Optional Music to Accompany the Chapter:
Rok Nardin - Attack Of The Ducks (Really Slow Motion)
https://youtu.be/zlGbyyhHY1M
Chapter 17: Weight…
Late Morning - Early Summer : Year 0 | Month 0 : Sector J14
World: Leviathan | Rank: ERROR | Population: 23
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Titans of flesh... Living, breathing mountains...
It's what monsters on those worlds become.
Sustained and supported by mana, they are beings beyond the limitations of mortal, physics-bound flesh. Able to grow nearly without limit, with enough time, they grow so huge nothing can kill them.
Such beings are known as 'walls': creatures so huge it took the combined efforts of entire nations to wear down.
That was at least.. typically.
*WOOSH* Zipping over the horizon at a dozen times the speed of sound, the three-hundred-meter-tall wyvern looked like a chicken compared to what I was used to.
Standing over a bison's corpse with a bloody maw, it locked its slitted pupils on me like a dog flush with adrenaline.. a predator whose nerves were screaming.
But it wasn't going to run. Such beings didn't know how.
Not that I planned to give it that chance anyway...
*WOOSH* The distance between us closed in a blink—*fsh-CRACKLE*—the blinding glow of fire lighting its orange-scaled maw like the ignition of a star.
But I didnt plan on letting it reach me. *Tap—* Planting my foot as it broke line of sight with its own snout, I turned, *fwip-* and the beam stretched. *BRRRRRMMMM*
Spanning almost fifty meters across, the beam split the horizon before you could even blink, encasing the world in a darkness as a molten glow spread over the prairie.
But as if by instinct, my focus shifted to the projection my mana provided, and my mind accelerated.
*WOOSH* Darting under the beam, the remaining distance closed before the light could even fade, my foot landed on the wyvern's wing spur, and my fist connected with scale-layered bone.
Though.. the scales weren't even given the chance to serve their purpose. *tss—* My knuckles, encased in a streak of burning atmosphere, bored a molten hole through them before connecting with bone like a meteor reaching the ground. *CCCRRRRACKK*
The bone simply disintegrated, sending a burst of fragments through the wyvern's wing before air followed them into its flesh.. and expanded.
*SPLLLATTER* Before the wyvern could even react, its wing was mangled, the membrane splitting and popping like an overpressured balloon.
In a blink, the wyverns greatest advantage over my current self, its flight, was dealt with.
But as I pulled my hand back, heat unlike that which filled the air rippled through my arm. "Tch..." -I thought that reformation made my body a bit stronger.- Though somehow held together by means I didn't understand, the bones up to my shoulder were completely ruined. -How infuriatingly frail...-
However, despite the pain compounding the anger flooding into my mind, as I fell to the ground, I couldn't keep the smile off my face.
I felt weak and frail.. insultingly so.. but in that moment, I recognized my foundation had set.
It was time to start rebuilding.
But this time.. with my own hands.
"KAK-GRAAAAHHH" Jolting with a deep screech, the wyvern splashed glistening, opal blue blood over itself before tumbling off the mound of charred flesh and revealing the previously hidden presence beneath it. *CR-RA-RUMBLE*
-She's still alive?!- Quickly hopping up onto the disemboweled remains to see if it was really who I thought, my gaze landed on a small black creature trembling with a faint metallic rattle.
Despite my late arrival, she was alive, and despite the blistering heat, the boiled fumes from the bison's blood protected her from the temperatures that scorched even my skin.
At least partially...
Quickly picking her up, she was stiff, with matted, half-molten fur layering her side, but I didn't have a chance to help her yet...
*flap-Splat* Peeling back an oversized intestine, I buried her deeper in the amalgous mass of flesh to try and insulate her from the heat.. just in time to duck...
*SNAP-WHHHRNK!* The wyvern's tail zipped over me, missing by a hair before splitting the neighboring carcass like a zipper, and sending a blast of gargantuan bones clattering end-over-end across the steel grass.
The wave of heat that followed was cascading, charring the surface of the flesh with a wave of flame before I bolted thought it. *WOOSH*
The wyvern's head snapped to track—pupils contracting, tongue snapping as I blurred with speed.
I couldn't let it catch Bella. -I need your focus on me you feral bastard...-
But unless Bella came and hit it as hard as I did, I didn't need to worry about it turning around.
*Fwip* Slipping between the horns of one of the dead bison, its jaws snapped after me like a gator. *CRACK*
But while I expected them to completely shatter, they held, and I disappeared behind the body.
"KRRR..." *Crackle* Biting harder, the wyvern took grip of the horns, only to whip its head to the side and hurl the hulking corpse across the prairie.
But my fingers had already been sunk into the bison's hoof...
*SHIIIIK* Hearing flesh tearing, the wyvern's eyes snapped back to me in a blink, finding me sunk knee-deep into the prairie, gripping the colossal leg like an oversized hammer.
A hammer heading straight for it. *WOOSH* Whipping it around my body with the momentum from the thrown body, I spun, digging my feet deeper into the mess of mythril roots before tracking the hulking hip into its wing. *CRRRRACK*
The wyvern's other wing snapped instantly, and with the collapse of its point of leverage, it collapsed.
*CRRRRRR-THOOM!* The wyvern slammed into the prairie with the force of a falling fortress, its bulk billowing dust and steam, curling it around its frame as its ruined wings spasmed uselessly against the ground.
The beast writhed, gouging furrows into the prairie with dislocated claws, trying to prop itself up while the incandescent rage in its eyes compounded—its molten breath boiling out between jagged teeth, melting the glass wherever it landed.
