Before Jonathan could respond, he heard a noise coming from the top of the tunnel left by the lord of the realm. It sounded like a thousand skittering feet sliding across the ground. His perception told him that it was likely a large monster.
“You should probably deal with that,” the spirit said, yawning. “You do not wish to attract the attention of the realm’s hegemon again.”
Jonathan and the others raced up the tunnel, and emerged to see a massive centipede crawling through the lava nearby. It was easily two hundred feet long, and was coated in chitin that looked as hard as steel. Its mandibles flared with heat, and beady eyes rested above them, twinkling like embers in the dim light of the realm. Jonathan saw Branth making some sort of religious sign out of the corner of his eye.
“Right. This should be a nice source of essence, if we can kill it,” Jonathan said.
“Kill it?” Branth asked, almost shaking. “That creature must be at least level 270! How are we supposed to kill it?”
“You’ve never seen Jonathan go all out, have you?” Edgar asked. “Or any of us for that matter.”
Jonathan started to walk forwards, summoning his Void energy to his gauntlets. As he went, he felt his martial mastery coursing through his body, and empowering the way that he moved. He felt as if he was on top of the world, a true paragon of his art. That was the power of an Advanced Pathway skill.
The centipede noticed his advance almost immediately, and it started to curl in on itself, before propelling its massive body out of the lava, and towards him. Its mandibles opened wide, but were suddenly stuck, as a bar of compressed air formed between them, courtesy of Edgar. The creature shattered it soon enough, but Jonathan had gained a few moments of time. Time that he used to great effect.
Before the centipede could respond, he was already at its head, his fists cocked back and ready. Every arc of his motion was carried out with such skill that the Jonathan of a few days ago would hardly have recognized it. The combined Journeyman ranked mastery of three different weapons combined to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
His fist descended, wreathed in purple fire and nothingness, and slammed straight into the weakest point in the monster’s armor. Any sort of armor that was not simply resilient skin had to have joints so that its wearer could move, and the chitin was no different. Right between the mandibles, there was a small hole. Normally that would have been useless, but Jonathan projected his elemental energy through the hole, and into the monster’s head.
Roiling energy slammed into the monster’s brain, essentially cooking it in a noxious combination of Void enhanced mana, and pure Void energy. The centipede writhed, and lashed out, only to find its mandibles stuck on a shield of dark rock. Hushar stood behind that shield, having arrived moments earlier.
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Jonathan leaped over the shield, and brought both fists down in a thunderous hammering blow, slamming the centipede into the ground. Chitin and stone cracked as the blow landed, dazing the monster. Meanwhile, Branth seemed to be working up the courage to engage with the monster that was many levels his senior. Eventually, after watching the others fight fearlessly for a bit, he raced in, his body crackling with energy.
Branth joined Jonathan in the frontline of the battle, and started to whale on the centipede’s head. His attacks did minimal damage, but they would help in netting him a portion of the essence prize. Jonathan smiled at him during a brief lull in the fight, and they both struck together, their fists landing side by side. The centipede reared back, and Jonathan nailed it in the throat with a condensed beam of Void energy. With one final, shuddering gurgle, it fell over, dead.
A wave of essence departed its corpse and entered the fighters, granting multiple levels across the board. Even Branth, with his higher level, eked out another one. Yet more proof that leveling speed was not universal. Split the way it was, Jonathan would not have gained a level near the middle of the Tier. However, his other boosts more than made up for that. He had a suspicion that the rarity of a class increased the amount of required essence, and he knew for certain that his Great Treasure took a percentage of his essence as well.
Branth ran over to the corpse, and started to tear off the chitinous armor, a look of avarice clear in his eyes. He wanted it for something, and Jonathan had no issue with that. Instead, he turned to Edgar and Hushar.
“I have a bit to explain to you about this realm,” he said.
“Is this to do with whoever created that borehole into the cave?” Edgar asked.
“Yes. This realm is ruled by a single Uthraki warlord, who is strong enough to control it in its entirety, at least among the other Uthraki. The realm is embroiled in a war, with the Uthraki fighting against a race called mimics. They arose from Slothari’s meddling in this realm.”
“Any idea why the realm lord went berserk upon seeing you in the cave?” Hushar said.
“Yes. The cave was the resting place of his wife, who had died because of the war. I assume he had security measures in place to tell him if anyone intruded.”
“Well, we should stay out of his way then, at least until we are strong enough to deal with him. I assume that he doesn’t have some sort of vendetta against you personally? As long as we stay away, we should be fine, right?” Edgar asked.
“Yes, I assume so, or else he would have arrived as soon as we got here.”
“Right. Then, let’s not waste any time here. If we are to defeat Slothari, we need all the levels we can get.”
Branth ran back to them with an armful of chitinous plates, and smiled.“This will make some great armor when we get back to Mire.”
“I can carry that in my storage device, if you prefer,” Jonathan said.
“Oh. Yeah, sure,” the man said, passing over the stack of scales to Jonathan.
He placed them in the storage device, and started walking towards the corpse. It glistened in the half light of Tartarus alluringly, hinting at wealth beyond what Branth had already claimed.