Swordsman's Regression: Reawakened as a Necromancer-Chapter 79: Reaching the Beast Source

Percival’s Ranger Skeletons lined up, raising their Phoenix Bows high to the sky, pointing the flame-tipped arrows at the winged creatures.

Swamp Wyverns.

These things were big.

Their wings were vast enough to cast entire root-networks into shadow, and they flapped the sky with them, creating waves of wind that churned the fog into a vortex.

Whump Whump!

Their hide was leathery, with the color of drowned moss and streaked with toxic green luminescence, stretched over frames of dense bone.

Even from his standing point, Percival could see their eyes.

Those rotten pits of primordial malice. And then their serrated beaks clicking with a sound like snapping timber.

⸢New Threat: Swamp Wyvern⸥

⸢Level: 57 - 60⸥

⸢Description: Apex aerial predator of vertical Gate strata. Often symbiotically bonded with Draconian tribes. Employs sonic warfare and coordinated rider strikes.⸥

⸢Main Skills:⸥

⸢Sonic Shriek: High-frequency discharge. Causes disorientation, internal damage, bypasses partial physical defense⸥

⸢Aerial Harpoon: Synergistic attack. Riders launch magically-enhanced projectiles during dive⸥

⸢Wing Buffet: Creates concussive downdraft. High chance of knockback or Prone⸥.

The lead Wyvern, a monstrous Level 60, tilted its head. The air around its gaping maw wavered, like heat haze over a forge.

Percival’s enhanced Perception screamed a warning a half-second before the sound hit.

CAAAAAWRRRKKK—!

The sound was like devil thunder. Ear-splitting and soul breaking.

The ⸢Sonic Shriek⸥ hit the mangrove pillar like an invisible battering ram. Bark splintered outward in a concentric blast. Leaves not torn to shreds wilted instantly.

And it didn’t stop there, it came for Percival and his legion of bones..

But Percival wasn’t alarmed.

He activated ⸢Radiant Guard⸥. Mana, potent and silver, surged from his core.

It created a dome of solidified light around him and his skeletal phalanx. The sonic wave smashed into it.

BOOOM-WHAAAAA...

The sound was catastrophic, but the silver dome absorbed the attack.

Percival and his Skeletons were safe.

The Wyverns circled for another pass, and as a flock, they showered the dome with more ⸢Sonic Shrieks⸥.

Percival watched ⸢Radiant Guard⸥ splinter, cracked spider-webbed on the silver aegis. But he waited.

Finally, the shrieking ceased.

He saw the Wyverns bank, their chests heaving, gulping air to fuel their next biological barrage.

Percival immediately deactivated the ⸢Guard⸥

"Now!" he roared.

The silver light vanished.

Ten Skeleton Rangers, already in position, moved as one.

They already had their targets in sight and had been waiting for their master’s command.

The Phoenix Bows bent as bone fingers drew back the strings.

Pewwww. Pewwww. Pewwww.

The arrows flew into the sky.

They left contrails of cold blue flame, painting streaks across the green-grey clouds.

The first arrow took a diving Wyvern (Lvl 56) through the open beak.

In an odd fashion that Percival was seeing for the first time, the ⸢Soulfire⸥ expanded inside the creature’s skull.

For an instant, the Wyvern’s head glowed like a ghastly lantern before it burst apart in a shower of blackened bone and gummy tissue.

The headless corpse plummeted, crashing through layers of roots in a series of sickening crunches.

The second arrow pierced through a Wyvern and its rider square in the chest.

The Draconian didn’t even have the chance to let out that annoying scream; it exploded from the inside out, falling to the ground with its mount.

SHLUCK! SHLUCK! PEWWWW— SHLUCCK!

The arrows rained upwards, striking into the chests of the flying monsters, killing them whilst sending the Draconian Stalkers riding them crashing to the floor.

Percival pointed his sword at them. "Finish them off," he commanded his Skirmishers.

His skeletal infantry surged forward like machines of slaughter.

As riderless Stalkers crashed down or leapt from dying mounts, they were met by a wall of Furnace Steel and Blazeforged blades.

A Silverwrought Skirmisher caught a falling Draconian mid-air, driving its sword up through its jaw and into its brain.

Another used its shield to bash another into a root, and quick-stab another that tried to creep up behind it.

⸢Draconian Stalkers killed (+12)⸥

⸢+1350 EXP⸥

⸢Title Bonus: +2025 EXP⸥

⸢Swamp Wyverns killed (+8)⸥

⸢+1600 EXP⸥

⸢Title Bonus: +2400 EXP⸥

Percival’s EXP was climbing at unprecedented rates, not only because of the mass killing of high-level beasts, but the bonus from his Title, The Thresher

Percival started to think that leaving this place at Lvl. 40 was a possibility, though he knew EXP cost would only increase the higher he levels up.

Returning to business, he quickly made his way between the corpses of the Draconian Stalkers he and his legion had slain earlier.

He was looting.

⸢Draconian Eye of Insight (×34)⸥

⸢Draconian Scales (×17)⸥

⸢Beast Cores (×17)⸥

⸢Black Spears (×20)⸥

⸢Black Stalker Dagger (×20)⸥

⸢3000 Mana Coins⸥

⸢6 Health Potions⸥

⸢6 Elixirs⸥

’Elixirs, yes!’

Without ceremony, he cracked two of the vials and drank.

As the liquid flooded his body, he felt his mana well fill up. His muscles unlocked. His mind, fogged with some exertion, sharpened to a razor’s edge once more.

⸢Necromancer Mana: 843/1800⸥

⸢Swordsman Mana: 2990/5000⸥

He stored the remaining four vials in his inventory.

Now that he was invigorated, his focus narrowed to one thing.

The Beast Source.

High up on the tallest tree, waiting for him.

The only way this onslaught was to end was if he got up there and destroyed it.

’Time to end this.’

He spun his blade, angling it in front of him as he started to sprint into the madness.

Percival ran up the spiraling bark of the main pillar, his boots finding purchase on impossible angles.

A Draconian Leader lunged from a branch. Percival didn’t give it the chance.

He feigned a slip, causing the creature to overextend. As it drove into him, Percival dropped beneath its claws, came up inside its guard, and drove his sword through its palate and into its brain.

He moved through a hail of spears and Wyvern dives. Every time a Stalker tried to box him in, a team of his skeletons would intercept them, their Furnace Steel armor ringing under the assault.

A Wyvern tried to claw his face, but Percival caught it by the talon and used the beast as an elevator to take him higher up the pillar.

The beast tried to whip him off, but Percival leaped on his own, landed on the back of another Swamp Wyvern, stabbed down between its vertebrae to sever the spinal cord, and leapt free as it crashed down through the canopy.

He was so close to the top, but a Draconian Leader waited for him at the edge with a spear angled for Percival’s midsection.

Percival scoffed, placing Lightpiercer in front of him and activating ⸢Sword Projection⸥ + ⸢Soulfire⸥.

The giant blue aura of his blade extended out and struck the Draconian Leader, pinning it into the pillar.

Percival landed on its head, using it to vault himself onto the top of the tree.

And then, he was there.