Stygian Mage

Soren cut the Beast’s skull with his knife and took out the dark green colored Core covered in blood and white brain matter from inside. This was his first kill this morning. The name of the dead Beast that he had just killed was ‘Alpelope’. It looked like a normal spider with eight legs and 4 pairs of eyes on its head. It also had small blue-colored hair on its skin with some black spots. The only difference between a normal spider and an ‘Alpelope’ was that this spider was as big as a human adult.

Soren had already scanned the Beast before and knew that it was a Layer-9 Beast.

Right now, Soren was covered all over in the web silk and his right forearm had an injury which looked like it was from a corrosive poison type of attack. In reality, the fight with this Beast had gone on for a quarter of an hour, but it felt much longer to Soren. The Beast had actually been tracking Soren from the moment he left the tree hole. He had thought he was quite careful but he still missed this.

After the beast had tracked Soren for a while and confirmed that it could kill its prey, it had ambushed him. It first used its web to trap Soren and then sprayed its corrosive poison on him. The web was not that strong that it could completely stop an adult from moving but it still had enough power to hinder someone’s mobility.

After realizing that he was getting attacked from behind, Soren had used all his power to turn around while struggling with the web and used his right arm to protect his head. The poison did nothing to the spider’s web but instead, corroded his skin.

He quickly cast Ice Arrow and hurled it towards the Beast. But instead of going through with the attack, he exploded the ice arrow after it had reached halfway to its target. It was a simple method to create a momentary distraction so that he could free himself. He then moved back while removing the sticky web from his body. The spider had only sprayed web on him once so the amount was not that much, as such, he was able to free himself; albeit not completely.

Soren quickly got into the battle stance and cast ‘Shadow Chain’, aiming it towards the spider. The duration between the ice arrow explosion and his casting of Shadow Chain was very less so the Beast was still somewhat distracted by it. The shadow chain went through the ice fog at a high speed and pierced one of the Beast’s eyes. It then entangled the Beast and trapped it, stopping it from moving.

Soren’s Spells had gotten stronger with him and such; the chain was able to hold the Beast tightly. It struggled and tried to free itself while keeping an eye on Soren and his actions.

While still struggling with the chain, it faced Sored and sprayed its web towards him once again. Soren was already prepared this time so he quickly dive-rolled to the side. The Beast didn’t give up though and kept shooting the sticky web at him without giving Soren any time to rest.

Soren rolled on the ground once more to the side and then quickly cast ‘Create Undead’, creating a Skeleton Soldier. Right now, he needed someone fast who could move forward and kill the spider while dodging the web attacks. Black mist swirled around him as usual; a black magic circle formed on the ground under him and then dissipated as the Spell took effect. Soon, a pale gray colored skeleton walked out from the dark mist in front of him. The Skeleton Soldier stood there awaiting its Master’s orders and very soon, it received them. After giving his orders, Soren took out his knife and threw it to the Skeleton Soldier. The skeleton, with two black flames burning in its eye holes, caught the knife and dashed towards the spider on its Master’s orders.

The spider saw the skeleton coming towards it and sped up its movement to finish its plan. It started spraying more web silks at a much higher pace without choosing any direction. But, if Soren could see the whole battle area from a higher point, he would have realized that he was already surrounded by webs all over. He had no place to move anymore. It was a very simple tactic but there were no doubts about its effects.

The spider kept spraying its web silk and it didn’t take long for even the skeleton to get trapped in it. It tried its hardest to cut the web silk using the knife but wasn’t able to. Soren also realized the problem and almost cursed out loud upon finding out that he had fallen for the Beast’s plan. Now, he was surrounded by cobwebs in all directions and had no place to move. He took a glance at the spider and had a feeling that the Beast was sneering at him, laughing at him for being a fool.

Soren had paid no attention towards the web around him before so he didn’t think of a way to break it, but now, he had to find a way or he would become the Beast’s lunch; or dinner, depending on the Beast’s appetite. The only way he could think of right now was to use ‘Fireball’ and burn the web, but he was not sure if it would work or not. The Beast was not a normal Beast after all and had cultivated to Layer-9. Nonetheless, he had no other idea right now, so he decided to just go with it.

