The Land: Monsters

by Aleron Kong

  Richter had to use the Harden power of his Bloodline more than once. He’d saved himself several grievous wounds by instantly increasing his body’s defense. Each time his skin only remained tougher for a minute, however, and his Bloodline Points were swiftly running out.

  He wouldn’t have dealt any damage at all if not for his crafting and enchantments. The malleable iron head of his club was able to directly clash with the wurm’s sharp talons. The claws could cut into rock, but his weapon held up. Even where the metal was scored, he should be able to smooth out the gashes once the battle was done. Malleable iron was truly amazing. If he’d been fighting only with the original bone club, it definitely would have been cut to pieces when he parried the wurm’s attacks.

  His gauntlet was even more impressive. It covered his off hand and held the ichorpede pincer in a reverse grip. In a way, he was wielding three weapons at once. While stabbing the worm only caused a temporary gash, punching it with the powers of Earth and Water made it reel back in pain. Its body must have been somewhat resistant to crush-type damage, because it kept coming back for more. Still, his armament let him stay in the fight.

  He hadn’t made it through the exchange unscathed. More than once it had lunged at him and formed a mouth as it did. If Richter had ever had a problem with not having enough nightmares, that would no longer be the case. The wurm would form a vertical mouth down its length that was at least two feet long, and lining that maw were more of those impossibly hard black spines that it had shot at him. It was easy to understand how they would shred whatever they clamped onto.

  Richter had been hurt several times during the fight and blood leaked from various wounds on his body. The worst injury came when his Simple Light spell elapsed. All of a sudden, the cavern was plunged into darkness. Focusing on the fight, he’d forgotten to cast another spell. There was no blackness in the world above that compared to the darkness of the earth.

  That mistake nearly cost him his life. He swung his mace wildly, and managed to deflect one of the monster’s attacks. The next hit him in the stomach like a sledgehammer. The force was so great that vomit flew out of his mouth and small tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes. If not for his Ring of Spell Storage, that would have been the end of his story. Richter blindly pointed his hand and released Weak Sonic Wail.

  Rings of invisible force flowed out from the ring and rippled over the wurm’s body. The rank one spell wasn’t enough to cause it serious harm, but it still made the beast recoil, shrieking. Richter spat the rest of the sour sick from his mouth and cast Darkvision. Everything within fifty-odd yards of him snapped back into focus. With a snarl, he started attacking the wurm again.

  The two continued to trade blows. He hit it again and again, but Richter knew he was losing. His attacks chipped away at the wurm’s health, but between its massive HP pool and regeneration, there was no way he’d be able to outlast it. Every blow he landed was a pinprick. Every hit he took, however, shaved off a serious amount of his health.

  The melee battle was decided in a split second. Richter landed a heavy blow, but almost died as the wurm lunged at him in return. This time, it formed two mouths. He avoided the first but was surprised by the second. Only shoving his club directly into the second maw kept him from having his arm bitten off. It cost him his weapon though, and all he had left was the ichorpede dagger and gauntlet.

  The chaos lord rolled away and glared at the monster. Sweat ran down his marbleized muscles. His chest heaved like a lathered horse. In defiance of all his efforts, the monster still had over one thousand health. Even if he still had his club, he’d come to the end of his physical capabilities. The wurm had taken everything he had to give and could still take more.

  That meant he had to try something else. Something that he’d avoided until now. He needed to use a new spell of Deeper magic.

  Thought magic made him cold and unfeeling. Spirit magic made his personality spiral out of control. It was also addictive. Deeper magic had serious consequences. Only his mental training with Alma let him endure using its power without losing control. Even then, if he overdid it, Deeper magic would overwhelm him. The last time that had happened he’d nearly slaughtered his friends and allies, which was the reason that was also the last time he’d used the most insidious of Deeper Magics, the magic of Blood.

