Trope World - Volume 1 Chapter 29 Endless Battle

Bodies of millions of different creatures littered the area. They were rotted and filled with maggots. As the maggots devoured rotten flesh white bones became visible. These bones stacked together like piles of wood one atop the other whole stories at a time. Below the bones was a white field of bone shards so numerous they resembled sand. From the bone shards wood qi rose up like a spirit well. Anything that could survive here with the wood element would surely prosper. Yet only the flies seemed to survive. No bats, spiders, or other insects made their home here. Did the flies guard this place jealously? I had met one capable of speech when I entered this place. Did the flies have territorial instincts? Why flies? Why not giant ants, hornets, bees, or c.o.c.kroaches? This place was a mystery.

Flies buzzed in the air in the hundreds of millions. They dared not approach me while I held my melting blade. The heat radiating from the weapon alone was enough to reduce the wood type monsters to sparks of flame. Fire and metal qi flowed around me creating a safety net. Even the behemoth of a fly blocking my path hesitated. They were afraid of fire, it was their destiny, and they refused to accept the end. The natural cycle came for everything eventually. Immortals were rare.

I sized up my opponent. It was large perhaps 4 stories tall. Its back legs were sturdy things as big around as cars. They were taloned. Each talon was the size of a coffee table. The shear number of talons on each leg was unnatural. They flexed around multiple carcasses keeping balance. The creature’s body was protected by a dense layer of chitin with gaps for movement. It was huge powerful, and its aura spread quickly blasting bones and carcasses aside as it glared down at me. I coughed up a mouthful of blood as its aura hit me through the barrier of fire and metal qi. Even greatly weakened this monster’s wood element qi was fierce.

It waved its staff creating a build up of wood qi. It was sickly green in color, and I could feel the force behind it condense. The attack had a BP over 50m, and it was still rising. I ran forward, I had to interrupt the magic before it was finished.

I pumped every bit of qi I had in my legs relying upon my melting sword to protect me from the fly’s aura. I crossed half the distance between us when the spell stabilized. It was fully charged. The monster brought its staff down as the beam shot out. Within the beam I could hear the buzzing of hundreds of trillions of flies.

I let myself fall through the bone pile. Wood qi struck the bones above me a and they began to mutate. Cancerous growths appeared around them radiating ever more wood qi. They were like cocoons whatever was in them was growing quickly to the foundation level. Yet still the green beam continued to fire. I ran forward feeling the bones rack against my body as I moved between them or cut my own way. The world glowed green as ever more wood qi was expended.

Movement lv100; +10DEX/END

Dodge lv100; +100DEX

I had to counter this somehow and plan started to form. My BP with the melting blade was around 32m at most. The only way I could conceivably increase that was to raise my strength higher. I had a single powerful yet costly skill that was perfect for the job.

My left-hand glowed purple as I targeted one of the giants who were tossed down here centuries ago. The spinal column and rib cage of the creature held up a lot of the area. Many hundreds of thousands of bone structures locked in with the giant skeletons on the bottom. I had to do this quickly.

Quake and haymaker flowed through my melting blade then I compressed the energy around the blade of the weapon.

Mana manipulation lv100; +50INT/WIS

Compression lv50; +250INT/PER

Battle skill discovered: Oppression Blade lv1; active cost 50,000SP; +25STR/END

As if pulled directly from my ass I made a skill out of quake, compress, and mana manipulation. Due to compression no mana was leaving the blade. Due to compression no metal leaked off the blade. Though the fire within the blade grew hotter and the blade itself began to hum as if singing its praises for me.

Pride lv5; + 100INT/CHA

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t last very long. The protective qi that surrounded me contained itself within my blade. The energy within the blade skyrocketed before stabilizing at its new level and then it started to glow a deep shade of purple before growing heavier. Flies from all around shot towards me just as I flexed my own qi killing them in droves. These weren’t the flies of the foundation level; these were large common flies. Perhaps a few were in the qi condensation level.

Just as I swung my sword to cut down the first pillar one of the cocoons opened. Wood qi radiated from the new creature BP 45M. The creature moved at insane speeds. I turned bringing my blade up just in time to block the talons of an 8ft tall muscular fly humanoid. When it struck my sword, it shot me back. I hit the side of the giant spine and spat out a mouthful of blood.

“What are you?” I asked not expecting an answer.

“We are the new generation. We will extend our own private age of wood endlessly.” The creature said before launching itself at me. I swung my sword forcing my opponent back a step. Its voice sounded like the vibrations of millions of insects. The clock was ticking, I didn’t have much time left before I ran out of stamina. I didn’t dare reach into my back of holding. Instead, I placed my back hand against the giant spinal column and used quake. In an instant I lost another second from oppressive blade.

The world began to shake as the vibrations were spread from the giant’s spinal column to everything connected to it. Three more cocoons opened as I feinted a swing throwing myself off balance. The fly humanoid took advantage of the situation as my weapon seemed to swing me instead. “That’s what you get for using such a heavy weapon.” I placed my foot down using my near 2tons of weight to swing my blade behind me. Talons dug into my back just as my first opponent was cut in two.

Fighting through the pain my hand reached out. Before my enemy could suppress my cultivation base, I unleashed quake point blank. Chitin didn’t like to be moved in several different directions at once. It was more like armor than flesh. It stalled the fly long enough for me to deliver a thrust to the fly’s midsection. The heat, earthquake level vibrations, and sword qi were too much for the fly’s body. It was quickly cut apart by the metal qi before burning to ash. With less than 100k HP left I swung my sword and cut through the giant spinal column.