He stood at one place so as to not get entangled with web even more than he already was. He looked towards his undead skeleton which was still trying its hardest to free itself. Soren then looked towards the spider which was already free of the ‘Shadow Chain’ and was now crawling on the web towards him.

Soren released a quick breath and with his staff in right hand, he lifted his left palm and cast the simple ‘Fireball’ spell.

…..

The next scene that followed was something so beautiful that Soren became speechless upon seeing it. Seeing this scene after a tough fight gave Soren an exhilarating feeling.

The web that was created by the ‘Alpelope’ actually turned out to be highly inflammable substance. The moment Soren had cast ‘Fireball’; the web was caught on fire. He didn’t even release the spell and the web around him caught on fire just from the heat of the Fireball. It then spread around like wildfire; completely out of control. The fire following the web patterns looked very enchanting; just like the fuse on a firework. The fire very soon had spread all around Soren, giving out beautiful sparks which were probably due to the web residue burning off. A thought came to Soren’s mind as he looked at the burning web. If the web was like the fuse of a firework, then the main firewok would be….

Shriek!!!

The spider shrieked sharply upon seeing what was happening but never got a chance to even finish its shout. The wildfire soon spread toward it and then and then it happened.

Boom!!

With a blast, the spider was caught on fire. The spider’s hair turned out to be similar to its web and quickly burned in the fire. The Beast shrieked sharply and thrashed around for a while with the fire still burning its body, but soon, its voice got weak and it stumbled and fell down amidst the beautiful firework that was still going on. It gave out one last blast as the spider fell on the ground, signifying its end of life.

Soren was still speechlessly looking at this scene. It turned out that the fire was much more effective than he had initially thought. He then once again cursed at himself for not using fire sooner and ending the fight quickly.

Even more so, he was glad that he had made this spell his Innate Spell before this fight.

………

Soren took out the Core from the burnt dead body of the spider while ignoring the disgusting smell of hair and skin burning. He had decided it earlier that he would first breakthrough to Layer-9 using the Mana from dead Beasts and then start collecting the sealed Beast Cores. So, he started using ‘Devour’ and absorbed all the Mana from the Beast while paying attention to his surrounding for any danger.

CP – 48%...

CP – 51%...

CP – 54%...

His CP slowed down and stopped at 54%. After finished with absorbing the mana, Soren took one last glance at the dead Beast and then moved away from there while removing the web silks from his body and checking out his wound. After thinking about it, he was glad that the amount of web silk on his body was very low. If he was completely covered in the web silk while casting the spell….he could only imagine himself going off like a firework.

While thinking about all that, Soren applied some medicine on his wound and then wrapped it with a bandage. Looking at his wound, he wished to have a healing spell in his arsenal one day. He knew that his attributes made it much harder for him to use a healing spell properly but he still wanted one now.

Making a decision of buying some spells after getting back to town this time, he moved away from the scene.

………

Soren walked slowly while dealing with the vines and branches that obstructed his path. He was getting used to the jungle now and was much more at ease, at least compared to how he was when he first came in.

Right now, he seemed to be moving aimlessly but he was just putting on a ruse. He had learned his lesson just this morning and had started paying special attention to his back now. Though, he didn’t think that it would bare result this soon. He had already noticed that there were two people following him for quite some time now. Soren didn’t know their intention but he for sure knew that it was not anything good. It was not like they were following him secretly to ask him directions or anything.

At first, he had thought of the Abbate Family and how he had killed the lover of that family’s eldest daughter. But after he thought about it, it didn’t make sense to him; it hadn’t been that long since he had killed him and even if they found out that it was him, they couldn’t have traced him to where he was right now, so soon. Then he remembered something and soon connected the dots. Most probably, the ones tailing him right now were the Rogue Initiators that had been gathered here for the vestige of that Rank 2 Initiator.

