Chapter 249: Closing The Trap

One day Granesh tried to hide in the Abyss from William Oh, plunging into the deepest dark well of the underworld, thinking that he would surely never find him.

William Oh was already there.

• Jason Salazar

“There!” Anna shouted, pointing to the east. There were thousands of her watching the entire 10^th Floor, their range surpassing even Will’s.

Issue Lockdown Bounty (11,000) Influence?

Yes

Enter target name, alias and/or description.

Will entered Void’s description and name, pressing the accept button a moment later.

By the time he’d finished Void was already gone.

“Damn, he’s already gone.” Will said, waiting for his next opportunity. Since Anna had an eye on every Floor within range, that opportunity would be soon.

“I’m sorry, I must’ve spotted him too slow.” Anna said with a frown.

“It would’ve been nice to catch him here, but don’t beat yourself up about it. He managed to slip between two bounty assignments. I was repeating the bounty as fast as I could this whole time hoping I could catch him. It’s good that you spotted him at all, because now we know what direction he’s going.”

“…Seventh floor!” Anna said.

Will bought himself and Loth a Door.

15404 -> 13404 Influence remaining.

The two of them dove through their Doors, the humid heat of the 7^th Floor assaulting him the instant they arrived on the jungle Floor.

Personal Door purchases are now on cooldown (7 days)

“That way,” Bee said, dropping down from a nearby tree and pointing.

“Gotcha.”

Will picked up Loth and propelled both of them at top speed, using himself as a shield against the wall of air continually pounding against them.

A moment later, Vincent’s marker showed up at the edge of his map, and Will oriented on it, Arriving in front of Void in a matter of seconds.

Unlike the time Will had dragged Travis along behind him at max speed to visit the fae huntress, the wake of sound behind them wasn’t strong enough to toss them around, less of an explosion and more of a dramatic flurry of wind.

The Ring of Traversal’s fringe benefits.

“Son…of a bitch.” Vincent groaned from where he knelt, a spot of bile on the jungle floor in front of him.

“I doubt it, but I don’t know enough to say for sure,” Will said, limbering up to continue their fight While Loth faded back, gaining distance and impregnating the ground with traps.

“It was the illusionist, wasn’t it?” Vincent asked.

“If he risks his life and dumps all his Charge at once, he can make something pretty close to the real thing.” Will replied.

“Hah.”

Travis could get Lord-level power, but he had to gamble everything every time he did it, and eventually that gamble wouldn’t go his way. Travis was as aware of that as anyone else.

Mark Wyrd isn’t on this Floor right now. We assumed the worm would never be able to make it this deep in one go, which was a reasonable assumption when it wasn’t a Lord.

“…I’m curious. How did you become a Lord when that body was a Vassal anyway?”

Might as well buy Loth a few seconds of setup time. It was all she needed.

“The System stores a lot of information in your Class and not in itself. It needs to be as lightweight as possible, so it offloads the burden onto the Climber of keeping track of various things. Normally the most important things are stored where they don’t expect the climber to mess with them,” Vincent said, tapping his skull. “This creates exploits for the risk-tolerant.”

Neat.

Ghoul, Marksman and that tall sailor guy from the 6^th Floor were on the 8^th. They would drop in in a matter of minutes, and then the five of them would dogpile this bastard until the worm was dead.

Will just needed to prevent it from escaping.

“Well, I guess we should get started,” Vincent said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before climbing to his feet.

Will ducked out of the way as a burning fae manifested behind him and tried to cut his head off.

Will tried to twist and hit it with the wand, but Vincent warded him off with a faefire explosion, forcing him to dance aside.

Blessed Steel braided wire burst out of the nearby tree and snapped out with a violent CRACK, reaching its top speed right against Vincent’s ribs.

Vincent flew back, crashing through several trees while the nearby fae undead’s chest collapsed.

Will regained his balance and leveled the wand on its target, only for the Fae to skitter out of the way, leaping behind a nearby tree even as its crushed chest fixed itself.

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It was that manner of moving at full speed with a mortal wound that gave away the creature’s undead nature.

Phantom Eye

88 Charges remaining

Will sent the Phantom Eye towards Vincent while he continued to harry the fae. There was a brutal exchange of blows that turned several massive trees into so much pulp as Will attempted to pin the fae down long enough to take it out of the fight.

Eventually Will was in the perfect position to hit Vincent in the ankle with a chakram just as the undead was setting their foot down.

Vincent passed the damage on, and the undead’s ankle rolled as he was preparing to push off and change direction.

In that instant, Will landed a direct shot on his chest with the de-fireproofer.

Gotta get a better name for that.

The instant the condensed packet of Miasmatic structures impacted the undead, Will saw her built-in layer of fireproofing get shredded, and…

The flame aura surrounding the undead winked out like a snuffed candle.

“…Shit.” There goes the easy way.

“Wasn’t that hard to figure out.” The well-dressed fae butler said, kicking off a hardwood and shooting straight towards Will.

Guess I need a different method, Will thought as he manipulated the terrain around him.

Will lensed the air between them to change his apparent location by a foot, causing the fae’s attack to miss, charging in and landing a brutal counter.

…which did almost nothing.

Damn, these guys are tough. Almost as tough as Vincent.