thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 7 - Power - Chapter 37
🕑 Added 2020-04-12 20:42:01 +0000 UTCWhen Thomas woke up the following morning, he sighed. He'd been enjoying his chat with Snowlily so much that he'd forgotten to do two important things. He hadn't spent his experience or increased the size of his inventory. He checked his character sheet and sighed, he'd earned nearly four-hundred and fifty thousand experience and hadn't spent a single drop of it. If he did now, he'd end up too relaxed to get out of bed. He'd just save it for tonight.
Once both of them were up and he was dressed in some casual clothing, they made their way downstairs and enjoyed a nice breakfast with the others in his group. Once they'd finished eating, Thomas stood and smiled at the others, "I'll be heading out of the city for a bit to do some stuff. Tomorrow we'll head back into the dungeon. I'm still not satisfied with my current strength."
Thomas led Snowlily to the eastern gates out of the city and into a lightly wooded area. Breidset was surrounded by gently rolling hills and wooded areas. The two of them walked a fair distance away from the city and stopped. Thomas looked around before pulling out some clothing for Snowlily and summoning a stone altar to put them on. When he stepped back he summoned up a stone dome around the altar with a small entrance on it. With everything set, he turned to Snowlily, "You can head inside and get changed if you like."
Snowlilly yipped happily and dashed into the dome. Thomas turned around and looked away from the entrance. He wouldn't have been able to see anything even if he stared at it but decided to give her as much privacy as he could. Even so, he still saw the white flash of light from her shapeshifting. A couple of minutes later, Snowlily came skipping out of the dome with a bright smile on her little face, "All done!"
She skipped up to him and came to a stop with her hand held out to him. With an indulgent smile on his face, Thomas took her small hand into his and led her further away from the city. As they walked, Snowlily seemed to be getting more and more uncomfortable. She kept lifting and wiggling her feet. Thomas looked down at her, "Something wrong?"
Snowlily nodded, "It's these things on my feet. They're so uncomfortable to walk in!"
Thomas looked down at her little shoes and smiled, "I guess you're too used to walking around with bare feet, or paws I guess. However, you should get used to wearing shoes. Human feet are pretty soft and easy to damage so we wear shoes to protect them. They're not as tough as your paws are."
Snowlily grumbled, "I didn't think humans were so soft. You didn't seem so soft."
Thomas shrugged his shoulders, "Technically, I'm not human. Even so, you should always remember that every race has its good and bad aspects. In this world, any member of any race can become extremely powerful if they're willing to put in the effort and take the risk. Soon enough the two of us should be strong enough to protect ourselves properly." He rolled his shoulders, "It's getting uncomfortable keeping my wings in all the time. I'd like to let them out to stretch."
Snowlily looked up at Thomas and asked curiously, "What are you anyway? Even mother didn't recognize your scent so she couldn't tell me."
Thomas nodded, "From what I know, my race is special and pretty rare so it's not surprising that she wouldn't know. I don't know much about my race myself, I became one on accident. My race is called Nephilim a race that is able to use Holy and Unholy magic in balance. Though, I only know how to use Unholy at the moment."
Snowlily placed the index finger of her free hand on her chin as she thought, "Mmmmm never heard of it. Doesn't matter!" She smiled brightly, "You're a good person, that's all that matters."
Thomas smiled brightly, "I'm glad you think so."
As they chat with each other, they arrived at the top of a small hill with a clear view of the land around them. Tree's were interspersed around the place and gave a good view of the surrounding area. Thomas looked around and smiled, "This will do."
Snowlily looked around curiously, "Why did we come out here?"
Thomas had a wicked grin on his face as the pulled The Destroyer out of his inventory, "We're out here to give this guy a test."
Snowlily looked at the weapon with stars in her eyes. She'd seen Thomas using his other guns and seen him make them, it gave her a general idea of what they did if not how they worked. She was excited to see what such a big one would do. She practically vibrated as she watched him. He removed the magazine from the rifle and retrieved a shell from his inventory to insert into it. He loaded five rounds into the large magazine before sliding it back into the rifle with a satisfying 'click.'
He ran his fingers over the rifle before lifting up the handle on the bolt and sliding it back. The bullet at the top of the magazine slid up into place properly. He pushed the bolt forward and slid the cartridge into the breach block. Once the handle was rotated back down the bolt was locked in place. He hefted the gun up and pressed the but firmly against his shoulder. There shouldn't be much force from the rifle firing as it didn't use very much explosive and the majority of the acceleration should be provided by the magnetic fields. The barrel was aimed at a tree about a hundred meters away from his current position, it should be well within the range of the rifle.
He decided to limit the power of the first shot to get a feel for it. With the power limited it should have a power somewhere around five-hundred and sixty. He fed his mana into the rifle causing the first magnetic ring to light up. He aimed carefully while slowly squeezing the trigger. There was a slight bit of feedback from the firestone igniting followed by a loud crack as the bullet broke through the sound barrier. After that... nothing seemed to happen. He lowered the rifle while his eyes started to glow. His vision zoomed in on the tree he'd been aiming at. Only then could he see the results of his shot.
The damage done to the tree was surprisingly minimal. There was a small cratered section with a hole in the center that went completely through the thick tree. Well, he confirmed the penetrative power of the rifle, now to check the destructive might. With growing ease, he flipped up the bolt and pulled it back. The empty shell was properly ejected and fell to the ground while a new one was loaded into the breach. His mana flared and was poured into the rifle lighting up all five magnetic rings. He briefly thought of just increasing the power one ring at a time but decided to have a little fun instead.
