After another twenty-minute trudge through the thick snow and into the howling wind Barry caught a glimpse of something crawling along the snow ahead of him. In fact, there were three of these things all up. They were long creatures, probably a few metres in length but not very tall, maybe a metre or so at best. They crawled around using their front and rear legs which had obvious claws at either end. Their heads were triangular and hard to describe. It looked like a cross between an ant and a tiger. It had the mandibles and large eyes of an ant, but the broad snout and nose of a tiger. The creature was covered in white fur, which was what made them so hard to see with the snow as a backdrop. At its rear was a long tail with a pointed end that tended to be held aloft like a scorpion. The weird beasts looked like something straight out of a horror movie, as they chattered their mandibles and waved their long threatening tails side to side in the air. As the first of the creatures spotted him Barry quickly inspected it.

Inspection:

Beast: Snow sgima

Level: 17

Stat: Stamina/Vitality

Barry’s stomach lurched upon reading the description. Not only had he never heard of anything like a sgima before, but the thing was level seventeen, and it clearly had many tools at its disposal that it could use to cause damage. Plus, it was another of the beasts he had discovered that that had more than one speciality stat, with both vitality and stamina listed as its highest stat. Traditionally, Barry had struggled the most against vitality specialists due to his difficulty dealing damage, and he had just recently discovered the issues with his stamina, meaning this beast could probably outlast him in a battle of attrition. But stat matchups weren’t everything, and Barry knew that he had plenty of tricks and abilities up his sleeve, so with a puff of his chest he summoned his chain and two clones and backed himself in.

Barry charged forward with one clone in front and another one behind. As he approached the beast he saw it pick up speed and leap into the air ready to slice at him with its claws. As it propelled forward it swiped wildly at Barry’s clone and appeared startled as it soared straight through the illusion and landed in the snow on the other side. In its moment of confusion Barry hurled his chain forward at the beast. However, he was forced to alter the trajectory of his strike mid swing as he noticed the tail of the creature flying towards him. Changing the direction of his attack Barry’s chain clashed with the sturdy spiked tip of the tail of the sgima. The beast was strong, and Barry was knocked back a step from the power of the tail whip. The sgima was starting to turn its body to leap forward at Barry’s true form when he sent his second clone towards it, which provides enough of a distraction to allow him to get back into a fighting position.

“This is going to be a tougher battle than the rest of the fights so far in this dungeon,” Barry thought as sweat formed on his forehead.

The salty drops instantly turned to ice in the cold air and fell down to the snow with a plop.

Barry and his first clone stepped forward again and swung down simultaneously with their chains. The beast hesitated, not knowing which side to defend against, and was struck in the back from Barry’s heavy blow. As the chain connected with the creature, Barry felt his chain ricochet as his arm flicked backwards from the reflective force. This was what he had feared, his attack had done next to no damage to the beast. Suddenly, the creature flicked its tail forward at Barry’s head and he was forced to use a barrier to meet the strike. The tip of the tail collided heavily with the barrier, but the defence held. Barry had used this moment to swing his chain forward again, clipping the middle section of the long tail, this time without any push back. The beast screeched in pain and retracted its tail towards itself, and kept it hovering high above its body in preparation for another strike. It then proceeded to retreat back a couple of steps as it continued its irritated screeching. The sound made Barry realise that his blow to the tail must have caused it some damage.

“Maybe the tail is a weak point,” he thought whilst diving backwards to avoid another swipe of the beasts’ claws as it lunged forward angrily.

After missing with its first strike the sgima suddenly spun its entire body around rapidly before Barry could move out of the way. The rump of the beast slammed into Barry’s side and caused him to fall onto his back in the snow. The bump didn’t hurt him at all, but the issue was the raised, glowing purple tail tip that was spiralling down towards his chest. Barry got a terrible feeling from the approaching stinger, and he instinctively activated clone transfer and swapped places with his closest clone. Shortly afterwards the tails stinger cut straight through the clone and snow before becoming stuck in the rocky mountain ground underneath. A dark purple liquid started to boil up from the earth in a small circle around the stinger, melting the snow and causing the thawed ice to form a bubbling purple goop.

