Ch #16

The Ashen Mountains

Rolling away from the charging mountain of flesh, Kai cast a fireball with a desperate scream for the umpteenth time. He'd seen the thing crush a freaking tree with its charge.

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Rank-1 (Kindled)

Race: Sylvan Tusk-breaker

Core: Silver

Attributes: {Stone tusks}; {Mighty resistance}

Abilities: {Arboreal Rampage}

Revered as caretakers of sacred groves, these creatures are both symbols of untamed wilderness and essential protectors of the forest's delicate balance. Encounters with them demand a delicate dance between reverence and caution, as their ethereal tusks resonate with the life force of the ancient trees.

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He needed to hold its attention. He'd thought it was safe. "Damn it! Charge here, you oversized swine on steroids!" He'd gotten overconfident. The monstrous boar smashed into the large tree, going past where Kai had been standing mere moments before. The tree barely resisted, its trunk splintering from the force. It had already made a small clearing in the forest!

The fireball he'd cast only lightly scorched its hide. Why had he thought he could take it on? Just because he'd managed to kill a few Rank-1 monsters before didn't mean he could kill any monster at will!

"Come here, you..." He couldn't even taunt the creature before it charged at him again, not even dazed after crashing into the massive tree, showing off its arboreal rampage in its full glory. "Damn it!" Kai dived away again, as he'd done many times already, hiding behind another tree.

The necklace was already close to empty. Patches upon patches of its fur had been scorched, but its hide gave him no purchase. He'd have to try something else...

"This monster has one hell of a keen sense of smell..." Kai moved away from behind the tree, moving between the trees, still in sight of the monster, careful not to lose its attention. Kai cursed under his breath. "It would have been so easy to run away in the cover of the trees."

Another tree toppled as he moved away from in front of the beast. A boulder! A small raised boulder half-buried in the soil, a distance away from them. He'd have to make do with it... "Come here, big fat swine!" A fireball to its snout angered it greatly. It charged at him with reckless abandon. How such a massive body gained so much speed was beyond him, but it was time for him to try out his new spell.

He'd been thinking greatly after he had fought the Acnionyx. The beast had dodged his attacks, again and again, its fast movements and reaction time greatly troubling him. He'd won that with trickery, but he couldn't hope to do that every time.

A fast instantaneous spell... Not too wide-ranged, but compact, cutting through like the slicing effect of a sharp blade. A wind blade... Kai moved towards the boulder, sprinting. The Tusk-breaker gained on him, smashing through all that came in its way.

Right as the beast was about to catch up to him, Kai dived to the side. Drawing great amounts of mana from his necklace, nearly emptying it, he cast a massive wind blade towards its short, stubby front legs. Slice.

The blade struck true, slicing the ligaments on its front legs, bucking it. Crash. The massive boulder cracked, its front shattering upon impact. The boar had come in head first, and its momentum was too great. The thing had caved its own head in...

Kai walked back to the trees almost limping, berating himself, "Tuck and roll, you fool..." He'd strained his legs on the last dive. "Lumi, come down now."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Is it gone?" The girl climbed down a tree just a bit far from the splintered trees scattered all around the artificial clearing.

"Better. It's dead."

**break**

Kai sat his aching body in front of the campfire, the dark expanse of the forest under-story lit up by its flames. He tended to the gently swaying fire, lost deep in thought.

The forest was too quiet. It had been so from the moment he'd found himself here. He had chalked it up to the strangeness of this world at first. In fact, they had been very lucky with how few monsters had come upon them in the forest. After the first monster—the big dog Kai had burned to death—they had encountered only four more such monsters: a pair of wolves, a bear, and today's haul, a giant boar. The size of the forest, though, warranted a lot more activity. This was unnatural, and he was growing increasingly anxious due to it.

Was he being paranoid? He didn't know. The mana around him was calm, showing no signs of distress it usually did when he was about to be in danger. He couldn't complain, though; maybe he was just lucky? As if that were true. He rolled his eyes. Kai was in no condition to fight so frequently. His body ached from the intense burden he'd placed upon it today.

