“Void thinks he's being clever, but I don't see why he's limited his choice to such low grades. They can expire so easily. Even one of our own chosen wouldn't notice killing such a tiny one. He's risking someone who doesn't need to be risked,” Aleria fretted.
That only earned a snort from Durisa. “Well, it's his choice. There is something to be said about choosing them early, and the challenge he set isn't easy. Who's to say anyone from either realm will pass?”
“Still, it's reckless to use a realm merging as an event space. Not everything can be accounted for, and no one with a low grade will understand it, especially those that were departed. The future looks bleak, and a lot of gods are going to take advantage. Talzo is going to rise sharply in power, and Moreta is going to have a lot of souls at her gate.”
Durisa laughed. “My followers won't even notice at first. The forge and mine call for them, and they will be too focused on the new projects. My chosen hasn't even left his smithy in decades and is seen as more of an outcast by the other chosen. It won't be as bad as you think, Aleria. Your own power will rise quite a bit as well. An old part of this realm will be returned to its proper place. You'll also get to see Khyrie again. The beast around has been too tame in these centuries without her presence.”
Aleria sighed. “We'll just have to see.”
Aster
I ducked, lowering as close to Umbras scales as possible, and the thunk of a bird hitting my helmet at high speed sent my head vibrating. It was like we were in a cloud of black feathers. The sharp pecks and claws dug into my armor, and some even got through the suit, managing to break through to my skin, causing shallow cuts. It wasn't any real damage, but it did hurt. The notifications of multiple deaths filled the small corner of my vision and served as a reminder that I had to do my part in this fight, however small it was. Storing my bow, I looked around. Umbra's Glacial Essence skill was in full effect, and I could spot the barest specks of frost covering the tips of the wings of multiple birds. It was slowly growing but not fast enough and caused no harm. That's where I came in; none of my skills were focused on fighting a horde of small creatures, but there was one skill I had that could help. I willed Frost Control to activate and directed it to increase the amount of frost being formed on any of the bird's feathers. As this was my first time using a skill like this in combat at all, I was surprised by the steep drop in mana as a few hundred points disappeared from my pool. It felt like I'd hit a wall mentally as the drain stopped, and I let out a groan as it felt like a spike was driven into my head. I stopped my skill, blinking a sudden wave of dizziness away. I refocused, looking at the notification that had shown up in my vision.
[You have failed a mental will contest against 73 Grade 1 creatures and have suffered a skill backlash.]
As another claw sunk into my back, I reached back, grabbed the bird, and closed my hand around its body, feeling the crunch of bone, then dropped it and focused on the skill again. Seventy-three creatures were definitely over my limit. I grimaced. I hadn't known the skill would require me to contest will, whatever that meant. Focusing on the skill again, this time, I focused on the birds I could make out in front of Umbra's snout and willed the frost to grow faster on the smaller group of birds. This time, the wall I hit was much less dense, and after a long second of resistance, I felt it give then break, with a mental snap. The drain of my mana was still steep but much less, and I watched as, over a few seconds, my mana dropped down almost a fifth of its total. The effect on the birds wasn't instant, but it was rapid. Frost, which was initially just a coating on the bird's wings, crept forward, fully covering the wings of the bird like a living fog, then seeped into the skin. One by one, the birds were unable to keep in the air and dropped. It didn't outright kill any, but it put them out of the fight, and I stopped the skill, focusing it on another group.
After a third group of birds had fallen to the ground, there was a slight shift in the cloud of birds, and the sounds of screeches and caws were drowned out by Umbra’s roar. My entire body rattled, and I felt my eyes vibrate. Umbra reared up, and a moment later, her scales gained a second layer as frost formed rapidly, then turned into ice-hardening, her use of Frozen Scales skill.
