Chapter 154: Rumble In The Underground

  The only one who Teresa didn’t punch straight through was the tank archetype, but her fist still caved his head in enough for it to be an instant kill. One should never underestimate how useful speedblitzing was. Had they all been fully prepared with their weapons drawn and spells ready, this would have been a much more difficult fight.

  Instead, Jeffrey’s party was dead in seconds.

  Behind her, Preston had cut off one of Brahim’s arms while Sarah shot her bow down the street, making the arrow bounce off a wall with . Jake was ready to defend Sarah from rear attackers, while only Randall, Benjamin, and Saylee hadn’t properly reacted yet.

  Benjamin simply didn’t have the stats or experience to do anything but duck instinctively at the sign of extreme violence. Saylee had some mental stats under her belt, but since her role was noncombative she didn’t really do a whole lot other than observe.

  Randall, however, just seemed shocked for some odd reason. There was no time to worry about that, as Teresa moved back to support whatever was going on outside the dead party’s house.

  Sarah was taking potshots at whoever had been following them, even though none of them actually saw their stalker. She was blind firing with towards where she had heard footsteps last, bouncing arrows off surfaces to make them travel around corners.

  Preston pinned the disarmed Brahim to the ground while Teresa and Jake advanced towards the now rapid footsteps. An arrow was fired back at them using the exact same method Sarah was using, though it was blocked by a as Jake reacted in time. Investing in mental stats as a tank was extremely important, as they needed a fast reaction time for situations exactly like this.

  Teresa quickly spotted their stalkers and found there were two of them. A level 51 light warrior archetype and a level 50 archer archetype were the ones who had been following them, and the light warrior was actually running away with a gash in his side.

   and activated as Teresa rushed the archer. An arrow was released towards her, and Teresa was able to tell the weapon was aimed at her torso, and an unavoidable attack was coming as she would not be able to dodge in time. She shifted slightly so the arrow wasn’t lined up with her spine and attacked back, launching a fist straight towards the archer.

  The arrow shot through Teresa’s stomach and she felt an agonizing pain as the wound started melting, but her attack was far deadlier. The archer had her head punched in just like Jeffrey. She turned her attention to her own injury and used and

  , trying to fix the wound that burned like hell.

  There were acid burns all around her skin and the arrow had turned into a liquid that slowly melted away at flesh. repaired the injury while

  slowly worked away at the arrow that had transformed into acid. That was trickier, Teresa had never dealt with acid actively injected into her.

  worked on toxins, but did acid count as a toxin?

  Well, eating acid would definitely suck, so it might as well be. Her skill worked on it, not at the speed Teresa would like but it was a first. Thankfully, her 141 Fortitude and Vitality were enough to make sure the wound was pretty small, despite the pain.

  An arrow passed by her towards the retreated light warrior archetype, hitting him in the lower back. His flesh around the arrow erupted as injected air into his body, making him collapse and slide across the ground. A red trail followed behind him, his Fortitude not high enough to account for falling while running at high speeds.

  “You good?” Sarah asked, looking at Teresa.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Her arrow turned into acid and she was a pretty solid level, but even if I couldn’t heal myself I’d live.” Teresa responded. The wound closed up after a few more seconds, as if it had never been there.

  Meanwhile, Brahim was still alive and screaming.

  “Kept him alive, wasn’t sure if we’d need him.” Preston said, still keeping the screaming man down.

  “Eh, I don’t think we will. We’re gonna have to make a run for it now anyway.” Teresa said. “Does anyone think otherwise?”

  Nobody said anything, and Teresa nodded to Preston. He shrugged, then put Brahim out of his misery and stabbed him through the back of the head.

  “I hate fighting people, never feels right.” Jake said, shaking his head.

  “What the hell!?” Benjamin yelled, and Randall looked like he was thinking the same thing.

  “Why did you do that?” Randall asked incredulously, looking at them like they were insane.

  “Benjamin owed him a shitload of money, I figured that wouldn’t hold true if the guy was dead. Unless there’s like, debt inheritance or something. Benjamin, do you still owe anyone money?” Teresa asked. If his debt got transferred to someone else, that could make things complicated. If the guy had a kid and it went to them, Teresa didn’t want to go wipe out bloodlines or anything crazy like that. If it went to someone else in Nouarosso who was involved, then she could just keep killing people until it was taken care of.

