Morning.
We were back on the road almost immediately after the sun began to rise again. Avy was in front, manning the horses, while me and Odale were in the back of the carriage – with the lich continuing his sleep. Won't lie, while sitting in the carriage with him, the question of how a lich even sleeps did briefly cross my mind, however I didn't dwell on it much.
My mind was mostly still focused on… whatever that nightmare I witnessed during the night was. Looking down at my right hand, I could still see it tremble slightly.
I was still shaken by that nightmare subconsciously.
I have been having nightmares similar to that one for a while now – in fact, they've been going on ever since I first arrived in this world. However, this specific nightmare somehow felt… worse than the others. Plus, it felt a lot more real than the others as well.
"And what was that girl…?" I commented in my mind, tightening my hand into a fist gently. While she absolutely was not a normal 'human' child, she wore clothes that felt eerily familiar. However, I could not recall where I had seen them before.
Sighing, I rested my head against my knee, closing my eyes for a second – trying to clear my mind.
From the front, Avy watched Faofa for a moment over her shoulder, a clear worried expression spread across her face. She could tell that something was on his mind, however couldn't muster up the courage to ask him whether there was something bothering him at this time. Plus, what if it was just exhaustion? Maybe Faofa simply wasn't a morning person.
Refocusing on the road ahead, Avy exhaled and then yawned. "...What a coward I am." She swore under her breath gently, gripping the horse reins a bit more tightly.
A few hours went by — the sun was a lot higher in the sky now. It was a bright morning now, with any and all remnants of night gone from the sky. Odale was next to Avy on the front of the carriage, the map in hand, helping Avy navigate the road so that they remained on the right path. I was still inside the carriage, reading through one of the books Odale had taken with us from the guild. It was a simple history book – detailing several minor and major historical events connected with Ordial, as well as a supposed sister town of Ordial named Hidial. It was a smaller, less known town, often being considered an 'unofficial' extension of Ordial, despite the two towns rulers not being… Well, on the best of terms.
"Guess Odale wants to know what occurred with the territory that used to house his kingdom after it fell." I thought, flipping to the next page in the book. Overall, the history of Ordial and Hidial, though rather short, was rather colourful. The two towns have certainly gone through a lot in the past.
A lot of tough times, a lot of battles against monsters and other creatures as well as a supposed 'war' that wasn't really elaborated on. It only had a name dropped – the 'War of Crimson Embers'.
"Wonder what that was all about…" I thought, before the carriage suddenly came to a halt. Closing the book, I looked over my shoulder at Avy and Odale. "What's wrong? Why'd we stop?"
Neither of them replied.
Exhaling, I picked up the book, placing it back inside Odale's personal bag, before moving closer over to where Avy and Odale where. "Hey, is everything—?" Suddenly, a loud ding went off in my mind. Then, I sensed a strong presence right in front of us.
Looking on the road ahead, my eyes slightly widened.
In the dead center of the road was a rather large, winged creature. Lizard-like in nature, with thick back legs, long tail and long, rather thin front arms, which were merged with its rather wide, massive wings.
The thing was covered in golden brown scales, with a pair of emerald green eyes.
"Wait… I recognise the body of that monster…" I thought, before narrowing my eyes a bit on it – just to confirm my suspicion. After a moment, my assumptions were proven to be right.
[ Monster ]
Species; Newborn Lesser Wyvern
Rank; B
A recently born member of the Wyvern species. As these creatures grow, they become more and more powerful through consumption. At its current stage, the Newborn Wyvern possesses immense raw power, however lacks any skill or experience in using said power.
[ Monster ]
"...A newborn is definitely a new one to encounter…" I took in a deep breath, before exhaling. The creature seemed to be eating what looked like a large direwolf – potentially one of those evolved ones that usually lead other direwolves. "A baby wyvern…? What is one doing here?" Odale commented.
Avy shrugged.
"Don't know… But we better find a different road or something. If one of those is here, then the rest of the pack is surely nearby."
Pack…?
Odale scrambled with the map, examining it thoroughly while checking for any potential different roads or something. I leaned towards Avy. "I'm not particularly informed about this stuff… How big of bad news is encountering this baby wyvern?"
"Bad. Real bad." Avy replied without a second thought.
"Unlike most adult wyverns that usually travel alone, newborn and juvenile wyverns always remain together with a pack, which is usually led by what is known as an Alpha Wyvern."
That didn't sound good…
I have faced a 'wyvern' in the past – in the form of a Red Wyvern, when I was preparing for my fight against Arvalor in his 'tomb', and while that thing wasn't anything super strong, it certainly put up a massive fight. That thing was so resilient and had such destructive power that for several moments during my fight against it, I thought it was going to kill and devour me.
And while I have certainly grown a lot, lot stronger since then — to the point where I doubt this pack of wyverns would be much of a challenge for me, this… 'Alpha Wyvern' that Avy mentioned…
It didn't sound like a run of the mill wyvern.
