Breaker of Horizons: A LitRPG Adventure, page 25
With a stretch and another massive yawn, he pushed the raging power out to nodes throughout his body, advancing Poison Devouring by another 5,000 until it stood just short of completion. His muscles felt less sore by the second as a warmth spread through his flesh.
“Show me my progress towards evolution.”
Requirements to open the Path of the Great Chain are as follows:
+ Hold a Locus of Dominance for three days (0/3)
+ Consume three foreign shards from Peak F-Class (1/3)
+ Channel 10,000 Essence into your Cultivation Base (10,000/10,000)
+ Consume an F-Class Cultivation Treasure (1/1)
Three of the four must be completed before the Path is opened.
He had progressed beautifully. The main roadblock remaining was actually Poison Mist’s impressive cost of 50,000 to integrate a new Secondary Shard. It was the cost of starting with an F-Class Shard, but it was more than paid for by the skill’s raw strength.
By his calculation, it would be about five days before he could crack the Poison Mist slot open and integrate a new Secondary.
Until then…
There was no reason not to relax a little. He had pushed hard to challenge the Hermitage, and the rewards had been worthwhile, but Nic suspected there were other rewards he was passing by on the way. Learning more about this world and taking the time to explore would arm him with knowledge in ways fistfuls of treasure couldn’t.
Not that he was turning his nose up at fistfuls of treasure.
Nic finished his meditation session with a final bit of looting, stowing away the meditation mat itself into his bag. At this point he was well and truly over-capacity, needing to spill out some less valuable tools to make room for the solid chunk of stone. Had it not been relatively thin, he would’ve had to leave it behind entirely.
Finally, he reached down and picked up a splinter of crystal, staring into it. He could still feel something within. Maybe not Lavhin anymore, but a shard of his mind.
He tucked it into his bag as well.
Tales from his childhood had taught him well. You could soar to the heavens, but you shouldn’t leave a single copper coin on the ground.
Nic left the Hermitage through the glass ceiling of the specimen room, climbing up and breaking his way through rather than venturing back down through Mograithe’s room. There was probably some treasure left behind, but it wasn’t worth the time to scrape every room clean when the rewards for discovering new territory were so rich.
But he did have one thing he wanted to do first.
Sitting on a high outcropping of stone, a goat chewed tawny desert grasses happily. Its split eyes boggled as a tiny pink hand grasped the edge of the stone. It began to snort and stamp its feet in preparation to charge as Nic hauled himself up.
“Oh yeah. I remember you.” Nic planted his feet wide and glued them down with adhesive aura. He braced, striking his chest with a palm. “Why don’t we try round two?”
The goat shot forward and slammed into Nic. He felt the breath leave his body, but his adhesive-clad feet kept him rooted as he wrapped his arms around the horns and lifted with a titanic groan to throw the goat over his shoulder and off the edge of the cliff.
It tumbled down the slope, rolling over and over before crashing in the waters. A huge pair of crocodile jaws was waiting to snap down on the shaggy beast and drag it below. Nic clapped his hands.
“That’s one.”
He climbed higher, up toward the caves where the Angler Centipedes made their nests. He was careful to avoid any camouflaged specimens hiding among the rocks and slowly levered himself into a dark crevice, pulling an oil-soaked torch from his pack.
Tiny centipedes slithered and writhed in the dark. A huge one came scuttling sideways on the walls, eager to defend its territory.
Nic threw down a vial of oil and lit the spill with a flick of flint and steel. The blaze roared up, and the beast retreated, its children wailing in terror. Nic lit a torch and swept it back and forth to drive away the little ones from trying to bite his legs.
Finally, he retrieved a large specimen jar and a pair of tongs. One of the centipede children was bigger and fatter than the rest. As he watched, it grasped hold of a little one trying to escape the fires and gulped it down in a brazen act of cannibalism.
Nic thought it was perfect.