  “You executed him…” Benjamin said, looking at his son.

  “What else are we gonna do with him? It’s not like we can take him with us.” Preston replied. “I guess I could have cut more limbs off and he wouldn’t have been a threat, but I feel like that’s somehow more barbaric. Besides, they’re enslaving people. Not even in like a preachy, ‘ah debt is slavery’ sort of way. Literally, you can’t leave and are made to work in a mine with no safety precautions.”

  “Why?” Randall reiterated, looking at his daughter. “You just killed them all.”

  “Yeah, what’s the big deal?” Teresa asked back. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me kill people before.”

  “That was always self defense. You struck first this time. You weren’t bluffing at the gate, were you?”

  “Of course I wasn’t. These people suck and deserve to die. It’s not as if we can sit down with them and peacefully make them realize the error of their ways. If I paid the guy off, they’d probably try to kill us.” Teresa said, not feeling the slightest bit guilty.

  “I get it, I get that it needed to happen, I just don’t like seeing you do this.” Randall said, shaking his head. “How do we know the two who were following us weren’t actually against slavery?”

  “We don’t. Sure, maybe there was some secret resistance or whatever, but really what are the odds of that? If they were, they would have just surrendered as soon as we attacked them too.” Teresa said, shrugging the extremely unlikely possibility off. It was something she might have considered once, and maybe it would have been enough to stop her in the past.

  Teresa understood exactly how dangerous hesitation was in a fight. Most of the people here in Nouarosso likely gained their levels through easy fights with monsters. Once you got your skills and stats situated into a decent build, gaining levels was just a matter of repeatedly killing monsters. Past level 20, most people likely experienced minimal risk from hunting monsters at their own level, especially in a party.

  It meant they were reliant on their skills and stats to do the heavy lifting. Teresa doubted the people she just fought had been pushed to their limits at all recently, while Teresa’s party understood firsthand just how dangerous things could be. Even if these people had superior stats to her party, they didn’t have the sensibilities that would let them take advantage of that.

  Maybe the whole trip through the Contaminated Zone hadn’t maximized their leveling speed, but the quality and risk of those fights had surpassed what most others were likely to have experienced at this point. The most dangerous stage of leveling was the very beginning, and once that was done with Teresa doubted people were choosing to take fights that really pushed them.

  An arrow was fired nearby, and Teresa turned in alarm to see it was just Sarah finishing off the light warrior she had shot earlier.

  “Sorry, he was just playing dead. Got him now though.” Sarah called out, Benjamin looked like he was going to pass out at this rate, but it was time for them to get moving.

  “What’s the plan now?” Saylee asked, speaking for the first time since Teresa slaughtered Jeffrey’s party.

  “Well we’re definitely not taking this place over by ourselves right now. If there were level 50s in the city now, then there are likely still a bunch out monster hunting. Who knows how strong the people in charge are as well, for now we need to run.” Teresa said, looking back to the tunnel in the large cavern they had entered from.

  “For now?” Saylee asked, catching that tidbit.

  “For now.” Teresa affirmed as she began to hide the bodies in her . She continued to start leading the way out of the city once done. “If this was some multiverse bullshit, we’d be forced to stay out of it unless we wanted our families on the other planet to suffer for our actions. This looks like it has nothing to do with the multiverse, this is entirely the result of people. Earth people. We can actually do something about this, and we will. I just need to get ready first.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “If you want the rest of… Sanctuary… to be involved, we’ll have to discuss going to war with the others. I’m sure they can be convinced, but we don’t have the funds to teleport everyone nearby. It’ll take a while, and after recent events a lot of people are tired. We might not have the numbers or ability to wage war, and simply getting people here will take time.” Saylee informed her as they cautiously moved through the streets. Teresa’s Perception wasn’t alerting her to anything particularly concerning, but they still moved ready for a fight at any given moment.

  “That’s fine, I want some time to prepare too.” Teresa said, not wanting to give too much away while in an enemy city. Granted, the place was practically a ghost town as it was the middle of the day and the majority of the population was either working in a tunnel somewhere or sleeping, but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. “We’ll talk it over later.”

