HOT NOVEL UPDATES

Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 9 - Chapter 3




Hint: To Play after pausing the player, use this button

Chapter Three: Legendary 
About a certain special reward... 
Special rewards were items that took the main traits of a UBM and adjusted them to suit the MVP’s needs. 
Ray’s first special reward, Miasmaflame Bracers, Gardranda, was no exception. The three skills it had were the UBM’s traits adjusted to suit Ray. 
The first two skills were obvious. 
The flame and miasma abilities wielded by Gardranda had been turned into the easy-to-use skills known as “Purgatorial Flames” and “Hellish Miasma.” 
So this might lead you to the question of what kind of trait was adapted to create the third skill of Miasmaflame Princess: Gardranda. 
The hobgoblin herself had explained it, in fact: “I’m manifesting like this because I was defeated before the conditions to unleash my true power were fulfilled and I could break the shell and be born... probably?” 
As a UBM, Gardranda had been originally designed to be monster with multiple stages. The death of the parent body, the Great Miasmic Hobgoblin, should have brought about the true form: the Miasmaflame Princess. 
That meant that the Great Miasmic Hobgoblin’s third trait was “birth.” 
Thus, upon its defeat, the power to summon the Miasmaflame Princess had become a skill. 
Needless to say, this skill was insanely powerful, as it allowed the wielder to call forth a creature as strong as — or, in Gardranda’s case, even stronger than — the original UBM. It wasn’t on the level of Superior items, but it was still powerful. 
Too powerful, even. 
No one man could be allowed to wield such power so easily, and that was why the skill came with three major limitations. 
The first was the unlock condition, which Ray had already cleared. 
Just like Paladin’s Grand Cross, powerful skills were often barred behind certain conditions, and for Miasmaflame Princess, that was becoming MVP against three UBMs. 
Defeating UBMs was no easy task. Even Marie, a Superior Job who’d killed Ray once, had only beaten two, and even among Superiors, you had those who’d never won against a single one, such as “The Unknown” wannabe, Gerbera. 
This skill had ended up with such a condition because it, too, was adjusted for Ray. 
To the system, Ray’s primary trait in the fight against Gardranda was being a low-level entity who’d defeated a UBM and become MVP. 
Thus, that was considered during the conversion, and the condition to unlock the third skill became “becoming MVP against three UBMs.” 
It was set to that under the assumption that Ray could surely fulfill it. If the unlock condition had somehow ended up being different, it surely would’ve been just as difficult for him. 
Regardless, he’d cleared this condition by defeating the Great Miasmic Hobgoblin, Gardranda; Revenant Ox-Horse, Gouz-Maise; and the recent Void of the Black Sky, Monochrome. 
The second limitation was the MP cost. 
To manifest and fight at full power, Miasmaflame Princess, Gardranda used 1,000 MP per second. 
Even high-rank magic jobs couldn’t keep her up for more than 10 seconds, and even level 500 casters couldn’t break through 30. That was how severe the cost was. 
This wasn’t adjusted to Ray or anything — it was just the natural cost of using something so powerful — but Ray was able to clear that, too. 
Due to the recent Monochrome battle and the panic right here in Quartierlatin, his Grudge-Soaked Greaves had gathered enough negative energy to produce 400,000 MP — enough for the Miasmaflame Princess to be active for a whole 400 seconds. 
And the third limitation, the post-use punishment, was something Ray was more than ready for. 
With these conditions cleared, Gardranda was made manifest and faced Ray’s foe with all her might. 
 
