Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

Seth took a deep breath. Panic would not help him in this situation. The rhythmic throbbing of his mangled knee pit did not help to keep a clear head, so he ripped off stripes from the black cloth in his inventory to apply a makeshift pressure bandage

Once done Seth looked around and came to the conclusion, that escape was not an option. With his leg like this, it was a bad idea to fight on this nutshell. Close to the outskirts of Deltan were few buildings with dry floors above water, but there were still some in the vicinity.

Seth would make a last stand at a higher floor and see if he could sit this one out! Maybe he could hide.

He forgot worrying about the splashing and making noise and paddled towards the closest building as fast as he could. It had three floors above water level, that should be enough to get an advantage over the snakes!

With groaning and grunting Seth climbed through a broken window into the next dry floor of the building. His knee kept hurting more and more. He had realized that with all his preparations, he had never thought of medicine. He did not even have a first aid kit with him! The room he entered looked like a meeting room, with a few tables building a big one and lots of chairs surrounding it. With some rope he tied the raft to a radiator right below the window and stumbled out of the meeting room.

Time was of essence. He came into an expansive room with a lot of messy and collapsed cubicles. This must have been a big office building before.

"Office, office, toilette... Ah! The staircase!", he mumbled as his eyes frantically scanned the floor and checked the doors.

Once the right door was found, he rushed up the staircase like a drunken madman. Seth kept faltering with every step as blood drenched his pant leg. The next floor looked the same as the last one, a big office space.

The high number of generic desks actually gave him an idea!

Despite the pain, Seth went back down and started with the staircase connecting to the water.

With his 35 STR he could easily lift the furniture and started throwing the down the staircase! Like this he blocked the way up from the water in a short time. Now a huge mess broken furniture and cubicle walls filled the stairs below.

That was not all. He went back up to the next floor and did the same. Now he had two barriers between himself and his pursuers. This should buy him some time. He would make his last stand on the top floor.

After he blocked off the way down, he went up to see what the highest floor looked like.

"Ah, the management floor.", he mumbled once he saw the few big offices with luxurious looking features. The desks here were made of fine wood and there would have been a pleasant view over the city, before it was hit by an earthquake, became a wasteland, and subsequently flooded.

His eyes opened wide as he looked out the window saw the dark water squirming with bodies in the last light of dusk. He was so boned. There was no way could fight that many mobs!

Heh! It's not like he had a choice, right?

Only after he barricaded the door to the staircase with those heavy office desks, did he take the time to examine his wound and check his status.

Name: Seth Smith

Status: Bleeding (-10 HP/minute)

Title: "Faster than the Thought"

Level: 9

Exp: 8%

Race: Ori Huma

Sex: Male

Age:23

Class: Spirit Blacksmith (Unique)

Affiliation: None

Health: 705/1000

Mana:190(+3,8)

Strength:35

Dexterity:35

Agility: 25

Intelligence:14+5

Willpower:25

Endurance:30

Personality:10

Luck:15

Free AP (Attribute points): 9

Free SP (Skill points): 3

Defense:

Physical: 220 (90+50+80) (ENDx3)

Magical: 90 (50+25+15) (WILx2)

Fire Resistance :100% (50%+70%)

Skill Window:

Calm Reaction (Passive) lv.5

Blacksmith (Apprentice) lv.7 (40%)

Blacksmith's Eyes lv.3

Fire Manipulation lv.4

Blueprint (Apprentice) lv.2

Weapon Mastery (Beginner) lv.9 (23%)

Spirit Smithy lv.2

Spirit Capture lv.3

Map lv.3

Fear Resistance lv.6

Fire Affinity lv.7

Soul Infusion lv.2

Observation lv.2

Concealment lv.2

He sat down with his back leaning against the wall and unequipped the greaves. The makeshift bandage was oozing blood. The pants were ripped, just like his flesh and it bled a lot. When he revealed the wound, it was barely visible with all this blood. But judging from the status it may have looked worse than it was. Still, no need to take a risk.

Seth cried out as he used the liquor, he had found in the desks, to wash away the blood and disinfect the wound. This was definitely the least exciting part of the evening, yet. The wound that came to light looked very unappetizing!

As they say, everything´s fun and jiggles until somebody gets hurts.

Especially when the one hurt is oneself!

The worst thing was that even after demolishing two floors, he had not found any medical supplies! Not even an aspirin!

