My first thought as I entered the dark room was that maybe I should spend my points first, like some people in chat kept suggesting in the last few minutes.
The question was, on what exactly?
I already had Armsmaster, Rend, and Soul Strike basically maxed out – except for Brain Fog for Rend – and I could only have three skills at the same time. Even if I were to swap one of my skills out for something else… what would I swap in? Sure, there was the whole Hunter’s Eye skill, its upgrades, and its fusion with Appraisal that I hadn’t touched yet, but would it really be more useful than any of the three skills I had currently active? Not to mention, I would probably have to buy everything in that skill tree to make it useful, which would be expensive.
So, weirdly enough, despite having so damn many of them, I decide to float my skill points for now.
I guess this was yet another sign that I should do the Limit Break, just so I had more stuff to spend my skill points on…
Shaking these thoughts away, I pressed on into the dark place.
I tried opening some of the crates and barrels, but no dice. I even tried to break one of them, as chat suggested, but my axe self bounced off of it with a loud clank, leaving my hands hurting and the barrel unscathed.
…Right. Dungeon stuff was indestructible. Stupid gamer brain and barrels. And stop laughing at me, chat!
With nothing else to do, I continued walking, expecting the door behind me to slam closed at any moment, but it never happened.
Instead, I found a cockroach.
This was no ordinary cockroach, as evidenced by it suddenly appearing in the middle of my path rather than walking into it.
Oh, and it was also the size of a dog.
We stared at each other for a moment, before the thing took one step forward–
I immediately whipped out my gun self and spewed fire all over the accursed thing, lighting the entire cellar up like a christmas tree.
Just as I was exterminating it though, I heard some clicks behind me and whirled around to find the damn cockroach – or was it another one? – casually crawling toward me.
I didn’t hesitate to change my target and cover it in fire as well.
But by then, I noticed that this was far from a simple one versus one match this entire dungeon had been about.
There were more cockroaches coming at me from all sides. Flickering, disappearing, and reappearing seemingly randomly.
“Nope, nope, nope, NOPE!” I yelled and immediately dashed back to the door, which was still wide open somehow.
Something caught my leg.
I screamed and shot it dead with fire.
Another cockroach rammed into me and grabbed my arm.
I screamed louder and used Demon Queen’s Flames to light up my whole arm.
The cockroach simply disappeared and reappeared on my other arm.
I lit up my other arm and started shooting fire with my gun around myself randomly.
It wasn’t helping, there were too many of them.
I reached into my backpack to find something, anything, to help me shake them off better.
The first thing my hands touched was a ticket. I activated it without thinking.
Reset cooldowns for skill and title swapping?
Cooldowns have been reset.
A cockroach latched into my back.
It teleported to cover my face.
Replace [Rend] with [Flameguard]?
Note: [Rend] will not be re-equipable for 48 hours.
I poured everything I could into surrounding myself with fire, orange and black alike, dislodging the accursed thing, before charging straight back toward the door like a flaming bullet.
More and more giant cockroaches blocked my path and I couldn’t help but hysterically shout at Echo to hire better exterminators in my mind.
Then I tripped, because apparently one of the cockroaches had managed to latch onto my legs despite all the fire.
I crashed into the floor and hit my head, which disrupted my concentration just enough for my fire to flicker out, and I immediately got swarmed by those teleporting cockroaches before I could recover.
I screamed even louder as apparently the fucking cockroaches began adapting to the heat despite me turning it on again, and began strangling and stabbing into me.
I latched onto the first suggestion that my forks brought me from chat and immediately went with it.
Upgrade: Eternal Flames (9SP)
Upgrade: Self-destruct (11SP)
Eternal flames: During Flameguard, half of resisted fire damage will heal you instead.
Self-destruct: Detonate yourself, causing an explosion of fire around you. Note: Fire resistance granted by Flameguard and Living torch doesn’t account for this sub-skill.
Purchase the [Flameguard] skill upgrade [Eternal Flames] for 9 skill points?
‘Eternal Flames’ skill upgrade unlocked!
Purchase the [Flameguard] skill upgrade [Self-destruct] for 11 skill points?
‘Self-destruct’ skill upgrade unlocked!
I immediately hammered the metaphorical big red button as soon as I found it and the fire around me turned into a blinding blast, knocking all the cockroach attackers away from me.
It fucking burned, despite all the resistances and fire healing I had.
I was well used to pain by now though, so I didn’t hesitate to scramble back to my feet and stumble my way back to the damn door, even as more cockroaches began swarming me as they stepped over the charred corpses of their brethren.
One teleported between me and the door.
I didn’t even pause as I summoned my axe self to my hand, filled it with fire, and cleaved the interloper in half before it could do anything.
