My incredible speed and jump height propelled me up the rocky outcrops. Using my Historical Insight, my feet bounced off the correct stones to launch me up the mountain without slipping. If I weren’t blessed by Jupiter, I would never have made it in time to take out the oreads who were closing in on Sporus, deciding to choose the weaker prey.
Time to shake things up a bit.
With an empty right hand, I placed it as close to the mountain as possible, summoning my Pilum of Mars into it. The golden pilum head barely poked through once it appeared. Taking a quick breath, I activated my Lightning Pilum ability. Lightning shot from the early morning clouds and zapped toward me.
A normal person would have just received the lightning to the pilum because of how fast the lightning traveled. However, I was far from normal. The speed and power of Jupiter surged through me, further compounded by my gear and abilities which allowed me to move and see how I could pull this off. It would be too quick for someone not as strong or fast as me.
At the very last second, I lightning dashed away and resummoned my pilum. The lightning, which was supposed to hit my pilum, struck the mountain instead because of my impossibly fast speed. A powerful boom sounded at its impact, shaking the mountain.
The oreads paused in their pursuit of Sporus, looking at the shaking mountain with shock. Their stone-cold eyes widened with rage at my sacrilegious act of striking the mountain. Too bad I wouldn’t have to listen to their complaints. The entire mountain began to rumble as an avalanche took hold.
Through my Helmet of Maximus, I could see Sporus had taken advantage of the oreads’ brief anger to turn himself invisible and race past them.
I leapfrogged down the shaking mountain, angling past the stone ladies as snow and rocks tumbled past me. To keep from being struck, I activated my Shadowmail enchantment, taking no damage because I was cloaked in shadows, only draining my health at a steady drip instead. Several chunks of stone and snow whisked through me without harm. Had I not become one with the shadows, it would have almost knocked my head loose and sent me flying down the mountain to death.
So instead of hitting me, the avalanche debris struck the oreads. They both gave off a cry of surprise before the river of rock and snow wiped them out. Shockingly, they didn’t die on impact, giving me no glory. I did receive some wisdom for the encounter though.
Intelligence (+10): lvl 9 (0/100)
Glory (+60): 5,970
Level: 55 (550/570)
“Watch out!” I yelled, throwing my Piercing Rain ability with my Thunder Strike, electrifying three pila to blast several chunks of ice tumbling at Sporus. With perfect precision my throw saved his life, aided further by the sudden burst of flames that my pila had on impact.
Sadly, for Sporus, he would not be able to sprint the rest of the distance. He would need a little bit more assistance. Still thirty feet above him, I jumped the rest of the distance to the narrow path he was running on. For a brief second, my stomach dropped from the jump. Once I hit the ground, I rolled and scooped him up in my arms in one fluid motion. Sporus grumbled in complaint as I boosted my speed by two hundred percent for the next thirty seconds, sending us flying up the shaking path while the avalanche tore behind us.
Once my enhanced speed ran out, we were far enough ahead to not be in danger of the avalanche. I set Sporus down on the now fully snow covered ground. His feet crunched into the snow as he regained his composure.
“Thanks,” he said, a little annoyed as the bitter winds whipped our faces.
“You’re welcome,” I said, catching my breath. It was much harder to breathe now that we were on the upper slopes of the mountain. The air felt thin, not restoring me as much as before.
We resumed our hike up the mountain. The hiking before paled in comparison to how difficult it was now. There were no more trees or stable ground. It was pure incline from here on out. The ground was completely smothered in snow, and in some areas, it had frozen over, making a slip and subsequent fall down the mountain ever more likely. While I would never fall for it with my prophetic gift, there were plenty of futures where Sporus would if I didn’t intervene. My life saving interventions became more common as we powered through the trek.
Towards the seventh hour, I wanted to give up. I was simply exhausted, even with the Café Aeternum. The snow had become so deep the higher we ascended that in many sections of the mountain it came up to our thighs, making our journey incredibly slow and cold. The Praetorian Flameblade was the only thing keeping our fingers and face from catching frostbite. Both of us now held one hand each onto the burning gladius, periodically switching grips to warm the other hand. While this painfully slowed our pace, it was the only way not to freeze.
Just when it couldn’t get any worse, it did. By now the morning sun had started to rise, giving some much needed light to our path and a kiss of heat. As if Jupiter wanted to increase the difficulty of the trial, thunder boomed around us. The clouds surrounding the mountain thickened with darkness, obscuring our path again. The final challenge of the Anemoi Thuellai waiting for us at the peak was born from these storm clouds.
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Great.
However, there was a reason to be relieved nonetheless. Had we not climbed with my Historical Insight, seeing the best possible path up Mount Olympus, we would never have made it to the snow-capped summit by the eighth hour to face them. Scattered throughout Mount Olympus on mountain paths we almost took were mountain giants.
The giants, like the oreads, were highly protective of their territory, but unlike the beautiful stone women, they were just as ugly and hostile as Cacus and Caca, being of a similar breed. Thanks to my insight, we completely avoided them by taking longer roads to go around them. Sporus would have been crushed by their boulder throws had we decided to take the shorter route through them. They were simply too fast and huge to out maneuver.
I cringed at some of the futures where they caught Sporus in their stone hands, silencing his cries as they took a lethal bite out of him.
