“I’m not really sure,” I said. “Considering what time period it is I’m going to say yes, because it just sounds like everyone here is much stronger than I am right now.”
She nodded.
“It would have probably been nice if I’d found another of my Spectral Spirits before we came here.”
“Yeah,” she sighed.
Spectral Spirits were basically ‘keys’ that helped me unlock parts of my Seal of the Eternal. The Seal barred me from attaining my true strength. Honestly, most of my adventures had stemmed from me trying to find a Spectral Spirit to unlock a part of my seal.
In fact, when Freya and I had visited the island Irmeia was on, it was to see if the odd presence we’d sensed there was connected to a Spectral Spirit.
Of course, that hadn’t been the case, and now — as it had happened before — I was on a crazy adventure yet again.
Never fails, I chuckled.
“I’m honestly a little worried,” Freya said, and I could tell this was her ‘I’m going to be honest with you’ tone. “Something about this whole thing feels very off.”
I frowned. “It does?”
“Doesn’t it bother you that there could be someone who brought us back to this time on purpose? Brought all of us back at that. Why would anyone need to do something of the sort?”
“Well, with things like this, we usually ponder for answers for a good few hours, and then have the right one handed to us when we meet the person who orchestrated the whole thing.”
“That would work wonderfully if we knew we had a chance of beating the enemy,” she said. “However, it is like you said. We’re hopelessly outmatched for power here.”
Those were harsh words, but they were also one hundred percent true. We were outmatched quite a bit, and there wasn’t really anything we could do about it. With Acnologia’s help, I could temporarily increase my powers a hundred levels or more, but that was the extent to which I could strengthen myself. If this man we were pursuing was along the strength scale of a regular eternal, then his strength should be…
…well then, his strength would be untraceable, so I don’t have an actual quote of numbers that I could mention.
“I guess we’ll just have to see what happens when we get there,” I said. “That’s how we’ve done a lot of things.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Diablo,” Oris called from behind. “How much longer do we have left?”
I chuckled as I turned to him. “A long, long way.”
“Tch.” He went back to staring at the ground as we headed through the forest. The sunlight had now turned a morning yellow, but the underside of the canopy was still very dull, as expected.
We walked in relative silence for the rest of the way. My mind was active the whole time, thinking about all the problems that had been presented to me. I thought about my past self, and wondered how such a person had to be subdued by every Eternal in existence and forced under the powers of a seal.
My mind delved to the piece of information that I had not shared with anyone — that Polaris’ Analyze skill was unable to bring anything up for the mystery man. That was definitely a very worrying thing.
“And that’s why you’re not telling anyone?” Nyx asked.
It’s not easy, I said. I can’t just go and say ‘Oh hey, remember that guy we’re about to go face? It’s possible the Analyze skill doesn’t work on him’.
“Well you don’t have to say it in THAT specific way.”
“Diablo is right, Nyx,” Acnologia said. “I agree with his decision to keep this quiet. It is possible we may find more information on this man as we move closer to his palace. In that case it would be better to not reveal anything now, and prevent frightening people with incomplete information.”
“Fine.” He didn’t sound convinced, but he didn’t protest either so we dropped the topic.
We’d travelled about three hours or so when we all collectively decided it’d be best to take a break. Raffyr and Viola had small canisters of water to share, but Irmeia and I forewent them anyway. Neither of us dehydrated that easily. Maybe it has something to do with us being Eternals, I thought.
“Do you guys not get hungry either then?” Oris asked, taking a sip of the can, and handing it back to Raffyr.
A growl rang through the air.
“A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed,” the Knight chuckled.
The growl sounded again, and this was when Oris realized the first growl had not been my stomach, but a beast.
All of us immediately bunched up, eyeing the forest around us. I glanced at the Volcanic Bears, trying to see if they had a bearing of where exactly the noise was coming from, but the lot of them seemed just as confused as we were.
Rustling came from above us, and I immediately pushed everyone else out of the way. A large wolf dropped down, with its fangs bearing as it descended toward me.
I threw my palm into the air. “Iglacier!’ I jumped up and tapped the beast on the snout. The creature's mouth froze over and it dropped to the floor, in pain, but unable to growl out. I unsheathed Dawnbreaker as I touched down onto the ground and I slashed the blade into the beast's back. A deep gash opened right below its neck.
The wolf thrashed about, trying to sink its fangs into us. Your snout’s frozen you idiot, I chuckled. However, I could see cracks on the ice, no doubt from the wolf’s attempts to get out of the icy sculpture.
Iglacier was supposed to freeze the whole creature, I sighed.
“You’re not strong enough to do yet,” Nyx said.
Not strong enough, I chuckled. I quickly leaped forward, propping myself onto the beast's back. Before it could even do anything, I pressed one hand into its open wound, and its fresh blood stained my fingers.
“Oskis!” I yelled. A blast of flames surged into the beast and it thrashed about wildly.
For a second.
It collapsed to the floor, and smoke seeped from the wound I had attacked. I pulled my hand out, and rubbed it against the ground, getting rid of the blood it was coated with. Everyone looked at me, and not a word sounded from their lips.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Freya shook her head. “It’s…nothing.”
