Novels2Search

Chapter 31-Hunting

You have slain [Kuroxet | Abyss Spawn 6] - Bonus experience award for defeating a higher leveled entity.

You have slain [Kuroxet | Abyss Spawn 7] - Bonus experience award for defeating a higher leveled entity.

Level up!

Kal had come across a few lone kuroxet on his walk towards the mountains. It had only been about an hour since he left the group of three behind. His anger, and birthright stirred slightly during each fight but now that he was armed and only fought against a single kuroxet at a time it never truly got a chance to ramp up. Kal hadn’t bothered killing the demons gruesomely the last few times. It was more important to gain experience at this point than Wrath. His Wrath continued to increase either way, gaining approximately ten times the level of each creature he slew.

Kal opened his status to distribute his six free points.

Kalum Lesta

Status

Class:

Slayer [Epic]

Level:

6

Race:

Human?

Health:

520

Stamina:

760

Wrath:

401

Attributes

Strength:

67

Agility:

29

Endurance:

76

Vitality:

52

Intellect:

17

Perception:

32

Will:

61

Wisdom:

27

Titles

Ascendant, Core Bane, Core Smith, Defier of Dhinir, Planeswalker

Skills

Soul Forge [Corrupt], Wrathful Regeneration [Common]

Race

Birthright: Slumbers

He was happy until he saw his disgustingly low intellect. It was starting to bother him now. It was his lowest attribute by far and the gap just kept getting bigger, so before he could dissuade himself he threw five points into intellect and the last point into agility. Suddenly it was like he had just woken up from a long sleep. His thoughts felt significantly faster and clearer. He wasn’t sure if it would help him in combat but he was sure it would help him later when he needed to put thought into his progression and experiment with his Soul Forge skill. Now he realized he was foolish to not ask Mira more about being an ascendant. Gods, was he really that dumb?

Kalum Lesta

Status

Class:

Slayer [Epic]

Level:

6

Race:

Human?

Health:

520

Stamina:

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

760

Wrath:

401

Attributes

Strength:

67

Agility:

31

Endurance:

76

Vitality:

52

Intellect:

23

Perception:

32

Will:

61

Wisdom:

27

Titles

Ascendant, Core Bane, Core Smith, Defier of Dhinir, Planeswalker

Skills

Soul Forge [Corrupt], Wrathful Regeneration [Common]

Race

Birthright: Slumbers

Happy with his decision to increase his intellect Kal moved on in search of something else to slay.

As Kal got closer to the mountain side he noticed the temperature of the area was getting significantly hotter. The terrain had always been a blasted wasteland, but the only feeling of heat was from the effect of the abyssal mana that filled the place. Now he could feel true heat radiating from the mountain. Perhaps it was a volcano but he couldn’t see any smoke in the sky from it, not that it was easy to tell with the strange fiery mana storm in the sky.

Kal scouted around the base of this side of the mountain range for a while, looking for more of the kuroxet demons but did not find any of the things nearby so he decided to start making his way up the mountain. The moment he reached the first incline he received a notification. Confused Kal opened it and smiled after seeing what it was.

Quest Received: The Forgotten One

Uncover the mystery of the Mountains of Revenge.

Rewards: Uncommon Chest, Title

He had received a quest directly from the system. Kal was amazed but he guessed he shouldn’t have been surprised it wasn’t every day a mortal strolled through a layer of the abyss. The description was pretty vague but he assumed that he was currently walking up the Mountains of Revenge. The rewards sounded amazing too. He had heard that the rewards for system quests were incredibly valuable, especially the titles they often granted. It didn’t list any kind of experience reward but Kal suspected he wouldn’t need to worry about experience problems for a while. He was gaining levels easily enough as long as he could slay some more demons along the way it would be fine.

Kal closed the quest’s description and saw that it had opened his ongoing quests display, and he saw that the tournament quest was still active. That was surprising, he had kind of assumed that it would have failed the moment he had been pulled aside by the prophet. It would have been nice to get that ring the prophet was giving as a reward but it wasn’t like he would be able to receive it here. Especially since the prick was dead. Kal shrugged and continued his way up the mountain.

After an hour or so Kal found a path of sorts that zig-zagged its way up the mountain. So Kal made his way up the path keeping his eyes peeled for anything in the area. He was hoping he would come across something to kill but he hadn’t so far. What he had found though was some large stone pillars. They were made from a different stone to what was in the bunker, the pillars were made up of a much darker stone with golden marbling, but they were covered in runes very similar to the ones down there. They were placed in a large circle that Kal suspected was once clear of debris but was now filled with large stones. They were heavily worn but it looked like they had probably landed here after tumbling down the mountain. He tried using his mana sight while inspecting them but found no sign of any energy within each of the pillars. There were seven of them in total making Kal suspect they had something to do with the gods, but he had no way to be sure. He wished he had some paper to take a rubbing of one of the faces. Maybe he would find something smaller he could take back to Mira for her to translate for him.

