“Y-yes,” he said, his voice quavering with tension.
As she was pressuring the captain, I noticed Gorgie, Rob and Art give a slight shudder. So the brute loosened her grip for just a second. It was just a fleeting moment, but it was enough for me to know what I should do next. And I started waiting for an opportunity.
“Well, captain, what now?” the yellow-eyed beast asked in a mocking tone. “You and your soldiers are no longer of any interest to me. I might have let you go but, alas, I cannot. After all, someone has to answer for the murder of my children. And the others have to eat.”
As soon as she said that, I tasted another upwelling of bitter rot in my mouth. Then, dark silhouettes started appearing from the shadows hissing and whimpering. They surrounded us slowly, forming a dense wall.
I turned my head in fear, understanding that we had been surrounded by a throng of blackbloods all this time. And the ones we killed were nothing more than bait.
“My children!” the beast snarled, casting off her human form once and for all. “I give you these three!”
I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I was going to start with an eel lightning. I understood there was a chance for the spell not to work, so while the beast interrogated the captain, an unexpected idea came into my head. I was reminded that hunters could supposedly use orbs of darkness to power up their spells and abilities. And I was also keeping in mind how Master Chi died. He was killed by something from the dark magic arsenal specifically.
I didn’t know exactly how it would work, so I was acting haphazardly.
Grabbing a handful of dark spheres from the ephemeral pocket, I tried to activate the spell.
― Attention! Would you like to power up the spell Glitterspark Eel’s Chain Lightning?
― Considering the level of your spell, the maximum number of Orbs of Darkness you may use is: 6.
― Attention! Using the maximum possible number of dark elements will cause a significant reduction of your reputation with the Order of Monster Hunters!
To hell with it! Let’s go!
Just as the pack of hungry beasts abruptly tore off, something looking like thick intertwining coal-black tentacles burst out of my hand. There seemed to be around ten of the dark outgrowths, if not a whole dozen. One of them, the very thickest sunk right into the body of the blackblood mommy, who was not expecting such a nasty trick.
The remaining tentacles lashed out at the beasts nearest her. The effect was the same for all of them – they collapsed like they’d just been kneecapped and stayed on the ground like limp spineless dolls. But alas, the long-awaited notification about the blackblood woman’s death did not come.
Gorgie’s fearsome and simultaneously gleeful snarl announced that my brother was free! However, our companions weren’t so lucky. Their bodies had been smothered by the oncoming wave of bloodthirsty beasts! A little bit longer and Gorgie and I would fall to the same fate!
“Over here!” I shouted to the harn, simultaneously summoning the Crusher spirit. “You won’t be able to take her down!”
Gorgie threw himself in my direction, trying to get through the blackblood lady’s magic shield to no avail and snarling in frustration. A second later, Gorgie and I were enshrouded in an impenetrable magic fog. Based on the shrieks of disappointment from the beasts, the Crusher spirit had done what I wanted.
I understood it was a temporary measure. That very soon the fog would disperse, the head brute would come to her senses and devour us – so I decided to turn this place into hell on earth!
— Would you like to unleash the spell “Heaven’s Wrath?”
— Attention! Performing this action requires:
— 5000 mana points.
Not doubting it a second longer, I gave my permission.
— Select activation point.
— Warning! The element you are summoning knows no mercy! Either take care to provide adequate defense or try to keep away from the epicenter of the storm.
— Warning! Spell damage radius: 165 feet.
I dismissed the system notification and extended a hand forward. I set the activation point near the fallen and unmoving beasts and unleashed the spell from its crystal.
Time to get out of here. Gorgie understood without a word and shoved me in the back to tell me where to run. But he immediately grabbed my jacket with his teeth as well. There were enemies in front of us. I still had enough mana so, thinking briefly, I sent a gulper’s ram blindly forward. And I cast a couple ice arrows after it for good measure. Based on the shrieks of pain, my gifts reached their intended recipients.
A swallow of potion of satiety perked me up. My Wisdom took the boost and slowly but surely started refilling the lost mana.
Before I could get out of the magical fog, I heard a fearsome thunder. I jerked my head upward and was astonished. The spectacle unfolding before me was simultaneously beautiful to behold and frightening in its majesty. I stood there not breathing, my mouth open in astonishment.
In the dark night sky where the celestial bodies had just started to appear, something flickered. A fiery red dot. And after it another and another. When I looked closer, I saw elongated glowing red and orange droplets standing out in the sky where the flashes appeared. And gradually they were coming closer to earth, starting to turn into big huge masses of blazing flame. Hissing and humming angrily, they were racing straight for us.
