The mountain moved.

“I think you underestimate me,” Zeke said, staring at the massive tortoise. It was the size of a city, and despite the fact that the ground shook with its every step, it was dozens of miles away. Aloud, he asked, “How big do you think that thing is?”

“At least a mile across,” Talia answered. “Perhaps more. Perspective is difficult to gauge from this distance.”

For his part, Zeke expected that Talia’s estimate was a little conservative. He had some experience with enormous creatures, and he knew just how easily the mind could be fooled by a sight that shouldn’t have been possible. In any case, the gargantuan tortoise’s basic shape was no different from any other he’d ever seen. Comparatively short, stumpy legs, a huge shell, and a scaley head. However, even considering its size, the most surprising thing about the creature was the city on its back.

“How did we miss this on our way down?” he asked.

Talia shrugged. “Freefalling can be distracting,” she answered.

Zeke couldn’t disagree with that assessment. Sure, during the fall, he’d been far calmer than he probably should have been. However, that didn’t mean he had an opportunity to really study his environment. As a result, he’d likely missed the vast majority of details.

“I saw it,” Eveline said.

“No you didn’t.”

“I did,” she insisted.

Zeke just shook his head. He didn’t believe Eveline for a second. Normally, she was far more attentive than him, which he would readily admit. However, she was not infallible. She missed things just like him. The big difference was that she liked to pretend she was omniscient, which couldn’t have been further from the truth.

“That’s just rude,” she muttered in his mind.

“Just calling it like I see it,” he responded inwardly.

As they spoke, the turtle continued to wade through the forest, felling trees with every step. However, Zeke was happy to see that it wasn’t actually coming in their direction. Rather, it took a diagonal path that would be miles away from intersecting with their position.

“You really don’t think I could kill it?” he asked.

Eveline let out a sigh. “I’m sure you could find a way if you put your mind to it,” she admitted. “Though that might be a bit of a mischaracterization. It’s not your mind that would be doing the heavy lifting, if you understand my meaning.”

“Ouch.”

Talia interrupted that conversation when she asked, “What should we do? The turtle city seems the most likely place to complete the dungeon.”

“Maybe,” Zeke said. “I’ve participated in three dungeons. Four, if you count the troll caves. Two were incredibly complex, with dozens of ways to get to the end.”

That was true. The troll caves, which were a displaced dungeon that Oberon had appropriated for his training, contained hundreds, if not thousands, of miles tunnels. As a result, he’d spent years fighting his way through the dungeon until he’d finally reached the end. The Mirror King’s dungeon was similarly complex, though on a slightly smaller scale Even then, it had featured multiple potential paths.

“But two of them were almost comically straightforward,” he went on.

The dungeon that had functioned as the centaur trials had only featured one possible path. Certainly, that didn’t make it any less difficult to conquer, but finding the right way through was not an issue. And the arena was even simpler, only requiring him to defeat the waves of enemies.

“I think this is one of the complex ones,” he said. “There will be multiple ways through. Some will probably be harder than others, and I’m sure a few of them will be dead ends.”

“Emphasis on the dead part,” Eveline supplied, manifesting beside him. “Choosing the wrong path in a complex dungeon is often fatal.”

By this point, Talia was accustomed to Eveline’s presence, so she didn’t even flinch at the former demoness’ sudden appearance. Instead, she said, “In my experience, choosing the wrong path in any situation is potentially lethal. This world is not meant for the weak or stupid.”

“Oh, I like that,” Eveline said. Then, to Zeke, she added, “I like your friend. She’s far more realistic than you are.”

Zeke rolled his eyes, but he didn’t miss the slight smile on Talia’s face. It was nice to see that her emotions weren’t as bottled-up as they once had been. He had no idea what had changed, but it was definitely a good change. Before, it was easy to believe that she was completely unfeeling, but he knew better. She felt emotions just like anyone else, but because of her race, those feelings had remained buried deep in her mind.

“What do you think we should do?” asked Zeke.

Talia answered, “Scout. We need information, and the only way to acquire it is to explore the dungeon.”

“Agreed,” Zeke said, rolling his shoulders. He looked down from where they were perched upon the hill of rubble and said, “I’m pretty sure that forest is filled with things that want to kill us.”