His tongs shot down from the heavens and lifted the rope of squirming limbs. Slicing its back with his tiger-tooth knife, Nic drew yellow blood and dropped the beast into the jar. As the flames raged in front of him, he carefully ground the inkstone into powder, added a dash of water, and mixed the blood into the resulting ink.
It gleamed black on his needle as he plunged it into his arm.
There was a shock as another mind met his own. It wasn’t like communicating with Sofia at all, and it was strange for Nic to have ever believed it would be. The centipede’s mind was simple and bright with angers and hungers.
It had three words to say. Fight. Kill. Eat. It thought them over and over, communicating in flashes of memory from times when it had done just that.
And Nic thought back.
He thought of the time he’d fought on the steps of the temple, back in d23. The reckless bloodshed and the fear pounding in his heart, the triumphant surge of joy when Tarquin saved him.
He thought of crushing Lavhin underfoot. The memory still fresh. The satisfaction of hearing the awful voice fade into silence.
He thought of eating the monkeys one by one, consumed by hunger from the peach pit, red blood staining his mouth as he consumed without limit.
He fed the thoughts to the beast in the jar as the firelight flickered on his face. It began to writhe back and forth like a charmed snake, pleasantly drunk on the tides of thought exchanged between them, happily reliving scenes of slaughter and devouring.
Yes. You have not enough limbs, but you are centipede. You are great centipede, mother to me now. I will follow, for I fear being consumed by you and wish to hide in your shadow.
The ink spread across his arm. The connection to the centipede deepened until he could hear the slosh of its blood and organs within its shell. Lifting the jar, he allowed it to curl up into his hand. As it did, its body melded into the ink and it became a tattoo that spiraled up his left arm.
Having a constant source of Essence-destroying venom would be massively valuable, and the creature’s potential for growth was enormous. If he fed it Shards and cultivation treasures, it could potentially evolve to F-Class in under a week.
But there was no reason to rush. It was better to find the perfect Shards to suit the creature’s strengths rather than feed it the trash he cast aside.
Leaving the caves as the fire started to burn out, Nic climbed on. It was time to leave this place.
Before, Nic had thought increasing his Spiritual Clarity had simply sharpened his emotions and perceptions.
He was wrong.
Increasing his Spiritual Clarity had changed everything. Nic found that using the Sandrider Blade was far easier, the energy flowing through him with greater speed and focus, and as a result, he could go faster than ever.
Nic felt the wind lift into a roar around him as he pushed his cultivation base to accelerate faster and faster, rejoicing in the feel of a new limit to shove against. The desert flowed with the force of crashing waves under his platform of hardened sand, sending him forward like a shot from a canon.
He raced through the desert, leaping off the top of dunes and crashing down in a spray of sand. The heat barely bothered him as the wind wrapped around him like a cooling river, flicking at his feather-like gills.
His eyes narrowed suddenly. Ahead, there was another plume of sand moving quickly through the desert. It didn’t look like a ship—there were no sails and no raised outline for the hull—but a single humanoid shape lifted on a cloud of billowing sand as it raced across the dunes.
Nic turned course instantly. It was a gut decision, but who was this bastard to go showing Nic up? If he wanted to race, well, Nic would race.
His grip tightened on the Sandrider Blade, and he poured aura into the sword. The wind’s howl increased a notch, and sand sprayed up into the air.
Accelerating across the desert, he dodged between red-rock boulders that stuck up like teeth. Giant lizards lifted their head to watch as he shot past, chasing the distant plume of dust that signaled his rival.
A grin crept across his face.
He felt good.
Chapter 35
Wind and Water
Nic shot past scrubby desert trees with crooked trunks and over thin outcroppings of stone that gave way to wild, hectic drops back down onto the sand. His sandboard was shaking violently underfoot as he kicked up a huge plume of dust.
His opponent was well ahead, but Nic was gaining.
They raced through arches of stone formed by years of erosion. Past aloe-cactus jungles towered up in huge domes of interlocking green thorns.
