Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 77: Won’t You Let Me In?

But vitality was one part health and another part stamina.

Zarian hadn’t given himself adequate rest since the night he’d blown a hole through the mansion’s roof from the kitchen. He could feel the weariness, and that would affect his vitality.

I can still kick ass.

Something out there in the endless darkness watched him. Zarian felt it and more. His awareness kept expanding. Rapidly, too. Then he noticed other watchers turning to him.

One of those watchers grew too curious and moved toward him.

Zarian looked in its direction. There was a saying he knew. Something about being careful when staring into the abyss.

Well, Zarian downright glared. The curious creature stopped in its tracks and turned away.

I have no idea what that was, but it damn sure didn’t like it when I looked back.

The trip through the void ended before Zarian could get a better feel of the endless abyss. He stepped into a wet, stone room a hundred feet below the streets of Central Bramblevale.

The lingering effects of Void Step faded, taking with it the wrinkles shimmering in the air. Upon his whim, the black, metallic, and alien Grimoire of the Mad Voidling Prince disappeared into a dark portal and returned to his soul.

The room was messy. It was clearly a place for underground denizens to throw together broken items that someone might find useful and fix up one day. There weren’t many weapons.

Zarian knew anyone desperate for a weapon could grab and sharpen anything close to an edge. Back in the old world, it was surprising how many ways you could kill a man.

But in the Infinita Star System, the amount of ways Zarian could die was shrinking.

He stepped out of the storage room and entered a paved subterranean floor. There were rows of thick columns holding up tons of rock, earth, and stone above his head. Thick streams of water flowed behind the walls and underneath grates.

He found corpses drowning in puddles of old blood and water. Giant rats the size of the average dog feasted on the corpses that still had meat on their bones.

One giant rat turned toward him.

The creature shuddered, turning its head this way and that. The beast couldn’t make out Zarian’s form as he walked by.

From its view, he looked shifty, uncanny, otherworldly, and creepy. So much so that the giant rat backed away with a frightened squeal.

Zarian was keeping most of his power under restraint, but the Uncanny Valley Effect worked like a charm.

Para saw a free meal and snatched up the giant rats. She killed them quickly to silence their squealing before she ate her fill.

She was still carrying the dungeon core, which had Zarian wondering if he should’ve left that back at the mansion. It was too late now.

Does that count as child endangerment? Zarian wondered. Or would that be core endangerment?

These things were precious. But there weren’t any real villains left who’d try him for the core. Well, at least not the ones roaming out in the open.

After walking for a while, Zarian found mainly scavengers and beggars sifting through the wreckage and making off with some decent loot. They froze like prey in the presence of a stalking predator, Zarian passing by them smoothly.

He walked through various subterranean floors and down some old staircases. He was taking his time. He knew the last evil remnants of the underworld were recollecting themselves before he showed up fully.

Finally, he arrived at their territory in one of the black markets. The place must’ve been messy before Bianca, Naomi, and Gilbert ran through it.

Zarian saw signs of wet decay that were crushed by crusading violence. Where there should’ve been stalls selling illegal black market items, instead there were ruins.

Shanty buildings had fallen into disarray. Corpses were laying strewn about.

A great majority had faced eradication to Bianca’s light and good +3.

Their flesh was charred. The black bones remained.

There were more beggars here. Zarian smoothly walked past them.

A bony, ratty child was pulling the boot off a corpse. She succeeded only to stumble backward and collide against Zarian’s front.

“Hey, hey! This is my boot! I got it first!” the little girl growled, trying to make herself sound feral and intimidating.

“Cute,” Zarian said, his voice deepened, his face darkened under his monstrous wizard hat.

When the girl turned and looked up, she saw a man who seemed to have crawled from the deepest depths under Central Bramblevale. His cloak shifted, wavered, and quivered, while holding a head-sized pearl between several veiny arms with weird alien fingers. The edges of the cloak formed spikes of bone and more sweeping tentacles.

