They were close. Elise had already lost her sense of time, so she didn't know how many weeks or months had passed. Of course, she was getting tired and sleeping whenever they took a rest, but she didn't count how many times it had been.
She walked, trained, slept, and walked again. But ever since she figured out how to absorb and use the Energy within her body, the Traveler was asking her to practice it all the time. He always kept his eyes on her and warned her if she was doing something wrong or missing a crucial point.
She was mostly using the Energy on her legs because of the constant walking. But while doing her physical training, she found out which of her muscles were working the most by sensing her inner Energy flow and kept feeding them with external Energy.
That made her walk longer without collapsing, and her training did not exhaust her anymore. She was even close to a hundred repeats for each exercise. All this progress made their journey to the mountain a lot faster, and at the end, here they were, almost on the outskirts of the giant volcano.
But they had a slight problem in front of them.
The mountain's surroundings were not as uninhabited as the rest of the realm. They found out that the river they encountered before originated from this mountain. One of the mountain's glowing cracks was forming a little lake on its skirts, and it was turning into a river as it spread through the land.
And of course, life had also found its way here. The giant crystals were everywhere, even bigger than before. But those were not the problem.
Elise and the Traveler were standing on a small hill, observing the land between them and the volcano. The land was filled with all kinds of purple-scaled creatures. Some of them were in the river and some were in the sky, but most of them were scattered on the plains around the volcano. She had never seen a gathering on that scale before. There were maybe millions of them.
None of them was alike. Each one had a unique feature that set it apart from the others. A different type of horn, a claw, a hoof, a wing, or a different build of body. Even some extra limbs.
While she was watching them in awe from afar, Elise realized something. They were not only similar to the creatures that attacked her in the river, but they were also similar to the one she had fought before coming to this Realm.
Unfortunately, they were not the only thing in their view. A building was rising on the other side of the mountain. They only saw a small part of it from the side, resembling a castle made of dark stone.
"What the hell is going on here?"
Elise was shocked because of the sudden improvement. They had been traveling through an almost empty land since they came here. And now, countless unknown creatures were ahead of them, with a castle on top. Something was definitely not right here.
"This looks worse than I thought." The Traveler was standing next to her and calmly observing the land while playing with his beard. "But let's look at the bright side; we have lots of training material."
"Training material?" Elise looked at the purple abominations in the distance. "Those things?"
He threw her sword at her as an answer, and she caught it in the air. How much time had passed since the last time she held it? She never thought she would miss her sword that much. The feeling it gave while holding it once again was priceless. She looked at it and savored the feeling for a moment. That almost made her miss the Traveler's words.
"You look warmed up enough. Let me catch one for you really quick."
"Wait, what?" The shock woke her up from her special moment.
The Traveler raised his one hand like he was trying to reach something and then grabbed the air. One of the creatures suddenly appeared in his hand. It was a rather small one compared to the others. The Traveler was grabbing it by its neck, and its tail was not even touching the ground.
It was small, but its body was unreasonably muscular. It only had two large limbs with razor-sharp claws and a thick tail twice as long as its body, with a pointy bone at the tip. Its head looked like it was only made of a giant mouth filled with hundreds of teeth and a pair of large, prominent eyes. It was struggling to escape, but the Traveler didn't seem to care about it. Instead, he turned his head toward her.
"Are you ready?" He looked at her with joyful eyes and a wide smile. Then threw the creature in front of her.
She drew her sword as fast as possible and threw away its scabbard. The creature didn't even stop for a moment when it fell to the ground. It charged right at her and jumped with its giant arms. It was aiming for her neck with its mouth wide open, and its claws were ready to rip her apart.
She barely dodged it and tried to counterattack, but her body couldn't catch up to her mind. The gravity in this realm was still keeping her from moving as she wished. The creature dodged her sword with an agile move and jumped at her again as soon as it touched the ground.
She got ready for its attack. She was going to dodge the claws and got closer to cut off its head. The move did not require much agility, just a bit of precision at close range. Even though she hadn't used the sword recently, her muscle memory must have let her finish the move with success. This was the best move in her condition.
The creature turned around in midair like it understood her intention and swung its tail instead.
