***
However, this time, instead of the black creatures at the foot of the hills, someone else appeared... a shadow of a huge carcass slowly loomed over Progl-Log.
Surprise soon gave way to fear.
The monster, about two-thirds of which was made of some dark metal, was looking directly at Progl-Log, towering menacingly above them. Progl-Log’s tentacles shook with fear, a shiver ran down their spine, and a cry of terror rose in their throat, but they couldn’t look away. It wasn’t so much the giant itself that was scary as its arrival had been known for a long time, but its eyes... its eyes held Progl-Log pinned to the ground.
“Some kind of will-suppression skill?” flashed through Progl-Log’s mind.
But this time, the Orange player was lucky. The titan couldn’t stand the bright light pouring from the tentacles, and blinked. Progl-Log’s skills had saved them.
As if released from his bonds, the Orange player instantly took off, and ran in the direction of the Screeching Mountain, where dozens of other players were waiting underground, not even suspecting that a huge monster was coming for them, the long shadow of which covered almost half of the hills.
***
They felt like they had never run this fast before. The tentacles slammed hard into the ground, only to push off and then fly up into the air, over and over again. Streams of sweat ran down the ellipsoid body: the peak of the drought had passed a month ago, but the weather was still hot, and humidity was very low, so the crops had to be constantly watered with water from the nearest river. But Progl-Log wasn’t running alone. Just a few steps away, the shadow of the giant was still moving. And the distance was getting smaller and smaller.
The roar of an engine suddenly hit their ears: the giant switched to automatic traction, preferring it to the much less hardy heart. The long shadow instantly moved forward, overtaking the already tired Progl-Log.
When the Screeching Mountain was about a hundred feet away, they shouted:
“Save yourself! It’s he— Ahhh!” The desperate cry turned into a yell as a terrible blow to the back of their head literally drove Rogl-Log into the ground. Breaking the tentacles, the player plowed a few feet straight through the crops, only to be thrown up again in a second. This time, it was a kick from a metal leg that knocked all air out of their lungs.
They fell heavily, wheezing from the sharp pain in their side.
Slowly approaching his fallen and bleeding opponent who was still trying to crawl toward the Mountain the giant hit again.
There was no sign of emotion on its metal face.
***
When Progl-Log finally managed to open their eyes, they didn’t see the giant. But in the Mountain there was a tunnel that had just been cut through the stone, and that led directly underground. To the Orange base.
With a sudden wave of pain, Progl-Log groaned and almost fainted. Touching a tentacle to their head, they realized that instead of protective braces, there was meat… The System’s numerous reports of damage to internal organs and systems immediately spun before his eyes.
They had about an hour to live.
They knew this for sure, but at that moment all their thoughts were occupied with what was happening underground. They imagined a slaughter: with a roar of its engine, the giant burst the heads of their friends as if they were water balloons, slammed their bodies into the walls, ripped out their spines, and crushed their bones.
Progl-Log roared again. But this time, it wasn’t because of the pain.
***
Black circles had been floating in front of their eyes for a long time, and their consciousness was constantly trying to slip out of their body. They held on solely because of their will, knowing that if they allowed themself to fall here, they’d never get up again.
Once out of the blood-stained dungeons, the giant would realize that one Orange survived, and would search for them. And it would find them Progl-Log gave up now.
Blood was pouring from the wound in their head. The impact narrowly missed the brain, but the bone fragments still reached the gray matter, severing control to just above two-thirds of the tentacles. they had to crawl, expecting every moment that the giant’s hand would smash their head again, ending their life.
Their only hope was the dense forest not far from the Mountain. It’d be difficult for the giant to find them there: the dense fauna would prevent the hefty monster from moving.
But they had to get as far as possible from here... As far as possible.
***
They had already lost consciousness three times, were blinded in half of their eyes, and lost control of several more tentacles. It was only by some miracle that they didn’t encounter any dangerous mobs along the way, but their luck wouldn’t last forever.
When they came across a clearing with a stone well, they didn’t even think about it. they snagged their longest tentacles on the roots sticking out of the ground and slid down, plunging noisily into the cold water.
The impact jolted their brain so that it seemed as if the gray matter had almost spilled out of the wound. The bone fragments penetrated even deeper, paralyzing about ninety percent of their body.
Death is already scratching at the door!
Attention! Your body is dying.
“Really?! I wouldn’t have noticed!” They croaked.
Sarcasm was sarcasm, but they really were dying. The giant had inflicted a fatal wound. The monster wouldn’t even have to look for them. As far as the giant was concerned, they were already dead.
But they knew the way out... Little did they know that this decision would be the most terrible decision in their life.
“A... Activate... Symbiosis...”
***
They felt the tentacles attached to the roots begin to stiffen and gradually grow together with the majestic pine. Within a quarter of an hour, the tree’s life force began to flow into their dying body, slowly but surely restoring it.
But the price... The price was terrible. For the sake of survival, they condemned themself to the life of a tree.
