Once we found the entrance to the wasteland, we decided to take a break before journeying in. The place was so infested with Ghouls, we wouldn’t be able to get a single quiet moment once we walked in there, so we backed away into the forest and found a decent spot for shelter as the night sky darkened. Since we’d already cleared out the nearby area of Ghouls while walking through the first time, we didn’t have to fight quite as many while getting ready to sleep.
So we rested, each of us taking watch for a third of our break throughout the night, fighting off any straggler Ghouls that showed up.
Once Erani woke me up for my turn on watch – mine was the last – I sat up and rubbed my eyes while she lay down. I wasn’t wearing my Ethereal Armor anymore since it wore off in my sleep, so I re-cast it, this time selecting Light Plate. It was past midnight, so Time Loop had refreshed by now, and I was feeling a lot safer. Plus, not only would Light Plate give me extra Spell XP, the discount also helped ensure I wouldn’t run out of Mana while fighting off the Ghouls that wandered over to us.
So I spent my few hours keeping the Ghouls away and practicing my Spells, my only real light in the dead forest coming from the glowing armor covering my body.
By the time the sun had risen and I woke up Erani and the Dryad, I’d gotten a good bit of Spell XP for most of my Spells. The main gains, of course, went to Noxious Grasp, which had gone from 266 to 355. I needed a total of 461, so I was only about 100 away from finally Ranking up the damned thing. I didn’t know how people ever got their Spells to Rank 20 and above.
Well, I supposed it really wasn’t taking very long at all. Pretty much anyone with a Spell at Rank 20 would be 40 years old, minimum. It took years upon years of practice to push it above the Soft Cap, or to get a high enough Level that the Soft Cap was that high in the first place. So, really, I was just so used to being so ahead of schedule that, once something started taking a more reasonable amount of time, it felt like forever.
Still, I needed it to Rank up soon. Really, I needed it to Rank up a few times soon. With my current Mana/Minute, it wasn’t very possible, but pushing my Spells so far past where they should’ve been was what’d helped me survive all this time. A single Rank was only worth a bit of damage per second, but with multiple extra Spell Ranks, that extra damage could easily mean the difference between being able to kill something and not. And now that we were approaching Kingdom’s Edge, I was about to face some enemies that’d put my current Spell Ranks to shame.
But I couldn’t sit around for a few weeks and wait for myself to get stronger, so I’d just have to push on. Leveling up would increase my Mana/Minute, so I’d have to go with the good old fashioned solution of killing my way through my problems.
Once we were all awake and it was bright out, we set off again, returning to the wasteland to resume our perilous trek. The wasteland began abruptly – I could’ve drawn a line in the ground separating the forest and the desolate field. There were trees in the forest, but they suddenly stopped, as though there were a barrier preventing them from spreading any further. The ground of the wasteland was ash, instead of the hard gray dirt of the dead forest, and, most noticeably, the wasteland was sunken a good pace or two down into the ground, compared to the ground of the forest.
There was only one way to get in, so we approached the edge and slid down into the field of dust. There were no Ghouls immediately nearby – at least, not at a distance where they could smell us – but once we started moving closer in we’d inevitably have a conflict. In the bright light, I could see even better now, and the sheer number of Ghouls I saw was overwhelming.They didn’t have great eyesight or hearing – only smell – so I wasn’t too worried about the lack of cover in the barren wasteland, but there were still other monsters that roamed around here.
An earth-shaking roar echoed off from the mountain range.
Ah, such as that one.
Off in the distance, as we walked further into the wasteland, I saw a massive figure rise off one of the mountains, flying up into the air. The long, lizard-like body with the extensive, scaly wings. The ear-piercing scream of a roar that could be heard even when the beast only existed in the horizon. The blast of fire the monster shot from its mouth that seemed to rival the entire forest fire I’d experienced.
A Dragon.
Dragons were synonymous with overwhelming power. Something that Humans couldn’t hope to rival. Hells, I’d heard rumors that you could get a whole-ass Title just for the feat of killing one. And they were rumors for a reason – a person ending the life of one of those things was so rare that it was basically impossible to actually verify what happened when you did.