Prism Rider, Ray Starling 
One Gigaknight exploded, and Gardranda targeted the other one. 
The scene made the Hell General make a strained smile and force a laugh. “H-HA HA HA HA! I’ll praise you for one-hit-killing a hurt Gigaknight! B-But that flame has to be a one-time use skill!” 
He was right. 
Because she was a summon, Gardranda didn’t use a single point of minion capacity, but I still had access to her stat and detail screens. Three of the skills listed there — Purgatorial Flames, Purgatorial Fist, and Purgatorial Flames: Zero — had become unusable. 
That had to be a side effect from the “Zero” skill. That made sense, as it seemed powerful enough to come with such a powerful negative. Gardranda wouldn’t be able to use the flames for the rest of the summon time. 
“This goblin is the ace up your sleeve, right?!” Logan continued. “And now it’s lost its ultimate attack! That means my Gigaknight will win!” 
He extended his hand to the remaining devil and named some skills. 
“Boosted Devil Strength! Boosted Devil Endurance! Boosted Devil Agilityyyyy!” 
Once he was done, the Gigaknight began glowing in three different colors and became way more menacing than before. 
“HA! I used my Rumpelstiltskin to multiply these buffs by ten! The Gigaknight’s STR, END, and AGI are up by 200 percent! I’ll crush your goblin to dust!” 
I had no words for this. Why hadn’t he used these buffs before? Was he unable to use them while he had his devil army? Was it unlocked when their numbers dropped? 
“200 percent, eh?” Nemesis pondered. “That means its STR and END are over 30,000, and it can move faster than the speed of sound.” 
I know what you’re getting at, I thought back. You’re wondering if Gardranda can win. And honestly, I’m not sure... 
I switched to speaking aloud. “But you and I both know she’s not easy to beat, right?” 
“...True.” 
The first UBM I’d ever fought was fearsome, tough, and crazy strong. 
I couldn’t even imagine how this Gardranda, who was even stronger than that one, could ever be defeated. 
“By the way, Nemesis...” I began. 
“Yes, I know.” 
It wasn’t just Gardranda. We had to act, too. 
But for that, we needed the Hell General to— 
“HA HA HA! Gigaknight! Show this low-rank the power... of a Superior!” 
“W o W o w o O o O o o o O o O O o o O o O O!” 
The buffed Gigaknight followed its summoner’s orders, crushing the pavement beneath as it dashed straight towards me. 
As if completely ignoring the goblin, it raised its blade and swung it down at me. 
But Gardranda stopped it with a palm strike that blasted it away. 
“I knew you looked like the type to do something... like that,” I said. 
“W o O O o!” The attack tore open the dented armor and dug a hole in its flesh, but the Gigaknight didn’t seem to care, and just roared at her while moving the insect legs peeking from its helmet. Its END was now so high that even that didn’t mean much to it. 
Still, since Gardranda was as relentless as her mother, the STR she’d delivered with her strike was immense enough to send it a whole eight meters back. 
“If you want to beat Ray, you need to beat me... first,” said Gardranda. 
“She sounds like some rival character who switched sides after you beat her,” commented Nemesis. 
Well... that’s pretty much what she is, right? 
“Also, Ray, heal up... okay? As you are, you’ll die even if you get the... good one.” 
“Yeah,” I said in realization. I reached into my inventory, took out an HP Potion, and started downing it. 
Gardranda moved right between me and the Gigaknight, posing in a way that basically screamed, “You’re not getting past me!” Man, was she reliable. 
Also... with all his antagonism towards Gardranda, I really hadn’t expected Logan to launch a surprise attack on me. What a piece of work. 
“Tch...!” The Hell General clicked his tongue. “All right, then I’ll crush you first! It’ll be easy! The Gigaknight has way better stats than you!” 
“Way better stats?” Gardranda tilted her head. “Not anymore.” 
No one else here — not even Nemesis and I — understood what she meant by that. 
At least, until the Gigaknight moaned in pain and fell to its knees. 
