The searstorm raged across the sky, painting the heavens in a riot of vibrant colors and seething swirls, like an abstract painting on a continental scale. Bands of vivid green clouds streaked over Nick’s head, like the grasping tentacles of a leviathan. The illusion was so captivating that a primal part of his brain worried that one would reach down and carry him into the churning maw of the storm.
The wind screamed as it passed between the treetops, accompanied by wild, forking bolts of purple lightning. They landed close enough that their peals of thunder vibrated his teeth within his jaw.
He was bone weary and deeply shaken, but Nick had no time to recover from his ordeal. Although he wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest, he forced his battered body into a greater burst of speed, wincing every time his feet hit the forest floor. At least the lightning revealed the path ahead, helping Nick to maintain a steady course as he raced north, sprinting toward the promise of sanctuary. At any moment, the sky would open, and a deluge of boiling rain would fall across the island, bringing death to any creature that was unable to find a suitable shelter in time.
He had to make it back to the crunchers’ cave before the superheated precipitation turned him into Nick stew. You can freak the fuck out in another half hour. Right now, you need to move. You’re still alive, so shut out the pain. Shut out the fear. Focus only on the trail ahead and run, Nick, run.
Wincing at the memory of being caught in the periphery of the deadly, alien weather before escaping into the dungeon, Nick continued sprint-limping his way back to the hyenas’ den, racing the turbulent skies above. A deadly enemy that he had no chance of defeating.
Although the run was agonizing, it was also exhilarating. He began to internalize that he had done it. In the face of terrible odds, he had slain the cruncher pack and defeated the alpha in close combat. As long as he made it below ground in time, he would live to see another day.
Although he put everything that he had into moving fast and not veering from his path, Nick’s exhaustion gradually lulled him into a daze, and his mind began to wander. Exalting in a victory that had entailed another close brush with death. Not only had Nick come out the other side of his most difficult ordeal to date, he had successfully removed the bonecrunchers from the southern forest, meaning that it was finally safe to move into a shelter on the ground. The lurk was too massive to enter the crunchers’ burrow, and he had already come up with a plan to keep the komos from making their way inside without revealing their presence beforehand.
Nick knew that the other beasts would eventually encroach on the territory the crunchers had claimed, but he hoped that it would take them the better part of a week to realize that the pack had been slaughtered. Time that he could use to train in earnest and prepare for the tutorial’s third and final stage.
He realized that he was drawing near his destination when the trees began to thin. With a great gasp, he burst out of the forest, racing to cover the last bit of ground between himself and the hole torn into the hillside. Nick prayed that none of the crunchers were still alive in there. He was burning through the dregs of his reserves and had no strength left with which to fight. But he had no time to scout out the cave before he entered, because that was when the rain began to fall.
The first drops were light, just a molten kiss of what was to come, but they were still hot enough to blister Nick’s flesh. He screamed as he sprinted up the hillside. A writhing mist rose from the earth to permeate the air, creating swirling pools of steam along the rocky ground, the air shifting from warm to sweltering in the blink of an eye.
He followed the trail of fresh blood to the den’s entrance and then threw himself inside, just as the rain began to fall in earnest, sheets of boiling drops drenching the isle in a deadly deluge. Forcing his exhausted brain back into something loosely approximating vigilance, Nick stepped into the crunchers’ den, accompanied by the patter of rain striking the earth and the shriek of fierce and rising winds. He stopped by the entrance long enough to open his pack and pull out his sword, although there wasn’t much room in here to swing it.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He strode into the lair with his sword in hand, intending to execute a clumsy thrust if any of the crunchers were still alive. Fortunately for Nick, his fears were not borne out. Nothing larger than ragged fragments of bone and crimson splatters of gore remained of the first bonecrunchers to fall. Even though he had experienced the pollen’s effects firsthand, he was shocked by the gruesome panorama of carnage that awaited him a few steps deeper within.
Tufts of fur and pools of blood lay strewn across the dirt. The ground was marred by hundreds of fresh claw marks, left by the lethal free-for-all that had ensued after his bomb went off. Quivering chunks of flesh were stuck to the ceiling and the walls, and blood, bile, and excrement stained the dark earth. The pack must have begun devouring its weaker members while they were still alive, Nick noted while fighting down the urge to vomit.
Beside the recent gore sat the remains of old kills, mostly skeletons covered with a few flaps of rotting meat. Must not have been enticing enough to devour with live prey so close at hand. Nick had hoped to claim the den for his own, but he had no way to remove the copious mounds of viscera and offal, not to mention the sheer volume of blood that had soaked into the dirt. Even if he cut the bodies into pieces and removed them, the smell would soon become unbearable, and the rotting tissue would foment bacteria and disease. Although it was a deeply frustrating proposition, it seemed that he would have to seek shelter elsewhere once the storm had passed.
But Nick didn’t have the energy to worry about it now. He was so exhausted that he could barely think. After making sure that nothing was alive within the den, he set his back to the wall where he could watch the entrance, took a sip from his canteen, then closed his eyes. He was out cold five minutes later.
He awoke with a start sometime later, the ground thrumming from the aftershock of a nearby bolt of lightning. Nick had no idea how long he had been asleep, but he was glad that the searstorm was still falling, shielding him from the approach of aggressive animals and beasts. Outside, the storm continued to pummel the island, warming the air to the point that it was painful to breathe.
Nick strode through the gore toward the back of the enclosure, where the heatsink formed by rock and earth brought the temperature down from dangerous to merely uncomfortable. Thankfully, the floor of the cave was angled down toward the entrance so that the blood slowly ran out and no water could find its way inside. He realized that he must have been sleeping for hours, since Nick felt recovered enough that his mind was clear, which helped him realize that there was a way for him to make the cavern livable after all.
Although he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, he couldn’t afford to squander this opportunity. Not if he wanted to use this cave as his base of operations going forward. Bracing himself for what came next, Nick took a moment to regain his energy, eating his remaining jerky and draining the water from his canteen.
Then, with a weary sigh, he took up his sword and began hacking at the rotting corpses of the packs’ victims, slicing them into chunks small enough to carry out of the cave. At least none of the crunchers’ remains were still intact, as dragging out pieces of the massive beasts would have required a feat of strength beyond what he was capable of at present.
Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he dragged the skeletons to the entrance of the cave, then threw them out into the rain. While he worked, he took the coconut husks that he had collected early on in his adventure and set them outside the mouth of the cavern. Nick winced as a few stinging drops fell onto his fingers, glad for the protection offered by his gloves and leather jacket. When the husks were full of water, he took them over to the worst of the bloody mess and poured them out, steaming blood pooling before draining out of the cave. It took him a good twenty trips before the job was done, but in the end, the cave was clean enough to use as a base.
Nick would have to move the bodies again as soon as the storm passed. Otherwise, the scent of blood on the wind would draw carnivores and scavengers, and he had no desire to engage in another desperate battle quite so soon—well, ever again, if he could help it, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen.
When the dirty job was finally finished, he wanted to start exploring the darker recesses of the cave, but he was simply too exhausted to labor further. After pouring out a final husk of steaming rainwater to wash away the last pool of blood, Nick curled up in a corner where he had a good view of the entrance, propped his pack beneath his head to serve as a pillow, and promptly fell asleep.