Chapter 165
Chapter 165
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 165
Chapter Title: The Third Rune - 3
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One of the walls crumbled down, and monsters came pouring out from within. They were all just trash mobs you'd see in the early areas. It was as if they were blatantly urging me to test out the rune’s performance.
Unless you had some kind of rune dispel magic, by the time you reached this point, your rune slots were usually full, so most people couldn’t test them even if they wanted to.
I changed the attribute of Wingless Nightmare. The blade glowed blue. Black magic was magic at the end of the day, so it naturally received the amplification effect from Wingless Nightmare’s attribute boost.
I gripped the weapon in my right hand again. Then, I slightly crooked the fingers of my left hand, preparing to cast the black magic Nix had just taught me.
As I focused my mind, I felt the familiar sensation of mana draining away, accompanied by my stamina decreasing as well. It was similar to using the special ability of Bloodstained Blade.
The higher the tier of black magic, the more stamina it consumed, and since it absorbed a fixed amount of stamina, with my trash-tier stamina of just 1 stat point, even one spell could leave me on the brink of death.
But from now on, stamina costs were irrelevant. I had obtained the Vampiric Impulse rune.
Once I finished preparing, a black flame identical in color to Nix’s eyes ignited in my left palm. It was a peculiar fire that didn’t emit light but rather absorbed it.
“Hehe, you’re good at this.”
Nix grinned foolishly at the sight of me.
I ignored Nix’s words and brought my left hand to the crossguard just above Wingless Nightmare’s blade. Then, I pushed upward from the bottom, as if drawing the sword from its sheath.
With a whooshing roar, the flames blooming in my hand transferred to Wingless Nightmare. As the black flames flickered, heat haze distorted the air. The monsters’ forms warped beyond it.
This was the “Burning Black Flame” enchant—one of the ultimate builds for melee characters in Dakla Mode.
I gripped Wingless Nightmare, now flickering with black flames, in both hands. Since it was my own spell, the flames weren’t hot at all.
The monsters staggered toward me. Despite their weak appearances, they were strengthened according to the rune dungeon’s location, so even at my specs, it’d probably take two or three normal hits to kill one.
I approached the nearest monster. It let out a bizarre screech and charged at me.
—Clang!
A crisp sound rang out, and the monster’s right arm, swung toward me, bounced back. I had no intention of giving it time to recover from the stiffness. I swung my sword.
As Wingless Nightmare sliced horizontally across its chest, black flames erupted along the blade’s path, burning the flesh and corroding it from within.
The follow-up came next. The blade traced a path from lower left to upper right, grazing its head precisely. Its legs buckled hard.
‘As expected.’
As it staggered and began to collapse backward, a bright red dot appeared right in the center of its chest. For some reason, it was a UI identical to the game’s. Probably only visible to me.
I grabbed its head as my body moved on instinct, then thrust Wingless Nightmare into its throat just before the red dot vanished.
At that moment, a sensation of stamina recovery washed over me, just like chugging a health potion when HP was low. It meant the Vampiric Impulse rune had activated properly.
I yanked the sword from its neck and tossed the corpse aside carelessly. Moments later, the monster’s body was engulfed in black flames and reduced to a pile of ash.
“Wow…….”
Nix clapped from behind, letting out an exclamation. For a second, I felt embarrassed and thought about telling her to stop, but she’d probably sulk, so I let it be.
I charged at the next monster. Just like before, I deflected its flailing right arm and swiftly landed two normal hits.
Once again, a bright red dot appeared at the center of its body. Like with the first one, I grabbed its head with one hand and plunged the sword into its neck. The health potion sensation hit again.
I pulled Wingless Nightmare free and scanned for the next target. Among these spawns, there should’ve been one that attacked from range.
‘Ah, there it is.’
Spotting a monster a short distance away nocking an arrow, I prepared to cast another black magic spell.
Just in case, I went with the first spell Nix had taught me—for practice.
I finished casting inwardly, and my left hand suddenly felt as heavy as if a weight were attached, only to lighten again moments later. I thrust my left hand forward.
—Crunch!
The arrow turned into a clump of black something the instant it touched my left hand. That black something was sucked straight into my palm. Confirming the absorption, I yanked my left arm back and bent my elbow.
Success.
Without the Vampiric Impulse rune, using Burning Black Flame and then this spell would’ve drained my stamina dry, killing me before I could even cast. But right now, I was perfectly fine.
‘Can’t reduce the delay on this thing, huh?’
I glanced down at my left hand.
I’d practiced this spell for three whole days already, but its startup and recovery delays refused to shorten. I’d wondered if I could cancel the motion midway, but no luck.
“Wow……!”
The applause this time was even more enthusiastic than before. I swallowed hard against the wave of embarrassment.
To recover my stamina, I killed two more trash mobs, then cleanly ignored the rest and fell back. Nix was staring at me with eyes sparkling more than usual.
“The rest are yours, Nix.”
“Hehe, got it.”
Without hesitation, Nix conjured a massive black fireball above her palm and flung it forward with a swing of her hand. The black fireball slammed directly onto the remaining monsters’ heads.