Then there was a collision with what I assumed was the grade three monster, but my vision was blocked by a crow that thought my faceplate would be a good place to break its neck at high speed. Wiping away the gore and feathers, I felt my straps pulled tight as Umbra moved forward. Whatever the first exchange had been between the two, she'd come out on top. As she moved forward, she let out another breath of frost, raking it over the cluster of birds, sending all of them falling as I felt her intention to put an end to this as fast as possible. I agreed with her intuition, and as she moved forward, I returned my attention to thinning out what felt like an endless wave of birds. One hand shot out, grabbing, breaking, then dropping the birds on repeat as I half-focused on using Frost Control to keep Umbra's face clear. The act required a focus that I found hard to maintain. Each mental contest, as the system called it, felt more and more draining, and the mental wall each bird had was all the harder to break through. Over what had to be only seconds or mere minutes but felt like hours, my mana dropped below half, then down to a third. I was forced to change from groups to single birds. It was thankfully much easier, and even if it grew harder as the strain increased, I was at least able to almost keep even with my mana at that point. Dozens of birds fell every moment the work of Umbra's jaws, her tail, and my magic. There wasn't a sense of danger, and with Umbra here, I knew we were fine, but the cuts were building up, and my mana was dropping. My single-minded focus on the birds ended up being all I let myself think about. Bird after bird fell, either with a broken wing or covered in ice. It was only when Umbra's voice filled my head that I was snapped out of the trance.
“Aster, the flock is breaking up. I think the bird is trying to run.”
I blinked several times, confused, but as I turned my head and looked around, then behind me, I felt surprised and then shocked. What I'd thought of as endless waves of birds now only consisted of what had to be a hundred left.
Behind us, for a long stretch, a trail of corpses lay on the ground mixed with gouge marks and frost. Some of the birds in that line were still alive and trying to fly but were unable. I felt a pang as I looked at the destruction and shivered. It was an ominous feeling looking at what we'd achieved. Maybe there was some pride, but at the moment, I felt none of it, only a strange guilt and understanding. They were monsters and had attacked first. It was only justified.
I turned my gaze back to the big grade-three bird, getting a good look at it for the first time. It was massive, at least seven feet tall, and with a wing span twice the size. Almost made up entirely of black feathers, it was ominous in appearance and feel. At that moment, streaks of blood stained its feathers, and one of its eyes was missing, probably gouged out by Umbra’s claws. Its screeches were full of pain and anger. Umbra had done a number on it, but the beast had also managed to hurt Umbra. Through the bond, I could feel pain on her right shoulder and foreleg where the bird beak had broken a few scales and dug in, but it wasn't anywhere near life-threatening from what I could gather from the bond. There were also places all over her body where the smaller birds had managed to get under her scales and at her skin.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
As I continued my constant assault on the smaller birds, who were now starting to turn and flee, Umbra picked up her pace, determined not to let her own prey escape.
Both of us knew that passing into the next valley would be a poor idea, and doing so while fighting was an even worse idea. Drawing in another grade three could prove to be a real problem. To my surprise, the bird didn't try to escape into The sky, instead staying only a dozen feet off the ground as it fleed, its wings beating fast. Frustratingly, it was managing to gain distance. With Umbra on the ground running and covered in her frozen scales, she just couldn't keep pace. Even as the scales thawed and her wings twitched, it was hard to tell if we'd manage to make up the distance.
As I killed another bird, I took a moment to draw my bow out, speaking my idea through the bond with Umbra, who agreed with it. Pulling out my rune arrow, I started to Imbue the mana necessary as I notched It and drew it back. The lopping strides as she favored one leg were a problem, the constant up and down motion too hard to aim with, so as I felt the arrow reach its maximum mana, I signaled for Umbra to stop moving as she slid to a stop. The bird was just over what I guessed was two hundred feet away, not the hardest shot, but not easy with only a moment to aim.
Letting the string loose, I watched the arrow sail in an ark, grinning, but felt my mind wander as a memory almost out of the blue filled my thoughts. Even without trees from that memory, watching the arrow move toward its target reminded me of my first time using a bow.
Growing up with wolves had taught me to track prey, sneak up on creatures and ambush them. The thing was, tactics like that only went so far without the skills wolves and their pup had. At the time, I didn't have teeth or claws that could give a quick kill. As a child, realizing that I couldn't do what others around me could was something I'd struggled to understand and had only come to terms with after countless hours of trying to chase down deer and rabbits, biting and jumping. Looking back at those memories, I felt a lot of embarrassment at them but also joy at what had come after. When Kulni met with me after I so childishly gave up ever hunting again, she had recommended I use a bow. I'd been less than receptive, but she was my mother, so I'd tried to use the old wooden relic. It had been oversized in my hands and way too big, but notching the arrow and shooting at the target on the tree had felt the same as breathing in the scent of the forest. It had been natural, not that I was any good to start off.
