The Systemic Lands

Chapter 470: Day 914 – Finding A Path Through The Cults

Chapter 470: Day 914 – Finding A Path Through The Cults

My protection detail and I had gone North from First Seoul the previous day. We crossed into a level 3 zone and stopped when it had turned from frostlands to stonelands and set up camp. Now that it was the following morning, I had set off before dawn to head North.

I wanted to poke some more level 4 zones. They were honestly interesting. I still wanted to find a level 5 boss and kill them and look at level 5 zones. Kicking off the boulders that made the stonelands, I easily made my way North.

Dammit, mushrooms ahead. I headed right for them. Might as well see what monster was lurking about before going East or West to the corner of the zone. It was probably going to be East. Since there was a void zone to the East of the level 3 zone, but there was also a void zone to the West of the level 4 zone to my North.

If I went West, I wouldn’t get to see another level 4 zone. If I went East, I would hopefully run into another level 4 zone. But that was for later, since right now I had deal with the mushrooms. I already felt a headache coming on as the mushrooms grew and collapsed as more mushrooms replaced them. The entire terrain was undulating.

I saw mushrooms moving towards me. No, not mushrooms, but figures in cloaks that were covered with mushrooms. I counted three, then seven, then fifteen. Once they felt they had enough of a force with twenty of them, they rushed at me.

A skeletal hand gestured towards me. The finger bones twisting in weird ways. Air Burst! I quickly retreated backwards as hundreds of mushrooms suddenly grew in the air and then collapsed to the ground. More attacks were unleashed at range.

A mushroom skill from this group. With the robes they were clearly a cult, a Cult of Shrooms with that skill. I touched down on the ground and quickly dodged as more attacks were unleashed. With the mushroom terrain, it was near impossible to make out their skills.

I retreated backwards to the stonelands. The Cult of Shrooms dispersed and went back to hiding in their terrain. That was a headache to fight. That was why level 4 monsters sucked. They had teamwork. It was incredibly frustrating to fight.

At least I gained new information about possible tactics. They grouped up first, and then attacked as a group. They were also willing to retreat to stay in their zone or terrain where they had an absolute advantage in terms of blending in. Getting hit by a shroom explosion sounded like a terrible idea. I really needed to fix my skills to handle groups like this with a tidal wave of acid.

Perhaps changing my skill when it leveled up, to Acid Beam. It was possible to adjust a skill each time it leveled up. The one issue I had with the beam attacks was their charge time regardless of upgrades. But they were quite strong. Something I would need to think a lot more on once all the cities were under my control and the curse damage removed from my body.

Kicking off the ground, I made my way to the East. It didn’t take long before I found darklands. Hopefully it had a better monster type than the Cult of Shrooms. Dawn had already arrived, so it was no longer pitch black. I entered the darklands. More cloaked figures, which blended in with the black of the terrain.

This time the robed skeletons rushed at me in groups, trying to touch me. Acid Shot x5. My attack only partially melted some of the monsters. In fact it healed them as the skeletons began gaining flesh around their boney hands and from the portions of their skeletal body I could spot under the melted portion of their robes.

Even while melting, my attack was healing them, or boosting them. The ones I had attacked became more animated. This was clearly a Cult of Flesh. Since they craved mine with the way they chased after me and their bodies gained flesh when I attacked.

I retreated to the stonelands, and the twelve chasing me followed me. Acid Shot x10. Acid Shot x10. The skeletons were overwhelmed by both attacks. Acid Shot x10. I was out of energy, but managed to kill them all off. Just needed multiple consecutive attacks to overwhelm them.

Again, easily beaten, but their numbers and unique ability posed a challenge for grinding them in large amounts. I had to give credit to the Astrologer’s homunculus for directing me to the Bulwark Shield, the one nice level 4 monster to grind.

This was frankly getting a bit ridiculous. It almost made me want to start punching things like the Divine Empress, but I resisted the urge. I wasn’t the type of person to run up to dangerous things and punch them in the face. Just the thought sent a shiver through me.

I decided to keep going East to the corner of the zone. My heart fell as I saw a jungle to the Northeast. I wondered what fresh horror was in there? I entered the jungle zone while keeping a clear idea on the way back.

Sensing danger, I quickly dodged back was a translucent spider, the size of a dog, leapt down where I had been. Acid Shot. The spider leapt towards me and angled the top of its body to face me, my skill bounced off the spider and back towards me.

