Crossing Serpent's Way, page 35
part #1 of Trials of the Endless Planes Series
Behind it, its tail swished around lazily, until it grabbed the tip in its skeletal fingers. Then, with a casual flourish, the creature yanked on its own tail and half the entire appendage detached, transforming into a goddamn greatsword.
Kaito’s eyes went wide as saucers. What the actual fuck…a sword-wielding cyclops? Why now? He looked up helplessly to the clouds above. Really, Lady? What did I do to piss you off?!
“Don’t look up to Her, Pioneer. I am your opponent, not the Lady,” the creature spoke in a refined voice, though Kaito had absolutely no idea where the sound was coming from.
“Oh great…you can talk too. That could only mean that you’re…” he squinted his eyes and activated his perilous gaze.
Tyrox, Guardian of Serpent’s Way (Ep) Lvl.??
“…Yup. You’re an epic monster…”
And ‘lvl.??,’ what the hell does that mean?
The creature’s single eye opened widely in surprise, though it controlled its expression so fast Kaito wasn’t quite sure that he saw it. “Oh ho…somebody earned themselves a noteworthy sensory ability!” Tyrox teased. “No wonder I’ve been feeling the touch of the Lady so much more since the coming of your lot of Pioneers. Normally, Her influence doesn’t linger for this long, but She’s thrown challenges at you, hasn’t She?”
It began to slowly pace, circling Kaito while blatantly inspecting him with its eye. “You’ve also been marked by some mythics I see…you reek of their Feats. My, my…my low-leveled Pioneer, you have been busy. Someone has turned you onto the path of becoming quite the monster haven’t they?”
Tyrox stopped a few dozen feet to Kaito’s right and laid the tip of its greatsword on the ground, easily gouging a hole just from its sheer weight. The weapon was as tall as the creature and as wide as one of its legs with a sizable crossguard attached to a hand-and-a-half handle. Kaito immediately turned to face it, wary of any threatening motions.
“What do you want?” he asked, narrowing his eyes while he unconsciously opened and closed his clawed hands.
“Me?” Tyrox feigned indignation, “Why…I’m here to see what the fuss is all about…” It sniffed through a nose that Kaito couldn’t see. “I know what you’re planning, lowbie, I can smell it through your Feats and Titles. Want a friendly piece of advice?”
Kaito just continued to glare at the creature, straining his eyes to see any minute detail that would give away what it actually wanted…Finally, when nothing jumped at him, he nodded curtly.
And then Tyrox flung its massive greatsword end over end so fast that Kaito didn’t even have time to blink.
Only instincts honed from years of battle saved him as his muscles screamed, his tendons straining under the full brunt of his power and dexterity attributes.
Before his head could wrap around what happened, his clawed right hand hung in the air before his eyes as if in slow motion. It was sliced cleanly just above the wrist, leaving a perfectly shaved stump on his forearm. There wasn’t even any blood. Something on the greatsword had sealed his injury. In the background and just out of focus, Tyrox’s weapon spun lazily through the air until it thumped onto the ground a few feet away.
Kaito was stunned speechless.
He simply stared uncomprehendingly at his cleaved-off forearm, while his brain worked furiously to catch up. He hadn’t even registered the pain, though with his augmented pain resistance and high constitution, the pain would have been muted anyway.
A slow, drawn-out clap snapped him out of his shock and he screamed, immediately dropping to his knees while clutching his stump. Then, Tyrox spoke in a voice that somehow drowned out Kaito’s pained howling without any effort, “Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! You did not disappoint, Pioneer. Not at all!” The creature laughed, high and wild, its eye crinkling at the edges into a mockery of a ‘smile.’
“Bahahahaha! I see now what the mythics saw in you!” Tyrox continued to chuckle, wiping a false tear from its lone eyeball, then reached out a hand for its greatsword. The unwieldy weapon instantly shot straight back to its waiting skeletal fingers and it promptly thrust the sword back into its shrunken tail. When the weapon reattached itself, it transformed back into the rest of Tyrox’s tail, which the creature promptly swished back and forth in a lazy manner.
“Since you managed to actually turn my blade, here’s your friendly piece of advice — when you’re finished muddling through these dungeons, come and find me at the Mana Pits of Amihan. Oh…And keep the handicap. If you can survive, you might find it worth your while,” Tyrox offered, while wagging its unibrow up and down in a suggestive way.
Kaito wanted to say something scathing, to curse the creature out, but he found that his body was suddenly numb and no longer listening to his brain. He teetered to the side, then thudded to the ground like a fallen tree. Handless and unmoving.
“Ah, so you don’t have an ability that can manage the side effects of my blade. You might want to scrounge up something before we meet again…oops! That was another piece of friendly advice,” Tyrox shook its shoulders as if it were its head, which…it technically was. “Look at me, so talkative today just because you’ve gotten my blood boiling.”
With one final, pointed look that pinned Kaito even more to the ground, the creature offered a few last words, “Remember, when you’ve finished dawdling on this measly plane, come find me and I will show you what it takes to ascend.”
Then, without warning, Tyrox launched itself from the plateau like a reverse bolt of lightning, spraying dirt and grass all over Kaito’s helpless form as it rocketed into the clouds above, parting their golden curves and disappearing from sight.
Kaito finally relaxed and rolled onto his back to watch the clouds drift back together, closing the hole the creature had made. His body was still numb but he was already actively pouring mana into his [Bogbehemoth’s Resilience (Ra)] to speed up the process of ridding his system of whatever foreign substance Tyrox infected him with.
His left hand then tentatively prodded the stump of his right arm and he just sighed, Fuck me…
* * *
Chapter 31
Kaito opened and closed his right hand over and over again, testing it out as if he didn’t believe it was completely healed. With his [Bogbehemoth’s Resilience (Ra)], he’d regrown it for a relatively large chunk of GM about the price of raising an ability to rank 10, so maybe…11 GM or so? It wasn’t quite an astronomical amount, especially with how much he had leftover, but that didn’t help the uneasiness lodged in his chest.
After retrieving his rings from his fallen right hand, he was able to activate his [Aerosphere (Un)] and now he was zooming along towards Lightstall located on the neighboring plateau. In between them were far lusher prairies than the arid grasslands found atop them. Down here, if Kaito was paying any sort of attention, he would’ve noticed that the monster-life had changed as well. Instead of creatures that burrow underground, these fertile grasslands were home to herds of monsters that roamed like cattle.
Towering, red-skinned monsters that looked like bipedal elephants roamed the prairie with long arms that dragged on the ground beside their trunks. Great horned horses with the scales of a snake galloped past, kicking up grass and dust in their wake. Meanwhile, a pod of enormous crabs with boulders strapped to their backs scuttled around a small pond, spraying water onto their craggily shells.
Kaito ignored them all.
Normally, he would have been out hunting these creatures for their mana cores to see what abilities they offered, but he was so preoccupied with his hand and recent brush with a true monster that his mind just couldn’t focus. Controlling his aerosphere like he was on autopilot, he steered himself around the largest herds of creatures to avoid any unnecessary fights.
He continued like that for nearly half a day’s ride before he finally pulled himself out of his funk. In the back of his mind, he knew in a peripheral way that he was traveling across a prairie, but it hadn’t truly registered until now. As Kaito zipped above green-blue grass that looked to be as high as his waist, he was thankful for his forethought of crafting an anchored trinket with [Aerosphere (Un)] on it, which made traveling extremely easy, almost like he was riding on a motorcycle.
Wind streamed across his face, tugging on his long, wavy black hair that fluttered freely as he traveled at a fast clip while the sun of Serpent’s Way hung high above.
It was still so odd to him to see a sun so familiar, yellow with hints of orange. He could almost believe he wasn’t on a different plane of reality.
While questioning guild members, he did ask about the day and night cycles, but they just looked at him like he was stupid. None of them had any idea of orbits or rotating worlds. To the locals, the sun and twin moons just were. And their cycles were regulated by the Lady.
If Kaito hadn’t encountered the Lady herself, then he would’ve written their beliefs off to mere superstition. In the end, it wasn’t quite the answer he was looking for, but he couldn’t exactly refute them. There was no science here. Everything revolved around mana abilities and whatever the screens were that the Lady had devised.
From his vantage, it was easy to see far ahead of him in a wide panorama. And coming up fast was an expansive watering hole just on the horizon that suddenly reminded him that he desperately needed a bath. Thoughts of warm water flew out of his mind as the glistening blue-white surface of the relatively shallow lake beckoned him. He’d still get a warm bath once he was in Lightstall, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t wash off right now.
Without thinking, Kaito veered his aerosphere over to the watering hole, inexplicably drawn to its shimmering waters. He hovered above the surface only briefly before he felt compelled to jump in. It never even occurred to him that there were no creatures drinking out of a perfectly good lake…
Kaito’s toes barely broke the water’s surface before a gaping maw with multiple rows of jagged teeth breached at the same time. In a flash of fangs as long as his shin, the enormous jaws snapped shut, trapping him in humid darkness filled with putrid breath.
As soon as the darkness closed in, his thoughts cleared and he realized what had happened. He growled in frustration at having fallen for such an obvious trap. Stuck between its massive jaws and lying on its disgustingly slimy tongue, whatever ability this giant creature used to bewitch him had completely worn off.
His eyes flashed in the utter blackness of the monster’s mouth and his perilous gaze told him what he wanted to know.
Lake Lurker (Ra) Lvl.15
Kaito cursed to himself at the monster’s strength. Anywhere this thing went, it would be considered an apex predator, though clearly this monster stayed strictly in its place of power. This watering hole was its hunting ground and if he’d had a clear head, the lack of creatures drinking from the lake would have been a dead giveaway that something was wrong.
In a heartbeat, he clad himself in his wyrm fang armor to put a barrier between his skin and the slimy tongue. Then, he breathed out his debilitating miasma, directing it straight into the monster’s gullet. Everything around him immediately shook as the creature writhed under the effects of his infectious gas. But instead of coughing him out, the damned thing violently twisted and all of a sudden, Kaito was sliding down a long, slippery tunnel — being eaten.
Without thinking, Kaito transformed his wyrm fangs into bone spears that instantly lodged straight into the monster’s throat to hastily slow his slide. He could feel the thing gag as he hung suspended in its esophagus, its swallowing muscles impaling themselves even further onto his barbed bones.
As his feet dangled in the darkness, he let loose another wave of miasma, a shudder running through the whole length of the lake lurker. The sound of rushing water followed right after and a pit formed in Kaito’s stomach.
Oh shi-!
He desperately poured mana into his [Bogbehemoth’s Resilience (Ra)] to harden his skin just as a river of stomach acid crashed into him, engulfing his legs in an instant. On instinct, he sucked in a breath but inadvertently got some bile in his mouth, causing him to hack and cough as he was completely submerged. What acid he consumed burned his throat and stomach, while the bile outside of his body tried to eat into his scales.
Without many options left, he triggered his [Arcane Discharge (Ra)], releasing a concentrated explosion of arcane energy that evaporated the acid all around him in a flash. More came to fill in the space, but Kaito was already moving.
He quickly molded his wyrm fangs into a cocoon for himself to keep him from being swallowed up by any more bile. Now that he was in an airtight submarine of his own making, Kaito had a moment to actually catch his breath. Not a long moment, but anything was better than nothing.
His breathing came short and labored since there wasn’t much air to be had in a monster’s acid-filled throat, while his makeshift life raft bumped along the monster’s wide esophagus, carried by the current of its own bile. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long. In a matter of moments, his entire cocoon rumbled and then his stomach jumped into his chest as if he were flying.
Dismissing his wyrm fang container, green-blue grass greeted him for a split second before he face-planted straight into the ground. Behind him, there was a strained gargling mixed with angry roars amidst frantic splashing. Kaito nimbly flipped off the ground and spat out dirt as he got his first good look at the lake lurker.
Wailing in the once tranquil waters of the lake was a rampaging reptile that looked like an ancient crocodile crossed with an eel. Even with part of its body still submerged, the half that was above water was as long and wide as a train car with wickedly webbed spines running down its back and four pairs of clawed fins on its belly waving frantically around in the air.
Its scaled hide was army green and looked as thick as steel plating, although he spied numerous black spots where its scales were sloughing off. His miasma must have still been at work within its body because its throat bulged and bubbled like something boiling just beneath the skin and he knew that was the damage he left in that area.
Kaito quickly whipped his hands to either side of him, his wyrm fang armor covering him once more, while forming clawed gauntlets that brimmed with bright blue and green light — [Mana-Empowered Strikes (Ra)], [Claw Frenzy (Ra)] and [Rip and Tear (Ra)].
He knew what he had to do.
Dirt flew as he kicked off, closing the distance with pure dexterity and ferociously slashing downward with his arms to generate twin spectral claw attacks that tore bloody gouges in the lake lurker’s neck. Its furious screams cut off then, turning into desperate gasping. With a colossal splash, its leviathan-like body flopped back down into the water, writhing even more wildly than before.
Kaito flipped on his aerosphere to give him a foothold above the hysterical monster, then released another [Miasma of the Sunkenlands (Ra)] right on top of it. The lake lurker was not only contending with the lingering effects of his miasma on the inside, but now it was practically swimming in it.
Landing on the shore beside the lake, Kaito casually deactivated his abilities and stood underneath the spray of water coming from the frenzied thrashing of the lake lurker in its death throes.
Then, he began to shower.
He ran his hands through his hair, rinsing his filthy locks in only mildly funky lake water. Sure some of his new clothes were going to need some cleaning, but at least he got the rinse he wanted.
After a few more minutes, the lake lurker finally succumbed to all the damage he piled onto it and the area was suddenly filled with an eerie silence. His miasma lingered, drifting just above the surface of the lake, shrouding the monster’s floating carcass like a morning mist. Kaito inhaled deeply in satisfaction to absorb the mana his ability had stolen. Then, he farstrided onto the corpse, stepping on it as if it were nothing more than a floating log.
Without hesitating, he knelt and ripped some meat off of the still-warm carcass and shoved it in his mouth to let his passive ability take over. He actually had to repeat the process several more times because the damned lake lurker was longer than he first thought.
In the end, he hovered once again on his aerosphere as he held a dark blue mana core in his palm the size of a cantaloupe. Looking at the blue screen in his inner vision, he couldn’t help but smile at the abilities the monster possessed.
It looked like he would need to do some transmuting once he finally got to Lightstall.
* * *
Lightstall was remarkable.
A jewel of a city with spires of hardened red clay etched with glowing runes that spread out across the plateau in a sweeping layout of crisscrossing streets amidst tiled-roof buildings with large windows to let the wind pass through. Canvas awnings sewn with more runes cast their shade over most of the windows, providing their occupants with privacy without impeding the ever-present breeze.
“See those taller spires over there?” Teras pointed her winged arm, “They’re around 10 or 12 stories high and those runes at their tops generate the constant wind that sweeps across the city to keep it airy and cool despite the cramped streets.”
Mila nodded along, finding the tidbits fascinating. To her, Lightstall was this plane’s version of a middle-eastern city. “C’mon, we’ve gotta get to the Hunter’s Lair before any more of the good commissions are taken. I don’t want to get stuck having to hunt down another Lady’s forsaken lake lurker, those things are the worst!” cried Zenser as he scurried along the hard-packed clay streets.
“That couldn’t be helped, Zen!” Teras called after his retreating form, grumbling when he didn’t stop.
“Ya, what do you think is happening by the dungeon portal anyway? Is that normal for guilds to just take over everything for months on end?” Mila asked as she and Teras hurried after Zenser.
