Dravyk the Unseen was overcome with seething rage.
Fourteen.
For 14 cycles he had been forced to lie in wait for the interloper. And, with each new rising and setting of the sun, the rift weakened. The precious power it leaked dwindled down to nearly nothing, and with less ambient energy to feed upon… he too was dwindling.
He was still the mightiest, he had no doubt. Even enfeebled by the unexpected lack of suitable spiritual nourishment, his reign would remain unchallenged. However, without the possession of a rift at its full strength, this kingdom was no longer worthy of his rule. Once the interloper was dead he’d need to search for one that was. Again.
How much more would this insignificant pest take from him? First his perfection, and now the seat of his throne? Unforgivable. Tearing the vermin apart bit by bit would not be enough to soothe his burning wrath. But, with all the preparations he’d been making, he would at least have ample time to try.
After discovering his vengeance wouldn’t come swiftly, he’d taken precautions to ensure that this time–without fail–his quarry would fall. He’d sealed the exit to his den with boulders to block all light and the only potential escape path. The darkness would not hinder his hunt–his other senses were more than sufficient to guide him–but humans often stumbled without light and feared the unseen. An exploitable weakness shared with other prey. Furthermore, with the only exit closed off, he could fill the entire cavern with his [Spiritual Miasma] to hinder the interloper’s irritating arts. This genius strategy all but guaranteed his victory. Even in the unlikely event Dravyk was killed or incapacitated, the whelp wouldn’t have the strength required to move the boulders and get out on its own. He would either regain his perfection or die alongside the interloper. That much he would ensure.
A new instability in the rift’s vicinity pulled the Ancient Cliff Drake from his thoughts. It was about to open–he could feel it.
Finally! I knew you couldn’t hide forever!
The rift’s edges parted for a moment as the interloper was deposited in front of it. It was…different than he remembered. It seemed larger, stronger, and was clad with metals instead of cloth. Its energy also flowed strangely, but its essence was the same. Bitter loneliness, rancid desperation, murky sorrow, and a defiant spark of hope. Its time in the rift must have changed it, but the creature’s irritating flavors were unmistakable to his refined spiritual senses. And it wasn’t alone either. There was something else there beside it. A small, lesser beast cowering from his sight. Bound and enslaved, by the looks of it.
Unworthy kin, then. Inferior to even prey.
The bound beast’s energy was muted and faint, but nothing could hide from Dravyk’s senses. That was why, when his instincts insisted that he was still missing something, he paid them great heed.
Hmmm…
He inhaled deeply in preparation for his opening breath attack while simultaneously scenting the air for clues. Oddly, only the smells of the unworthy slave and strange metals reached his nose. At the very least, the interloper should carry a faint musk of sweat.
Something wasn’t right.
He opened his mouth and tasted the air that darted across his serpentine tongue. When that told him nothing new, he uncovered the small holes beneath his nostrils to engage his least-used sense: heat detection. It was a powerful ability, but he didn’t like relying on it because it overwhelmed the rest of his senses and had a short range. In this case, however, it gave him the information he’d been lacking.
The world lit up in gradients of light and heat. The gray, cold stone all around him was a stark contrast to the three sources of warmth before him. The interloper shone brightly, the slave-ling had a very faint glow, and beside it was another, slightly brighter source of heat. This third, unknown source must be what his instincts warned him that he was missing before, but its existence perplexed him greatly. It possessed no essence, no scent, and…
The interloper roared a challenge and battered Dravyk with a repulsively crude aura.
Ah, I see now! A filthy trick. An illusion to distract me from my goal. The third source possesses no life, thus I need not give it more attention. I must kill the one who saw my true form and lived. I must regain perfection!
Dravyk dismissed the deception from his mind immediately, practically forgetting it was ever there. Then, he exhaled and released [Spiritual Miasma: Blast of Decay] with an accompanying roar of his own.
Die!
With a snap of force that briefly stalled the oncoming cone of poison, the rift completely closed and vanished. It wasn’t nearly enough to give the interloper time to evade, however.
