I throw myself to the side, boosting away just in time to avoid the massive flat foot of the creature above me. My spear swings around, slicing through scaled flesh. The wound isn’t deep, but the beast still screeches with fury.

I reorient in midair to thrust the blade directly through the upper joint of a rear leg. A combination of a thousand microbursts through my upper body, and the clear flame brimming forth from the tip of my spear carries it through flesh and bone without resistance. The thrust is so effective I don’t even bother to pull back. I just allow my body to carry past the leg thrice my size and tug my weapon from the other side.

Upon landing on the jagged rocky surface, I gasp for breath. Feeling no relief, my flames explode outward, feeding me what little air they can latch onto. I can handle the thin air far better than I used to, but it is still a struggle, particularly when I have to expend energy, as is required in battles like this.

The peluda turns to face me, hissing with venom as drool dribbles through its bared fangs and sizzles away at the rock where it lands. The large lizard is about as big as my team’s cabin back in the pact nations. It’s one of the more dangerous beasts of the Middle Elevation. Despite not having access to the landscape changing elemental manipulation abilities of some other beasts like the dahu, its rapid speed and vicious bite place it in a danger class of its own.

Not to mention those spikes.

The peluda dashes toward me, completely unfazed by its now limp rear leg. My aim was better than I expected, but such a strike is unfortunately not as effective on this beast as it might against others. Long spikes growing from its spine spread out and strike into the ground. They act like extra limbs, and the lizard uses them to throw its massive body toward me with frightening speed.

I leap away, explosions in my leg giving me a needed initial boost before my thrust accelerates me out of the way. My dodge was perfect, but that damn long neck of the peluda along with the spikes changing its course in reaction brings it just close enough for its maw to rip through my leg.

It gets a mouthful of my hottest flame along with a whack of my spear on its head, but it hardly reacts to either. The scales on its head are much harder than the rest of its body. And of course, the beast’s scales are resistant to fire even as hot as mine.

Acidic saliva burns as bad as water. The first time I’d faced one of these beasts, I’d treated it with far too little respect. After all, it’s a fleshy being without the benefit of being a water mage or having the sheer energy Kalma had. How could it possibly pose that much of a problem? I soon found out how stupid that was.

Well, I’m not about to give it another opportunity. My leg grows back almost instantly. It hurt, sure, but the knowledge that a perfect dodge is still not fast enough pains me more. As many months as I’ve been here, and I’m no closer to taking on the Upper Elevation.

Kiko’s requirement to allow me to end my confinement was to be strong enough to rise to the Upper Elevation of the Titan Alps. That would be fine, if not for his requirement to let me even attempt the climb; I have to beat each of the common mid beasts without receiving a single hit in return. At first, I thought that would be easy. I breezed through the early fights. But with each beast he sent me after, it only became more daunting of a task. And now, I’m stuck on a creature that has too great a reaction speed that I can’t get the jump on, nor am I fast enough to run from. Not to mention how difficult they are to find.

I kick my regrown leg at the peluda as it closes in for another bite. Thankfully, the beast mustn’t have expected the limb to come back so quick, as my boot slaps the top of its head and pushes me away just enough so I can collect myself before going back in.

I’ll need to thank Yalun for the changes she made to my snowsuit again. Now that it can transition to my flames, I hardly need to worry about it being damaged mid fight. No need to crawl back to Jav with another set of torn and shredded cloth, hoping he or his sisters will fix it.

The beast is relentless. I have only a moment before it is on me again. Its spikes pierce through the air as I fly away, ready to pierce me with their deadly poison. My spear spins, knocking aside each of the half dozen spikes. Despite the circumstances, I can’t help but laugh at that. It’s the first time I’ve been able to stop all of them. Nothing feels quite as good as seeing improvement happen right before your eyes.

The poison of the spikes isn’t all that dangerous to me, but the coating of acid is. Anywhere those spines pierce through the ground, first the acid eats away at the rock, then the poison kills any life nearby. It’s so potent, plants dry up in seconds and the smaller critters that somehow survive up here drop dead with a single whiff.

My feet slam into stone, and I rocket through the legs of the beast. I slice my spear along the peluda’s belly. The scorching blade cuts through scale and muscle with hardly any effort, eliciting a screeching hiss from the beast. Too late do I notice the tail, coated with acid, swinging at me.

Just before it hits, I force my body intangible. The tail slides right through me, burning what it touches, but I quickly pull myself together and stab my spear into the base of the scaled limb and twist myself around to land on the back of the peluda. It might have hurt less if I’d just taken the impact of the tail and been slammed into the earth, but that would cost me my positioning.

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With my spear still lodged half way through the tail, I explode as many microbursts through my body as I dare, blasting jets of fire outward to assist. I twist around the tail, dragging my weapon through flesh as I do. As soon as I’m beneath the beast again, I shoot off, barely avoiding the dozens of spines that try to stab me, all the while the lizard is spinning on itself to bite at me.

Too many creatures can’t do anything if you land on their back, but not this one. I spent way too long trying to find a place out of its strike range in my first fights. But peludae leave nowhere unprotected. It doesn’t help that they compulsively wash themselves with that acidic saliva of theirs; even touching them can hurt if you’re not careful.