  Richter hadn’t even experimented with this spell before, but now he didn’t have another option. The Tier 2 monster was just too strong. He needed to take risks. The chaos lord formed his mindscape and began to summon his mental defenses. Alma had been trying to train him to always have the psychic bulwark in place, but he just hadn’t managed that level of mental control yet. When he entered his mindscape, real time slowed down compared to his perceptions. That was good, because Richter was in for a shock.

  His mindscape had always appeared as a clearing in a forest. In the middle of it was the mental representation of his psychic defenses. It had been a single-story castle, more like a fort, truth be told. He’d also always been alone in his mindscape unless Alma was with him or he was engaged in a Thought battle. Neither of those things were true anymore.

  His cube-like fort had turned into a proper castle. It was two stories tall, and more than four times its previous size. Even the wooden gate at the front was no longer simple wood but instead was stout oak banded with black iron. The stones were tightly fitted, and he doubted even a flood would let water seep through. Everything about the place shouted, “Keep Out!”

  The larger shock was that he was no longer alone. Patrolling the ramparts were men-at-arms. They were dressed in leather armor and held spears. More than a dozen walked the top of the wall. Their eyes roamed his mindscape searching for threats. Richter walked up to the wooden door of his Thought castle. Without needing to touch it, the gate opened by itself. Two figures stood by the entrance. Richter took a closer look at one of the men-at-arms, and a prompt appeared.

  Basic Thought Construct. Level 1. Capable of Defense and Surveillance. Attack +1. Defense + 1. Health +10. The most basic of thought constructs, they will protect your mindscape and monitor for hostile intrusions.

  The constructs wouldn’t talk to him, but they would follow simple commands. Richter remembered his Thought battle with the lich Singh, though “one-sided ass whooping” would probably have been a better description. The lich had not only possessed a mental bulwark several stories tall, but he’d also had a bunch of undead in his mindspace. They had followed the undead mage’s commands and had attacked Richter. They must have been Singh’s thought constructs. Somehow, he seriously doubted that Singh’s constructs had been basic.

  Snapping out of his introspection, Richter realized he’d been distracted by the changes in his mindscape. In a panic, he snapped his attention back to the ravager wurm, but the monster had barely moved. With a sigh of relief, Richter realized the time dilation had increased along with his mental defenses.

  This had to be a result of his evolution. The prompt had said that his mind, body and soul would all evolve from Tier 1 to Tier 2. He hadn’t known what that meant, but this must be part of it. Not only had his mental defenses improved, but he now had these constructs to help keep him safe. His mind flashed again to just how much stronger Singh’s mindscape had been and he shuddered. Was Singh’s mindspace a result of his eldritch magic? Did that mean the lich had ascended to Tier 2? Even higher? Based on what he was seeing now, the lich had definitely been a tier higher than him, maybe more than one. It was no wonder the undead creature had thought Richter’s attack was laughable. The guy had been one tough sonofabitch. Either way, Richter had chopped his head off. In the end, that was probably all that really mattered.

  The chaos lord shook that off. He needed to finish this fight, not dwell on the battles of the past. After situating himself on the top floor of his mind castle, he cast Vitality Puppet. In the outside world, blood-red power began to surround his fingers. In his mental landscape, an ocean of blood flowed in from all directions. It splash
ed against the walls of his mental defenses, thankfully lower than his boundaries. Richter knew from horrible past experiences that the more Blood magic he used, the higher the red ocean would rise. If it rose past the level of his walls, and reached his mental avatar, he would be lost to the Deeper magic.

  He also learned in that moment that using stronger Blood Magic would place a greater toll on his mind. The blood-red ocean was way higher than when he used Tame. The “water level” was far lower than when he had used the blood crystal, but not by much. Using higher level Blood Magic was no joke. Tame was only level one and Vitality Puppet was level ten, so he’d expected there to be greater risk when casting it, but not this much! If even initiate-ranked Blood Magic was this much of a threat to his psyche, what would happen if he used anything stronger?

