As soon as Duncan’s hand brushed the tear in space, it expanded. Gradually, the distortion grew until a six-foot-wide, ten-foot-tall portal stood before them. The once obscured scene hiding inside the entrance was now clear. What Duncan saw made him squint in confusion.
“Any environment can exist inside a temporary realm, regardless of where the entrance is,” Cinder explained. “You can find volcano realms in the coldest snow storms or abandoned city realms in the middle of the ocean. You have to be prepared for anything if you want to be a successful realm delver.”
Cinder smiled and glanced at the storage ring on Duncan’s finger. “You’ll have to look into a bigger spatial ring when your body can handle more enchantments. I brought along some different equipment you might have needed depending on the environment of whatever realm the adventurers guild’s scouts found for us. Thankfully, it seems you have everything you need for this one. Maybe just leave your coat behind.”
Duncan had heard and understood everything Cinder said and even started to remove his jacket at his suggestion. But his eyes never left the realm entrance. This was the start of his journey, and he was ready.
“It’s your show now, Duncan,” Cinder said as he stepped back from the realm entrance. “Remember your training, and you’ll do just fine. It’s a lesser tier one realm, so it shouldn’t be very big. I’ll wait out here for you to return.”
Duncan tore his gaze away from the otherworldly gateway, gave his master a confident smile, and nodded. It was time.
After a moment's thought, Duncan made a decision. He was about to step into another realm full of monsters that would want nothing more than to tear him apart. A more defensive option wouldn’t hurt. Who knew what could be waiting just inside the entrance?
Activating his storage ring, Duncan mentally identified the two items he wanted to retrieve. They were in his hands with practically no delay after his thoughts. In his right hand, he held a tier-one straight sword. It was double-edged, longer than a typical short sword, but well within his ability to wield with one hand.
In his left hand, he held a shield. This was nothing like the tower shield Jen had used against him the previous week. Where that had been akin to a house door, the one Duncan held had more in common with a large cooking skillet, at least in size and general shape. Made out of a reinforced tier-one metal and slightly curved to allow glancing blows to slide off, most people would call it a buckler. Neither his sword nor his shield were enchanted. Anything on top of the enchantments he already wore would likely leave him unconscious from too much internal magic exposure.
Over the last six months, Duncan's training had started to include sword and shield forms. While they weren’t his favorite, he knew a shield could give him options he’d never have while wielding only a sword. So, he dedicated himself to absorbing these forms just as he had all the others his masters had taught him. Of the different shields he’d trained with, the buckler was the only one he’d decided to bring for his trial for multiple reasons.
For one, he had limited storage in his spatial ring, and his buckler wasn’t that big. For another, something with more coverage, like a tower shield, was heavy. Very heavy. It needed to be in order to withstand the stronger blows it was meant to take. While Duncan had learned to use one, he usually found them clunky and tedious. Maybe that would change once he advanced through the tiers and had enhanced strength to compensate for their size and weight, but for now, he didn’t want to be stuck in a defensive role if he could help it.
Now fully equipped, Duncan stepped into the tear.
***
Cinder watched Duncan disappear into his first realm delve with no hesitation. Cinder had expected as much. The young man’s confidence would likely make most experienced realm delvers laugh. They’d think he was a foolish, overconfident rookie who had a hard lesson coming in the near future.
They wouldn’t know what Cinder knew, though. He knew that Duncan’s confidence wasn’t something born of a belief that he was invincible. It wasn’t confidence in his success or even in his survival. Every part of Duncan’s confidence came from the fact that he knew he’d done everything he could to prepare himself. He’d trained, he’d fought, he’d learned, he’d sparred, and he’d pushed himself beyond his limits until he found new ones.
Duncan was as competent a tier zero as Cinder had ever met. And it wasn’t just Duncan. Phevona and Dean had also grown at an astronomical rate since the three of them went on their first monster hunt.
It was actually slightly concerning for their masters. They had tried introducing new trainees into their group, but none even came close to measuring up to the three prodigies. Phevona, Duncan, and Dean usually voiced their thoughts that the new additions just didn’t fit from a personality standpoint. What they didn’t understand was that everyone they’d grouped up with had been intimidated by their extreme competence. No one wanted to be the worst on the team, and that’s exactly what anyone would be if they joined with the trio.
Cinder was excited to see what they could accomplish together. For now, though, he’d just have to sit and wait. He might have enough time to make a few meals with his travel cooking set. Duncan would probably be hungry when he was done.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
***
Passing through the realm entrance was like nothing Duncan had ever experienced. While he hadn’t known what to expect, he had thought it would be something like his experience on the realm shift platform when he traveled from Earth to Dintarnum. He was wrong.
The moment he touched the entrance, he felt like he was moving through water, just without getting wet. Every inch forward seemed to increase the pressure on his body until he felt like he was trying to walk on the bottom of a lake. The feeling increased each moment until, finally, he was through.
The sight that met him was as he’d seen on the other side when he’d observed the expanding entrance with Cinder. All around him, he saw nothing but dark blue, knee-high grass. It continued on in waves in every direction. The sky above was the same light blue as Dintarnum and Earth, with a yellow sun directly overhead.