No, that had to be something a lot more special and potentially powerful.
"Okay," Odale stated, before looking around.
"If we turn to the left, we can enter into a bit of 'clearing' which can act as a rough, semi-road for us. We can use that to go around the newborn and hopefully avoid encountering its pack as well, before simply exiting back onto this road past the newborn." Odale explained, showcasing the full detour we'd have to take to go around the baby wyvern in front of us right now.
"That can work…" Avy replied, thinking about it carefully for a moment.
"Wouldn't our carriage make too much noise and get its attention?"
"Not a problem my Lord. I can simply cast a noise suppression spell on the carriage and us – allowing us to silently go past it." Odale replied to be near immediately, reassuring me.
"Okay… but we'd be going within its sight by taking this 'road' around it… won't it see us?"
"Thankfully, newborn wyverns have really poor eyesight. It's one of the reasons they tend to stick with their parents or a pack." Avy replied.
It seemed like there was little that could go wrong with this plan of going around the baby, while remaining on the correct path to our destination. However, even then… I felt a bit uneasy. "...Let's see if we can pull it off. In the worst case scenario, we'll just take out a couple of flying lizards."
Odale let out a small chuckle shaking his head.
"Alright, allow me to set up the noise suppression spell first." Odale stated, before placing his hands against the carriage. Then, after a moment of silence, a faint light shone over the carriage. After three waves of the light went over the carriage, Odale sat back down. "There, now as for the maneuver itself…" He looked at Avy.
"Lady Avy, I leave that to you."
She nodded lightly. "Wait," I stopped her before she got to moving, before hopping off of the carriage. "Faofa, what are you—"
"You two head onto the planned path. I'll enter the shadow world and try to scout the area to see where the pack is." At first, it seemed as though Avy was going to protest against this action, however she was quickly interrupted by Odale. "Good idea. If you find them, can you alert us?"
I smiled lightly.
"I'll do you one better…"
Avy looked at me with a worried gaze. "You better not be planning to do anything reckless…" I shrugged, before stretching out my body a bit. "Don't worry, it doesn't involve me potentially dying. If I find the pack, I'll simply distract them or even try to lure them away from you two."
"No, that's too—!"
"It's better than facing the whole pack isn't it?" I lightly rested my hands onto my hips. "Besides, I won't fight them. Once they're focused on me, I'll run away." Avy still looked quite a bit unconvinced by this sudden idea of mine. However, seemingly realising that talking me out of it was… well, basically impossible, she simply exhaled.
"...Don't get yourself killed. I still intend to make you mine."
I chuckled, turning my back against them both.
"Don't worry. I don't intend on dying just yet." After a one last exchange of gazes, Avy and Odale moved onto the road that Odale had mentioned. Once they set out, I took in a deep breath, before morphing into my snake form and leaping into the shadows near instantly.
Once in the shadow world, I dashed towards where the baby wyvern was, before activating 'Overworld Detection' to its maximum output, to ensure I was keeping track of as large of an area as I could.
I basically scanned the entire enormous space I could sense with 'Overworld Detection' for any wyvern presences.
Using the baby as a reference, I had a rough idea of what a wyvern should feel like – so finding a whole pack shouldn't be too hard. There were plenty of other monsters and creatures clogging up my senses - direwolves, slimes, goblins and other not important creatures.
Then…
I sensed an enormous magical energy presence — not too far to my right side. "Found them." I sharpened my eyes, before quickly flicking my slithering body to the side and dashing towards the area where I was sensing the powerful magical energy presence. Approaching closer, I prepared myself for a small confrontation with the pack.
"Just distract them and lead them away… That's it Faofa, no need to go overboard." I reminded myself in my mind as I approached closer.
Once I was basically right next to them, I flung myself up and out from the shadows, using 'Shadowlord' to send myself even higher into the air than I could go with just my physical body. Then, I flicked my head back a bit, before charging up a bit of magical energy.
Immediately afterwards, I formed several large purple orbs in the air around me, before firing off a huge barrage of venom bullets down at the wyverns below. The venom bullets easily pierced through their scales, damaging the pack which seemingly was feeding on some prey it had caught itself. Upon engaging them, the wyverns immediately turned their attention away from their meal, and up towards me – with one of them, much, much larger than the rest of the pack, throwing a fierce, almost fiery glare at me.
"That must be the alpha." I focused on the big wyvern.
After a moment…
[ Monster ]
Species; Alpha Wyvern
Rank; ?
A Powerful member of the Wyvern race. This specimen is one that is much larger, smarter and more powerful than the average wyvern, and so their kind usually ends up being the leaders of wyvern packs that roam the world.
Caution is advised.
[ Monster ]
No information on its rank huh…?