She barely reacted to its tail aimed at her head and blocked it with her sword. The impact made her lose her balance. The creature attacked again as soon as it landed on the ground, didn't give her any chance to recover. Her sword was low, and her only quick option was to make an upward slash.
Her arms and the sword didn't come up as fast as she hoped. She looked at the creature's wide-open mouth, aimed right at her head. She jumped back to dodge, but she knew it was too late. She got ready for the pain, but it didn't come.
It stopped right in front of her face and tried to bite her, but couldn't reach her. It fell to the ground on its face, revealing what had happened to it. The Traveler was holding its tail. He pulled the creature and hung it on his shoulder with a swing. The creature struggled, but there was nothing it could do.
"What are you doing?"
What kind of a question was that? She was fighting with everything she had to defeat that thing, but in her current condition, it was not an easy task.
"I am trying to stay alive!" She was offended by the question.
"Why aren't you using Energy?"
She froze for a moment. She had completely forgotten it. Her body reacted on its own, and her mind had already started to think like a sword fighter.
"Yes, you are way stronger and more used to this place than before, but your body is not even close to this monster's. You must still use Energy while fighting to close that gap. Now catch your breath and start again. This is the first and the last time I will be involved."
Elise did as he said and took a deep breath. The Energy started to flow inside of her. She distributed that Energy all over her body and made it reinforce her muscles. She nodded to him. She was ready.
He threw the creature in front of her again. And just like the last time, it attacked as soon as it landed on the ground. She took a step to the side to dodge. Her movements were more fluid and precise. She swung her sword as the creature flew by her.
The lower half of the creature dropped motionless in front of her. She thought it was over, but she felt something. It was not as strong as before, but the creature's bloodlust was still there. She turned around quickly and swung her sword. The creature's upper half was coming right at her. She caught it in midair and sliced it down. This time, she knew, it was over.
"That's more like it," said the Traveler, with a satisfied look.
She cleaned her sword with a quick swing and looked at the parts of the creature. Two claws, one head, one tail. All seemed to have only one purpose. Killing things. These purple-scaled creatures' movements were more aggressive than any animal she had ever seen. This one and the previous ones. They all had something about them that bothered Elise a lot.
She looked at the flatland around the mountain. Countless of them were roaming there. "What are those things?"
"They are artificially made, Energy-fueled battle organisms."
"They are what?"
"You could say golems."
"Aren't golems usually made out of rocks and stuff?" She had seen one before, in the Capital back home.
"Not necessarily. Look." He pointed at the dead creature. Its bigger part was slowly inflating.
Elise remembered her first encounter with one of them and quickly backed off, but it was not necessary. The Traveler dipped his hand in its chest and took out a fist-sized, ominously glowing purple crystal. The inflation immediately stopped.
"This is the core. Someone programmed and stored Energy inside of it to create this thing."
"Programmed?" That was a word Elise had never heard before.
"I'll explain later." He smashed the crystal in his fist. The Energy it had inside scattered around but was quickly absorbed by the Traveler.
"Wasn't that one of the crystals those rock-like creatures grew on themselves for Energy storage?"
"Exactly. Look down there." He looked at the crystals around the mountain. "They are growing those crystals and then mining them to create more of those flesh golems."
Elise had so many questions in her mind. How? Why? And most importantly... who? Who could have made such creatures? They were clearly made specifically for combat. Was someone creating an army? An army of deadly, brutal creatures. A shiver passed down her spine.
"Don't think too hard. We will get our answers there." He pointed his finger at the castle on the back side of the mountain. "But first, you need to train properly. Let's continue."
"Are we going to keep practicing with the sword?" Not that she had any complaints. Using her sword had always excited her.
"I am traveling to far more dangerous places than this one. I need to make sure you can hold your own."
He once again reached forward with one hand like he was grabbing something. This time, a different one appeared in his grasp. This one had eight limbs, and all of them had pointy bones sticking out all over.
"Aren't they going to figure it out soon if we keep killing them?"
"Look carefully, they always kill each other for whatever reason. We can kill more than enough to train you before they realize it. Are you ready?"
Grabbing her sword once again had brushed away any other thoughts. She took an aggressive stance and nodded.