Path of Dragons

Book 2: Chapter 55: A Different Kind of Challenge

The forest was silent, but Elijah felt the corruption of the of the nearby dimensional rift. It was clearly higher grade than the one he’d entered back on his island, which didn’t bode well for the difficulties ahead. Even as he focused on that with one facet of his mind, the other partitions in his Opal Mind monitored his surroundings. One facet was trained on Isaak, who walked beside him, but the rest were entirely focused on the environment. He didn’t want to get ambushed again, and One with Nature seemed incapable of detecting the corrupted cat.

“So, why did Artemis attack you?” he asked, following the strengthening trail of corruption. Now that he was looking for it, it was easier to track, and he knew it was closer than expected.

“She was a good girl, at first,” he said. “She even protected me. But…once she disappeared, and I figured out what was happening, I knew I needed to help her. Or stop her...”

Elijah stopped, then turned to put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. He was taller than Elijah, but he held himself with a stoop. “Listen. You need to accept that this might not turn out like you want it to,” he said, trying to be as compassionate as possible. The cat wasn’t just the boy’s pet. That was his friend. His guardian. Better than most, Elijah could understand how important that could be. “I’m going to try to heal her, and I think I have a good shot. But I’ve never done this, and there’s every chance that I won’t be able to. If that’s the case…”

“I know,” the boy said, his eyes adopting a steely glint that flashed behind his round spectacles. In that moment, Elijah could see the determination that had allowed Isaak to survive the tower. “I’m prepared to do what’s necessary.”

“Good.”

After that, Isaak explained how the cat had spent the past week toying with him. It wasn’t simple cruelty, either, though that was part of Artemis’s motivation. In addition, it had been using Isaak as bait, wounding him and waiting on other monsters or animals to investigate the smell of what they thought was a wounded animal. When they came around, Artemis pounced.

It was a viable hunting method, though one that Elijah found disturbing for a number of reasons he didn’t want to contemplate. However, he did find himself wondering if it was an expression of the cat’s natural cruelty or if the corruption had twisted it into something it never should have been.

Whatever the case, he listened to Isaak’s explanation with equanimity as they approached the rip in the dimensional membrane that connected their world with the Void. One of the guides he’d bought back in Argos had elaborated on the nature of the universe, which he’d added to the explanation he’d gotten from Nerthus. He already knew that the World Tree connected multiple universes – nine, in fact – but the space between those universes was referred to as the Void. It was uncharted territory ruled by an entity called the Ravener. There wasn’t much information on that creature – or god, as it seemed – but the guide wasn’t shy about calling it the enemy.

The space on the other side of the dimensional rift was, like the towers, a result of the system’s intervention. So, instead of directly connecting the normal universes with the Void, it acted as both a barrier and a bridge between dimensions. In many ways, it was exactly the same as the towers, but on a much smaller scale.

Even so, Elijah had also learned that they could be much more dangerous than towers, and for a variety of reasons. Mostly, though, it was due to the fact that people often underestimated those dangers, but also because the level of the creatures inside were completely independent of the challenger. That was a departure from the nature of the towers, the levels of which scaled according to the level of the people trying to conquer it.

Of course, that didn’t mean that a level twenty could jump into a tower and defeat nothing but creatures of that level. Instead, the guide described the tower denizens as “appropriately leveled to provide a difficult challenge to an entire group of would-be conquerors”. That was further muddled by the grades of towers, but that seemed to be less based on levels than on real power.

It was all a little confusing to Elijah, but the gist of it was that most towers were theoretically surmountable by a well-tuned group. However, challenging and defeating the higher-grade towers was much more difficult and only appropriate for the best of the best.

Every time he dug deeper into the universe – or multi-verse, he amended – the more he saw how little he understood. There were so many layers that it would take a lifetime to explore them all. But that shouldn’t have been surprising. Even before the touch of the World Tree, Earth had been complex enough to take a lifetime to understand, and that was with the knowledge of all of human civilization to build upon. It only stood to reason that a multi-verse that was composed of not just multiple planets, but multiple universes, would be infinitely more complex.

So, he’d resolved to take things one step at a time and work with whatever snippets of information he could acquire. Anything else would be too overwhelming to contemplate.

With that in mind, he and Isaak continued to follow the trail until, at last, they discovered the tear in the dimensional fabric. It manifested as a large, ragged rip hanging in the air. Through it, Elijah could see nothing but darkness, though he knew what to expect on the other side. Spreading out from that rip were black tendrils of corruption that looked like glistening vines. They reached about thirty feet in every direction, and the moment Elijah stepped within that circle, he felt the corruption skyrocket.

Stolen story; please report.

Isaak let out a gasp. “I don’t like this,” he mumbled. “I don’t like it one bit.”

“You get used to it,” Elijah lied. “Just try to ignore it.” He turned to the young man and continued, “You don’t have to do this. I can go in alone.”

“No. I need to help.”

Elijah admired the boy’s courage. “Fine. You remember what I told you, right? We’re going into a space between worlds where we’ll have to fight something, just like in the tower, but on a smaller scale.”

“I understand.”

“Okay – you’re a mage, right? Like, you sling fireballs.”

“Soulfire.”

“What?”