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated: Climbing Forest Wolf (Lv 793). Reward: Hide of the Climbing Forest Wolf. Reward: Tooth of the Climbing Forest Wolf. Reward: 1600000 Sol. Reward: 170000 XP.
Wow, that thing was higher leveled than I was, I said. But I managed to take it out pretty fast. Huh.
“Well, you tore into its flesh and sent a spell directly at its organs,” Nyx said. “I don’t think there’s any way that would NOT constitute a critical hit.”
Ah, I realized. That’s probably what happened.
Soon, all of us made way toward the mountain once again. I felt an air of tension in the group, however I wasn’t sure what was going on. I’ll talk to Freya later, I thought.
Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours, but we passed through the forest in silence. I turned to the others a few times, wondering if they had anything to say, but their eyes all looked straight ahead, focused just on the path. Oris was silent the entire time as well, and no snarky, unnecessary comments came from him either.
Speaking of snarky comments, Nyx was surprisingly quiet, and I wasn’t sure what was going on there.
Did I do something wrong? I asked. Nyx?
“Do not worry over this, Eternal,” Acnologia said.
I frowned. Easy for you to say.
Either way, worried or not worried, we traveled the next few hours silently. We didn’t stop anywhere, and kept moving, from when morning turned to noon, and noon turned to night.
It was only when the sound of rushing water came along that I heard another voice speak out.
“Is that the Tsuyong river?” Irmeia asked.
“I believe so,” Freya had her Map menu open before her, and had an old scroll in her hands. Her eyes cr
oss-checked between the two, and she nodded. “Yeah, this is the place.”
The trees around us abruptly ended, like someone had physically cut them to create a boundary. Past the boundary stood a small ten-yard strip of grassy land, and then a wide river beyond it. Water roared through the channels, spraying mist into the cold midnight air. All of us got down from our steeds, taking a long drink from the river and filling up any bottles and canteens we had.
Which was honestly just Raffyr and Viola.
I guess the Alliance of Light prepares you for a lot of things, I noticed.
“Sure,” Nyx said. “This has nothing to do with the fact that all of us are astonishingly ill-prepared.”
I smiled, and my chest loosened on hearing the spirit’s voice once again. Yup, I said.
I glanced up from the river, at the dark silhouettes of the Itamori mountain range. The peaks rose high off the ground, sinking into the clouds and hiding from my sight. These things went up many a mile — that much I could tell.
Past me was right. I looked at the peaks. There’s no way we could have gone over these mountains in time.
“Even if I were flying,” Acnologia said. “The air up there is quite turbulent.”
We’ll find the tunnel, I said. It’ll be fine.
“And if I don’t fit in it?”
I’ll just store you in my familiar storage system, I said. It’s the only option we have if you can’t fit into the tunnel.
We soon packed up from the spot, and travelled a mile or so further down the direction the river flowed. I quickly picked out a line of large boulders placed across the river, each one large enough for maybe two or even three bears to stand on at once.
“Is this where your past-self directed us to?” Freya asked as we stopped before the makeshift stone bridge.
I nodded. “He said if we head straight along the direction of the bridge, we’ll reach the underground pass that he was talking about.”
“Got it,” she nodded.
We slowly made our way across the river, forming a single line and crossing the stones laid out between the flowing water. One of the Volcanic bears — Oris’ — was particularly edgy around the water.
That’s probably the one I rode to Polaris’ island, I grinned.
Soon we were on the other side of the river and heading toward the mountain range. The journey now was but mere minutes compared to the hours we had spent travelling through the Alpinian forest.
We kept walking, and the mountain before us looked larger and larger the closer we went to it.
“Yes, that’s how vision works, Zoran,” Nyx chuckled.
I ignored him and focused on the landscape, trying to pick out anything odd. And then I found it.
Smack in the middle of the mountain was an opening — an arch of darkness that clearly signaled a tunnel.
“There,” I said, leading everyone else up to it.
“Is this the place?” Freya asked as we neared it, and the holed-out structure was now clearer in our visions.
“Seems pretty spooky,” Raffyr said.
“It seems abandoned,” Viola added, her voice soft.
“Well, my past-self did say people don’t use it much,” I said. “All the more better for a bunch of time travelers wanting to avoid the folk here, right?”
“That’s true,” Freya said. “Still, we need to be careful.”
She dropped down from her Volcanic bear and walked to the cavern. Acnologia strode by her side, and gazed at the cavern opening as he did. The two of them stood under the entrance, and looked into the darkness.
“This place goes in pretty deep,” Freya said loudly.
“Well, it’s supposed to pass under the whole mountain so of course it’s deep.” I jumped down from my bear and walked up to them.
The Dragon looked around. “I think I can fit in here quite easily,” he said, and strode further inside.
All of a sudden, a shrieking sound exploded from the cave, and a line of runes emerged on the mountain wall, outlining the entrance. An earthquake shook the surface, throwing all of us down to the ground. I fell off my Volcanic bear, and rolled over the surface before I came to a stop.