“WHA—?!” Logan exclaimed. 
“It’s got half of what it had before... I guess?” said Gardranda, and I finally noticed that her right hand was covered in a dark purple miasma. 
It was like the legendary Chinese martial art, poison fist. She was wielding the three debuffs like a weapon on her hand. 
Seeing that made me remember the concept of punching with fists imbued with Gardranda’s flames or miasma. I’d done that by accident when finishing off Franklin. 
I wanted to try and replicate that, but it was difficult with miasma, and it had been impossible with the flames because I’d lost my left arm. 
Gardranda herself, though, was doing that as if it was natural. 
Well, she does have Purgatorial Fist and Hellish Hand in her skill list, I thought. 
“But Hellish Miasma didn’t work on them before, did it?” Nemesis asked, and I could see where she was coming from. 
We’d tried it on the first Gigaknight, and it had done nothing. The second one couldn’t have weaker resistances, so there had to be some other reason. 
“Umm, my miasma is stronger... and I compressed it... see?” Gardranda explained. 
“Compressed? Ah...” 
I was familiar with the concept of debuff compression. We’d seen Miss Eldritch do it in The Lunar Society’s headquarters. But I was surprised Gardranda had been able to learn it from inside the Miasmaflame Bracers. 
“So she’s actually above her true power now,” I said. 
Kasumi had told me that summoned monsters became stronger the more you used them, but right here, we had one who had learned new things before even the first summon. That was insane. 
“Hellish Miasma,” she said as she released the purple mist upon the ground. It didn’t rise any higher than my waist. 
It was both a debilitating miasma and a smokescreen that hid her when she lowered herself. 
“W o O o O O, w O o o O o O o O O!” Still afflicted by the debuffs, the Gigaknight stood up, swung its blade, and tried to bash Gardranda away with its shield, but not a single one of its hits landed. 
It wasn’t because it’d lost sight of her in the miasma. 
It was like my one-on-one battle against Logan. She’d predicted its attacks, evaded them, then punched back. 
It wasn’t like a fight between two Masters, where a single ultimate skill could end it all, but that made the gap between their abilities all the more obvious. 
“This is odd,” said Nemesis. “She’s spread a smokescreen, yet she moves in such an erratic manner. Don’t you agree?” 
I did. Gardranda had created a smokescreen, but instead of using it, she was just moving around at supersonic speeds, making a mess of it and making it easy to see where she was. 
What’s the point...? I wondered, right before I noticed Gardranda looking at us. 
It was a signal of some sort, and I understood exactly what she was getting at when she was out of Logan’s sight and pointed at the smoke below. 
“I see,” Nemesis said. “So that’s the purpose of this miasma.” 
“Yeah... We can actually pull it off now.” 
As we agreed on what we had to do, I sunk Nemesis, still in her sword form, into the miasma. 
“Impossible!” Logan roared, clearly irritated by what he was seeing. “Mine’s a Legendary devil! How can it lose against a low-rank goblin thing?!” 
“That devil is Legendary... that’s true,” Gardranda nodded. “Its stats are about the same as mine... and I’m Legendary. But...” She made an extremely annoyed face. “We aren’t simple enough to be measured just by rank. Your ready-made devils... don’t have the ‘self’ to stand a chance against a real UBM... understand?” 
It felt like this was a matter of pride to her. 
She was original and one-of-a-kind, and thus she was confident that no mass-produced devil summoned by magic alone could match her, same tier or not. 
“I was born out of a man-eating hobgoblin, and turned out as a human-goblin hybrid,” she added. “That’s why I can move, think, and learn like a human. Since becoming a special reward, I’ve watched the movements of many rankers, experienced knights... and even Superiors. By watching, I understood, and by understanding, I learned.” 

