CHAPTER 56 - On the move
Wyverns - Laughing stocks and pariahs, their deserved scorn.
Wyverns are amazing creatures with incredible constitutions, but for some reason they have always been mocked even though they are powerful creatures, capable of massacring thousands.
Though maybe stronger than most beasts and monsters, wyverns are still pretty much killable, as others from various species have tried before. Not many have succeeded in their endeavors, but some of them did, fueling the beast's hatred towards some of those races as they became the laughing stock of their rivals, the dragons.
The dragons' scorn for them only fueled their hatred of the wiverns for their hunters as they started spreaded nicknames to mock the before respectables wiverns. Some of which stuck with everyone due to its striking resemblance.
From the day the first wyvern was struck down by the combined efforts of a tribe in need of recognition in its ascension to power, the nickname “flying lizards” started circulating around, with no signs of being forgotten soon.
Their appearances and physical properties, similar to their lizard counter-parts didn’t help their ego at all. Their bodies resembled muscular and imposing winged lizards, definitely huge ones, but lizards nonetheless.
Their race possessed an inner shell of scales that differentiated them for the lizards. That shell, instead of being shown outside, served as a shield that protected their insides from the heat, allowing them to breathe fire like their other flying counterparts, the all-mighty dragons.
Their best perk they obtained from evolution though, was their intelligence that tracked back to dragons together with its inner scales. Unfortunately, their aggressive nature and greed for power blinds them on multiple occasions, setting them further from their rise in power than ever before.
* Historian Levran Jorn of Teheran
Terrack was furious.
He! The great wivern of the Central Plains of Alabastria, was half blinded by a weaker being before even entering his new hunting place!
That’s what he taught as a thin line of blood dripped along its left eye. He now needed to instill fear in this new expanse to restore his ego back up.
*Grrrrrrr!!!!*
Loud roars resonated all around the city as the ferocious beast flew across them. The previously populated streets with monsters and beasts alike were now devoid of life. All those aware of the dangers the beast represented, hiding away, whenever that may be.
Some trembled in fear as the beast soared through the skies while others stayed perfectly still, trying to deceive its sight and hide in plain sight.
The new arrival was huge, bigger than any of the other species in the area. With a wingspan of around 8 meters, the beast is the biggest flying creature to ever soar the skies since human reigned Earth.
At least till now, that was the case.
The roars of the beast spreaded fear along the city as he flew in between buildings, breaking windows here and there whenever it passed too close or roared, the sheer pressure of its screechs shaking the buildings.
Humans and beast alike were warned by its patrol, reminded that from now on, they did not hold any rights over the earth anymore.
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Leo
‘As the roars escape my range of hearing, I start evaluating just how bad my condition is.’
My whole body is pinned down by a giant concrete beam. It must weigh well over 300kg (660lb), but the problematic thing was the hundreds of stone pieces on top of it, adding to the weight.
My overall condition is fine, I have some areas where the stone that I molded to shield me crumbled and wasn't enough to shoulder the whole impact, but thanks to the hasty reinforcement of my clothes and body I am okay. As good as I can be buried under hundreds of stones.
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I may be okay for now, but at any moment, the whole weight above me could come down on me if the stone shield crumbles under the pressure. It is the most likely outcome if I choose to remain buried, so I start to gather qi to reinforce me to the extreme and get out of here.
The roar stopped a while ago, meaning that the drake or whatever that was is now far enough for me to escape.
The guy conjuring the ritual must be still tired from the whole thing, so I try to get out fast enough to catch up to him before he flees.
Focusing all my strength on reinforcing my body, I get a hold of the beam on top of me and dissipate the stone barrier, letting me push the thing outwards. I use some of my qi to shield my face from the dust as I do so.
Pushing the beam up with both my arms and legs, I finally manage to lift it off the ground and once that is done I try to push it to the side. I would love to use magic to create stone pillars again to help me withstand the weight of push, yet knowing what ends up happening after mixing up both energies I choose not to for my own safety.
Climbing out of the rubble, I look around, looking for the man covered in sigils, ready to launch everything in my arsenal at him, but he is nowhere to be seen by the time I leave my stone cage.
I look for clues, ready to give chase, but there is nothing at all that leads to the man, so I have no option but to give up. For now.