Bones started to rain down as another set of vibrations shook the place. When two sets of waves hit each other, it caused fatal damage. Bones cracked and fell apart as the vibrations found weak spots and exploited them shaking the upper levels of the bone pile apart. With the ground unstable the giant fly hovered in the air to get out of danger.

The last of the new age humanoid flies tried to blitzkrieg towards me. I managed to stab one but the other one hit me. The last of my health pool drained away and I knew this might be it. If it used acid, I was done for. I turned to the monster and it sensed my fear. My stamina was close to the end and just as I was about to lift my blade a slab of bone fell trapping my hand and blade. I was pinned and didn’t have time to free myself.

The monster opened its mouth and I heard the disgusting tell tail sign of vomiting. I raised my hand and unleashed a powerful dragon fire tornado. Dragon fire shot from my hand. When it contacted my mana, I spun it to keep it under control, and compressed it. This caused a spinning effect akin to a tornado of flame. The flaming end of the dragon fire twister was about the size of a coin. Bit it contained the greatest concentration of heat. Around my hand was the funnel of the dragon flame twister. The funnel had a diameter as large as I was tall. The attack ended and the fly monster stood there with a hole through its stomach.

It looked at me with pure hatred. Then a geyser of green liquid fired from its mouth. I managed to move away bending myself over atop my sword, but my left arm was hit just below the elbow. I screamed in agony as my left arm was burned down to the bone. I had no HP left and the arm fell off at the elbow. I looked down as my HP started to recover. The stump healed at my elbow. Phantom sensations spread across my psyche as I stared at my twitching arm. I reached down and grabbed it before placing it in my bag of holding. I heard the monster laugh as it died from its wounds.

“This didn’t happen, I’m not supposed to lose my arm. This is an issekai, I’m supposed to collect a harem become op and live a happy prosperous life. Right! That’s what’s supposed to happen. I was on the right track. Wasn’t I on the right track?” The laughter of the humanoid fly monster went silent as I stood up. My stamina was gone, and my sword didn’t have the Oppression Blade buff. It was just a normal melting blade now. It was half melted away now.

“I’m sorry master this is my fault.” The blade said. Even my inner dragon mourned my loss.

“Be silent the both of you.” I need to kill this bug then start the fire. That’s the only way to move forward. I looked down at my stump. “This didn’t happen.”

I leapt up through the falling bones and stood upon the vibrating upper section. My toes gripped the bones with impeccable dexterity. My movements were silent as the grave. I was perfection. I made my way below the giant fly. It hovered its eyeless chitinous form above everything. It began to fly higher as if it planned to escape. Holding the handle of my blade I pointed it at the monster and threw it as hard as I could channeling as much dragon fire as possible. The blade melted more quickly than ever as it flew like a shooting star.

Pushing a dangerous amount of qi into my legs I leapt up as the bones shattered around me. The bones in my legs shattered and healed in less time than it takes to say, “gasp my arm is gone.” I rocketed through the air catching up with my sword, grabbing ahold of it, and stabbing it into the fleeing fly monster. I placed my feet on the monsters chitinous exoskeleton and ripped my sword free before stabbing it in again. I rushed up the monster stabbing my sword in it to gain leverage before pulling out and stabbing in again.

The fly panicked and flew into the wall with an earth-shaking thump. The thick walls of the crematorium held long enough form me to make it to the head. From there I stabbed my sword in a crack in the neck. Fire roared from my blade. It weighed as much as gallon of milk now. Dragon flames shot out of my blade through the monster’s neck and scorching the wings to ash. Then I fell along with the giant bug through the bone until reached the ash of the middle of the crematorium.

The giant fly rose burnt but still holding on to life. I rose up my broken spin quickly healed by my last remaining HP. I let my sword drop from my hand and held my right hand up. The fly’s qi aura threatened to overwhelm me. Blood oozed from my eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. I continued to hold my hand up. I had a lot of mana still. Burning the area without starting the kilt flame wouldn’t spread to everything so fire was out of the equation. I still had a little under eighteen million mana left, my arm was gone, and this wasn’t really an issekai. What did any of that have in common? I had only myself to rely upon and this world wouldn’t hand me a damn thing. So, I’m going to take what I want.

Mana gathered in a ball in front of my hand. Millions of it compressed into a ball and quaking violently. Mana was normally calm and controlling. So, what happens when you intentionally antagonize it then point it at something. The mana became visible it glowed a deep blue color as I directed it spinning the mana and directing it. Once it reached the point, I couldn’t push it together anymore, I pushed it forward. It took a while to explain but it happened in seconds.

Like a bubble bursting force exploded out. It crashed into the direction I pointed it. That direction happened to be where the giant fly stood. The blind creature tried to stumble away. On instinct, it tried to flutter wings that weren’t there. The attack hit as a concentrated beam. It vaporized the left side of the fly finally killing the tough creature.

Battle Magic Discovered: Atomic Blast lv1; Active cost 15,000,000MP; +25INT/WIS

I fell in the ashes one armed but victorious. A massive wood monster core fell out of giant fly monster and rolled towards me. I struggled to lift myself up and put the green ball as big as my head in my inventory. My eyes shied away from my stump, I popped a hand full of spirit stones in my mouth and began to make my way towards the center.

“You may have defeated us, but how with you deal with the earth guardian.” I swung my sword, but the fly monster dodged just as the ground rumbled. A massive snake made of stone emerged from the ashes. Its fangs dripped with venom; its hood flared revealing a diamond on its head that contained the last of the kiln’s flames.

Gargantuan Stone Cobra

Palace Building: low grade

BP 100m

“I don’t care how powerful you are. I’m going to destroy you and burn this place to the ground.” I yelled and ran at the creature with the last of my strength.