Trope World - Volume 1 Chapter 28 Swatting Flies

How do you swat a fly? A fly swatter. I didn’t have a giant equivalent for the massive flies that flew about in the dark of the kiln’s bottom. They were blind that was true. One buzzed by my head loud as helicopter blades. It landed on a fresh corpse of a centaur and heaved a water fall of green acid on the corpse. An obscene smell filled the air as hair, hide, and muscle melted transforming into a slurry. The silent kiln was filled with grotesque slurping sounds as the giant fly slurped up the remains of the centaur. Human skin and horse hide alike melted easily before the fly’s acid. Once the giant fly had its fill it made its way to the rear of the centaur.

From its giant thorax a tubular growth popped free. It, I know it was an ovipositor. I could hear slime drip off the organ and fall upon the bones below. I saw the pink pulsating tube even when I turned my head away, I could feel its make up as if I were examining it with my hands, I could hear the pours around the organ expunge mucus as if my ear was next to them, and I could smell the chemicals that kept the organ wet. It waisted no time plunging its ovipositor into the centaur’s rotten v.a.g.i.n.a. It screamed and made rocking motions as large objects flowed from it into the corpse of the centaur.

Once the eggs stopped flowing the giant fly bent down and swallowed its own ovipositor cleaning it before the organ returned to its sheath. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. Nothing was over I’d hardly made a step forward. That monstrous fly had a BP of 6m, and it wasn’t alone. There were hundreds of thousands of them at foundation level from low to the great circle.

These creatures didn’t possess earth or fire qi. They were beings of wood qi. The essence flowing off these creatures were of nature. They were weak against fire but if I something of wood qi. I’d read it in one of the children’s books. Wood qi could be destroyed by steel qi. I happened to have a bag full of swords and one of those swords was sentient.

I’d long since selected one of my bags of holding for just swords. Well weapons in general. I even had a few cheap spirit bows. None of them were above F in ranking. Took out the small bag hiding in my robe and looked inside.

My senses flowed through the small pocket dimension only to find a single steel blade. Its surface was scarred by flames, pieces that were once missing had been repaired. This sword was the sentient sword I’d started melting down. It held no sheathe and it looked to weight over 400lbs. The back of the blade was thick as a man’s ribcage. The blade resembled more a solid slab of metal than a sword. Yet still it had a firm wooden handle seemingly made of various types of charred wood. The edge of the blade was red hot and seemed to slowly melt away.

“Master you have returned to me. A 1000 apologies for taking so long to assimilate these lesser weapons. Did sword do good?” I’d broken the sentient sword’s mind. I didn’t know whether I was proud of that or saddened. “Master are you hungry? I could melt some of myself down for you. So long as you don’t take too much, I should be fine.”

“That won’t be necessary, I need you as my partner. We are going to kill monsters together.” I said.

“Really, I hadn’t dreamt of such an honor. Please master lift me so we may slay your enemies.” My hand grasped the handle of the blade and I lifted it out of the now empty bag. The sword lit up the area around it with a bright orange glow. Drops of metal fell from the blade on occasion. This blade had both metal and fire qi. Unfortunately, fire destroys metal. As the blade was now, it would soon melt away.

“Master, I’m certain that I can consume more lesser weapons and restore myself.” His sword said. A third element was needed to fix this. Wood would only make the fire stronger and melt my weapon faster. This weapon was B rank and dropping. Just holding it my battle power went up to an incredible level.

Melting Sword BP 15m 20m

This blade was incredibly powerful. “Master let me impart upon you a technique. Even in the qi condensation realm you should be able to pull it off. The Dao is called: Rapture. You won’t be able to use its full power right away, but you can use it.” Knowledge of the Dao entered my mind in a way no normal skill ever had.

I froze for a moment. As I gained enlightenment, I gained an understanding on how special this sentient sword was. It was a treasure that the Chu clan could have used to produce a sword god. This once seemingly unimportant blade held the secrets to some very powerful sword Dao.

Even with my intelligence my cultivation base wasn’t high enough to understand the Dao of rapture in its entirety.

I began to make set a death march towards the center of the kiln. I heard the buzz of wings and turned using the flat of the giant sword as a shield. Talons of a giant fly raked against the blade and the blind fly shrieked in pain. Putting my hand to the back of the blade and twisted around bringing the red-hot edge of the weapon to the fly monster’s center of mass. For a moment the qi barrier of a low foundation level fly monster battled against the fire and steel qi of the sword. Wood transformed into more fire and steel destroyed wood. In less time than it takes to blink the sword bisected the fly leaving leaving it on the ground twitching.