The trash mobs hit dead-on by the black flames evaporated without a trace.
“Good work.”
I patted Nix’s head. She grinned from ear to ear. I smiled in satisfaction too. That wrapped up the performance test for Vampiric Impulse.
The ‘Vampiric Impulse’ rune lived up to its name: it allowed stamina recovery upon killing enemies.
Once you whittled down an enemy’s health with it equipped, a red dot appeared briefly. Attacking the marked target triggered an execution animation, finishing the enemy and restoring the player’s stamina.
There were over dozens of execution animations. Since each mob type had its own unique ones, the number ballooned.
Even bosses—excluding palette-swapped variants—each had unique executions. It was one of the elements encouraging multiple playthroughs.
‘Though it wasn’t all that useful in practice.’
It sounded essential from the description, but Vampiric Impulse saw almost zero adoption in real fights. At best, idle veterans used it for fun.
The recovery amount was fixed regardless of the enemy, and that fixed amount was a measly 50 HP.
Once your stamina stat hit 30k, HP exceeded 1500, so who’d care about a puny 50 HP restore? Especially for knights, with their newbie-friendly past feats—stamina 30 was a breeze.
‘But things are different now.’
Past Feat of the Abandoned started with a measly 1 stamina stat, for an initial HP of just 100.
But that’s exactly why it could make the most of Vampiric Impulse’s 50 HP recovery. No matter how much health you lost, two kills brought you right back to full.
Pairing ‘Vampiric Impulse’ with Burning Black Flame enchants was the ultimate melee build in Dakla Mode. It nailed both stability and damage.
It was viable in vanilla too, for that matter.
There was just no reason to when you could invest in more stats to tank a few hits instead of walking a tightrope with 1 stamina.
In Dakla Mode, no amount of stamina investment saved you from one-shots, so no need to pump it—hence these freakish builds.
‘Just one more rune to go.’
One last rune, and I could eliminate mana costs for black magic too, achieving true infinite power.
Trash mob fights wouldn’t need potions anymore—stamina pots were everywhere in the form of enemies. Why bother otherwise?
It wouldn’t work in boss fights where you couldn’t recover from kills, but then just swap to eclipse enchants or elemental ones instead of black magic.
“Heeheehehehehehe…….”
A weird laugh snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked down. While pondering the future, I’d kept petting Nix’s head, and she was starting to melt limply.
I pulled my hand away. Nix, on the verge of liquifying, snapped back to awareness.
“A-amazing. Really, truly amazing.”
Now fully lucid, Nix’s eyes gleamed slyly as she showered me with praise. Her enormous chest jiggled wildly.
“Amazing how? What part?”
“That spell. The one you just used. How do you cast it so perfectly? Hehe. I made it and can’t even use it right. Tried once and got wrecked, gave up.”
“Oh, you mean ‘Ash to Ash’?”
“Yeah. Hehe.”
Nix meant the spell called ‘Ash to Ash’—the one I used to block the arrow.
It absorbed any projectile, no questions asked, then boosted the power of your next black magic by up to 50%, proportional to the projectile’s damage.
Like Burning Black Flame, enchant spells got stronger weapon damage, and with heavy attack spells, one boost could shift damage by an order of magnitude.
It sucked up any projectile and hurled it back amplified, earning its cheat spell reputation.
If you could use it right.
‘I don’t even remember how many hours I sank practicing this.’
Timing this thing was a nightmare.
Startup and recovery delays were brutally long, no super armor or invincibility during, and the absorption window was insultingly short.
Data miners confirmed: projectile absorption lasted a measly 0.35 seconds. You had to touch it with your extended hand in that window.
The hitbox was decently wide—side to side, not front-back—so a slight timing miss or early trigger meant “It whiffed?!” and neck-grabbing frustration galore.
Plus, it was forward-only, so side or back projectiles? Nope. Reasons it sucked weren’t random.
‘Once you adapt, though, no cheat skill beats it.’
Of course, I was the exception.
Like any high-skill tech, veterans who could reflex it treated it as basic. I was one of them.
Startup and recovery irked me a bit, but I had every attack’s activation memorized—no reason not to use it.
Stamina drain? Runes covered that now.
“Easy. Just practice.”
“I practiced and still couldn’t, hehehe…….”
Nix fidgeted her fingers in front of her chest.
She wasn’t wrong. It just took a ton of practice. Dying repeatedly in-game took dozens of hours to reach this level—here, probably decades.
“Now we head back to the city, right?”
“Yeah. Set the teleport coords to the rune dungeon entrance for now. Sorry, but you’ll have to wait alone this time, Nix. I’ll grab the others and be right back.”
“Hehe, it’s fine. Take your time. I’m used to waiting alone.”
Since we’d been here before, she’d memorized the coords—I hadn’t even pulled out the map before a black magic circle enveloped us. The familiar floating sensation hit as my feet left the ground.
‘No trouble while we were gone, right?’
We’d only been here a few hours—surely nothing went down in that short time.