56 The Hunt IV (1/2)
A memory from what felt like a lifetime ago.
Li walked across a rocky path shrouded in darkness and enclosed with a low roof of rocky stalactites that dripped with damp droplets. If Elden World were able to truly simulate the senses, then he figured the air would have been moist as well, heavy and stuffy within the depths of the Crawling Caves, so named for the annoying surplus of giant insects that skittered about.
He was in his elder leshen form, back when all it represented was just a character in a game, not something that would warp the very fabric of his mind.
\”How the hell have you spent ten hours here?\” said Li as his skull-head gave an accusing nod to a longtime companion and guild member, //BEAST//.
\”How else am I going to carry this guild in the arena tournaments? Everyone's so focused on growing stuff that nobody cares about getting stronger.\” She was a feli, her black furred ears twitching every so often and her feral eyes glinting yellow in the dark with the slit pupils dilated wide.
She was a fan of steampunk, so she dressed like the genre with a large, black overcoat, top hat, formal white blouse and leather pants with sleek, iron-studded boots. All of her articles of clothing gleamed with power, the shining and complex sigils of Greater Runes visible upon them.
Her status bar hovered above her head. A full green bar indicated her health while a half-full blue bar indicated her mana. The white letters //BEAST// were perched atop the bars. And beside the username was written 'LVL100+', indicating that she, like Li, were players that were not only level 100, but also completed multiple cycles of the campaign and gained all the stats, items, and spells associated with the task.
One of the strongest players of Arboretum and perhaps the strongest damage dealer.
//BEAST// withdrew her celestial tier Meteoric Crossbow from her back and equipped it with both hands. A necessary thing, too, as the crossbow was massive. It was not made of wood, but an ethereal metal the color of the night sky, black and sprinkled with twinkling dots of light that mimicked stars.
Li took followed her and withdrew his own staff. A staff of blackened wood materialized at his hand. Or, more accurately, it was a long and thin stake far taller than Li. It was of crude design, as if roughly carved up, splinters and little strips of black wood shavings still clinging to its body.
\”That thing is totally gross,\” said //BEAST// as she put up a vomiting emoji next to her username. \”Have you ever thought about switching it out?\”
Li looked up to the top of the staff. Impaled upon the stake was an oversized fetus of some ungodly abomination. It rotting flesh was various shades of black and grey that seemed to perfectly embody decay.
The body was vaguely humanoid, but the creature's four limbs were spindly, branch-like things far too small for its round and chubby belly. Its fingers and toes ended in slithering little tentacles, each lined with inquisitive red eyes. The creature was still alive, and even as it was bound to the stake driven through its stomach, its rotund infant belly heaved up and down with rattling breaths.
It was around the size of a small man, but it managed to stay in a more compact form due to its curled-upposition, as if it was still resting in its mother's womb. Its head could've been mistaken for a human baby's were it not entirely covered with dozens of sets of mouths and eyes.
The creature was an Orphan of Shub-Niggurath. Li felt pride when he looked at the grotesque item because he saw it as his greatest pride – an accumulation of hundreds of hours of work. It was called the Black Beauty, and it was a celestial-class staff forged from a Primal Shard obtained once every completion of the campaign and an ultra-rare drop called the Dark Mother's Fetus derived from defeating the monstrously difficult new game+ boss Shub-Niggurath.
\”I think it looks pretty cute, don't you think?\” said Li as he teasingly waved the staff forward. The infant made gurgling, cooing sounds, as if reaching out for its mother.
//BEAST// recoiled backwards before laughing. \”Well, it's a strong item, I'll give you that.\” She assumed a serious expression and pointed forwards, deeper into the dark of the cave. \”Come on, I'll show you what I do here.\”
Li followed //BEAST// until they reached the edge of the path. Going further would lead to a deep drop into a massive pit. Heat waves emanated upwards from the pit as the ground was cracked and almost molten. Atop this unstable earth were almost fifty wyrms all stretched out, their long necks and tails piling atop each other.
\”A wyrm pit?\” said Li. \”What's so important about this?\”
\”Do you remember lore about dragons?\” said //BEAST// as she aimed her crossbow down at the pit. A gleaming white arrow nocked with a mechanical click.
Li shrugged. \”I do, but obviously not as much about plants and forest creatures. Dragons aren't exactly my area of expertise, and these aren't even real dragons. They're just wyrms.\”
//BEAST// nodded. \”Yep, they're just wyrms, that's true, but dragons are an evolutionary species.