One leap, two leaps, three–
I finally staggered through the doorway and back into the throne room, before collapsing on the ground with ragged breaths.
And then something landed on my back.
I screamed and automatically trashed while looking over my shoulder, only to see that apparently, these fucking cockroaches could move between dungeon floors, as indicated by them happily walking through the doorway.
I slammed the giga explosion button one more time in panic and immediately forced myself to stand again as soon as I could despite the pain.
I couldn’t see through the flames and I was a bit dizzy, but I somehow made it back to the door, found the handles, and pulled them back to close the damn thing.
I stumbled back and hurriedly looked around the fading flames just in casethere were more freaking bugs, but luckily, all I found were four unmoving charred corpses.
Then, with a pained groan, I collapsed on the spot.
I used the last of my energy to fish out the pillow from my backpack and placed it under my head before closing my eyes.
“...I hate bugs, chat,” I murmured. “I hate them so much.”
In video games? I could deal with them… somewhat. But when giant cockroaches were crawling all over me in real life?
Jeofffff:damn no bonus level
SunOfABeach:curious that it didn’t close
SunOfABeach:maybe it counts as the same floor?
JamieWasTaken3:the time is almost up
JamieWasTaken3:u givin up on the bonus?
I let out a weary sigh.
“Yes, I’m giving up. Whatever is there, it’s not worth it.” I shook my head, rustling the pillow under it. “I… I beat the dungeon. God my stuff back and a ton of skill points to boot. That’s enough.”
JamieWasTaken3:laaaaaame
SunOfABeach:smart choice
“I’m just gonna rest for a bit… take a break… and then…”
I paused, cracked my eyes open, and silently stared at the throne room’s fancy ceiling for a moment.
“...And then, I think it’s time for the limit break,” I finished with a soft voice.
Was I ready? I had no clue, but I couldn’t put it off forever. Right now, I had enough skill points to get pretty much every skill and upgrade I had access to… except for outliers like Phoenix Breath.
So now, the only ways to get stronger were to repeatedly clear random dungeons, hoping to get useful loot, or straight waiting to grow up more and get stronger with the blessing… which I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to do. After all, if I waited too long, I might risk the blessing running out mid-limit break, since I had no idea how long one even lasted.
In the end, my best bet was to take a break for a day or two, and then just bite the bullet and do the damn limit break.
…And if I failed it? Well… that would suck, but I still had my other lead of there being something in the ocean. Not a great lead, but yeah.
Well, I just had to make quadruple sure that I actually cleared the limit break then so I didn’t need to worry about that.
I let out another sigh as I pushed myself back to my feet.
I wasn’t quite fully recovered yet, but I didn’t want to accidentally fall asleep in this dungeon, knowing about those damn cockroaches. Sure, they probably couldn’t get to me here with the doors closed, but…
Irrational fears, man.
Without much fanfare, I walked up to the doors again, wishing really hard to get the heck out of here and not enter the cockroach place again, and luckily, the dungeon listened just as always.
I found myself back at the city’s square and proceeded to leisurely walk out, while looking around and thinking back on everything I’d experienced in this dungeon, since… well, I probably wouldn’t come back here again, would I?
I wasn’t interested in the cockroach place, and trying to clear the dungeon again would mean… killing echo again.
A hollow shell of her, at least.
And I was not interested in that at all.
Also, the loot from this dungeon was pretty disappointing, so that didn’t encourage me to do it again either.
Well, technically, there was still the room behind the first floor’s enemy I could check out, as well as that paladin guy, but… Well, I could check out the first place, but I should probably leave the paladin for later.
As I walked, I idly opened up the limit break interface again.
Limit break #1 - Trials of courage
The Limit Break takes place outside of time and space. No time will pass in the real world in the meantime.
For the duration of the Limit Break, the cooldown on swapping skills and titles is removed, but rewards from any Achievements and Quests you manage to complete within will only be accessible after failing or succeeding.
Warning: You have only one attempt. If you fail the Limit Break, you won’t ever be allowed to try again.
Do you wish to attempt to break your limits?
Only one attempt… but no cooldown on swapping skills. Actually, that meant that I really should buy out all the skills I could, since I didn’t have to worry about the three slot restriction.
“Alright, chat,” I said as I walked through the city gates and the feeling of relief washed over me. “Give me two… maybe three days of rest and preparation before we pull the trigger. Maybe I’ll even schedule it or something. I want as many people in chat helping me as possible.”
It might also end up with a lot of people trying to sabotage me, but I had to trust my forks to filter all of that out.
As I made my way to my little camp, I couldn’t help but feel anxious about this. More specifically, about that one line in the description of the Limit Breaks.
Warning: Performing a limit break may cause long-term trauma.
This was going to suck. I just knew it.