Cinder had been right to suggest leaving the jacket. It was hot. Hotter than any of the summer days he’d experienced in England or Kunora. Only the light breeze causing the grass to dance provided a slight respite from the heat.
Duncan scanned his surroundings, his boosted perception frantically searching for any threats. The knee-high grass was the perfect cover for any smaller monsters to hide and ambush from, and the wind made it almost impossible to notice any unnatural movement through the grass. Almost impossible did not mean impossible, though.
A slight change in the flow of the wind-filled grass was all Duncan needed to act. Three seconds and two activations of air walk later, he was six feet off the ground, directly over where he’d seen the disturbance. From above, it was much easier to make out the monster creeping through the brush towards him at the realm’s entrance.
If a rabbit and a prairie dog had a baby, the monster he now saw was what he expected that baby to look like. Large, angled back feet sat underneath a two-foot-long body covered in fur almost the exact same shade of blue as the grass surrounding them. Black beady eyes on the end of a slightly pointed face followed Duncan’s flight through the air. As it opened its mouth to make a sound startlingly similar to a house cat’s hiss, he could see two rows of sharp teeth, with two particularly long teeth hanging from the middle of the top row.
As soon as it finished hissing, the monster decided to join Duncan in the air. A mighty leap separated it from the ground and sent it directly at him. Sharp front claws led the way, and the monster turned into a deadly projectile intent on shooting him out of the sky.
Duncan used his third and final consecutive activation of air walk, kicking off the air into a forward roll. Just as the monster reached him, he was in the perfect position to meet the attack with his buckler. The thud sounded through the prairie as beast met metal. The results were as one would expect. Duncan landed in the grass with a slight bend in his knees, followed soon after by the monster. The dead monster.
A broken neck wasn’t too much of a surprise when so much momentum meets a solid object. Despite Duncan’s less-than-solid footing, the beast’s small size did it no favors.
Duncan breathed in and out, watching and listening for any more threats. It seemed like the realm’s monsters wouldn’t rely on stealth, as only a few seconds after he landed, a cacophony of familiar hissing echoed throughout the prairie around him.
The enemy was on the way. Duncan didn’t mind, though. It saved him from having to search as much to kill 80 percent of the realm’s monsters. He would need to prepare, though. It sounded like there were a lot of them.
Duncan sent his sword and shield into his ring, then touched his enchanted hairpin and sent it in after them. He immediately felt a sharp drop in his perception. He’d need that later, but for now, he needed to free up some room to use another enchantment.
He reached both hands out in front of him and soon held his greatsword enchanted with weight reduction. He then proceeded to mow the lawn.
He spun the greatsword in a circle at ankle height, relying on his leaning body to counter the still significant weight of the sword. Each spin sent grass into the air to fly away on the breeze. Soon, there was a circle of ground with grass much shorter than the rest of the prairie. Its diameter was around 25 feet, giving Duncan a significant area to work in.
That task done, Duncan sent his greatsword back into his storage ring and soon had his hair held in place with his hairpin once again. He also retrieved his buckler and one of his two tier one short swords. He wouldn’t need the longer reach of the sword he’d entered the realm with. This fight would rely on quick thinking and movements, making the short sword a better option.
Duncan settled into a slight crouch, weight on the balls of his feet with sword and shield held at the ready. It was the starting position for the flowing fortress sword form. This was the perfect opportunity to use the form for the first time outside practice in the training yard. It was usually meant to be used to evade and block enemy projectiles when alone. Now, though, he’d use it to counter the leaping attacks of the prairie hoppers.
Prairie hoppers. Not the most creative name, but he’d used it for now until he could show Cinder one of their corpses and ask what they were called.
The hissing had continued growing over the prairie as he’d worked to create his killing zone, and now they started to close around him. Not long after he’d settled into his stance, the first prairie hoppers arrived. They shot through the wall of grass like cannon balls. Each of them continued to hiss as they flew through the air at Duncan, where the only thing that met them was death.
The first prairie hopper to reach him was split in half, a perfect slice ending its life. Another took the opportunity to attack from the opposite direction but met only air as Duncan effortlessly shifted his body to let it fly through the space where he’d just been.
Prairie hopper after prairie hopper shot at Duncan, and he met each with the flowing, graceful movements of the flowing fortress. He weaved through the endless flying enemies like a dancer, extending his sword to deliver a sharp death and breaking their soaring bodies against his unstoppable buckler.
Duncan was a flowing storm of violence. Standing in his circle of death, he knew precisely where each approaching threat was and where he needed to be. This was why his perception-boosting hairpin was his favorite. If he could sense his enemies, he could kill them.
Bodies started to pile up, and blood turned the once blue grass around him red. Despite the gruesome scene, Duncan was unwavering. He had been prepared for the realities of violence long before he’d arrived at the Academy on Earth. The gore-covered circle did nothing to distract him from his goal.
80 percent, then the prime monster. That was all Duncan could think about as he continued to massacre the inhabitants of the realm. His Subjects were just a bunch of monster corpses away.