Chapter 422 - Unfettered Joy III
Claire ground her teeth as she stared at the place where the raccoon had been. She raised her ears overhead and listened closely as she kept her eyes on the snow. But even as she scanned the surrounding vectors for any hint of distortion, she found no hint of his presence.
Panda had disappeared, and there was nothing she could do to deduce where he had gone.
“Sorry. I probably should’ve bubbled him,” said Sylvia. The words were accompanied by a familiar weight. Sylvia leapt onto Claire’s back before assuming her humanoid form.
“It’s not your fault.” The lyrkress took a breath. “He probably would’ve escaped anyway.”
“Probably, yeah.” Sylvia wrapped her arms around the base of Claire’s neck and pressed her cheek against her scales. Perhaps because she was wearing her winter clothes—she had a large scarf around her neck and a warm cardigan draped over her shoulders—she was even softer than usual. Her tail contributed to the impression as well. It looped around and occasionally tickled the bottom of Claire’s chin whilst naturally swishing to and fro.
“You can stop now,” said Claire. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” asked Sylvia.
The snake-moose took a deep breath. “I’m sure.”
“Mmmk.” Sylvia rubbed her face into her qiligon’s mane. “But what if I don’t wanna stop?”
There was a pause. “Fine. Five minutes then. I need a break anyway.”
“Ten.”
“Five.”
“Nine.”
“Five.”
“Seven?”
“Ten.”
“Okay, fine! Six!” huffed the fox. “Final offer.”
“Six it is then.”
“Geez, Claire, you’re such a mise—wait, did you just say ten?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I heard you say it.”
“Must’ve been your imagination.”
“It definitely wasn’t! Now you’re totally just messing with me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar!”
Claire stifled a giggle as she rose to her feet, stretched her back, and started into the forest again. Though she could have walked, she opted to tuck her legs in and slither; the less jostling there was, the more comfortable her rider would be.
“Thanks, Sylvia,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“I know, right?” The half-elf smiled and gave Claire’s neck another light squeeze. “So uhmmm, according to Panda, we need to find the person who rules these mountains?”
Claire nodded. “It’s probably a strong monster.” It was either that, or the goddess of the frozen wilds, but the mountains didn’t seem blessed enough to fall within her domain.
“What kinda monster do you think it is then?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t seen enough of them yet.”
“Mmmnnn, yeah, I guess not,” said Sylvia. “So is it just me, or are we not going back to the cave?”
“Why would we?”
“I thought you were probably gonna try and beat up Allegra so you could figure out what she was hiding.”
“I thought about it,” said Claire, “but I’m not strong enough to overpower her yet. I need more levels.”
“Right,” said Sylvia. “I can beat her up for you if you want. Leaving her with all the others probably isn’t a good idea if she’s secretly evil.”
“I doubt she is.”
“Huh?” The fox blinked. “Mmmnnn, is that ‘cause you don’t trust Panda?”
Claire paused for a moment. “It’s because I know Allegra.” Claire twisted her lips into a frown. “She’s a military commander. She doesn’t hesitate to cheat or lie, and she even tried to kill me once. But she only ever does things if she thinks they’re the right thing to do.”
“Mmmnnn, if you say so,” said Sylvia. “Wait but if she’s always doing the right thing, then why are you going to beat her up?”
“Because.”
The foxgirl blinked. “I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to mean.”
“Because I want to.”
“Because you’re mad at her?”
“Because I want to,” Claire smiled. “Now shush. There’s something up ahead.”
“Fine, but you’re gonna have to explain later!”
“Maybe if I feel like it.”
Though not exactly satisfied, Sylvia leapt off Claire’s back, hummed a quick tune, and hid herself in a bubble. Just like Panda, she almost seemed to outright vanish into the aether. But at least with her, Claire understood the mechanism that drove her invisibility.
Though annoyed, she shook her head and continued towards the source of a peculiar sound. She had easily identified it from afar, but it wasn’t until she drew closer that she became more confident in her conclusion. After all, with everything and its mother completely frozen over and the winter fully set in, it was difficult to imagine that they would come across a running river. And yet, the unfrozen water hardly made for the most curious sight. That title belonged instead to the herd fast asleep beside it.
Claire furrowed her brows. Not only was the group conked out by a dangerous watering hole—any place where one could find a drink was a place where predators would gather—but its members were entirely inconsistent.
There were flaming monkeys with dozens of eyes, fish with elephant-like trunks ten times as long as the rest of their bodies, ice golems with whole deer anally mounted to their limbs, and demonic-looking fairies with mermaid-like tails and cow-like upper bodies, just to name a few. The list of species went on and on; there were at least a hundred different individuals with no more than two or three belonging to a particular group.