“You can have my boot.” The girl held it up. “If you’re gonna kill me, make it quick.”

“Keep the boot. And your life.” Zarian walked around the little child. He moved a few paces further before stopping. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Sometimes I cough blood. But I’ll be alright. Street rats grow tough, that’s what my friends say.”

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“Indeed, we do.”

The girl’s beady eyes widened. “You were a street rat?”

“Still am, depending. But I can make the nobles grovel when I want.” Zarian looked over his shoulder. “If you haven’t heard, I’m Lord Zarian Darkrun. My party and some friends intend to leave in the next few days. Before then, if you and your friends want free healing, come see us at the Lovewar Mansion.”

The girl looked gobsmacked. Then her expression shifted, her face squishing together as she squinted at him, her suspicions raised. She clutched the boot like she was going to run for it.

“That sounds nice. But whenever they say there’ll be free healing. We disappear.”

“Ah, yeah. I understand.” Zarian looked away. “I can’t convince you that this one is real. You’ll have to believe me.”

Taking a glance through his spectral spiders, he saw that some of the evil remnants that remained were staging themselves. He looked back at the little girl.

“Free healing. Free food, too. For anyone who shows. We’re limited, of course, so first come, first served. That’s my final offer.” Zarian walked away, leaving the girl and the nearby beggars stunned.

There was something freeing about dishing out acts of kindness without a care in the world. His evil alignment was snapping at him because of graver consequences that could rear their ugly heads on the horizon.

But Bianca’s genocide, hoping to free Zarian of his worries, was touching even if it was kind of idiotic.

Let’s see if we can be amicable about this.

Zarian reached a blocky stone building that looked like a miniature keep. It was squat and unimpressive compared to the keep of the Bramblevale Lord, but Zarian didn’t blame the underworld folks for not keeping up with the Joneses.

“Hello! I’ve come to talk to the Evil Gods. Won’t you let me in? I swear it’s a quick trip, and you may live afterward.”

No response.

“Are you sure you won’t let me in?”

Still no response.

He walked up to the front door. They must’ve replaced the old one recently because the door was clean and sturdy, with no rust. The hinges were also new.

The door even had a Reinforcement enchantment. Zarian had traced out enough of Hannah’s enchantments to read the basic ones with his aura manipulation.

“Thanks, Hannah, for letting me copy your skill.”

Zarian used his Level 0 Rune Alteration skill to scramble the enchantment on the door. He didn’t have Hannah’s know-how on how to change it completely. He just wanted to make an extreme mess until the runes broke and the enchantment failed.

He would’ve had a harder time if it wasn’t a basic enchantment.

Enchantment out of the way, Zarian kicked in the steel door like it was made of aluminum. The hinges ripped away with the crumpled door, throwing chunks of stone into the hallway. The dented slab of metal bounced and clattered to a stop.

The nearest beggars scrambled away except for the girl with the boot. She stayed put and kept watching him. He monitored her through the spectral spiders lurking in the vicinity.

Zarian took one step inside. He faced a bloody fireball flying at his face.

Now that was more like it.

He snapped awake and threw a punch.

Normally, a wizard would’ve had their hand blown up, with the rest of their body charred. However, Zarian had his hand covered in parasitic bone armor while benefiting from multiple abilities that raised his physicality, especially his toughness.

The bloody fireball couldn’t survive him. The explosion in the hallway roared and shook the building.

The girl with the boot stumbled to the floor. Spectral spiders skittered in full view, distracting her with a dance before they webbed her up and pulled her away from danger.

“You think you can come to our place and do whatever you want?” shouted a woman deeper down in the hallway. “I pray to Evil God The Dragon, you bastard! You shouldn’t dare mess with me if you know what’s right for you.”

Even while boasting her claim, her voice shivered at the mention of The Dragon. Zarian gave her another reason to shiver. He rushed through the smoke and flames like a freight train.

