Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 19 - Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Dreamscape Assailant

Sorcerer, Ray Starling

“...G h e g h e g h e.”

The scarlet Thrall had suddenly fallen from above. It looked almost exactly like the one I’d seen before I was pulled into the dream, except it wasn’t surrounded by an iridescent aura—the Dreamland.

There were no eyes on its face, but I could tell that its attention was fixed on us. It rubbed its arm-blades together, throwing up sparks as it walked closer.

“...Wh-What do we do now?” Gerbera said, beginning to panic.

“We’ll just do like we agreed,” I said as I took a step forward. “I’ll fight. You stand back.”

She’d been damaged since before she went to sleep, and she didn’t have her Embryo or even her weapons right now. I had to fight by myself.

“But we are not at our best ourselves right now,” Nemesis said.

“I know!” My arms, legs, and back...I glanced at each of them and took a moment to think.

“I guess we’ll have to figure this out as we go along...”

“Do not rely on your armor! The attacks will reach your flesh!”

As we talked, the scarlet Thrall accelerated toward us. Its speed wasn’t supersonic, but I didn’t have Silver here, so it was still way faster than me anyway. I also hadn’t fully adjusted to this Dreamland, so my senses were slightly worse than usual.

“Tch! Purgatorial Flames!” There was still distance between us, so I went and used my left Miasmaflame Bracer.

It released a torrent of fire. No surprises there—Gardranda had a mind, so I could use her inside the Dreamland with no problem.

The flames touched the Thrall as it approached...

“...G h e.”

...but didn’t damage it.

“That’s simply not enough firepower!”

“Man...Mythical metal’s a real pain!”

The Thrall closed the distance and attacked me, but I barely evaded it and tried to remember what I’d heard about this material.

First, if converted to END, its toughness was about equal to that of END-focused Superior Jobs.

Second, making anything from it required special techniques available only to the greatest artisans.

And third, it had an extremely high melting point that made it difficult to change its shape with heat.

It was insanely rare for it to melt in combat, with the only things capable of that being the breath of Tri-Zenith Dragon, Gloria; the heatwaves created by Shinedragon King, Drag-Flare; and King of Blaze’s ultimate job skill.

Gloria’s case was perhaps the most notable. Upon touching the metal, the breath that made everything evaporate had only melted it.

My Gardranda simply didn’t have the firepower for this. Perhaps I could’ve dealt damage to it if I summoned Gardranda herself and had her use Purgatorial Flames: Zero, but it didn’t look like that was an option.

“Ray!”

“I know!”

This clash just now had left me more drained than usual. Normally, I made up for the MP and SP I used by tapping into and converting the grudge stored in my Grudge-Soaked Greaves.

But now, it didn’t look like that was working.

“Looks like Gouz-Maise isn’t here.” Even though I appeared to be equipped with the greaves, they weren’t actually here—just as ZZZ had explained. I couldn’t open menus here, so the only way to even know if I had my gear was to try to use it.

And though Gouz-Maise was an MVP reward, I couldn’t have brought it here because it had no mind.

Miasmaflame Princess: Gardranda and a bunch of other skills I had were all predicated on using Gouz-Maise’s grudge. The fact that I couldn’t rely on it now had made me a whole lot weaker.

“Ah...!” Nemesis quickly transformed into The Black Shield and blocked the blade the Thrall swung down. She was able to withstand it, but it left a noticeable crack on her surface.

“I cannot do this too many times!”

“I know...!” Instead of relying on unique quirks I could take advantage of, this Thrall was just another enemy that was simply strong. It obviously wasn’t on Behemot’s level or anything, but it was clearly above Logan’s Legendary devils—Gigaknights.

“...Ancient Legendary.”

The words that escaped my mouth had two meanings.

First, it was my evaluation of this Thrall’s power tier.

And second, it referred to a card I had that could maybe defeat it.

But...could I actually use it?

“G h e...” As I considered my options, the Thrall underwent a change.

Its arms, nose, and tail-blade turned an even brighter scarlet and began to heat up. The same heat that had made the mithril Thrall explode now lit up all of its blades, making them insanely hot. This was an absurd move possible only because the Mythical metal possessed an immense heat capacity.

