Chapter 180: Hit The Wall.

—Salaire PoV—“That was terrible,” I commented as Haell let go of me. I took a moment to take stock of where I was, and this was definitely no longer the cave behind the waterfall, that was for sure. Instead, I had found myself in a dark but regal place, with walls dominated by the same mark on Haell’s chest, couches framed by skull and bone, and even a… throne(?) opposite the one massive open doorway.

“So this is what you’re into?” I smirked, still feeling a bit sick. All the twisting and space. And now this prevailing sense of wrongness and dread in the air…

“It came with Pandemonium,” Haell retorted. “I can only go with the style it wants, you know?”

The room suddenly shook, and I braced myself, but Haell was completely calm. She even looked at the creepy walls… endearingly?

“Ah, don’t worry,” Haell said. “That’s just Pandemonium agreeing with me.”

The room shook harder.

Somehow, I understood that it did not mean agreement. Not at all.

Haell led me out of the throne room, into a corridor with arches of bone, and then several hallways where the walls and ceiling were at least partly flesh.

“What the fuck!?”

She laughed.

“ANSWER ME!”

She only laughed harder. Cheeky brat.

“Hey… You’re not about to feed me to your house, are you?”

Now she cackled.

“ARE YOU!??”

She giggled all the way to our destination. And then she just left after pushing me into the brightly decorated hall.

“SALAIRE! It’s been a while!” I heard the familiar voice of my friend Rallem, and my smile instantly widened.

“You’re late!” another familiar voice complained. It was Mahka! “What took you so long!?”

“I didn’t take long!” I complained, then turned my attention to Luine when she walked up to hug me. I eagerly returned the gesture, of course, finding that I already missed her so, after only a few days. She would often be gone for months if not years at a time, so I should be used to it, but these past few years of peace and domestic life had really spoiled me rotten, it seemed.

Soon, I was ushered into the massive table, where food was abundant, and several boxes of games were already prepared.

“Ah, it’s been a while since we’ve all been together like this,” I said, happily, wistfully.

“That’s right,” Fiya grinned. “After a long hiatus, the Piss Hunters are well and truly back!”

“To the Piss Hunters!” Baston raised his mug of piss-colored beer.

Mahka groaned, but she raised her mug against our own anyway.

“CHEERS!”

—Back to Haell PoV—

I smiled sadly upon hearing that from the room far behind me

I couldn’t have that. I could never have that. Why did my own party have to end so terribly?

I let a single tear fall, and left the building.

I flew and left civilization behind once again. My target was a little north of east, in the Impenetrable Barrier Range.

I chuckled subduedly and twirled in the air, unbothered by the affairs of the land-dwellers below. I picked up speed and felt the wind, almost wanting to shed my armor to feel it more directly. I reviewed my mental map and scrutinized the mountains, making sure that I was heading for the right one. I adjusted my course and flew for a few more hours. The mountains loomed larger, like green and gray and brown walls that truly loomed over me and blocked the horizon. I had to adjust my altitude, and fly higher than I ever had before just to get a good look at their peaks.

The smallest of these behemoths would rival the largest of Earth. The greenery from the base stretched on until halfway up the mountain, where the vegetation finally began to grow thinner, eventually growing bald and revealing the hard grey stone by the very peak.

It was breathtaking.

I heard the call of a white mirabird near the peak. A pack of gray wolves preyed on the much larger mooseter. It became harder to make out the details further down as the canopy obscured the ground, so I could only watch the flying birds or the rare behemoths large enough to tower over the trees.

I took a deep breath, and smiled. It was my first time here, yet I felt right at home. The entire mountain, unclaimed. There was no civilization here, nor any of the nearby ones.

That was good. It was exactly what I needed. I didn’t wish to make contact with an actual Harpy-Dwarf Duarchy just yet, so these mountains far from any New Granderan outpost were ideal. Uninhabited, and far from any of their territories. Wild and monster-infested, just the way I liked it.

I pondered. I watched for a while, the winds howling at this height, and the leaves below dancing to its rhythm.

I decided to start from the bottom and loop my way up.

I landed at the base of the mountain without bothering to chase down the smarter wildlife that decided to scatter away. A monklaw was stupid enough to pick the fight for some reason, so I gave the Level 20 monkey the death it wanted, splattered over several different trunks.

