Breaker of Horizons: A LitRPG Adventure, page 29
It raised its fingers, and a new wave of sand attacks burst from the desert.
Nic evaded this time, pushing the sand underfoot to launch him to the side as he flung his hatchet in a long, spinning arc toward the mummy. It dissolved, smearing through the air as a swarm of insects to reform inches away as the axe buried itself in a low stone wall instead.
Snarling, Nic drew his tiger-claw into his hand and lunged for the enemy. Again, the earth erupted into attacks from below, and this time, Nic twisted between them. The spirit’s moves were predictable and dull-minded enough for him to slip through as spike after spike burst from the sand.
But while its mind might have been slow, its movement was not.
It dissolved again, breaking apart into a swarm of droning mosquitoes. Nic’s mouth snapped open, and he sprayed Poison Mist into the swarm, instantly killing off a huge swathe as the dark smoke billowing in jets and plumes from his mouth turned them to poisoned mush.
The rest fled, screaming off into the distance before reforming.
The mummy was missing one arm. It growled, a low and whining sound like an injured animal. Its remaining hand raised.
A column of sand lifted into the air and dropped back down. Thump.
And again. Thump.
Nic knew immediately what was happening, but with the distance opened between them…
He wasn’t going to get there in time to stop it. Thump.
The mummy was calling up the beasts of the valley just like Nic had. One by one, huge insects pushed out of the sand, drawn by the vibrations above. As he charged, an enormous, jeweled horn scythed through the sand underfoot, cutting through the earth like a shark’s dorsal fin cuts through water.
Nic barely had time to brace before the horn stabbed upward, and the sand erupted as the beetle lurched up from below. The impact carved a huge chunk out of his shield and knocked him off his feet, sending him crashing, rolling, stumbling across the sands. His whole arm was numb, the joint scraping and groaning in its socket.
The mummy lifted its hand, and a spear of sand pierced him through the back of the leg.
Nic sank, surrounded on all sides, but he wasn’t done yet.
Not by a damn long shot.
As more spears of earth leapt from the ground, he conjured the shield granted by the Plate of the Sun God’s Dictate, the page of hammered bronze he’d won from the ascended sand devil. It was a shining, gold-bronze barrier that leapt up and briefly surrounded him, preventing the weak attacks from breaking through.
The beetle made a creaking, groaning war cry and lowered its horn, readying to charge. Nic didn’t have any doubts the barrier would break in a heartbeat against that kind of force.
But Nic had other plans. Sliding the cursed peach pit from his pocket, he thrust it down into the earth. From the instant it touched the sand it grew, splitting open to reveal tender green shoots. The scent that filled the air was intoxicating and designed to drive beasts mad with hunger.
Even the River-Drinker was stopped dead in its tracks for a moment, stunned by the ancient fragrance of sweet blossoms and ripe fruit—a smell that hadn’t filled this valley for hundreds of years.
For a moment, a fragile peace held as the sapling grew, pushing up from the seed. In seconds, it had swelled from a single pit to a small tree of curled white limbs.
Nic was at the center of a ring of enemies, staring hungrily at that tree. He reached down, slowly, and unhooked one of his last two spore-lobs from his belt.
Then the beetle roared and charged.
And all hell broke loose.
Chapter 41
Seeing Red
His spore-lob detonated as the beasts surged into him, and the first wave stumbled, their eyes and mouths filled with fire as the toxic spores dug in. He grabbed hold of a blinded tarantula’s head, swung himself aboard, and ran across the beast’s back.
They crashed into one another, blindly ripping and tearing with furious tooth and claw. The weakest were already beginning to drop, twitching violently as the spores ate away their nervous systems.
But there was no escape. A huge cicada slammed into Nic as he tried to leap off the tarantula’s back. It sent him rolling to the ground, barely able to get onto his feet before he was trampled beneath an oncoming beetle.