His toxic breath streamed over everything in front of him. He continued his attack for several seconds until he completely emptied the stores of miasma he’d been accumulating and all of the available space in his den was filled by it. He watched his prey gleefully, awaiting the moment when the wretch would fall to the ground in spiritual torment.
When instead the cretin began rushing towards him to attack–unaffected by the miasma–Dravyk was almost offended.
Well, no matter.
Dravyk rushed forward in kind to meet the foolish, headlong charge with a [Chomp] backed by his considerable momentum. Such arrogance from prey was laughable, and would only serve to shorten its life. In a way, it was frustrating. Had the interloper sought to deliver itself into his jaws so eagerly before, much of Dravyk’s irritation could’ve been avoided.
His jaws bore down on the human’s shoulder and upper body with rock-shattering force, but Dravyk tasted no telltale spurt of lifeblood. There was only a loud clang as his teeth impacted hard metal ineffectually. Instead of seeking to escape his maw, the interloper wrapped its upper limbs around his lower jaw with surprising strength. Dravyk tried to shake it loose, but was further shocked by its immense weight. It wasn’t enough to completely immobilize him, but he was unable to move his head or lift the stubborn creature off the ground. Energy gathered around its feet and rooted it to the stone floor with such unyielding tenacity that even Dravyk couldn’t overpower it.
It was then that he felt it: the familiar sensation of a rift. Space itself warbled and warped, heralding the arrival of a new tear… and it was coming from directly above him. His lower jaw creaked as he struggled to look above himself to find the exact origin of the hatchling rift, but the insufferable trespasser refused to relinquish its grip upon him. Pushing his jaw to the limit of breaking and rolling his eyes as far upwards as they could go, he caught the barest glimpse of a line of jagged shining light descending from on high.
It was enough to confirm his fears.
He renewed his struggles against the human’s uncompromising hold, but it stood unmoving and unfazed. Did it not know the danger they were both in? Or, perhaps it did and simply mirrored Dravyk’s own intentions: to emerge victorious or die alongside their hated enemy.
Dravyk could feel the waves of space vibrating with increasing violence as the rift’s influence descended towards his head. If he didn’t act quickly he would certainly be dismembered by the rift’s opening. Though unpleasant, he had to admit to himself he lacked confidence he could break free from the interloper's grip. And, in order to survive the next few breaths, he’d need to enact even more unpleasant measures.
Though his head was kept almost completely stationary by the human, the rest of his body was free to move. He skittered in an arc to the side–his jaw as the pivot point–and then braced himself. Digging his claws into the stone for purchase, Dravyk used [Pounce] to jump sideways with immense speed and strength. Unable to endure the sudden burst of force, his jaw subsequently broke and dislocated. He roared in pain as he contorted his body to curl around and behind the human. He sought to get as much of his mass behind it and away from the rift as possible. Unfortunately, it seemed his drastic solution was still a moment too slow to completely spare him.
A fresh cry of pain escaped Dravyk’s throat as the rift tore open directly in front of where the trespasser still stupidly stood. It had narrowly missed the human’s head somehow… which meant that part of his dislocated jaw still grasped by it was cleanly severed. It also meant that a portion of Dravyk’s foreleg, foot, and side were now cleaved from his body. To add insult to injury, the newly opened rift began drinking in his miasma with great gusts of wind. Almost as quickly as he had initially saturated the air, it was being cleansed of his toxin.
Perhaps he’d misjudged this invader.
A rapid series of sharp pains at his neck caused him to flinch and hiss. The bound one was biting, clawing, and kicking at his throat in an attempt to strike a fatal wound. A pointed weapon also pierced the exposed injury on his side and plunged deeply into him. His attention was drawn once more to that third, unknown source of heat, which he realized must be the one holding the weapon. He’d forgotten all about it and didn’t realize it had gotten so close to him. But how had it attacked him? The human still held fast to his jaw and couldn’t have struck the blow, but surely an illusion couldn’t wield a spear? He moved to kick at the spot where the illusion stood with his back leg, but it darted away before he could land a hit. As it ran back in to strike at a new place on his body, the slave-ling dug deeper into the flesh of his neck.