Making my own bow, the very bow I was still using now, had added to that perspective in a way I couldn't explain. It was something only me and my mom could do, not any of the pack, and she'd spent years teaching me to use it.
Now, at the start of a dungeon, watching the rune arrow I had crafted explode in a cloud of sharp shards and frost as it impacted the bird's back, I realized, in a way, I felt that same feeling again. Being here with Umbra and using my bow just felt right.
As fast as the memory had appeared in my thoughts, it passed, and I felt the wind in my face as Umbra did her best to catch up to the bird that was coated in a thick layer of frost that, even now, was starting to melt. The arrow proved to be enough. Without the bird getting any distance off the ground and slowed, Umbra was able to catch up before it left the valley. As she did, the flock of birds that had dispersed reappeared from all sides but now without nearly as many numbers. As I killed off the small birds, Umbra relentlessly ripped apart the grade three. Once she had closed the gap, she had reared back onto her back legs in an impressive half leap forward, slightly spreading out her wings and, using her foreclaws, snagged the bird, pulling it to the ground and didn't let it get up.
The Black Ravanger had tried to squirm out, running its talons down Umbra's side. Its attack managed to break a few scales; it even glowed for a second, its movements speeding up, but Umbra overpowered it in strength by a large margin, and she was determined not to let it go. As she held it in place, Umbra separated her jaws and let loose a jet of frost straight at the bird's body. It screeched, a sound full of pain before Umbra moved her head up, leading the frost to cover its face. It wasn't pretty or fast, a mix of suffocation, freezing, and more claw strikes from Umbra, but eventually, one of the death notifications was it's own.
[Your bind has killed a Black Beak Ravager Mother - Dungeon Monster - Level 132]
At the same time of its death, the birds around it scattered again, some flying up into the sky and some aiming back into the valley. For a moment, we were both quite beside, and so was the valley other than the deep breaths from Umbra. After a second, she leaned down, rooting around as she parted the feathers of the monster while she spoke.
“A grade three core will be a nice snack.”
I smiled down, and then I turned my attention to the next few notifications. I skimmed past the other kill notifications, picking out the ones I cared about. In total, four of the notifications stood out to me, partly because they were purple instead of blue, thanks to the Progenitor System Sheet skill, and as I looked over them, I couldn't hide my glee in the bond.
[Through practice and feathers, Frost Control has increased to rank 6]
[Race Class: Progenitor Beast Kin has increased in level to 82]
[Second Class: Bonded Ranger has increased in level to level 82]
[Archery has reached level 10 and is eligible for an evolution. Notice experience can not be gained in the skill until it has evolved]
I couldn't help but think that the feeling earlier must have been related in a way. Half shrugging, I undid my straps, putting the advancement off until later. Looking over all of the corpses, I went to the nearest grade one and pulled out my knife. I opened it up. I wasn't surprised to find a lack of a core, which meant that either they were creatures, not monsters, or some form of a summon.
Wrinkling my brows, I turned to Umbra and listened to a sound like glass shattering as she ate the core. Putting the pieces of the monster together, I came up with an idea of what was going on. I spoke my thoughts aloud as I started to pick up the bodies.
“The monster never went more than a dozen feet off the ground or so, neither did the other now that I think about it, but they were birds. The smaller birds were hardly above a level ten at max, but they were all grade one. It would make sense if the Black Beak Ravager Mother was some kind of summon class. It explains the lack of cores, but I don't get why they didn't try to fly away higher.”
Umbra tilted her head as she looked at the large bird “Summons? I remember you reading to me about a person who could create ghosts who fought one who could create golems. But they disappeared when they died, why didn't they?”
I tilted my head side to side, then shrugged. “The grade three wasn't that strong, but it had a lot of birds helping it. Maybe it was some kind of mental control skill? Either way, the small birds don't have cores, but they do have meat on them and some good feathers for arrows, and so does the big bird. I don't think we should let many of the bodies go to waste.”
I hardly knew anything about summons and the races or classes that created them, but fighting a small horde of creatures was a problem for me. Without Umbra, I would have been tree fertilizer.
We collected the bodies, and on the way back to the camp, I mentioned my gain in levels. I was happy to hear Umbra had gained a level as well, bringing her up to a straight eighty. There had to be at least two hundred low-level grade ones, but even splitting the experience of a grade three, I couldn't help but realize that the journey to a grade three would be a long one, even in a high-level dungeon like this.