Still, I was fast enough this time to avoid its retaliation. I didn’t cut off the tail fully, but by how it hangs limp, I can be sure not to worry about it for the rest of this fight.

It hisses in anger and redoubles its efforts. I don’t have time to relax. The long, flexible spines stab through the earth, digging away stone as it closes what distance I gained in an instant.

There’s no time to dodge, so I do the best with what I can. My knees collapse, dropping me to a lower angle right before I explode forward. I duck beneath the wide snapping jaw and thrust my spear through the softer scales beneath, sliding through flesh and into the back of its head. Unfortunately, I miss the lizard’s brain, so a dozen spikes slam through my chest.

I can only be thankful that the beast’s saliva has wiped off enough through the fight that it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it should. Liquid pumps out from each spike, flooding my body with its deadly poison, but I just burn through it. The stuff isn’t exactly flammable, but it does burn.

Stuck on so many of its spines, the peluda lifts me above its head. It hisses, gloating its apparent victory after I’d given it so much trouble. I have to try my hardest not to laugh. If it wants to be arrogant and give me a free opportunity, who am I to stop it?

As soon as the beast opens its maw to swallow me whole, I allow my flames to fall from the spikes. Careful of the dangerous saliva, I thrust my spear through the unprotected upper jaw.

This time I don’t miss the brain.

It snaps its mouth closed, slamming the spear deeper, but it still moves. I stand with a leg on each side of its mouth and hold my spear to stop it tossing me off. An immense fire flows from me, through the spear, and explodes into its brain with the added heat.

I stare into the peluda’s eyes as it struggles against my attack, but it can do nothing when the flames burn away its most vulnerable organ. Its movements slow and the eyes become less focused before the inside glows as it catches fire from within. The outer membrane of the eyes are as hard as the rest of its scales, but that is soon the only part that remains. No iris or pupil remains. Burned away along with the brain.

For a few moments, the peluda remains still, held up by the spines poking into the earth. But as the long spikes lose their strength, the body crumbles. I yank my spear out before the beast tumbles down the steep slope of the mountainside. The jagged spikes all along the landscape scratch and prod at the lifeless body with each hundred metres it tumbles. Eventually, the peluda gathers enough momentum that a stone pike pierces right through its chest, slamming it to a halt.

I let out a sigh of annoyance as I spread my flames wide enough to breathe in this thin air. It took me a week to track this one down and I’d wasted my opportunity. I hate to admit it, but I’m still not good enough.

‘With that much energy in you, nothing of the Middle Elevation should pose a problem.’ That is Kiko’s logic, but damn if I didn’t think he placed too much expectation on me. I can fight them and win, but expecting me to have the same control as an áed with a century behind them is a bit much, isn’t it?

Before I rush down the mountainside after the dead peluda, I cast my senses around me. I look for thermal signatures, listen for anything out of place, and feel for any subtle presences.

There are too many opportunistic animals around to ever drop my guard. Way too often up here in the Middle Elevation will a beast attack the moment I fight off another. Nothing is king here. So many ruthless creatures call these heights their home that none can hold themselves as the apex. Any that do are torn apart in their first unprepared ambush.

The landscape of the Middle Elevation only encourages this type of hunting from its residents. The mountains of this region are smaller, but far more numerous, but like everywhere else, they continue to grow taller as the Alps rise higher. This section of the Titan alps resembles endless rows of serrated teeth. Each just as sharp and jagged as the next.

Within these relatively small mountains lay canyons that never see the light of day. Perfect for thousands of monsters to move around undetected. Caves and crevices crawling up the mountains only make discovering those ready to pounce on you all the harder.

Satisfied that nothing is ready to rip me apart, I slide down the smooth slope, avoiding the razor-sharp protrusions until I reach the lizard corpse. Immediately, my flames swarm its surface, eating away everything they can. The inner flesh goes first. Fire enters through the wound on its belly and consumes everything except the acid gland below its tongue.

As fire resistant as the scales and bones of the creature are, it will take some time to burn my way through, so I sit where I’ll be able to see most things coming and inspect my spear.

Despite being bathed in the peluda’s saliva, not a scratch mars its shaft nor blade. I’d love to see how Hraun makes them, but compared to rejoining my friends in the east, it’s not that important. Maybe in a decade. That’s supposed to be a short time for us, even if I can’t wrap my head around it.

I feel them before they call out.

“Solvei.” Kiko waves up to me from a few hundred metres down the mountainside.

It’s not surprising to see the áed; he tends to drop by soon after I fight these beasts. Considering his timing, I’d say he was following me around if not for the times I watched him pass into the Upper Elevation.

While his presence isn’t surprising, the person besides him definitely is.

“Yalun?” I ask.

The last time I saw her was at the conference over six months ago. I jump to my feet and leap down the mountainside toward her, but her expression cuts all the wind out of my excitement. Is she not happy to see me? Her eyes drop from mine after a fleeting moment. A mask of concern troubling her face.

Kiko slaps her back, hard. She glares at him, but he simply looks forward as if it didn’t happen. Back to acting all grouchy again, I see.

Yalun breathes deep — she struggles in the thin air, but not so much as to spread her flames like I do — and straightens her back.

“Solvei, we need to talk.”

Uh-oh.