Argh! Another deception to confuse me. Another distraction. It must be a ranged art from the interloper that harmed me. I must remain focused on the two real enemies before me.
Dravyk batted the lesser-kin away from his neck with his uninjured foreleg while trying to cut the human with the teeth of his upper jaw. The flying irritant, undeterred, only moved to the back of his neck where Dravyk would have a harder time reaching. The trespasser also continued to attack him with that ranged art and illusion combination. Aggravatingly, that vulgar aura-manipulating art it was using masked the energies of everything else in the den and was hindering his spiritual perception more than he’d expected. He wasn’t responding as he wanted and was rapidly accumulating wounds.
Was he… losing?
No. No, he reigned supreme! This was but a setback. Things had only turned out this way because he wasn’t fighting them seriously.
That changed now.
Dravyk activated [Death Roll] and entered into a brutal spin. This wasn’t to harm his enemies, as usual, but to free himself of the loosely connected lower jaw that had been restraining his movements. Dravyk felt when the flesh and bone holding him back was torn and ripped from his head, and when the lesser-kin fled his body to avoid being crushed. He jumped back from his prey and stared at them through the pitch blackness with palpable loathing. Hot, coppery-tasting liquid flowed like rivers across his exposed tongue and freshly renewed his rage. It had been years since he’d been forced to suffer the indignity of tasting his own blood. Years since he’d been forced to use… that ability.
Dravyk activated [Autotomy].
His glorious tail–long, smooth, and sleek from years of undisturbed growth–was wholly consumed to fuel a burst of regeneration. Due to how long his tail had become the effect was potent and almost instantaneous. In moments Dravyk was fully restored to his former glory–nay, even better than before–with the notable exception of his sacrificed appendage. He’d not be able to use [Autotomy] again until his tail regrew, but he didn’t plan on needing to.
Now that he was back to fighting shape these pests were as good as dead.
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Samantha continued to stream mental imagery of what her spiritual sight was picking up through [Liaison] so Tobias and Silas got an idea of where the drake was. Tobias had no night vision to speak of, and even Silas’s ability to see in the dark didn’t work well when there was no light at all. She lamented not putting more utility items in her personal storage for the fight, but luckily, [Hyperfocus] and [Whirlwind] had given her enough ‘time’ to think up this solution on the fly before the drake could capitalize on their blindness.
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The downside to relying on her spiritual sight was that it didn’t help pick up any floor hazards or layout of the surrounding space. With a continued 1 qi/second into [Whirlwind] Samantha could leverage its 30 foot perceptive dominion to navigate, but Tobias had to use [Cloud Run] when he moved to avoid tripping and Silas had to be careful not to fly too high. She’d considered streaming what she saw in her dominion through [Liaison] instead of her spiritual sight to try and counteract this, but was wary of how overwhelming the amount of information would be. Parsing the deluge of sensory data wasn’t something that could be learned instantly, and she didn’t want to risk bogging either of her companions down too much when they needed to be alert.
In any case, now that their opening gambit had played out–and the drake was still alive–they’d need to enter the second stage of the plan. She hadn’t expected the beast to have such a potent healing ability, but was comforted by the observation it seemed to be single use. The drake’s tail had been fully consumed to fuel the healing and showed no signs of growing back any time soon. Though not exactly what they’d been initially aiming for, they had indeed succeeded at removing one of the drake’s available weapons: its tail. The flexible, strong appendage was one of the things that posed the most danger when fighting up close with it. Without it, it had little hope of fending off attacks from all of them at once. That was… if they could properly coordinate in the absolute darkness.
She checked on her and Tobias’s available qi and evaluated the situation to decide how to proceed. With the qi reserved for her personal domain, [Liaison], and [Fade]; her usage of [Translucence], [Whirlwind], [Rift Walk], and [Desert Breeze]; and Silas’s usage of [Translucence] and [Savage Bite], their shared qi pool was sitting at 534.6/669.6. Tobias had 224/500 in his reserve after his usage of [Iron Bulwark], [Taunt], [Cloud Run], and his base operational cost of 1 qi/minute. She couldn’t help but marvel at how, despite spending so much qi in the span of just around 10 seconds, she still had more qi at her disposal than she’d ever had with her Bronze pattern. Tobias, on the other hand, was worse off due to his huge, 250 qi investment into [Iron Bulwark]. She’d have less than 2 minutes with his help before he was de-summoned, so she’d have to make them count.
