Chapter 6 I’m the terror that stalks the night
Klint had finished most of his armor by the time the sun set it took five pools of essence to complete his chest and one pool for each of his thighs all that was left was his head. As he was running waiting for his essence pool to fill back up he realized he hadn’t seen one monster since the sun went down. He’d been running for about an hour uninterrupted now and that was strange. Before he couldn’t run this long without seeing at least two monsters. He had made it into an area where there was a lot more high desert pine trees. These trees were huge though. Easily 15 stories high. Out of nowhere a giant possum darted out from a tree lunging at Klint. Its speed was fast, faster than anything he had come across so far. But still no match for Klint with his essence armor on.
He dodged left and summoned his sword. The silver blade glinting in the moonlight. The possum struck out with its claws, but Klint block it. Another attack came from the possums other clawed paw and this time Klint was forced to dodge. The possum was huge its shoulders standing well over head height on Klint.
Klint turned and ran headed for a tree the possum was right behind him. He jumped and planted one foot on the tree his boots digging in allowing for three more steps up before he jumped off turning midair to slash down at the possum that had started climbing the tree behind him.
Klint split the possum from head to tail opening it up like a baked potato. He unfortunately was then covered in foul blood and gore. Thankfully it all started to evaporate off of him as it turned to smoky black essence. This essence hit him stronger than anything he had come across so far. This felt like honey where everything else felt like water. And the sheer quantity was overwhelming. Not nearly enough to fill his spirit but 5 or 6 of them would do it.
Before he could finish relishing the fight and subsequent essence Klint was set upon by five massive spiders two came down from the trees at his ten o’clock and two o’clock two more at his four o’clock and six o’clock and the fifth at his eight o’clock. They made no move to advance on him. Klint wasn’t scared of the spiders, He was totally freaked out by them. Spiders were a huge phobia of his before the shadow realm and he hasn’t gotten over it with the appearance of five spiders the size of a VW bug.
They all stared each other off no one moving an inch. They all knew this was going to be a tough fight. Klint grabbed his essence and formed his mask over his head and face. That amplified his already amplified perception through his spirit sense. But more than just father range or “seeing” more clearly which it did do both of those things, no it also gave Klint a feel for what level each of the spiders was. As it sat all five were a quarter way through the second phase. Where if Klint wanted to he could push into the second phase right now.
Klint feinted to the left and then jumped twenty-five feet to his right clear over number 4 o’clock. Just as his feet left the ground web struck right where he was. Good thing Klint's spirit sense detected in three dimensions and not just two. Klint had seen the first five were just a diversion so number 6 (not to be confused with number 6. o’clock) could get in above him and tangle him with its webs. Klint saw it coming through and wasn’t a fan of that plan.
Four o’clock was closest and came after him, Klint hopped forward with new speed now that his full armor was complete. Klint took off all the legs on the right side of number four o’clock, then rushed at two o’clock but was cut off by number six and the new web it shot at him Klint blocked it with his sword, but number 6 pulled hard and disarmed Klint. Just before the sword left his fingers, he banished it. The other four spiders rushed in and Klint jumped to avoid them then he kept off a tree at number 6. Not that he had literally a moment he could see the size of number 6 and it was more like mommy spider. The thing was massive. “Well, that’s just going to be every nightmare I ever have again.”
If the other spiders were VW bugs, then this one was a house on the good side of town. Despite mommy spiders' size she was slow. Klint summoned his sword again and hacked off one of mommy spiders legs. It shrieked an ear piercing awful shriek that sent the baby spiders into a frenzy. They suddenly got faster and note Klint was barely able to dodge.
One jumped at him with legs splayed open. They were going to trounce him, so Klint moved in on that one and cut it in half, mommy spider shot more webs at Klint, and he dodged again looking at the three remaining little spiders they were tapping him in webbing off all of his exits. All of their moves had herded him to stay in the area they wanted him even the first spider that he cut half the legs off of had regrown its legs and had been working without being noticed to seal him in. The mommy spider would shoot her web when it thought Klint was going to run.
