Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)
Page 43
Focus wholly on your opponent’s defense, their movements, their patterns, their very way of thinking, I mentally recited as I checked my rapid strikes and instead focused on single methodical ones with Splinter, aiming the blade at the gaping wound that I’d created. Where you will seek a single flaw, a brief sliver in time where they are laid bare and most vulnerable. Then, when that instant is presented, strike entirely without fear or reservation in your mind, guiding the fullness of your weapon towards the battle’s end.
The brief mantra was all that I’d been able to glean from one of the feeds that Freya and I had watched the previous night, specifically the one belonging to the half-elf fighting in the arena who had struck down his opponent with a single blow. After a bit of research through his posted feed, I learned that the ability he’d used had been one called Perfect Strike and that he had, in fact, learned it from one of the local gladiator instructors. More than eager to add the powerful ability to my repertoire, I’d done everything I could in the time I had to memorize what I’d seen in the player’s feed. But despite my best efforts to find it, the full training process hadn’t been posted by the player—what was available offering me only brief snippets to learn and improvise from. So that had been exactly what I’d done from the first moment that we’d set off into the Hartwyld, mirroring the motions that I’d seen in the feed in the hopes that I’d be able to teach the ability to myself.
Unfortunately, as with all the other attempts that had preceded it, this time was no different as I slashed out with Splinter, the blade simply carving deeper into the wound that I’d already made. But for what the attacks I landed lacked in allowing me to learn the new ability, they made up for in causing the behir’s leg to suddenly buckle as I cut through a thick tendon, the limb going completely limp. Turning away from the now crippled leg I rushed towards the next one in line behind it and proceeded to repeat the same tactic once more.
Of course, the behir was far from idle during our efforts to maim it, the creature stomping and twisting in an attempt to claw and crush us. But despite its best efforts, it had finally reached its limits and had begun to slow down. So it was then, when Berwyn leapt onto its back once more and began to sprint up its spine towards its head, that all it was able to do in its defense was weakly thrash in an attempt to dislodge him. Such a feeble effort, however, was far from enough to dislodge the running monk, and he quickly managed to reach the behir’s neck, leaping into the air to attack.
Yet unlike the previous attack that he’d followed through with me earlier in the battle, this time Berwyn didn’t move to strike with the weapons he held in his hands. Instead, he led with a powerful flying kick, a golden aura of magic briefly surrounding his foot before it slammed into the side of the behir’s head. But despite the apparent ferocity of the blow and burst of auric energy that followed it, the creature showed no signs of even feeling the attack, Berwyn’s momentum taking him back towards the ground.
However, that didn’t mean that his attack hadn’t been successful.
Freezing instantly as the man’s kick had landed, the behir’s thrashing movements instantly stopped as its body took on an unnatural stillness, its muscles suddenly locking themselves in place. With its wailing roar suddenly dying in its throat, the stunned creature hung in place for a pair of heartbeats before its weight shifted in the direction of its injured legs.
“Everyone out of the way!” I shouted as the behir began to fall, prompting all of us to rush out from under it, lest we end up getting crushed. “It’s coming down!”
Continuing to list with increasing speed, it didn’t take long for the beast to tip over and complete its journey towards the ground, causing it to rumble beneath our feet as it landed with a crash.
“Here’s our chance!” Cassius shouted as we all watched the behir fall. “Now kill it!”
Not needing to be told twice, we all then fell upon the now prone and defenseless beast, taking advantage of its temporarily paralyzed state to attack it without mercy. Proving to be the edge that we needed in order to put an end to the battle, there was little that the behir could do to resist us once Berwyn’s timely strike finally wore off and it regained its ability to move. Scarred by countless wounds across its blood-covered body, the creature was able to put up a brief, token resistance as it struggled to rise back to its feet, only to have its efforts finally put to an end by Amaranth, who had since escaped from its maw.
Leaping directly upwards as the behir attempted to rise, he sank both his teeth and claws into the creature’s throat, effortlessly puncturing through the scales armoring the vital arteries beneath. Then with a mighty display of his prestigious strength, he proceeded to tear it out entirely, causing a torrent of blood to burst free. Gurgling and wheezing from the mortal wound, it was finally more than the massive lizard could take, the creature falling back towards the ground, a final shudder passing through its body before it fell completely still. Panting and wheezing from the exhausting and completely unexpected battle, we all simply stared at the creature for several seconds without saying anything, each of us trying to catch our breaths.
All of us, except for Amaranth.
Leaping on top of the fallen behir the second that it stopped moving, the battle-worn cat struck a dominant pose as he turned to look at us, his eyes wide and eager.
Chapter 33
“Hang on a second. Tell me again just exactly what you found?” I asked, feeling my heart still thundering in my chest from what I thought I’d just heard. “Because I swear I just heard you say that you found a ‘ruin’ of some sort out here, and I’m going to be a little annoyed if that’s a prank.”