Perhaps it might have made sense if the creatures were intelligent, but as far as Claire could tell, that was hardly the case. There was no harmony anywhere on the mountain. The prey species appeared to be the only ones that lived in groups, and even they would challenge those that differed from themselves. In the first place, the theory was never truly applicable given the predators clearly mixed into the crowd. There were vlasches, giant birds, and even mechanical wolves passed out by the shore. With the sheer variety, she could only think that they were under some sort of control.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
But unlike the case with the massive deer in Llystletein, there was no creature in the crowd that stood out as an obvious manipulator. The most likely candidate was the group’s strongest member, but a quick glance towards it—a terrifying hippo-like glob with a cannon growing from its back and horse heads in place of feet—affirmed that it was in much the same state as all of the others.
Triple checking to ensure that there were no other creatures hanging around the river, Claire held a dagger-shaped Boris in her mouth as she crept towards the shore. It was difficult to say if she could assassinate the group’s members without causing a stir. Both of the Langgbjern creatures she had confronted so far had been durable to say the least, and any mistake she made was sure to have dire consequences. And yet, she pressed forward. Resisting the urge was impossible. The river was lined with free experience just waiting to be claimed.
But as she slithered closer, she found a sudden dip in her motivation. Her eyes started to droop. A wave of exhaustion washed over her and threatened to put her to bed in spite of the fact that she had no need for sleep.
She immediately thought to retreat, but her body refused to listen. Compulsed by a mysterious power, it continued to slink towards the river bed as the veil over her mind grew ever heavier.
About a minute and a hundred meters later, she was unconscious by the riverbed.
The same fate suffered by all the others drawn to the water’s edge.
But while everything else was snoozing peacefully, off running through the brilliant, phantasmagorical meadows, Claire was stuck staring at a series of doors.
She paused for a second to take a quick detour before passing through a relatively new gate and returning to the frosted mountains.
It was a curious phenomenon. When she slipped out of her body, she did so in her translucent, humanoid form. It felt a little strange to be completely naked outdoors in winter, but she ignored the sensation to focus on reevaluating the circumstances. Surely enough, her surroundings were unchanged. There were no new monsters nearby, nor any gazing upon her from afar, but with her mind free of its drowsiness, she finally realised that something was stealing her mana, overpowering her regeneration and slowly sucking it away, one tiny sliver at a time. And by following the tracks left by the flow of magic, she found that something to be the waterway itself.
Somehow, it was the river that was predating upon all of the creatures around it.
With that in mind, Claire started by moving her body away from its shore. She raised herself from her fallen position, and with no difficulty at all, brought herself to the outer edge of the drowsing effect’s range. Her spirit, however, remained by the shore. She silently approached the nearest monster, one of the demonic-looking fairies, and gently placed a hand on its chest. Once everything was in place, she did as the dream-inducing river and sapped away at its health.
It took a surprisingly amount of time, nearly five full minutes of draining, but her target eventually began to wither away. It turned paler and paler, changing until it reached a breaking point and croaked with a violent spasm.
Log Entry 884797
You have slain a level 1802 Langgbjern Highland Kelpie Bovise.
This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:
- 491 points of wisdom
Log Entry 884798
You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been partially restored.
Your racial class, Caldriess, has reached level 647.
Your titular class, Witch of the Seventh Tempest, has reached level 31.
You have gained 3332 ability points.
Nodding in satisfaction, she immediately moved onto her next target, a vlasch like the one that had caused their initial retreat, and climbed up on top of its shell. Rather than simply stealing its life force, as she had for the supposed kelpie, she focused on rendering her arm incorporeal and worked her fingers through its frame.
It was a weird sensation. Unlike when she had done the same to Sophia, she found that she didn’t simply phase through the turtle-like monster. The creature in front of her was far more viscous; it felt like she was pushing her hand through a glob of mud. But eventually, after sinking her whole body into its flesh, she was able to locate its heart.
Gripping it between her fingers, she made just her hand material again and squeezed as she drained the demonic turtle’s life.
Log Entry 884799
You have slain a level 2795 Langgbjern Vlasch
This feat has earned you the following bonus rewards:
- 219 points of strength
- 8299 points of wisdom
Log Entry 884800
You have leveled up. Your health and mana have been partially restored.
Your racial class, Caldriess, has reached level 658.
Your titular class, Witch of the Seventh Tempest, has reached level 32.
You have gained 6884 ability points.