Many things had gone wrong today. They had chanced upon the wild boar in the forest while Kai had been trying out a new spell to cast. The first was that his fireballs had been rendered useless by the boar's resistance to such damage.

Then, his trusty artifact, Epoch, had almost run out of mana in the middle of the fight. He needed to gain access to more mana. It was a big hole in his repertoire...

And finally, the kid... Kai had moved Lumi to a treetop before the fight and paid dearly for that choice. He'd had to shout like a monkey and rain fire upon it to keep its attention on him. He had no doubt that if he'd left its range, it would sniff out the girl and charge straight at the tree she was upon.

While he was engrossed in thought, the little girl was engrossed in eating. The meat was too hot for her to hold, yet she bit away at it anyway, unable to hold herself back. "Is it tasty? You look like you could eat the whole thing by yourself!" Kai teased.

Lumi wiped her oily mouth with the hem of her dress, smiling. She could not bother to wait to swallow her food, talking while chewing. "Mhm, It's very tasty... but it's too hot!"

Kai laughed at her visage. "You need to learn some manners." Lumi hadn't heard him at all.

"You should try it too, big brother!" She said, stuffing her little mouth with more. "It's so good..."

"I will, let me rest a bit." The one good thing was that he'd gotten to try out his new spell, wind blade. He'd been trying to combine different symbols to create more spells that suited his needs, but most symbols he knew were basic and required lots of testing before having any real power. The light spell was just the light symbol itself, and the barrier spell was now looking like a fluke. This was the first spell he'd made through such trial and error.

Kai took a piece of meat from the fire and blew on it. Taking a bite, he enjoyed the flavorful meat. Something like this would've cost him a fortune on Earth... Thinking about Earth soured his mood a little. It was already over half a month since he left Earth if he were to include the time he was in the trial.

He'd get a move on early. Tomorrow they would be at the base of the mountain, and if lucky, they would surely come upon people. Civilization meant knowledge. His way to become kindled and return to his world... And Lumi's too. It was time to tell her about the world she was in and how she'd gotten here. He wasn't sure of a lot of things, and he would hide a lot of things from the girl too, but it was better than her learning these, way later or from someone else. There was also the matter of her safety and the truth of her race. A lot of things to consider. Maybe tell her in a few days?

The sun hadn't risen yet, and the western sky was starting to brighten up. It was time to head out.

Kai and Lumi had walked for some time toward the gray monolith in the distance. "Big brother, my legs hurt..."

"Come on, we're almost there. We'll rest at the foot of the mountain." Kai encouraged, cutting the shrubs and bushes with his makeshift knife. The forest had gotten denser...

"I can't! My legs feel like jelly." the girl cried. He'd been pampering her too much. "Alright, come on. Up, up, here we go." Taking her on his shoulder, he trekked on, careful not to trip.

The forest canopy did nothing to hide the majesty of the Ashen mountains. Clouds rolled down its slopes and dense fog covered its base. As they trekked through the dark silent forest, fog started to cover their surroundings. It was as if blinds had been pulled over his eyes, even the colors he could see were too dim to make out. Kai felt like passing through something. Stunned, he looked at the scene in front of him.

The crisp morning air wrapped around him as he stood at the base of the majestic mountain, his gaze fixed upward. The mountain, a stoic giant, loomed against the canvas of the dawn sky, its peaks kissed by the first rays of sunlight. It soared into the heavens, its slopes adorned with a tapestry of lush greenery and rocky outcrops unbefitting of its Ashen name. The sheer magnitude of the towering cliffs left Kai in awe, a mere mortal contemplating the grandeur of nature's masterpiece.

"Woah! It's so pretty..." Lumi took in the view with her eyes wide.

"It is isn't it " kai whispered, barely audible.

The forest around them also took on a more vibrant look, the trees far taller. And unlike the forest outside, the forest on the slope was far from silent. A symphony of nature enveloped her senses. The gentle rustle of leaves overhead, the trees whispering secrets to each other in the language of the wind. The chorus of bird songs filled the air, each species contributing its unique melody to the enchanting cacophony.

They had made it to the Ashen Mountains.

***An AI image for my readers***

[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/55/3f/09/553f091851b494a93211a835ca6c673c.jpg]