“I don’t really know,” I said. “Every part of me wants it to be the Spectral Spirit but things have never really worked out exactly how we’ve wanted them to, have they?”
She smiled. “We somehow manage to make them work in the end though.”
“After a lot of work, yeah.”
A hissing tickled my ears, and I looked to the ground outside the shield, at where the blood had evaporated before. However, this sound was not coming from the ground, but from above. I glanced up and froze.
This is not good.
The blood was burrowing through the shield, and had eaten through both layers. In seconds drops fell to the ground before us, hissing more as they made their way down beneath the mud.
That shield won’t stay stable for more than a few seconds. It wasn’t a good idea to just put up another shield, since the same thing was going to happen again even if we did that.
What can I do?
And then an idea sparked inside me.
I thrust my hand down to the ground. “Peona!” I yelled. A massive twister formed around us, and crashed through the shield, rising high up into the air. Freya winced, and her hands covered her face, probably to protect her from the blood that would fall.
But the blood didn’t.
The gales picked up the drops all around us, and swirled them back into the twister. In a flash, the funnel of grey switched to one of deep red. The scent of blood hit me hard, now sharper than before, but I could bear it. The air within the twister became thinner as the winds around us sped up.
On the flipside, however, that meant there wasn’t a single drop of blood on any of us.
“Good job.” Freya looked around. “But doesn’t this attack end after ten seconds?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what are you going to do after ten seconds?”
“Summon it again.”
I focused hard, and kept the twister going. The attack itself was supposed to last for ten seconds, but the spell was high-leveled enough already for the cooldown to be non-existent. So, keeping it going perpetually was as simple as summoning it over and over. Of course, yelling ‘Peona’ multiple times just seemed silly, so I chose to whisper the phrase instead.
“You realize people are going to be able to see this twister from miles away, right?” Nyx said.
Maybe they’ll think it’s a natural thing?
“Yeah sure,” he said.
“We should be ready for the enemy, Diablo,” Acnologia said.
Wait a second, I blinked. Acnologia, can you fly through this tunnel of air?
“Possibly.” The Dragon turned to me. “Why?” He sounded uneasy.
If we can get above the clouds then we’re safe.
“Ah,” he said. “Interesting.”
Exactly. I grinned. So, can you do it?
“It is worth a try.”
I turned to Freya. “Acnologia is giving us a ride to above the clouds.”
“Why are we going above the—” She stopped, and then she smiled. “We should have done this before.”
“I know.” I jumped onto the back of the Dragon. Freya hopped behind me and the beast moved to the center of the twister, giving himself the most room he could on either side, and opened up his wings. He reared up, and lifted off, surging into the air. The speed we went up with was a lot slower compared to Acnologia’s vigorous wing-flapping, but the thin air in here made it necessary for him to flap so much just to get us up.
About a minute in we rose to the level of the clouds, and I looked at the scene before me. Beneath us was the red and black of blood rain and darkness, while above us was nothing but white clouds and stars.
“Amazing,” Freya whispered. “To think a sight like this would exist above such a place.”
I smiled, looking up at the sparkling points of light. People don’t expect you to be here, do they?
I felt a connection to these dots now. I was someone people didn’t expect me to be. I was supposed to be dark and murderous, an Evil Overlord who killed everyone for fun. And yet I really wasn’t that guy.
“That’s questionable,” Nyx chuckled.
I stayed silent, and my mentality flipped, without warning. The spirit’s laugh echoed in my mind, replaying over and over even after the sound disappeared. It seemed playful, but I’d heard enough of his sarcasm to know when he was joking and when he was not.
He’d been serious just now.
However, I didn’t delve into the thought. The situation we were in was hard, and I had more than a couple of things to worry about already. Bickering about Nyx’s statements was not the best use of my time, and so I let it go.
For now.
“Zoran?” Freya touched my shoulder.
I jerked around. “What?”
She froze. “Ah…uh…nothing. You just seemed tense for a moment.”
“Oh.” I slumped my tightened shoulders and tried to seem more relaxed. “I was just thinking about things.”
“I know,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to work through.”
I nodded, and diverted my mind back to what we were supposed to focus on. A few minutes in the clouds beneath us were now peppered with odd patches here and there. I looked through them, and tried to catch sight of the ground. I couldn’t see much, but enough to tell me the region we were over wasn’t afflicted by the Blood Rain.
A sigh of relief left my lips, and my shoulder slumped for real now.
And as if a mystical power went ‘You can’t relax now’, a shriek exploded from ahead of us, and echoed through the skies. Forms of hazy black shot through the darkness, flying at a speed that was too fast to evade.
I groaned.
“Well, that can’t be good.”
***
CHAPTER TEN
“Acnologia, dive!”
The great beast obliged, tucking his large wings up and sinking back through the clouds. Dusty air brushed past my face as we shot back to the dark lands, only this time there were no red drops lacing my skin.
Another screech echoed down toward us, as though a reminder that creatures were still in pursuit. I didn’t avert my vision, and focused on what was ahead of me.