Consciousness was no longer held in their immobile body, forever buried in a stone well. It wasn’t necessary anyway. They could feel the pine tree that had saved them. And they could give it something in return.
Within a year, a slow-moving, woody tentacle had reached a nearby spruce, creating a veritable system of supporting trees. After another five years, the colony grew to ten plants...
Years passed, and one day, a swallow landed on the branch of the very first pine. The bird slammed its beak into a nut-filled cone and pulled one out, swallowing it immediately, chirping happily. A strange sense of belonging shot through Progl-Log. Some vague unity with this small feathered creature.
They began to increase their colony with triple strength.
And the results were obvious. Bound by tentacles — or roots, it was no longer possible to tell them apart — the trees grew much taller than their neighbors. Much. much taller. Soon, a squirrel settled in the trunk of one of the fir trees, which eventually became Progl-Log’s friend. Together, they ate nuts, jumped on branches, played and survived the cold winter, plugging the hollow in the trunk close with its fluffy tail. A couple of years later, a hedgehog chose a burrow under a nearby pine tree. And the next year, in the spring, a whole family of hedgehogs lived in it.
Progl-Log rarely returned to their motionless body, lying alone at the bottom of the stone well. Their new friends were here. Not just their friends... They were also here.
The colony grew, and the animals became more and more numerous.
But one day, thirty miles from the well, the colony was pricked by something. It bit right into the old proud spruce. They ignored it at first, but after two months the same thing happened. It was repeated again, but after two weeks. Then another and another. More and more often, more and more painfully.
The following summer, the tree began to ache, slowly becoming covered with a black substance. Like an abscess. Like gang
rene... It really was gangrene. Ten years later, it covered dozens of trees, killing them from the inside out, infecting the colony more and more. But worst of all was that their friends, the cute bunnies, the snorting hedgehogs, and the fluffy squirrels, whose houses were devoured by gangrene, began to change.
They developed spines, fangs, and venom glands. Their muscles grew and their size increased. Rage was born in them.
Progl-Log knew what was going on. The virus that was supposed to kill the entire Orange faction was doing its job. While they and their allies kept the virus at bay by eating the grain, nothing happened. But They hadn’t taken the antidote in decades. The virus didn’t sleep, no. It mutated and suddenly broke free from the bodies of their fallen friends, rushing outward, trying to plague the whole body, the entire colony, trying to get to its center — the well, and with it to them.
Twenty years later, the infected area doubled in size.
Fifty more and the disease took up half the colony. Monsters were now dwelling and breeding in the infected areas. There was nothing left in them of their cute, harmless ancestors.
It had been a long time since Progl-Log had activated Symbiosis and connected with other trees, throwing all their strength into the fight against the virus. But they were losing.
And now, out of the entire colony, there was only one place that wasn’t infected — a circle with a radius of about a hundred and fifty feet, in the center of which was Progl-Log themself. They managed to block the small vessels through which the infection could spread further — the roots withered and fell off, but they couldn’t cut off the nice large “arteries.”
They had to keep them intact at all cost.
***
“The antidote... The seedlings. They can help me,” Progl-Log’s voice rasped in my head.
It took me a while to figure out what was going on, so I hesitated, wondering what they were talking about.
“They don’t grow on the hills around the Mountain anymore. Your faction’s long gone, there was no one left to protect the seedlings, and the Black Pilgrims devoured everything.”
Silence. Progl-Log answered only after a couple of minutes of agonizing thought. This time their voice was even quieter.
“I know what you need. It’s here, in the well... I’ll give it to you. But I beg you... save me. I’m... I’m running out of energy... Help me...”
“But how? How can I help?!”
No one answered my question. I opened my eyes abruptly, realizing that I was speaking aloud at the bottom of the well. Rat snored nearby, and the heads of my allies could be seen above, illuminated by the setting sun.
“Loki!” Willow called. “Are you okay?!”
“I’m fine!” I replied, looking carefully at the tentacles that suddenly moved under my feet.
A minute’s wait — and the living mass pushed out... The fragment! But that wasn’t all. In addition to the long metal cone, several dozen black magic artifacts that remained from faction appeared in front of me.
Congratulations! You have reached Magic, Rank 3.
“Spider! Help Rat grab onto a root. We’re getting out!”
***
Spider climbed down the vertical wall without much difficulty and grabbed the tentacle of the Brain-eater, which I had slightly enlarged. Through joint effort (primarily thanks to Ivan and Spider), we managed to get out of the well.
“Where to now? Home?” Valkyrie asked, out of breath.
“No. I have some business to attend to.”
***
I remembered the location of the “arteries” well. It was hard to mistake them for anything else. They were intertwined roots that emerged from the ground and connected several trees to each other.
We spent the entire day chopping them. Finally, when the moon rose above the horizon, Ivan, with a loud hoot, cut the last root with his ax, disconnecting the “island of life” from the infected Lands (after not very successful attempts with scimitars, we ran to the Black Mountain for more suitable woodcutting tools).
