Ultimate Level 1

Chapter 179: Werewolves

[Skill Description - Magical Strike]

*****

Magical Strike—Rare Skill: The user's next melee attack ignores all armor, dealing damage based on the user's intelligence. This ability has a one-hour cooldown.

*****

Max couldn’t help but whistle softly, earning him another grunt from Fowl, who pointed at the corpses.

“What do we harvest from these?” Fowl called out as he faced Cordellia.

“Try the paws and testicles. I’m not certain about anything else.”

Fowl’s curses echoed through the tower floor as everyone laughed, each one remembering his promise to harvest all testicles forever.

Tanila came up to Max, who was standing near his dwarf friend, bent over with a knife in his hand, and grabbed the corpse by the balls.

Max nodded. “Give me just a moment.”

He deactivated Batrire’s buff before checking something.

[ Status Check]

*****

Max Hoste

18-Year-old Human Male

Level 1

Exp 21/1000

Tower Experience: 2.1%

HP: 1970/1970

MP: 1330/1330

Stamina: 985/985

STR: 133+72

DEX: 121+59

CON: 133+64

INT: 101+32

WIS: 101+32

Defense of the Dragon - 1.5%

Defense of the Demon - 1.5%

Demon Essence: - 340

*****

Pulling out a journal, Max wrote a few things and then pointed at the line he had written.

“Currently, one thirty-three is the top stat so far from these first ones. I’m not certain what all the potential is, but I’m just gathering information.”

She chuckled and nodded as he put the book away.

“Get the skill?” she asked quietly.

“I did. I’ll tell you later, but I’m interested in seeing what it does.”

With a pouch of werewolf testicles started, Max and the rest began moving through the town slowly.

“Berserked!” Fowl shouted.

The black werewolf that had been hitting him had glowed red, its eyes becoming the color of rubies. The strikes it delivered with its claws were knocking Fowl backward.

“Blinded!” Tanila shouted out.

Fowl continued to back up and away from the creature, thankful when Max came up from behind and removed its head.

[ Consume has Consumed a Higher Rank Skill ]

[ Berserker - Uncommon has been upgraded to Berserker - Rare ]

Max frowned, having thought the rank might be higher than this but still interested in seeing how it played out.

Two more white wolves fell to his weapon.

[ 6 Dexterity Consumed ]

[ 6 Dexterity Consumed ]

“What in the gods was that?” Fowl muttered as he kicked the headless black werewolf in the side. “Berserker? In here?”

“It looks like we’ll have to be on our guard,” Max replied. “Nice work on the blind!”

Tanila nodded, and they moved along. Cordellia helped Fowl with his work, unable to watch the dwarf suffer in silence.

“How long will he have to do this?” their archer asked. “I mean, did he lose a bet?

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“Something like that,” Batrire replied with a grin. “Eventually, we’ll help him, but it’s the first time in a while since we’ve harvested these things.”

Max began pulling packs to them, finding hidden groups inside buildings, and making sure to limit the number of werewolves to seven. He and Tanila could easily keep that many disabled while they worked their way through them, but after seeing two abilities and knowing the danger of Berserker possibly being owned by these monsters, safety was the best option.

Hours passed as they cut their way through the city, trying to find the right path. A lone tower stood in the middle, and Max used it as a reference point, climbing on the roofs occasionally to make sure he could find a good path toward it.

Finally, they reached the center of the town, seeing packs of werewolves wandering around a massive circular courtyard. About four hundred yards of paved stones with roots growing between them and the occasional broken stone made up the area, where in the middle, a twenty-foot-tall stone fence with a wooden door encircled the tower they had seen.

“That looks kinda bad,” Cordellia pointed out. “Are we planning on checking it out?”

“What if the exits inside?” Max asked. “Is that possible?”

“Sometimes. No one knows how each floor works. There are a few where it's endless monsters until you either cut your way to the portal or leave.”

“An endless horde of monsters?” Fowl asked, groaning at the thought. Can you imagine Wonderboy here?”

A few chuckles came, and Max shook his head, ignoring them.

“I think I can pull this whole courtyard, and we can kill them all in one go.”

Both dwarves coughed, and even Tanila gasped at Max's statement. The only one who didn’t seem surprised at first was their archer, who hadn’t expected less.

“There has to be over a hundred in this place. That seems totally stupid and crazy.”

Max laughed and shrugged. “Seriously. I can outrun them easily, and I’ll kill as many as I can. You just be ready to taunt, and Tanila and the Cordella can kill any that come after you.”

“I guess,” Fowl replied, clearing his throat and rotating his shoulders. Just try not to overdo it.”

Max nodded, turned to the group, and gave a thumbs-up.

He took off running, weapon and shield out, collecting group after group with ease. The larger the group grew, the faster the others in the massive center of town joined in. His Fire and Frost Novas kept the horde controlled and contained, and by the time Max returned toward Tanila and the others, a fair number of werewolves had died.

“Be ready!” Max shouted as he came right at Fowl, who had moved a bit away from the group.

He could see a look of terror in Fowl’s eyes and, for a moment, wondered if perhaps he was asking too much.