“It’s soulfire. It eats away at a person’s Ethera while doing…a lot of damage. I’ve never seen anything survive after I hit it.”

“I survived.”

“I know,” the boy said with a visible tremor. “I can also increase Ethera regeneration. And I have an ability called Soulfire Explosion. If I use it, everything dies, and I’m out of commission for the rest of the fight. Last time, I had to spend a week in recovery.”

“Do you have anything else noteworthy?”

“I have a couple of self-buffs,” he said. “One called Arcane Shield that can block a few attacks. One called Shackle that kind of roots a bad guy in place. There are a couple more, like Fireball and Ice Explosion that I don’t use that much. I normally just use Soulfire Dart, like the one I hit you with.”

“Alright. So, I’m going to try something, then,” Elijah said. Then, he cast Essence of the Boar, Essence of the Wolf, and Aura of Regeneration on the young man. The enhancements stuck, but when he tried to use Essence of the Monkey on Isaak, it wouldn’t take hold.

Still, that was enough to elicit a gasp of surprise from Isaak. “What was that? I feel…better. Like, a lot better.”

“One increases your Constitution, another your movement speed, and the last is called Aura of Regeneration. It increases your Regeneration quite a bit,” Elijah explained. Then, he cast the enhancements on himself, though he added Essence of the Monkey to his own list. He still couldn’t use everything all at once, but he hoped that when he got a few more levels, that would change.

Of course, he also kept One with Nature active as well, but that was always the case.

Isaak responded by casting an enhancement of his own, and when Elijah looked at his status, he saw that his Regeneration had increased by another fifteen points. That was incredible, considering that Isaak probably hadn’t advanced his cultivation like Elijah had. And if he had, he certainly didn’t have the benefit of the powerful Dragon Core. So, the base spell was definitely powerful.

With that, the pair were ready for the challenge of the dimensional rift. So, without further hesitation, they stepped inside.

For a brief instant, Elijah felt like he was being ripped into a million pieces. He’d experienced much the same in his first trip into a dimensional rift, so he had expected it. However, Isaak clearly hadn’t, and his response was predictable. He let out a long, piercing scream before falling to one knee and sobbing. Elijah left him there for a few seconds before kneeling beside the boy. He put his hand on Isaak’s back and said, “It’s okay. It’s over. Now, eyes up. This isn’t like the last time I was in one of these.”

The setting was similar. Populated by jagged rocks that looked distressingly like obsidian, the ground was otherwise barren. In the distance, he could see huge peaks of grey stone, and just as before, there were a multitude of purple rivers of energy. A few dozen feet away, Elijah saw what looked like purple anemones waving in the motionless air.

More importantly, he saw his opponent.

The Voxxian monster was small. Maybe three feet tall, but built of solid muscle and coated in dark green scales. It cocked its head to the side, gazing at Elijah with obvious curiosity.

“On your feet, Isaak.”

The moment he uttered those words, the little creature let out a screech, then charged Elijah. For his part, he immediately shifted into his lamellar ape form and leaped forward into battle. He met the monster’s charge with a herculean punch that sent it skidding across the rocky ground. It shattered the jagged shards of obsidian with its passage, only coming to a stop thirty feet away when its momentum was met by a larger black edifice.

But it wasn’t dead.

Not yet, at least.

Isaak had recovered from the pain of passing through the dimensional rift, and he’d already tossed a Soulfire Dart at the prone creature. The little ball of blue-and-white fire moved extremely slowly, but the fallen Voxx was too stunned to take advantage of that weakness. The Soulfire Dart hit it in the shoulder, then quickly enveloped the creature. It screeched again, but the sound quickly died away, replaced by the sizzle of broiling flesh. Only a few moments later, it was dead, leaving behind only a charred and unrecognizable husk.

“Is that it?” the young man asked, panting with excitement and fear. Elijah looked back to see Isaak pushing his spectacles back into place. “I expected it to be harder.”

“No. We didn’t get a notification.”

Just then, the ground rumbled, and via One with Nature, Elijah felt two distinct presences flare into existence. A moment later, two creatures erupted from the rocky ground.

Both of them screeched, then launched themselves into a charge that mirrored the previous monster’s attack. However, these two Voxx were slightly different than the one that had come before. Not only were they noticeably larger and more muscular, but they featured sharper-looking claws.

“Upgrades,” Elijah muttered before leaping forward. However, the creatures were smart enough not to meet his charge head-on. Instead, the second he moved in their direction, they split. One went for Isaak, while the other intended to confront Elijah. Knowing that the young man wasn’t built to take hits, Elijah pivoted, springing sideways and tackling the other monster. However, the first quickly adjusted and darted toward Isaak.

Even as Elijah grabbed hold of the monster and started pummeling it into submission, the other reached Isaak. But to his surprise, the young man’s shield held through the monster’s first blow, and he responded by hitting it with another Soulfire Dart. Just like that, the monster ended up like the first – charred and crispy. Elijah’s opponent died a few moments later.

But almost as soon as it went down, he felt the next wave of monsters. Three more burst from the ground a second later, confirming the nature of the rift’s challenge.

“It’s a gauntlet,” he shouted. “Conserve your Ethera as best you can. I think we’re going to be here for a while!”