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Chapter 663
🕑 Added 2023-10-20 12:00:05 +0000 UTCEnjoy!
ToC
* * *
Mantle of the Stormlord!
Talon of Tumult!
A yowling moss green cat fell, easily five times the size of the Dire Hound puppy it had faced, but more than overmatched.
You Have Killed A Bogcat!
XP Earned!
Pit stood tall, covered in a shimmering aurora, like a storm held tight to his fur. The monster had immediately dropped into multiple pieces, the single strike so much that the Confusion Status Condition didn’t even have a chance to apply. Pit cooed in disappointment. He’d been looking forward to seeing how that worked.
A rush of power crested up within his chest and burst across his core, sparking into a blue notification.
You Have Gained 1 Level!
You Are Now Level 75!
You Gain:
+60 STR, +59 PER, +54 VIT, +61 END, +57 INT, +60 WIL, +70 AGL, +70 DEX! +60 AFI, RES, and REI!
“What a rush,” he trilled. The sensation of System energy had filled him with a false sense of unlimited power before it inevitably faded. The fur on his back was still standing straight up. “My new Evolution is so cool.”
Since becoming a Primordial Storm Tyrant, Pit had gained an extra fifty points to every stat he earned during a level up. It was an embarrassment of riches, enough to seriously elevate his power with every jump in level.
Status.
Name: Pit
Level: 75
Race: Chimera - Primordial Storm Tyrant
Path: Guardian Beast
______
Health: 11154/11154
Stamina: 10798/10798
Mana: 9111/9111
______
STR: 1673
PER: 1384
VIT: 2230
END: 1992
INT: 1608
WIL: 1661
AGL: 2980
DEX: 2542
______
Dawn's Advent (E), Level 82
Executioner’s Stormblade (E), Level 48
Gloaming Shroud (E), Level 49
Howl At The Dark (E), Level 84
Breath of the Wild (L), Level 49
Etheric Concordance (L), Level 98
Mantle of the Stormlord (L), Level 62
Maelstrom’s Maw (L), Level 85
Talon of Tumult (L), Level 86
Tempest Fugit (L), Level 84
Ouranic Dominion (D), Level 73
______
Pit's Harmonic Stats
RES: 1007
INE: 943
AFI: 2068
REI: 1586
EVA: 1366
MIG: 1211
ALA: 1132
FEL: 1342
His stats, both standard and Harmonic, had grown by leaps and bounds due to his Evolution. He was faster, stronger, and more durable than ever before. Pit was certain, were he to face the Frostfather’s challenges again, he would be able to complete them entirely alone.
His stats weren’t as good as Felix’s, but he was quickly approaching the realm his Companion inhabited. With his new level up bonuses, he might even catch up.
Looking forward to it.
At any rate, he was more than enough for the creatures in the swamp. And it felt damn good to be strong enough to wade through the swamp with impunity.
Hallow was having a different experience.
Every twenty feet a new monster emerged to attack, and they all pressed the Homunculus to her limits. Her stone Body was her saving grace; it wasn’t fast or overly strong, but it was tough. Monstrous strikes that might have laid out a Journeyman Tier just bounced off her, though she had to be careful not to get pinned. They had fought a clutch of blue snakes and they had trapped Hallow time and again before she could open one up with her Mana Darts. Thanks to that fight though, that Skill had gained five levels.
“Dodge it!” Pit shook the swamp water from his fur. “Keep them moving!”
“I’m…trying!”
Bladeswarm Wasps surged around her stone frame, each one half her size. They harried Hallow with ceaseless strikes from the gleaming stingers that gave them their name. They were far faster, but like the blue snakes that was what made them good training.
Hallow lifted her misshapen arms, letting the Wasps glance off of them before throwing six crystal blades. Formed of condensed Mana, they were incredibly sharp despite the Skill being comparatively low level, and even though most missed the agile Wasps the ones that hit ripped cleanly through their carapace.
You Have Killed A Bladeswarm Wasp (x2)!
XP Earned!
Since Pit was helping Hallow, he was getting some minor share of the experience, but levels weren’t much of a concern with the Homunculus. She had asked to go hunting in order to advance her Skills.
Two more Wasps zipped forward, diving low and scraping long sparks from Hallow’s torso before she could react. As they flew off, however, each was grasped in a net of rock as the Homunculus’ arms molded themselves, thrusting backward to catch them.
“No,” her echoing voice said.
She flexed and brought the Wasps smashing into one another. Their carapaces rang like a pair of bells and their buzzing wings faltered. A second smash stilled them.