Kal moved on, further up the mountain. The heat was still slowly increasing the higher he climbed up the mountain path. Honestly, it was getting boring. A few hours had passed without him finding much of anything, just more shattered boulders. He almost cheered when found a sign of something being up here. He would have missed it if he hadn’t investigated every cracked boulder or possible opening along the path. It was in a small alcove just off the path that he found a corpse. Whatever it was, he hadn’t seen one before. It looked kind of like a scaled dog, but its head was more like a bat's than a dog's. He tried using Identify but it didn’t display any useful information, just a series of question marks and the fact that it was abyss spawn.

[?????? | Abyss Spawn]

This demon was very big just about the size of a medium-sized dog. What confused Kal more was the fact that it looked more or less intact. It had a likely lethal wound on its neck but he would have thought that any corpse he found would be half eaten if not that, completely eviscerated. Not just killed and left here, more or less in the open. It made him look around the alcove more closely than he normally would have and it was lucky he did. He looked directly above the corpse of the demon and could see an opening. It was pretty high up but with his new attributes, he thought it was worth trying to reach. So he readied himself and jumped up towards the opening and to his surprise, he was actually able to grab hold of the ledge. It had to have been fifteen feet off the ground. He really needed to test out his new physical ability. Chuckling to himself, Kal pulled himself over the ledge and into the darkness of the opening the light from the opening wasn’t great but it let him see that there was a tunnel ahead of him that turned off to the left where he could see a faint blue light illuminating the tunnel ahead slightly. The place had an interesting smell about it. Fungal maybe? Kal drew his sword and started making his way forward into the tunnel.

His nose was right. When he rounded the first corner he found the tunnel was filled with glowing blue mushrooms. They were small but they gave off a decent amount of light. Now, if his experience with this bloody plane told him anything, these things wanted to kill him so he slowly made his way past the mushrooms, careful not to touch any of them as he passed. This section of the tunnel filled with the mushrooms was much more humid than the outside but its temperature was about the same. However that all changed as he made his way deeper into the mountain. It was getting a lot hotter and the mushrooms slowly started to get sparse as the humidity of the tunnel dropped. He noticed along the center of the tunnel there were occasional scratches in the stone. He stopped to take a closer look and it looked like something with claws had been through there at some point. The claws part really wasn’t a surprise. The scratches could have been left by the bat-dog thing he found outside, but he wasn’t a tracker by any means. So he just kept his guard up and continued ever deeper down the tunnel.

The heat was getting uncomfortable and Kal was forced to use his mana sight to see after the mushrooms became too sparse to use to navigate the tunnel, but finally, Kal could see more light ahead so he deactivated his mana sight and peered out of the new opening.

He was looking out into a massive dome illuminated by countless streams of magma that oozed down the sides of the dome. The tunnel he was standing in was a good twenty feet off the floor of the dome. The place had to be at least fifty miles across. Within the dome was a maze of rocky terrain and magma rivers. No wonder the tunnels were so damn hot, the mountain was an absolutely massive volcano. Kal looked across the area below and he quickly ducked back behind the cover of the tunnel’s wall. Below him, he spotted one of those bat dogs. Kal poked his head back around the corner to see the demon stand on its hind legs and sniff at the air. Kal thought about leaping down towards the thing and killing it before it had a chance to call for help, assuming they ran in packs like wild dogs or wolves. Before Kal stepped out he heard a guttural howl off in the distance and the bat-dog’s head turned towards the howl and dashed away. Before it had gotten too far away Kal managed to use Identify.

[Garghound | Abyssal Spawn 9]

It was stronger than Kal expected but he was still confident he could kill one of them if he got the jump on it. If they were with their pack though he wasn’t so sure. If their packs were as large as some wild dog packs were, it would be like the kuroxet chase all over again.

But Kal needed to gain experience somehow, and the best right now seemed to be hunting down some of these Garghounds. So he scaled the edge of the dome down to the stone floor. First, he needed to find a lone Garghound, hopefully, since he saw the one near the tunnel opening it was a common occurrence for them to move off on their own. As he started walking towards the center of the dome in the direction he saw the demon run off he received a notification and immediately smiled when he saw what it was.

Quest Received: Garghound Eradication

These demons were once a scourge to the people of Kartha. Avenge them by eradicating their most hated foes. 0/120

Rewards: Title, Additional rewards dependant on performance.