[Skill-Eater 2] Chapter 103: Borrowed Time (Patreon)

Accompanied by a gallon of adrenaline sloshing through his veins, Edge left the hydra’s island.

He came to a stop a few isles over—covered in sweat, mud, and blood. He Concealed his presence, took a long look around to make sure that nothing was headed his way, then summoned his Guide and pulled up the rest of his updates.

You have completed one component of the supplementary quest, Open the Boss’s Chamber.

For defeating the hydra mini-boss, you have been awarded:

100,000 Credits.

15 Mortium.

5 High-grade potions and a potion bandolier.

One monster trapped within a portable pocket dimension (this monster will have two Rare skills and an Uncommon skill of your choosing).

You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 10.

You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 11.

You have accumulated sufficient experience to cycle-up your core. Your new cycle is: 12.

You have 15 attribute points awaiting allocation.

That’s the end of the experience bonus I earned for defeating the apes, but it really came in handy. While Edge pondered how to spend his points, he looked down by his feet, where a simple wooden box had shimmered into being.

Savoring the victory of defeating his second elite monster, he opened the lid and examined the contents. First, he withdrew the bandolier and held it up for inspection. It was a simple leather band with a row of pockets sewn across the front. The material was durable, and the strap was adjustable, which let him choose between several configurations for its placement.

After trying out a few different options, he chose to wear the bandolier the same way that Warren had, positioning the strap diagonally across his chest where the pockets were in easy reach. He moved the Perception potion he had bought from the alchemists and the vial containing his electric weapon oil into two of them, then reached into the box and added his newest concoctions, memorizing their locations as he went.

The case of potions had included a list for reference. Each magical brew provided a powerful boost to a single attribute that would last for five minutes. There was one for Durability, Power, Speed, Control, and Endurance—all of which would come in handy in a pinch. They came in shatterproof crystal vials, which he planned to save and reuse later.

With that out of the way, Edge turned his attention to the truly unusual item—the pocket dimension and the monster it contained.

The portable monster took the form of a silver sphere the size of his fist. He was intensely curious about the device, since he’d never heard of anything like it, and wondered if there was a better way to use it than simply killing the monster inside and stealing its powers.

I don’t see any way to choose the monster’s Uncommon skill. It must happen whenever I activate it. This isn’t a magitech device, he mused while holding the sphere up to the light. It’s more like a crystalized skill.

Since he wasn’t planning to release the monster right away, pondering the strange reward could wait a little longer. Edge put the object into his backpack, then decided how he wanted to spend his attribute points.

He’d just put 15 of them into Amplification, and more Generation could wait a little longer with the mana fruit serving as an on-demand refill. Since he had already reached his target values, he decided to invest his points relatively evenly this time around. He put two into each of his physical attributes and one into Disruption.

He recovered from the fight while spending his points one at a time, enjoying the unique sensation that came with upgrading each attribute. When the potentia was finished enhancing his body and core, Edge summoned his Guide to check out his newfound wealth.

System Currency

Credits: 104,150

Mortium: 71

By the gods. I’m rich. It was surreal to have so many Credits and Mortium sitting in his account. It made him giddy with the avarice of acquisition, even if he couldn’t spend most of them until he made it back to town. Once this ordeal was over, he was finally going to buy some of the good stuff from Lilly’s exchange, and he could steal as many Rare and Epic skills as he wanted in the meantime.

That thought made him worry about Lilly, along with Trapper’s crew and all his friends back in Puppet Town. Part of him wanted to rush to their aid, but Edge knew that conquering the dungeon was helping them more than anything else he could do.

In addition to claiming the core manufactory, keeping the Claws’ elite fighters in the dungeon meant they weren’t causing mayhem on the Ivory Plains. Either way, with only the bone slime left to kill, his survival vacation in the Savage Garden was coming to an end.

Hold out a little longer, guys. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

***

Now that the hydra was dead, Edge was living on borrowed time.

While he had done well to make it this far, his most difficult challenge was yet to come. The moment that the convicts killed the bone slime, he would be forced to race them to the boss’s chamber—to take on the most powerful monster residing within the Savage Garden before the Claws beat him to it.

He needed at least a few more days to grow stronger—boost his attributes, collect more skills, and take Vigor to rank two before merging it with Ghost Armor. Even more critically, Edge needed the cooldown on Overdrive to expire, since fighting the dungeon’s boss without his ultimate ability was a measure of last resort.

Fortunately, he discovered the entrance to its chamber only a few hours after defeating the hydra and then scouted the area. As he had suspected, it was located on the final island in the far corner of the city. A boulder was sealing the doorway, but it would lift the moment that the last elite was dead and the System’s supplementary quest was complete.

Edge had been debating his next move all day. In the end, he decided that his best bet was to hit the Claws again and disrupt their operation before they made their move on the bone slime. He doubted that the same strategy would work twice, and he didn’t know where another corrupted resource was regardless.

I should try to destroy their supplies and fortifications. Maybe pick off one or two jailbirds that are critical to their operation. This is my last chance to delay their progress, and going in blind won’t accomplish anything. I need more information before I make my move.