The black Dragon quickly expanded his wings out, just moments before we hit the ground, and glided down. We gently descended the last fifty feet and landed softly on the dark sand. I jumped off Acnologia the moment he touched the floor, and Freya did the same. We both turned our attention to the skies, and I focused on the shadowy forms coming down to us.
It was hard to pick the creatures out against the darkness, especially when there wasn’t much light around. Nonetheless I focused hard, trying to look at their forms, and in a few moments, I did. I still couldn’t make out much, but I could see wings and a humanoid body fly down to us, and that was more than enough.
“What are they?” Freya asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Can’t see clear enough.”
“Neither can I,” the Dragon said. “It appears there is some haze around these creatures as well.”
Haze, I sighed. Figures.
At this point in the chase, it was pretty obvious these things were not here for a tea party, and so I brought out Dawnbreaker, readying myself for a strike.
The creatures slowed down as they approached us, almost as if they were being cautious now.
Odd. I frowned.
I kept focusing on their bodies, trying to look past the thick haze that existed around them. In a quick moment, they sped up and descended, landing in a tight circle around us.
What the heck? I lifted Dawnbreaker up high.
The haze around these creatures still existed, but pairs of eyes shone through the darkness, each colored an orange-red. I was mesmerized by the gradient of the shade for a moment, and then I shook my head.
This is no time to be thinking artistic.
I thrust my hand into the air. “Liosa!”
A gentle breeze sifted around us, combing through my silver locks. In a flash, a st
rong blast of wind expanded out, pushing enemy forces back.
However, that wasn’t what I had needed it for.
The dark haze pushed away from the creatures, revealing the bodies they hid within. And honestly, the moment they came into my vision, I regretted revealing them.
A weird combination of man and bat stood before me—a creature that was basically a bat but moved like a human, and with wings. They all eyed us carefully, and I felt a shiver down my spine.
These things are creepy. I stepped back and used my Analyze skill on them.
Race
Giant Blood Bat
Level
636
Health
9790
Mana
8510
Stamina
7370
Wow its stats are really weak for the level it’s at.
“I guess that means the race isn’t particularly strong,” Nyx said.
Yeah.
My eyes were trained on the creatures, and I watched them carefully as I held out my blade, thinking about what move would be best to start off with. It was clear that the instant I attacked these things, they would head right at us. I had to make the first one count.
Freya hadn’t shifted to her Demon Elf form yet, and though I was perplexed, I didn’t ask her any questions about it. Now was not the time.
She probably just wants to save the transformation up for a more important moment, I thought. It wasn’t like she could break her seal whenever she wanted either. Well, for the most part.
The Giant Blood Bats raised their head to the skies and screeched out, letting the sound echo into the clouds.
A battle cry? I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was, but I sure as hell acted like it was one.
I immediately thrust my hand into the air. “Peona,” I yelled. The strong gales quickly surged around us, smacking right into the bats. The creatures went flying into the winds, screeching as they did. I kept my gaze locked on the swirl of health bars that rotated around me. However, there wasn’t a decrease in their health.
I frowned. What the heck?
In a flash, a bat shot right towards me, using my own wind twister as a launch point. I slashed through the air with Dawnbreaker, and sent two slices of its body back into the winds behind me.
I hunched over and breathed heavy. These things are clever.
Ten seconds in I let the wind attack die down. It seemed to be giving these creatures more of an advantage than a disadvantage.
In an instant, the bats shot out of the twister, surging to us like arrows. Freya and I both slashed with our swords, attacking as many of them we could, and dodging every one that we couldn’t.
Acnologia did his part as well, and breathed a few flames when something came relatively close to him. But for the most part he was crippled by the close nature of our battle. It was hard for him to go all out when he might accidentally attack me and Freya as well.
Freya and I, however, were less restrained. Together we managed to take out about half of the bats together, even though Freya’s sealed form was nearly two hundred levels below the bats’. The creatures meanwhile had stopped attacking us for the moment and had formed a circle once again, with more spacing between each of them this time.
Pairs of orange-red eyes looked at us, and I sensed no emotion within them.
“Why are you even attacking?” I muttered.
As if in reply, the bats screeched out and they all shot in at once.
I held my hands up in the air. “Erkiela!” I yelled. A wave of flames shot out of me, sinking into the creatures. The bodies of black went alight in the same shade as their eyes, and the creatures screeched out in pain as they fell to the ground.
“Let me douse that for you,” I grinned. “Tritus Oceanus!”
A blast of water shot out of my palms, and I twisted my body, hitting all the bats around us and also getting a little on Acnologia accidentally.
Sorry. I turned back around, and got the rest of the bats.
“It is fine, Diablo,” the Dragon said.
Thunder rumbled through the skies, and I could tell that the clouds above us had all darkened quickly. This was not a good sign.
And as if in confirmation of my thoughts, the skies sent us a present.
Blood Rain.