Beneath Klint's mask he smiled. He came to a stop and so did the spiders, Klint spoke to them not knowing if they could understand. “You messed up. Note you’re trapped in here with a monster. I’m the terror that stalks the night, wait is that how that goes?” The spiders stopped stopping and started their attacks again. “Hey that was rude I wasn’t done.” Klint said sourly as he hadn’t spoken to anyone but himself in the last 3 or four days and found it kinda nice to talk even if it was to a creature trying to kill him.
Klint didn’t care for the spiders *traptics* and he flipped the mental switch on his essence pool to empower his attributes. His speed and strength doubled along with his reflexes and ability to process information. Suddenly the spiders were moving in slow motion. Klint was a blur to them legs and body parts flying spiders dying before they knew what hit them then the mom spider was falling all of its legs cut off and a small hole being opened up in its head getting larger by the second until it too died.
Klint turned off his essence boost and his whole body started aching in pain boosting like that took a heavy toll on his body and Klint could hardly move. He summoned one water bottle to his hand and started to drink. The recovery was slow, much slower than he had been used too. Apparently, the water losses potency either by distance or time. Since Klint was hoping his storage ability can suspend time he was hoping for distance. “Yup distance for the win, or loss I suppose.”
Then like a Mac truck hit him and then backed up and parked on him the essence rushed in filling his spirit. He had felt the smaller spider's essence as he killed them and while they were thick like the possum each one was slightly less than the possum. The big spider's essence was massive and took him from one third full to full instantly.
Getting up with some pain Klint grabbed all the silver the spiders dropped. The big spider dropped twenty bigger silver piece’s and that wasn’t all. Two swirling clouds of essence were condensing and starting to take shape. One former a pair of pants and another formed a long sleeve shirt. “That’s nice, my shirt is little more than a few tattered strips of cloth by this point and my pants are ripped and dirty. Hopefully these will be more durable.”
The material seemed to be made out of the spider's web but more the durable silk like web and not the sticky, I'm going to liquify your guts and drink them web.
Thinking of durability Klint looked and saw he still had all of his essence armor. Then replaying the fight, no…fights he had just had first with the possum then the six eight legged freaks. He hadn’t taken one hit. That was a far cry from when he fought the goblins and the hob goblin. Killing cycled the short and pants into his storage then he took off his shirt and pants throwing them away and equipped the new clothes.
This changed his Essence armor again; it went from looking more mid evil knight to now an anti hero super suit. He still has the spikes and horns on the pauldrons and boots, but everything was a bit sleeker now.
As Klint looked around he saw the webs the spiders had shot were still there, they hadn’t disappeared with the spiders. That was a first for Klint. Viewing this as an opportunity to channel without being disturbed Klint stated to meditate. He started by imagining his soul scape making a physical manifestation of the interior of his soul.
Then he imagined all of his attributes in a physical form, in this case he imagined each of them as soccer ball sized orbs. He then filled them with all the essence that he had channeled up to this point and each orb was at sixty percent full. “I knew it, I knew a lot more could be added.” Klint then formed a pool for the un channeled essence that was in his spirit.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Dividing it up evenly he sent it all into each orb. He could see and feel as each orb filled. His strength and speed became greater his mana pool and essence pool became deeper and were refilling faster. The essence he took in brought him from sixty percent to eighty five percent. One more double feature fight like that and he would be completely full. But Klint thought he could over stuff his cores and was unwilling to leave any scrap of power on the table.
What Klint didn’t expect was how hard it was to keep his body from phasing up. But as hard as it was Klint was going to make his foundation as strong and wide as possible. If his cores could take more, no way was he going to breakthrough to the next phase without filling it fully. Over the next three days Klint traveled by day and hunted by night only resting during dawn and dusk. Monsters that came out during the night seemed to be higher level and granted him better essence. He never encountered another mom spider or spider pack like he did the first night, at most were two of the smaller varieties. When he finally reached Virginia City it was already night.