“Awesome job!” Pit crowed. He dodged around another set of the Wasps, kicking off a tree’s roots and rolling in mid-air. His russet hide was still lit up by his Mantle, however, and as the nearest Wasp hit him it was immediately consumed by lightning.
You Have Killed A Bladeswarm Wasp!
XP Earned!
Dang. Didn’t want to get that one. The more Pit killed, the less for Hallow to fight. I’ll have to disrupt the other hive to make up for it.
Across a span of algae-infested waters, Hallow was a stolid, slow moving bulk in the center of the swam. Sparks flew and her fists and legs shifted and morphed at will, piercing through insect after insect. It was her second Skill, called Switchshift. It allowed Hallow to mold her Body in many different configurations, a lot like Felix’s Stone Shaping but only able to target herself. It was how she turned herself into Beef’s breastplate. Each level increased her range of motion and shape, and it too had grown by several levels since they had left earlier that day.
Tempest Fugit!
Pit sent a single spiral spear of ice into the brush, bullseyeing a conical formation hanging from the branches of a gnarled tree. The spear burst as it struck, branching out into a tiny storm of lightning that blasted the conical hive apart—and released at least twenty raging Wasps.
“Pit! Why?” Hallow shouted as she was inundated by flashing stingers.
“Stay on your toes!” Pit called out, spinning and removing his Mantle. The few Wasps that went for him were met by clawless paws as he batted them back toward the Homunculus. “Push yourself!”
“Ridiculous!” Hallow hunkered down, her form collapsing into what resembled a small boulder. “Arise!”
The water all around the Homunculus exploded, revealing waterlogged moss and algae-coated trees…and the jaws of massive Lurkwood Crawlers.
Oh yeah. She controls those undead things too.
A whole ten Wasps were caught in the sudden jaws of four Crawlers, while the rest were snagged from the air by whipping vine-tendrils. Mana Darts finished them off, until only a single Bladeswarm Wasp remained.
Hallow crushed it to pulp beneath her heel.
Pit bared his teeth in a doggy grin. “Great job!”
Hallow waved at him tiredly before stumping over to the collapsed conical hive. Two were on the ground amid mud and crushed ferns. Their outsides were composed of dried mud and that had cracked and crumbled upon impact, revealing a much more enticing interior.
“Metal and stone. Tier…IV. All of it.” She reached out and pulled the rare materials free of the dried mud, her stone arms molding around it until the two lumpy, hole-riddled masses sat atop her back like a weird pack.
“Can you absorb it all?” Pit asked. They had found some deposits before, but they had been a lot smaller.
“I can. Like Yintarion, I can sense this will only take time and effort to compress into my core.” Hallow shifted her form again, thinning her arms while thickening her torso and legs a bit more.
Pit bounded over to her side, bouncing atop her Risen Crawlers. “How long, do you think?”
Hallow tilted her featureless head. “A day. Two at most.”
Pit had led Hallow out to train her Skills but mostly it had been to hunt for materials to push herself toward her first Evolution. “Excellent! And your Skills?”
“Mana Dart is level 70. Switchshift has reached level 71. And Hallow Call is level 68.”
Pit beamed at her, tongue lolling and ears perked forward. “It’s working.”
“It is.” Hallow gave Pit a sharp nod. “Thank you for this.”
“Psh. Just helping. Felix says we should always help when we can.”
Hallow accepted that with the stoicism Pit had come to expect. “Should we return to the group?”
“Yeah, probably. We kinda strayed a little far.” It was also getting dark, but Pit wasn’t about to admit that the swamp creeped him out at night. He was a Primordial Storm Tyrant! They weren’t afraid of anything. As the first and only Primordial Storm Tyrant, Pit felt confident in making that claim. “Those hives look…unsteady. Think your Crawlers could give us a ride back?”
“A good idea.”
Pit puffed out his chest. “I’m full of them now. My Mind is so much sharper than it was before—” He froze as colors and shapes shifted in the far distance. Hallow noticed too.
“What is that?” she asked.
Pit swallowed. “People.”
Not his people. Different ones.
Sneaky ones.
* * *
Vess skipped across the surface of the swamp, spectral Dragon wings spread from her back as she blurred between the rotted trees. It was full dark now, but that mattered little to her advanced Perception and Adept Body. Small, aggressive monsters that looked like a mix between a frog and a scorpion leaped from the branches above, and her partisan flashed.
You Have Killed A Pestilent Claw (x13)!
XP Earned!
The creatures were the size of her head and bled an alarming shade of yellow when pierced, but they weren’t too strong. Their speed and their ambush tactics made them far more useful as target practice than a resource for leveling.