Only the management floor was helpful!

"Always ask for the manager...", Seth joked as he used an expensive brand belt to properly tie off his leg. He had gotten it from a spare outfit in one of the offices. And now he ripped a beautiful and awfully expensive shirt into stripes to make a very expensive bandage out of it.

The bleeding status vanished for the moment after he was done with the treatment. On the other hand, his HP also refused to recover. As much as the system resemble a game, he guessed that without some awesome skill like Auto-HP-Recovery, he was stuck with his bodies personal lame self-recovery.

Seth felt really tired now. As he sat there on the ground, leaning against the wall, his eyelids became very heavy. The sun had sunken and the world had become dark, he almost fell sleep.

But Seth forced himself to stay awake. Maybe <Concealment> could help him in this situation? He had not used it in over three weeks, but he remembered while checking his status. He activated it and drowsily looked at the map

There were still a little more than 30 minutes left on the counter as he focused his attention on the movements of the little blips. Nothing changed. So, they were not tracking his presence.

A bunch were already stacking in a heap at his location. Were the barricades working? Maybe they didn't find the way up... He closed the map and stared into the distance. He felt so tired.

As Seth´s eyes wandered over his blood on the ground- Of course! The blood! They must be following his blood trail!

"*****! I should have stopped the bleeding a lot earlier!", he reprimanded himself listlessly.

"Maybe...", he thought, "Maybe I could evade them if I can get on the rooftop ...from here?"

With this thought his eyes finally fell shut. Fatigue and blood loss took a toll on him.

WHUMPH! Seth awoke with a start! How long had he slept?! WHUMPH!

"Dafug!?", Seth shouted as the tremendous jolt once again passed through the whole building!

He checked the map, but the time had run out. the radar was now on a 20h cool down.

He jumped up and almost sat back down when his knee screamed in pain! He stumbled towards the window, as another jolt came from that side of the building.

His heart started racing in panic. What he saw was the light of the moon and stars sparkling on the body of a massive snake! Its, almost 10m long, tail was winding and splashing as it tried to shove its body into the floor right below the water surface!

Where did this come from!? Had it rammed into the barricade on the staircase?!

It was not as big as the field boss he had seen, but the size made it clearly visible! Seth used the chance to try another skill he used rarely! <Observation>, he concentrated mana into his eyes and looked at the giant body below him.

< Titanoboa Juvenile lv.17

Name: None

Status: Enraged

Skill: **+##+**~

...

>

" You gotta be shitting me!?", Seth called out. "It´s not even an adult?! Enraged? Don´t tell me they all got triggered because I killed some of their kind!"

WHUMPH! Another impact!

"No, no, no! I won't have that! None of it!"

Even if he hid on the roof, he would be done for if that thing came up here! Seth took out his Vengeful Hunter Bow and a stack of arrows. He did not plan to take this lying down!

"I´m not having you come up here, Big boy!", he mumbled. He smashed the window plane with a mace and started spamming arrows at the exposed part of the giant snake. When the first arrows struck, he could see a health bar appear on its body.

The arrows easily penetrated the scales and the snaked shrieked in pain. It wriggled harder, but it seemed to be stuck in the building!

<Ding! Critical hit! Thanks to the effect of "Vengeful Hunter Bow" you have hit targets right kidney!>

The snake writhed in pain! Seth smiled and kept peppering it with arrows.

<Ding! Critical hit! Thanks to the effect of "Vengeful Hunter Bow" you have hit targets right kidney!>

<Ding! Skill: Weapon Mastery (Beginner) lv.9 has become lv.10!>

<Ding! Skill: Weapon Mastery (Beginner) lv.10 has become Weapon Mastery (Adept) lv.1!>

And finally, <Weapon Mastery> also had ranked up! Not only did the Arrows a little more damage now, but the health bar had started to decrease on its own!

Checking the status, the snake was now Enraged and Bleeding!

<Ding! Critical hit! Thanks to the effect of "Vengeful Hunter Bow" you have hit targets gall bladder!>

Seth could not help doing a fist pump at this shot. Unfortunately, this was also his last one. Not because of the arrows, but because the snake had managed to get unstuck and fled into the building. There was nothing he could do anymore.

His only hope was that it would bleed out on the way up!

"Great! I´m trapped in a house, surrounded by snakes, and one the size of the basilisk from Perry Lotter is opening up the path to feast on my sorry ass!"