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There were all sorts of questions I wanted to ask. First of all, how the hell was he going to cover this up?

Thanks to the fireball’s smoke, he had managed to hide the triple-cast of Disintegration Ray. But the evidence was right there, three neat little holes bored into the creature’s skull, fresh steam still rising out of it. So far, Arione had taken a rather distant manner of approach to this party. No doubt, he was on uneasy terms with Zenom. I’m not an expert on Arione’s situation as a Player and his history with Turina, but given his personality, no doubt that it was on uneasy grounds.

Ok, so let’s pretend he can pretend the spell was something other than Disintegration Ray. I’m actually willing to bet that even some mages wouldn’t be able to recognize what Disintegration Ray is, let alone look like.

But how’s he going to explain how he killed the monster?

Yes, he was a Grade-2 Mage. But one-shotting a Grade-5 Monster? Even if it was [Exhausted]? Taking into account the fact that it was Exhausted plus the fact that Zenom, Delas and I had been hacking at it for a while, it wasn’t a stretch to say that a Grade-2 mage could finish it off. Anti-climatic death of the monster aside, I was willing to bet that Zenom and Borealis were going to take an interest. And if Delas truly was a Player, he would recognize Disintegration Ray at a glance.

Just what was Arione’s angle here?

I turned to Arrosh, wondering if he had the answers. He had been spying on the Mage, perhaps he had the answer to these questions.

But my master didn’t have any answers.

In the distance, Zenom had calmed down and was sheathing his huge sword. Borealis was stowing away his shield as well while Delas was trying to pry off a scale for himself. Arione walked towards the monster, about thirty paces from us, while trying to cast [Preserve].

Arrosh wasn’t relaxed.

He was faced towards the monster, his head held at an angle.

“Master Arrosh?” I whispered, careful not to let the others hear me call him that. “What’s going on?” I hissed.

“Disciple.” Arrosh’s sword-tip slowly rose again. “I’m afraid it’s not over.”

Eyes widening, I turned to the others.

I saw Arione stop dead in his tracks.

“This is strange.” I heard the Elven Mage mutter to himself. “My [Preserve] is not working.”

Oh shit.

Sometimes, what you think is over isn’t over at all. It’s just the beginning.

“Everyone get away from the monster now!”

My warning might have saved our lives.

I grabbed Arrosh by the waist, picking up the skinny orc swordsman like a little kid over my shoulders, not even bothering to see if the others had obeyed. I turned tail and ran, even as the earth began to quake. There was the sound of something breaking and the sense that something had just gone terribly wrong. What I heard next almost made me stop and look back.

The Myung-sa’s scales were popping off like popcorn and if they weren’t the size of small cars, I would surely have stopped to pick up a couple. As it were, they cut through the air like blades and embedded themselves in the ground, gleaming in the red-glow of this cursed island. Horrified, I continued running as the scale-blades continued to hum in the sky; each of them more than deadly enough to main me for good.

Then the ground began to open.

It was slow at first as all big things are. It started out small, spider-web cracks splintering through the dried ashen soil and outpacing me. Even pumping all I could into my legs, all I could do was watch as the signs of an earth-shattering power advanced ahead of me. It was followed by a bellow of the earth, as it screamed out in pain and gave birth to a four-sided crevice that originated from the Volcano that the Myung-sa’s corpse was in.

Finally, the Myung-sa’s flesh stopped ripping. I knew even without looking because the air was filled with the screech of a thousand horrible cries.

“What the hell…” Delas had caught up to me and he dared to look back.

I looked back too and I wish I hadn’t.

Thousands of baby Myung-sa’s were crawling out of their mother’s body.

Slithering over each other, covered in slick-wet amniotic fluid, the baby monsters snapped at each other. Hissing and spitting, green mucus fell from their mouths, dripping with abandon. As soon as those mucus touched the ground, the ground turned to Jade and leaked poisonous gas. Even still, the baby snakes cried out and began to crawl over the sharp edges of the green-stones, their eyes searching for food.

“GO! GO! GO!”

Horror filled my mind as I was brought back to the bottom of the Canyon, where insects were predators and we mortals were nothing more than a nesting ground. I could see it already, those baby Myung-sa’s were hungry and already some of them were tearing their brood-brothers and brood-sisters apart. They tore one open with unnatural strength and more than a dozen of them swarmed the downed snake like lampreys to a corpse. Sickened, I almost wretched seeing the predator-turned-prey screech in pain, it’s innards spilling out and being ripped into the mouths of the other Myung-sas.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Each Myung-sa was around 8-10 feet long, more than large enough to pose a danger to a regular adventurer.

