Henry's First Challenge

Henry: “Tch, two monsters at once? Isn’t this a little unfair guys? Oh, I see. Both of you have the stones in your heads. I guess it’s my lucky day.”

Henry had swam to the bottom of the abyss eventually to a floor with a teleportation pad that brought him to a new room where these monsters awoke from their sleep with the intention to kill Henry.

They were white foxes with holes in their skin. It was an ugly sight to Henry, but there was no bleeding. Seconds later, chaplets emerged from inside of their body to fill the holes. ‘They can use chaplets?’ Henry questioned in his mind, although he said this as a way to try to avoid the fear running down his spine. He was confident, in fact a little too confident in most situations. He never really knew the severity of situations that he got in. He always reminded himself that this was his job. He talked a big game in front of people to assure his stance in society, however, this was Henry’s downfall. He was stronger than his own belief.

When he was a kid, he didn’t really get bullied because of his size, but one day, he heard his father screaming at his mother while he was practicing his sword training in his room. He was drunk and began to hit his mother.

He paced back and forth not knowing what to do and when he went to open the door to do something about it, he still could not open it despite the fact that his mother was in danger.

His father killed her and her screams echoed through the thick door, but still, he could not open the door. This is when he realized that he was limited by his own mind, which carried on with him in life. For some reason, he just couldn’t believe in himself to do anything, but he later dedicated his life to serving Mugen and rose in the ranks through missions for years and years. However, even on missions, he doubted his skills even though he always prevailed and talked a big game, and now these two foxes in front of him gleaming with mana with access to chaplets were a big threat in his eyes.

Their appearance kept him on his toes.

Red mana lines lined their white fur.

He observed the chaplets in their skin.

They were all rare or above. He knew all of their abilities. The 4 rare chaplets consisted of a Cryosphera chaplet, Teravox chaplet, Luxflare chaplet, and a Seed chaplet. The legendary chaplet in both of their skins was an Atheron chaplet. Most of the abilities were associated with sound, light, or ice, but the Atheron chaplet was not something to mess around with.

There are 4 of them in the world and the only reason that Henry knew what it was, was because Mugen already had one in his collection. He knew they were going to use that first, which was going to cause a huge problem. It exponentially increased their mana flow every minute. Their mana lines would grow thicker and if used correctly, it would increase the other chaplet's powers until they defeated their enemy or they were defeated. It also could summon a random chaplet of the user’s choice, but at half the power.

Henry stood still and began to talk as if to reason with them, but the foxes both darted at him right away, not even giving him a second to think. He dashed out of the way via his ability and ran across the sides of the walls. He had a decent amount of space to work with and could use the terrain to his advantage with his skillset.

Like he thought, the foxes both used the Atheron Chaplet. The mana lines increased in size, the chaplets in strength, and their strength doubled. “Sonic Blur!” he called out, purposely missing to create craters in the ground.

The one advantage that he could use is to change the layout of the cave. The foxes opened their mouths together and shot out a red pulse of mana at him. It was intense, but Henry used Sonic Blur to cancel it out. They used the Teravox chaplet right after, which hindered Henry.

It paused the moment in time and reverted it back to where he was. He couldn’t get close to them. They spewed out more red pulses of mana into the ground, which went straight to their target. It threw off his balance and no matter where he went, he couldn’t outrun the terrain.

They had turned his advantage against him, so he bounced throughout the air while they fired another shot of red pulsed mana at him. He ducked underneath and darted at them to swing furiously, but their agility was unmatched and circled him on the ground.

Their speed increased rapidly until there were just afterimages of red mana that stretched out as ropes, slapping Henry across the body and burning his skin. “Echo Resonance!” he called out, turning these ropes back onto the foxes, however this did no damage.

They quickly cancelled out their ability and darted back at Henry, slicing at his legs on the already burnt sections. “Agh! Damn bastards!” he howled out. Henry’s blue mana lines did not fade, but he felt his energy draining. He bounced around as fast as possible while using a Verdant Chaplet that he had been saving. It was an uncommon chaplet that increased stamina. He figured the mana ropes had something to do with his energy draining, but he was good to go for now.

‘I can’t get hit by another one of those ropes. It’s like a poison to my physical body. I only have one more Verdant Chaplet. The hell do I do? They are faster than me and they took away the ground from me. I have no movement. I’m suspended midair.’

The foxes used the Cryosphera Chaplet, which was similar to what the large snake did to Henry, turning the entire area into a frozen wasteland with ice soldiers rising from the ground. The temperature dropped to absolute zero. Henry’s body started to freeze within seconds.

Henry: “Oh no you don’t! Siren’s Tremor!”

One large disrupting sound wave broke the icy environment immediately before the rest of the soldiers could rise. The ice turned into shards that dropped to the ground to decrease the cold that enveloped the area. Their icicle armor crumbled to the ground while Henry knocked one of the foxes off balance and targeted it with the tip of the blade.