Barry didn’t hesitate to react seeing the tail immobilised and he ran forward and brought down two heavy chains right into the centre of the long tail. The tail kinked at the location of Barry’s strike, and he realised his hunch about it being a weak spot must have been correct. The beast screeched in pain and spun its body around again in an attempt to claw at Barry, but it’s leap was hindered by its tail which was now bent at a right angle and also still stuck in the ground from its tip. Seeing this Barry created two barriers, one on either side of the creature’s hind legs. These impassable barricades, in conjunction with the still stuck tail, worked to effectively lock the beast in place. The manic sgima clawed at the barriers frantically as Barry stepped around the beast, out of reach of its attacks, and recommenced his assault on the creature’s defenceless tail. The sgima squealed and thrashed as Barry belted the tail relentlessly with his chains, but it was to no avail. Eventually, after sustaining countless blows, the tail finally succumbed as Barry’s chain sliced straight through. Both ends of the beasts dissected tail began gushing out purple eschar at an incredible rate as the beast whimpered and snarled, unsure whether to begin its attacks again or to run. In the end it mattered not for before long the creature’s movements slowed to a crawl and it let out a final whimpering screech before it bled out on the ground.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Barry let out a relieved breath and dispelled his barriers after feeling the energy enter his soul, indicating the death of the sgima. He was about to do the same with his clones when one of them noticed that the other two sgimas from earlier were nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, he saw a sgima burst forward from the snow directly below one of his clones. The furry beast emerged in a spray of snow and swiped wildly at the clone before landing on the ground right in front of the illusion. The wild beast let out a piercing, frustrated screech as it turned its attention towards Barry and the other clone. All of a sudden Barry felt the snow below his feet shift and he reflexively used clone transfer to swap places with the clone that was still unaccompanied. He wasn’t a moment to soon for the instance he moved another sgima emerged from the snow ready to claw him to pieces.

“The fuckers can dig as well? What’s next, flying?” Barry huffed sarcastically through rapid breaths.

Barry dispelled his clones, feeling his mana starting to drop. With no other options he gritted his teeth and clenched down firmly on his chain, readying himself to face the two frightening beasts at once. He briefly toyed with the idea of consuming some of his stat boosting herbs, but he decided against it. He was still hoping to use those consumables later as he could see he still wasn’t close to the true peak of the mountain. That meant there were probably even stronger foes ahead, and he would need as many tools at his disposal as he could muster. But all these thoughts were cast aside when he saw the left most sgima dive underground again, whilst the other started charging towards him with its tail and stinger raised aloft. Refusing to be intimidated, Barry sprinted towards the charging creature as he tried to form a game plan in his mind. When they were five metres apart the sgima predictably leaped forwards just like its deceased kin had done. As it did, Barry activated barrier again in front of the beast’s wide maw. The creature slammed into the wall and growled as it fell down to the snow. This time however something was different, as the creature hit the barrier it kept its eyes fixed on Barry and he thought for a second he saw it smile. Looking up Barry realised the sgimas tail was able to reach up and over the barrier despite its body being stopped. Then, whilst still falling, the stinger glowed black, and a spray of dark liquid shot forward at Barry’s chest. Unable to dodge it, Barry activated null magic skin and his glowing green protective aura met the black sludge attack of the monster. Thankfully, his barrier held, and he took no damage, but he could feel the corrosive effects of the attack slowly eating away at his defences.

“The damn things are learning,” Barry thought with horror as he realised this beast must have been watching as he clashed with the first sgima.

Once again Barry was forced to act quickly as he felt the snow shift again and he rolled quickly to the side. As predicted, the second sgima burst out of the ground and sliced forward with its claws. However, this time Barry’s reaction was too slow, and he received a gash to his side that passed through his null magic skin without resistance, indicating it was a purely physical attack. Ignoring the pain Barry got to his feet just in time to block the stab of the beast’s stinger with another barrier. The beast hissed in irritation as it turned to face Barry front on. By now the other sgima that had shot the black sludge forward had rounded the barrier and was standing next to the other, both with mandibles chattering and tails waving threateningly. “Well shit,” Barry thought as the seriousness of the situation began to sink in.