Nic was swept away by a tide of animal fury. As the peach tree grew, the animals of the desert erupted from the sands and fought tooth and nail over the heavenly scent it exuded. Enormous beetles smashed against each other, vying for dominance with their horns. Sand-ticks leaped and stabbed with their long, stinging mouth organs. It was a clash of titans, and Nic was lost in it. Because he was enchanted by the scent as well. His higher Mental and Spiritual bases gave him some protection, but it still drifted through his world, reminding him how long it had been since he’d devoured his enemies and leapt forward through days of cultivation.
He wanted to fight.
He wanted to kill.
His blood boiled as a beetle crashed toward him, bucking upward with its horn. He dropped back, escaping the horn’s deadly point and grabbing hold of the blunt sides with an adhesive-covered fist. He swung up as the momentum of the charge carried him high, and as he came back down, the tiger-claw became a blur of white in his hand, jabbing down to smash right into the point just above the beetle’s right eye.
Blood spurted out. The beast swung its head from side to side, and Nic clung on until there was a safe chance to break away. He escaped just as a crocodile-headed drake slammed into the beast from above and tore into the beetle’s back with the cruel talons of its hind legs, beating its wings for balance as it ripped and tore.
It was hectic. It was hell. Nic’s heart thrummed with passion for the moment.
A sand-tick dropped from above, and Nic rolled between its legs as a long, tube-like mouth shot forward from between its bladed mandibles. It stabbed into the earth where he’d been, and Nic ripped his claws across the beast’s underside until he was showered with stolen blood from its belly.
An enormous desert mantis swept down to seize the tick, grasping it with scything claws and lifting it into the air to bite away a chunk of its skull with a horrendous ripping crunch. Nic slid to his feet, conjuring a rampway of sand with the blade on his back, and then he ran up over the battle, his walkway being torn apart as thrashing bodies crashed into the sides.
He ran the last few steps over the backs and heads of the monsters, darting from one to the next like a living missile.
Nic was headed straight for the ancient rusting blade stuck into the lake like the flag of a conquering nation.
The mummified River-Drink slammed into him from behind. Ancient, withered fingers grasped his slimy skin and sucked the moisture clear, draining his soft body with a terrible feeling like being burned from within.
Nic screamed as the spirit pushed him against the ground and made sand crawl over his body, restraining him. With no choice but to summon the limited-use weapons he’d held in reserve, Nic swelled in size as the Wintertusk Bracer filled his body with strength. He burst free of the restraining sand and swung up a suddenly double-sized fist, breaking the River-Drinker’s head into a buzzing flock of mosquitoes.
His mouth snapped open, and Poison Mist turned the swarm into rot.
The rest of the River-Drinker turned and fled, turning to a swarm and buzzing through the air to reform several feet away. Its body had lost much of its shape and definition like it was a picture that had been half-erased.
Spikes of sand erupted around Nic. His shield absorbed as much of the relentless volley as it could, but others slipped through, slashing against his toughened skin and drawing blood. He was being worn down by a volley of strikes that kept him from gathering forward momentum, just as he’d hunted the large, hapless beetles.
But he had a plan.
Unseen, behind the River-Drinker, a small column of sand rose and then smashed down. Thump.
Countless knives of sand ripped into his flesh. One speared him through the arm holding his shield, managing to cripple the limb. Another stabbed into his leg and brought him to one knee.
He raised another column and dropped it. Thump.
A spike shot for his throat, and he smashed it to pieces with his tiger-claw. Another speared toward his heart, and only his danger sense warned him in time to guard. The block cost him another bone-deep gouge against his arm.
But his steady, rhythmic striking of the ground had drawn fruit. Just as the mummified River-Drinker prepared to launch another attack, an enormous scorpion ripped out of the ground, grabbing with its jet-black claws for the creature’s back. It vanished instantly, dissolving into a swarm and fleeing on instinct.
