The Land: Monsters

by Aleron Kong

  Another boon of living through the memories of the expertise book was that he understood what these “Free” special moves actually were. It meant that achieving the rank of novice in a fighting form would guarantee him a 50% Proficiency in the techniques that he chose, as long as he focused appropriately when he performed them.

  The other techniques were not beyond him, but he would have to struggle and practice in order to manifest them. For Stinging Storm, the sprite Combat Art, he unfortunately wouldn’t be able to learn the special attacks he hadn’t chosen, not without further instruction. After living through Paden’s memories, however, he now knew everything he needed to obtain a strong Proficiency in each of the five. In time, he could know them all!

  Richter turned his gaze back to his options. Crush was obviously useful. In his fight with the adult scorpion, it might have been able to get through its metal carapace. The option to crack an enemy’s armor was tempting. Power Blow might have worked as well. While Crush was great for destroying armor, the damage it caused to an actual opponent was much less.

  Flowing Rock would have been a great help in the Mausoleum battle. Being able to knock aside arrows and crossbow bolts was quite literally a life saver. He was seriously tempted to grab it immediately.

  Stone Mace was also crazy. Even though he was living in a world of magic now, physics still existed. He hadn’t seen anything to prove that F didn’t still equal MA. Increasing the mass of his weapon by a factor of three would triple the force he could put behind his blows. In addition to increasing the effect of the attack, it could push through an enemy’s defense. While Power Attack sounded very, well powerful, it still wouldn’t do much if it were blocked or diverted.

  Acid Strike could also be very useful. Adding an extra element of damage to a hit could make the difference between victory or death. On the other hand, he was a Professed Enchanter. He could imbue his weapons with acid damage given enough time and materials. The attack had the shortest cooldown of the five options, which was tempting, but truthfully, all of the attacks had a rather short cooldown. Between the instant activations, short cooldowns and powerful effects, it was obvious why Combat Arts could give an overwhelming advantage in battle.

  Richter scanned over the options, and decided to go with Crush and Stone Mace. He was already strong and had his magic to do direct damage. One of the biggest dangers to him was an enemy with a high armor rating. As far as Stone Mace, its weakness was that it wasn’t feasible for being used in the middle of a battle. If he had some warning though, having the extra mass could let him one-shot some enemies. Used in conjunction with Crush, it could be a game changer. He made his choice.

  Congratulations! You have learned the Combat Techniques: Crush and Stone Mace.

  Continued use of these techniques in battle will allow you to advance both to more refined states, including but not limited to increasing damage, decreasing cooldowns and adding new effects.

  The icon in his interface that showed his Combat Arts had updated. He now had four battle techniques, two from the Stinging Storm and two from Granite Breaker. His body still ached, but he had a full stomach, a mace, a dagger, and two swinging nuts. What could hurt him now?

  CHAPTER 40 – Day 154 – Juren 4, 0 AoC

  Richter woke up to a high-pitched screeching. He sat up quickly, the ichorpede dagger clutched in his hand. He was down in the small cave with the stream, and it was completely black. His magic lights had long since burned out. Casting Simple Light conjured a small globe to float by his head. Nothing was immediately jumping out at him, but he still heard crashing noises from above. He crawled up the tunnel with his dagger in hand, wondering what fresh new hell The Land had brought him.

  The golem was fighting what looked like a pink worm covered in bristly grey hair. The salient point was that the damn thing was fifteen feet long. Before that moment, Richter might have wondered what a worm could possibly do to a creature made out of pure stone, no matter how big it was. Turns out, the answer was whatever it damn well pleased.

  The worm had wrapped itself around the golem like a python. The construct’s arms, body and neck were encircled. Pound for pound, Sloth was probably stronger, but the monster was successfully restraining it. The golem kept struggling. Richter’s helper wasn’t completely suppressed, but the few blows it managed to land only momentarily compressed the monster’s body. Only a few HP dropped after each hit from the golem.