Wyrms evolve into drakes which evolve into dragons which can evolve into elder dragons. Supposedly, those evolutions can take place over a single lifetime. Like the boss Imugi – it's backstory reads that it started off as a wyrm, but through many fights and challenges, it evolved right up to being an elder dragon.\”
Li knew that //BEAST// was a ranger with specialties as a Beastmaster, Dragon Rider, and Blaster. \”I think I get it. You want to try taming these guys to evolve them? But you know that nobody's ever seen a wyrm evolve into a drake, right? Some things are just, well, just lore.\”
//BEAST// smiled. \”You and I both know that the devs like to add hidden mechanics based on tiny little tidbits they put in the lore. I'm no dummy – I've done my research. There are a few forum posts here and there where beginners killed a wyrm and then all of a sudden, it just turned into a dragon and killed them. When they tried to re-explore the area, it was gone. Of course, this was so rare that everyone thought they were lying and essentially told them to 'get good'.\”
\”People post about crazy theories and made up experiences all the time.\”
\”True, but I know I'm right, because I was one of those posters, back when the game started, and I was just a noob.\” //BEAST// readied her aim. \”I've always wondered what it was like to tame one of those rare evolving wyrms. Maybe they have even higher-level caps than normal dragons.\”
She fired. The shining white crossbow bolt spiraled in the air as it sailed down. As it sailed downwards, it left behind a trail of twinkling stars.
Li looked attentively. He never got tired of seeing the massive contrast between the bolt's beauty and how destructive it was.
When the bolt slammed into the center of the wyrm nest, a colossal explosion of blinding white radiance emerged, completely covering all of the wyrms. Then, a rumbling crack echoed outward as the shockwave from the blast scaled the pit's walls, shaking off aged dust from the entirety of the cavern.
A mushroom cloud of smoke and stardust floated upwards. It was as if a meteor of divine punishment had slammed into this pit of lizards with heavenly might, and as the mushroom cloud faded, there were nothing but charred corpses with coins and drops floating above them.
Li figured this must have been pretty similar to how the dinosaurs went extinct.
\”I don't see any of them reviving,\” said Li. \”They look really dead to me.\”
//BEAST// shrugged and nocked another meteor bolt, waiting until the camp of monsters respawned. \”Well, it's not a common occurrence. I've been here ten hours for a reason.\”
\”Then why bring me?\”
\”Cause' I figured you were good luck.\” //BEAST// gave him a smile. \”Things seem to go well with you around.\”
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For the first time since he had come to this new world, Li opened his mouth in surprise. At the end of the day with //BEAST//, they had never found that rare, elusive wyvern that could evolve beyond its level limitations.
But here it was.
Li watched through the shadowfly, his body tense. He was a distance away from the adventurers to prevent getting spotted, but he started to regret the decision when he saw that the fight was much harder than he anticipated for them.
When they had slain the wyrm, he thought his job was done, but very evidently not.
The wyrm's decapitated head tried to snap at Vahid, but Jeanne saw this and punched it away, sending it rolling down the ravine. She collapsed to one knee, her strength drained, but the situation wasn't over.
The wyrm's headless body stood up. Its broken and shattered legs regenerated, the bones re-aligning as muscle, flesh, and scales regrew. Then, vertebrae shot out of the exposed base of its neck, growing rapidly until it formed the skeletal outline of an entirely new head.
But that wasn't the end of the grim situation. The wyrm's entire body shuddered and shifted as it mutated uncontrollably. It became larger, its scales turning red, and then black. As it bulked up, its slim neck remained the same size, seemingly too small for its bigger body, but quickly it became evident why.
Eight more heads sprouted outwards, covered in steaming amniotic fluids as their eyes opened just as hateful and active as the original head. The creature's burned and tattered wings sloughed off their damaged membranes and regrew tougher, stronger, and more importantly, larger – the wings of a fully fledged dragon.
The dragon's nine heads roared in a symphony of power, its now majestic wings stretched out to cover the sun.
All the adventurers started to scramble back.
Li recognized the creature. It was a Lerneas, a derivative of dragon inspired by the mythological hydra. A level 70 creature with poison far, far more potent than the venom wyrm and possessing immense regeneration so long as its nine heads were all intact.
This was a creature leagues upon leagues beyond the adventurers, and they would need his help.
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Sylvie could not help but shake as she saw the hydra's wings blot out the sun. It was like a merciless sheen of darkness that snuffed out any light of hope they had to survive. She put out a halting step backwards, but her shaky muscles collapsed on her, and she fell on the hard earth, her grip loosing on her short sword.
What could she do anyway? The Lerneas was a creature of legend. The type drawn on storybooks and scrolls to explain why entire countries disappeared. It would take the might of legends to fight against. At the least, a team of platinum plates would have to miraculously appear just for them to have a hope of surviving.