56 Attack of the Swamp! The Fate of a Rare Breed (1/2)

The fabled monsters of Hell's Swamp were passed down throughout the ages, creatures of unknown biology that had somehow become deeply rooted in the waters of these lands. They each bore odd features, some having the appearance of crocodiles with sharp protrusions, extra limbs, and longer tails, while the others were spotted frogs that had grown to the size of a soccer ball. Their bodies had many eyes as a long and ghastly looking green tongue with bumps was hanging from their mouths.

Each of these monsters was slowly shuffling towards the floating artificial campsite that rested on the surface of a dark moor. Their eyes were shining in a reddish light giving off an ominous feeling, even more so at these dark hours.

At this moment, the Camping Cube had already activated its night-time lights. They were arranged at the four corners of the platform, lighting up a majority of its surroundings, leaving only a circular region of darkness for roughly 10 meters around it.

Evan and Rick were standing at the edge of the platform as they calmly gazed towards the glaring red eyes in the shadows. However, Fatty Joe started to tremble as he shouted, ”Brother Evan, what the hell? These monsters are actually real?”

Evan remained silent for a while before he spoke while looking at Fatty Joe, ”They aren't true monsters...”

Fatty Joe was a bit confused as he heard this, he asked, ”What do you mean?”

Rick, who stood nearby, spoke, ”What he means is that these creatures are not any rare beasts as the rumors claim.”

”If these things aren't monsters, then what are they? Can't you see how different they are from the standard swamp life?” Fatty Joe asked in confusion while pointing towards the entities.

Rick was about to reply, but Evan tapped his shoulder. Rick seeing this remained silent as Evan walked over to Fatty Joe and spoke, ”These are not monsters, but mutants,”

Fatty Joe was a bit surprised, but Evan then pointed towards the rift in the distance as he spoke, ”Wherever there's a Lesser Space, depending on its grade, all creatures which have inhabited its domain would transform. You have seen this before in that video shown during the new year's greeting, and it is merely a phase of evolution for the common kind. If successful, these creatures will naturally break free from their limits and become true Level 1 Monster.”

”Oh, so they were capable of doing that? How terrifying!” Fatty Joe thought to himself, he looked at Evan and spoke, ”If that's so, then how long would it take for them to transform?”

Evan sighed as he looked at the starry night sky and replied, ”They would generally require many months, even with the Lesser Spaces. However, all of this will change once the Ascenders Rift arrives; everything will be greatly accelerated.”

Fatty's face sunk as he spoke, ”This... then how do we deal with it?”

Evan shook his head and replied, ”We can't; there are just too many rifts in the world, and even if we were to send out a warning, nothing good would happen. Not with that power having such deep claws into the world...”

Fatty Joe's eyes narrowed as he spoke, ”That power? You mean those guys you were weary of that came to the campus?”

Evan was about to speak, but the mutated swamp life had begun to rush towards them in hordes. As he saw this, Evan sighed as he replied, ”I'll speak about them later; we have to deal with these things. Rick!”

As Rick heard Evan's shout, he nodded and replied, ”I got it.”

Evan looked at the confused Fatty Joe and smiled when he spoke, ”Can you handle yourself fatty?”

Fatty Joe thought Evan was mocking him, he gritted his teeth and took out a fairly large metal ax from his suitcase as he shouted, ”Che! Even if I'm scared, I won't go down without a fight from these things.”

Evan tapped Fatty Joe's shoulder and spoke, ”Good, we'll leave here to you.”

Evan turned and gave Rick a knowing look, as Rick's eyes flashed, remembering what Evan had discussed with him privately.

Quickly, both their bodies began to glow in bright lights as two unique armors appeared on them separately. Rick was wearing holy looking light armor with a sacred spear in his hand. Evan, however, was wearing simple leather armor and a unique brownish cape with strange runes.

Rick looked at Evan and smiled as he spoke, ”So you really don't have a weapon, that's a bummer...”

”Well, my weapon is one with the universe, it will come when I need it,” Evan replied mysteriously.

”Tsk! Whatever you say...” Rick said while rolling his eyes.

Fatty, on the other hand, was shocked. His mouth opened wide when he exclaimed, ”What the hell, man? When did you guys get gear? Is this shit some kind of video game?”

Evan glanced at Fatty Joe as he spoke, ”Fatty, watch us closely while you defend yourself; this is the power from the rifts. Begin!”

Roar! At Evan's shout, a massive mutant crocodile two times the size of a fully grown one had pushed its head out of the swamp waters. It jumped onto the platform and immediately bit towards Evan with its savage-looking mouth.

”A snappy one, aren't you...” Evan murmured as his body swayed to the side, easily avoiding its attack.

Before the mutant crocodile could even have a chance of reacting, Evan had already acted. He casually moved forwards and kicked the crocodile, hurling its body far into the air as a few bone snapping noises sounded.

Much like Evan, Rick had similarly finished off his opponent in a flash. He jumped into the air and launched a flurry of rapid spear strikes towards a group of the mutant frogs, causing them to sink into the swamp waters as muddled corpses with bloody holes.

Evan glanced at the deck and saw Fatty Joe was still in awe; he turned and looked at Rick and saw that the latter was looking over.