But I kept my feet planted in that web of earth...
Gritting my teeth, I hefted the now-mangled bison's leg again, its shattered bones threatening to crumble under my grip as I jerked it back toward myself.
"KRKRRRRHHHH!" The wyvern's neck instantly snapped back...
And I barely caught it. *SNAP* Its maw clamped over my head like the jaws of a snapping turtle, only to get propped open just before its teeth could reach me. -TOO CLOSE!-
Knowing it was my only chance, I forced my legs out of the ground and darted out...
Just in time.
*CRUNCH* It's maw smashed through the leg the moment I escaped, digging up a section of earth as its teeth interlocked exactly where I just stood.
But now, without its wings to prop itself up.. its head was within my reach. -Got you...-
Aiming to shatter its jaw, I closed the distance in a blink, planting my foot with muscle memory before driving my shin into the space between scales.
But... *tink* Without anything to hold myself in place.. my foot slipped.
In that moment, I had forgotten I lost the skills that gave me weight...
And as a consequence, I got caught.
*CHNK!* In a blink, its lower jaw scissored up under my guard and caught my calf—its teeth like kiln-bright, blunt chisels punching into my armor, stopping only because the bone beneath refused to shear.
Sound instantly narrowed to a wire. Without skills, my leg should have given way.
But my mind, narrowed to instinct sharpened by eons of fighting for survival, didn't question it.
All it did was use my gripped leg for a point of resistance, pulling up my other to stomp in the neighboring tooth.
*KRNK—* The tooth cracked halfway down its root—sending a shock up my shin like lightning before the wyvern's head spasmed.. the jaw jolting open a thumb's width...
Just enough.
Slipping through the wall of teeth, I jammed my foot into its tongue, using the leverage to drive my shattered elbow into the tooth. *SHIK—* And force it out. *CRRRUNCH*
"KRRRAAAHHH—!" The wyvern wailed, throwing opal blood over the prairie before trying to prop itself on its wing and falling...
Right.. onto.. me...
Moving under its temple, I tossed the tooth into the air, just enough to get my foot under it, and hammer it like a nail through its skull. *puff-* For a moment, my shattered foot plunged into the ground...
But as it reached the layer of mythril roots, the scales finally gave way, and the tooth punched through the wyvern's skull. *CRRRRAAACKLLEE*
Plunging into the hole carved by the tooth, the world instantly went dark, left illuminated by glowing, opal-blue blood spewing over my body before the damage reached the wyvern's brain.
*CRRRRAAACKLLEE-THRUM—* For a breath the wyvern went statue-still—no fire, no sound—only a tremor that ran the length of its titanic frame like a struck bell.
Then.. everything convulsed at once.
"KRRRRRRAAAGH—!" With a spastic roar, its spine arched, wings helplessly flapped, and heat vomited from rents along its throat as if trying to use its breath to expel the spike from its skull.
But with every movement, the tooth in its cranium carved through sections of its brain...
Until finally.. the convulsing eased.. and the geysers of blood spewing onto me from its dozens of panicking, thumping hearts settled.
Then, with the final tremor, its body fell slack. *Gggg-kkk—*
With every breath, I tasted bitter copper.. the taste of an erosive acid.
But while it seared my throat, the pain didn't even register.
My legs were fucked, my arm even more-so... The bones in them were scattered and shattered, yet somehow holding shape with something I didn't yet understand. -Fucking hell...-
Had I taken that damage before the wipe, my limbs would have been shapeless pools of liquid.
But I didn't care to question it...
*Beep* Hearing the system's routine chime, a yellow panel appeared before me with a flicker: 'QUEST UPDATE: Demigod-class Wyvern Extermination — ELIMINATED... Eliminator unknown... Refunding rewards to local Administrator.'
-The system really doesn't know what or who I am anymore, huh...- Reaching up and taking off my glove, I looked into my purpled palm, swelled, lacerated, and bleeding, only to move and clench my fingers like the bones and joints making them up weren't reduced to mush. -I guess I don't either...-
Slowly beginning to notice the burning on my cheeks as opal-blue blood ticked off my chin in slow, stubborn drops, I finally moved.
"...hn." *Cr-puff* Pulling my shattered leg out of the ground, I stood in the cratered temple—rippling with the heat of a kiln—before using my last unbroken limb to lift up the skull, and slip out from beneath it.
*Skrrk—* The world swung open in a blink—wind curling into the opening, washing me with a refreshing cool before I stepped out. *THUMP*
The carcass was sprawled like a fallen cliff—heat rippling off its ribs like the curls of a mirage while the permanent gale gnawed at the steam rolling off it, fretful, and confused by the sudden mountain that hadn't been here a minute ago.
*Beep* The panel lingered a heartbeat longer, then dissolved on its own, petty and satisfied with refunding someone else.
But I didn't care.
Feeling the fragments of bone already trying to realign themselves in my arm and legs, I laid out on the stiff grass, and closed my eyes.. taking a moment to bask in the breeze as my cheeks, reddened by the acidic blood returned to color with every ripple of the wind.
Everything hurt.. but in that moment I was relaxed...
Somehow, the pain was refreshing... -How long has it been since I had room to climb...-
I felt weak.. the weakest I had in eons.. but at the same time, that weakness was my own, and while it didn't feel like it at first, my foundation was the strongest it had ever been.
All I had to do was start carving my own steps back up the mountain.
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