My instincts told me that the blades had more power than the Swordmaster job’s Laser Blade skill. Nemesis’s Black Shield form was the toughest of the ones she had, but I could tell that these heated blades would split her in half regardless.

“G h e g h e...”

The Thrall raised its arm-blades up, then swung them down as if going for a Mongolian chop.

I had to move left or right to evade it, but I could tell that this was only a trap—regardless of which side I chose, the tail-blade would swipe toward whatever direction I’d gone and cut me down.

That was why I chose to go right.

Just as the arm-blades cut into the dream path and opened a deep crack in it, the Thrall threw its tail to skewer me.

“Counter Absorption!”

However, Nemesis’s Black Shield form didn’t preclude her from using Counter Absorption, and she activated it just in time to absorb the damage of the tail-strike. Its arms were left stuck into the ground while its attack was absorbed.

The Thrall was briefly immobilized.

“MONOCHROME!” I didn’t miss my chance and called to the Black Warcoat I was wearing.

I won the first gamble—Monochrome actually responded to me. Just like Gardranda, it was actually here in this dream.

It formed its cannon around my left hand.

And then...

“SHINING DESPAIR!”

...it fired a superheated laser toward the Thrall.

This was the single most powerful attack in my arsenal. Even so, I was seriously gambling on it being able to destroy Mythical metal. The laser was more concentrated than the original’s, but would it be enough to match Gloria’s breath?

The answer to that turned out to be...

“...G h e...”

...yes and no.

The Shining Despair attack did damage the Thrall—and the Mythical metal it was made of. However, the effect was minimal. The Thrall had twisted its body just in time to make the laser aimed at its chest hit its upper left arm instead.

The blast had created a fist-sized semicircular hole there, but that was it.

It hadn’t been nearly enough to defeat it. The Thrall could even use the arm still, albeit a little bit awkwardly.

“It’s working...! Keep shooting...!” shouted Gerbera.

“Hate to break it to you, but one shot of that takes all the juice.”

“It’s over, then.” Gerbera fell to her knees behind me. I could understand where she was coming from, but it was too early to give up.

“Nemesis, status on the damage counter?” Vengeance is Mine ignored enemy defense, so Mythical metal didn’t mean anything to it. I could still win this if I used it on the Thrall’s head, chest, or some other critical part.

“... Zero.”

However, I could never have expected Nemesis’s response.

“...Nemesis?”

“I sense a faint accumulation somewhere awfully far away, but I sense nothing on this creature before us.”

“What?” That didn’t make sense. We’d taken its attacks with the Black Shield as well as Counter Absorption.

Was this because it was a dream, or...?

“Ah...!”

Before I could finish my thought, the Thrall swung its heated blade at me. Nemesis couldn’t defend against it, so she shifted from the Black Shield to the Black Blade. I evaded it as best as I could, but then I started to feel heat in my left shoulder.

“Ray!”

“I know!” This probably hadn’t been intentional payback, but I now had a scorched laceration about where my Shining Despair had hit the Thrall. I couldn’t check my stats, but my senses told me that I’d lost probably about 10% of my HP to that.

“So? Where did the damage go?” I asked.

“It seems to have been added to the accumulation in the distance.”

I see how it is now, I thought. The damage I took here in the dream was almost certainly being credited not to this Thrall, but the tapir himself—Overlord Acedia. I didn’t know whether it was because Thralls were like his limbs or because his Embryo turned the damage within the dream into actual damage, but this meant that I couldn’t use my counter skills on this Thrall.

Silver wasn’t here, so I’d lost a lot of my mobility. VDA and my accessories weren’t here, so I’d become a whole lot more fragile. Gouz-Maise wasn’t here, so I was unable to summon Gardranda. Monochrome was here, but Shining Despair wasn’t strong enough to be fatal. And now, to top it all off, I couldn’t even use Nemesis’s counter skills.

“This reminds me of our battle against that lab coated maniac,” said Nemesis.