He could see the enemy clearly now by extending his senses with the Eight-Eyed Mantle. It was a huge man, nearly eight feet tall, with burning cracks of fire running over skin the color of bronze. Its lower body was a pillar of red smoke that melded with the kicked-up sand of the desert.
A djinn.
“I see a wish in my future…” Nic sang to the wind, gritting his teeth and pushing his cultivation base until his bones ached and his veins were straining to hold the sheer fury of aura pulsing through them.
The djinn turned back and finally noticed him. A grin spread across its face, and it twisted off course to a towering series of stone pillars rising out of the sand.
Nic served and dodged through the obstacle course, huge sprays of sand kicking up as he wove around the pillars and reached out a hand. The djinn was so close he could almost touch its skin, but at the last second, it twisted away and slipped around to the opposite side of a pillar. For a split second, Nic lost sight of his prey.
When it emerged from behind the tower, it had split into three identical copies. Nic howled in frustration and shot toward the nearest one as the three split up, heading in three separate directions. He took an intercept course, swerving to come alongside the djinn and its whirling vortex of smoke. His hand darted out…
The djinn dissolved into smoke, showering Nic and making him cough. A clone.
As he burst free of the smoke cloud, he had to immediately break to one side, barely dodging a stone pillar. Two clones of the djinn remained. One was flying away to the right while the other was dead ahead.
The one ahead of him turned back and soared backward through the desert. It stuck out its tongue, which glowed like an ember.
Nic hesitated. This one was trying to bait him. The other one was trying to get away.
It was obvious he should break off and chase the second djinn.
Too obvious.
Was it a bluff that put the real target in front of him and tried to trick him into going after the fake? Or a double bluff, relying on him following that precise logic. Archive Recall, the Eight-Eyed Mantle…
Nothing he tried gave him a hint.
With a snarl, he chose the one dead ahead and accelerated after it. The space between them narrowed and narrowed until the djinn’s smile started to falter.
Nic’s hand shot out and smoke covered his vision once again. His sandboard went over a hidden dune, and he lost control of his aura as the drop sent him smashing down. The board dissolved, and Nic was thrown tumbling down the inner curve of the dune, going head over heels against the rough sand and skidding to a halt in a defeated lump.
He coughed and spat up grit.
“Damn.”
The djinn was long gone.
But as he looked up, Nic saw water.
A wide oasis was hidden within a small valley formed among the dunes, sprawling out like a blue mirror that caught the sun’s golden light. Enormous ferns, lush grass, and bending palm trees surrounded it in a fringe of green. Ancient statues and fallen ruins lifted up from the waters; there were enormous stone heads that stared out with weeping eyes, their tears refilling the oasis as the hot desert sun ate it away.
Nic had seen this nowhere on his map.
Straightening up, he shook the sand from his head.
The oasis was beautiful and tempting. His skin was growing used to the desert sun, but it still ached for moisture and cool, fresh waters. But Nic couldn’t trust it so easily.
As he slowly advanced through the grass, he was waiting for an evil elemental, a deadly crocodile, or some kind of insect swarm maybe…
Nothing.
He reached the edge and slowly dipped his toe in.
It was irresistibly refreshing.
“Screw it.”
Unable to hold himself back any longer, Nic dove in. The water welcomed him like an old friend as he splashed forward. In moments, he was deep below the blue, the sun a distant memory shining on the surface as he dove through the valleys of tangling algae and past half-drowned stone buildings. The floor of the oasis was rich with scuttling little crabs, and Nic realized how long it had been since he ate.
Paddling to the surface, he hauled up an enormous blue crab and smacked it against the top of a stone head, again and again, until the legs had ceased to kick and he’d cracked open the tough shell to reveal pale meat within. He pried out the flesh with his fingers and shoved it raw into his mouth.
It tasted sweet and delicious.
Diving back down, he came up, again and again, cracking crabs on the same boulder until he had eaten his fill. He sighed and flopped back, floating atop the waters with his arms and legs spread out. Exhausted and happy.
