Free Web NovelChapter 13: [13]: The Drowned Hollows, Siphon and Slaughter
Levi walked out of the southern gates of the City of Thresholds, leaving the towering stone walls and the empty auction house behind him. Having 410 Gold in his digital pockets was a massive safety net, but money didn’t increase his base stats. He needed levels.
The path south quickly lost its paved cobblestones, turning into thick, squelching mud. The temperature spiked, and the air grew heavy and humid. The clean plains transitioned into a massive, sprawling swamp covered in a thick layer of fog. Half-sunken stone temples covered in dark green moss jutted out of the murky water.
The system UI updated his location: [The Drowned Hollows].
"Smells exactly like I remember," Levi muttered, wrinkling his nose. The NerveDive helmet perfectly simulated the scent of stagnant water and rotting algae.
This was a Level 12 to 14 zone. Normal players wouldn’t step foot in here for at least another week. The mobs here hit hard, moved in packs, and the terrain naturally slowed down anyone who didn’t know how to navigate the shallow water.
Levi stepped off the muddy bank and into ankle-deep water. He pulled his Silver-tier Arachnid’s Fang Scythe from his inventory. The blade gleamed dully in the swamp’s low light.
He didn’t have to look hard to find his first targets. Standing near a crumbling stone pillar about thirty yards away was a pack of three Murk Murlocs.
They were hideous, hunched-over fish-men with slippery green scales and wide, toothy mouths. They held crude, jagged spears made of bone and rusted metal.
[Murk Murloc] [Level: 12] [HP: 600 | ATK: 40 | DEF: 30]
Levi stood back and ran the math in his head. He was Level 10. That meant a two-level gap, which triggered a 10% Level Suppression damage penalty. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the crypts, but it was still annoying.
He checked his weapon’s armor penetration. The Murlocs had 30 Defense. His scythe ignored 15% of it, effectively dropping their Defense down to 25.
Levi’s Total Attack was 115. Subtracting 25 left 90 raw damage. Minus the 10% suppression penalty, his basic physical strikes would hit for 81 damage.
For his AoE skill, Reaping Arc, the math was 115 multiplied by 1.8, giving him 207 damage. Minus 25 Defense left 182. Factoring in the 10% penalty, a clean skill hit would deal 163 final damage.
"Six hundred health each," Levi calculated. "One skill cast and a few basic swings per fish. Easy enough."
He wanted to test his new Uncommon skill book, Siphon Aura. He opened his menu and toggled it on.
Instantly, a warm, pulsing green light wrapped around his boots and forearms.
The system started draining his mana pool by 2 points every second. Since he had exactly 100 Mana, he knew he couldn’t leave this on forever.
He had to be fast.
Levi splashed forward, intentionally making noise. The three Murlocs snapped their ugly heads toward him. They let out a gurgling, wet screech and threw their crude spears from a distance before charging!
"Phantom Step," Levi said.
Twenty mana vanished from his pool.
His body dissolved into dark shadow, completely dodging the incoming spears. He bypassed the physical distance and instantly reappeared dead in the center of the three Murlocs!
They didn’t even have time to turn around.
"Reaping Arc!"
Levi dumped another 10 mana.
The scythe ignited with a violent red glow, and he unleashed a massive, horizontal sweep that cleaved right through all three of the fish-men!
[-163] [-163] [-163]
The Murlocs shrieked in pain, their health bars instantly dropping by over a quarter. The game’s hit-stun physics knocked them back a step, but they recovered quickly. Two of them thrust their retrieved spears directly at Levi’s chest!
Levi used his 18 Speed to twist his torso. He managed to completely dodge the spear on his left, but the one on his right scraped heavily across his ribs. The third Murloc jabbed its spear into his thigh!
The VR helmet simulated a dull, stinging pain. The math registered instantly. The Murlocs had 40 Attack. Levi’s base Defense was 16.
40 minus 16 equaled 24 damage. He took two hits.
[-24] [-24]
His health bar dropped from 320 down to 272. But exactly one second later, a bright green number floated up from his avatar.
[+15]
His Siphon Aura instantly kicked in, healing him for 15 HP because he was in combat. His health bounced right back up to 287.
