Eramith
patreon
Book 2: Chapter 59
🕑 Added 2023-06-01 13:00:08 +0000 UTCThough he didn’t want to get too close, Felix knew that a solid strike with the axe was likely far more effective than a single spell, unless he used a massive amount of mana. He also knew that casting a spell too large could result in backlash which he had experienced for the first time about a week ago now when he first found Kroterra. Knowing this, Felix crept towards the back of it’s neck as stealthily as he could manage and pulled the axe out of his inventory. Given how hard it would be to miss, Felix decided to add some force to his swing this time around. He lifted the axe above his shoulder and prepared to swing when he heard the creature’s rhythmic breathing completely stop.
Oh fuck.
Felix immediately bailed on the swing as the creature rapidly lifted itself off the ground. He stowed the axe, brightened his light and launched himself out of the cave. Before he had even reached the exit the creature roared, or at least he assumed that’s what had happened. All he knew was that he was lucky he hadn’t deafened himself earlier because he would have stolen the chance for this thing to deafen him. He was already in the air so Felix’s momentum carried him out of the cave where he smashed into the charred remains of some building. He knew the creature was chasing him as he felt it’s feet strike and echo vibrations through the ground. He quickly scrambled to his feet and darted off to the side as he looked over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of the creature now chasing him.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
[D] Partially Devoured Wyvern (Lvl 592) .________________________________________________________________________________________
At it’s full height, the creature was at least five times Felix’s height and a couple orders of magnitude heavier. Though it wasn’t a dragon, it sure looked like one to Felix and was equally as intimidating as what he imagined. Considering it was a Devoured, his spells would be basically useless which meant he needed to somehow get up close to it to use his axe.
The Wyvern wasted no time in chasing him down and trying to swallow him whole. Felix stowed the axe to make sure it didn’t slow him down and dove to the side as the Wyvern’s head lurched forwards towards him. Though he managed to avoid the bite, the clawed end of it’s wing unintentionally buried him in rubble when he landed. Felix released one of the force blasts he had prepared just to dig himself out, accidentally winding himself because of how close to his body he needed to release it.
Once free, Felix started running away as fast as he could diving to either side every few steps to avoid the wyvern barreling towards him. He dove to the side once again and this time managed to catch himself with solid ground beneath his feet allowing him to prepare himself. He retrieved the axe from his inventory and waited for the creature to charge towards him again, this time jumping to the side and striking down towards it’s neck. Felix struck with all of his strength but didn’t have any extra force spells prepared. The axe connected and sunk into it’s hide just a couple centimeters which was just far enough for it to get stuck. The wyvern ripped it’s head away from Felix and jumped aside, ripping the axe out of his hands and taking it along with it.
The creature, instead of preparing itself for another strike, backed up further until it was a few hundred meters away before it started running to the side. It reached a pile of debris and planted it’s leg’s before launching itself dozens of meters into the air and stretching it’s front legs out. The sinewy flesh attached to the back of it’s joints extended and it started gliding down arcing itself around towards Felix. As soon as it had lined up it’s flight path, the creature opened it’s maw. Felix already knew what was going to happen given the charred state of his surroundings so he jumped with the already prepared force spells he had and dove off to the side. The creature simply turned it’s head following him and spewed thick roiling clouds of fire over the entire area.
Felix felt the heat behind him and felt the skin on the back of his head burning to a crisp. The rest of his body was burnt, but the insulation his robes provided made it less severe. The layer of skin he had just added immediately sprung to action filling in the gaps and lessening the pain. Felix scrambled to his feet and started running as fast as he could away from the wyvern which was in the process of launching itself into the air for another round. Felix noticed the axe had fallen out of it’s hide at some point but he had no idea where and didn’t have time to find it so instead he began preparing a series of spells he hoped would do anything.
When the creature looped back around through the air this time, Felix began launching the most solid chunks of debris he could find with force spells at the creature. He didn’t hit very many and the couple he did hit, only pushed it off to the side by a small margin. Not nearly enough to divert it’s flight path. He tried to avoid the fire but only managed to trip himself barely managing to pull up a Mana Shield to protect his face from the direct fire. His entire body cooked inside his robes from the surrounding heat of the continuous blast of fire that seemed to last for minutes. Felix’s skin was working overtime to heal himself and he had to dull the pain just to make sure he could stand up.
As soon as he got to his feet, Felix heard a loud sound behind him and turned to see the wyvern tearing through the rubble as it prepared to launch itself once again. As it ran, it tore through building remnants, chunks of stone and anything that stood in it’s path as if it didn’t exist at all. Felix excitedly realized his hearing had somewhat healed and restored his sense of balance. He quickly looked around and spotted the axe stuck in a small crater where the wyvern had landed. Felix waited for it to line itself up once again then cast the biggest light and sound spell he could in it’s direction and ran towards the axe.
The shock bought him enough time to get to the axe without fire breathing down his neck. When he turned around, the wyvern was shaking it’s head, trying to regain it’s senses after being temporarily blinded and deafened. Felix ripped the axe out of the ground with more strength than was necessary and bolted towards the creature. He knew this was a desperate strike, only slightly less desperate now that his balance had returned with his hearing, but it was the best shot he was gonna get.