“Damn it!” I thrust my hands into the air. “Peona!” I yelled, summoning the wind-twister once again. The drops of blood falling around us were sucked into the funnel, turning the twister a dark shade of pink in an instant. The scent of blood spread through the air yet again, and accompanying it were the screeches of the bats that had been trapped in my twister as well.
However, these cries didn’t tell me of discomfort. It was more like the blood had energized these creatures. In an instant, the bats all surged out of the winds, shooting in multiple directions. I tried to attack them, but it was too hard to do it all at once, and so I simply ducked from their attacks. Freya did the same almost, but Acnologia stood his ground.
The bats all flew over us, with a sole one flying up to the Dragon and getting burnt in the process.
I looked at the winds. What do I do?
Before I could come up with an answer the dark forms surged toward us once again. And this time, I was tired of this whole duck and dive method. I slashed at every beast that happened to come my way. I cut through two bats completely and seriously injured a third. It didn’t even take that much effort.
I looked at my blade, and my eyebrows raised. I guess I should have tried that earlier on then.
I still had to recast the wind twister spell once every ten seconds though, just to keep the Blood Rain away. And trust me, it was not easy doing that in the middle of a battle. Although it was getting easier now that there were only three of these bats left.
Well, the rest of them were left too, but I doubted whether being present as two separate pieces counted as ‘left’.
“Wow, you’re being particularly savage today, aren’t you?” Nyx chuckled.
Deal with it, I grinned, just as two more bats shot towards me. I slashed through them quickly, slicing through one from down to up as I dodged the second’s strike, and twisting around to slice through that one before it left my reach.
I turned to my side and saw that Freya had cut through the remaining creature, not gutting through it in half like I had, but cutting through it enough times for it to not be alive anymore.
I looked at the fallen body before her. So many gashes.
“That’s rich, coming from a guy that just cut them all to pieces,” Nyx said. “And literally at that.”
The twister had gone from dark pink to full red now, but specks of black still floated between them.
More bats? I frowned.
And then I realized they were just the sliced-up parts of the bats we’d just killed.
Well. The ones I had.
I looked up, through the eye of the funnel and right up into the sky. Dark clouds floated there, and the Blood Rain had not let up in any way. If anything, it seemed to be pouring even harder now.
I sighed. Is this a common weather condition here?
“Not sure,” Nyx said. “If it was I feel Ijyela or Voora would have told us about it.”
True. How hard is it to go ‘Oh and by the way, it rains blood there’?
“Zoran.” Freya sheathed her sword and turned to me. “What do we do now? Fly back over the clouds?”
I looked up at the darkness above. Is that such a good idea?
The spot that white light had shot up from was only a few minutes away from here, so it was probably easier to just run there. But then again, we’d have to run through Blood Rain and that was definitely not a good thing to do.
I sighed. If only I could clear up this weather on my own.
“So?” Freya looked at me.
“I’m not sure.”
The Ga’em screens from the battle popped up now, and I sighed as I quickly read through them.
Congratulations! You
have defeated Giant Blood Bat Flock (Lv. 621)! Reward: 6,500,000 XP. Reward: Bones of the Blood Bat (x10).
DING!
Congratulations! Your Wind Arts spell—Peona: Storm Gale—has increased to Level 5! Wind speeds will now be increased, and will cause greater damage. 3% chance of an enemy falling unconscious when they enter the winds due to breathlessness. Agility is increased by +4% for the first move performed right after the attack is over.
A massive blast of thunder sounded. Not from the skies, but the ground instead. It was as if the land had split apart and lightning had shot out from within it. I glanced up, and saw that though the clouds stayed as they usually had, the Blood Rain had stopped.
I closed my screens and looked around.
“Did someone just clear up the Blood Rain?” Freya asked.
I nodded, dazed. “It isn’t possible though,” I said. Didn’t the notification I got before say the Blood Rain was persistent?
“Y-yeah,” Nyx said. “I’m just as stunned as you are.”
“Diablo,” Acnologia said. “I sense something coming toward us.”
“Ferazin!” I yelled, and a mental wave pushed out of my mind. I searched for any triangles that popped up in my vision—indicators that my scoping spell had found an enemy close by—but I saw absolutely nothing.
“They’re probably far off,” Nyx said. “It’s also possible your twister alerted them to our presence.”
Damn it. That’s probably true.
“It is hard to miss such a thing even when one is trying to be ignorant,” Acnologia said.
“What’s wrong?” Freya’s eyes narrowed.
“Something else is coming up to us.”
“Eh?”
“They must have noticed the twister from afar and decided to come check it out.”
“Do we run?” she asked.
I clenched my fists. Acnologia, how ready are you to fly out of here?
“We can leave now,” the Dragon said.
But unluckily for me, things decided to go a very different direction.
My winds died down by themselves, as if something had stifled them. Liquid blood dropped to the floor in gallons as the twister died down and let go of everything it had held. Hissing sounded from the ground all around us, and vapor rose from every drop that fell to the mud.
The Eternal: Infinity - A LitRPG Saga (The World of Ga'em Book 4) Page 9