With that goal in mind, he crept his way across the swamp. He still had a few hours before dark, and wanted to recon the convicts’ crews today, then strike as soon as the mist rolled in.

Finding them was easy enough, since the jailbirds weren’t trying to hide. All five crews were camped near the middle of the swamp, where they had easy access to the bordering biomes. They were working together for the final stage of their dungeon assault—in the middle of building some manner of elaborate trap on one of the largest islands, instead of the fortifications they had been constructing before.

They must have decided to switch tactics after their battle with the slime. There was a series of rafts beached alongside the river, which would let the jailbirds cross into the dungeon’s final zone when they were ready to attack the boss.

He watched them from a distance until he understood how their trap worked and who was in charge of building it. It was an elaborate pitfall that would bury the slime in soil while activating hundreds of consumables at once.

The prisoners were nearly finished, and he would have to make his move soon. I’ll destroy their consumables, catch their supply tent on fire, and try to kill their engineer. Hopefully, the mist will roll in tonight. I need to strike them before dawn even if it doesn’t.

As was Edge was turning to leave, he heard footsteps approaching from behind a long line of boulders. He froze in place and reactivated Conceal. A handful of heartbeats later, seven jailbirds came into view, walking toward their camp while carrying a load of logs and vines.

He fought the urge to panic as adrenaline flooded his bloodstream—not daring to breathe as the Claws passed by so closely that he could have reached out and touched them. There were two women and five men. Four of them were combat-focused, with powerful bodies revealing a heavy investment in physical attributes. A short man and a thin woman seemed to be spell-specialists, and the final man was their scout, judging by his gear.

Just when Edge thought he was going to get away, the short man stopped and looked right at him. “Wait. There’s something here. Its mana signature is muted, but I can sense a faint distortion in the flow of corrupted magicytes in the area. Someone’s core is filtering…”

The end of his sentence was cut off when Edge’s chakram caught him in the throat. Thanks to some type of magical protection, the blade didn’t bite deep, but the man’s Disruption wasn’t high enough to cancel out the effects of Elemental Blade.

The subzero mana froze the blood in his neck, reducing the flow to his brain and knocking him out. Edge had wavered into existence when he made his move, then turned into shadows the second the weapon left his hand. It was the only reason he survived what happened next, when all hell broke loose.

Before he had time to move out of range, he was caught by a poweful Disruption pulse—forcibly canceling Shadow Step. Ever since his battle with Warren, he was prepared for such a maneuver and Leapt the second that his body rematerialized.

By now, he had enough Power to jump high on his own, and Leap was stronger than ever, thanks to the extra Amplification he’d picked up recently. As a result, Edge rocketed into the air with explosive speed, soaring over a pair of fireballs and a spray of acid with inches to spare.

He tapped his fingers together as he flew, activating the glove on his hand. The chakram pulled itself free from the jailbird’s throat, shattering the surrounding tissue and ensuring that he wouldn’t be getting up again. Good, he was the one I needed to kill. The others couldn’t sense my presence.

Edge Shadow Stepped to avoid an incoming spear, although it cost him mana when the weapon passed through his body. Then he shifted back, reached out, and summoned Foebinder. He used the chain to grab the nearest branch, flung himself toward the river, then Stepped again to deal with a flight of arrows.

The convicts swore, then switched to magical attacks, which could hurt him even in shadow form. Before he hit the river, he rematerialized, Hardened his back, and activated Repel Water. That last part was a skill combo and cost him a ton of magicytes, but when he felt a cluster of mana-infused missiles shatter against his scales, he knew it was the right move. One of them had been coated in enough Disruption to penetrate his left shoulder, but the wound wasn’t too deep.

He deactivated Harden the moment he was out of range, flying over the river like a bolt of greased lightning. He kept skating across the water until he reached the city. Then Edge hiked to his shelter while using Conceal to erase his trail, ducked into his cave, and collapsed from exhaustion.

That had been way too close, and his shoulder was starting to hurt. He reached back with his chain glove and pulled something free from his body—a tiny dart coated with some manner of sticky fluid. They must have dipped it in a numbing agent to keep me from noticing it right away.

Edge walked to the river flung the missile into the water, in case there was a tracking spell on it… and nearly passed out on the spot. Over the last few seconds, his vision had begun to swim. His heart was starting to slow, and he was having trouble breathing. Fuck. I’ve been poisoned. Regeneration seems to be counteracting part of the effect, but there must be a non-magical component too.

In the short time it took him to reach that conclusion, his skin had broken out in a cold sweat and his vision had grown black along the edges, like he was looking at the world through the end of a long tube.

He wasn’t sure if it was a physical poison, a magical toxin, or a mixture of both, so he ate his medicinal pill and swallowed his cleansing tonic, praying that it would be enough when combined with Regeneration’s new upgrade.

By now, he could barely control his body, and with the last of his energy, he covered himself with a pile of leaves. Before he could finish the job, Edge passed out, unsure if he would ever wake up again.