“It’s definitely not a prank,” Kilgore assured, a faint smile creeping across his expression as he looked at me. “And we were just as surprised as you when we found it. Turns out that’s where our little beasty here has been nesting when it isn’t trying to ambush innocent travelers. We followed its tracks pretty much straight to it.”
“Huh, I see,” I grunted, my eye glancing over towards the bloody patch of ground that the elf had indicated while speaking, the spot marking where the behir’s body had lain before dissipating away. Needing time to recover in the immediate aftermath of our battle with the creature, we’d decided that it would be a good idea for the three Hallowguarde guildmembers to scout the area ahead of us before we all resumed our journey. The last thing that any of us wanted was to run into another one of the giant lizards, or better yet, have it run into us.
But instead of finding more of creatures lying in wait for us, it seemed that the others had found us an unexpected mystery to explore.
“Were you guys able to figure out what sort of ruin it is, by chance?” I asked in a curious voice, turning to look back at the scout.
“Uh, you mean a partially destroyed one?” Kilgore replied, his earlier grin at our excitement shifting into an unsure expression.
“That’s not what he means,” Halcyon said in an exceptionally eager tone. “Do you guys know if it’s Nafarrian built? Or maybe Irovian? Or even something else entirely? I mean, it’s probably Irovian given that it’s here in the Hartwyld and what we know of the region’s lore, but if it isn’t, then whoa, that’s going change a lot of our thinking.”
“Um,” the grey-haired half-elf hedged, his eyes growing wide from under Halcyon’s rapid onslaught of words. “So it’s made of stone and looks pretty beaten up. Uh, is this a bad time to tell you guys I haven’t been to any of those ruins that you guys found or watched all of your feeds yet? I left it for the others to worry about.”
“No,” I said, chuckling at the man�
��s sudden hesitation. “We just always tend to get excited whenever we have a chance to find a new set of ruins to explore.”
“I can tell,” Kilgore replied, giving each of us standing around him a brief glance before ending up back on me. “Well, how about I escort you all there, then maybe you can figure out what we’re dealing with once you have a chance to look around a bit?”
“I think that sounds like a plan,” I agreed before turning my attention back to the items that I’d been sorting through right when the elf had returned. “We’re just about finished sorting out the loot that the behir dropped, so we can be ready to go soon as we’ve finished dividing it all up to carry.”
“That works for me,” Kilgore replied, his voice going on to take on an eager tone. “Did it manage to drop anything decent for us?”
“The usual ‘beasty’ things as these things go. So lots of bone, scales, teeth, and meat for us to find a use for once we’re back at Aldford and can craft them into something useful,” I answered while motioning for the scout to take a look at the pile nearby. As he did, I also used the opportunity to take a closer look myself, running one final inventory of the items in my mind as their descriptions appeared in my vision.
Jadestone Behir Scale
Quantity: 320
Item Class: Magical
Item Quality: Masterwork (+20%)
Weight: 90 kg
Jadestone Behir Teeth
Quantity: 60
Item Class: Magical
Item Quality: Masterwork (+20%)
Weight: 5 kg
Jadestone Behir Claw
Quantity: 60
Item Class: Magical
Item Quality: Masterwork (+20%)
Weight: 15 kg
Jadestone Behir Bone
Quantity: 200
Item Class: Magical
Item Quality: Masterwork (+20%)
Weight: 200 kg
Jadestone Behir Meat
Quantity: 400
Weight: 150 kg
Greater Essence of Tenacity
Quantity: 1
Item Class: Magical
Weight: N/A
“Huh, so I see,” Kilgore replied as he looked over the similar array of animal parts that we’d long grown accustomed to seeing whenever we killed a large beast, along with yet another essence that we still had no idea how to make use of. “That is…a lot of meat and bones. Are we even going to be able to carry all of that with us?”
“Barely,” I said, having done the mental math of spreading the loot between everyone in the party, which even then was only possible due to the enhanced strength we enjoyed as adventurers. “Thankfully, we’re all traveling fairly light as a whole and can spare the inventory space, else we’d have to leave some of it behind.”
“Well, I guess that’s good,” the elf commented, turning away from the pile of behir parts and back towards me. “And if nothing else, the meat should be a good change of pace from those muffins we’ve been eating. They’re pretty filling and all, but I’m more than ready for some variety.”
“That’s…true,” I said in a carefully even voice, the memory of Freya giving us each a bag filled with [Mystery Muffins] as we readied to depart still fresh in my mind. Unfortunately, we’d left too fast afterward for me to ask her just where exactly she managed to get the food and if they contained what I thought they did.
Though judging by the wide smile I saw on her face as she handed them to me, I doubted that I would have received an honest answer had I managed to do so.
