Chapter 15: Forest Elp

Lucian

It was an informative breakfast to say the least, and I was more than ready to meet my destiny. But I was growing anxious and nervous, the temple not too far from us now. According to Cai, we had only less than ten minutes left in our journey, so I continued to cram my face with those egg buns, hoping to eat my worries away. 

“If you eat too many of those, you’ll tire yourself out quicker,” Cai warned.

I looked down at her modestly, not letting her warning slow down my stuffy chewing. “But I’m hungry.”

She smiled. “There’s no reason to be nervous, Lucian. You are the rightful heir of your father’s kingdom.”

“Yeah? Does she also know that I’m only a demi-god? Just a barista from another planet, with no ranks under my belt? Unless we are talkin’ video games, the only monsters I’ve beaten were my chunkier prepubescent days of grammar school.”

She giggled. “You will do fine. Just focus on—” She paused, Cai’s ears twitching.

Mine did too.

Something felt off, the wind suddenly shifting in the wrong direction. An eerie touch crept over my back, the feeling of something lurking, holding our pacing down. Cai instantly pulled out her bow and arrow, while I stood there like a sitting duck.

“Behind me, Lucian,” she ordered, her light arrows ready to fire. I went behind her weapon, not even bothering with mine. If I didn’t wield light, the only thing my BB would do was slow me down. “We are being followed…”

And it was getting close, like a pulse growing beneath my feet. It was a looming feeling I couldn’t shake off, but the longer I looked out the grove, the harder it was to pinpoint where this creep was coming from.

“I don’t see anything, Cai.”

“But you can feel it. It’s a shadow elp, waiting to—” She stopped short, the shadow finally revealing itself. Shit, I should say shadows, shouldn’t I? Because about seven of them started crawling toward us on the ground. They snaked over the leaves and the grass, like thin long grabby tendrils ready to snatch us by our ankles.

Cai capitalized, shooting a light arrow into them one by one. She managed to neutralize the threat when those arrow heads exploded, but my light warrior didn’t look satisfied. Because after the smoke cleared, she realized more of them came coming.

Where the hell were they coming from? I didn’t see any-THING!

I dropped on my ass, and Cai shirked back as the shadow elps started to fuse, creating a tower right in front of us! It was over nine meters and growing, about three times the size of Nicole!

Just my fucking luck! Why couldn’t it wait until after I got my powers?

This one was all black, with antlers like branches on each side of its head. It had beady beaming white eyes like headlights, staring right into my fucking soul, with a silhouette that sat between skeletal demon and forest titan. It had no face, the blank slate giving me a touch of madness and chaos served with a tall glass of haunting fear. Overall, it was a monstrous looking piece of shit here to ruin my day!

The pool of shadows it was recruiting off the ground added to its repertoire and that concept scared the crap out of me. It didn’t occur to me that these shadows could separate and fuse of their own accord, making seven shadows growing into one big mother fucker!

Cai quickly scooped me off the ground to gain more coverage, this S class behemoth on the verge of solidifying. I was scrambling behind her, but I felt like we wouldn’t get very far, not without fighting this thing back. So I dropped what was weighing me down, my sword, before Cai turned around, noticing something I couldn’t see coming from behind me. “Lucian, watch out!” she cried, tackling me away from the shadow beast’s trajectory.

I only heard the whipping wind and caught the leaves and grass dancing about violently. Over Cai’s shoulder, I noticed a tunnel burrowed in the ground from where I had been standing to disengage my weapon, the torrent chucking my BB halfway across the goddamn map! I held my breath, the power behind this one definitely different than what I’d encountered back at home.

Capping out with a height like that, we couldn’t have been the only ones who’d seen it, right? I mean, the thing was a fucking giant! We were still near Rasani, so where were the other light warriors? Why were we fighting this battle alone?

 

I wanted to see exactly what we were up against, thinking trigger stats as I looked up at it. Instantly, a bright screen popped up before my eyes.

Triggered Stats:

Name: ??