“The whole world is full of such things. This is just another day,” Talia stated.

“I really do like her,” Eveline said. “So fatalistic. She could have been a proper demon.”

Talia cut her eyes at Eveline’s projection, clearly disliking the idea of being compared to a demon. However, she didn’t say anything. Neither did Zeke. Instead, the pair shared a silent nod, then set off down the slope and back into the overgrown ruins. Soon enough, they were among the trees, and it wasn’t long before they were once again assaulted by more treants.

Fortunately, the new threats were not nearly as high of a level as the others, and as such, they were easily dispatched. After that, every step through the jungle – and it was a proper rainforest – came with significant difficulty. If it wasn’t the nearly unpassable terrain, it was the local fauna slowing their progress. Some, like the treants, were clearly magical in nature, but there was plenty of mundane wildlife as well.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

As they progressed, they fought hunting cats of all shapes and sizes, canines that looked like hyenas on steroids, and all sorts of reptiles, ranging from snakes to enormous lizards. However, the worst were the insects. Never was that more apparent than when a swarm of monstrous mosquitoes descended upon them. Their bodies were the size of labradors, which meant that their segmented legs were nearly a dozen feet long.

But the worst was the spear-like proboscises jutting from their insectile faces. They were sharp enough to pierce even Zeke’s colossal form, and when they did, they latched on and sucked more than just blood. They took mana and vitality, too, rapidly weakening him. Even counteracting the effect with [Cambion’s Awakening] wasn’t enough to cancel it out; indeed, the only way to do that was to splatter the monsters across the jungle.

Of course, Talia avoided their attacks altogether. With her speed, she was more than capable of dodging whatever the forest could throw at her. However, on that same note, Zeke noticed that she wasn’t without weaknesses of her own. She wasn’t nearly as durable as she could have been, and on the few occasions where she was cornered and had to take an attack, the damage was usually extensive. On top of that, the expression of her skills was interesting. She could pile on the damage, but only in short bursts. After that, Talia was forced to whittle her enemies down. It was effective, especially with her speed adding to the effect, but she lacked the ability to stand toe-to-toe with enemies of similar stature.

Fortunately, very few creatures in the jungle qualified for that label, which meant that she became an absolute terror. By comparison, Zeke felt like a lumbering oaf. He had plenty of his own strengths, but as he fought, he couldn’t help but compare his abilities to Talia’s. More, he found himself wondering how he would counter her powerset.

With his domains, he could control the battlefield to such a degree that it would slow her down. Then, he would have to use [Center of Gravity] to interrupt her rapid movement. Even then, he would likely take plenty of hits. However, he was perfectly suited for that style of battle, so he liked his chances.

“You would crush her, and you know it. The ability to kill weak beasts quickly does not make her more powerful than you,” Eveline reminded him. She’d once again sunk back into his mind, so the statement was silent.

“She would hold her own.”

“Perhaps. But she would fall. She couldn’t stand against someone like Lord Adontis. Nor could she defeat you,” Eveline reiterated. “That is the tyranny of power. You are stronger than her, and not by a small degree.”

“Lord Adontis was stronger than me,” Zeke reminded her.

“The mere fact that you defeated him suggests otherwise. Levels are not everything, as you well know,” Eveline stated. “They are a gauge for progress, not power.”

That was a good way to put it, Zeke thought. He’d often found levels to be misleading. On too many occasions to count, he’d fought and killed enemies that were much higher level than him. As such, he’d found them to be mostly useless, except as a means for gauging when he could expect a skill choice or slot. Yet, looking at those levels as a way to gauge a person’s progress was better than trying to think of it as a means of quantifying someone’s power.

After all, it was just one piece of the puzzle, and arguably the least important one.

So it went, with the pair of them tearing their way through the jungle. The wildlife wasn’t the only obstacle, either. More than once, they were forced to scale cliffs that, from their initial inspection, were hidden beneath the canopy. Similarly, there were quite a few deep ravines they had to traverse, and more than one raging river populated by monstrous piranha, beasts that resembled crocodiles, but were quite a bit larger and far more dragon-like, and even some pygmy-sized, bipedal frog creatures who kept throwing spears at them.