But Nic was still in the fight. As the River-Drinker fled from his opponent, it fled toward him, and Nic kicked off into a thunderous sprint. He ignored the pain in his leg and burning throughout the body and ignored the exhaustion of the Wintertusk Bracer. Pure rage and the intoxicating bloodlust of the peach tree fueled him to break all limits as he shot forward.
The River-Spirit reformed.
And Nic’s claw was already hurtling toward its head.
With a brutal right hook, he scattered the creature into a swarm of pests and sprayed Poison Mist into the flock, finally killing them, finally catching his opponent out. The hundreds of mosquitoes whined and cried as they were exterminated, and he swatted through the air to catch a few who almost got away.
“Nic, the sword,” Sofia’s voice chided, keeping him from being swept away entirely by the violent red thoughts that filled his mind.
“Right,” he croaked. The scorpion advanced on him, but he forced it back with a lance of Poison Mist, sweeping death and toxic fumes across the ground in a wide sweep that forced the idiotic creature to scuttle back over the rocks. Turning his attention away, Nic seized the sword plunged into the center of the dry lake.
Ancient metal creaked and broke apart as he pulled. The sword shattered into a dozen pieces, leaving the hilt in Nic’s hands. From below, there was a deep cracking sound.
And water spouted into the air. The spray of white waters sparkled like a thousand diamonds, filling the air with cold, clear mists. It rained downward and struck the parched earth, sinking into the cracks that ran across the ground and turning them into miniature rivers.
Nic grinned slowly.
And almost toppled over.
His wounds were just too much this time. The sun was still sinking, but Nic needed to rest, to regenerate. With a groan, he released the Wintertusk Bracer, and his exhaustion redoubled as the cost of using that destructive might hit home. For a moment, his eyes went black.
Only the geyser protected him. The desert creatures were frightened of it in the way forest creatures feared the spark of fire.
He began to dig down, using his Sandrider Blade to carve a deep tunnel and a small cavern that connected to the geyser’s shaft. Water filled in his secret nest as he closed the way above him, leaving only the water to bring him oxygen as his gills opened fully. It was relaxing. He felt weightless in the comfortable dark.
If he didn’t have to worry about the Guardian of the Valley, he would have gone to sleep immediately. As it was, the best he could do was curl into a ball and cultivate, pushing Essence to his wounds.
With the bounty of golden beetles to eat and the time passed, he was already full again. This time he devoted the full bounty of Essence to Regeneration. It wasn’t enough to be able to piece himself back together after battles anymore.
He needed to be able to grow faster than his opponents could kill him.
Essence 0 / 5,000
+ 12.97 per Minute
(2.162 Base)
500% Local Modifier
+ Devoured an F-Class enemy (200%)
+ Consumed a G-Class treasure (100%)
+ Rested in toxic environment (100%)
* * *
Cultivation Base (Unranked)
V Physical Strength (Locked)
III Mental Acuity (52/4,000)*
Spiritual Clarity (94/1,000)*
Regeneration (6,658/10,000)
But for a moment, he just took pride in how far he’d come.
His regenerating, enduring body had allowed him to maintain a hectic and punishing pace. But it was Nic’s drive that had fueled him to leap from one near-death to the next. It was the simple joy of having escaped, having gotten out of City Layer d23—of having broken free from a lifetime of being held back and stepped on.
Of having entered into his own story—the story of a cultivator who could live life as they pleased by their own strength.
Days ago he’d been a normal human, living a drab existence alongside millions of others, unable to prove what he knew in his heart: that he had the strength and the convictions to be more.
Today he had new hands—albeit small, oddly pinkish ones—to seize life with. And he’d proved what he’d set out to prove. To himself if no one else.
Nearly dying didn’t bother him. He’d spent most of his life a dead man walking toward a predestined grave. The grey of that death was a million times worse than a red death on this new Earth.
“Nic?” Sofia’s voice broke into his thoughts. “The sun is setting. We’d better find good ground to fight on.”
Nic nodded. It was time to meet the reaper of the valley.