Did I mention that there were thousands of them?

Just because a monster in MSS is a baby doesn’t mean it has lower stats. It has the same base stats.

A living army of hell had descended on this island and there would be nothing left.

I saw Arione set up a barrier with Borealis at his side, while Zenom cleaved into the onslaught of nightmare baby snakes. They were trying to beat a controlled retreat and succeeding. A Grade-2 Mage with a skilled Tank like Borealis could hold the line for hours, especially if a Holy Knight like Zenom was providing buffs, healing and secondary tanking. Plus, with [Aura], both Borealis and Zenom could deal some damage.

But this wasn’t the time to worry about others.

“Disciple!” Arrosh twisted himself out of my grasp. “Come! This way!”

I didn’t even bother looking to see where Delas had gone off to. I turned and followed Arrosh, trusting that he knew where we were going.

Contrary to my expectations, the cracks weren’t opening up and creating large canyons. My images of the sea water rising up through the crevices or worse –magma emerging and making us into a nightmarish version of MSS Pompeii victims weren’t going to come true.

Instead, the cracks had only opened up to allow the ground to rise. The area around the volcano was being reshaped as cliff-walls rose into existence, entire slabs of stones creating blockades and threatening to create a snake-pit, except the snakes were 10 feet long Grade-5 Monsters who wanted nothing more than to tear into their mother’s killers.

Another imaginary scenario went through my mind. How would the other group fare? Arione, Zenom and Borealis? Borealis had outright shown hostility towards Arione in their meeting. How the hell were they going to fight off the Anger-inducing effect of the Special Field when they hated each other to begin with?

And just how confident was Borealis that he decided to go off by himself?

Unless, he did so because he couldn’t trust us.

I never had a lot of friends back in the real world.

But as I chased after Arrosh’s small back, I sent up a silent prayer of thanks for having people I could trust now.

We ran away from the nightmarish snake-pit as far as we could, outpacing the newborn Myung-sa brood easily. It didn’t matter though, it was only a matter of time until they swarmed over the entire island. Soon, they’d start tearing into each other but not before hunting down all that remained of the adventurers.

‘Don’t think about that. Think about surviving.’ My survival instincts kicked into full-drive, I turned my senses to listening for anything remotely resembling a hiss, the rustle of scales scraping over the ground or even the presence of greenish-gas.

“Over there!” I pointed towards a cave opening in the distance.

“Quick! The poisonous fangs approach us!” Arrosh warned, leaping ahead.

I sped up and sure enough, heard the screech of the Myung-sa’s right behind us. I did not want to fight against a Poison-status inducing Grade-5 monster without a Tank or a Mage. None of my Cores were designed to protect me against Status effects. I had items in mind for that and those were far away.

Goddamit, screw Best-in-Slot items. I was going to spend all our party’s money on getting us some useful Charms at our next stop.

We entered the cave and without a word, searched the place.

“Young Storm! This one!”

Finding a boulder, we grabbed and rolled it over the hole. It was just in time because one of the triple-split tongues actually flickered in through the gap before we slammed the boulder into place, crushing the appendage into nothing more a squirming piece of meat.

For a moment, we said nothing, gathering ourselves.

“This,” I said finally, still gasping for breath. “Is bad.”

“The clouds of death are gathered all around us.” Arrosh agreed.

Goddamit, there were so many ways we could die here. The cave could have multiple opening in which case we’d be swarmed by the Grade-5 monsters. I don’t care how anti-climatic Mother Myung-sa died to Arione; Grade-5 monsters aren’t a joke. And there was a whole swarm of them ruling over the island now.

I wasn’t even accounting for thirst, hunger or another factor: different monsters. Now that the Field Boss was dead… other monsters would start hunting. They’d prey on the smaller Myung-sa’s which definitely had lower stats than the Variant (which their mother was). This whole island was going to become something like a pot full of insects, and only the strongest would survive.

“I don’t like this.” I said finally. “We need food. Water. We need-”

“It is not all that bad, my Disciple.” Arrosh said, scratching his chin. “The clouds of death cast long shadows and we are hidden beneath it.”

I had to think about what he was trying to say. “You’re saying… that this is the perfect opportunity for us to… do what exactly?”

“Train, young crow.” Arrosh’s eyes twinkled.

“Train?!” I said incredulously. “This is literally the worst time to-”

I stopped.

…Was it?