I started running up the mountain, but not straight to the top. I intended to circle around it over and over until I reached the peak. My every step resounded with a loud crack around me, tossing large amounts of dirt into the air. The terrain was strange, and I had to crash through some trees as I navigated across its chaotic dips and crests. Most possible enemies had started running before I arrived, though it was still a near thing with the speed I was going. I saw new kinds of big cats, colorful birds, goats, and particularly the good old goeaths that I used to hunt as a child. They were the goats whose horns could empower flames, and with teeth that acted as a good starter for massive fires. Sure enough, they resided in a clearing filled with embers and actively burning wood.

My evil eyes, vaguely similar to their own, stared right into their souls, and stoked the flames of hatred that lay underneath. I taunted them to rush to their deaths, and they listened. It was still difficult, and I couldn’t use it on the fly, but my curse mana was so diverse. Naturally, I could manifest different effects through my evil eyes!

The goeaths bleated and charged. Among them was one that had crossed over into level 40. The flames nearby gained a strong surge of strength as they came closer, growing hotter and spreading further.

They gave me hell.

I felt right at home.

I stood unmoved as their forces neared.

Finally, we clashed, and the leader’s corpse along with many others was sent flying back by a single slash. Devilcalibur hardly paused, ready to go again by the time the next wave of enemies reached me. I saw the hesitation that entered their eyes, but they were not able to stop fast enough. Half their number was gone by the time the herd scattered and ran away.

“That’s right,” I said to one in particular. “You better run.”

I left the burning site behind and continued my journey. I looped around uneven soil and protruding roots until I made it a fourth of the way up the mountain, where I finally chose to take another stop.

I had spotted a troll running and roaring towards me. It would never have caught up had I kept going, but here our interests aligned.

The troll swung a club madly and without thought as it continued its approach. I dodged the first swing with ease, and a lazy swing of Devilcalibur sliced deep into its guts. The rot went even deeper, but it curiously began to rapidly recede. The flesh shifted and burbled, in a desperate attempt to regenerate.

The monster swung a few more times, until its club clashed directly against Devilcalibur. The makeshift weapon predictably fell apart, and then its entire arm was cut off. The monster roared louder, but did not show any fear. It swung its remaining arm and even kicked to try and land just one hit.

Unfortunately for it, the opponent was just too strong this time. A simple beheading ended its life, and then I was upon its corpse like a vulture, taking only the parts I liked.

I grew curious and roasted a piece.

“” The meat was bland, but what taste remained was horrible.

I continued to explore the mountain, this time at a more leisurely pace. I stopped by the rushing river, and roasted some eelranas that I attracted to shore with my blood. I came across a cave full of wilbats, and decided to leave them alone for the day. I would attack later, once it was night, and they could better resist.

The trees thinned, and I eventually made it high enough to face the largest monster I’d seen from above. It walked, and the ground shook and sank from the force of a leg thicker than the tree-trunks surrounding us. Those four limbs had writhing root-like tendrils at the bottom, instead of any sort of feet I recognized. The massive legs extended well past the canopy, to converge into a body that could only be described as some strange lumpy mass.

It was the

And it attacked first.

I reacted immediately. My tail pivoted my body left. I rushed forward, and I dodged the monster’s attempted stomp. I healed what damage my muscles took as the ground was severely cratered by the blow, and the wind churned into a harsh gale. I didn’t mind the loose pieces of stone that hit my armor. The arbeast moved again, this time even faster. It was a ridiculous speed for something that size. Still slower than what I could do, but the margin was just narrow enough that the much faster tendrils managed to land a hit. A glancing blow from the thick thing dented my armor, and I took the first damage from this fight.

It was nothing. Any bruising was swiftly healed. My magic roiled harder inside of myself as the carnage started. The next time my enemy attacked, I did not stay on the defensive. I met the offending leg. Tendrils were easily sliced through by my blade. Thick yellow blood spilled from the wounds. This was no tree despite the bark-like skin. Devilcalibur then collided with the main leg, and I was predictably blasted away. I stabilized myself with my wings, turned hard, and then dodged the monster’s follow-up kick.

The battle continued like this, a game of whack-a-Haell. With long limbs far thicker than my body, trying desperately to stomp me into the ground. I activated my enchanted hoofshoes, to move better in the increasingly loose terrain. I might actually die if I take a direct hit, but that would not happen. It wasn’t even rare for me to dance along the blade’s edge this close.