He leapt off a chunk of stone using a prepared force spell to launch himself into the air and hoisted the axe over his head. He smashed the axe into the creature’s left arm and it sunk right through it’s flesh and got itself stuck in it’s bone. It wasn’t exactly where he was aiming, not even very close really, but he was just happy he had struck it at all.
Felix was ready this time and released another force spell he had prepared tearing the axe out of it’s arm and launching it into the air. The creature bellowed out in pain and started smashing everything around it with it’s absurd strength. The tantrum it threw ended up launching entire halves of buildings into the air and the sound alone was enough to deafen anyone close by. Luckily, the axe had carried Felix through the air and far enough away from the creature that the sound was painful, but not deafening.
By the time Felix landed and got to his feet, the wyvern had recovered and seemed to be particularly mad at him. It turned to the side and tried to launch itself into the air but the strike to it’s left arm caused it to limp and not gain enough momentum to barrel through the rubble like it normally did. When it leapt into the air, it started gliding then immediately retracted it’s left arm in pain and crashed into the ground.
Felix started rushing over to it with the axe resting on his shoulder and managed to reach it just as it got back to it’s feet. The creature had realized it wasn’t going to be flying anytime soon so instead it went back to trying to bite Felix and barrel through him. He dove under it’s wing and managed to avoid it’s claws, rolling to the side and coming to his feet just in time to see it’s tail swinging at him. The only option Felix had to defend himself was the axe so he swung it around to intercept and just managed to get it between him and it. Through the force of the wyvern’s own tail swing, the axe dug into the tail much further than Felix had expected, almost completely severing it.
It did throw Felix back a few meters but he managed to land on his feet and the axe came with him. The creature roared again, more out of pain than rage this time, except it’s voice cracked and didn’t hurt nearly as much as it usually did from this distance. It spun around and tried to bite again but without it’s tail, it’s coordination was much worse and it only took Felix a couple steps to completely avoid it. As it’s head passed by right in front of him, Felix hoisted the axe into the air and struck down into it’s neck, hitting the underside because it had turned it’s head for the bite.
The axe ripped through it’s flesh and came out the other side causing it to immediately spurt out a sickly black blood with every labored breath. The creature stumbled backwards and desperately tried to breathe fire in Felix’s direction but immediately cut the breath short when the fire passed through the gaping hole in it’s throat.
Felix rushed forwards and it tried to claw at him, keeping it’s neck far away from him. Felix met the claw with the axe’s blade and severed a couple of talons. He twisted his body and swung the axe upwards, maximizing on it’s own arm’s momentum and tearing right through it. The leathery wings kept the arm attached to it’s body, but it was just hanging on at this point. Both ends of the cut were spewing viscous black blood everywhere. The creature tried to hobble backwards but it was now missing a limb so Felix caught right up to it and planted the axe in the underside of it’s belly. He ended up covering himself in the blood, but he didn’t care.
The wyvern tried to roll away from him, but that only gave him better access to it’s underside. He continued to hack and slash at it’s body as it’s remaining limbs flailed about. There was black blood everywhere and it’s body was completely shredded but it continued to move and blood continued to shoot out in rhythmic spurts in time with it’s heartbeat. It took until Felix had ripped through most of it’s head and neck for it to finally lie still which unfortunately brought him down to just a few percent of his health left. Without the changes he had made to his bones, he never would have lived through the number of strikes he had to deliver to put the wyvern down.
Ding You have slain a [D] Partially Devoured Wyvern (Lvl 592)
Felix was ecstatic for the confirmation and immediately fell onto his butt, leaving the axe buried it it’s chest. Just a moment later though, all the blood and gore surrounding him including the remains of the wyvern’s corpse exploded out from the axe then stopped in mid air and rapidly collapsed back right under the axe. After ensuring the explosion and subsequent implosion hadn’t caused any damage, Felix walked over and saw a red glow around the axe. He reached down and carefully lifted it into the air marveling at it’s awesome effect but immediately realized it wasn’t the axe at all. He stowed the axe and reached down to pick up the red ruby like gem whose glow was now fading, leaving behind a deep ruby red color.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
[Sealed] Seal .________________________________________________________________________________________
I’m just going to assume this was the blood seal.
Stick it in your soul space, now. If the thing inside it can function enough to suck the wyvern corpse into it, it might not be able to hold it for much longer.
Felix heeded the warning and stowed the seal in his soul space then started walking back towards the wyvern’s cave. He wanted to drop down right there to recover but he was pretty sure the Devoured were going to come investigate now that this area’s protector had so loudly perished. He managed to recover his health to about 10% by the time he reached the cave where he immediately fell into a sitting position and meditated. Instead of focusing on his soul space or practicing spell formation, Felix turned his attention to his own body where he manually inspected and accelerated the healing and restoration. It ended up running through the majority of his energy core but it was better that than his health.
Felix left the cave as soon as his health was restored, having already looked around and finding nothing of particular value. He let his energy slowly restore itself as mana saturated his cells and replenished him. He had already covered a lot of ground to the south east so Felix continued around the kingdom and headed to the west.
He immediately spotted Devoured throughout the wyvern’s old domain and was silently glad he had decided to rest in the cave. He wasn’t ready to fight anything just yet so instead he stealthed his way through the ruins then the kingdom itself, darting from building to fence, keeping himself behind cover as much as possible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