Air Burst. Oh, hell no. I dodged backwards. Air Burst. Acid Shot. Air Burst. Acid Shot x3. The Reflection Spider finally died after I out flanked it, since it could quickly alter its orientation. No other monsters showed up. Small mercies.

After thinking on it for a moment, I made my way North between the darklands with the Cult of Flesh to my left and the jungle with the Reflection Spider to my right.

The jungle transitioned into more darklands halfway through transversing North through both zones. I checked it out. Cloaked skeletons, that walked towards me slowly with knives in their hands. Acid Shot. I killed one of them and the knife fell to the ground. No point crystal. The monster wasn’t dead. Acid Shot x5. I killed the other five monsters approaching me slowly. Each of them dropped a knife.

If I was a wet behind the ear’s super noob, then I would think that knife was loot. But it was clearly a trap of some kind. Obvious traps are obvious traps. Acid Shot x5. Force Wave. I targeted the cluster of knives with an annihilation attack.

They were only partially worn down and cracked from the attack. Okay, those knives were super bad news. At least the monsters weren’t that fast or troublesome. I wasn’t even sure what to call them. Maybe the Knife Cult, but that didn’t seem right.

Hmm, well I wouldn’t complain too much. It was a shame they weren’t grindable, but at least they weren’t a threat. I kicked off the ground and kept making my way North. I really wanted to see a level 5 zone. Staying in the boarder between zones, I erred to the side of the knife wielding skeletons rather than the Cult of Flesh skeletons.

I really wanted to touch one of those knives, but that thought clearly was unnatural in origin. I could spot the subtle mental effect. It wasn’t an attack either which made it incredibly insidious. The Systemic Lands and the Almighty System in charge made everything miserable, including the loot.

I still wanted my death sword of dusting. That had stuck in my mind. Just vaporizing enemies. Even better than a lightsaber, since there would be no mess afterwards. Just dust, which quickly disappeared. Could there be a better melee weapon? Probably not, since dusting things would be amazing. The beat stick was pretty good, but dusting was definitely superior.

A small smile came onto my face at that thought. I would have to discuss with Clarissa, about adding a hall of fallen heroes to my palace, or a public statue for fallen heroes. Naran would get a statue holding a beat stick. It would be a good way to honor his memory.

Even after all this time, I still missed him, and his death weighed on me. It was a bit less every day, but it just felt so arbitrary. But that was the nature of this place. With its clear rules, weird monsters, exhausting towers, and gray cities.

I slowly felt my anticipation build and my thoughts drift to what a level 5 zone would be like. My personal guess was lava, or ice. Maybe an ocean or a desert. I had a lot of guesses, since there was a lot of terrain that I hadn’t seen yet in the Systemic Lands.

As long as it wasn’t like the mushrooms or the jungle I would be kind of happy. But I had no doubt it would be some kind of hell no matter what. Each level of zone had three types of terrain as well, with little to no relation between them besides their level. That meant there were probably three types of level 5 terrain, since that pattern had persisted through four levels of zones.

My secret hope was a cake zone. It was very unlikely, but I could see it. Kill people exploring, by having themselves eat themselves to death. Make the cake super addicting and tasty. Death by cake consumption. Eat until your stomach exploded from the sheer amount of cake.

As ways to die, it would not be the worst one. At least a person would die full and happy, eating cake. Honestly the idea of a zone like that scared me, since anything could be possible. I frowned since I should be approaching the North end of the darklands zones.

The obscuring effect at a distance was really strong it appeared for level 5 zones as there was just a blur in front of me. Well, I would get close enough to take a peek. Curiosity might have killed a cat or two, but satisfaction would bring them back. I had waited too long and wanted some new information I could think on.

Come on cake zone! I really want cake. I would carve out a piece, to take back with me to Purgatory. Test it on someone else, before having a single bite. It was probably a bad idea I was this caught up into thinking about cake, but new zones meant completely new possibilities for the terrain and I wanted something nice.

The closer I got the more my heart began to fall. Oh no, oh hell no. The blur continued to remain and only got stronger. A level 5 zone was clearly some fresh kind of hell. Who would come up with something so disturbed as this? The Almighty System proved itself to be the supreme lord of frustration. It wasn’t a cake zone unfortunately, it was something much worse and much more irritating in every way possible.