Oidche (25.10.9978 AS)
The weather inside the barrier felt different from the weather outside the barrier. Inside the barrier it was not only cold, but also moist. Thick fog covered the entirety of the barrier. Tristan had expected it to be cold, since he was in the north, but he didn’t expect it to be so cold. The complete forest around the ‘Dark Peek’ was covered by frost.
All thought, he couldn’t see very far because of the fog, Tristan had decided to enter the barrier close to a spot, there were no monsters in sight. The frozen leaves, cracked under his feet as he walked slowly inside the forest at the mountain’s base.
‘So, let’s try this.’ Tristan tried to open a gate to his laboratory, but as he had expected, he couldn’t connect to his laboratory, instead the Gate led five meters next to him. Tristan sighed.
‘I’ll be staying here for quite a while, so it would be the best to find a place I can build a camp.’ With this mindset, Tristan cautiously moved into the thick fog covering the forest. ‘Let’s see, first I’ll have to find a good place to start my camp-‘
Suddenly a black Frost Beast like monster jumped from behind the trees towards Tristan, who closely evaded the attack.
“A Frost Beast?” Tristan asked the monster expecting no answer.
*ROAR*
The beast once again launched itself against Tristan, who once again could only early evade the attack.
“You’re too fast to be a Frost Beast! So what are you?” Tristan asked once again, taking out his ‘Schattenklinge’ and pointing it towards the beast.
The gorilla like beast once again roared and jumped towards Tristan with exceptional speed. It was trying to hit Tristan with all his might.
This time, thought, Tristan waited as long as possible, before evading the beast’s arms. The beast, expecting to hit something, lost balance as it only hit the cold air. That was the opening Tristan needed to ram his ‘Zweihänder’ between the beasts’s ribs.
Once again the beast roared with all his might, but this time it felt empty and scared.
Tristan took out the sword, from between the monsters ribs. He once again swung the sword towards the monster, easily beheading the beast.
As soon as the head was chopped off the beast’s body, the black color disappeared from its fur revealing its true color: Pure white.
“That was harder, than expected.” Tristan mumbled as he was inspecting the beast’s dead body. As he touched the fluffy fur of the beast Tristan looked dumbfounded at the dead body.
Not only the color changed, but also, the consistence of its fur. Cutting through its hard black fur had been a pain. If he wasn’t a well trained Swordfighter, he might have not been able to cut through it, since it was as hard as stone.
“Not that I look closely at it, I can’ find any difference to a Frost Beast. But was the black thing that covered its body?” Tristan inspected the surroundings. He was looking for a dark slime. He once had read that slimes were parasite like monsters, that could take over the bodies of different other beasts amplifying their strength, but he couldn’t find any traces of slime.
As he was inspecting the body and its surroundings, he heard footsteps approaching really fast. Tristan jumped on the top of a big old pine. From there he could see three wolf-like monsters approaching the dead Frost Beast.
Their furs were also completely black, like the fur of the dead Frost Beast used to be, before Tristan killed it. Unlike Tristan’s expectation, the three wolves didn’t feed on the lifeless body. But they started sniffing around. They were clearly searching for something or for someone.
***ARWOO***
They howled as they looked up the tree Tristan was hiding on. Their red glowing eyes stared directly towards Tristan. Tristan sighed. “They are looking for the intruder. That would make me their prey.
“That was so obvious!” Tristan mumbled sarcastically as he jumped from the tree, landing on one of the three wolves, stabbing it with his sword. Before the other two wolves could react Tristan pulled his sword out of the body of the dead wolf and sliced both of them with the shadows magic his sword enabled him to use.
Once again, the dead bodies’ color changed; from jet black to grayish white. ‘What’s up with those beasts? It seems like they are able to communicate with each other. It probably has to do with their furs changing color. Someone or something is controlling them. One thing is for sure though, I have to get out of this area. Those wolves looked like they invited other people to the party.’
Tristan ran as fast as he could while still being able to keep attention to his surroundings. ‘Looks like I won’t be able to set a camp. I bet every single monster here is looking for me right now. They aren’t many, but my stamina won’t last forever.’
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He suddenly stopped moving. Two black Dragons slowly walked past him. ‘They were headed to the place the wolves and the Frost Beast was. This confirms it: those beasts are able to communicate with each other.’
Tristan stayed still until the Dragons were out of sight. He sighed once again. He didn’t know how many times he had sighed since he had entered the forest, but for him it felt like all he had done till now was: sight, run and kill monsters.
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’ Tristan activated his illusion magic and turned invisible, he also created three decoys that started moving in three towards three different locations. ‘I wanted to avoid using my mana so careless, but it can’t be helped.’
***
Tristan continued to sneak towards the mountain. A few hours had passed since he had entered the forest, but for him it felt like an eternity. He couldn’t let his guard down even for a few seconds. On his way he had to sneak past seven black Dragons.
Tristan was confident in being able to fight a Dragon by himself, but he didn’t know how strong the black Dragons here were. Up until now every monster here, had been several times stronger than their normal counterparts outside the barrier. So he had decided to better not mess with those Dragons here.