  They kept moving undisturbed, unwilling to sprint at high speeds through the underground city. There wasn’t a lot of attention on them yet, and if Teresa had to guess the light warrior Sarah shot was likely running to get reinforcements and alert someone. Running would be loud, would draw attention, and it would make them extremely vulnerable.

  Neither Benjamin or Saylee had enough Agility to keep up with the rest of them, meaning they would have to be carried. That would make both them and the person carrying them easy targets.

  Footsteps came near, and Teresa was prepared. They didn’t attack immediately, as the steps were calm and relaxed. It was entirely possible it was just some ordinary people.

  A pair of level 0s crossed their paths and looked right at them. They were both unarmed and dirty, though they immediately paled upon looking at Teresa’s group. They scrambled out of the way, terrified, and deliberately avoided eye contact.

  There were several groups of level 0s they passed that reacted the same way, seeing Teresa’s party immediately invited fear into their hearts. Really, it was the healer robes and the copious amount of blood on them. Bloody clothing and equipment were pretty commonplace outside of Nouarosso for anyone that hunted monsters, but within the city it seemed to add onto the reputation that healers willing to walk within their neighborhoods already had.

  That reputation actually helped Teresa out, as it meant nobody questioned them. Nobody was willing to, not even the occasional level 15.

  They made it to the stairs without incident, but their quiet escape couldn’t last forever. A group of guards were stationed there, some of them had been a part of the group that had ‘welcomed’ them outside. Upon spotting Teresa without Brahim nearby while covered in fresh blood, several started screaming at once.

  “We’re under attack!”

  “They’re back!”

  “Send someone here now!”

  All their voices rang out, loud. Within the city proper, the buildings blocked a lot of the noise and kept sounds from echoing throughout the entire cavern. Along the perimeter near the walls, there was nothing to trap the sound, meaning their voices were carried much farther than they normally would be. Even without a good Perception stat, people all over the city would probably be able to hear them.

  They all drew their weapons ready to fight, but all Teresa needed to do was activate and wave her arm in an arc. Several of them died immediately, getting engulfed by fire so hot they melted where they stood.

  A few survived using defensive skills, but nobody came out unscathed. A level 20 using or simply wasn’t enough, the difference in levels was too extreme. It was Teresa’s belief that even a high level person could be overwhelmed by a large quantity of low level people, but there was a limit to that. Many level 15s literally did not have the stats to harm Teresa, it was mostly her party members she had to worry about.

  A second wave of her arm finished them off, though it was loud. Not that they hadn’t already been loud, but they definitely needed to hurry now. They ran up the stairs, with Preston carrying his dad. It did make him vulnerable, but Benjamin was still a relatively baseline human. There were a lot of stairs, and even if a level 0 human had better cardio than a pre-System human it wasn’t enough to account for Benjamin’s condition.

  Once they were at the top of the stairs, they met more opposition. A level 55 mage, level 53 healer, and level 52 tank were ready and waiting for them. A stream of was fired at Teresa’s party, only for it to get blocked by a from Jake.

  Sarah and Teresa each returned fire, Sarah shooting an arrow at the healer while Teresa fired her own at the mage. A from the opposing tank blocked Sarah’s arrow, while the two instances of clashed. Despite the level difference, the mage’s felt on par with Teresa’s, and he used another spell Teresa hadn’t seen before.

  A flat barrier of fire appeared in front of the mage, with flaming whips lashing out in front of it. The whips were gradually growing in length, and would soon cover any distance between the two groups.

  Jake rushed the other tank while Preston set his dad down, and Randall fired a shot at the fire mage that was absorbed by his flaming barrier. Randall’s bullets were made using fire based Elemental Mana fed into his musket from , which didn’t seem to bother the fire mage at all.

  Teresa however activated and began removing the air around the mage’s hands, making both of his spells weaken for a moment. A moment was all Teresa needed, as her own overpowered the fire mage’s spell and clashed with his weakened fire barrier.

  The barrier managed to block most of the damage, but from the way the mage was screaming Teresa doubted he was blocking everything. Another arrow fired from Sarah struck the mage in the throat, making him collapse along with his spells.