“Initiate approach three,” Samantha sent through [Liaison].
Tobias deactivated [Iron Bulwark] so he could move again and tossed the detached jaw off to the side. Becoming an indestructible, 1500 pound statue while he held onto the Ancient Cliff Drake was useful, but it wouldn’t serve him well in the ongoing fight. Silas also shifted his position so that he was flying overhead and slightly behind the drake, near where its tail used to be.
“I’ll do my best, but I’m fighting blind here!” Tobias warned, running in the general direction of the drake once more. “Do you know how hard it is to gauge its position based on a visual from your perspective?”
“Try flying blind,” Silas griped. “I’ve hit the ceiling twice already.”
“Your best is fine–just keep it busy,” she reassured Tobias. “And Silas, can’t you… I don’t know. Detect the wind changing when you’re near a rock or something?”
“Yeah… right before I hit it!” he said indignantly.
Samantha had to suppress her mild amusement. If this wasn’t such a dire situation she might’ve laughed, but at least it was good to know everyone’s spirits remained relatively high. It was when the lightheartedness stopped entirely that she knew things were serious. They’d been managing fairly well so far, but she’d need to keep at least one emergency flare in her storage from now on so nothing like this happened again.
Samantha finished siphoning the last of the gaseous poison into her personal domain with [Desert Breeze] and she allowed the rift to snap shut. Her mental strain eased as she no longer needed to both move the toxin into storage and maintain the protective air bubble around herself. It would’ve been nice to task her fragment with the on-going manipulation of [Desert Breeze], but keeping [Hyperfocus] and [Sage’s Rumination] active during the fight was more important than her minor mental fatigue.
Though the miasma was now gone and she no longer needed the protective bubble for defensive purposes, it served two other important roles. After years of refinement and experimentation with the art in the rift–as well as reading countless random books to keep herself sane–she’d come to realize how incredibly versatile [Desert Breeze] really could be. One book in particular she’d read, called ‘Roots of Reality’, taught her more about how the world fundamentally worked. For example, sound was simply a phenomenon that occurred when vibrations moved through the air. And scent was, essentially, particles of something moving through the air, being breathed in, and interpreted as a smell. This meant that if she maintained incredibly tight control over the air flow around her with [Desert Breeze], she could silence sounds she made or hide her scent. She could even apply this to wider areas or other people if she wanted, but in this case just herself was enough.
With the combination of [Desert Breeze], [Translucence], and [Fade] she had become like a ghost on the battlefield… though she couldn’t quite attack with complete abandon. She’d reserved a full 50 qi when she mentally assaulted the drake, but even then [Fade] was nearly broken when she’d drawn attention to herself with her spear strike. Its effect stabilized every time Silas or Tobias drew that attention back with attacks, but Tobias’s qi reserve would likely be emptied before the drake died if she tried to maintain stealth. That’s why she’d opted for ‘approach three’: an all-out [Whirlwind] assault with Tobias and Silas acting as support.
[Fade] would allow her to strike at least one unexpected blow in the beginning, after which she’d give up on trying to avoid the drake’s attention. She’d maintain her stealth arts to give herself a chance of slipping past its notice in the chaos of battle, but wouldn’t rely on staying hidden going forward. She increased her investment into [Whirlwind] to 10 qi/second for the opening salvo and watched the world around her slow down. Then, she invested 1 qi into her [Flawless Regeneration] core art to increase the speed of her passive healing for the next minute.
