opponent she planned to face this time was the strongest monster of the fifty-seventh floor of Fyor. In fact, by Lifre’s guess, it had most likely broken the limits of the floor, either being born as an anomaly or having arrived from a hidden ore like the old tidestones. Lifre couldn’t be sure either way, and didn’t have the ability to properly measure its level, only relying on the energy it radiated from a distance.

Just to be safe, she didn’t plan to open her library to call upon any of her antagonists for this. Most of the ones that could appear were either too weak or too demanding to be useful for the fight at hand. That was why Petra offered the help of herself and Thelsa. However, Lifre refused without a second thought.

“You just watch. After this, we’ll head back and get a drink!” As she said that, she began walking towards the mountain. In truth, she didn’t even know what the monster she sought looked like, only that it was powerful and living within the mountain. Thus, as she approached, she began to activate her divine circuits. Begin the Epic.

Lifre’s body began to glow as her divine powers were activated at full force, blessing her as the ‘hero’ of a new ‘adventure’. Lifre couldn’t tell right away what the effect of the blessing was, as it enhanced neither her strength nor her speed. Is it a luck enhancement?

Down below the mountain, Petra looked around before speaking up. “This isn’t going to be one of those cases where the entire mountain is just part of the monster’s body, right?”

Sora snickered, shaking her head. “We haven’t seen one of those since… the fiftieth floor? Still, if it’s something like that, I’m sure she has a big attack that can deal some damage. Personally, I’d be more worried if it was something small.”

Thelsa furrowed her brow, seemingly lost in thought. “It feels familiar somehow… but I can’t remember where I’ve felt this before.”

Lifre continued to climb, zeroing in on the source of the energy she felt. It was mostly a powerful natural energy, but there was a mix of spiritual energy and mana within, clearly showing that it was more than just a natural treasure. The higher Lifre climbed, the more distinct the energy became.

Lifre didn’t use her World Sight, not wanting to trigger any kind of response from the enemy. More importantly, she wanted to keep its identity as a surprise. Thus, she waited until the feeling of the energy was at its peak before drawing her sword. “And here… we… go!” Her arm swelled as she forced her ki into it, slashing at the mountain with enough force that it left a crack more than a hundred meters deep.

At first, there was no reaction, leading Lifre to think that she might not have cut deep enough into the mountain. Just as she was pulling back for a second swing, the side of the mountain shattered, a massive hand stretching out from the crack to grab Lifre’s entire body.

The hand was dark green, with bony spines along the palm and wrist. Lifre’s eyes went wide, trying to jump back out of the way, only to find the arm extending further and further, until she was unable to escape the monster’s grip.

“Let… go of me!” Lifre shouted, a blade of ki forming in the air and slashing down, empowered by her Martial Intent. Lifre’s blade intent was an ever-changing strike, unlike Tsubaki’s intent to ‘sever’. Lifre’s allowed her to strike from any angle at any time, though it lacked the enhanced damaging effect of Tsubaki’s. Still, the ki blade slashed down at the monster’s wrist, forcing it to release her.

At the same time, more of the mountain crumbled, revealing a massive humanoid over a kilometer tall. Its eyes were a bright green, vicious spines covering its limbs. Still, Lifre couldn’t shake the feeling that she had sensed something like this before.

Until she felt its energy scanning over her, an energy only detectable thanks to her own World Sight. “James!” She called out in shock. “Woah, there’s another one of him here?!” 

Lifre knew very well that James came from Fyor. However, based on his level, there should have been more than five more floors before they encountered his ‘people’. Like James, this must have been another one that left the home layer through some special methods, and just wound up on the fifty-seventh layer.

As for why he was embedded in a mountain… Lifre could only assume that he was in hibernation, having created the mountain around his body in order to sleep. While she was thinking that, the cut on the giant’s wrist healed, and it sent a hateful glare towards Lifre.

The temperature in the surrounding air skyrocketed, the sky turning red. The falling stones melted into magma, splashing down against the mountain. Then, as the giant raised his hand, a torrent of magma shot out from the mountain to grab Lifre.

Originally, Lifre would just shrug off an attack like this. What was normal molten rock going to do to a god? However, the fact that this was the same type of creature as James made her cautious. She was just jumping up to avoid when her head smacked against something solid, causing her to gasp in shock.

He’s strong enough with natural energy that he can isolate space! Lifre braced herself, having lost her chance to defend against the molten rock. It crashed directly into her, smashing her against another solid wall of space directly behind her.