Parasitic bone armor covered up his body and hardened wizard hat, which had spiny edges growing from the brim. The dungeon core remained held tight in a cage-like basket on his back.

The Level 58 Infernal Witch threw another bloody fireball while backpedaling fast, eyes flown wide. She screamed and cussed as Zarian kept chasing her down like a relentless monster.

The fireball had no effect. Zarian dodged it this time, letting the infernal projectile blast a part of the hallway into smithereens behind him. In the next few steps, his hand caught her by the neck.

The witch choked and gagged. She changed tactics and shoved her hands into his armored chest. With a pulse of powerful magic, she washed Zarian in a bloody, infernal blaze, turning his armor into a smolder.

Para endured and protected the core.

Zarian kept trucking forward regardless.

They entered a T-section with a slam, the witch to the opposing wall. She was tough enough to survive the experience while her body creates a crater. The impact rocked the building. Her blazing spell cut off, and Para rapidly shedded her burnt parts and replaced it with new leathery flesh and bone armor.

The witch’s face turned deathly purple, her eyes rolling into her skull as he choked her.

Zarian let go when another man charged him from the left. The new attacker was a Level 55 Man Butcher. He held two heavy cleavers in his hands, each weapon radiating an evil and bloody force.

He wasn’t a tall man, but the Man Butcher was built like a miniature hulk, his shirtless torso rippling with intense might as he swung his heavy cleavers with a frenzy.

Zarian retreated lightly, staying shifty. The Man Butcher missed his first swings wide and hacked into the stone wall above the Infernal Witch’s head. She sat in the crater, gasping for air, and the Man Butcher gave chase as Zarian summoned his grimoires.

One grimoire phased out of him like a phantom with ghoulish chains that rattles between the covers and his soul. Another grimoire with gator teeth and a lurking, invisible presence phased out of him and moved at a hover above his shoulder. Then the last grimoire appeared through a dark portal with a metallic hum and stayed in orbit around him.

The Man Butcher remained unimpressed and lunged with explosive speed. Both cleavers chopped down from above. Zarian slid to a stop and cast his spells.

He stepped in and out of the void with one quick stride, making the air wrinkle strangely as he moved. He ended up behind the Man Butcher, and the over-committed warrior crashed down hard, exposing himself to retaliation.

Zarian extended parasitic claws from all his armored fingers. He lit both hands with Black Fire and Bloody Lifesteal. The black, gray, and crimson glow traced through the air as he slashed the Man Butcher apart.

Zarian felt the high of stealing someone’s life as their vitality burned away quickly. The Man Butcher had his back carved up before he turned around and swung both cleavers in a helicopter maneuver.

He hit nothing but wrinkled air. Zarian stepped in and out of the void and ended up behind Man Butcher once again. This time, he cast his spells even faster.

Quagmire Pit.

Dread Mire Bite.

The Man Butcher dropped into a small pit that sucked him down to the shins. He tripped forward and landed on his knees, one of his legs pulling out just in time. That was the end of his luck.

The invisible jaws of the dread mire predator sunk its teeth into the Man Butcher’s remaining leg. The bone snapped. The flesh tore apart under the mighty pressure.

The Man Butcher screamed and screamed, but Zarian still had more for him.

Fists cocked, Zarian punched down and clocked the man on the jaw. The Man Butcher crashed against the corner of the wall, tried to push up, and found Zarian’s boot smashing into his face.

The Man Butcher tried to get up again, raising a cleaver. Zarian extended some longer parasitic claws and slashed them across the Man Butcher’s arm.

Zarian formed a long dirk knife from the tip of his parasitic boot and kicked that into the Man Butcher’s side. Blood splattered against the wall and across the floor.

The Man Butcher kept fighting, so Zarian committed further, sheathing the blades, and crashing down with all of his weight and power to thump the Man Butcher with a knee to the head.

A few heavy, bone-plated knees later, the Man Butcher stayed down.