Raising his staff, Raven fired a Glintstone Cometshard that struck the back of the Troll's head. The Troll let out a low, thunderous growl and turned around, hoisting its iron hammer.
"Over here!"
A second shot flattened the Troll's nose. The giant rubbed its snout, flicking away a glob of semi-congealed bloody mucus. Its bloodshot eyes fixed onto Raven with murderous intent. One massive, millstone-like foot scraped the ground as its enormous body leaped as if taking flight, crossing fifty meters in the blink of an eye. It swung the iron hammer down toward Raven with crushing force.
The entire street seemed to jump. With the hammer at its center, a massive crater appeared in the ground, deep enough to expose the underground drainage pipes, which were now spraying sewage from their twisted, broken ends.
"Watch out!" Xingmei cried out.
The Troll grunted with satisfaction and lifted its hammer, not noticing a figure sprinting up the side of the hammerhead. Raven reached the top of the hammer in an instant. Waiting until the giant had lifted it halfway, he used the upward momentum to spring into the air, firing another Glintstone Cometshard that slammed directly into the side of the Troll's face.
Landing on the spire of a building across the street, Raven ran like the wind. A crash echoed behind him as a massive boulder, several meters wide, smashed the spire into a flat roof. It seemed the Troll had picked up a piece of building debris to throw at him.
"He's stronger than I expected." Raven wasn't afraid; he was actually pleased. The Troll simulated by the Mimic Tear was no nameless nobody; it had likely been a famous hero in its time, enough to give those insect-men a nasty surprise.
He moved with extreme speed through the alleys of Nokstella, the abandoned houses on either side blurring into long shadows. Every detail of the surrounding terrain was clearly displayed within the sensory range of his 'Blind Spot' skill. He mapped out every possible route, utilizing every corner and avoiding every obstacle, maintaining a high speed without any wasted motion.
Unlike the wind-like Raven, the Troll behind him was like a heavy chariot with surplus power. Each step covered over twenty meters, and the ground for several meters around would cave in upon its landing. Any obstacle in its path, as long as it wasn't too thick, was simply smashed through without any deceleration.
If viewed from high above, one would see a dragon of gray dust extending through the city. However, any large buildings that might truly impede its progress never appeared on the Troll's path. Clearly, its mind wasn't entirely maddened; relying on its familiarity with the city's structure, it constantly calculated the optimal pursuit route.
Raven cleared the final tower. Below, the street was flooded with the oncoming tide of Kindred of Rot. His gaze swept the area, immediately locking onto a tall figure with a mushroom cap crown at the back of the swarm. He raised his hand, calling down a lightning strike on the other side of the insect crowd, while he himself dove down at a sharp angle to minimize wind resistance.
Boom!
The lightning strike shattered several Kindred of Rot like clay pots. The flash and thunder drew everyone's attention. The Priest also looked toward the sound, and by the time he sensed Raven descending from the sky, it was too late to react.
His right hand pinning the Priest's face, Raven used his momentum to slam the Priest's head into the ground. The back of the skull met the stone slabs with a dull thud, like a rotting fruit bursting open. Immediately, a Carian Slicer extended from the staff in his left hand. In the blink of an eye, he delivered an unknown number of stabs, nearly mincing the Priest's chest.
Having completed the assault, Raven's figure blurred as he slipped away from the surrounding mushroom-men, decapitating one of them in the process. Just as he was about to make his escape, the Priest on the ground suddenly thrust out his hand. A large mass of grayish-white mucus shot into the air and exploded, turning into a giant web of slime that descended upon Raven.
Raven raised his staff, and deep-blue crystals formed a parasol above him, blocking all the mucus raining down. However, the slime web began to solidify the moment it touched the air, becoming incredibly resilient and trapping Raven in place.
Without any visible movement of standing up, the Priest rotated on his heels like a marionette, rising straight up from the ground. A massive amount of mycelium and granulation spread mechanically through his chest cavity, causing the wounds to heal at a rate visible to the naked eye.
The back of his head was completely caved in, and his deformed skull hung to one side. A tumor-like growth dangled from his neck, rapidly inflating and pushing the deformed head further aside until it eventually manifested a set of blurry facial features.
"A surface-dweller... a rare guest indeed." A horizontal slit tore open on the membrane of the tumor, and as the rotting branches within meshed together, rows of dense, sharp teeth were revealed. The voice was like rolling thunder. "Why is a surface-dweller here, wounding my servant?"
Raven held up the crystal parasol with one hand. The strands of mucus bit deep into the crystal surface, sending up plumes of white smoke. The mucus was highly corrosive; if the crystal parasol hadn't been constantly thickening itself, it surely would have shattered long ago.
Crack.
Under the heavy pressure, Raven's boots sank into the ground, but the hand holding the crystal parasol did not waver. Looking at the cracks spreading across the ground, he looked up and asked, "Your servant? Could it be that you are the Goddess of Rot?"
"Hiss—" The orifices on the tumor sprayed out rot gas simultaneously. It took Raven a moment to realize it was laughing. "You could say that. I am God. Now, lay down your staff, embrace the rot, and join my banquet."
"A banquet of the Kindred of Rot? I'm afraid I don't have the stomach for it," Raven said calmly. A pillar of black and white flame spiraled into the sky around him. To avoid causing the opponent to suspect the presence of Destined Death, he only used the pale embers of the Godskin Nobles, but it was enough to instantly evaporate the slime web.
"Gloam-eyed spider?" The Priest stiffened, pointing a finger. "%&#&# (Solve him)!"
The answer he received was a thunderous roar of rage.
The vanguard of the Kindred of Rot fell into chaos. A dozen twisted insect-men were tossed high into the air, while an equal number were crushed flat against the Troll's iron hammer.
Volley after volley of grayish-white threads were fired at the Troll, yet they could not pierce its armor. Within the plates forged from Ice Dragon scales, a frigid chill constantly drifted; the threads were frozen solid before their corrosive properties could take effect.
Three Kindred of Rot scrambled over the remains of their kin, stabbing their pest-glaives into the Troll's toes—which was about as effective as pricking someone with toothpicks. The Troll roared in pain and lifted a massive foot, crushing the three insect-men into a pulp.
However, more Kindred were already pouncing, crawling up the Troll's thick legs while searching for gaps in the armor where their glaives could penetrate. In an instant, half of the Troll's body was covered in insect-men, looking like a layer of writhing maggots.
"%¥@&%!" Seeing this, the tumor-growth let out a roar of warning.
The swarm paused for a second, seemingly wanting to scatter, but it was too late.
The Troll wiped its massive hand across the hammerhead, scooping up a handful of crushed insect-men, and held them high above its head. In the next moment, flames flickered from between its fingers. The closed single eye on the Troll's chest slowly opened, its pupil glowing like a burning volcano.
The Troll took a deep breath.
ROAR!
A visible shockwave of air erupted from the Troll's mouth. The insect-men clinging to its body trembled uncontrollably within the violent sonic wave, before falling off in a tangled mass, like figs blown from a tree by a gale.
Roaring flames erupted from the single eye on the Troll's chest. Aided by the gale-force wind generated by the roar, the fire swept down the street, incinerating over a hundred Kindred of Rot in an instant.
Support me here: https://[email protected]/AuAuMon
Elden Ring: The Unborn One's Journey Through Elden Ring
Join the journey and become part of the story!