Alone Against the Tower - Chapter 82

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

◈ Alone Against the Tower ◈

Chapter 82: Moth to a Flame

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In a crisis, concentration and judgment rise sharply.

The instant my vision turned white, I moved quickly.

I used [Hysterical Strength] to amplify my Durability stat, activated [Iron Wall] to strengthen my defense, and pulled a shield from my inventory to use as cover.

But I wasn't confident that would be enough to block it completely. If what I had wasn't enough, it was time to use my surroundings.

I hid behind the largest nearby piece of cover, the Emerald Wyvern.

It was more hope than prediction, but these things had to be resistant to their own attacks.

I didn't know whether that was due to their natural durability or some special magical means.

If it was the former, I'd live. If it was the latter, I'd die. There was no way the collapsed wyvern would obediently serve as my shield otherwise.

It took about one second to make that judgment and act on it.

Boooom!

The deafening explosion rang in my ears, soon replaced by nothing but ringing. My vision was already pure white.

My hearing and sight were paralyzed, followed by my sense of touch and even my mana perception.

The HP bar in my Status Window dropped at a terrifying speed, and I lost consciousness.

* * *

Feeling as though I were submerged underwater, I painfully regained consciousness.

I quickly circulated mana to check my condition while detecting the wyverns that had fired beams at me.

They were stomping toward me, but the distance between us had barely closed.

Those bastards weren't that slow, so it shouldn't have taken them long to reach me.

It seemed I had only been unconscious for an instant. But in that brief time, my body had become a complete wreck.

“Cough.”

A dry cough escaped on its own. I felt like I was about to vomit, but not even saliva, let alone blood, came out.

My throat had probably been burned dry. Fuck, even breathing felt like being scorched by fire.

My eyes seemed properly burned too, and there wasn't a single part of my limbs that was unharmed. At this point, I was practically charcoal.

The HP displayed in the Status Window was nearly empty. It meant I was one step away from death.

“Cough, cough, fuck... haaah...”

It might sound crazy, but I felt good.

The corners of my burned mouth curled upward.

Whenever I achieved growth in any form, I felt intense pleasure.

If my vow never to stop pulled me forward, then the pleasure of growth pushed me from behind.

“Heh, hehehe, hehe!”

Then was this pleasure because I could feel myself growing?

Probably not.

I hated myself. I hated the pleasure I felt and all my animalistic desires.

That was why I had thrown myself into deadly situations over and over again. Because I wanted to die. Because I wanted to kill myself.

But in life-or-death situations, I grew and became stronger faster than ever before. Thinking about it, there was no action more contradictory than that.

Maybe what I truly liked was the act of throwing myself into danger itself.

If I failed, I died. If I succeeded, I grew stronger.

It looked like a dangerous gamble, but since I wanted both outcomes, either one was a winning ticket.

“Cough, cough, ngh, haaah.”

As I felt my body gradually recover, I looked at the five wyverns approaching me.

It was fun, thrilling, irritating, creepy, hateful, disgusting, revolting, and fun again.

Emotions and will directly affected the control of mana, so my mana was more unstable than ever at that moment.

But this wasn't my own mana I was using, so I could use it without worry even now.

[Mana Enhancement]

Rumble!

When I used the fully charged pendant, immense power filled my body with a sound like thunder.

* * *

The wyverns that had come out of the cave could move more freely.

The cavern wasn't large enough for them to fly around as much as they wanted, but it wasn't too narrow for them to take flight either.

That was why two of the five wyverns flapped their wings and rose into the air.

Now, I had stepped onto their true stage.

But now was when I became serious too. My body was a wreck, but as long as I had even a little HP left, I wouldn't die.

Perhaps the effects of [Battle Persistence], [Battle Awakening], and other skills that had reached double-digit levels played a part, but even with my body half-cooked, I could still fight.

On top of that, there was the strengthening effect of [Indomitable], which had activated as my HP rapidly fell, and the Mana Enhancement activated through the pendant.