"Oh, this is totally broken," Levi laughed.
He didn’t bother trying to play defensively anymore. The passive healing was completely mitigating their chip damage. He stepped directly into their guard and unleashed a relentless flurry of basic physical attacks.
He swung the heavy silver scythe like a madman. His 81 damage strikes carved chunks out of their health bars.
[-81] [-81] [-81]
Whenever the jagged blade triggered the weapon’s passive, the Murlocs started bleeding for 5 true damage every second. Levi didn’t even use another Reaping Arc to save mana. He just hacked them to pieces. Every time they landed a lucky spear thrust for 24 damage, the Siphon Aura immediately healed 15 of it back, making their damage output completely irrelevant.
In less than ten seconds, all three Murlocs collapsed into the swamp water and shattered into blue polygons.
[System Notification: Slain 3x Murk Murloc. Gained 900 XP.]
The second the fight ended, Levi immediately toggled Siphon Aura off to stop the mana drain. He checked his resources. He was sitting at 287/320 HP, and his Mana was down to 44/100.
He pulled a basic mana potion from his belt and drank it, waiting for his pool to refill.
"Three hundred XP per kill is a goldmine," Levi muttered, looking out across the massive swamp. There were hundreds of these fish-men wandering around the sunken temples.
"Time to go to work."
He found his rhythm quickly. The grinding process became a highly efficient, violent routine.
Levi would run through the knee-deep water, pulling the aggro of three to five Murlocs at a time. He would wait until they threw their spears, then cast Phantom Step to blink directly into their cluster. He would toggle Siphon Aura on, unleash a Reaping Arc to chunk their health, and then just stand his ground and trade blows.
His massive 320 health pool and the constant 15 HP/sec healing meant he never felt like he was in real danger. He was face-tanking mobs two levels higher than him without breaking a sweat. As long as he remembered to turn the aura off the second the last Murloc died, his mana potions were just enough to keep his fuel tank going.
The sensory feedback of the swamp was gross, his boots were constantly wet, and the smell of dead fish was overpowering but the numbers going up on his screen made it entirely worth it.
He cleared out the first sunken temple, killing twenty Murlocs. Then he moved to a cluster of mossy rocks and wiped out another fifteen.
He didn’t sit down. He didn’t take a break. He just treated the Drowned Hollows like his own personal slaughterhouse.
After five solid hours of non-stop grinding, the Murlocs stopped dropping any useful loot, mostly just tossing out useless fish scales and copper coins. But Levi wasn’t here for the loot. He was here for the experience.
He hacked his scythe through the chest of the fiftieth Murloc. It shattered into pixels.
[System Notification: Slain Level 12 Murk Murloc. Gained 300 XP.]
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 11.]
A brilliant golden pillar of light washed over Levi, completely restoring his health and mana pools to full, and wiping away the heavy, simulated physical fatigue burning in his arms.
He let out a long breath and rested the haft of his scythe in the mud. He pulled up his status screen to check the math.
His previous XP was sitting at 31,000 out of 40,000. Slaying exactly 50 Murlocs at 300 XP each netted him a clean 15,000 XP. That pushed him to 46,000, easily clearing the threshold for Level 11. He now had 6,000 XP carrying over into his next bar, which required a massive 60,000 XP to fill.
He had 5 new free stat points to allocate. He knew what was waiting for him at the center of this swamp, and he knew he needed to be faster. Tanking basic mobs with Siphon Aura was fine, but face-tanking a boss was just asking to be sent back to the respawn point.
He dumped all 5 stat points directly into Agility.
His Agility bumped from 18 to 23. His derived Speed stat followed suit, jumping to 23. He did a quick shadowboxing drill, slashing his scythe through the air. The heavy weapon moved faster, his avatar’s reaction time sharpening noticeably. The sluggish resistance of the mud and water felt a little less punishing.
Levi closed his UI and looked toward the center of the Drowned Hollows. Through the thick fog, he could just barely make out the shape of a massive underwater altar jutting out of a deep lake.
"Alright," Levi said, cracking his knuckles. "Let’s go catch a big fish."