I heard a loud thud and my fallen form glanced up, just in time to see a massive boulder break off from the ceiling, and hurl down to the floor.
A small form lay collapsed underneath it.
Freya.
***
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Zoran!”
A voice called out to me. It seemed distant, but its tone was warm, as though the voice that spoke it was laced with nectar and honey.
My eyes slowly opened, and a fuzzy sight emerged before me. Soft locks brushed my face, and a hand gently caressed my forehead. I blinked a few times, and gazed at eyes of moon-silver, at a worried elven assassin staring down at me.
“Thank god,” Freya sighed. Her ball of light hovered next to her head and lit up the area.
“What?” I blinked again. I gazed past the elf, and saw a dark ceiling standing above us, with sleets of solid rock embedded into the surface.
“So you’re finally awake,” Nyx spoke.
Yeah. I sat myself up. What just happened?
“You saved Freya from the falling rocks,” a voice said. Two eyes of blood-red emerged from behind the elf, and I knew instantly that Acnologia was in here as well.
“It was quite a heroic sight,” Nyx chuckled. “You rushed to her before she could react, and pushed her into the cavern.”
“It was impressive speed,” the Dragon said. “Even I had not been able to move at such a pace.”
“Youth is a wonderful thing.”
I rolled my eyes. Shut up. I turned around, and saw that there no longer stood an entrance to this cavern. Instead, a heavy pile of rocks had plugged the gap, and sealed it completely. Damn, I thought. That’s unfortunate.
Freya touched my arm. “How do you feel?”
“I think I’m okay.” I folded out my legs and lifted myself back onto my feet. “I don’t think there’s anything that—”
A shrieking pain shot up my leg and I dropped to the floor, gasping. I held my shin, careful not to apply any kind of pressure to it.
“Looks like you fractured your bone,” Nyx said.
What the heck? I breathed heavy. When did that even happen?
“A stray rock must have hit you when you went to save Freya.”
I looked up and saw the elf gazing down at me, and pain was written all over her face. Uh oh, I thought.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was quiet. “If it weren’t for me your leg would still be…”
“It’s not really a big deal,” I said. “Eternals heal pretty fast anyway. I should be okay in a few hours at the most.”
“That sounds about right,” Nyx said.
“Still.” Freya fidgeted. “I could have prevented this whole thing from happening if I’d just been a bit more careful.”
“Stuff happens,” I chuckled. “You can’t really find a way out of it sometimes.”
I could tell with alook at her face that I had not convinced her one bit. “So,” I looked at her, ready to change the topic. “Where are the others?”
“Stuck on the other side of the wall,” she said. “Viola and Raffyr messaged me a few seconds ago. I told them we were trapped in here, and they said they’d try to find us a way out.”
“I could probably get us out of here,” I said.
“You could?”
I held out my hand, and Freya gripped it, pulling me up. I ceased putting any effort onto my fractured leg and stood entirely on my good one, leaning a fair amount of body weight onto the elf as well.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and let me grab her shoulder to support myself.
“The rock pile,” I said, and we walked up to it.
“What are you doing, Diablo?” Acnologia asked.
Just an idea. I felt the jagged rocks that made the structure, and ran my hands along their grainy surfaces.
I calmed my thoughts, and focused on my inner energy, channeling it straight into my hand. I laid all my body weight onto my good leg and let go of Freya’s shoulder. My fingers curled into a fist, and I sent it at wall, smashing into the rocks.
But nothing happened.
The structure vibrated for a moment, and then the tremors settled down, as if I hadn’t even attacked it in the first place.
DING!
Congratulations! Your ‘Hand Combat’ special move: Meteor Fist has increased to Level 2! Strength increased by +1% for every critical hit landed. Effect lasts fifteen minutes.
That was a sweet upgrade, but I had no use for it given I was still stuck in this chamber. The rocks had not only retained their structure, but they hadn’t even budged. My attack had simply been too weak to move them.
“Well, to be perfectly fair,” Nyx said. “This wall was caused by a part of the mountain collapsing. I don’t know if I’d have expected you to break apart an entire section of the mountain with your strength.”
“Especially one as large as this,” Acnologia added.
“Is your leg okay?” Freya asked, and let me lean onto her again. “That was probably not a move you should have used.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just thought I’d be able to get out of here that way.”
“Wait. That’s what you were trying to do? I thought you were going to use your Shadow Travel skill to get us out of here.”
“Oh,” I blinked. “That does make more sense.”
“You idiot,” Nyx chuckled.
Shut up. I put my hand in the air, and summoned the skill. “Hiestia,” I said.
Darkness immediately sprung up from the floor, and covered me, the elf, and the Dragon in complete black. And then something else happened.
I felt my body vibrate, and heat passed through my very nerves. In seconds, the blackness ripped away, like cheap cloth, and melted back into the air, as though I had never summoned it in the first place.
“What just happened?” Freya looked around.
“I’m…not sure,” I blinked. We definitely hadn’t gone anywhere else, but I’d used my Shadow Travel skill, so it didn’t make any sense that we hadn’t.
The Eternal: Transcend - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 3) Page 17