“Looks like that’s all!” Ivan boomed, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“We’ve cut all nine.” Amoeba nodded.
A cold breeze blew in, whirling the snow that had accumulated during the day. A misty cloud appeared in the air, now barely visible, quickly taking on a shape that vaguely resembled a little bird.
It waved happily at me. I waved back, knowing that I had fulfilled Progl-Log’s request.
“Who are you waving at?” Ivan asked in surprise.
“No one... Come on, we’re going home.”
***
At the bottom of the stone well, where light rarely fell and living things even rarer, lay a stiff body that had long since become a part of the Game.
“Looks like that’s all!”
“We’ve cut all nine.”
A faint smile appeared on Progl-Log’s face. For the first time in years, they could rest.
Chapter 10
PORTAL OPERATOR
What did we learn about Progl-Log?
They belonged to a very ancient race; so old that over time they began to turn into a part of the Game. That was an understatement. So old that they became an entire location. So old that they became the Uncharted Lands itself.
Second, the Orange faction lived in the Screeching Mountain and it was their abandoned base that we had found during our exploration. And they probably used the Stone-eating Worms to dig all of those tunnels.
Third, they went through the same stages we did. Except that, unlike us, they dealt with a drought and not an Ice Age. Eventually, the same virus that had killed the Violet faction infected them as well. However, be it by luck or whatever, the Orange faction survived, which, by the looks of it, didn’t sit well with the Game’s algorithm so it decided to send the Giant after them.
And that was where the fun began.
The Giant from Progl-Log’s memories was somewhat different from the one I had seen in my dream, which led me to believe that it was still in the early stages of development back then as it was still missing a lot of its armor.
I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed that the Game was using the Giant to clear the place of those who had overstayed their welcome. Whomever it was that had been trapped by the Gray Pilgrim and had warned us about the Giant must’ve been killed by it as well.
The Giant was a weapon whose purpose was to kill and that, so far, couldn’t be stopped or destroyed.
But we still didn’t know just who the Giant was and how it came to be in the Game or if it had any weaknesses. But one thing was clear: no barricade could stop the monster that was coming for us.
***
In addition to the fragment, Progl-Log had given me a significant number of artifacts, which helped me reach rank three in magic. Also, the Compass showed that our next target was the Sage Tree in the Valley.
I highly doubted that the fragment was within the tree itself. Instead, it was probably wherever the portal there led to.
Unfortunately, on top of everything, I was facing two more problems. The first one being the choice of my specialization.
In the table that I opened, there were three options corresponding to the maximum level of Light Magic that I couldn’t read as they were covered by a dark fog. The rest, however, were visible.
Crusader
You must pass the purification rite to unlock this path.
Be wary not to forget about yourself on your quest against evil. You can pull the sword out of the stone and vanquish your enemies with it. But when it comes to sharing the loot... Well, the heroes deserve what they get, so prove that you deserve more.
+Light Portal
This skill is limited to Light Portals.
+2 size
+5 stamina
+5 perception
+15 damage resistance
HP x2
+ 3 random rare skills, and 1 legendary skill
Relationship with Light Beings: friendly
Relationshi
p with Dark Beings: neutral/hostile
Disables the ability to use some of Black Magic skills (levels 3-10)
The Scarlet Baron
As long as the Darkness prevails over the Light, and as long a black prevails over the white, the best option is to sit on the sidelines and see the events unfold. The brave die first, the idealists come next, while the cowards live.
+Lone Portal Master skill
This skill is limited to one (1) player per portal.
Increasing the skill’s level does not increase the number of players that can use the Portal.
+1 size
+5 agility
+3 mental strength
+15 perception
+2 random rare skills, and 2 legendary skills
Relationship with Light Beings: neutral
Relationship with Dark Beings: neutral
Disables the ability to use some of Black Magic skills (levels 7-10)
Disables the ability to use some of Light Magic skills (levels 9-10)
Not bad. But it was all overshadowed by the last option:
Cerberus
Step aside? OVER THE EDGE? You are almost dead, so what about the others? Let us be honest: the time of reckoning draws near, and soon you and your “allies” will meet your end.
“IT’S coming! IT’S coming!!!” the crazed creatures roar as the worthless players crawl around their worthless base.
And now for the challenge: find some meaning in your pathetic attempts to survive.
Cerberus doesn’t need meanings. Cerberus is on its own, and no pseudoideals bother it. Factions? Other players? What is that but yet another stage? You were a unicellular organism, you were a beast, you were a private... and then? Then comes the true Game for those who took a chance and got rid of the bottom feeders!
+Lone Portal User skill
This skill is limited to one (1) player per portal.
Increasing the skill’s level does not increase the number of players that can use the Portal. But you will not need it.
Reborn: Evolution: A LitRPG Series (Warlock Chronicles Book 3) Page 11
