"It seems you’re getting better with your new Talent," Brenden grumbled after emptying his stomach for the third time in a short window.
"Yes and no, I am limited in versatility to an extent, but making walls that connect, or barriers, aren’t that difficult; the only issue is…
BOOM, BOOOM, BOOOM
Off in the distance, several loud booms rumbled through the tunnels, causing all three of us to glance in the direction of the walls.
"That… can’t be good." Stating the obvious this time, it wasn’t Brenden but instead our Father.
"Yeah, I underestimated the power scaling of this Instance; the Ranking Zones are far closer together than they should be, maybe separated by only a couple hundred miles or so." Walking to the nearest Rock Box, I chugged down a High Alpha-Grade PC potion and then quickly used the ambient Beta Particles in the air to convert all my PC into Beta-Rank particles.
Next, I activated my Geomancy so that I could drop the nearest facing wall of the Rock Box, causing its contents to spill out onto the floor and squirm around like giant angry bugs.
"Time is of the essence, Dad; I need you to rush a bit and put these guys down; the sooner we get you ready for your 6C evolution, the better."
BOOM BOOM BOOM
"And I don’t think we have a whole lot of time either; by my estimation, that should be a Duke Grade Undead slamming into the walls at the minimum…but on the higher end…probably an Arch-Duke Grade.
"Why the fuck would there be a Delta-Rank Monster so fucking close to the Safezone? Wait, WHY WOULD THERE BE A DELTA-RANK EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE?" Shouting his concerns while taking care not to let any of the quadriplegic Zombies touch him, Brenden kept shooting glances toward the wall I manifested.
"I have no idea; we all know some instances appear to go on forever, and with our experience in the last Undead Instance, you know there were easily Zeta and Theta rank roaming around in there…it appears we may be in a little over our head." Admitting I had fucked up was never an easy task for me, but after seeing the particle signatures of Gamma Ranked Undead, I knew this wasn’t the best place for us to Train our Father.
Maybe if it was just me, I could work my way through them, picking each undead off with hit-and-run tactics, but that really only works if I have a large open space to move around in.
Being stuck in these tunnels with thousands of undead was too close quarters for me to fight comfortably.
"Yeah, that may be so, but there were still tens of thousands of miles between the Rank Zones in that Instance; what’s different now?"
SPLAT, SPLAT
Brenden frowned as the sound of heads turning to a pulp under our Father’s Maul entered his ears, but he ignored it and shined his flashlight on my face again to see my expression.
"The Starting point…I think…" I mumbled as I tried to work through a possible reason for the radical shift in power.
"The Instance I used in the Origin Timeline was at Gamma-Rank when I triggered the change with the Totem…but this one was only Alpha, so maybe that discrepancy caused some unforeseen circumstances."
"However, I thought that by using the Caverns, which are Notoriously massive, we would be fine, especially since the Rank Zones are keenly organized and mapped, but it seems that by initiating the change, the barriers between the Particle Grades have degraded to a point where higher Rank monsters are able to move around in them freely."
SPLAT
"That doesn’t make sense, though; the quality of their Stats and PC should drop to match the surrounding abundant particles." Finishing off another Zombie, my Father turned to face us and voice his thoughts.
"That’s the thing though, there is still a faint near imperceptible trace of Higher Grade Particles in the air; even now, I can feel there aren’t just Alpha and Beta particles, but also Gamma and Delta, it’s like there aren’t any separate zones for them to manifest in, so they got all jumbled….THATS IT," With a sudden realization dawning on me, I turned away from my Father as he continued smashing heads and looked at my concerned little brother.
"You’ve got approximately 45 minutes until the last wall comes crumbling down and Zombie Gorbachov shows up; get yourself into top fighting condition," I said in a hurried tone as I stomped the ground and spread my arms with effort, in turn causing two of the Rock Boxes to open up a space for me.
"Oi, what the hell are you planning? I’m not too fond of that look on your face; it’s screaming that you’re up to something crazy…Taylor….OI TAYLOR!" Brenden screamed before another loud boom ripped his attention away from me and caused him to sigh in defeat.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking, "Taylor, what do the jumbled particles in the air have to do with anything?" And for that, there are really two answers; the first is me going through the long, drawn-out explanation of nuclear fission and fusion, smashing atoms together and whatnot, but I will save you from that and give you this instead.
Much like in nature, the bigger creature eats the smaller one, and the same could be said about particles. Generally, lower-grade particles, like, say, Alpha Particles, won’t exist for long in an environment filled with Gamma Particles. Yet, they can usually continue floating around with Beta, the reason being the Law Figured out in the Origin Timeline, called the Law of Stepping Energy.
Updat𝒆d fr𝑜m freewebnøvel.com.
Picture the Ranks of Particles as a large staircase, with Alpha being the bottom step and Omega the top, but each step is larger than the last, with each stair having a numerical value.
Alpha = 1.5
Beta = 3
Gamma = 6
Delta = 12
Zeta = 24
Theta = 48
Sigma = 96
Omega = 192
The Law of Stepping Energy dictates that if the sum total of the particle content in the air is less than that of the Most Powerful Energy Particle, it will create an unstable environment for the particles and, as such, becomes susceptible to outside forces.