  The worm, on the other hand, was causing serious damage. As Richter finished crawling out of the tunnel, he saw curved black spikes flashing in and out of its body like switchblades. The claws, teeth, talons or whatever they were hit hard enough to knock golf ball-sized pieces of clouded quartz off the golem. As each piece fell, it turned into plain grey dust.

  Richter knew how high his construct’s defense was, so he was surprised the worm was able to decrease its health so quickly. Then he realized the fact that he’d converted it from a simple Earth Golem into a Flowing Rock Golem had increased its susceptibility to piercing attacks, but it was still a tank. Gritting his teeth, he used Analyze on this latest enemy.

  Name: Ravager Wurm

  Disposition: Vicious

  Level: 52

  Tier: 2

  Ravager Wurms are the evolved form of a lesser creature, the Raider Worm. Ravager Wurms can heal from most wounds by folding their flesh in on itself. The monsters have no true head or tail, but can form a mouth at any point on their body. They also possess hardened spikes that can penetrate armor and stone and can be moved to any part of their form. These creatures are associated with Life magic and possess regenerative properties.

  STATS

  Health: 3,692/3,711

  Mana: 410/410

  Stamina: 784/796

  ATTRIBUTES

  Strength: 35

  Agility: 47

  Dexterity: 51

  Constitution: 370

  Endurance: 79

  Intelligence: 41

  Wisdom: 33

  Charisma: 14

  Luck: 22

  SPECIAL ABILITY

  Regeneration – Possesses weak health regeneration

  Malleable Flesh – Can contort its body to heal from wounds and form orifices as needed

  It was Tier 2. It was Tier 2! In addition to having a higher level than him, Richter was blown away by its crazy high stats. A health of nearly four thousand? It had the highest health of any creature he’d seen except for the mauler. His recently slain mortal enemy had been a boss of the Labyrinth. Richter had wrapped his head around the fact that it was so strong because it came from the Labyrinth. There had been comfort in knowing that he’d be safe from such extreme danger outside of that horrifying alternate universe.

  That hope had just shriveled up. This monster not only had a high HP, it had regen capabilities. The only other creatures Richter had come across with that ability were trolls, and they were an absolute nightmare. Even as he watched, its health increased by a tick. Its Regeneration special ability was at play. The fight had only gone on for less than a minute and the golem’s health had decreased by nearly 10%. Meanwhile, the wurm’s HP bar was almost full. It was obvious who would win this battle if nothing changed. Can’t have that, Richter thought.

  His mind scanned his available options and he settled on an Earth spell. The golem should have a certain amount of resistance to its own Basic Element. Richter raised his hands and a green glow surrounded them. Seconds later, a swirling wind enclosed both his golem and the ravager worm. Inside the storm, talons, teeth and claws could be seen for a split second before disappearing. This was none other than his Earth spell, Weak Rending Talons.

  Hold it still, Richter mentally commanded. The AoE of the spell was ten feet, and he’d made Sloth the center of it. To his satisfaction, the combat log showed the Earth magic was hurting the wurm, but his golem was indeed immune to the low-ranked Earth spell.

  Ravager Wurm takes 5 points of Slashing damage

  Ravager Wurm takes 4 points of
Slashing damage

  Flowing Rock Golem takes 0 points of Slashing damage (base damage 6 – 6 for Earth Resistance)

  Ravager Wurm takes 6 points of Slashing damage

  The damage from a single hit was minimal compared to the thousands of points of health the wurm had, but more than a dozen strikes landed every second. It lost a hundred points of health in the first two ticks of the spell. The wurm screeched in anger, but it had wrapped itself around the golem like a boa constrictor. That positioning had originally served to restrict Sloth, but now it worked against the Tier 2 monster. The construct had two strong grips on its body and wasn’t letting go.

  Richter started to smile. Maybe this would be easier than he’d thought. It might have high health, but it didn’t have anywhere near the strength of the mauler. Still, he didn’t let up. Rending Talons was doing serious damage, but it only lasted eight seconds. At most it would take down a tenth of the monster’s HP. He wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating his enemy.