The first heavenly mass, the size of an elephant’s head, left a trail of smoke behind it and fell smack dab on top of the immobilized Blackblood Mother. That was what the Great System called her in the message about her death.
The blow was so forceful that Gorgie and I were sent flying two feet into the air. And a second later, we were engulfed in a wave of heat.
“Run for it!” I shouted and dashed for the gates.
A fearsome roar from all directions. Merciless thundering. Powerful subterranean shockwaves. Night turned to day in the blink of an eye. Burning hot and fiery bright. The taste of rotten bitterness in my mouth was replaced with soot and cinder. I heard the wounded blackbloods shrieking and squealing. I saw their silhouettes lurching in the flame. From time to time, the system faithfully reported the death of yet another beast and rewarded me accordingly.
And there are the gates. Or rather what’s left of them. A fiery droplet from the heavens had smashed down several yards from the stockade wall, but inertia must have sent it skidding it another few yards. That just so happened to be enough to blow away the right gate and part of the stockade – the wood caught fire very quickly.
Covering my face with a hand, I went through the wall of fire and finally escaped the encirclement. My energy supply was noticeably sagging, red circles appeared before my eyes and a sickly rasp burst from my throat with every step. But I was just running forward without looking.
Gorgie was racing along at my side, happy. Our gazes met for a moment and I smiled. Looks like we managed to cheat the goddess Death yet again!
* * *
— Attention! The Higher Powers smile upon you! You have replicated the legendary feat of Grand Magister Pyrus! Fighting alone, you managed to defeat 30 creatures more than 20 levels higher than you in one battle with one spell!
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (50000).
— Magister Pyrus’ Signet (1)
— You have killed Blackblood Mother (62).
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (12400).
— Diamond tablet.
— Silver tablet (30).
— Monster Hunter Token (200).
― Large Orb of Darkness (10).
— Attention! The Higher Powers smile upon you! You have replicated the legendary feat of Tix the Savage! You defeated a magical being more than 60 levels higher than you!
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (7000).
— Iridescent Tablet “Blackblood Mother” (1).
I was sitting
on an undamaged beam with my head bowed and eyes closed. I had just reread all the recent significant system messages and breathed a sigh of relief – they didn’t contain a single word about my companions. Yes, they had died, but not at my hands. I found their battered and scorched bodies in the morning when I decided to drop back into the annihilated village.
Intellectually I understood that the captain and his underlings were going to try and kill me sooner or later. But, for some reason, my heart was telling me it was a good thing I was not involved in their death. It was probably a weakness to think like that, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
At night, after the spell stopped working, Gorgie went down into the burning village and finished off all the wounded brutes. If any of them had managed to flee during the battle, they didn’t come bother us.
All told, there were thirty-eight dead beasts on my ledger. Almost all over level twenty. Plus their mommy.
I glanced into my backpack. Over the course of the battle, I’d earned just a hair shy of two hundred fifty thousand esses, four hundred ten silver, almost fifteen hundred tokens, eighty-six large orbs and a diamond tablet. But the most significant valuables of course were the personal magic signet and iridescent tablet.
The latter came as a complete surprise. As it turned out, the Blackblood Mother’s list of spells, abilities and characteristics contained absolutely nothing connected with mental attacks. There was only one conclusion to be drawn from that – she was using some powerful mental artifact. But there was nothing to mark the spot where she died other than a big huge black crater, so the artifact was long gone. The temperature of the first fireball was so high that the earth itself had melted there and turned to coal-black glass.
But there was also good news. The blackblood mother had Will!
In the end, I was able to talk with the dryad about that characteristic as planned. Midori didn’t know much. Either that or, considering what happened later, simply didn’t want to go wagging her tongue. From what she told me, I was able to glean that tablets of Will dropped much less often than even Intellect ones. And that wasn’t the end of the difficulties. People could bring up their Will just one point every two levels. In other words, my amulet’s figures gave me the stats of a level-one-hundred character. Plus the ten I got from the iridescent tablet – I was very happy with my high figures there now.
Beyond that, the blackblood mother had a few spells and magical abilities, but there was only one I was anatomically suited for. I couldn’t “restore my inner reserves by gorging myself on the blood and flesh of my victims,” but I got an excellent and useful ability nonetheless – a canopy of invisibility.
- Blackblood Mother’s Canopy of Invisibility.
- Level: 0+5 (0/20).
- Type: Active ability.
- Rarity: Epic.
- Description:
- Using magic, the Blackblood Mother can cover herself with a canopy of invisibility. Under the canopy, she becomes invisible to magical/physical vision/senses.
- Requirements:
- Intellect – 14.
- Expends 200 mana points.