“Harmonic Chains! Symphony Bind!”

His chains reached the fox as he quickly made his way down the chains and held his sword in front of the fox to slice its throat when he realized he messed up. The mana lines had grown significantly thick since the time of the battle and they lit up, exploding right in his body. He backed off in time, but still felt the effects of it draining his energy. He used his last Verdant Chaplet to fix this.

Henry: “You both are pretty slimy creatures. Why don’t you just give up and give me the stones inside your heads. I won’t even kill you. I just need those two and I’ll be on my way.”

His words pissed off the foxes even more as they both used the Luxflare Chaplets, which used light to heal their wounds, but also discharged shards of light similar to certain abilities of swords that forced him to use Precision’s Boost longer than he intended to do so.

His mana started to deplete now.

Not only that, but his stamina was decreasing too. Henry was fortunate that they weren’t above the surface, otherwise Luxflare’s effects would have been stronger, using rings of fire and a barrier that connected to the sun. He had nothing that could’ve countered that. ‘Dammit, you stupid animals are gonna force me to do this, aren’t you? Here goes nothing.’

Henry tossed a Rose Chaplet to the ground, followed by a Smile Chaplet, creating 2 condensed barriers beginning to form. As they did, Henry shouted out two abilities. Harmony Cage, which trapped all three of them in a barrier of sound that nobody could escape, and finally, Shattercry, which was an ability that Henry tried not to use because it would kill him too in most cases, but he was relying on the chaplet's strong barrier abilities to protect him. He threw down 4 Earth Chaplets as extra protection around him.

Shattercry completely broke the sound barrier of the environment that he was in, causing a complete collapse of the cave. It was similar to his other abilities, but way stronger and could break certain chaplets abilities with ease, however he always hesitated to use it, even in situations where he encountered death. The sound of large rocks and boulders fell down, closing off the entire area, which was a separate problem that Henry would deal with when he knew they were dead.

The barriers were strong enough to hold him.

He dispersed them as he used the strength he had left to break the excess rocks that fell down. He broke through more material to get to the dead foxes on the ground, yanking the stones out of their foreheads. “Cost me a lot for you both,” he said out loud. “I wish your chaplets wouldn’t have busted too. I would’ve taken those too, but your generosity is much appreciated.”

He headed off to the tight room with the chalice, but before he did, the foxes bodies started to bloat and were about to explode. “Crap!” he thought, and darted off quick as they exploded 2x the amount as shattercry did. Henry’s body was half burnt and it was hard to move. “Dammit!!!” he screamed out loud in pain. He could move, but it hurt to an extreme level. “I need a Healing Chaplet. This is gonna freaking hurt!”

He ventured back to the chalice room and put both stones into the glistening cup. It levitated in the air, lighting up in a yellow blinding luminosity. It cracked and shattered until eventually falling into pieces, revealing a chaplet in the center of it. A green glass orb shrouded in green mana.

Dark green mana lines encased it in a pattern with white spots that almost looked like paint. However, these white spots were not actually on the chaplet. There was a small barrier caused by the green mana that didn’t allow Henry to touch the actual inside of the chaplet. The white spots covered this part and on the right side, hundreds of these spots appeared like a shield, moving around constantly, connecting to the green mana.

Henry was right about his assumption.

He had figured it was going to be legendary, but he didn’t know which one. He knew from a glance what it was, but had never held it before. “The Dreadcore Chaplet,” he spoke out loud. “Only two in the world. You little thing can feed on fear eh? How does that work? I’ll have to ask Mugen. I didn’t wanna read that whole page on one chaplet. I just needed the image and location. Honestly, I thought you were gonna be a Crux chaplet, but this is much better in terms of a fight. The Crux Chaplet would just destroy everything in its path. We don’t have that yet, but there are 2 as well available. I doubt someone has it. Alright, where do I go now? W-Wah, Woah, woah, woah! What’s going on?!”

Blue shards of light sparked from the ground before engulfing him, bringing him back to where he started. His shoes were laced in the dirty water from before and the old man was no longer there.

No danger was in sight.

He walked back across the broken bridge. The only thing that was the same were the people screaming in pain on the side that still did not bother him. He whistled while he walked, glancing around at them, who now were angered for no particular reason. They screamed and threw rocks at him before eventually running after him. He sped up to the door and waited before exiting and purposely triggered the explosions, trapping them inside and closing off the door.

He threw rocks at the entrance showing his frustration with the place before exiting back through the purple vines. He looked at the map that Mugen gave him for his next target. He sighed, knowing that this was going to be the most difficult. It was likely already taken by someone too. “Celenar Encrodian. The Land of the Witches. God, this isn’t gonna be good. I’m gonna have to stir some trouble and get healed quickly.”