  For now, with Richter’s strengthened mental defenses the effect of the Blood Magic wasn’t a threat. That was what was important. For now, his mind was protected, and he was safe.

  That was not a claim the wurm could make.

  CHAPTER 41 – Day 154 – Juren 4, 0 AoC

  It would have to wait a few seconds for any more of his attention though. While Richter had been harnessing the Deeper Magic, his body had paid the price. To cast Blood magic, blood must be paid. Rents appeared in his skin like those made with a surgeon’s scalpel. His blood rose into the air, draining from his body at a rate that was sickening to see. All the while, his own vital fluids fed the deep-red energy surrounding his hands.

  By the end of the spell, his health had dropped two hundred points and his mana had fallen by one hundred and twenty-nine. The ravager wurm had continued to snap at him, only the golem’s tight grasp keeping it at bay. Still, in the first seconds of the spell, it had remained safely several feet away.

  The wurm wasn’t smart enough to know what was about to happen, but it was a Tier 2 beast. It had a greater connection to the world and greater instincts than a lower-tiered monster. Even the scorpion adult had sensed the danger of Deeper magic; how could this ascended beast fail to do the same? It could feel the dangerous power that Richter was harnessing. With an instinctual drive, it knew it couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

  Using several of its razor talons like blender blades, it cut several feet of its body off, finally freeing itself from the golem’s grasp. It was still ten feet in length, more than enough to be deadly. As soon as it freed itself, its body coiled like a snake; it was only a scant second from an attack that would kill the chaos lord.

  That moment was enough to end its life. In a cosmic parlance, the monster got a shitty silver medal. Meanwhile, Richter finished his spell, earned himself a gold, and was about to be balls deep in the prom queen.

  It was the first time the chaos lord had cast Vitality Puppet so he wasn’t sure what to expect. As soon as he targeted the wurm though, he could “feel” it, the same way he could feel his own body. Looking at it about to spring at him, he now understood the strange makeup of its biology. The reason it could contort and reform its flesh was that its body was basically like a sausage, with a semi-firm casing surrounding a fluid core.

  It had a few organs, but they could float to any part of its body at will. Naturally, that would make landing a killing blow nearly impossible. The only other things inside of it were the two dozen black talons that could extend and retract like switchblades. He even saw how it could compress the fluids inside of its body to shoot out a blade under high pressure.

  Richter could feel it attempting to fight off the influence of his magic, but the monster failed and his spell locked in place. Both absorbing that new knowledge, and his spell taking hold, occurred in the space between seconds. Feeling that in the next second it was about to uncoil like a striking viper, he finally understood Neo.

  He stared at it impassively and pronounced judgement, “No.”

  The Tier 2 monster’s attack was frozen solid by the Deeper Magic of Blood. At the same time, the rents in Richter’s flesh closed like they had never been there. The pain remained and his health was still damaged, but the external signs of casting Vitality Puppet were gone. Richter was physically and mentally exhausted. He still couldn’t help but stare at the monster in fascination.

  He’d always thought that Vitality Puppet would basically be a stronger version of Charm. The Life magic spell convinced someone you were their friend. They believed it so strongly, they would even attack their former comrades. Charm was one of his most powerful spells, but it definitely had its weaknesses. You couldn’t convince someone to knowingly kill themselves. They also might resist orders that went against their core beliefs. A virtuous person wouldn’t kill a child, for instance. In fact, giving orders that were anathema to the charmed person’s nature was a surefire way to break the spell.

  Vitality Puppet was not like that at all. Unlike Charm, the monster did not look on him affectionately. Even though he’d cast the spell, if he hadn’t forced it to remain motionless, it would still have attacked him. Now that the spell was cast and the order was given though, keeping it in place required only a minimal bit of focus. Richter had complete control over the beast. He could still feel it trying to break free of the Blood magic, but it was well and truly fucked.

