Bloodlines Online-Chapter 130: Ally Growth

It is not known what triggered the cataclysm.

The day when the world met it's end was never properly documented but we do know from personal accounts that it started with people having their body warped by something unknown.

Many claim it was a game that caused the change but a videogame, a digital world, changing the physical body of a person isn't possible.

- from the journal of an unnamed mage.

War God was fighting her way through the wild regions to follow the directions given, her goal? The Infernal Kingdom.

War God, Hope and Shade had been playing together all the way to this region and their teamwork was seamless, Hope kept a healing aura active while Shade used his stealth skills to assassinate the targets War God distracted.

"Each city has a dungeon right? Do you think Belial has completed the dungeon in the capital yet?"

"Knowing him yeah I'd assume he has but we should still try to catch up."

"That punk gets to farm a whole dungeon on his own with all that loot no one else will encounter yet!"

Shade was smiling as he playfully bad-mouthed their friend.

"I bet he's evolved his race again."

"He probably got to the next evolution afterwards too, that guy is a machine."

The whole conversation had been between Hope and Shade as War God focused on watching for mobs.

"Eyes up, got a weird reptile ahead of us."

The trio had long since left the forests of the human empire they had previously been in and were crossing the grasslands between them.

"Do you see the river yet? Once we reach the bridge we will finally get past the border."

"If they don't stop us there..."

Hope began to channel her life mana to create a spear of pure life aura that would contain the violent wind mana she was pushing inside.

She launched her spear at the unaware creature and as it struck the hide of the beast it shattered, the wind released began to slash the armored scales of the beast but this only enraged it.

"Oh well that's not good, guess we need to let Shade find weak points."

The trio got into position around the beast with War God as vanguard and Hope as her healer, circling the reptile was Shade who kept his eyes moving across the creature to find any weak points that might exist.

Hope buffed War God with a spell to increase her natural health regeneration while simultaneously casting her life armor aura to add the many buffs she had developed.

Since she had gained the life element she had learned that she had a talent for it because she easily moulded the mana to her desires.

Her greatest life affinity spell was the armor she was currently using, a combination of auras and buffing spells contained within life affinity constructs.

She had started with the natural regeneration aura which would stack with her own spells, this combination was almost able to double the health regeneration of allies.

The next aura she had learned was one that increased defense, it would enhance the skin or armor of those affected by a certain percentage as long as she burned mana to use it.

Thanks to her wind affinity her support class had even given her access to a few speed based buffs like a movement speed and attack speed spell but with these spells she was also able to use her armor to create new auras.

With every buff active her mana would drain rapidly but her solution was to basically toggle them.

While Hope was buffing the team War God was looking for the best way to get the aggro of the reptile, she stabbed forward with her blazing sword while from the other end a blade of life mana filled with fire struck the flank of the beast.

Her own sword managed to dig into a gap between the armor where the arm met it's body but the blade did not go very deep no matter how hard she pushed.

The beast resembled a thorny dragon from their own world but unlike those tiny creatures this beast was as large as a lion.

Just as they were waiting for a counter-attack Shade appeared from the side of the beast and struck it with a dagger where it's neck had turned to face War God.

His strike was full of finesse and a sharpness that only a trained killer would achieve, something he had learned from years of playing virtual reality games.

The beast let out a shrieking hiss while blood began to seep out of the wound he had created.

From it's maw they all saw purple droplets begin to gather and as Shade lept away to return to his stealth War God noticed that even the spines across its body began to excrete tiny purple droplets.

"Be careful Hope, it looks like poison so try not to get in a brawl with it."

Hope watched as the two battled the lizard with an experience she knew she wouldn't be able to match.

Each strike drew more blood and each stab from Shade brought a more significant wound as he learned more weak points of the beast.

War God raised her shield and projected a mana construct from a buffing spell to try to knock the beast back, her goal was to make it rear up to give Shade a good shot at the underbelly.

Hope saw the plan and used her own wind element to try to create a burst upwards in the same moment.

With their combined efforts the beast reared up with it's claws scraping the shield to find a way over.

Which left it's underbelly partially exposed.

Shade struck with perfect precision on the throat of the creature which did not immediately show any effect from below.

From the face of the creature however one would see blood foaming from it's maw as it began to drown on it's own life essence.

As it collapsed and the group gained their experience points they dismissed their spells and skills to begin regaining mana.

As they kept moving through the grasslands they noticed a sound which grew louder and louder as the trio passed through the fields until they finally saw the banks of the rushing river that acted as the border between the human kingdom and the infernal kingdom.

"Ok so we found the river... the closest bridge should be.... a few miles down if my memory is serving me."

Shade was checking a page he had written the directions down on but there were very few landmarks.

"There can't be many bridges if it's a border so we should probably try to find out which direction is the closes one."

"Well that would be true if this wasn't just a river? Can't people take a boat across?"

Hope wasn't sure why they had put so much thought into how they would take path.

"That river is way too fast and anything inside of it would have the home field advantage on top of our group being limited to a small battle area."

"Oh..."

"Don't worry about it Hope we will just find the bridge like we planned."

The team took a bit of time to try and think of any land marks that might be identified from the directions given but other than the cardinal directions they followed they had nothing.

Only the river.

"Guess we follow the river down..."

~

Belial was leaving the dungeon with his rewards already in the auction through the system.

Getting gold gear was a waste of his time but the occasional mythril grade was much nicer.

His leveling speed was beginning to slow down in the normal difficulty and his only reason for staying was the fact that his poison affinity was progressing at a painfully slow rate.

He had also noticed that he was no longer gaining stats from consuming enemies in the dungeon so trying to use the slash and burn strategy was losing it's value.

The only creature even giving him any experience at this stage was the boss and that fight was a nightmare since he couldn't absorb the poison mana in the area before he started.

'Should I really start the hard mode swamp? There would be a much higher mana density as well as higher level enemies but that obviously means I have a higher chance of failure...'

When the items he auctioned were finally sold he realized that he was actually putting a dent into the monetary aspect of his quest to prove himself to the council.

If he simply kept farming the normal mode dungeon he would easily gain the value necessary.

His only worry was that eventually he would fall behind the other players in levels once again.

Being so far behind his own friends would also be a disaster for when they tried to do dungeon runs together.

'If I can finish this dungeon in hard mode then I can at least give them a good way to farm loot when they arrive since not all of them have unique gear... and they have to get gear for their clan.'

With this thought he entered the hard mode dungeon.