“Erm, anyway,” I continued, letting out a small cough as I turned to look towards the group nearby. “What do you all say? Are we ready to see these ruins the others found?”
“And how,” Constantine replied without missing a beat. “We weren’t exactly quiet in killing this thing, and I’d really want to be on my way before something comes looking to see what happened. One life or death battle in a day is enough for me thanks.”
“I’ll second that,” Theia agreed in a quiet tone, her voice shaking as she spoke. “I’m still a little anxious after that thing came rushing out of the brush right on top of me. I have a feeling that I’ll be jumping at shadows for days now…”
“I can appreciate that,” Kilgore said in a gentle tone as he shifted his attention towards the lizardwoman. “But if it makes you feel better, our route is pretty clear as a whole, save for a few smaller critters here and there. Our big guy chased away pretty much everything else.”
“After the night and day that we’ve had so far, we’ll take any break that we can get,” I stated, motioning for us to get moving. “Now let’s go see about those ruins you told us. That means you too, Amaranth. You can finish eating along the way.”
With nothing left for us at the battle site and each of us ready to keep moving, we all divided the various beast parts between us and set off deeper into the Hartwyld, following Kilgore as he led the way.
“I don’t suppose maybe we can use these ruins as a bit of place to rest and maybe catch a nap once we get there, can we?” Caius asked in a hopeful if exhausted tone once we’d started to move. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m just about dying from lack of sleep here, to the point where I can barely see straight. I won’t even lie either. When that behir first attacked us, I thought I was hallucinating about the Beast at first. It took me a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t.”
“I’ll second the need for a break,” Constantine chimed in right behind the warlock. “We’ve been moving for close to…what, fourteen hours now since we left Valor’s Point? And that’s on top of the whole of yesterday. I feel that we’ve hit the limit on what those cat naps we’ve been cycling through in reality are able to do for us. We need real rest, or the next hungry critter that jumps us might end up winning.”
“And that would really suck,” I said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the pair as my own exhaustion weighed heavily on me now that battle was over and I’d managed to come down from the adrenaline rush.
Which, much like Constantine had said, wasn’t a surprise by any means considering how long and far that we’d traveled over the previous night and following day.
We’d all left Valor’s Point in the extremely early hours of the morning after finishing our bare-bones planning session and updating both Veronia and Aldwin on our decision to raid Khudazal. Unfortunately, with the in-game filters blocking us from being able to explain what we’d seen in the feed, that conversation had proven to be a little difficult at first, forcing us to be a bit creative with our sudden need to depart. But as we laid out the plan that we’d come up with, the pair quickly came around to our line of thinking, agreeing that a strike against the orc city would do well to change the stalemate that we’d found ourselves in. Promising to manage the defense of Valor’s Point along with Freya as best as they could until we returned, the pair then wished us luck and saw us off as we departed the base.
Making great time as we crossed the plains with Spirit of the Wild aiding our efforts, it was less than an hour after that before we found ourselves in the Hartwyld and began to blaze a path through the brush. Moving under the cover of darkness, we made reasonably good progress at first, the few nocturnal creatures that crossed our path proving either to be of little challenge to us or being smart enough to stay out of way. The only real worry that we encountered at the start of our journey were two roving orc bands that very nearly discovered us as we worked our way deeper into the forest. But thanks to a healthy dose of both luck and patience, we were able to avoid discovery until we made our way far enough east and escaped the area they were patrolling. It was there that our journey truly began as we angled our path northward and made
our way deeper into the true heart of the Hartwyld.
And, of course, the creatures that lived within.
Relying on our speed and stealth to avoid whatever conflicts that we could, and our strength and magic when we couldn’t, the hours slowly passed as we steadily ground our way forward. The only times that our steady grind was broken was when one of us managed to gain a level on our journey, the plentiful number of creatures in our path eventually allowing all of us to hit level twenty-seven. But as the night wore on, the wild animals in the forest weren’t the only challenges that we had to face, exhaustion and sleep deprivation working to dull both our bodies and minds. So in order to combat that particular obstacle and make the most of the limited time that we had to reach Khudazal before the orcs inevitably attacked Valor’s Point again, we began to take sleep shifts, logging back out into reality for brief naps.
Working with somewhat mixed effectiveness, the tactic allowed us to make the most of our avatar’s permanence in the world of Ascend Online, effectively allowing a few of us to rest at a time while we still continued to move. We found out however that there were still limits to what our characters and our minds could both endure, the strange mix of ‘rested fatigue’ taking its own toll the longer that we traveled. In either case, however, it allowed us to travel much farther and for longer than we would have been able to otherwise, reducing the need for us to find a place to stop and rest until we’d absolutely reached our limits.
Which, as this last battle had just shown us, we finally had.