She wasn’t lying. Some of her movements actually looked Shu’s and Figaro’s. 
Perhaps this was Gardranda’s true power? 
“Compared to that, your devil is so weak,” she said scornfully. “Its movements are patterned, and it only relies on its stats.” 
“W o, w O o o O O!” 
The Gigaknight wasn’t mad at her for insulting it — it didn’t have the mind for that — but it still attacked Gardranda right at that moment with a horizontal slash. 
She caught it between her elbow and knee, and then, like a master karate artist, turned the attack around and broke the blade. 
“You didn’t buff the weapons... huh?” she scoffed before running up her opponent’s arm and launching a knee kick into the head — the Shining Wizard, as it was called. It made its helmet fly off. 
Its head was repulsive. It looked like it had a human face with insect legs growing out of it. 
Gardranda didn’t seem to mind as she bared her fangs, sank them into its windpipe, and tore out its flesh. 
“Ewwww.” She voiced her displeasure. “Ray was way more... tasty.” 
“o, w o o o...!” 
The damage to its throat made it lose its voice, but the Gigaknight still fought on, swinging its shield. 
Gardranda easily evaded it and said, “32 seconds left. I’ll just end this... okay?” 
Missing the shield attack rendered the Gigaknight defenseless. 
Gardranda raised her right leg, aimed it at its neck... 
“Kodachi.” 
...and launched Shu’s forte right into its torn windpipe. 
The already-damaged neck couldn’t bear Gardranda’s attack, and the Gigaknight lost its head. 
Then Gardranda jumped on its shoulders and sunk her hand down its neck, saying, “Hellish Miasma: Zero.” 
Basic Hellish Miasma was a skill that gave the Poison, Intoxication, and Weakness debuffs. But in Gardranda’s hands, it showed its true power and became something far more fearsome. 
You could hear the body melt as the red of blood, the black of rotting flesh, and the white of melted bone poured out from the spaces in its armor... and quickly became bits of light. 
The battle was over. 
The Legendary devil, Gigaknight, had been completely powerless against the Legendary goblin UBM, Gardranda. 
“N-No way...” Logan muttered in shock. 
Gardranda eyed him, then looked at us. 
“Time’s up... I guess.” 
Just like the Gigaknight she’d just defeated, she herself was turning into light. 
The 400 seconds — the time I’d given her with the 400,000 MP from Gouz-Maise — had expired. 
But that didn’t matter much, as she had done her job. 
“The rest is up to you two,” she tilted her head to look at us. “Do your best, Ray.” 
And so, she vanished, leaving behind nothing but the bracers, which made a metallic noise as they fell on the pavement. 
“Gh...” I grunted. Right when she disappeared, my body became extremely heavy. 
I looked at my stats and saw the three debuffs — Poison, Intoxication, and Weakness. 
“Looks like I was lucky this time,” I said. 
Miasmaflame Princess: Gardranda not only cost an immense amount of MP — it also came with a powerful post-usage side effect. 
There were three possible side effects, and I was fortunate enough to have gotten the least bad of the three — incurable debuffs that lasted three times as long as the summon did. 
If it had been one of the other two (three times as long burning or three times as long loss of control over my body), I’d have been done for. 
But as things were, I could end this. 
“Ha! HA HA HA HA! I’ll praise you for beating two of my Gigaknights!” Logan laughed. 
He already had two more Gigaknights at his side. He must’ve waited until Gardranda vanished to summon them. 
“But unlike you and your monster, I can summon dozens more Gigaknights and thousands more Soldier Devils! You put up a fight, but you didn’t change anything! You’ll still lose!” 
He was talking sense. 
I was a low-rank, while he was a Superior. 
He was several tiers above me, and I’d no doubt lose if I kept on fighting. 
With the difference between us, my chances of victory were close to zero. 
But... it was already over. 
“Hell General, Logan Goddhart...” I called out to him. “You’re done.” 
I lifted Nemesis out of the miasma that was hiding her. 
She was neither The Black Blade, nor The Flag Halberd. 
She was now a spinning blade reminiscent of a five-bladed pinwheel — a windstar. 
Third form ? — Shooting Wheel. 
It had the power to chase after the target with AGI equal to a tenth of the damage they’d inflicted upon me, then giving it back to them three-fold. It was a long-range, auto-seeking counter-attack. 
It had a flaw in its charge time, but thanks to Gardranda, that was already done. 
If I’d attacked Logan while she was still fighting, he’d have summoned the third and fourth Gigaknights right at that moment. And If I’d started charging the Shooting Wheel where he could see it, he’d have noticed and stopped me. 
But thanks to the miasma, the smokescreen Gardranda had set upon the ground, he hadn’t noticed it. 
The reason why she’d made a mess of the miasma with her supersonic speeds was to hide the movements caused by the Shooting Wheel’s spinning. 
Nemesis and I had done the charging while Gardranda was keeping Logan distracted with her fight against the Gigaknight. 
Everything was set. 
I couldn’t move right because of the debuffs, but that didn’t get in the way of launching the next and final attack. 
Logan gasped, realizing the power I was wielding, then started chanting something. “‘H-Here and now, I consign this unique treasure!’” he said, making one of his items vanish. 
“Payback...” I began saying the name of my own skill. 
“‘In exchange for its limitless value, grant me a moment of power!’” 
Alas, his chant came far too late. 
Perhaps it wouldn’t have turned out this way if he’d chosen to do this while Gardranda and the Gigaknight were still fighting. 
“...Beyond the...” 
“‘Come from the ancient times, O endless devil!’” 
Perhaps what he was trying to summon right now was his ultimate trump card. 
But, again, it was far too late. 
“...Stars.” 
“C-Call Devil Ze—” 
The shooting star flew. 
Going at five times the speed of sound, it closed the less-than-a-hundred-meter distance between us before hitting him and unleashing the damage. 
With Veldorbell having destroyed Logan’s Brooch, he now had no means of resisting. 
The damage exceeding 1,500,000 turned him into dust, not even giving him the chance to say his final words. 
All that was left were some random drops and the shattered pieces of his custom-made armor — the proof of his death penalty. 
I said nothing. 
I’d just won against the Hell General, Logan Goddhart — a Superior. However, that barely made me feel anything. 
Perhaps that was because he’d underestimated me and hadn’t gone all-out, even for a second. 
Or maybe this was just the kind of victory that just couldn’t give me any joy. Perhaps all it could make me feel was just... emptiness at the fact that so many irreplaceable, priceless things had been lost to someone like this. 
“Phew...” I tried to think of some words, but all that came out was a sigh. 
I reached into my inventory, took out an HP potion, and downed it. 
As the debuffs made my body feel heavy, I lay down right where I stood. 
 
