Chapter 426 - The Scattered Dawn

Boredom started to take hold as the moon reached its peak. Claire was left largely unopposed; the partygoers that refrained from offering food or drink typically sang, pranced, and danced to inspire her to do the same. Their efforts, however, fell on deaf ears. Ignoring the locals, she continued on her way.

Panda had instructed her to seek the lord of the Langgbjerns. She was yet unsure of said lord’s identity—the bizarre nighttime display had only further muddied the waters—but the way forward was north. That much she could tell from how far the mountains extended; there was no way that its lord inhabited the southernmost parts, where even the predators were at their weakest.

Though she wanted nothing more than to take to the air and rush towards her destination, she found it impossible to fly. Her body returned to the icy surface each time she flapped her wings. The same restriction appeared to apply to the transformed birds. They too were beholden to just a few flaps before they fell back to the ground.

Running and rapidly slithering appeared to be equally restricted. Though many of the local beasts clearly worked their legs as they frolicked through the frozen fields, Claire’s body grew heavy whenever she so much as formed the thought.

It seemed like the sort of problem that her vectors could fix with ease, but even they were rendered inert. Every single force she crafted was immediately met with its opposite. Neither the quantity, the direction, nor the strength proved relevant. Her efforts were readily rebuffed.

She had exactly one choice, and it was to take her time.

By all means, it was the sort of limitation that would have typically irritated her to no end, but she was undisturbed. She laughed as she watched Sylvia dive under the ice and chase after the fish only to emerge as a shivering mess. She hummed a tune as she lazily wriggled her way forward, stopping occasionally to look back on the city below. And she smiled when Rubia joined her in her adventure up the wintry slope and looked around with her eyes agleam.

There were no threats, nor fights, nor devious traps on her way, and the scenery remained static regardless of the distance she travelled. It was no test or adventure, just a leisurely stroll up a leisurely mountain. And yet, her heart was soaring. She still had no idea why she felt the way she did. Perhaps there was no reason, nor even a need therefor. But just like she had been throughout the rest of the day, Claire was simply happy. And that was how she stayed, even as the night eventually chased itself away.

Her happiness, however, did little to take from her guard. She remained well aware that the critters gathered round as the day drew closer to breaking and that their gazes began to shift from playful to hungry. But as the night faded, so too did the mysterious power that kept her abilities bound. She extended her wings and shot into the sky the moment the sun peeked its way above the horizon, just in time to watch as the Langgbjerns transformed again.

It was by the light that the peace was vanquished. Each critter that touched the sun’s rays was turned into a ravenous monster whose first thought was to devour its neighbour. Each tree who found the blazing star saw its jovial spirit dismissed. And each icy patch that reflected the sky was returned to plain white powder.

Claire found that she was changed as well, reverted to her towering true form and made a clear target for the hungering masses beneath her. A fungus shot from the ground and reached with its tentacles, while a panther leapt from a tree with its eyes on her neck. At least five dozen herrings took to the sky, their massive jaws wide open and their teeth gnashing. But while it certainly made for an intimidating sight, the lyrkress was well out of harm’s way. She had shot high enough that none of the ground-dwelling monsters were able to reach her.

It was a shame then that they only made up three quarters of the total population.

Half the fish that erupted from the snow grew hundred-meter wings as they reached for the clouds. Claire twisted her body and evaded the closest flying squid, only for an orca to seize her between its jaws. Its teeth crunched straight through her scales and buried into her flesh, stopping only as they met her frostblighted bones.

Claire drove a talon into its face as it recoiled and loosened its jaw, only to be shaken off and discarded while the killer whale continued its skyward journey. It was too fast for her to chase, moving at more than twice her top speed. She couldn’t have caught up even if she wasn’t stuck dealing with the horde that followed.

It was a dense wave of once-aquatic life. Minnows became eagles. Seaweeds turned to soaring penguins and pufferfish became elk as flying squids of all shapes and colours flooded the northern sky.

Claire used her ice to seal shut the wound left by the orca before summoning Boris in front of her. She spun him with her vectors as she shaped him into a massive, jagged drill embedded with shards of true ice.

Though dozens charged straight into the spinning blades, only three weaklings fell victim to the head-on collision. The others continued, marching skyward with little regard for her attacks, even as she tore into their faces and rent their flesh asunder. Not a single individual looped around and charged her again, albeit not because they were deterred by the wounds she gave them. She was only one of the many with which they were engaged in combat; the squids attacked the penguins, the penguins ate the eagles whole, and the eagles gorged themselves on living clouds.

It was a mess and a half of pure violence, a veritable orgy of blood and guts as jaws and claws corrupted the sky in turn. The creatures on the ground were engaged in much the same savagery. Herrings, bears, and giraffes fled in all directions while vlasches and stropharia hunted them down.

Claire took a moment to catch her breath. Gazing upon the ridiculous scene, she took in the insanity that was the northern land.

The fighting was everywhere.

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There wasn’t a place she could see where something wasn’t in the midst of killing something else. Blood fell from the sky like droplets of rain, with the occasional corpse joining in the heavenly descent. Trees fell with such speed and frequency that she didn’t understand how there were any left to begin with. The forest couldn’t have possibly survived a day, let alone however many millions of years it had been since the mountains had first formed.

Though curious, she was allowed no more than fifteen seconds of observation before she was dragged back into the fray. One of the vlasches engaged its powerful, grasshopper-like legs and leapt from the side of the mountain. With all seven of its rear limbs working against her, she had no time to react. She barely managed to swerve out of the way and avoid its gaping maw. It was a well-timed dodge, but one of the claws that sprouted from the base of its neck snatched her serpentine body before she could open up any distance between them. It was just too fast. She had the limb in sight from start to finish. She had anticipated the strike, read it as clear as day. And yet, she didn’t register the start of its motion until its fingers were wrapped around her frame.