The Koinkar Kingdom had set up countermeasures in case a Dragon ever did attack them – they had to, considering the fact that there was Dragon territory lying on their border – but those countermeasures were more ‘try to save as many lives as possible’ than they were ‘fight off the attacker’.
Sure, it might’ve been possible if they mobilized the highest-Level Classers in the territory, outfitted them with gear made by the most talented Enchanters, and picked the battlefield so that the Dragon couldn’t take advantage of its flight to corner its enemies in the cliffs. But even then, Dragons could work with each other too, and if one of them called in a couple buddies to take care of the Humans, there would be no way they’d survive.
There were two main things that allowed the Humans to live in spite of the constant threat of the Dragons. First, Dragons didn’t really care about the existence of things outside their immediate surroundings. Sure, if Humans ever tried to build settlements in or near the wasteland, they’d have to worry, but as long as we kept far away, the Dragons would ignore us, too. And second, they were somewhat predictable in terms of what they could do.
Dragons had two main methods of attack: their body and their breath. They had claws and teeth and tail and feet that they could use to crush you, and if you were too far away for that, they’d burn you to a crisp. But as long as you were prepared, you could manage to survive those attacks. A high Dexterity score could let you dodge its strikes, or you could use a shielding Spell or Talent to keep the damage low. And as for the fire, there were many different flame-mitigating Enchantments that could keep you safe.
Still, that was just the way one could avoid being killed by a Dragon – there wasn’t much that could actually let you kill one yourself. Even if you needed a few extra hits to take down, they were still incredibly maneuverable both on the ground and in the air, and their massive Health pools would make almost any attack a pinprick to their thick scales.
So like I said before – they were synonymous with overwhelming power. I’d heard tales and read books and manuals on them, descriptions of specific Dragons and their individual names and personalities, even heard songs composed about different adventurer’s meetings with the beasts of the mountains. No matter where you lived or how far away you were from the massive beasts, there was nobody alive that hadn’t heard of them.
The Dragon that rose from the mountains soared above the distant cliffs, roaring at something I couldn’t see. Something down in the valley between the mountains had apparently angered it, and it swooped down, blasting a massive breath of fire into the valley. Whatever was there had almost certainly been laid to waste. But, no. The Dragon swooped back around, making a second bombardment along the valley. What was down there was apparently pretty survivable.
I turned to Erani. We’d all stopped when we saw the Dragon in the distance. “C’mon, let’s keep moving.”
As we walked, we had to fight off the Ghouls that approached us. Thankfully, it seemed they were more thinly spread further away from Kingdom’s Edge, so we could avoid most of them and keep our Mana from going too low. Part of me wanted to just sit here and kill Ghouls for the XP all day, but I had no idea how close behind me the Demons were. The fact that we hadn’t seen them at all since the fire made me quite suspicious of whatever they were planning. I just needed to get out of here. We were so close to leaving the kingdom, and I was eager to make that process as quick as possible.
As we walked, the Dragon continued to attack whatever it was that was in the valley. It barraged the area with fire, and, when that didn’t work, swooped down to strike with its massive claws. And when that also didn’t work, it went back to fire. Just what was this thing doing?
The one-sided battle went on for at least a couple hours as we slowly made our way through the wasteland. How did that thing have so much Stamina to keep fighting for so long? Well, most Dragons were incredibly high-Level, so it made sense, but it was still amazing to watch something fight for so long. It also made me even more curious about what it was fighting in the first place.
I was approaching Level 15, too. Getting there would mean a huge boost in power for me – not only would it provide a Talent, but it would also give me a Spell. Coming right after the triple-Level-up from the barricade before, I felt like I was really beginning to hit my stride with Leveling. Maybe I was just getting lucky, or maybe Recursive Growth’s value-over-time effect was beginning to truly pay off – it’d gotten me a total of 24 Stats so far, which was way above-rate.
