Zarek treated the Godsfall Tears like a training exercise—to well and truly push himself to his limits.
In the future, it was actually quite difficult to find Godsfall Tears at your level, so it was rare to have the benefit of speed-running so many, even if he didn't care for most of their rewards.
Usually, Godsfall Tears would end up falling into the territories of one of the major powers or a powerful Turned. At that point, just making it there might be as difficult as clearing the Tear itself—and by then, you might not have the energy left to actually make it out.
Something like this, where you could clear so many at once, was only possible when you had, well… a power backing you. But even then, Godsfall Tears in this quantity didn't happen all the time. You had to wait for a Crimson Rain to descend.
Marx's offer this time was exactly what Zarek needed. Since he had failed to reach D Class that night, this would be his best chance to do so.
Zarek's steps suddenly slowed somewhat, and he came to a stop. His head tilted, and he peeked around a corner.
—
Name: [Blood Clawed Gorilla]
Role: [N/A]
Core Stats:
>[Strength: D]
>[Dexterity: E+]
>[Intelligence: E]
>[Endurance: D+]
>[Charisma: F+]
Talents:
>[Rampage: D-]
[Abilities: Endurance Amplification]
[Rage pulled removes the limitations of your body, allowing you to dig deeper and get in touch with a far greater strength you didn't know you had. But fair warning, this sort of Limit breaking could very well cost you your life.]
>[Empty]
>[Empty]
Skills:
>[D Class Slashing Claw: E+]
—
The Godsfall Tear up ahead wasn't the one Zarek claimed he would enter at all. He had said that he would leave the D Class Godsfall Tears for later, but instead, he had come here on his own.
Priya was progressing well, but he still felt like he was slow. He should be further ahead—he should be stronger.
Whenever Zarek felt like he was falling behind, his natural response was to push harder, to take more risks, to pull more potential out of himself.
This D Class Godsfall Tear—if it was a normal one—he would be able to clear just fine. But it wasn't. He could vaguely sense that.
There were a couple of ways to tell the difficulty of a Godsfall Tear by observing it directly. The first and most obvious was just the Class of the Tear itself. Up to about C Class, Zarek was quite comfortable with deciphering that. But there were also deeper bits of information one could grasp as well.
For example, how many people could enter?
Many Godsfall Tears had no entry limit at all. But rather than meaning they were much harder, this often meant it was instead a race to the finish.
In these cases, the number of people who could enter told you nothing at all about the Tear's difficulty—it could be extraordinarily difficult or easy. It was still variable.
However, there was another case. If there was a limit cap on those who could enter, it was very much worth paying attention to… especially if that limit cap was more than four or so, and yet still limited.
If the entry limit was one person, it was a very curious sort of Godsfall Tear—the kind that just might have a legacy hidden inside, designed for just one person to grasp at the end. These tended to be incredibly dangerous as well.
If the entry limit was five or more, though… it was the Tear telling you that it needed a team of powerful people to work together toward one singular goal.
The entry limit of this Godsfall Tear in particular, though… was almost ten people.
Without a treasure or an Appraiser, this certainly wasn't an exact science. But there was another clue here as to why this Tear would be difficult…
And that was the strength of the Turned that had chosen to mark it out as the center of its territory.
Many D Class Turned had appeared due to the Crimson Rain. In fact, Zarek had a feeling that there might even be some more powerful ones hidden in various corners that hadn't appeared just yet.
Annoyingly enough, he still hadn't laid eyes on a Mutant that he could use to get to that C Class Tear that was still in the back of his mind.
Still… this gorilla would be a nice warmup.
Zarek stepped out after scouting the region. This place was in the middle of a city section. The trees were sparse, there was a pond not too far away, and the only paved roads were walkways that probably had children and the elderly frequenting them not too long ago.
Stepping out from behind the stone communal bathrooms, Zarek's presence practically stuck out like a sore thumb to the gorilla.
Turned that managed to keep so much of their original structure and bodies after mutating tended to be among the hardest to deal with. That was because they didn't need an adaptation period to their new bodies.
The gorilla acted with the exact sort of assurance and fury one would expect from a confident Turned, its long canines flashing with pulsing red veins as it roared in Zarek's direction and bounded off, its body leaving deep imprints in the grass.
And then it leapt into the air, shooting up over three meters and hammering down with both fists.
Zarek held his Lurker's Whip in one hand, pointing his crossbow-shield with the other.
He fired one bolt as the gorilla was in the air, right into its open maw. The strike was fast and true, the bolt sticking into the roof of its open jaw.
The gorilla tried to bite down on it, but that only drove it further up.
Luckily for it, just as it was about to stupidly drive the arrow right into its own brain, the body of the bolt snapped.
The Turned beast landed on the ground far from its original target, roaring in pain.
In an uncontrolled fury, its head snapped toward Zarek.