  It would have been great to spam Rending Talons nine more times, but the cooldown and mana cost made that impossible. Also, through the storm of claws he could see the tears closing thanks to the wurm’s regeneration. The two edges of each wound were smooshing together like playdoh. When they were done, the wound had disappeared. That was why the chaos seed chose to cast Weak Acid Sphere.

  It was also a rank one Earth spell, but the damage type was completely different. Maybe the wurm wouldn’t be able to deal with corrosive damage. Green light surrounded his hand again, and then a lime-green sphere shot from his fingers. The globe was translucent, and as it flew you could see a bubbling solution sloshing back and forth inside of it.

  It struck the ravager worm close to what looked like its middle and splashed over the creature. The acid only caused 4-6 points of damage, but it was a DoT and would erode the wurm’s body for the next ten seconds. Some acid splashed on the golem as well. This cost Sloth a slow drop in health, but only one point every few seconds. Richter could live with that. The main point was to compromise the body of the wurm.

  It looked like it was working. This time, its flesh didn’t seem to be able to mitigate the injury. The combat log showed that the damage was only 2-3 points per second, most likely due to some innate resistance the monster had, but he would take it. Richter had a full-on smile on his face now as he prepared his next spell. He was already imagining the great harvest material that might come from a Tier 2 creature. He decided to try Fire magic next.

  This entire time, the monster had been struggling to escape. All of a sudden, it stilled. Instead of trying to break free, its body instead began to vibrate like a rattlesnake’s tail. Richter frowned at it, but still raised his hand to cast his next spell. Before he could begin the incantation, a black blur flew out of the monster’s body and shot right at him.

  It was only Richter’s Agility of 37 that saved him from losing his hand. With unerring accuracy, the ravager wurm had fired one of its moveable claws at him. It rotated through the air like a spinning saw blade. If the chaos lord’s Agility hadn’t been nearly four times that of a normal man, it would have cut right through his wrist. As it was, he only managed to avoid most of the attack, instead letting the blade slice through his palm. The cut extended from his pinky to the middle of his hand. Red blood splattered in an arc, and pain shot up his arm and into his brain. Richter fell back with an angry cry.

  “Arrgggh!”

  He clapped a hand over the wound, trying to staunch the blood.

  You have sustained 29 points of damage!

  You are Bleeding! You will lose 8 HP/sec until the bleeding is stopped.

  Richter cursed himself for being cocky. The wurm shivered again, and he immediately dove to the side. Landing in a roll, he narrowly dodged not one but two spinning spines that scored deep into the rock behind him. Richter was under no illusions as to what would have happened if either had hit him center mass. Namely, pain, death, and his body ultimately being turned into worm shit while his soul was cursed to wander as a tortured shade for all eternity. He decided it’d be best to avoid that if at all possible.

  The chaos lord moved so the golem was between him and the wurm it was holding. The monster immediately began attacking his construct again, and the rain of small pebbles continued from its body. Richter nodded rapidly in anger while blood dripped from his clenched hand. Okay. Okay. You want to play it soft, we play it soft. You want to play it hard… we play it hard.

  He murmured a quick Life spell and his flesh began to reknit itself. The bleeding continued, but it decreased by the second. Richter waited only until he had full use of his fingers again before issuing another mental command to his golem.

  Hold that bitch up!

  The golem raised both arms up like it was shouting “Ya Ta” and gave Richter a clear shot at the acid-compromised section of the wurm. Its flesh was already repairing the edges of the chemical burn. That’s enough of that, Richter thought.

  Using both hands this time, he dual cast a spell of Light. Both hands moving in concert, and with blood still streaming down one, he cast Minor Sunbeam. It was one of the only rank 2 spells that he knew. Both ends of the ravager wurm thrashed about, but the section between the golem’s hands remained taut. A bar of incandescent white energy shot into the acid-weakened portion of the wurm’s body. At the same time, Richter gave a mental command. Pull!