  Richter absently dual cast Slow Heal, as he watched it quiver only a couple feet away. Then he exerted his will, and froze the creature in place completely. Even the tremor that had been reverberating through its body ceased. It might as well have been a statue. With it fully immobilized, he decided to test how far he could push the spell.

  He discovered the wurm would follow nonverbal orders. Moving it around was like ordering his own arm to move, only requiring slightly greater focus. Having it move across the cavern was easy. He then had it move in more convoluted patterns. It quickly became clear that the more complicated the command, the more of a lag there was between his orders and when they were carried out. Simpler orders were clearly better.

  He tried another tactic and told it to attack a wall, but without any specific direction as to how. It carried out the command without hesitation. Loud thuds sounded out as it threw its body and talons at the stone surface. The chaos lord nodded to himself. He wouldn’t be able to micromanage how a blood puppet acted, but he could give general orders that would be followed. Richter ordered it to be still again.

  He tried to make the wurm cease its regeneration, but that failed. Vitality Puppet couldn’t stop an involuntary process. The wurm couldn’t stop healing any more than Richter could stop his heart from beating.

  With the monster now under his control, he commanded it to lie still a dozen yards away from him. He then had the golem stand between him and the ravager wurm. After that, he settled into a lotus pose and tried to meditate. It wasn’t easy. His body was exhausted and his stamina was near zero. Still, he tried. He had a decision to make.

  Richter had two options for what to do with the monster. The first was to Tame it. He didn’t have a lot of hope that would work, in light of its high level. Even if it did, he knew almost nothing about Blood Magic. For all he knew, there might be a bad reaction between Tame and Vitality Puppet. If the ravager wurm slipped his control, he wanted to be in top shape. That was why he intended for all of his status bars to be full and to restore the golem’s health before doing anything.

  If Tame didn’t work, option two would require him to push the control of Vitality Puppet to the max. That also risked the wurm regaining control. Richter sincerely hoped option one would work. Not only because it’d be nice to have another ally down here. It was because option two would be… decidedly messy.

  For the next several minutes, Richter regenerated his mana and restored the golem to top condition. He also used his Combat Art, Stone Mace. It was a bit amazing to see rock flowing from the cavern floor to cover his weapon. Even more astonishing, his perception of the mace’s weight didn’t change at all. The entire time he was recovering, he still kept an eye on Vitality Puppet’s duration. There were only twenty minutes until the spell elapse
d. When that happened, ten feet of Tier 2 monster would be up his ass again.

  When five minutes were left on the spell, Richter was ready. He and the golem approached the monster and he started casting Tame. Blood red light surrounded his hand, and he laid his fingers on the ravager wurm’s skin. A red prompt greeted him.

  You have failed to Tame the Level 52 Ravager Wurm!

  No huge surprise, but still disappointing. He’d only had a max 35% chance to tame it. That wasn’t even taking into account the monster’s innate magic resistance. He had to imagine that a Tier 2 beast would have a stronger defense to magic than a non-ascended creature. Whatever the reason, he’d failed. Now the spell was on cooldown for the next eight hours. With only minutes left before the wurm took back control, he knew it had to die. Richter cast Soul Trap. After that, he tried to do something simple and just thought, “Die.”

  It did jack squat. Richter hadn’t thought it would work, but he was just trying to avoid the mess of what came next. With no other choice, he gave an order that no sane creature would ever follow. Insane or not, this time the monster followed his directions. Each and every one of the ravager wurm’s claws stuck out of its body at once. The blades were in two lines, positioned one hundred and eighty degrees from each other. That was the first order Richter gave. The second was just as simple.

  “Cut.”

  The blades moved forward and back in a sawing motion. The wurm’s body was bisected in mere seconds. Red-orange sludge fell from the wounds and its health fell by hundreds of points. Its regenerative skin tried to keep up with the damage, but the dozen or so blades wreaked too much havoc. That was when Richter gave his third order, not to the wurm, but to his golem.