Earth, ??? 
“AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!” the person screamed, jumped out of the bed, lost himself to rage, took off the Infinite Dendrogram hardware, threw it into the wall, then stomped on it over and over, breaking it completely. 
As if that wasn’t enough, he started kicking around everything else in the room. Magazines, cushions, his elementary schooler backpack, and his homework... nothing escaped his rage as he tried to let go of something whirling within. 
“I... I-I lost to a... low-rank... in a fight... I even used a... special reward... WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” 
The little boy who wasn’t even in middle school yet screamed as if that would make his defeat go away. 
You’d expect someone to hear and come to check on him, but his room was specially designed to be completely soundproof “to let the boy focus on his studies,” so no one was overhearing this moment of madness. 
After raging around for a while, the boy — the real identity of the Hell General, Logan Goddhart — started shouting something more coherent. 
“I’m supposed to be better than everyone else! In school and Infinite Dendrogram! No one’s supposed to be better! I’m the best gamer! It’s not fair!” 
That was when he realized his temper had led him to break his game hardware. 
For a moment, a chill went down his spine, but then he remembered that it registered brain waves, so all he had to do was buy another one. It was just money. 
He calmed down a bit and started muttering. 
“It’s that old fart’s fault. I didn’t know he’d be there, and I wouldn’t have lost if he hadn’t been. That was a 2v1, and they used dirty tricks. Why could he even use a UBM?! That’s not fair! I’ll mail the devs and—!” 
He spoke as though he’d forgotten about his army and Legendary devils, but his excuses were cut short by a message he received on his mobile device. 
“Who...?” He looked at it and became petrified. 
The message said, “Not so hot now are ya, Your Excellency? (GIT REKT. L M A O)” 
The sender was “Mr. Franklin.” 
That was the name of the Superior he was most antagonistic towards, and the message irritated him like nothing else. 
He suddenly realized that Franklin must have used his monsters to observe the whole battle just now, just like he’d done during the Liliana incident. 
The message also came with a URL leading to a video site, showing the entire fight between Hell General and Ray Starling. 
The boy suddenly realized that his embarrassing defeat had been made available to the public. The shock caused him to throw his phone at the wall. 
He then proceeded to bury his face in a cushion, wetting it with tears. 
 





COMMENTS

No Comments Yet

Post a new comment

Register or Login