  He was engulfed by Teresa’s , but was still struggling and moving despite that. Their healer was keeping him alive using a ranged healing spell of some sort, and the mage seemed to have a resistance of some sort to fire.

  That was fine, as Teresa wasn’t a one trick pony. The important thing was the mage wasn’t using his fire barrier spell anymore, which had been extremely detrimental to Teresa’s party. The flaming whips that grew out of it had prevented Preston from getting close, while Jake was struggling to contend with both the flaming whips and the tank he was currently engaged with.

  Now that the fire whips were gone, Preston rushed in and targeted their healer, who was now defenseless. He launched an at the other tank and then thrust his sword into the healer in a smooth motion.

  The healer began panic healing herself, but Preston finished her off before she could really do anything. Randall hit their other tank with a shot while Teresa used to get in close to the fire mage, bringing her sword out from her . The mage fired at her again, but she used her sword as a shield and dove towards him.

  Unfortunately for the fire mage, Teresa’s sword was heavy as shit. She dolphin dived on him and crushed the mage, well over a thousand pounds slamming into him and smooshing him against the ground. She noted she could have used her sword earlier in the fight to counter the fire mage as it was built to be able to handle fire, she just hadn’t thought of it in the few seconds that had elapsed since the start of the fight. She would do better next time she faced an opponent specializing in fire spells.

  In the brief moment before the fire mage was crushed, his surroundings drastically began heating up but stopped as Teresa got a kill notification, his death interrupting whatever spell he was about to use next.

  The opposing tank, who was a few levels above Jake, was quickly taken down once he was the only one left. He had been extremely durable, but Jake had been putting in work and had several offensive skills that enhanced his own attacks. Their tank had shrugged off the attack from Preston and only took minor damage from Randall, but Jake landed a hit with both and activated at the same time, crushing through his defenses and killing the man.

  Teresa spammed and , buffing everyone as they continued on through the tunnel after she stuffed the bodies in her . There were footsteps behind them that were catching up at a high speed, and Teresa was able to check the level of someone trying to attack their flank.

  He was a level 64 light warrior archetype, and he was easily dodging the potshots that Sarah and Randall were firing behind them. Teresa activated shotgun , and fired an attack at their pursuer that was difficult to dodge. It forced the man back, and any time he got too close Teresa just had to repeat the process.

  The man fired several es of his own at them, but Jake blocked each of them before they could hit anyone. The only reason he hadn’t caught up with the party was because of Teresa’s shotgun , and they weren’t eager to take on such a fast fighter up close. He could definitely kill several of their party members if they engaged in a melee, as his speed surpassed even Preston’s by a good margin.

  Thankfully, the repeated use of shotgun in the tunnel made the roof begin collapsing, Teresa held him back with her spell again and again, making the structural integrity of the tunnel degrade further and further. She held her ground, no longer following her party as she now deliberately tried causing environmental damage.

  The light warrior would have had the advantage if they were out in the open, but while the tunnel was rather large it wasn’t large enough. Even with the man firing at Teresa along with a thrust that caused a bolt of pure force to shoot towards Teresa, she was able to dodge it easily. She had plenty of experience dodging projectiles faster than her, while the man did not trust himself enough to get within range of Teresa’s .

  It had quite the range too, meaning he had to maintain a large distance. There were reinforcements coming from behind the man, a party all with levels in the 60s, but by that point it was too late.

  The roof of the tunnel fully collapsed, the intense flames destroying the structural support and even melting stone in some places. Large amounts of rubble blocked off the tunnel, and Teresa was able to safely return to the rest of her party with their flanks secure.

  When she arrived, there were several more bodies on the ground. They had made quick work of the guards stationed by the gate, and were already outside waiting for Teresa.

  As they ran, Teresa promised to herself she would come back. She was strong, but not strong enough to take on an entire city. Especially not Nouarosso, which showed itself to have quite a few well equipped elites. She would be taking that equipment off the bodies she recovered once they were secure.

  When Teresa came back, she fully planned on conquering Nouarosso. She just needed the power to do so, and when she thought of powerful entities her mind drifted to the Prime Avatar of Cher. It had the power to take on an army of powerful people by itself, and there was a good reason for that.

  Teresa would return to Nouarosso, and when she did, she would be E rank.