“I was thinking the same thing.” I had no intention of giving up, but this felt like a real dead end. This was worse than fighting RSK, and that thing had been the result of metagaming against me.

I’d known that losing all my non-sentient gear would give anything within the dream the upper hand, but this was worse than I’d expected. This Thrall’s defense and offense were basically equal, and I had no way of dealing with any of it right now.

“...No. That’s not quite right. ”

I realized that I might have one or two things I could do.

The problem was not only that they’d be a gamble, but also that they were just something...different. Simply trying one of them would have me put my life on the line, while the other—if it was even possible—would have me build up more damage and...

“Buy some more time...!”

Yeah, that, I thought. Wait, huh...?

“Gerbera?” I turned around and saw Gerbera, standing away from the battle and calling out to me with a desperate expression.

“If you keep it busy long enough, April should get rid of the Thrall outside...! You need to buy some time until she does that...!”

Oh yeah, Gerbera had mentioned April. I wasn’t so sure about that idea, though. As long as we were fighting this Thrall here in the dream, we couldn’t know if destroying all the Thralls in reality would actually make us wake up.

Would this scarlet Thrall here really die if the real one was killed? They were clearly the same thing. Were there two of them—one in reality and one in the dream? Maybe the one from reality had simply slipped into the dream? Or perhaps there was just one of them that existed in both reality and the dream at the same time?

We didn’t know any of that. As things were, all of those possibilities seemed as likely as the others.

We gotta get more info, I thought.

“We have no choice but to endure,” said Nemesis.

She was right—no matter what the truth was, we still hadn’t built up enough damage for the second gamble.

For now, all we could do was draw in the Thrall’s attacks and wait for a chance to strike back as we restored our HP.

I feel like it’s been a while since I had a battle like this.

“We have been stripped of options. It is best for us to return to the basics.”

“Yeah.”

I brandished Nemesis in her sword form and focused on the Thrall’s attacks.

◇◆◇

The Southernmost Edge of Altar, A Mountain Forest Near the Border

When Ray was first faced with the scarlet Thrall in the dream, the battle between the Prism weapons and the Thralls was changing.

“Remaining hostiles...one.” The mithril Thralls shattered by April had been trying to fight despite being shattered into pieces, but after some time and a few more pulverizing attacks, they had become completely immobile.

The only ones that were left were April, Silver, the four who were sleeping, and...

“...G h e g h e g h e.”

...the Thrall that looked just like the one in the dream—the one ZZZ called “Cardinal A.”

It had done nothing but watch the fight, and it still wasn’t doing anything except rubbing its arm-blades together, releasing sparks as it did so.

Was this some kind of taunt? Or was it preparing for some sort of attack?

“Battle analysis.”

April took a moment to think.

During the battle, she’d used an Elixir on her owner—Sechs—but it did not wake him up. Based on that, she’d assumed that he hadn’t been overcome by a normal sleeping debuff, but the result of a special skill with conditions attached.

This phenomenon was unknown to her. When it came to jobs, April knew everything that was known to the pre-ancient civilization. However, she didn’t have much combat experience against Masters—these newly appeared entities with a multitude of unique powers.

She’d sparred against Sechs and Gerbera, fought Gakido and his Sixth Realm Chaos, and faced the Incarnation of Maelstroms in her last battle during the time of the pre-ancient civilization.

In that final fight, she’d been stripped of all her energy, entered a dormant state, and was then retrieved by the incarnations.

The battle construct believed to be unmatched in physical combat had been easily suppressed and captured.

The mastermind behind this Cardinal A—Overlord Acedia, ZZZ—gave April the same feeling as she’d experienced during that conflict.

“Resuming combat.”

No matter how dangerous it may have been, though, she chose to fight Cardinal A to mitigate the danger to her owner.

In but a breath, she closed the distance between her and Cardinal A, aiming to put it within her Material Slider’s range.

“...G h e.” Coming into contact with the iridescent aura surrounding Cardinal A—the fragment of Dreamland—did not cause any changes in April herself. The Embryo had no effect on her.