Race: Shadow Creature

Class: S + Elite Booster

Level: 162 - Experience: 8770 / 162000 (next level)

Points to be allocated: 0

[] Agility: 89

[] Brawn: 416 + base: 400

[] Charisma: 2

Health: 16200/16200

Shadow Energy: 100%

-

No way were we taking that thing down! I was having a hard time accepting this fate. Without my light powers, this was hands down a grave site. Unless Cai planned on escaping, I didn’t see how we were going to get out of this alive.

So I shut down those stats and made the decision for her.

“Cai, we need to leave, now!” I begged, my eyes latched on the threat.

That first gigantic step from the behemoth coming our way made my stomach tank, my eyes then turning to Cai as I snatched her arm.

“I need to reserve my arrows,” she followed in a whisper, calculating to herself. “I’ll need to play this more strategically…”

“Are you seriously planning on fighting this thing head on?”

“If we don’t, we are allowing a shadow elp, especially a powerful one, to escape into civilian territory. I will not allow it!”

“I don’t know about you, Cai, but this thing seems like a team effort type of deal! We need an army!”

“The shadow elps got rid of our army two years ago, remember, Lucian?”

I gasped, looking at the seriousness behind Cai’s eyes. Her voice sliced me in two, and I could tell she meant business. Cai wasn’t prepared to back down on this fight. But the fact that I was here was making her job a lot harder. Not only did she have to take care of that behemoth by herself, she needed to do so while protecting me.

How could I sleep at night knowing I acted more like a hindrance to her and not an asset?

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“Okay,” I breathed. “You can fight this thing. But promise me, at the first sign of shit hitting the fan, you bolt out of there as fast as you can. All right?”

“A warrior never flees a battle,” she persisted, Cai flying off of me.

“W-wait! Cai!” I cried out, scooping myself up and into the battlefield with her.

Shit, I must be out of my damn mind with this one!

With every earth-shaking stomp it took, my mind went numb with fear. Even the birds in the trees escaped, the ground growing pale from this terrorizing threat to nature. Every bone in my body was telling me to back off, but I had a job to do here. I had promised Cai I would fight alongside her, to protect, provide, and persevere.

And I had to summon the strength and courage in me to do just that!

“Sun god, son of light…” it bellowed, with a deep demonic voice so booming it partied the clouds in the darkening sky. “You will meet your end.”

Oh great, so it knows me?

“Heh, glad you know who I am, but I have no idea who you are. How about we get better acquainted?” Cocky, brazen, or maybe mad—at this point, I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to let Cai fight this good fight on her own. I was prepared to run around like a distraction. I’d always been fast on my feet, maybe I could use that as leverage in a fight that looked impossible to win.

Whipping past the trees to circle him, I knew I was its prime target. I had a vague idea of what I was trying to do. The only problem was, I had no clue if it would work. I remembered Cai saying she needed to spare her arrows, so I thought that maybe she had maneuvers that could do just that, while still being effective in at least bringing this guy down.

It was safe to say that this thing had more options when it solidified. The fine line between its phantom and solid state was still foreign to me, but I noticed the lack of transparency in this monster’s flesh, meaning that it was vulnerable to combustion, just like Nicole was.

I had to depend on Cai’s intuition here, and right now, she was picking up what I was putting down. She didn’t go for a direct assault, letting me distract the beast instead. Which wasn’t the easiest thing to do! Those burrows the behemoth kept digging along the turf to clip my feet were quicker than I thought. They also covered a lot of area, flinging gust and debris with every foot-stomping summoning. I did a few tuck and rolls, because hiding behind trees and scrubs was out of the question. It snapped through them like nothing, those sharp wind tunnels turning nature into ruins. I was quickly running out of stamina, but every now and then, I’d peek over my shoulder, catching glimpses of Cai leaping back and forth between trees.

Shit, she was fast in the air.

She made it look so natural, planting these strange duo-triangle brackets in the air, working counterclockwise from me. I had no idea what was happening until those triangles started linking yellow beams between each other, Cai working her way toward me by trapping this beast in a circle.

