There was an eerie silence in the hall as the group saw the pile of dust on the ground that was once Seth. For Zayden, thanks to his memories from the future, this wasn't he first time he had seen the death of someone, hell, he had died himself, but this was the first time that someone died under his protection.
As for the rest of the group, it was the first time they were seeing the death of a human being and not a null. They were dazed.
"What the hell are you all doing? If we don't do something quickly, we'll all turn to piles of dust," Lucas said, drawing everyone back to their senses.
'This null is an abnormal ember null, meaning that it will be harder to defeat it, coupled with the fact that there is no one with a water-based skill around,' Zayden thought as he saw the null point towards him, with his palms open.
Like a small spark, a fist-sized fireball appeared hovering above its hand. The injury caused by Zayden had already closed up.
"Watch out!!" Zayden warned as the fireball was shot at him.
Quickly jumping out of the way, he charged at the null without turning back. A few meters away from the null, he swung out the plasma blade, activating the only skill that he had.
[Phantom Slash Activated]
[-20 Energy]
Just as described by the system, three arcs of eerie purple sword slashes were sent flying towards the null. 'If I didn't own the skill, I definitely wouldn't know which arc is the real attack,' Zayden thought, admiring the skill.
Like before, the wall of fire sprouted, and two of the sword arcs were stopped, while one of them managed to break through the wall of fire, injuring the null.
[-10 HP]
As the null deactivated the skill, it was surprised to see Darian directly in front of him, with two red glowing axes in his face.
'Bullish Charge'
It managed to use its hand to block the attack in time, but it was still sent crashing into the stairs.
[-15 HP]
Dust and debris flew everywhere as Tyrel aimed his submachine gun at the place the null landed and started firing without restraint.
[-5 HP]
[-5 HP]
[-5 HP]
Unfortunately, because he had shitty aim, only three of the bullets managed to touch the null.
[20/60 HP]
With only twenty HP remaining, the team could slowly take a breath when they heard Dare's voice.
"The null is taking in a lot of energy," he shouted, thanks to the information he got from his nanobots.
Even Zayden could feel the little energy in the atmosphere go towards the null like metal towards a magnet.
Of course, he knew what this phenomenon was. "The null is going into a berserk state," Zayden muttered. The siphoning of energy stopped, and suddenly, a loud explosion of energy came from the body of the null.
Like some kind of main villain, the null slowly walked out of the dust, its whole body covered in fierce red flames.
[Berserk Withered Ember Null Level 5]
Zayden could see a slight smirk on the face of the null. He knew that things had just gotten a whole lot harder.
"BANG!!"
Before the null could make a move, a large explosion occurred, and the head of the null was headless before turning into particles of golden light. Thirty percent went to Zayden and Darian, while forty percent went to Tyrel.
"That was anticlimactic," Tyrel said, smoke still coming out from the nuzzle of his submachine gun.
Every single person was surprised, including Darian. After the large power up that the null had, everybody was ready for a hard fight, hell, even another death, so to see the head of the null blown up like that, made them surprisingly disappointed.
All this could be deduced from the expressions the team was looking at Tyrel with. "Don't look at me, I'm into girls," Tyrel said, making everyone cringe. "Rather, look at the loot we got," he said
Everybody's attention turned to the five orbs on the ground. Two red, two orange, and one yellow.
Without waiting for consent from anyone, Zayden threw the yellow orb to Tyrel, took an orange, gave Darian an orange, and gave Dare a red.
He could very well see the frown on the face of Lucas, but he didn't care. "Everyone should rest, we are heading up in an hour," Zayden said.
Since the floor was cleared, they each took a different room to recuperate in preparation for ascending the floors.
Now that there was no threat of death looming over him again, Zayden decided to check his stats.
[Name: Zayden Vega]
[Level: 5]
[EXP: 25/500]
[Rank: None]
[Contract: None]
[HP: 83/90]
[Energy: 80/100]
[Soul Power: 2000]
[Stamina: 7>>15]
[Strength: 5>>11]
[Agility: 9>>20]
[Ability Points: 25>>0]
[Skills: Phantom Slash (Lv.1)]
[Blessings: None]
After allocating his stats, Zayden could feel the change happening in his body."Five more levels, then I'll finally be able to rank up and meet them," Zayden muttered as he lay down on his bed.
A few hours passed in a flash, and the group was already on its way to the third floor. The third floor was mainly filled with null, ranging from level two to three. Since Zayden, Tyrel, and Darian were already level five, no way killing null two levels below them would give them enough EXP.
But the good news was that both Dare and Lucas managed to reach level five, making everyone on the team the same level.
After about five hours of killing nulls without rest, the whole floor was finally cleared of the nulls. The unfortunate thing was that they were unable to find any other survivors. But a few piles of dust were noticed. At this point, the crew was already very close to level six, being only a few more exp away.
"All we need to do is bombard the null with skills and kill it in one go," Tyrel said, "And most definitely not give it enough time to enter its enraged state." "Yeah, we are not strong enough to face it at this point," Zayden concurred.
With everything set, the team started the raid.
Just like before, this particular null had pale blue skin with blue eyes. It had long, feminine hair made out of water that seemed to defy the laws of gravity, as no drop of its wavy hair was falling unto the ground.
[Withered Aqua Null Level 6]
[HP: 150/150]
[Energy: 200/200]
"Let's do this"
[Phantom Slash Activated]
[Bullish Charge Activated]
[Lightning Charge Activated]
[Nanoweaving Activated]
A myriad of skills assaulted the null, without giving it a chance to retaliate. Even though its hp and energy was almost twice theirs, they didn't give it any chance to retaliate and killed it.
The null broke down into golden particles with each person getting twenty percent. Even though it was small, it was enough exp for Zayden and Tyrel to reach level six, while Darian and the rest were very close to level six thanks to this.
"Let's keep up the pace guys" Zayden said "by day three, we should be meeting the main boss"