Soren continued moving slowly while thinking of a way to deal with them. Their action did make him confused though; he didn’t know why they hadn’t made their move yet. It’s not like they needed to find a secluded place in a jungle.

…

After continuing this for a while more, he was finally tired and decided to just confront them.

“Are you guys going to make your move or am I just too sexy to look from behind?”

A moment of silence followed as Soren finished his sentence. Not long after, two girls came out from behind their cover as they stared at Soren.

Soren quickly made Isaac scan them and got the results.

“Rank 0: Layer 8”

“Rank 0: Layer 7”

He didn’t show any change on his face as he checked out the scan results.

“So, what do you guys want? You’ve been following me for quite a while now.”

Both girls glanced at each other and then looked at Soren. They both had black long hair and were dressed in tight blue clothes, which covered their whole body yet captured every curve nicely. One of them had a dagger strapped to her waist and the other had a long sword. And most importantly, they were twins.

“We are hungry and don’t have anything to eat. Can you be kind enough to share some food and water with us?”

Soren showed a surprised face upon hearing that. He never thought that the reason they would state would be this simple.

“I have some raw meat from the Beasts that I hunted. If you can gather some fire-wood and start a fire, we can share it.”

Soren was already used to the jungle life now and had already thought to cook food himself instead of eating dried ration and meat.

“Ok, we can do that. Thank you for helping us.”

“No problem. It’s just some food and water, nothing big.”

……….

The sound of crackling wood resounded in the area from time to time as Soren and the girls sat around the bonfire. They had chosen a spot little further away from where they met to set up everything. It was an open place just below a cliff with an arched stone on top, acting as their roof.

Alana and Alexa, their names or at least what they had told Soren, had quickly gathered some dried wood and made a bonfire. Soren just sat there waiting for them to finish. Alana then used the ‘Spark’ spell to start the fire and soon, they were ready to cook their food. Soren opened his backpack and took out some raw meat that he had wrapped in a plastic cover. It was still covered in blood so they first cleaned it up. Soren again left the work to the girls and he himself just rested there. After the cleanup process was done, they cleaned some branches with their knife and then skewered the meat with it.

They stabbed the branch with the meat on the ground with some distance from the fire so that the meat doesn’t burn. Then, they just had to wait for the meat to be cooked.

“I have some spices with me. Do you want some on your meat?”

Alexa, who was sitting closely on the right side of Soren, said while taking out some boxes of spices from her bag. Soren didn’t reject her and let her add some of it to his meat too. They had some time on their hand as they had to wait for the meat to be done, so they started chatting.

“So, what are you guys doing here without any food or water?”

The girls again looked at each other and then Alana answered. “We had both food and water but didn’t think that we would have to stay in the jungle for this long, so we ran out of them. Hopefully, we met you, a nice and kind man, who helped us.”

“What are you doing in the jungle anyway that you had to stay for longer than you had originally thought?”

“We are here for the vestige but didn’t think it would take this long for it to open.”

Soren picked up his meat which was now cooked and blew on it as it was quite hot. The girls also picked their meat and started eating it.

“Hmm…that vestige is quite far away from here. What are you guys doing here, so far away?”

Soren checked their expression as he asked his question, but soon, he furrowed his brows as he didn’t receive any answer for a while. He hadn’t eaten his meat yet and suddenly his already skeptical mind got even more skeptical.

He put down his meat slowly and then looked at the two girls who were eating theirs silently. After he saw that nothing was happening to them as they kept eating it, he got confused.

Was I wrong…Did they just not hear my question?

These thoughts went through his mind as he looked at them eating their meat. He was pretty sure before that there was something mixed with the spices and would attack him soon after he had eaten it. He was planning to go with it till the last moment and then take them down when they would least expect it.

But things didn’t go as he had thought. He began to suspect if what he thought was even right or not. But then, Alana, who was sitting a little far from Soren, spoke up.

“What happened? You thought we would poison the meat using the spices?”

Soren got a little embarrassed upon hearing it directly from her. He really did think so and such he had no words to retort that.

But then, her words continued.

“Adding something in your food is very predictable, don’t you think?”