He began roaming the streets heading in the general direction of his home. Everything looked decayed by time metal was rusted and the pavement was largely broken apart with bushes growing out of the cracks. The buildings and houses were run down some with fire damage some caved in all had organic growth over it. No monsters came out yet and Klint started to get a bad feeling. Now with more haste he ran to his house. Klint saw it was still intact but like all the other houses it had a lot of growth over it. He ran through searching every room. Nothing was in it except furniture and all the cushions and fabrics were badly decayed.
Klint found no reason for the bad omen he felt and decided to push his perception to the max. Over the last three days Klint had learned to control how far his perception went with his “sight” boosted twice one by mana one by essence then boosted again by his armor. He found if he kept it to two hundred feet he could see everything perfectly, but if he pushed it out farther than that it was too much to take everything in. He could focus on certain things but it would start to give him a headache. That was why he needed to control the distance. His max was currently a half a mile in every direction and Klint was trying to find the source of his worries.
During the last 3 nights Klint had filled his core to 100% full and was about to let his body transition to phase 2 but he had some left over essence and wanted to *test* if he was actually at 100% to his pain he found out that no he wasn’t and he was able to stretch all of his orbs to practically double in size this included his essence pool and mana pool along with their regeneration. Another surprise he found was that it took very little essence and mana to maintain his armor and it seemed to be climate controlled. He never got too hot or too cold in it.
Finally, his senses picked up some movement about 2000 ft away with all the speed he could muster without boosting Klint took off. As he ran, he pulled back his senses to 200ft but kept part of it on the location he felt movement, doing it like this reduced the chances of an information overload. As he got to 1000ft away he could start to make out the strength of the monsters and most of them were middle to upper phase 2. That wouldn’t be an issue for Klint but there was one problem, the sheer number of the monsters was maddening. Everything in that area was moving and as he got closer the more of them appeared. Hundreds maybe even close to a thousand monsters were in that area.
Klint started to think about not engaging with a group of that size but then he felt something new, something he hasn’t felt before. It was another person. And they were trying to get away, but the monsters were too numerous and kept coming. Klint was finally in range and saw what he was facing for the first time. It was a plague of zombies. Oh, but these weren’t your average walkers no these were fast. “Well, they are fast adjacent, hard to be fast when you have missing limbs or decomposing muscles.”
****
Emily Finally made it to VC it took her nearly twenty days and she only was able to get a little stronger. The monsters during the day started to come in packs which made it harder for her to get any kills with her makeshift weapons. So, unless she found a favorable location to fight or there was only one monster, she chose to avoid the fight and keep moving. This also had the side effect of slowing her down even more.
When she got to VC, she went door to door and in almost every house, but it was like no one ever actually lived there. The only things in the houses and buildings were furniture and they weren’t even suitable to sit on or sleep in. She did end up clearing out a house and fortifying it during the days though. She got caught out at night her first night there and had to run back into the desert to get away.
That caused problems in itself because she wasn’t strong enough to face the monsters of the night, but she could get away from them easier and had more time to rest between. The zombies however were a right plague. She had no hope of facing them. She thought it was strange no monster came in the town during the day but now she figured it was due to the monsters that owned VC
Even still Emily saw this as a good opportunity to get stronger. She could stay in VC during the night in a fortified house and then go out during the day choosing her battles. Everything was going fine until she lost track of time and had gone too far away. She made it back to VC just after the monsters came out at night, she still had a little way to go to get to her house but figured she would try and sneak there. That’s when she realized that wasn’t going to happen. The zombies had cut off her escape route and seemed to be herding her like cattle to the center of town. Unfortunately, she had no way to get past and had to follow their openings.
Just as she was cornered and had nowhere left to run Emily saw a creature fiercer than anything she had seen yet, it was a blur to her eyes slicing up zombies with a shinning silver sword, the sword itself looks almost as big as the thing that wielded it. Whatever this creature was it was keeping the zombies from attacking her. She wondered if it was just going to save her for last. Then she finally got a good look at it. Tall and well muscled, its shins and shoulders had golden spikes on them. And the streaks of gold across the back and chest. This thing looked like a demon.