- Note:
- Duration: 30 minutes.
At the very least, I could see how she’d managed to go unnoticed. I could only imagine the level of her ability if even Takeda and his troops couldn’t detect her.
I was happy to have one more iridescent, but not as happy as I was about the new personal artifact.
Rubbing my hands together, I extracted the signet from my backpack and, my heart aflutter, exhaled. I wanted to gaze upon its beauty again and again. The ring itself was made of matte-black metal. Nothing fancy. I’d even call it simple. But it wasn’t the setting that caught my eye, it was the stone. Fiery red like the heavily flaming mass that killed the blackblood mother, only in miniature. The mere fearsome sight of a signet like this could make anyone have second thoughts about tangling with its owner.
Finally tearing my gaze from the fiery stone, I read through the description again:
Magister Pyrus’ Signet.
— Type: Personal magical artifact.
— Rarity: Legendary.
— Intellect +30.
— Wisdom +30.
— Special effect:
— When critically necessary, automatically refills life or energy supply at the expense of mana supply, directly converting the necessary amount of mana into life or energy.
— Note:
— Weight: None. Takes no space.
In other words, if something is about to do more damage than my life supply contains, I won’t die as long as I have plenty of mana.
Gorgie gave a warning snarl, distracting me from studying the artifact. The local scavengers had started showing up at the now former explorer village which had very nearly burned to the ground. Based on the harn’s emphatic growling, a few of them were quite high level.
I understood it was time to go, but my greed was pressuring me to stay. After all, there was probably lots of interesting stuff to be found here. It is an explorer village, no matter how you slice it. Scolopendra’s sixth sense was no help. After the rain of fire, the ground in the village was basically soaked with mana to the point it was like an unbroken lake of magic.
I didn’t know where to go or what to do next. Wait here for the explorers to come back? Won’t work. Lovers of carrion will start showing up soon.
And what if all the explorers are dead? Hard to believe. But that leads to another question. How long should I wait for them? And if I stay and wait, what’s to guarantee they’ll treat me as a friend?
No! No more illusions! The sooner I realize that I only have enemies around me, the easier it will be for me to survive and get back to my friends.
Relying only on myself! Not trusting anyone! Surviving at any cost! Becoming stronger!
I clenched my fists and sharply raised my head.
Gorgie froze opposite me. Our gazes met.
“Brother, what if we go find the place we were dragged out here to look for? What did they say again? The Tomb of the Founder! As far as I can tell, they’re talking about Gunnar the Destroyer’s burial site. Just imagine the kind of loot we could make away with there!”
“Hrn!” Gorgie backed me up.
Our searches for the map the blackblood mother tried bitterly to ask Takeda about brought nothing. The bodies and belongings of the scouts had turned to black char.
“Too bad,” I muttered, looking at the gnarled bodies of my companions. “They could have at least left us a clue. Although...”
I’m reminded that the captain mentioned Narrow Lake and the foxfolk a few times in passing. At first it seemed he was trying to tease me because he knew my relationship to those creatures. But then I started to remember separate episodes and fragments of Rob and Art’s conversations about the north of the Dark Continent. They were saying we’d have to stock up on warm clothes in the explorer village.
I winced. It’s a so-so guess, but I can’t just sit here! So its decided – we’ll start our search to the north!
Chapter 26
— You have killed Yellow Adder (30).
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Experience essence (6000).
— Silver tablet (10).
— Attention! Your pet has reached level 15!
— Free characteristics: 3.
GORGIE LET OUT a happy growl, which rolled through the forest, making all the nearby birds flock off in a matter of seconds.
“Finally!” I exclaimed and clambered over to embrace my friend.
To say the harn had grown would be an understatement. My brother had turned into a true seasoned beast, no less agile, strong or fast than monsters more than twice his level. The harn’s scales had become thicker and darker. Down his spine, black spikes of bone had started poking through from the back of his head to the tip of his tail. If this keeps up, I guess Mee will have to find a different mount.
After three level-ups, the tip of the harn�
��s tail had turned into a sharp spike. But Gorgie had yet to figure out just how to use his new “ornament.” I meanwhile was guessing what would come next.
Walking a bit further from the body of the defeated monster, I sat on a thick sunken log sticking jauntily up out of the ground. We were not afraid of little scavengers. As of recently, we’d actually been happy to see them. More monsters – more loot. The risk of running into something more dangerous, naturally, did exist. But first of all, we were no longer harmless little nubbins ourselves. And secondly, we always had an escape plan. The harn’s keen senses plus my canopy of invisibility – if anything wanted to eat us, it would have to catch us first.
The Dark Continent (Underdog Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 24