The vlasch gnashed its jaws excitedly, putting its eyeless face and its yellowed, human-like teeth on full display as it dragged her to its lips. She pushed against both its limb and nine-tailed tongue with her vectors, but its raw strength was too far in excess. Wrenching free from its grasp was equally impossible. It gripped her with such force that her guts threatened to erupt from her eyes. But such was only to be expected of a monster near three thousand.

Its strength, however, served too as its greatest weakness. She waited to enter its mouth before casting a trio of spells at once. Two were plain old vectors; she pushed on the top and bottom of its skull so its lips would close even faster. The last was to form an icicle tall enough to stretch from the base of its tongue to the roof of its mouth and sharp enough to rip through its flesh.

Only with the spell deployed did she shrink her body, slide down the length of its arm, and race her way to the base of its neck. It swatted at her, but she made another massive prism of true ice to ward off its attacks, ensuring that only it was harmed as it hammered its fists into its own body.

Together, they fell from the sky and crashed into the side of the mountain.

Claire was first to rise. With her ice still wrapped around her body, she could have easily forced a disengage by escaping the monster’s range, but that was paramount to giving up a handful of free experience. Though blown away by the force of the impact, the other monsters soon returned to the newly formed crater, ready to finish her kill.

She was having none of it. Kicking her magic circuits awake, she dashed up to the vlasch again and wrapped it in a thin layer of true ice. The only hole, left for her own escape, was closed as she departed its frame.

It was her prey. She was hardly about to yield it to the mountain’s madness.

There was no time to revel on how little it had hurt to encase such a giant monster. A group of bears approached the front, while a statue of a naked man ran down the mountain with his blades alight. To the left and right were snakes made of discarded bottles, and walking trees with fleshy veins that bulged with every step.

Maybe a third of the assailants were capable of magic. The trees unleashed bolts of lightning, the bears breathed waves of fire, and the bottles drew her closer with heavy gusts of wind.

Spells of all different schools flashed through the mountains, burning, freezing, boiling, and crushing everything that was anywhere to be seen. Off in the distance, closer to the mountain’s base, she could even see the river running rampant—or at least the effects of its spells.

It was an exercise in chaos. And even though she was still wounded, her torn flesh only sealed with frost, though she was no doubt far from the strongest creature present, she found herself in her element.

Allowing her divinity to course through her circuits, she opened the eyes that adorned her body and scattered their gazes through the mountains. Her targets were the weakened, especially those already on the verge of losing their lives, and those that had barely emerged from their battles triumphant. It was against them that she unleashed the second magic that dwelled within her eyes. The backlash was immediate and intense. She could feel her mana veins struggling, growing hot with pain as she channeled the full extent of her mystic might.

Her pupils turned from slits to sigils as their bodies were turned from flesh to ice and ice to dust.

Every eye she used to cast the spell was destroyed beneath the attack’s overwhelming force. She was only able to maintain it for a minute before her vision was reverted to its usual, bifocal state. But a minute was enough to secure a headcount just shy of an even hundred.

Her breath was heavy. But her pain was only middling. It barely hurt any more than it had to make a few walls of true ice just a few weeks prior. But there was a minor problem. Having stolen prey far and wide, she found an audience rapt with attention. She wasn’t sure how exactly the monsters were able to pinpoint the source of the disruption, nor even why they cared. They had taken greater interest in sating their stomachs than bolstering their experience until she took it away. Still, she was happy to accept their challenge. What was a hundred more when she had twice that number charging her already?

She considered disintegrating them with her breath, but she dismissed the thought after taking a moment to assess her circuits. The time for magic was over.

She lifted the frozen vlasch she had previously set aside and wielded it like a battering ram, mowing it through the mountainside hordes with its tip sharpened to a point. Though it could no longer resist with its frozen, unmoving muscles, the grasshopper-turtle was heavy enough that she could only bring it near mach one. Even with all of its mass, it was unable to deliver any fatal blows. But it was good enough.

Assuming her humanoid form, Claire drew a pair of Borises and entered the fray after throwing the giant icicle downhill. She landed behind a herring and bashed her lizard into the top of its skull. When the first blow only cracked its head, she followed with a second and split its face in two.

The others in its vicinity immediately leapt into retaliatory action, but her allies were nonpresent. She was the only lower-leveled foe that they had to copy. And without Jules’ firepower, Krail’s ability to guarantee a hit, or Lana’s time-defying zone, they made for an easy harvest.

The first to cast her realm was the first to meet its end. She closed the distance between them and rammed a dagger into its throat. Twisting Boris, she ripped the fish’s head straight off its body and left it to fall where it stood. Blood sprayed from its corpse like a fountain, dyeing the snow in a rich ruby red, but Claire took no time to appreciate the winter flowers.

She had already slammed a hammer-shaped Boris into another herring by the time the first hit the ground. Breaking its jaw with one blow, she turned its brain into a pancake with a second before spinning around and throwing an axe to kill another would-be caster.

Only the fourth was able to recreate the starry night sky and the accompanying Llystletein mountain that still haunted her mental landscape. But even with the blizzard at full blast, the fishy combatant was ended. Diving through the storm, she shoved a dagger through the side of its face and split its head in half in one swift motion.

So easy it was to rain down upon them. They truly were the weakest monsters. And having gained levels, hand over fist, having pushed her ability scores over new thresholds, she found their slaughter as easy as pie.

What concerned her far more was the vlasch catapulting its body in her direction. She still didn't know how to deal with their hands whilst deprived of her ice, and the glowing red mutant heading towards her had more than thrice as many.