Tobias swept his glaive downwards at the drake’s head, and the drake curved the front of his body slightly to avoid the attack. This left its side exposed. Seeing her opening, she closed the distance between herself and the drake with as much speed as she could muster without her leg muscles completely tearing. She still sustained minor injuries because of her imperfect understanding of her physical limits in this state, but it was nothing her regeneration couldn’t handle. Placing a coating of piercing energy at the tip of her spear, she took aim at the ‘armpit’ of the drake’s foreleg. The scales appeared finer in that area to allow for movement, so she hoped it would also be more susceptible to damage.
With the drake completely overlooking her presence for the moment, her aim was true. As the blade of her spear found purchase between the interlocking scales and cut through to the flesh beneath, she aided its passage by extending her spear shaft and striking against the butt of the weapon with a [Telekinetic Impact]. Reacting near-instantly to the flash of pain, the drake jerked away from the penetrating weapon and her stab veered off course. She felt the speartip impact against hard bone before being deflected downwards and emerging from the drake’s chest. A painful injury to be sure, but not a fatal blow.
[Fade], as expected, failed to disguise her presence this time. She felt its already tenuous grip on the drake’s perception slip with this latest attack, and the drake began turning towards her as it became fully aware of her for the first time. She could feel its motion pressing against her lodged spear, so she started shortening the spear shaft’s length and pulling it out before she lost hold of it. The drake’s flesh wasn’t nearly as tough as his scales, but it still gave her ample difficulty in freeing her weapon as the muscles contracted and tightened.
A wide mouth of sharp teeth dripping with venom launched towards her in what appeared to be slow-motion. With the weapon not fully freed yet, there was no way she could dodge in time without tearing herself apart.
That was where Silas came in.
Waiting until the moment her spear was fully removed, and right before the intimidating teeth clamped down on her head, she activated [Jackalope of All Trades] and transported to Silas’s location. Time seemed to stop completely now as she was pulled along the path of her binding thread, around the beast’s open maw, and into mid air beside Silas. Time resumed.
Seeing how closely Silas was flying to the ceiling with [Whirlwind]’s dominion, she used [Cloud Run] to flip upside down and pressed her feet against the overhanging rock. Pushing off as though jumping, she flung herself downwards towards the drake’s back and continued her assault. The scales along its spine were much thicker and harder than the fine ones under its arm, so she was unable to cause as much damage as the initial strike. But, with each stab aimed at the same place, she still cut at least a foot into its body and left a gaping hole in its hide.
The drake began spinning and rolling once more, throwing her off to the side and knocking Tobias to the ground. She caught herself before hitting the ground with [Cloud Run], but Tobias was pressed flat beneath the drake as he was rolled over. Righting itself, the drake capitalized on Tobias’s prone position and bit onto his leg in an attempt to shake him from side to side. Tobias used [Cloud Run] to anchor himself, however, preventing himself from being whipped about. The Rank 15 armor materials she’d invested in also proved their worth, and spared him from the worst of the wounds.
“Condition?” she inquired.
“I used [Iron Bulwark] a bit late, but–” Tobias twisted backwards slightly and brought his glaive down on top of the drake’s head. “--not bad overall.” He struck with his glaive repeatedly and left shallow cuts on the beast’s face scales, but his Strength couldn’t totally compensate for the awkward angle he was forced to attack from. Silas sent a large [Antler Shot] at the drake’s back to try and give Tobias a break. The antler only cut a few inches into the hide near its shoulder, but it was enough to get the drake to turn towards him with an angry hiss. Using the opportunity to recover, Tobias pulled himself up and unleashed a horizontal slash towards the drake’s face.
The fight had been moving everyone throughout the den, and she now realized she was standing beside where the exit to the space should have been. Comparing the topography she saw in her dominion with the memories her mind meridian pulled up from over a decade ago, she understood now why they were stuck in pitch darkness. The drake–clever creature–had done its utmost to seal them all inside. Multiple layers of boulders were piled up against and wedged inside the would-be exit.
Now…that sure changes things.