Claire climbed her way out of the vlasch’s body and set her sights on her next target, but a chill ran down her spine before she could proceed with its murder. There was a gaze boring straight into her back—not her humanoid back, but the back of her spiritual body. Spinning around affirmed again that the river was at fault, for the waterway had risen from its place in the snow.
Its shape was no longer that of a simple stream. All of the material used in the river was being condensed, pressed together to form a creature with an approximately humanoid form. It had all of the standard features. A head, two arms, a pair of legs. It even weaved its waves together to form a glistening robe. The only thing that might have been missing, aside from all of the obvious internals, was a face, but it was impossible to say for certain with the way its long, messy hair obscured the front of its head.
One look at it and she knew. It was something that completely outclassed her.
Claire lowered her stance, only to find her spirit form gone. All of a sudden, she was back in her body with Boris between her jaws and her scales standing on end.
The caldriess raised her rear like a cat when the walking flood touched its feet against the shore. Something in her gut screamed for her not to move, to do little but watch as the water spirit went about its business.
It started by approaching the prey it had on the shore. Its steps were slow and graceful, but its assault was outright savage. The beasts were taken within the spirit’s body and ground up by the high-pressure currents swirling madly within. There was no exception. The vlasch shells and the herring flesh was destroyed with all the same ease.
Though it shredded everything it touched, the river never once ran red. Its colour remained a clear blue even after swallowing half of the monsters asleep among the shore. And somehow, its victims never woke. There wasn’t a single creature that reacted to being consumed.
Claire knew she needed to run, but the water monster turned to her every time she even considered it. And with its invisible eyes, it stared, as if carefully watching to ensure that she remained unmoving.
As if telling her clearly that there was no escape.
Claire took a breath and quickly ran through her options before quickly kicking herself into gear. Her first action was to shrink down to her tiniest form. If anything that the spirit touched would be immediately destroyed, then her size would only serve to nip at her ankles.
Unsurprisingly, it charged her as soon as it noticed, but Claire was ready. She ducked under its hand as it reached for her and dove past its armpit. The spirit spun around immediately and gave chase by extending its arms. The limbs grew at an eye-popping speed, but Claire swerved between them as she rose into the sky.
The water spirit gave up on grabbing her after she got about a hundred meters up and started firing projectiles from the tips of its fingers instead.
They didn’t look particularly impressive at first—they started at a snail’s pace—but then they suddenly accelerated. Claire dodged as quickly as she could. Still, even with her vectors assisting, she lacked the speed to evade the watery blades. One ripped her left ear cleanly off of her head while another bored its way through one of her talons and washed it of all its flesh.
Gritting her teeth, she bore with the pain and continued her evasive maneuvers, but the second wave proved just as impossible to avoid. She fell from the sky, bleeding from both her tail and her shoulder.
The spirit was already waiting for her by the time she reached the ground. It reached for her face, only for the tiny snake moose to match the motion and slam a heavy object straight into the spirit’s side.
Were it any ordinary object, say a tree or a monster, it surely would have been shredded to bits. But what Claire had grabbed was the thing she sought when she shot into the sky.
It was a massive block of almost-true ice—the one that the mushroom produced.
She knew that it would prove effective against the sentient river. But the precise outcome was far beyond her purview—the parts of the spirit that touched the ice both froze and shattered on impact. Its left arm was completely destroyed, and a piece of its left leg had followed suit. The damage itself was quickly repaired, but with it came a revelation.
Despite living in a frozen wasteland, the river was weak to ice.
Alas, the discovery proved fruitless.
Because, as it rose from the snow, the raging spirit finally revealed its face. And with it, the baneful, hate-filled glare thereon.
The river screeched like a banshee as it raised its remaining arm and channeled its mana. There was enough raw power to put a hundred mushrooms to shame—enough raw power to forge a torrential flood as high as the sky. The giant wave must have been ten kilometers wide and over three times as tall. Like the water spirit, it was filled with high-pressure currents. Everything that touched the wave was immediately sliced to unrecognizable bits.
Eyes wide, the lyrkress dove into the ice block. She wrapped it around her body like a shell and perfectly enclosed herself within it. It should have been a perfect defense, something capable of warding off the river’s spell.
But as the two collided, as she was taken into the tsunami’s depths, she found a minor problem.
The ice was quickly giving way.
Likely imbued with some concept or other, the water was tearing it apart.
Almost hissing in annoyance, she lifted the whole block out of the waves and accelerated in a random direction. She didn’t know how far she needed to run, but she was out of reasonable options, and the river was bound to give up eventually.