That's a bit annoying. But I guess that means the thing is strong enough for my 'Enlightened' skill to not be able to pick up on what its estimated strength may be. Slightly… concerning honestly now that I think about it.
But hey, I don't need to take it out.
Looking around from the birds eye view I still had for a bit, I quickly located where Odale and Avy were. They weren't all that far from this spot. "Alright, time to lure them away." I took in a deep breath, before I finally began to freefall down towards the oversized winged-lizards down below.
The pack gave a collective roar, before several of them immediately took to the sky, dashing up towards me.
Evading their attempts to knock me out of the sky – I quickly focused on some shadows surrounding the still grounded wyverns, using them to quickly bind the beasts. However, the binds were snapped near instantly by the sheer physical strength of these things – forcing me to reconstruct them constantly, absolutely burning through a decent chunk of my magical energy.
Finally landing back onto the ground, I quickly dove into the shadows, shifting into my human form, before leaping out from the shadows behind the big, Alpha Wyvern. "Hey! Come on you overgrown lizards! I'm over here!" I shouted at them, before forming a few venom throwing knives and tossing them at the big wyvern. The weapons bounced off from the imposing beast's steel body, before it glared at me over its shoulder.
"Okay, time to dip—"
I quickly flung around, before just barely avoiding being hit by a giant fire breath attack from the Alpha Wyvern. Afterwards, I booked it from there, running as fast as I could. The Alpha Wyvern roared loudly, as if giving an order.
In nearly an instant, the entire pack chased after me – with the big guy following after the entire pack from behind.
Running from the whole pack as fast as I could, I have to say at this moment, I could feel my heart rate increase with every passing second. The heavy thumping of the wyverns behind me, mixed with their roars as well as the sky assault from the ones above was absolutely terrifying to have going on around me.
Plus, the big guy at the very back basically looked more like a silhouette with red eyes rather than an actual monster by now – as if the thing had become nothing but a walking disaster. "Gotta lead them away for a bit, then I make my escape."
I thought, before refocusing on the 'road' ahead of me.
I leapt over tree roots, flipped around trees and occasionally leapt into the trees themselves, quickly maneuvering through them. I even occasionally switched back to my snake form, to rapidly slither through tighter, less spacious spots – where my human form would struggle to move through.
This chase continued for a bit, until eventually I hit a dead end — Water.
A massive body of water.
"Oh shit—!" I heard the roars of the wyvern pack behind me get closer, before several beams of fire came flying towards my direction. Quickly sinking into the shadows, I barely avoided becoming toast snake meat, before quickly, yet quietly sneaking past the pack that had just arrived to the spot I was standing moments prior.
The beasts were looking around, low growls grumbling from their throats as they scanned for me. The big wyvern stopped its movement completely, simply moving its head around. Then, in a moment that terrified me to my core, it seemed as though the thing looked directly at me – while I was still inside the shadow world. For a few seconds, I stood perfectly still, debating on what to do, until the Alpha Wyvern looked away and seemingly gave another order to the other wyverns, the whole pack turning back around and moving back the way we had just come from.
Exhaling, I shifted into my snake form.
"That… was close." Then, after shaking my head, I quickly slithered away – losing sight of the wyverns fast. "Time to rendezvous with Odale and Avy."
However, as I moved…
Suddenly something happened.
A sudden, sharp feeling hit me.
It felt like my heart had been stabbed through. I completely froze in place, before my body was flung back out into the real world. "What the.. hell?"
It felt like my entire body was burning up — a feeling that was then followed by an eerily familiar feeling of my entire body being engulfed. I had felt this sharp pain before – pain so great that my entire body suddenly froze up from it, rendering me unable to do anything whatsoever.
"There is no way… This feeling…" I groaned lightly. It was the same as that time in that A-Rank dungeon when I was facing that strange angel statue. My body began to feel cold – before another familiar feeling engulfed my entire body.
It felt as though I was being consumed… Again.
Heavy footsteps shook the ground, before the Alpha Wyvern that I thought I had outran and left in the dust was now staring me down. Then, the entire rest of the pack surrounded me, every beast in it growling. "Seriously…?! Now of all time?!"
A familiar message rang out in my head.
[ WARNING ]
Continued connection to the 'Abyss' has caused corruption levels to build up. Attempting to resist corruption…
[ WARNING ]
As I laid there, unable to do anything, the Alpha Wyvern moved its head down towards me. All I could do was watch in fear as the hulking beast's shadow gloomed over me, getting larger and larger — while its head got closer and closer to me.
"For the love of–... This better not be… how I die!"
My vision suddenly blurred.
Then, an even sharper pain hit me — and just like last time… My consciousness slipped. I quickly felt the world around me disappear. Before I fell fully unconscious, I heard one last message play in my mind.
[ WARNING ]
Corruption has reached a critical level.
Initiating a system reboot to protect the Vessel…
[ WARNING ]