“Thanks for the details,” Sporus said as I filled him on the deadly path we avoided. He had to shout because of how loud the snow-storm had become. We were nearly there. “Should I just worship you as my deity now because of how much you save me?”
“Maybe after we defeat the storm spirit,” I shouted back, seeing flashes of dark lightning now swirling around the peak of Mount Olympus. The air was electric from the storm, tasting metallic on my tongue.
“What’s the plan?” he said, warming both hands around the flame as we stopped to think.
“It’s not going to be easy,” I said, taking in every future at once.
Sporus shrugged. “Seems about right.”
There was just one Anemoi Thuellai on peak, and one would be challenging enough. I don’t think we could have survived if there were two or more. The storm spirit looked like a vortex of dark, scribbled lines swirling in a form resembling a man. It was pure anger and raw energy, violent and unpredictable. I thought of the very obvious move, to summon a lightning strike at its chest since it had the highest damage output and considering this mini boss would probably have a higher amount of health. It did absolutely no damage. Instead, it supercharged its form, growing twice as large as a result before throwing the lightning back to me.
Bad idea.
With my lightning powers out of the way, I focused solely on physical combat, not wanting to increase its health or damage. In these futures I had slightly more success, though it could come at a lethal cost to Sporus, whom the spirit saw as the weaker link.
“You’ll need to stay back here, focusing on hitting its heart while I battle it,” I said, giving him a brief recap of what I had seen. “If you go up there with me, you won’t be able to withstand its storm blast ability that will send you flying down the mountain. If I fly to catch you, we fail this challenge and have to start all over again.”
Sporus would have been knocked off the precarious, snowy peak in every future. The mountain peak was just too small and unstable for there to be a duel of two against such a powerful foe.
Sporus frowned but nodded. “I’ll try not to shoot you. No promises.”
I grimaced. “Thanks. It will throw some lightning at you, so make sure you make cover behind that rock formation there.”
“Good luck!”
Trudging carefully through the last of the snow, I extinguished and sheathed the Praetorian Flameblade, for the fire would also not be the best weapon and I needed the shadows.
There would be four major attacks it could dole out on me. Lightning strikes, wind slices, thunderclaps, and a very intense mini cyclone. Given my insane armor rating and shield defense, I should be set to not receive any damage if I blocked.
If would be my biggest concern. However, it could throw me off with how powerful its attacks were, which would negate the entire challenge and waste another eight hours. Time was too precious to waste.
The moment I leaped with the grace of a gazelle onto the snow capped and stormy peak, the Anemoi Thuellai howled with anger and hurled its first lightning strike. I immediately dropped low, throwing my Obsidian-Fortified Barnacle Shield in front of me. While my shield negated the damage and sent a burst of sea water and obsidian into its scribbly face, the storm spirit succeeded in paralyzing me. Even with Sporus flinging arrows from behind me, it did not stop the tempest from using a cyclone to toss me off the mountain like a ragdoll.
The futures rewound as I settled on a different strategy. Instead of blocking it, I dove out of the waaay, letting the lightning pass above me. It wasn’t dark enough in the storm with the coming morning to activate my Shadowmail. Plus the lightning lighting up the mountain peak sure didn’t help.
The Anemoi Thuellai screamed, which sounded like long nails on a chalkboard. It hurled three more strikes as Sporus began sending shadow arrows into its form. Two missed, but one struck its heart, the only way to damage the fiend. It turned its dark form to attack him, preparing to lightning him off of the mountain. To keep Sporus alive, I hurdled my Pilum of Mars and activated my Piercing Rain ability, turning my pilum into three which all of them hit directly in its dark, twisting heart.
The Anemoi Thuellai was having none of that.
As I edged around the spirit to keep its aim away from Sporus, it immediately closed the gap and unleashed three abilities at once. The mini cyclones it swirled from its arms slowed my movement down by half, which it took advantage of by unleashing a thunderclap to deafen me. I raised my shield to block the damage of the first two attacks, but the thunderclap still deafened me for the next five seconds despite negating the rest of the damage.
The Anemoi Thuellai followed up its combination attack with a wind slice, which hit with such speed that it knocked me back five feet as I blocked it with my shield. From the futures, if I did nothing but block, it would pound me with wind slices until I lost my footing at the edge of the snowy peak ten feet behind me.
Arrows flew at me that I had to also consider as I rolled out of the way, having to lightning dash away from the Anemoi Thuellai. The sudden burst of lightning only charged its power, intertwining blue lightning with the dark scribble spirit. Now its attacks would be even more deadly.
That’s exactly what I wanted.
My pila had already drained its health by a solid third from what I could tell. Plus the pounding on my shield mixed with my other abilities had reverted a good chunk of the damage into itself. Adding the terrible Minerva headache effect, it would not be thinking straight as it struck me one last time with paralyzing lightning.
As I pretended to scramble away from the enlarged spirit, the Anemoi Thuellai howled with victorious anger before throwing one last lightning bolt at me. I turned at the last second to raise my Obsidian-Fortified Barnacle Shield to block it. The lightning struck my shield, instantly paralyzing me but also shooting obsidian shards one last time into its heart. The move paralyzed me and drained my health since it was a more powerful blast, but it brought its health down to its last drops. And with one final arrow shot from Sporus into its dark and twisting heart, the Anemoi Thuellai was forever silenced.