In short, the journey was arduous, but not because the quality of the enemies within. Rather, it was the quantity of foes was nearly overwhelming. Every step was a labor, and as a result, the journey was mentally exhausting. Fortunately, neither Talia nor Zeke were prone to physical fatigue. For Talia, that was due to her undead body, and for Zeke, it was because of his rare combination of herculean stats and [Cambion’s Awakening].

“Too bad it doesn’t do anything for mental fatigue,” Eveline remarked.

As Zeke climbed, hand over hand, to the top of yet another cliff, he couldn’t help but agree. And that agreement reached a fever pitch when a giant snake struck his hand. Its fangs sunk deep into his metallic skin, injecting him with burning venom. He already had [Cambion’s Awakening] active, so it only took a flick of thought to flare the skill. It went to work combating what probably should have been a debilitating venom. Meanwhile, his own hand shot out, grabbing the creature by one of its massive fangs.

It hissed, attempting to coil its body in retreat. But Zeke held fast.

At least until the fang snapped off.

The snake shot backward, losing its balance and falling free of the cliff. To prevent himself from falling victim to that same fate, Zeke shoved the fang into the cliff. It penetrated deep into the rock, bearing his weight long enough for him to climb over the edge of the cliff.

He rolled over, taking a deep breath.

“I hate jungles,” he muttered to himself.

Talia joined him a moment later, nimbly spring over the lip of the cliff. She looked down on him, asking, “Are you injured?”

“No. Just going to rest my eyes a bit,” he rumbled.

“Why? We have reached our destination,” she stated.

Zeke turned his head and realized that she was right. For some time, they’d been traveling toward another set of ruins she had seen after climbing to the top of a tree. And at last, they had arrived.

However, like everything else in the dungeon so far, it was not what either of them had expected. Because the ruins were not ruins at all.

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Eveline pointed out.

Indeed, there were ruins there, though they were far more intact than anyplace they’d visited so far. Still, they were in an advanced state of decay, with most of the structures having been reduced to mere foundations. Here and there existed a few standing walls, and in the center of the site was a large structure that looked to Zeke like a temple.

Once, it must have been a majestic structure, with elaborately carved walls festooned with hundreds of artful statues. However, the building – or really, compound – had clearly seen better days. The details of the statues had been worn away by the elements, and what remained of the carvings had been blurred by erosion. Still, the place radiated power in a way Zeke couldn’t really understand.

Yet, the slightly better state of the ruins was not what drew Zeke’s attention. Instead, his focus was reserved for the fact that the ruins were not abandoned. Instead, the were populated by small rodent-like humanoids. And the village of rat-people were obviously sentient, too. They wore primitive clothing and many of them carried stone-tipped weapons. More, the ruins played host to a series of buildings that constituted a village. Each of those structures were made of vertical logs, between which Zeke could see large gaps, with roofs of what looked like piled palm fronds.

In short, it felt like they’d stumbled into a stone age village, though one populated by rat-people instead of cave men.

“Should we kill them?” Talia asked.

“No. Not unless we have to,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. Their arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed, and the rat-people chittered anxiously as they gathered at the edge of their village, which was located almost a hundred yards away. Suddenly, the group parted, revealing a pair of rat-people. One was clearly old, and much of their weight was supported by a crooked walking stick. Otherwise, they walked with a hunched but steady gait.

The other wore an elaborate outfit that glittered in the sun. It wasn’t until Zeke focused on the details that he realized that it was made from hundreds of disparate gemstones that had been sewn into a robe. This one carried an equally elaborate metal staff tipped with a giant, green emerald.

The pair of rat-people approached, giving Zeke a chance to use [Inspect]:

Ratongi Chief – Level 59

That was the elderly creature. He used [Inspect] again on the other:

Ratongi Witchdoctor – Level 62

“Hail, strangers!” the witchdoctor squeaked in what Zeke interpreted as a feminine voice. “Have you come to save us from the dreaded blight?”

“Uh…”

“Say yes, idiot,” said Eveline.

“Sure. Just…uh…point us in the right direction,” Zeke said.