After making a figure eight sweep of the nearby waters, she landed lightly atop the Gloaming Way once again. Fishing out a dark cloth from her belt pouch, she fastidiously cleaned the yellow ichor from her blade and considered the swamp around her. Moss and vines and twisted trunks met her eyes wherever she dared to look, but after hours of her training she had come across new details. Vibrantly colored flowers nestled in the hollowed remains of a stump. A jewel-toned bird with a translucent beak. Even the murky waters swarmed with silver-scaled fish that caught the errant beams of moonlight that filtered through the canopy.
A place of decay and yet life blooms. She held out her partisan and looked at the Dragons etched into its length. It is not too late.
“C’mon Pit, stop ignoring me,” Felix said, seemingly to himself. His black hands were hoisted on his hips and his eye lid twitched in annoyance. “Dang bird.”
Vess suppressed a smile. She knew that Felix had made great strides in trusting the capabilities of his Companion, but she also knew that it was still hard on him. Pit had taken Hallow out for training hours ago and had little communication with everyone, even when Felix had announced that they were eating dinner. She would be more concerned if she didn’t know that Felix could see Pit’s Status at any time; if the tenku were truly in trouble, he would know instantly.
“We are nearing the edge of the valley. He will return soon, I am sure of it,” Vess assured him.
Felix blew a lungful of air out, the force of it sending small waves rippling across the water. “Yeah probably. He’s just being a butt and is ignoring me.”
“I imagine he needs to focus while training.”
“True.”
“And interruptions could cause him to get hurt in a fight.”
Felix glanced at her. “...Also true.”
“It seems to me that Pit is being exceptionally responsible in that regard.” Vess let her smile widen. “And also a bit of a butt.”
Felix snorted a laugh.
Despite everything they’d been through recently, Pit’s wounds had only just healed. The Curse of Flame was too fresh in Felix’s Mind and massive, major Evolution or not Vess doubted he would be comfortable with Pit in danger until the Chimera could prove himself. Vess had no worries in regards to that, however. The two of them were thick as thieves, sharing just about every thought in their heads with one another.
She envied them. Her Companion shared little.
Yin was busily consuming the Superior Elemental Core, but he had not talked more about his steps toward his Evolution in quite a while. Whenever she brought it up, he just mentioned some beast they had to hunt once the core was depleted…and it was shrinking fast. It was perhaps the size of a soccer ball now, and the Wyrmling's belly was noticeably rounded at all times.
“Where does the Gloaming Way end, by the way?” Felix asked. He nodded to the book buckled to her belt. “Does that thing tell you?”
She placed her hand over the battered tome. “In a way. It describes many things about the area, and a few other books I rescued detail some northern portions of my father’s Territory leading into Levantier. It…well it says there is a fortress where the mountains give way.”
“A fortress?” Felix’s interest perked right up. “A Dragoon fortress?”
“If it still stands, yes.”
“Well then we need to visit it,” Felix said. “See if it has any clues about your order and the Dragons.”
Vess’ heartbeat quickened, and she reached over and gave Felix a quick kiss on his cheek.
The man blinked, clearly stunned. “Wha–what was that for?”
“For being you.”
Felix’s face lit up, partly from the blush that crept across his cheeks and mostly from his eyes. They literally shimmered with blue and red flames. He stepped toward her and—
“Felix!” Pit landed on the path right next to them in Dire Hound form. He was soaking wet and trailing tendrils of moss.
Vess swallowed down a burst of irrational anger and she could feel Felix fighting to do the same. “What great timing,” he muttered. Then he got a good look at his Companion, and Vess felt his Spirit shift toward alarm. “What happened?”
“Something is ahead,” Hallow said, stepping from an undead Crawler onto the road.
Pit nodded, golden eyes bright in the dark. “Raiders!”
Comments
ouroboros
Of the lost Arc
Farxzay
Perhaps they’re raiding the fortress? It’s been implied that it had been abandoned by the Dragoons, since Vess hadn’t heard of it until recently. Maybe it’s occupied by some other group? Might even be the raiders themselves.
The Grand Moose
Raiders would be weird for me to see in a swamp. Doubt theres much wealth to rob there. Especially since its so close to a Dragoon fortress. Seems odd. Wonder if its maybe Dragoons trailing them to see whose walking the path?
Ben Cooper
Thanks for the chapter! I love that Pit is finally in a spot where he feels good about himself. He's not a freshly orphaned pup (chick?). He doesn't feel like he's too large to interact with the group. He doesn't feel like his growth is trailing dangerously compared to his companion. He's no longer injured, and feeling like part of him is missing. Now, he's got enough strength to take a vanguard or leadership position like Felix. He's mature enough to get what's going on, and to have input. He isn't crippled, or gangly, or lagging in power. It's nice to see the "little" guy really coming into his own.