That was exactly why what happened next was so bizarre—April’s wires were deflected without dealing any damage to Cardinal A.

“...?”

This made no sense to her. April was using her Material Slider—a skill that subtracted END and physical toughness. She’d even used a setting far above the -4,000 she’d used against Sixth Realm Chaos. Anything around her would have their END stat reduced by a whole 30,000. Meanwhile, her own toughness, when converted to END, was over 50,000.

Their clash should have been like steel striking styrofoam. Not even Mythical metal could remain unscathed by this, but Cardinal A was under some kind of effect that negated it.

“Conjecture: toughness increased by additional effects.”

April assumed that the Mythical metal’s defenses had been enhanced even further, giving it toughness that not even Material Slider could negate.

But there was something she could do against that.

“My silver brother—increase your distance. Incoming hazard,” she told Silver, and he carried Ray away from her in response. She then checked where the other three people were and deemed that she could proceed without issue.

If her opponent still possessed toughness that rendered her attacks powerless, there was only one thing she had to do.

“Limiters: off.”

She would simply bring the toughness even further down.

“Material Slider...”

April was Prism Person No. 2 as well as the first Prism Person designed for combat—Diamond Slayer. Her namesake was an area of total obliteration in which physical defense had no meaning.

The skill’s name was...

“Diamond Slaying.”

The next moment, an invisible force field permeated her surroundings. Her output was pushed to the limit to make her mod-armaments operate at a staggering capacity.

Affected by the skill, her surroundings began to crumble. The stones and trees were unable to maintain their integrity as solid objects, let alone hold up their own weight, and were ground into dust as they shattered.

Even the coarse earth beneath her was broken down into smaller and smaller particles, quickly becoming sand. Not even the remains of the mithril Thralls were spared as they all disintegrated into silver-colored ash.

Everything in a 50-metel radius was affected by an extreme toughness debuff of more than 200,000.

Not even Mythical metal structures could maintain themselves under this effect. There was nothing in the pre-ancient civilization that could withstand this. Even bullets heading for her at the speed of sound would be reduced to nothing before they even reached her.

And, touched by a skill this immense...

“...G h e g h e g h e.”

...Cardinal A was still completely unharmed.

“Abnormal variable.” Recognizing this opponent as an outlier, April resumed attacking using her wires, but the monster with a body of Hihi’irokane, which must have become as soft as the wall of a sandcastle under her ability’s assault, still deflected April’s attacks.

It was as though it was truly invincible.

April now understood that this entity’s form was maintained by some principle other than sheer physical toughness. Thus, she knew it was a power that she could not overcome.

Assuming the worst-case scenario, April considered a disengagement. She compared stats and calculated how many of the three people she could safely take with her when...

“...G h e...”

...with no prior warning, Cardinal A’s left arm was destroyed. A semicircular part of the upper arm seemed to have melted away.

It was as though it had been hit by a laser.

The damage obviously wasn’t the result of April’s Material Slider, but no matter how hard she calculated, she could not find anything in her surroundings that could have caused it.

Cardinal A had received damage from a place that April couldn’t observe.

April then reconsidered her decision to disengage and instead chose to buy time to see if she could unravel the secret behind its invincibility.

Thus, everyone facing Cardinal A—within or outside the dream—had chosen to observe.

And as things were, none of them knew which way this would go.

◆◆◆

Whimsical Dreality, Dreamland, Interior

Sechs and Candy stood on one of Dreamland’s roads, not saying a word.

Everything around them had become clear. They had received the same explanation ZZZ had given Ray and Gerbera—in fact, it had been shown to all of them at once.

Unlike those two, Sechs and Candy hadn’t commented, opting to merely listen and absorb the information.

They may have even understood it better than Ray had.

“Now that was a waste of time,” said Candy with a pout. “We already knew that Dreamland only takes in things that have minds, plus it was pretty obvious that dying here totally equals death penalty, and that we had to do something specific to wake up. The info’s useless to us, but he now gets to use a skill.” Candy let out a sigh and grumbled. “And he didn’t even tell us anything about it.”