Lifre’s voice cried out from the intense heat that seemed to burn directly at her soul. Once the torrent ended, she began to fall from the sky, her health bar flashing dangerously above her head. I’m… not done yet… you want to fight with natural energy…

“I’ll fight… fire… with fire…” Lifre forced the words out from her burnt throat, stabilizing herself in the air. Her divine artifact armor had been reduced to slag, her sword a useless heap. She clapped her hands together, focusing. Her spirit began to surge, green lights flowing through the air to converge on her body.

“I am the embodiment… of Nature’s Wrath!” She shouted as loud as she could, her figure growing larger and more illusory. She grew to more than a hundred meters in size, still not even reaching the knees of the opponent. However, her skin was like the wind, her hair was fire, and her eyes were pure darkness. When she spoke, her voice echoed throughout the sky.

“I haven’t had to use this in a while…” She stretched her hand out towards the giant, as if matching his own previous movements. “Wrath of Wind.”

The giant’s eyes went wide as a loud crash echoed through the landscape, one of his arms having fallen from his body. He growled, the arm dissipating into energy that rose back to reattach itself as his other arm came up. Towering spears of earth shot from the ground, piercing through Lifre’s body.

Unfortunately, Lifre was in an elemental state, causing the spears to do little damage. “Wrath of Flame.” She spoke, a white flame wrapping around the dissipated energy before it could reattach. Immediately, the giant jumped back, a look of worry on its face for the first time. Lifre was not just wielding natural energy, but every attack was also imbued with spiritual power, much like its own powers.

The problem for the giant was that Lifre’s powers seemed far more refined than its own. While he struggled to grow back a new arm, Lifre was calmly walking forward. “I’ve always wondered what would happen if I combined these two… you can help me experiment.” She spoke, her voice carried along the breeze.

“The void as my blade, the sky as my shield, and light as my armor.” The world seemed to twist at Lifre’s words, a torrent of wind flowing along her left arm, forming a circular shield as light condensed on her body as armor. Although she did not appear to be holding anything, something seemed to carve into the ground from her right hand with every step she took.

The giant gathered his energy, forming a blade of fire that flew towards Lifre. She held up her shield of wind, charging forward with thunderous steps. When the blade hit her shield, it forced her feet to slide backwards, before she dug into the ground. Then, with powerful, trembling movements, she began to push forward.

The giant’s eyes widened again. He tried to shift the blade into a ring to wrap around her shield and attack Lifre from the side. Unfortunately, he found that there was a layer of wind wrapped around the entire blade, preventing it from altering its shape. The most that it could do was focus on empowering the blade to push her forward, or else it had to give up the attack entirely to try something different.

Its brows knit tightly together on its forehead, putting as much strength as it could into the fire blade. Gradually, it felt like Lifre was being pushed back again, her feet digging trenches in the ground. “Wrath of Darkness.” She muttered, her shadow stretching out beneath her feet to connect to the giant’s. Immediately, the giant lost control of its energy, the blade of fire dissipating while Lifre charged forward unhindered.

“This… is for making me waste my time preparing for the raid.” Lifre called out when she was directly in front of the giant, sweeping her arm upwards. It could feel its body being split in half, narrowly moving its core out of the way in time. “Wrath of Flame.”

Down below, Petra watched with wide eyes as the elemental Lifre incinerated the massive monster, a shrill scream filling the air. Lifre let out a long sigh, her body shrinking back to normal size so that she could focus on recovering from her burns. While she healed, Petra ran over. “Can you teach me how to do that?” She asked, eyes practically sparkling. She was a rather powerful druid herself, so seeing this in person sparked her desire to learn.

“Huh? Oh… sure!” Lifre grinned, before blinking as a window appeared in front of her. “Huh… another legend. Sweet. Probably a Druid and Warrior one, this time.”

“Another one?” Thelsa’s eyes twitched, looking down at Lifre.

“Well, yeah!” Lifre chuckled, wincing as the pain from the burns crept up on her. “I’m the Hero, right? It’s not unusual to leave behind a bunch of legends.” As she said that, her health bar began to shrink dangerously, causing Thelsa and the others to gasp in shock. “Ah… it was a health blessing…” Lifre muttered, suddenly feeling lightheaded before falling backwards, arms and legs spread out. Petra pursed her lips, looking at the sliver of health that she had been left with.