Either way, though, I was beginning to feel a bit confident. And the extra Level would help with my Mana/Minute, which was currently only barely able to keep up with the rate I was casting to kill the Ghouls.
As we traversed, I also noticed something else – other than the Ghouls – lurking in the wasteland. For the most part, the field we walked through was completely flat. Flat, that is, except for a few unnatural holes and hills scattered throughout the field. And they weren’t small; the ‘holes’ were more like miniature caves – cavities that struck diagonally into the earth and were all wider than I was tall. The hills were mounds of dirt that looked strange and abrupt on the otherwise flat terrain – like random spots of acne on a person’s face. At first, I’d assumed they were just the aftermath of some particularly strong monsters duking it out in the area, but then I noticed something weird about them.
Down in the holes were red eyes.
Something was living in them. I noticed that the hills all existed near the caverns, and they all looked pretty similar, so it was likely that they weren’t the result of various battles – they were the result of some monster digging them out and living in them, kicking dirt out to form the nearby hills. Sure, there were many scars on the landscape that looked nothing like these holes, but none of them housed these red eyes.
“Know what’s in those caves?” I asked Erani while simultaneously messaging the Dryad.
“Only know my own lands,” the Dryad responded. “Not others.”
“No clue,” Erani said. “I heard about the Ghouls and the wasteland because I was researching the Spell that caused it, but I didn’t really look into the specific things that live here. Well, other than the more famous stuff in Kingdom’s Edge itself.”
“Yeah, I have no idea, either,” I nodded. I looked over to one of the holes, about a hundred paces away. Even that far, the single pair of glowing red eyes within shined brightly at me, staring with a murderous intent. Each and every cavern had a single pair of red eyes – no more, no less. And they all seemed to be watching us. Seemed that whatever was within didn’t have a taste for the undead.
We stayed away from them.
It was while we were making a wide arc around one of the mysterious caverns that our attention was pulled back to the Dragon that was still attacking whatever was in the valley. The flying beast swooped up, roaring louder than it ever had yet, and flapped its wings, propelling it toward the wasteland. Toward us.
Out of seeming frustration that it couldn’t destroy the valley, it crashed itself into the dusty ground of the wasteland, killing hundreds of meandering Ghouls, and roared, stomping its four feet on the ground. It was still far from us, but closer than it had been before – now, it was more than just a silhouette in the sky. Now, it was a massive motherfucking Dragon, larger than a house, standing across from us in the wasteland. It stomped over and over again, roaring and breathing fire at nothing in particular.
We stopped in our approach, unsure of what to do. Sure, it didn’t seem to see us, but it wasn’t like I wanted to get closer to the damned thing.
After a moment of stomping around, it flapped its wings once again, and took to the skies. The scene it left behind was one of complete destruction. The already-ashen ground was completely scorched. Any Ghouls that were nearby had either been crushed, burnt, or split in two by the Dragon’s razor-sharp talons. There were imprints left behind where the beast had stomped and slammed its tail into the ground. And, when it flapped its wings to ascend into the air, the windstorm left behind scattered guts and flung ash into the air, completely obscuring the area.
The smoky sky covered the Dragon at first, but then it burst out, heading further into the wasteland – further toward us. It swooped by the ground and let out a massive breath of fire – once again, at nothing in particular – and continued in its path near us.
“Shit, we need to get cover!” I said. It’d burn us alive if we didn’t get out of the way.
I snapped my head around. The wasteland was completely barren, with no trees for cover, not even a rock to hide behind. The only thing around was…
“Get in the cave!” I shouted, tugging Erani and the Dryad along with me as the Dragon drew closer, charging up another of its breath attacks. We leapt into the deep cavern, tumbling into the sloped ground and down, far beneath the earth.
I listened as the Dragon unleashed its fire above us and continued on in its rampage, traveling far away from us. I let out a breath.
Then, I looked behind me.
A pair of red eyes stared down at me in the dark cave. Glowing, red orbs perring into me. And then, a growl escaped the thing they were attached to.
And in a burst of speed, it attacked.