He took aim at the same tree and pulled the trigger. This time there was a much louder crack from the sound barrier being broken by the bullet as more force was used to propel it through the air. An instant later there was another thunderous crack as the bullet slammed into the tree. A huge portion of the tree exploded and was practically evaporated by the kinetic energy the bullet delivered. The bullet didn't stop there and slammed into the ground causing a large eruption of dirt to fly into the air. Even from so far away, he could feel the ground temple slightly. Two-thousand two hundred Power was nothing to joke about!
The amount of power the rifle was putting out firmly put the rifles damage firmly into the Emperor realm. Five times his own Power plus the additional damage from the projectile itself was no joke. He slowly raised the rifle up and smiled at what he could see. The tree was heavily damaged and there was a large crater in the ground behind it. He doubted there was anything inside of the dungeon that could survive a single shot from The Destroyer. Sadly, he didn't have enough ammo made to just go ham on the monsters. He needed minions or a way to automate an assembly line. Until then, he would continue to have ammo production issues.
As he was looking over the destruction, Snowlily came up and pulled on his clothing, "Thomas, two people are approaching us."
Thomas removed the magazine from the rifle and loaded two fresh rounds into the rifle, just in case. With the new rounds loaded in, he slipped the magazine back into the rifle and loaded one into the breach. He didn't know who the two people were, they might just be out on a quest. In case they weren't, he was ready for them. He looked down at Snowlily, "Are they still heading this way?"
Snowlily stuck her little button nose into the air and sniffed. She turned to look in the direction that they had come from, "Yes. They're getting closer, though they've split up." She looked in two directions indicating where the two people were moving. "They split up." She sniffed again, "I smell blood on them."
Thomas wondered what they might be up to. He had to think pretty hard to remember the fat sweaty guy he pissed off at the auction when he bought the Orichalcum. That man had been sending murderous glares his way. Had he decided to send people to retrieve it? He rested the rifle on his shoulder and looked down at Snowlily, "Be prepared for a fight, just in case. They might just be avoiding us."
Snowlily sniffed the air once again and shook her head, "They're coming at us from both directions now."
Thomas nodded and kept his eyes out. After a few minutes of silence, a man in a black robe that concealed his body and features calmly stepped out of the woods. He looked between Snowlily and Thomas. He'd never seen the little girl before and the white wolf was missing, it didn't matter to him through. He turned to look at Thomas and spoke with what he considered to be a menacing voice, "I'll give you one chance to live. Hand over the Orichalcum or you and the little girl will die."
Thomas sighed, "So that really is what it's about." He sighed and slowly shook his head, "Do you honestly think I would keep something worth that much on me? It's stored in the bank. I couldn't give it to you right now even if I wanted to."
He was lying of course. The Orichalcum was inside of his inventory where he really felt it was the safest. Even if they did somehow kill him, it would stay there. The man in the robe froze when he heard what Thomas said. It made sense, only an idiot would keep something worth a million gold on them. Still, he had his orders. Either he would get the orichalcum or the man had to die. He opened his robe and grabbed the handle of his sword. With a smooth practiced motion, he drew the gleaming blade from its sheath, "Death it is."
Thomas calmly leveled The Destroyer at the man and smiled, "I'm an immortal, idiot."
The rings on the rifle glowed brightly while the man froze. He'd forgotten about that. The immortals hadn't been around for all that long compared to the history of the world. It was easy enough to forget if you didn't deal with them very often. He wasn't sure of all the details, he just knew that sometime after the immortals died, they would revive. However, this brought a smile to his face. That meant they could kill him over and over again until he decided to give them the Orichalcum!
The man smiled under his hood and moved toward Thomas. He showed no fear of the item Thomas was pointing at him. He'd never seen anything like it before and though it was big, it didn't seem all that dangerous. It was only a moment later when he realized just how wrong he was. With a deafening sonic boom, the bullet ripped through the man's chest and left a giant gaping wound. He managed a few more steps before he collapsed dead on the ground.
His partner, still hiding in the shadows, was scared shitless at the sudden death of his partner. As he turned to run away, he found he couldn't move. His feet were firmly stuck to the ground. When he looked down, he found that his feet had been firmly frozen to the tree he was standing next to. He quickly drew his sword and stabbed it down at the ice to break it and free himself. The first blow chipped the ice but hadn't broken it completely. Snowlily had surreptitiously frozen him in place. Being in her human form gave her finer control over her magic.
As he lifted his sword to stab the ice once again he froze. The business end of The Destroyer was pointed right at his face. Like his partner, he didn't know what the hell it was but he knew it was deadly. As he looked up the length of the barrel to the smiling Thomas, he felt a shiver run down his spine. There was nothing nice about the smile he was seeing. Thomas kept the barrel pointed right at the man's head, "Alright, listen up. I'm going to give you a choice. You can die right here and now. Or you can go back to that fat bastard and tell him that if this happens again he can join your friend in hell."
The man nodded his head rapidly, "I'll tell him, I'll tell him!"
Thomas smirked, "Let him go."
Snowlily waved her hand and the snow melted before vanishing away. Thomas kept the rifle trained directly at the man, just in case he tried anything. The man ran like a bat out of hell and didn't look back. Thomas could have killed him if he wanted to. However, he felt that sending a warning might be more effective. Might. At least it would have better odds than just standing around waiting for the next attack. After the man vanished from sight, Thomas stored his rifle away but wore his katana and Peace Maker on his hips. If there was one attack, there could be another. He wanted his weapons within easy reach on their trip back to the city.
Comments
D. Quinn
Lol, right now Thomas has hands down the most power in the game, aside from maybe some npcs. I just think it's funny how he feels like he's behind everyone, but he totally punches waaaaaay above his weight class.
Deathburn
Thanks
