Cautiously she reached out and ever so gently stuck a finger in the purple energy. Her body seized for a moment as the energy flowed into her but her tattoos and eyes glowed brightly and her wings fully manifested for the first time behind her.

“I feel amazing! This Eridium stuff’s the tits!” She exclaimed as she flexed her fist as the sense of power filled her.

“It’s awesome yeah, that high you are riding is temporary though. The power will slowly ebb away unless you keep using Eridium but I don’t suggest it if you value your life.” I warned seriously.

“Why? What happens if she uses it constantly?” Roland asked with a concerned look.

“Eridium works on a siren sorta like a stimulant letting our powers work at a higher level while we are on the stuff. In my case the energy gets turned into pure lifeforce and not small amounts of it either. For Lil here though if I had to guess it temporarily overfills her internal energy storage letting her do more but also making it unstable. In short bursts like this it’s harmless and even beneficial but if she were to prolong the experience by taking in more and more Eridium her powers would adapt to being dependent on it like we are for oxygen. Take it away at that point and only death awaits.” I explained seriously.

“Ok that’s a lot less awesome. How do I prevent that exactly?” Lil asked with a horrified expression.

“Like I said, short bursts. Use more to prolong the empowerment and the risk goes up the longer the stacking lasts. Like most things Eridium should be used in moderation unless it’s side effect simply doesn’t work on you like myself. My powers have infinite room to store lifeforce so naturally theres no chance for my body to become dependent on the stuff. At the same time however none of my powers other aspects get strengthened so that’s the trade off.” I said with a shrug.

“Pace myself got it.” Lil said with an understanding nod.

We moved on from the entrance at this point and I grimaced at the architecture and symbolism I saw as we got really into the cave. The way things were made was newer than any other example of Eridian architecture which was curious but the fact the symbol for Vault was covering literally every inch of the place was concerning.-

For all their vagueness the Eridians weren’t the sort to add repeating symbols to their works unless they were being insistent about it’s importance. They were being VERY insistent in this case which told me this vault might be special in some way but I lacked context for how exactly. Even as we came across a dead lancemen without a helmet lying in a pool of his own blood while Seraphs rose up from deeper in the cave this niggled at my mind.-

These Seraphs were slightly different than the usual ones I was familiar with. Like the general features were the same but I was keenly aware that they were better made, stronger for lack of a better word. This was another detail that poked the part of my brain trying and failing to figure out what was so damned important about this vault. Seraphs were meant to be cheap long lasting things but not particularly strong all things considered. These ones though had thicker armoring, denser energy attacks and clearly superior A.I to the normal Seraphs if the way they reacted to us fighting back was any indication.-

More than once our bullets were blocked from the weak spots by raised energy blades or a sudden sideways strafe. The bots never went on the defensive exactly but they weren’t just hurling themselves at us mindlessly either. It wasn’t anything super impressive or anything like that but much more refined than was normal. Even stranger was I didn’t know WHY it was like this. Well not exactly since I did know but it was hard to believe. See my Eridian engineering knowledge should have been nearly absolute, that is with a single exception. –

The only way I wouldn’t know something about the topic is if it was done after the library had been placed in the vault on Athenas. This change in design while subtle was definitely the newest one in the Seraphs and deserved study. For this part of the cave there was not a lot of Seraphs, only five so even with the slightly raised difficulty in taking them down we managed it easily. I wasted no time at all claiming the parts remaining from the destroyed bots and then got to work descending the cave. –

It was a vertical passageway going down and north west with the cave system having been built on and in the cliffside of the Salt flats. As we moved I saw some plantlife in the shape of leafy vines covering the carved blocks of stone. Other than that we came across a piece of the cave that had been tagged by what was no doubt a bandit at some point across the cliff side that the cave was built onto the side of. We had to cross that precipitous drop via a collapsed pillar to go deeper into the cave and towards the sound of gunfire and energy weapons.-

The amount of energy generators and lights increased as we got closer to the noise until the cave opened up into a massive amphitheater. The place was in pure chaos as nearly seventy Lancemen by my count fought off a force of even more Seraphs of different varieties. There was the slashers, the arch guardians, the artillerists and even a new one that was labeled as a Seraph supporter. That last one was particularly nasty in a swarm of the bots like this as it had a tether of energy connecting it to every other Seraph in a certain radius that seemed to restore the shields of them while strengthening their energy based weaponry.-

I knew of the design as it was recorded in the Eridian engineering knowledge I held but like the others this version was an updated one. It shared the same roughly distorted humanoid shape as all the other Seraphs but had seven curled protrusion coming from it’s back like a tail of peacock feathers that energy flowed from to the other types of Seraphs. Unlike the other Seraphs however it also had a thick purple swirling shield of energy around it since it was a mostly stationary thing.

“How are we even supposed to get through all of that?” Mordy asked with tight jaw muscles at the scene.

“We don’t, we’re going around it.” I said seriously while pointing at the way the open skied area circled.

“I don’t like how exposed that leaves us.” Roland said concerned.

“Nothing for it mate, it’s either this or going through the middle and that’s a whole fuck ton more dangerous.” I say helplessly.

Resolved to deal with this definitely unpleasant experience we dropped down into the amphitheater and hit the ground running. We didn’t go the the route of straight to the other side of the place since it was an active warzone with two groups that would no doubt both try to kill us without hesitation. Instead we booked it as fast as we could around the uneven carved stone rim of the massive area even as some Seraphs and Lancemen spotted us and broke away from the main battle to attack us. We fended them off as we ran but never once considered stopping at all. The loss of loot stung a bit but the constant flow of Eridium and lifeforce energy entering my body as I drained everything in my range offset that easy.

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https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro

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Alexander Drake

Lifeforce: 1,011,449

Integrated Traits: [Gun mastery-Rare grade]X3, [Clever mind-Rare grade],[Enhanced senses-Epic grade]X2, [Demi-supreme body-Legendary grade], [Supreme armored hide-Epic grade]X2, [Energy projection-Legendary grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade]X2,[Lesser dragon breath-Epic grade],[Regeneration-Epic grade]X2, [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Fire resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Elemental body(fire)-Legendary grade], [Shock resistance-Epic grade]X4, [Energetic sustenance(shock)-Epic grade]X2, [Radiation resistance-Epic grade]X3, [Energetic sustenance(radiation)-Epic grade]X2, [Biometallic bones-Epic grade],[Elemental body(shock)-Rare grade]X3,[Quick thinking-Rare grade], [Minor spatial awareness-Epic grade], [Buzzaxe expertise-Uncommon grade], [Siren(Phaselock)(Altered)-Mythical grade], [Pugilist expertise-Uncommon grade], [Adrenal rush-Rare grade], [Mechanical engineering expertise-Rare grade]X3, [Gunsmithing expertise(degrading)-Common grade]X3, [Elemental body(Corrosive)-Rare grade], [Corrosion resistance-Rare grade], [Mechanical Savant-Epic grade], 

Stored traits: [Flame breath-Uncommon Grade], [Tinkering instinct-Rare grade], [Minor regeneration-Rare grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade], [Omega body-Rare grade]X2, [Supreme Armored hide-Epic grade], [Hard bones-Rare grade], [Sword expertise-Rare grade], [Gun mastery-Rare grade]

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep