Crossing Serpent's Way, page 51
part #1 of Trials of the Endless Planes Series
With this powerful summon, she and her then teammates were able to stand against the guardian of the plane, Tyrox, and be recognized for their achievements. The guardian cyclops had given them the power to control the course of their peoples’ destiny at that time and Ogai had spent the centuries since capitalizing on their advantage.
With a stern gaze, she met the ghostly wyvern’s ethereal, serpentine eyes and it bowed its head in supplication. Then, she confidently leapt onto its neck, sitting amidst its ridged spine, something only she could do.
Gengyo and Basho dashed up to her imposing figure, their eyes shining with the light of imminent battle.
Ogai glared at them. “Set the Spears marching. I want them to cut off the humans before they get to the dungeon. If they have to double time it, then make them. Lay a trap for the guilds. I want them slaughtered. Maybe I can even get the Butcher of Man Feat after this,” she laughed. She wasn’t immune to bloodlust. Battle always set her blood boiling.
“And you, Ogai-dahn, where will you go?” asked Gengyo, his head bowed in respect.
“I ride for Scarlet Mark and Blue Thunder. While we don’t need their help to trample on the human guilds, I don’t want those filthy skinned fains or those pallid werelich freaks to flank us. Tohaku and Honoka won’t say no. They can’t resist a good skirmish.”
“I-Is this not a war, Ogai-dahn?” Basho hedged.
The onikai lord snorted, “This is nothing but retribution. Those humans should have known better than to earn my wrath. I let them play pretend at rebellion long enough. Now, their fates will serve as a warning to the other guilds.” Then, she kicked her mount into motion.
The spectral storm wyvern immediately flared its wings and launched itself without kicking up any wind or dust, its movements as ethereal as its visage. In moments, she was high above her settlement, observing the alacrity of her elites responding to her call to battle.
Any Classholder who was bestowed the rank of Spear in an onikai tribe was a formidable combatant. They each had a rare Class with equally rare and powerful spirit summons. Though she lost two platoons already to those underhanded humans, she had entire companies of Spears. Hundreds of them ready for battle at a moment’s notice.
Her Spears would just be the vanguard. Gengyo and Basho would know to bring the rest of the tribe’s warriors as well, though she only allowed experienced rare and uncommon Classholders to participate. The common folk would be too weak. And even some of the uncommon ones still needed to trap better spirit summons.
That was the true threat of the Hollow Scar. Because of their unique Classes that only she and her people knew how to obtain, each of her warriors was worth at least two or three. Their summons had some abilities of their own depending on the strength and rank of the original creature they captured. Her storm wyvern had a pair of rare abilities on the high end of the spectrum. She also had three other summons just as powerful and with their own uses.
Ogai alone was a one-woman team.
And soon, the humans would learn of it for themselves.
With one last appraising look at her tribe, she wheeled her spectral wyvern to the north, where the Scarlet Mark territories lay. First, Tohaku. Then, she would head to Honoka.
After that, she would go to battle.
* * *
After a month and half of traveling along Crags End Crossing, Kaito had finally made it to the Emerald Forge dungeon. It had taken him only a day or so to work his way through its five cavernous chambers filled with rare monsters in the familiar forms of rock, tree, crystal and vine elementals.
With his new Boon ability, [Crushing Blows (Ep)], his every attack sundered branch and boulder alike with greater ease than ever before. His punches were like sledgehammers, while his kicks were like hatchets.
And now, he found himself staring at the final boss of yet another Challenge Mode dungeon.
This would make three in as many months.
Criek, Emerald Forge Elemental (Ep) Lvl.25
“I…smell…winter…” creaked the giant forge carved out of a massive tree that was embedded in a small mountain as tall as a building and as ancient as a ruin. Its roots ran deep, gnarled and diffuse throughout the forest clearing, disrupting the smooth earth and grass in a tangled mess of overgrowth. In a hollowed out furnace in its midsection, a vibrant green flame burned brightly like a viridian bonfire. The elemental looked like the grandfather of every other forge in the whole dungeon.
As Kaito stepped into range of the dungeon boss, he could feel a pressure in the air. His blood pumped more intensely, his adrenaline gradually rising on its own. Colors seemed more alive. Smells more potent. Even his skin tingled.
This wasn’t excitement…This was something that the elemental exuded. Its influence was palpable.
What is that? Life mana? Wood? Damn…I really need to look into mana affinities. I don’t even know what all is possible.
The emerald forge elemental suddenly moved, wrenching its many roots out of the dirt to wave them in the air like living tentacles made of wood and stone. “No…winter…here!” It sounded affronted.
I think it’s talking about me…
Then, Criek hurled a dozen large boulders made of rock and dirt at Kaito. They whistled through the air, but he remained unfazed. His perilous gaze tracked the projectiles with ease, while his [Icefiend Armor (Ra)] manifested in a swirl of frost. In flashes of bone, his [Wyrm Fangs (Ra)] collided with more than half the boulders in midair, turning them into nothing but dust and gravel.
As for the rest, he kicked up his own spray of dirt as he leapt to meet them. His [Cyclone Strikes (Ra)] coated his limbs, blasting apart the last few boulders while he used his shardstrides to skip in the air.
Just as the last projectile crumbled to clumps of soil and pebbles, the emerald elemental lashed out with its stone-covered roots like giant whips that were heavy enough to crush cars into tin cans. Wyrm fang shields swiftly spun around him, blocking the ones he couldn’t tear apart with his spear-hands and kicks.
More gravel and dust rained down on top of Kaito as he landed for the briefest of breaths before shardstriding towards the elemental’s heart. Criek suddenly boomed, “NO WINTER!”
Its roar of pure hatred slammed into Kaito like a visceral wave, knocking him out of the air to carve a furrow into the ground. He rolled in the dirt, dazed with his head ringing from the elemental’s furor. Stone-covered roots quickly wrapped him up, coiling around his limbs and constricting him tightly…squeezing the breath out of his lungs like it was trying to get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube.
Kaito screamed.
Only the fact that his bones had grown much sturdier in the last few months kept them from shattering under the sheer pressure, though he did feel blood gurgling at the back of his throat. An [Arcane Discharge (Ra)] hastily erupted from him, destroying his bindings and dropping him to the ground.
As soon as his feet touched down, he shardstrided away, taking long steps that left a trail of icy mist in his wake. Thrashing roots nipped as his heels, but he was just fast enough to stay ahead.
All of a sudden, a wall of green flames abruptly vented out of the ground to stop him short. There wasn’t any heat per se, however he still broke out in a sweat like he’d just run a marathon in the blink of an eye. His heart thundered in his chest, his throat suddenly dry and scratchy as sandpaper.
What the hell…he thought, almost delirious from the inexplicable change in his insides.
He could probably lay down and pass out right now, that was how drained he felt. The roots caught up to him in that moment of weakness, picking him up only to thrust him straight into the green flames. His insides were in such turmoil, he just let it happen.
The emerald fires boiled his blood, rivers of sweat pouring out of his body while his heart tried to climb out of his parched throat. Kaito couldn’t think straight as his body betrayed him.
He’d never experienced something so out of his element. True fire? He could handle that sort of heat, even with his newfound ice affinity. But this…this was something else. Almost like a spiritual fire that completely upended the homeostasis of his body.
Then, the flames suddenly winked out and he sagged in the crushing embrace of the elemental’s prehensile roots. In his vulnerable state, an ethereal tendril sneakily slithered into his mana core and began to sap his strength in earnest.
A distant part of his mind growled at the audacity of the dungeon boss. The Butcher within him immediately crashed through the brain fog that had invaded his mind. This was the monster that he held caged inside the deepest recesses of his psyche, the same one born the night his family had been torn apart by mana-touched wolves. The Butcher was the feral part of him, while the Glutton was the hungry part. Together, they’d devoured hordes of monsters during Earth’s Crucible and loads more in Serpent’s Way.
Before his conscious mind could register what he was doing, Kaito bit down viciously into the roots holding him. Gnawing like a rabid animal, he tore into the wooden flesh of the elemental without any care of his jaws or his teeth. He didn’t even care that the dungeon boss wasn’t near death.
He was desperate.
And hungry.
[Glutton] responded to his need.
A suction force gorged on the elemental’s roots, ravenously consuming them to take back the mana they’d stolen. He collapsed onto the floor a moment later, spent and running on empty.
While Kaito struggled to get up, a boulder crashed into his side, sending him tumbling end over end under the weight of the projectile. Dirt and grit caked him on his front and back, sneaking its way into his mouth as his mind went blank just trying to hold onto consciousness. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the oddly damaging green flame.
In a moment of desperation, he called upon his [Glacial Shaping (Ra)], encasing himself in a cocoon of ice. Criek bellowed its displeasure immediately, “HATE WINTER!” Another boulder promptly struck his frozen coffin, sending him careening away, shaken but unharmed.
Kaito scrunched up his eyes as he felt his shell thud against something, most likely a tree trunk. In a flash, he conjured more glacial shapes, further encasing himself in layer after layer of protective ice. He followed up with a bone cage made by his [Wyrm Fangs (Ra)] that also served to anchor him into the ground.
Through his thick barrier of ice, he could hear the muffled roars of his opponent, though he turned a deaf ear to them. His insides were still in turmoil. He needed to focus. To gather himself.
On instinct, he triggered the active portion of his [Diamond Aura (Ra)] and miraculously, his ability dispelled the lingering effects weighing on his mind and body. “I-I wasn’t sure that would work…” he stammered in relief in between ragged breaths, trapped in a tomb of his own making.
The walls of his protective prison shook from the pounding of the elemental’s heavy roots, but he ignored them. Now that he experienced what his opponent could bring to bear, he needed to be ready for those green flames again.
He poured more mana into his [Bogbehemoth’s Resilience (Ra)] and [Icefiend Armor (Ra)], reinforcing his scales and frozen plates. Next, he released his wyrm fang cage and formed a bone armor overlay. Then, as quick as his conduction attribute would allow, he shattered his own coffin and shardstrided away in the same breath just before a stone-covered root could pummel him.
The elemental roared in frustration, so Kaito used his [Petrifying Roar (Ra)] right back. Criek’s cry choked off in an instant, though nothing else seemed to happen to the dungeon boss.
Regardless, in that brief hiccup, Kaito fired a pair of [Frostlight Beams (Ra)] while his legs continued to pump out shardstrides. His frigid lasers gouged two lines of frost along the monster’s front, marring its furnace with the element it seemed to hate the most. The green flames within its oven quickly blazed to life to melt away his ice, but Kaito simply summoned glacial walls to ring the creature in. It hissed and shrieked in the next breath as the temperature dropped around it and its fire flickered for the first time that Kaito had seen.
Using its many roots, Criek actually threw boulders at itself, aiming for the frozen palisade Kaito had made. Apparently, the damned thing hated the cold so much, he suddenly found himself being ignored.
He grinned and dumped more mana into his [Glacial Shaping (Ra)], rebuilding the walls that had been shattered, while stacking more atop the others. He feverishly built a silo made of jagged slabs of ice, rapidly outpacing the damage from the boulders and roots. The green glow of its flames were reflected even through his glacial layers and he could tell that its furnace was struggling to stay lit.
In an act of desperation, it conjured a ring of green fire to surround him in an attempt to cripple him by throwing his insides into chaos. Kaito didn’t hesitate, triggering his protective aura twice in rapid succession. Then, he blasted outward with an arcane explosion and blew out the flaming walls like they were candles.
Criek had managed to chip away parts of his frozen prison, while Kaito was preoccupied, but now that he was free, he returned to adding more and more glacial obstacles. Dozens of roots sagged, languidly battering at his frozen walls like limp noodles. Occasionally, a boulder crashed against his barricade, leaving cracks in the icy facade, but Kaito just patched it right back up.
The elemental was clearly flagging, which meant it was time to finish this fight once and for all.
He triggered the active portion of his crushing blows and his bones grew dense at the same time that his muscles swelled. A long shardstride brought him close to the sluggish dungeon boss and he opened up a hole in his frozen silo right at the level of where its green flame continued to sputter behind a furnace grate wrought from root and rock.
[Cyclone Strikes (Ra)] carved it apart to expose the vulnerable green fire within, dancing in his eyes as he looked upon it with hunger and vengeance. The Glutton and Butcher both stood at the forefront of his mind.
“W-Winter…no come…p-please…” Criek whimpered in a low rumble.
Kaito ignored it and opened his mouth wide.
The jade flame was carried away in unseen currents straight into his mana channels, swiftly streaming to his mana core. But, he wasn’t done. The elemental had been the size of a small mountain and Kaito wanted to consume it all.
It had made him thirsty and tired. So now, he would have his fill.
He gorged on its many roots like strands of pasta. Devoured its bark like crispy chips. And chomped on its craggily hide like hard candy. He took his time, consuming every little morsel of its enormous trunk and diffuse root system until the clearing where the battle took place looked like a hurricane had come through and violently uprooted everything that wasn’t bolted down. Only churned up soil and loose gravel remained.
His vision was suddenly inundated by a cascade of familiar blue screens, but Kaito quickly ignored them, pushing them away. He couldn’t handle it right now. The battle had been draining in a way he wasn’t expecting and he needed to just lay down.
So that’s what he did.
He flopped down in the dirt and promptly passed out.
* * *
Chapter 46
Gluttony is a vice and you’ve, once again, bitten off more than you can chew. In your insatiable hunger, you’ve gorged upon an embodiment of pure life mana in its entirety and now, your body has paid the price.
- New Feat: Emerald Flame Rising
- Grants +3 to spirit, conduction and mentality, -6 to constitution
- Grants ability — [Everburning]
Everburning: Passive ability that infuses your blood and vessels with a continuously burning emerald fire of life, sacrificing a portion of your constitution to ignite other parts of you to make you more mentally resistant by 25%, while increasing the mana cost of all abilities by 10%. This also improves your life affinity and augments the power of all your life-based abilities by 50%.
For completing Challenge Mode I by yourself while at lvl.0, the following Feats have been improved:
- Upgraded Feats:
- Foundry Foreman is now Challenger Foundry Foreman
- +1 to all attributes has increased to +2
- Emerald Forgebreaker is now Challenger Emerald Forgebreaker
- +1% to all attributes has increased to +2%
- 50 greater mana (GM)
Somehow, the effects of these Feats and passive abilities never seemed to manifest until after Kaito acknowledged the blue screens announcing his accomplishments. As soon as his eyes flicked to them, he doubled over in spiritual pain as an ethereal flame tore through his body like a wildfire through a forest. Heat rose in his cheeks, sweat drenching his Cryptic Tunic. And the itching…just so much itching. Like ants crawling underneath his skin.
If he had a mirror, he would have seen his eyes flashing between a lush green and a frosty blue. His affinities didn’t seem to like each other. And then another blue screen crashed into his vision.
Warning! Your new passive ability, [Everburning], is not compatible with your other passive, [Cold as Ice]. The emerald flame was never meant to coexist with the glacial throne. Be prepared, Glutton. Your voracious appetite may be your undoing…
That…sounded more like when he had spoken with the Lady of the Endless Planes when he first chose his Class.
Barely a blink later, true pain washed over him.
One second, frigid cold snapped into his bones and in the next, living flames incinerated them. His veins iced over soon after, only to be burned away a moment later. Biting frost ran rampant along his nerves followed immediately by searing agony. And finally, numbing blue ice chilled his skin, then was quickly overtaken by scalding green flames.