There were many ways she was prepared to approach this encounter based on the situation. Fighting head on, as they were doing now, was actually one of the less appealing options. She could’ve used [Rift Walk] to escape several miles upwards and out of the Great Gulfs immediately, but wasn’t confident the beast wouldn’t keep pursuing her if it were particularly vengeful. Killing it was preferable to constantly worrying about being hunted down. She also had a variety of items she’d purchased that could be used to damage, hinder, or potentially kill the drake, but weren’t safe to use until they could lure it outside the den. Using it in this enclosed space had a high likelihood of hurting them too. Seeing that it had sealed the only exit, however…
Samantha used [Rift Walk], manifesting the exit point several hundred feet beyond the dens’s entrance. Space began to shake as she willed it to tear open.
“Switch to approach five!” she commanded. “To me.”
Tobias immediately began a fighting retreat and Silas flew at top speed towards her. With her still-enhanced perception, the seconds it took for the rift to open felt like an eternity. Silas perched across her shoulders and clung tightly to her. Tobias and the beast were locked in a ferocious battle, and by the way he was moving, Tobias must’ve activated [Iron Bulwark] again to help him endure the heavy blows.
As the heated battle neared the rift it snapped open, and gentle moonlight streamed into the cave. With the darkness pushed back at last, Samantha saw the drake’s true form once again. It had forgone the invisibility in the inky blackness, and now stood out against the brown and gray stone with its pale white scales. It looked at her with a fearsome intelligence, and the already roiling energy within its body practically overflowed with pure malice. It bared its fangs at her and roared, and she could’ve sworn she heard an accusation in the sound. A single word, though she couldn’t place its source: ‘Interloper’.
Suddenly, it seemed to completely forget about its fight with Tobias in favor of reaching her. Tobias let his glaive dissipate back into motes of light so he could grab onto the drake with both hands again. He didn’t need to increase his investment in [Iron Bulwark]--as the drake was uninterested in attacking him anymore–but strained against the beast’s strength with [Cloud Run] and his own 47 points of Heroic might.
“Just go!” Tobias yelled, forgoing the use of [Liaison].
Samantha activated [Cloud Run] and jumped backwards through the portal into open air, finding herself standing several hundred feet above the treeline. She opened her personal storage and retrieved a roughly tied together bundle of vials.
This should do it.
She threw the bundle through the rift opening and de-summoned Tobias right before they broke against the stone floor. Then, she closed the rift and deactivated [Whirlwind].
A deep, resounding ‘boom’ reverberated through the canyon wall and debris exploded out from the den’s sealed exit. Dust and rock chunks rained down over the tree canopy as every bird in the vicinity seemed to flee into the sky. A low rumble emanated from the den over the next several seconds, and she guessed that there was a collapse after the blast. Hopefully at least something would be recoverable from the carcass.
The cacophonous sound of countless flapping wings caught her attention, and she saw a large flock of creatures headed her way. As they neared and she leveraged the improved vision her eye meridians afforded her, she realized she was about to be set upon by hundreds of Winged Snappers. They must’ve been drawn by the sound.
Just like old times, then? But, with one small alteration…
As they got within her range, she focused the full force of her Low Silver killing intent on the swarm. Though not strictly necessary for exerting a killing intent, she tapped into her years of frustration and resentment to infuse the aura with as much malevolence as she could muster. Remembering back to when these low-ranked spirit beasts terrorized her, Silas, and Harold upon first arriving on this floor, it was laughable how quickly they succumbed. They dropped dead out of the sky by the dozens as her killing intent ripped through their energy, extinguishing their life while leaving their physical bodies untouched.
Sensing her presence now and seeing what happened to their fellows, a majority of the swarm promptly turned tail and fled from her.
Was this really all it took to fend off a swarm?
“Ooh! Can I have those?” Silas excitedly asked, mentally gesturing to the spirit pearls forming within the slain Winged Snappers.
She pet his head affectionately and chuckled. “All yours. I wanted to let my qi pool refill before re-entering the den anyway.”
…and enjoy some fresh air. Gods! Fresh. Air.
Silas leapt from her shoulders and glided down to the general area where the carcasses had fallen. She had no doubt he’d sniff out their pearls quickly enough on his own.
Stretching her arms out wide as if trying to embrace the world itself, she looked up into the star-speckled sky and screamed out a loud cheer.
“I’m back! I’m really, really back!”