***ROAR***
Cold sweat ran down Tristan’s back as he heard the roar of a Dragon. He slowly turned around expecting a Dragon behind him. But there was nothing. Tristan sighed, relieved as he once again heard a roar coming from the southeast of his location.
‘One of my decoys must have been caught.’ Tristan smiled happily as he saw how all monsters in his area started running towards the roar. He hid behind a tree and waited till all the monster had moved towards the location the roars were coming from.
Once he felt like there was no monster in sight, he continued walking towards the mountain. Coming here his goal had been discovering Dunkler’s legacy, but now all he wanted was to deactivate the barrier so he could go home safely.
‘I hate it to admit, but Abigail was right. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m too weak yet.’ Regretting about his decision of coming to the Noir Mountains he continued walking. He was determined to fight a way back home.
‘What are those?’ Tristan looked in disbelief on what he had found. Deep in the forest, he had found hundreds of skeletons. ‘Are these the people who disappeared here?’ Tristan was shook. ‘Is this also my future? No, it can’t be. I’m stronger than those people.’
“Yo, kid drop that nasty illusion spell of yours and come out, so I can take a proper look on your face.” A soft male voice said. Tristan looked toward the spot the voice was coming from. He tightened the grip on his ‘Schattenklinge’.
“Who’s there?” He asked as he walked towards the voice. “I don’t know who’s here, why not come and find out” The soft voice said, with a superior tone.
Tristan continued walking towards the voice, ready to kill whoever was hiding from behind the thick fog. After walking a few hundred meters he finally could see someone sitting on a stone throne close to a cave.
The thing was sitting surrounded by bones of people and beasts. “Much better, right?” The voice said with a soft but manly tone. “I like to see the face of the people I kill.”
Tristan shrugged as he heard the soft voice said so. The appearance of the owner of the voice, was in hard contrast to the soft, melodic voice. Sitting on the throne in front of Tristan was a humanoid monster. Its body was completely covered in shadows. On his face two big glowing red eyes looked towards Tristan.
“You won’t even ask why I came here?” Tristan asked, trying to sound as calm as possible. “Why should I? It’s clear you came here to steal my most dearest treasure.” Tristan shook his head. “I was sent here by Dunkler. He said I should come here and get his legacy. “
The monster tilted its head. “Dunkler, that’s a name I haven’t heard for ages. So, you came to get his legacy? Well, I’m sorry, but there is nothing here such as Dunkler’s legacy for you to get. I’m sorry, but it seems like you’ll die here in vain.”
Tristan forcefully swallowed his saliva. He raised his sword towards the monster. “I’m not gonna die without a good fight.”
“HAHAAH… That’s what I wanted to hear!” The monster said as he took out a sword that looked exactly like Tristan’s ‘Schattenklinge’. “It’s been ages since someone last managed to sneak past the beasts and reach my cave.” The Monster said happily. “So, please don’t too fast, I want to enjoy this fight.”
As soon as he said that he disappeared in thin air. Tristan looked dumbfounded at the spot the monster had been sitting on. Out of reflex he moved his sword to his left.
***KLING***
Sparks appeared as both swords clashed into another. The strength behind the monsters attack made Tristan jump backwards.
“GREAT! “ The monster cried out in happiness. “That’s it!” He once again disappeared into thin air.
Tristan poured some of his mana into his eyes, so he could be able to see the monster. And it worked. He could clearly see how the monster was about to strike from above. Tristan clumsily sidestepped the swing.
‘Now is my chance!’ Tristan swung his sword towards the monster that was out of balance because he had just missed his target. But the reflexes of the monster weren’t bad either. It graciously avoided Tristan’s attack.
“YES, YES! That’s it!” He screamed in ecstasy. “It’s just as I always wanted. Someone that can challenge me has appeared. I really didn’t expect a kid like you to be so capable. It’s kinda shame that I will have to kill you toda-”
Tristan didn’t let the monster time to finish his sentence and jumped towards him clumsily slashing and slicing towards him. The monster once again easily dodged and parried Tristan’s attacks. Before the monster could get into the offensive, Tristan jumped backwards trying to get a distance between him and the monster.
“That’s no good. Has no one ever taught you that’s impolite to interrupt your elders?” Tristan looked at the monster with a face as if asking if he was serious. “I’m sorry, but I’m not polite to monster that wants to kill me.” “HaHAHa! ... I like your attitude!” The monster said before accelerating to his top speed.
The monster jumped towards Tristan with an incredible speed, even making someone like Dolores look slow next to him.
So he was easily able to pierce through Tristan’s heart.
-Or so he thought. The Tristan he had stabbed his sword into was a decoy Tristan had created during their little chat before, its attack.
A Portal opened a two meter above the monster. Tristan flew out of it and slashed at the monster’s back.
-But against all expectations Tristan’s sword shattered as it hit the monster’s back. “Steel skin” the monster mumbled as he grabbed Tristan’s by his neck.
“You’re a nasty trickster kid. But you aren’t the only one that has tricks up his sleeves.” Tristan closed his eyes as he expecting his death.