Ah, brilliant! I hope it was enough to cage him, though. Because this fucker was still on me!

I think it was catching on, the forest shadow elp getting annoyed by my tactics. In one fell swoop, it chucked a wind tunnel so quick that I barely had enough time to register its size.

It would be too close, I wouldn’t have enough time to recover…

The horizontal winds sliced the earth low, coming at me with full speed. I wouldn’t make it, feeling my elbow getting clipped, the rest of my arm being pulled into the violent whirlwind.

I was getting ripped apart, that second I blacked out I wouldn’t miss.

All I saw before my body slammed into this boulder was bits and pieces of my arm flying in that horrendous gust of wind. My own blood smacked my face, my body growing numb from the unbridled pain.

The collision took my breath away, and it felt like my lungs were about to break through my fucking ribs. I didn’t think about how being a simple mortal in this place could be so fatal, my ears catching Cai crying my name out as she rushed my way.

“Lucian! LUCIAN!”

No Cai, finish the mission.

She was being distracted, my wounded state serving as her kryptonite…

The shadow beast capitalized, and decided to remove Cai from the equation entirely. It pulled its attention away from me, focusing on Cai approaching its old target. With one swing of its huge arm, it caught Cai, the attack leaving me utterly breathless.

“Cai…” I croaked, my voice tapering off into a painful silence. I could barely lift up my head, but when I’d seen Cai flung off her shit like that, I felt something inside me burning.

The rage I had to endure, watching as this beast changed course…

“You dirty motherfucker!” I cried, my voice box on fire. “Your bout is with me! Leave her out of this!”

It ignored me so bluntly, those piercing white beady eyes still focused on Cai.

She tried to pick herself up, but she was hurting. Her face spelled disappointment, Cai beating herself up inside for being caught off guard like that. But she didn’t get very far, and it seemed like she might have broken her leg when she fell.

“Cai!” I screamed, followed by a battle cry to catch this monster’s attention. “LEAVE HER ALONE!”

It was a wrap for me—once I saw that beast pluck Cai up on the ground like that, the light in me burned out.

All the way out…

Through my veins, down to my chest, straight bleeding out of my heart! I wasn’t about to let Cai die here! Not for me, not for anyone! It was an awakening that swallowed me into this vortex, using my unbridled rage as its anchor. And I fed into this wild intrinsic power like it was doomsday, not giving a fuck who got in my way.

My body glowed like a thousand suns—I was an outright lighthouse ready to explode. I felt the strength in me to rise up, the turf whipping violently from my light. I was sucking everything toward me, even the beast, who stood there with a daring look behind its eyes. It thought I was full of it, it had to. To stand there so boldly in the face of death.

Because I promise, I was going to tear it apart!

The hilt of my sword moving toward my grasp felt cold and satisfying. I had more than enough energy to swing that brick of a weapon over my head as I beamed through the terrain, as fast as fucking lightening. With one leap, I made use of Cai’s levitating triangles, using them as boosts to soar me into the sky.

I was more than ready for that death blow, watching as the beast started to dematerialize.

It was trying to save itself.

But it wouldn’t catch me slipping, I was ahead of the game. And with one faithful swing over my head, I felt the sun charge that bad boy up, my blade glowing with pure energy. “I won’t let you hurt her!”

A bilateral cleave from head to toe—I made it look easy, my blade trembling in my grip, pouring heat between me and the enemy. Steam, smoke, and black blood sprayed me on my way down, a growl coming from it so satisfying that I wished I could have seen the look on its grimy dissevered face when I killed it.

The power down was ridiculous. Once I managed to defeat the shadow elp, its body dropped, and mine did too. I was tapped out, there was no grey area. Because one second I was fuming with hot energy, and then the next, I was dropping like a fruit fly.

“Lucian!” Cai cried, and I gritted my teeth. Shit, there was no way my body had tapped out like that, with my arm still ripped to shreds, and the blood on me still fresh.

“Man, that took a lot out of me…” I grunted, before my face hit the ground and I passed out.

 

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