“Why”—a voice made him instantly dive down, alert for danger—“are you killing crabs with my head?” The statue head’s eyes were glowing.
“Ahhhh…” Bubbles flooded from Nic’s mouth. “I didn’t realize you were… a person?”
“Well, I am. You see before you a person.” The statue boomed, voice carrying through the waters. “A person who does not appreciate having crab guts smeared all over their skull. How would you like it if someone used your head as a blunt instrument?”
“A lot of people have said my head would make a great blunt instrument, actually!” Nic called back. “Who are you?”
“I am Mehhtep, the Weeping Guardian. Long ago, I guarded this sacred place. Before the sky and the earth were torn apart.”
“You mean before that river was floating in the sky?” Far above them, sparkling in the fading sun, was the floating river Nic had seen when he first came to the Scales of Sand. It cut across the sky like a jeweled necklace; islands hung around its course as it headed in a broad loop that passed through the doors of an enormous flying temple.
“Yes. Bring me an offering of wine and meat, and I will tell you more.”
“Uhh.” Nic paused. “Do the crabs count?”
“Absolutely not,” the head declared.
“Fffiine. I’ll see you soon then, Mehhtep.” Nic swam to search the oasis more thoroughly. He found enormous, curled shells at the bottom of the waters, glinting like hidden treasures. He found shards of pottery and tarnished coins resting in the silt caught within the submerged ruins. But even where he found more statue heads, none of them would speak. Not even when he cracked crabs over their head experimentally to see if it took a blood sacrifice to awaken them.
Hauling himself up out of the water, Nic found himself among company. Huge buffalo-like creatures had arrived at the water’s edge to drink. They snorted and stamped their feet but largely ignored him as he gathered up his things.
This was a good place. Of everywhere he’d seen in the desert, only this oasis had a sense of calm and peace.
He was in no hurry to leave.
Instead, he pointed the Sandrider Blade down and made the earth bend away, spiraling out to leave a tunnel bored into the sands. He reinforced the wall by packing the sand tightly together to form stonelike walls and then tunneled deeper.
Within the earth, he carved out a wide cavern deep enough below that it was comfortably cool. He took out floating crystal lamps to light up the dark. He set out the cultivation mat and the fruit tree from Lavhin’s workshop. Carving a space in the walls, he put up the stone head from deep within the sand devil’s underground kingdom.
It was a perfectly suitable little cave. Climbing back up, Nic gathered palm leaves and made himself a bed to sleep in. He added a raised workstation filled with tools taken from the Hermitage. It was satisfying work. In just an hour, Nic had carved out a simple dwelling for himself. A hidden base beneath the sand.
He let the centipede squirm out of his tattoo and skitter across the ground. As it hunted for worms and mites in the sand, he began to work.
Taking out the Theoretical Quill, he traced illusionary designs. It was simpler than drawing real runes but required the same kind of mental effort, letting him gauge the difficulty of each design. He tried to push himself this time, combining three different sets of symbols.
Even with the quill lessening the difficulty, it was sweat-inducing work. Slimy beads welled up on his head as he tried and failed a dozen times to get the delicate nodes and rivers of power to interlock between three supremely complicated symbols.
But after a dozen failures, he got a single success. And then, after a few more rough attempts, two successes in a row. Then three.
By the end of the night, he was confident enough to try for real. Dipping Lady Nylea’s pen into a well of expensive green inks, he channeled a bead of spirit to the point. To his surprise, the flow through his hand and down the pen was steadier than it had ever been. Since raising his Spiritual Clarity, his Essence felt malleable and easy to use.
He set the pen aside.
“Sofia?”
There was a distinct pause before she answered. “Oh, yes. Yes, Nicolas? I’m sorry. I was trying to retrieve more information on this experiment of Lavhin’s in the hopes of finding a cure.”
“Retrieve? I thought you just… knew everything?” He raised a scaly, hairless eyebrow.