I literally told myself that to prepare for the inevitable fight over the Autarch’s Key, I needed to grow stronger. Not only that, I just saw Arione, one of my biggest rivals, cast [Disintegration Ray], a Grade-S spell. It was evidence that he had a questline involved with the Grand Magus and had progressed it much further than I had with my own Sword Saint questline. I also had to worry about Delas, the slimy little bastard, who definitely hadn’t shown everything yet.

Zenom definitely hadn’t shown everything either; if he truly showed everything then he didn’t deserve the fame he had.

So I looked around us. A large cave that led deeper, possibly leading to a network of tunnels which could hold monsters. It reminded me of the Dokkaebi Tunnels when I first became a slave, but much, much larger. There as no wind here and our voices bounced off of the walls in hushed whispers. Faint light glowed from the stones, the magma barely contained within them.

Arrosh was right.

This really was the best time to train.

It wasn’t like we could leave this cave anyways. We’d be killed instantly.

“Ok.” I said finally, settling down. I took a swig from my waterskin.

Arrosh sat opposite side of me.

“Young Storm, the questions of your lineage and my master surrounds you like fetid clouds of night. Ask, and we shall begin.”

“Just like that?” I said with a slight smile, but I was used to Arrosh’s rhythm by now. And by rhythem I meant that the orc always did things at his own pace, regardless of how others felt.

“Ask.”

“I want to continue the conversation we had in the Scavenger’s Hideout.” I said immediately. “About Master Nearnigh’s inheritance.”

Arrosh nodded.

“My Master was like the soft rays of sun, touching out skin. There was no where in our lives where he was not, and naturally there was no where in our lives where the sword was nonexistent. Eating, drinking, hunting. All things became training.” Arrosh pointed at himself. “The Master had three young hatchlings he saw potential in, and as such, tasked us with finding the next Sword Saint upon his passing.”

I sat, listening carefully.

“Along with the Master’s task, he gifted us with a blessing each, that the hatchlings may have wings of their own, which they may pass onto their own young seeds, to nurture their growth.” Arrosh pointed at himself. “Master Nearnigh saw fit to bless me with a Core of his own.”

That wasn’t anything new. There were methods to pass down Cores from one character to another, though it cost a fortune in materials alone.

“The oldest Hatchlings received Master Nearnigh’s Aura. The ability to sunder the unseen itself.”

“Which you eavesdropped on and stole, passing it to me.”

Arrosh frowned in displeasure.

“Uh… sorry.” I added at the end, “Master.”

“The second oldest Hatchling received Master Nearnigh’s Cloak.”

“Not his sword?”

“Master Nearnigh’s Sword is hidden, and only the next Sword Saint can wield it. None of us three know where it is, only by fully becoming the legacy of the Sword Saint and accepting the Fate of one, can one wield Master Nearnigh’s Sword.”

“I’ve heard that word before, Fate.” I asked, “What is that?”

Arrosh didn’t answer for awhile.

“It is the power of Will, the clouds that gather before it rains. The more clouds one can gather, the more rain, lightning, wind and thunder there will be. Will is the soil that nurtures the Tree, the better the Soil, the larger and taller the Tree –unrivaled underneath the Sky.” Arrosh narrowed his unseeing eyes. “Will is the hand behind the blade, the foundation of a man, so that he may cut what he wishes to without fear of being cut back.”

I had no idea what he was saying.

“Ok.” I turned to the immediate matter at hand. “So what does the second part of my training entail?”

“The Second Part of your training involves getting ready for the darkness ahead, equipping you with the torch needed to walk where you must walk without stumbling.” Arrosh pointed at himself. “It is the last step, before you must slay the other potential Legacies.”

A chill entered the cave and I wrapped my cloak tighter around myself.

“What,” I said again. “Is the second training, Master?”

Arrosh looked away from me.

“Master Arrosh.” A foreboding feeling began to settle in my chest. "Tell me."

“You must take what is rightfully yours.” Then Arrosh shed his cloak and turned around.

His back was covered in the War Paint of his people, in the shape of a Crow. Blocky lines depicting the wings and its head, a needle thin eye staring out into space. It was painted in black, stubbornly refusing to reflect the ugly scarlet glow of this island, like it knew its existence was special. Almost like it was sentient, hating everything that made Monsters what they were.

The Orcs are Warriors and they evolved in the harshest of climates, hunting the toughest of monsters. Their Racial Trait, the Totems, are proof of that.

“Take it, Young Crow.” Arrosh hissed.

And Arrosh just offered his Totem to me, the sign of a Warrior among the Orc Hordes.

“Take my totem, and make it yours. Only then, will you be ready to take the next step.”