“Actually, wait! I’ll run around again!”

Making another loop around the courtyard, Max had taken the number of werewolves down to about sixty.

“You can see some of them are berserked!” Fowl shouted as he pointed at the pack.

Tanila and the other two nodded even though their warrior wasn’t looking at them.

“Another lap!” Fowl shouted. “You got berserk ones!”

Max didn’t hesitate, turning again and killing the group slowly. Finally, only about twenty remained when he came to Fowl, most of them struggling to move from how badly burnt each monster’s body was.

Tanila cast a fireball, and when it landed in the middle of the pack, pieces of burnt werewolf corpses exploded everywhere, showering the stones with gore.

“It seems a bit boring if you ask me,” Cordelllia said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, that was some serious experience, and the whole courtyard is covered with gems, but how in the gods do we plan on being sane if every level is like this?”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Batrire answered, giving their archer a gentle squeeze on her arm. “If there is one thing I’ve learned in all our time with Seth, something always goes tits up eventually.”

Tanila started laughing as she walked toward the pile of gems, knowing Batrire was right. Something always went tits up eventually.

It felt like forever as they picked up all the gems, but standing before the door, the group all seemed to frown.

“Guess we really have to open this. Seems wrong not to.”

Max nodded and pointed at the massive metal ring nine feet off the ground. “I can use my halberd and pull it open. I’ll be able to push it the rest of the way I get it moved past the ledge.

Fowl nodded and stood back a little bit, shield and weapon ready, as the others moved a few yards behind him.

Hooking his bade around the metal ring, Max began to pull, feeling the door fight to open for a second. Putting a little more effort into it, he leaned back, hands on the end of the weapon shaft.

The moment he managed to make it move, the door swung open, knocking Max and his weapon backward and tumbling across the stone courtyard.

An eighteen-foot-tall werewolf with pitch-black fur and a single teardrop of white on its chest burst through the door and engaged Fowl in a heartbeat.

Its massive clawed hand smacked into the dwarf, hitting Fowl’s shield and roaring from the pain of the thorns. Fowl glowed green a second before the strike came.

Max was still reeling from the hit, tumbling as his friend took hit after hit, his hit points draining away even with the added defenses.

By the time Max was on his feet, Fowl had already lost a third of his health. He held two shields in a defensive position as the giant werewolf continued to beat on him.

Batrire, Tanila, and Cordellia all backed up, trying to get some distance, not wanting to be so close to the monster.

Casting her heal over time and her minor heal, Batrire watched as the health bar went up slightly only to be knocked back down.

Max was on his feet, looking for his weapon, and finally spotted it far enough away it was going to take him more time than he felt he had.

Fowl never flinched. His eyes tracked the werewolf's swings and the clawed foot that came. He adjusted his position and step, doing his best to create glancing blows now that the surprise of the first attack was over.

Red blood stained the stones from where the boss was injuring itself against the aura, each hit making it dislike Fowl more and more.

Batrire had him back over three-fourths of his health when his root ability wore off. The next few strikes caused considerably more damage.

“Blind it!”

Tanila didn’t hesitate, and immediately, the boss's red eyes were clouded in a dark haze.

Fowl backed up, moving from the wild punches and kicks that came where it anticipated him being.

With his weapon back in hand, Max raced toward the creature.

Suddenly, the boss laid its head back and howled.

Fowl froze where he was, and even Cordellia appeared unable to react.

An aura of intimidation washed over Max, but he shrugged it off. His mental stats were far too high to succumb to its attack.

More howls came from around the city, and Max wanted to curse.

“We need to get inside that wall!” Max shouted, yet no one was able to. The effects of the boss’s ability had frozen two members, limiting their chance of making it past the boss.

Storing his weapons, Max raced toward the three in the back. “Forgive me!” he shouted as he grabbed them one at a time, tossing them onto his shoulder before turning toward Fowl.

The boss’s eyes were beginning to glow, and Max could tell Tanila’s spell was about to wear off.

It was a race to Fowl as the giant werewolf started to move, closing the single step between Fowl and itself.

[ Intimidation ]

Max’s ability went out from him, and the boss stumbled for a moment. The creature’s stats were strong enough that it did not completely succumb to it but still low enough that Max was able to get to his friend and grab him before the creature attacked again.

With four people all bouncing upon his shoulders, Max did the only thing he could think of.

[ Demonic Portal ]

They instantly appeared behind the werewolf, inside the stone walls, and near the doorway that led to the tower.

Max kicked the door as he sat his friends down, frustrated that the thing wouldn’t budge.

“Seth!” Tanila shouted.

He knew what was coming. Without needing vision or his sonar, the kick he had delivered to the door told the boss exactly where they were.

Pulling his weapon and shield from storage, Max spun, racing head-on at the boss.

[ Blind ]

Its eyes only turned black for a second, just enough to make it slam its head into the stone part of the wall where the door was cut out of.

The force of it shook the stones, but they held, and Max prepared for what was about to come.

Yips and shouts echoed across the city, and without a way to get the door his friends were next to open, they were trapped.

[ Demonic Summoning ]

[ Summoning Failed - Blood Component Required ]