I was stronger now than at any moment before.

Boom!

I kicked off the ground and shot toward the wyvern on the ground.

The wyvern swung its claws to strike me as I charged, but I was far faster.

After closing the distance, I pulled a thick spear from my inventory and drove it into the area around the wyvern's neck.

Kiiiiing!

I felt intense waves of mana from the wyverns in the air.

Beams.

They were attacks I could dodge even without any buffs. Now, avoiding them was even easier.

The fired beams swept across the ground, but I had already kicked off and risen into the air.

“Hup.”

I took a deep breath in midair, adjusted my posture, and used Sword Charge while holding my one-handed sword.

My body shot forward with the charge effect, allowing me to reach one of the airborne wyverns in an instant.

“Got you.”

At a barely reachable distance, I took a large halberd from my inventory and buried it in the wyvern's shoulder.

Then I grabbed the halberd's shaft, climbed up, and mounted the wyvern's back.

[Achievement Accomplished: Wyvern Rider]

An unknown achievement was completed, raising my stats slightly as a reward.

The wyvern tried every kind of aerial maneuver to shake me off its back, but I wasn't going to fall for something like that.

Instead, I drove my sword and spear deeper into its shoulder and held on more firmly.

Boooom! Boom!

The other wyverns fired beams to shoot us down, but none of them hit.

I didn't know whether this wyvern was simply a good flier or whether the others couldn't properly aim at one of their own kind.

But now that I was riding it, I understood how convenient it was. I was even starting to get the hang of holding on comfortably.

“Is there a class like Wyvern Rider?”

Thinking how convenient it would be to raise a flying mount, I took another throwing weapon from my inventory.

Even on the back of a wyvern flying this wildly, the accuracy of my throwing ability didn't suffer.

“Hup!”

I threw the weapon at another wyvern that was at a loss over what to do.

* * *

The Emerald Wyvern's greatest weakness was, as expected, its low defense compared to its firepower.

Its flight speed was slower than I expected, so I was able to land several solid hits with my greatest specialty, throwing attacks.

I gouged out a large part of the wyvern's shoulder, which had nearly outlived its usefulness, then used [Hysterical Strength] to increase my strength and tore off its wing with my bare hands.

Graaah!

The wyvern let out a scream-like cry and crashed down. The other wyverns, already battered and broken, were waiting on the ground.

I drank potions to heal my remaining wounds and finished off the dying wyverns.

“Nothing special.”

Other than nearly dying after getting hit by a beam, it had been a completely one-sided fight.

Well, ever since I had truly gained strength, battles against large monsters had always felt like this.

One wrong hit would kill me, but I didn't take even one hit from the crude attacks of beasts with no finesse.

Of course, this was only possible because my basic stats could keep up with them.

“Mana Enhancement really is broken.”

In the end, it was because the double buff from Indomitable and the pendant's Mana Enhancement was absurdly powerful.

Still, the powerful buff wasn't something I could simply be satisfied with.

I was completely dependent on an item to activate Mana Enhancement, which gave me my greatest increase in combat power.

The backlash after using Mana Enhancement wasn't something to underestimate either, and since it required charging, I couldn't flexibly use it whenever I wanted.

Now that I knew how powerful Mana Enhancement was, I couldn't simply give it up either.

Overpowered items were troublesome in many ways.

Well, I just had to learn Mana Enhancement on my own as soon as possible.

That was enough reflection. Only one thing remained now.

“Now, it's your turn.”

I approached the one wyvern I had left alive.

An Emerald Wyvern whose wings and claws had all been torn off, half-pinned to the ground with swords and spears.

It couldn't fight at all in that condition, but as long as it still had its mouth, there was one thing it could do.

“Go on. Fire it.”

The moment I boldly approached, the wyvern immediately gathered mana and prepared a beam.

I had already verified that I wouldn't die from a single beam.

I no longer had cover to shield me, but I was using Mana Enhancement, so my effective defense was even higher than before.