Other flies began to buzz around picking out my location and preparing to attack. I felt the source of the fly’s wood qi tumble out of its body and roll to my feet. There on the flattened bone floor near the stairs was a small bead that glowed with wood element. I reached down and picked it up only for my inner dragon to reach out of my mana pool and snatch the monster core up. The instant the dragon consumed the core its fire grew much stronger. The ash seemed to assimilate with its body better.

Wyrmling lv575

Just like that, I’d gained my first seventy levels in wyrmling since I’d hit the bottle neck of lv500. I could do this. Only, half a kilometer to go and I’ll be in the center of the kiln.

I ran at a breakneck pace hopping over skeletal bodies and dodging putrid sink holes. The smell was the worst thing I’d ever experienced. To my supernaturally enhanced senses it was infinitely worse.

Quiet step lv20; +200DEX

Night Stride lv10; +100DEX

Lone Star lv10: +100END

Endurance has surpassed milestone 100

Next milestone 1000

Power Skill Discovered: Aerial Recover lv1; Active 100SP; +10END

I froze in place. I knew why my skills went up so quickly. The Melting blade on my back weighed roughly 400lbs this was practically strength training. Keeping quiet while holding a heavy weapon in the dark while facing a tribe of fly monsters alone might qualify me for quite a few skills.

Just as I crossed to a lower area in the kiln something wet touched my back. In less than a second my world was swallowed by pain.

-50,000HP

-50,000HP

-50,000HP

-50,000HP

I turned and leapt out of the way too slowly. A talon from one of the flies tore through my left shoulder. My robe fell and I tripped. One of the flies barreled into me and I flailed barely slicing the second one as I fell below into a pile of rotting corpses. The smell wasn’t an issue all I could smell was the acrid scent of acid and my ears were filled with the oozing sound of my own organs melting. I continued to lose health while my health drained away my cultivation base to keep me alive. I I reached into my robe and popped spirit stone after spirit stone in my mouth. I swallowed them down even as the flies gathered above me.

I heard a series of retching sounds before a geyser of acid fell above me. There was nowhere to dodge in the confined space of the pit of the dead. I raised my hand up towards the sky and unleashed a powerful tornado of dragon fire. Fire met acid a mix of water and wood qi. Fire increased in power from the wood, but water destroyed it. Luckily, there was a limit to how much the flies could vomit. The flames filled the sky. More flies gathered spewing acid where the flames started to spread putting them out quickly. This was getting too much.

I needed to flip this fight back on them. The acid eating away at my body finally evaporated.

Skill discovered: Acid Resistance lv50; passive; + 50END/CON

Pain Resistance lv50; +50END/CON

My skin began to heal, and my health slowly recovered. If I was going to do this then I needed to do it quickly. I leapt up using various jutting bones as a stairway back to the top. The flies prepared to cover me in acid once again. Holding my sword in both hands, I twisted and fed the blade my qi. White angel wings burst from the blades guard and the flames went out for a moment. Golden light glowed from the sword for a moment as I slashed with the blade. The blade moved and my body went along for the ride.

I swung overhead and chopped the nearest giant fly in two before using its body to push myself into a thrust for the next one. With my sword sheathed in one of the flies I held I up over my head. The fly was a precious ingredient for the spell. Without it the Dao could target anything. Golden light burned my hands as I pushed every drop of qi I had into the blade. My pathways dried up and I felt like a mortal again weak. Just as the flies regained their bearings a halo. The halo flashed and blinding golden light appeared. The flies who were caught under the halo dropped dead instantly. Their bodies were still technically alive, their souls were taken by the Dao of Rapture.

Dao Skill discovered: Rapture lv1; Active cost all qi reserves; +100WIS

Multikill lv10; +100DEX

I tossed away the fly on my sword and extracted its monster core. Each of the flies had one all wooden cores. Before my dragon could snatch them up, I placed them in my bag of holding.

As I descended the mountain of corpses, I swallowed one spirit stone after another. My cultivation base was the same as ever only my qi had ran dry. With a new intake of spirit energy my qi quickly recovered. But I couldn’t use a second attack. Blood flowed from my nose, eyes, and ears. It was a powerful skill, but another use right now would destroy my cultivation base.

I heard the buzzing of helicopter blades and looked around but there was no fly. Then the sound grew louder. Descending from the sky was a colossal fly. It held a staff in its left hand and held itself with an immaculate grace. This giant fly was in the great circle of formation.

BP 30m