Again, the sgimas were the first to break the brief stalemate, but this time they both charged forward. Barry took a step forward in response and felt a slosh of liquid under his feet. Glancing down he realised he had stepped into the strange, bubbling pool of black sludge that was shot out from the sgimas tail and he got an idea. Dipping his still magically protected limb further into the mucky puddle he used his foot as a paddle and kicked forward in the direction of the nearest sgima. The black liquid sprayed up at the beast, splattering over its face and the front of its arms as it attempted to defend itself. Hissing, the creature stopped it’s run and began to pat at its eyes with the back of its paws, clearly not used to being struck by its own toxins. The other beast continued to stride forward, this time leading with its tail, bringing it forward over its head and toward Barry in an attempt to impale him. Barry ducked to avoid the blow and wrapped his chain around the passing tail, pulling it down to prevent it from being used offensively. To his surprise Barry found he was able to easily overpower the tail. But as he briefly thought back to the sight of the severed tail from earlier, he remembered noticing it was mostly hollow, presumably with the purpose of storing the toxic black and purple liquids that the sgimas used for their attacks. Activating his remote chain, Barry raised the weapon from the ground right below the head of the sgima who’s tail he currently had hold of. He swiftly instructed the chain to wrap around the thick neck of the beast and dragged its head down into the ground, rubbing its insectoid face deep into the snow. The sgima responded by kicking and clawing sporadically in a wild attempt to dislodge itself from the grasp of the chains. Barry could feel the powerful force of the creature as it struggled to raise its head and he could tell that the remote chain would only hold for so long, meaning he would have to move quickly.

Barry shot forward, chain in hand and still dragging the beast’s tail with it. He sprinted past the side of the creature as fast as he could manage, mindful not to slip on the sloping snow. Then he approached the second beast that had just recovered enough that it was in the process of removing its paw from its eyes. As its vision returned it saw the rapidly approaching stinger of its ally as Barry heaved the tail forward towards it. With a sickening crack and splatter, the tip of the tail of the restrained beast pierced through the eye of the sgima behind, penetrating deeply into its skull. The restrained sgima, unable to see what had happened, instinctively activated its purple glowing tail ability upon feeling it enter the flash of its kin, causing floods of acidic purple poison to flow out and into the head of the target. Barry watched in disgust as the injured sgimas head slowly began to soften and melt before deforming horribly. Within seconds the beast was dead, it’s skull now a mushy mess of purple and white.

“One to go,” huffed Barry with a steely and determined look.

The final sgima may have had its head immobilised and its tail trapped, but it’s front and rear legs were unencumbered, and it was scraping and bucking back wildly like a raging bull. Barry wanted to use the same trick of striking with its own tail, but the unpredictable and frantic kicking and cutting at the air made it difficult to get close. In its distress the creature started constantly shooting black sludge from its tail tip as Barry gripped it and he was forced to keep his null magic skin skill active to avoid any serious damage from wayward drops of toxins. Wanting to end the fight Barry activated barrier again, this time forming two small squares on either side of the sgimas trunk, and another on top of its back, effectively immobilising the beast. Then, whilst still gripping the chain that held the tail Barry stepped to the side before jumping up on top of the back of the beast. The sgima writhed and hissed as it felt Barry mount it’s back and Barry could feel his remote chains grip on the creature slipping. With a powerful downwards force, Barry brought down his chain overhead and aimed the sgimas stinger at its own head. At the same moment the beast shook its head free of the chain and looked up only to see its own tail careering towards its face. With a loud crack and cry, the beast impaled itself. This time however the creature did not activate its purple sludge ability, and shortly after the tail pierced its skull, its long body started to twitch and jerk uncontrollably. Barry attempted to put it out of its misery by jumping down and hitting it with his chain, but his blunt weapon was still unable to damage the sturdy, furred skull or body of the beast. Instead, he moved back and watched as the creatures’ spasmodic movements eventually stilled. Energy flooded his body and Barry felt his soul item level increase. He waved away the notification in his mind as he dragged his tired body over to where he had stashed his troll pelt. With a weak smile, and a hand on his stinging side, Barry walked up to the next peak, longing to rest his heavy legs.