Not that Emily had ever seen a real demon. “But if they exist, I will bet money that this is what they look like.” Then the demon appeared right in front of her and spoke in a deep gravelly voice. “Why are you not fighting, you’re just standing there, did you lose your weapon? Or are you a bare knuckle brawler? Emily was shaken, she was terrified this creature would come after her next and those eyes, nothing human could have eyes like that. But she couldn’t help but be mesmerized by them. “Well?”
Emily shook her head and croaked out. “My gun ran out of ammo almost a month ago, I’ve been trying to survive ever since.”
The creature then said to her “have you ever used a sword?” But before she could answer he was gone and more zombies started dying. She was so caught up in her fear and awe of the creature she lost track of how close the zombies were getting. But the creature seemed to be able to kill them with ease and created a large enough space it felt it could come back and talk again.
It spoke to her. “Sword, can you use one?” It barked
“Yes”
“Good, do you have shelter nearby?”
“Yes”
“If I open up a way out what direction should that be and can you move fast enough, we won’t lead them to it?”
“That way, and yes I’ve been putting what essence I get into my speed.”
The creature raised its free hand and summoned a sword out of thin air, a katan. And it was beautiful with a milk chocolate scabbard and milk chocolate hand wrap. “Can you use this?” The creature asked. Emily grabbed the katana and smiled so big the grinch would be jealous. Emily replied “Like it was made for me. But with a weapon I don’t need to run anymore.”
***
Klint had fought nearly a hundred zombies to get to where the person was, and they just kept coming. The zombies had them cornered and were about to get to them when Klint decided. “If now isn’t the right situation to use this then what is?” Klint flipped his essence switch, and the world slowed down. He was a blur to the zombies easily dispatching them body parts flying from every swing of his blade. When he finally opened up enough space he ran to them. He realized a little too late that they couldn’t keep up with his full speed and to them it must look like he just appeared right in front of her.
That was another thing. It was a woman. He didn’t know what he expected but he definitely didn’t expect it to be a woman. And if she wasn’t covered in filth and grime Klint would say she was an attractive woman, small and petite with medium to long dark brown hair. Here she was the only person he’d seen in almost a week, and he had probably just scared the crap out of her.
He looked at her more closely, “I did scare the crap out of her, she’s terrified.” With all his effort he slowed down his speech and asked. “Why are you not fighting, you’re just standing there, did you lose your weapon? Or are you a bare knuckle brawler? Great that’s what he said to her. Of all the stupid ways. she was visibly shaking now. Then after she was just standing there not speaking, he said “well” as if that was going to make it better.
Then she shook her head and spoke. She said she used a gun. “Well, she is a woman’s defending herself with a gun is logical. I wished for my fun when I first got to the shadow realm. But I now know that wouldn’t have made surviving almost impossible and she’s been weapon less for almost a month. “Have you ever used a sword?” But then he saw that the zombies were getting close again and sprang back into action he needed to hurry and get them out of there. He didn’t have very long before his boosts left him totally spent and writhing in pain. But where would he take her?
Then he thought maybe she has somewhere near here. “If I can open us up a path and she has a place nearby.” He finished pushing the zombies back again and went back over to the woman. Klint only had five minutes at most left with his boosts and he had no idea how far they needed to go to get away from these zombies. This conversation needs to hot fast so bare minimum on words for now.
“Sword, can you use one?”
She said yes, clear and concise no mucking about. That’s exactly what he needed.
“Good, do you have shelter nearby?”
Again, her answer was yes. She seemed to understand he was in a hurry so that was good.
“If I open up a way out what direction should that be and can you move fast enough, we won’t lead them to it?”
She pointed to a direction and of course it would be through the thickest part of the plague.
Klint raised his off hand and summoned his katana, he knew she needed to use it but he was reluctant to let it go. Especially after she took the sword and said it was made for her. And her smile when he handed it to her, it was like a fat kid was given the key to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and said you can stay up late and eat all the candy you want. She did understand he was only letting her use it because of the situation, right? That katana was his and had allowed him to grow strong.
Then she said she wanted to stop running and fight, didn’t she realize that wasn’t an option. It would have been if he didn’t have to boost to save her life but now, he was on a timer, and it was running out.