As a variety of plans pop up in my head, I start hearing the roars of the beast again, telling me that either it is looking for a way back to its world, which I find highly unlikely, or it is looking for something else to chase down. Both things will end up with me killed if I stay, so I flee too.
‘The plan of moving our base to the forest is going to come in handy now that that guy is flying about.’ I think as I make my way back to base undetected, to warn the rest and help them leave in one piece as fast as we can.
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Half an hour later
I meet up with my group when they are setting off to our new destination.
“Leo, are you okay? What made you come back so late?” Ask Maria.
“I got into some trouble while following the guy you told me about.” I say grimacing, just remembering how I could have stopped the appearance of that flying monster resembling a mythical beast depresses me.
“Don't tell me you got something to do with that thing that passed before flying over us roaring.” Sera joins in.
“...”
“Are you serious? Why?How?”
“I was about to stop following the guy and come back here when he started something big, so I waited there to see it happen.” I say through clenched teeth.
“He is not only able to create those artificial storms, he was using monsters and beasts to absorb something and then use it to open up a rift to the place where all these monsters are coming from.” I add.
“He what? And what do you mean by he? Is he a human or a monster?” As expected of Sera, she catches on quickly.
“It's a human, his overall appearance is the same as us at least, but he is covered in symbols that help him perform those weird rituals. He was about to finish opening a rift to let those monsters cross over here, so I tried to stop him, but I couldn't stop it and nearly died in the process.” There is no reason for denying it, it doesn’t really matter.
“What matters right now is how do we act! We need to leave this place as soon as possible before that monster sees us.” I urge them.
“Yes, you are right, let's go to the forest. Lead us to the safe spot you mentioned last time. We will take it as a starting point to expand from there.” Maria chimes in and finishes our discussion.
‘Oh, right! I forgot to give them the map so I need to guide them there myself. Well, I should guide them there anyway if I want them to get there alive, there are a lot of monsters on the way.’
“I will guide you to a place nearby a river that is on a good spot. It has pretty much everything we need. It was devoid of monsters because a pack of the monsters were living in the area, but when I came back from the same path that same pack attacked me and now there should be a void in power there that we can use to settle.” I explain.
“Oh, those monsters you brought with you?” I chat with both sisters and a couple more members of the group that will be in charge of keeping order and organizing things.
I will help them get there and clear out the area of any unwelcoming beast and animals, getting some food in the process. Once the surrounding area is clear of threats, it will be a priority to clear out an area of trees and build up a wooden wall all around.
The forest is filled with enemies, some of them too strong for their current capabilities, so they will need every advantage they can to come up on top. I am even thinking of trying to help both sisters learn to control either mana or qi, that way once they have some mastery over it they will be able to protect the base and teach other people.
I wouldn’t like to spread such knowledge everywhere so we will keep it in check as long as we can, but we aren’t in a position where we can choose to do that anyways, so it may be for the best.
Lastly, we will need some food sources like farms for food and vegetables apart from the fish we can get from the river.
A lot of things will be needed to thrive in the forest, but for starters, surviving comes first, and I may have a couple of ideas that may work.
Hours pass by, and we enter the forest before the sun goes down, we even walk a few kilometers before stopping to camp for the night.
I stand guard with two more people, just in case we are ambushed out of the blue as I still don't know too much about the new species that have made their home in the forest.
Morning arrives without a hitch and we finish our journey too without a problem to arise apart from a couple of beasts here and there.
I signal all of them where does the “free real state” starts and ends, warning them not to leave the perimeter if they don't want to be jumped on by a powerful beast of monster from the shadows.
The presence of the strong pack of beasts should linger in the area around for a while and I intend to use Bruma to do the same while the wall is not built to keep the beast at bay. There will be a few people assigned to alert the rest if one does get close anyway, but it's safer to have some kind of deterrent while we are at our lowest to get a good head start.
Our current location undergoes a big felling project to create some space and to get the much needed building materials.
In our plans of conquering the forest I was shown their stash of weapons and tools, and while their weapons section was quite lacking, their tool one was kind of filled to the brim with all kinds of good stuff.
We all settled with some tents we brought and I get to practicing.
‘Tomorrow I will start raising a fortress here from scratch.’