ZZZ hadn’t revealed any of the cards in his hand—he’d merely told them something that anyone could have figured out after enough time. He already had the upper hand, and this gave him an even bigger advantage.

“You agree, don’t cha?” Candy asked. “...Sechsy?”

That was when Candy realized that Sechs was deep in thought, one hand over his mouth.

“...That is contradictory.” It seemed like he was simply scrutinizing the info they’d been given, but that wasn’t precisely the case.

“What is?”

He was questioning something far more fundamental. “The fact that the Embryo requires an explanation...as well as this dreamworld itself. I had information about Overlord Acedia’s nature as a person. He was a slothful, laid-back sort who desired nothing else but sleep.”

“That’s pretty much what I heard about him too.”

“If that is truly his nature, this Dreamland makes no sense. It contradicts what he is.”

“What do you... Oh, I get it.”

That was when Candy realized it too.

“A person who merely wants to slack off would never like an Embryo that forces him to work.”

Masters generally didn’t end up with Embryos whose powers they actively disliked. Sechs the shape-shifting slime, as well as Candy the bacteria generator, were both fond of how their Embryos were.

With that in mind, would a person who only wanted to laze around enjoy an Embryo that turned his time sleeping—one of the fundamentals of laziness—into work time? After all, Dreamland was an Embryo that didn’t stop at merely putting them to sleep—it required its Master’s explanation to unleash its full potential.

“Our interpretation of one factor is flawed.”

Was it ZZZ’s slothful nature? Was it Dreamland’s ability to pull people into the dream?

Or was there something amiss with their assumptions about both?

This deviation in nature had resulted in ZZZ’s Embryo possessing a skill that Sechs and Candy couldn’t have anticipated. It was the very power giving severe trouble to April back in reality, and its name was “Nightmare Kingdom—Dreamland.”

“We lack the information to truly verify anything, but I believe we should be prepared for the unexpected.”

“Okaaay.”

The two were about to resume walking when Candy noticed something.

“Sechsy, what’s with your finger?” Candy was referring to Sechs’s left pinky.

It was gone.

Candy hadn’t seen it vanish, but it wasn’t there now.

“Does he have a skill that makes you disappear piece by piece as time goes on?” Suddenly worried he was being consumed by a giant creature, Candy examined himself.

Sechs, however, simply smiled his usual smile and said, “No need to worry. This is not Overlord Acedia’s skill. I have done this myself.”

“Hm?”

“I suppose that is enough.” After saying that, Sechs extended his left hand back to the direction they’d come from.

A few moments later, a small slime came into view.

“That’s...”

“Yes. This was a little test. I separated it the moment we arrived here.”

The tiny slime jumped into Sechs’s left hand and assumed the form of his pinky.

“Wait, your slimes...”

“Indeed. Though it depends on size, they disappear when there is too great a distance between them and the main body—that is, the one with the most volume.”

That was the flaw in Sechs’s powers that even Red King had been aware of. But...

“However, this slime did not disappear even when the distance surpassed ten times the maximum.”

“So, distance works different here?”

“Either that or it does not matter as long as my physical body is still all connected. Regardless, I believe I can make use of this.”

Sechs then transformed his right hand into a sword-like Embryo...and decapitated himself.

A moment later, the rest of his body split into pieces and became tiny slimes. A number of them even had wings.

“I split myself into about fifty parts,” Sechs said. “I will use this for reconnaissance. If we are lucky, I might find Gerbera or Overlord Acedia.”

The pieces then scattered. Normally, this would’ve been suicide for Sechs, as the pieces would vanish one by one—but if they didn’t, this was an optimal way to gather information.

Thus, the slimes crawled off in every direction. Some of them even jumped off the dream road into the abyss below.

“Hrmm, not even a GOD like me could use a trick this extreme.”

“I do consider the safety margins, of course, so I will bring all of them back if at least one vanishes due to distance. Oh, also, I have a request.”

“What is it?”

“Could you carry my head? I am focusing on controlling the other parts, so it is a bit difficult to move.”

“I guess now I know how April feels,” Candy said as he put on a wry grin and picked up Sechs’s severed head.