Chapter 42
Don’t Fear the Reaper
Nic tunneled up from beneath. He emerged into a wasteland of corpses littering the ground beneath the peach tree, which was beginning to regrow again, continuing its endless cycle of a single fruit growing a single tree, again and again. The too-sweet scent wafted through his mind, calling him to fight.
This was the exact wrong place to make his stand. As soon as the tree matured, more creatures would be drawn by the fragrance, and his battle with the Guardian would become a hectic melee.
That had been beneficial against the River-Drinker, where he held the power advantage and the fragile, quick spirit had to constantly maneuver to stay ahead of him.
Against the Guardian?
Nic suspected he’d be in the River-Drinker’s position—dead at the first slip up.
If he was really in trouble…
Nic didn’t know. There were no back-up plans on this one. No clever strategies. He’d been hoping to push on and unseal the three sources of the fountain before it came to this point.
Pulling his hatchet free of the walls, Nic retreated along the sands. In the distance, a crooked tower stuck out of the sand, leaning diagonally out of a dune. He’d fight there. The crimson of the sunset was slowly fading into darkness, turning a deep, blackened color like dried blood.
Nic scrambled up the sides using adhesive aura on his feet. That was why he’d chosen the tower. The crooked footing would give anyone without his power to stick and cling an awkward, stumbling disadvantage. Slipping the final spore-lob canister off his belt, he stuck it to the ground in an adhesive coating and covered it in sand to create a hidden mine.
All around him, the wind picked up little handfuls of dust and unfurled them into red ribbons. The sun sank lower and lower. It was already invisible beneath the high walls of the valley, and the shadows were growing so deep they seemed like scars on the earth, chasms into which the last light was falling and vanishing. Tumbleweeds rolled, and desert birds sang strange, sad songs, echoing back and forth between the hollow mouths of the tombs carved into the valley walls.
Nic felt an itching sensation of being watched.
But the sun wasn’t gone—and the Guardian wasn’t here yet.
He palmed the ring that had started all this. Before, it had burned in his hand with a fiery, pleasant heat that reminded him of sand filled with the heat of the day’s sun. Now it was lukewarm. The golden band had turned halfway into silver.
Ring of Day-Into-Night. F-Class (Peak) // Treasured Artifact. Given as a gift from a princely sun god to his champion, this ring turned from boon to curse when the god demanded his champion’s daughter as a human sacrifice. During the night, you gain increased stealth and can evade detection skills below E-Class, but you take increased damage from all physical sources. Beware, for the ring cannot be removed, and by day it has another form…
From the moment you touch this holy object, you will be hunted by the Guardian of the Valley. For each additional treasure you steal, the Guardian will grow stronger. Only in the waters of the Temple fountain may you be released from this curse.
By day, strength at the cost of burning through his energy. During the night, vulnerability as the price for stealth. It was a powerful artifact with immense drawbacks…
Nic sighed and put it away. Right now, he wasn’t sure if it was worth committing to such a two-edged sword. He didn’t even know how his enemy fought.
His best bet was already in his hand. The hatchet. Its venom would restrain aura and cripple an enemy combatant, allowing him to escape. It didn’t matter if his enemy was able to come back from the dead, so long as he kept their cultivation sealed, they’d be too crippled to threaten him.
There were three sources of that poison. The hatchet itself, with its poisonous bite. The spirit of Centurion waiting within to attack and bind his enemies. And Nic’s own poison breath, empowered by the centipede on his shoulder.
For the sake of being sure, he meant to land at least two before making his retreat.
He’d managed to save Steadfast and Regent for this moment. His powers were at their highest point, aside from having to expend the Wintertusk Bracer.
If there was any being ready for this…
Nic was ready.
But moment after moment, the Guardian refused to appear. The valley basin was pitch-black.
Nic’s entire body itched, waiting…
Waiting…
A single vibrating disturbance flashed across his danger sense. A split second later, it was a screaming, all-consuming sense of coming death. By then, it would have been too late.