I dodged another frantic stomp, but not without a parting slash to sever more tendrils. More kicks followed as our battle devastated a ragged line through the mountain terrain, but that only resulted in more of my opponent’s tendrils being destroyed. I aimed only for those, ensuring I would not be pushed around by the leg’s thicker trunk. I slashed through another mass of tendrils, only to see that many were already regrowing. The rot of Devilcalibur had already subsided. My enemy showed its terrifying regenerative prowess. I felt the curse flowing between me and my sword, and I shifted its nature. More rapid exchanges sent us hurtling through the trees, until I heard a groan from one of the crushing beaks along the base of the monster’s legs. The anti-healing worked, and now its many tendrils were actively being diminished. It redoubled its efforts to catch me, but I was far more agile than a monster this clumsy. It grew even as those tendrils were important for the arbeast to maintain balance. Now it could not hope to land even a glancing blow.

It was time I took things up a notch.

The next attempted kickstomp, I met head-on. I unleashed the confluence of my wrath. The blade of Devilcalibur bit deeply, though perhaps not that deep for a creature this size. Still, the curse ravaged through the flesh inside, as it had completely circumvented the bark-like exoskeleton outside.

I was also tossed away by the impact, but I suffered far less damage from that one clash. All four of my opponent’s beaks shrieked, yet I was still able to dodge most of its follow-up kick. Several tendrils managed to lash across me, but I did not use that as an excuse to give my enemy any rest. I fully dodged its next stomp, and then met the kick after that with another massive slash of my own. With just those two attacks, my enemy had already begun to further slow down.

It ran away.

The arbeast was hounding me one second, and fleeing the next.

It did not need to turn around at all, so the sudden change, and the great globs of earth it threw at me on its way out, managed to surprise me

“Get back here!” I shouted and gave chase. I easily caught up, and delivered two devastating blows that cracked the bones of its legs. It took only that much for the monster to realize that fleeing would only make it easier for me to kill it.

Our battle continued. The monster’s legs moved in a deadly dance that churned the ground and demolished trees, creating thunderous noise that warned anyone off interfering. I weaved through this dance of death, aware in full of my enemy’s strange positions at all times. It took up a lot of , all of which I could perceive. Devilcalibur bit chunks into those legs at all the most opportune times. I set the arbeast alight in hellfire, and began to rot and twist its body with waves of my magic. The monster showed no reaction at first, but then its periodic shouts grew more shrill as more of my magic touched upon its open wounds.

The arbeast’s wounds began closing much faster, causing my eyes to widen. We exchanged a few more blows, where I came out on top like always. One of those massive attacks of mine revealed that the monster’s muscles underneath the previously re-fused exoskeleton were still ruined.

I attacked the monster’s limbs some more, until it could hardly move half as fast as it did at the start of this battle. I activated the blood magic inside myself to heal the heavy damage my own body had suffered from all those maneuvers. I flew up just before the arbeast’s broken and bleeding leg crashed upon my position. I streaked towards its massive body in the center, bereft of features aside from some deep but narrow holes. I landed atop the arbeast, only for a limb to immediately follow and curl. This monster reach me from anywhere on its body. Its limbs were that flexible.

That still didn’t mean it could catch me. Now it had to be even more careful lest it damage itself. I danced around this single limb while slicing repeatedly through its main body below me. I mixed in a couple of my anatomic mastery with that, along with the continuing barrage of hellfire and curse magic.

The arbeast still lasted quite long despite all it had already suffered. It even demonstrated that it could stand upright on two legs, and attack me with the other two. That did make things a little harder, as I had to maneuver more with my wings than my hooves.

It was all for naught in the end. Insufficient to escape, let alone to win. The monster wobbled, and then flipped over, impressively able to stand and move just as well when its legs had been bent the opposite way.

That party trick did not save it from me.

I chopped off the arbeast’s leg from the base. I continued to poke holes in its massive body. It finally toppled, and I watched from above as a loud shockwave traveled due to its sheer mass. A wave of dust followed, and I shielded myself with a small and frankly weak barrier of blood, but enough to keep mundane irritants out.

By the time the dust cleared, the arbeast was well and truly dead.

Now I just had to figure out how the fuck I was going to transpor this.

My hearts ached, as I knew I couldn’t possibly take all of it with me.