  Between the previous damage and the white-hot fire of his dual cast Sunbeam, the monster’s body was almost burned completely through. With a hard pull, the golem finished the job and ripped it in half. The Sloth might not have been smart, and it couldn’t really fight for shit, but it pulled monsters apart real good.

  Richter blinked back the headache that came from such a massive expenditure of mana. The spell had cost him nearly five hundred mana, more than half of his maximum pool. It was worth it. The two ends of the monster fell limp in the golem’s hands. He would have smiled despite his impending migraine, but something made him frown.

  Ravager Wurm takes 1244 points of combined damage!

  The monster had taken a huge amount of damage, but it wasn’t enough to kill it. Truth be told, Richter had been hoping that its HP would fall to zero when it was ripped apart. It still had more than half of its health left though. He took a worried step forward. If that was true then, why was it just hanging limp in the golem’s-

  Before the chaos lord could even finish his thought, the severed halves of the monster came back to life. The two ends shot toward each other and something horrific happened. What had been the “head” and “tail” of it fused together so that it was once again an unbroken length of pure horror. Even worse, it used one of its moveable claws to cut one end of itself free from the golem’s grasp. That end fell to the floor, leaving a torn and bloody hunk of flesh in the Earth elemental’s hand. The newly freed end had stopped bleeding before it even hit the ground. It flopped once before forming a new mouth, and then it shot at Richter as fast as a striking snake.

  What happened next couldn’t be described as a conscious thought. Seeing the attack coming at him, something in Richter took over. He collapsed backward and rolled feet over head. While he was mid-maneuver, he grabbed his iron-sheathed club from the ground behind him. He finished the roll on his feet and was already swinging his weapon. With perfect timing, the iron head connected with the attacking monster in a swing that would have put the great Bambino to shame. The entire maneuver took barely a second, and was definitely not something Richter could have managed two days ago. It was the training of his Combat Art.

  Richter strikes the Ravager Wurm for 25 damage!

  The chaos lord didn’t stop and wonder at his new battle prowess. His training, Paden’s training, would not allow for such a pathetic mistake. Instead, he jumped forward and stuck the snake again. He mentally ordered the golem to wind the wurm up like a garden hose while he fought the other end. His ichorpede dagger found its way into his off hand and a deadly dance began.


  If Richter hadn’t absorbed the fighting techniques of the dwarves he would have died in that moment. If he didn’t have superhuman attributes, he would have died. If he hadn’t trained with Yoshi for months, despite the half-sprite being a sadistic bastard, he would have died. If the monster wasn’t restrained on one end, he would have died. As all those things were true though, he beat the snot out of it.

  Richter used his Combat Arts as the situation required, switching between Stinging Storm and Granite Breaker as needed. Using both led to him making mistakes, and more than once he bled because of it. As time went on though, he started trusting his Combat Arts more, and the damage to his enemy accumulated. The wurm didn’t know it, but he was using it to train.

  His golem had turned out to be useless in fully immobilizing the monster. Each time Sloth tried to get a better grip, the Tier 2 wurm would almost break free. Richter couldn’t risk fighting the monster unencumbered, so he ordered the golem to just keep one end of it immobile. If it got completely free, it would kill him quickly. He continued fighting and slowly whittling down its health. Far too slowly.

  After several minutes, he’d taken off another several hundred HPs, but it still had more than a thousand health. Every second, it regenerated more. In contrast, Richter had only 20% of his stamina left. He’d found the serious flaw in using special attacks. His stats were respectable, but widely spread out among the nine Primary Attributes. He just didn’t have the stamina for a prolonged battle at this level.

  In contrast, the monster’s stamina bar was more than 80% full. Baring his teeth in frustration, the chaos lord recognized just how foolish his earlier cockiness had been. Fighting an ascended monster one-on-one was not a simple task. Even though he’d gotten a bump in his stats, it seemed like this Tier 2 monster had gotten a larger one. That, or its higher level, made a larger difference than he’d expected.