“He’s but I forgot the name.”
“What tier is he?” Elijah said as he glanced at Erik who began snoring. Aric snorted as he looked at his friend. “He’s Tier 7. It took him years to reach that level though. He’ll turn 30 this Moonrise.”
They continued to talk for an hour before they decided to continue their delve.
Chapter Begin
“Is everyone ready?” Erik said as he stretched and let out a yawn.
Elijah took his mace and stood behind his minion. They decided to let the minion exit the dome first to see if there were any monsters outside.
Erik put his palm against the side of the dome they were facing and caused the wall to crumble into pieces. Small clouds of smoke rose as the minion stepped out of their cover. They waited for a minute before their group followed the minion outside.
Elijah put his hand on the wood around the earthen dome and sent his mana into it as he stepped outside to try and create a second minion. He was pleasantly surprised when it worked. Small golden eyes formed on a branch as the minion was about to form its body from the surrounding wood but Elijah hurriedly stopped the transformation. The minion obeyed and traveled onto his arm before vanishing in Elijah’s sleeve as he took his hand off the wood and followed the others. Never hurts to have an ace up your sleeve. He tried not to grin at his own joke.
The attacks of mushrooms continued for another half an hour before a new type of monster appeared.
“Bats of all things,” Aric grumbled as he shot down several monsters with one shot. Elijah gagged as he thought of the berries he and Erik had eaten a few hours ago before Kael scolded the two for their carelessness. They were lucky that the berries hadn’t been poisonous.
“Relax Elijah,” Erik patted his shoulder. “I’m sure we didn’t eat bats.” Aric and Kael laughed as more berries turned into bats of all colors.
“I hate this rift.” Elijah groaned as the bats tried to bite him. While the others were constantly jumping around to avoid being bitten, the monsters were too weak to bite through his wooden skin. Apart from Elijah only Kael was somewhat protected thanks to the veil of flames covering him. While the bats had a certain resistance to fire too, they the little monsters preferred to attack Aric and Erik, since their unprotected skin made a tasty and easier target.
Fortunately, the bats only seemed to be interested in defending their territory and left the group alone as soon as they ran far enough away under constant bites.
They rested for a few minutes after leaving the berry bats' territory behind to recover from their accumulated wounds. Aric took out a small vial filled with a bilious green fluid which he gulped down before he passed another vial to Erik and Kael. The fluid seemed to accelerate their healing as Elijah could see several of their wounds heal as soon as they drank the liquid. Aric offered Elijah a vial too but he declined since he didn’t need one.
A few minutes later they entered an entirely new part of the forest. The trees seemed to be twice as big and had fewer branches than the previous ones the group passed. The colors were also more uniform, the trunks being different shades of green and brown, with the leaves all red and yellow. It reminded Elijah of autumn.
“Looks like someone put two completely different forests next to each other,” Kael muttered as they all looked over to the part of the forest they came from. “Weird.”
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Elijah glanced at the separation a few seconds longer and turned around to follow the others before he leaped away as a huge monster crashed through multiple trees. He could hear the shouts of the trio as he pulled himself up the branch of a nearby tree, his minion Root remaining on the ground.
From above Elijah had a better view and his eyes widened as he stared at the huge snake in front of him. A loud hiss verberated through the forest as his group began fighting against the monster. He could see a few of Aric’s arrows bounce off the mossy green scales as the beast tried to swallow them whole.
Seeing his minion clinging to the beast shook him awake and he set out to help them. The fight was moving away from him, deeper into the new part of the forest. Elijah jumped off the tree and stormed toward the snake, leaping a few feet into the air. He landed on the monster and joined his minion. With his mace, Elijah began to beat on the scales.
While the monster didn’t react to the minion’s punches, it began thrashing the moment Elijah’s first strike landed on it. Its’ attempts at throwing off the enemies on its back were successful as Elijah and Root fell after they had delivered a few more strikes.
Root was crushed under the snake’s weight while Elijah rolled away to avoid being squashed. He could see earthen spikes impaling the snake from below while Kael tried to drown its head in fire.
The snake jerkily stopped defending itself after a few minutes and twitched a few more times before it stopped moving. Elijah's fist left one last dent in the snake's side before he and Root ran to the others. When the two reached the monster's head, Elijah could see the reason for its death. Aric had attacked the monster's eyes with arrows until he managed to bore through the left eye.
“What a monster!” Erik took a few steps to the side and looked at the monster's body in its entirety. “There could be more of these silent giants.”
Kael groaned. “Be careful what you say. You are asking for trouble!”
“There’s another one!” Elijah pointed to a tree twenty feet away from them where he could see the green scales of a second snake reflect the sunlight. It was as massive as the first one and their group readied themselves before the monster reached them.
Elijah pulled himself up as the snake began crawling toward them. The others also leaped away when the snake shot forward and buried its teeth into a nearby tree. Elijah lunged forward, trying to encase its teeth in wood but the beast ignored his attempt and focused on Kael.
Kael had the lowest physical attributes of their group and struggled to evade the snake’s bites while a constant stream of fire shot out of his hands. Elijah’s arm shot forward and he pulled the pyromancer away while the man continued his attack on the beast.
Before the snake could follow, Root came crashing down on its head. On Elijah’s orders, the minion jumped off a branch and used its weight to hurt the beast. It somewhat worked as the snake needed a few seconds to come to again. During these seconds, it began mindlessly thrashing around and sent Aric and Erik flying as both of them were too near to the beast.
Elijah copied the minion’s tactic and landed on the same spot. The snake’s head slammed into the ground again, leaving it dizzy. The maneuver was much more effective as Elijah was several times heavier than his minion. The beast’s movements slowed down after that attack and their group eventually managed to kill the beast.
“My whole body aches.” Erik groaned as he kicked the dead monster. “Can’t even eat this sucker.”
Kael snorted, getting revenge for the comments Erik made before. “At least Root didn’t get hurt.”
Their group continued their delve and encountered a few more snakes before Aric reached Tier 3. The archer got more than double the attribute points he had at Tier 2 and picked a new perk that added more penetrating power to his arrows. Elijah only realized the differences in strength when the man took care of a snake with a single shot through its eye. The arrow impaled the snake’s head and stopped when the tip came out of the other side again.
“Damn!” Erik exclaimed as they all looked at the dead monster.
“I am astonished,” Kael added with a glint in his eyes. “I am almost Tier 3 as well.”
“The difference is amazing,” Elijah agreed.
A few hours later they arrived at a huge meadow. The amount of snakes lessened significantly over the last hour and they hadn’t met a single one during the last twenty minutes.
While Elijah became more relaxed with the decrease of enemies, the trio seemed to be on edge the deeper they went into the rift. He threw glances at each of them as no one said a word.
He learned why when they stepped onto the meadow.
The earth beneath his feet trembled and Elijah gulped as the realization set in. A humongous snake that dwarved the others buried out of the ground in front of them and let out a deafening hiss.
“Fuck.” Kael muttered before they started running away.