Chapter 19

Air supported him for just a moment as the crystal shard that was three metres high shattered into pieces before it and him were caught by the force of gravity and plunged to the hard surface below.

Triple blade.

The magic exploded out even as his armour shifted from camouflage to his Ambusher’s Set. His spear flew from its position looped to his back. It was only partially due to his telekinetic abilities. The weapon itself wanted to prepare and be ready for the coming engagement.

Battle wraith.

He aimed the three blades not to kill, but to create space. The ice was angled down at the octopods below him. By the time it crossed the distance, it would be two metres wide and would hopefully dice up the closest three octopods. The second and the third were aimed further to blast an exit path.

Then he floated into the air, the spear supporting him momentarily. The use of magic and the banishment of his suit meant that he was immediately visible to every mana octopod below and he felt the attention of all of them switch to him. Multiple beady eyes focused on him, and the ones whose faces had been pointing elsewhere rotated to face him.

Game on.

While they were looking at him, none of them truly understood the threat they faced. When his blades of magic started cutting into them, they hadn’t even engaged their mana infusion capabilities. It was instantly a slaughter.

With air carrying him, he fell downwards. The spear at the slightest of mental requests redirected him so he didn’t have to land on any severed tentacles and instead his foot hit rock.

There was a roar of noise in front of him as his two secondary blades did their job. Parts of octopods were sloughed off. A body exploded and black oily blood boiled out and then the mass of bodies was parted by his violent magic.

Step.

The trajectory took him both over and under severed octopod parts, but importantly it burst him out of the pack into clear air.

The race was on.

With space available, he sprinted forward.

Seven hundred metres to travel, a mystery to unravel and then he could continue his journey to Melbourne.

Behind him, the octopods started screeching and almost immediately in the distance, echoing screeches came back. They were like dogs howling in a cityscape. Once one began, a domino effect was kicked off as every one of the monsters that heard picked up the cries.

The entire mountain knew about him.

There was no interface to save him, and it was his choice to be here and his skill that would let him escape.

Adrian couldn’t help it. He smiled. They knew he was here and they would come for him. He would fight them, bloody their beaks and then vanish.

An octopod rose in front of him. A triple blade turned it into calamari.

Overkill.

Adrian continued his forward sprint, letting the spear supplement his balance with puffs of force that combined with his supernatural agility let him navigate the still twisting remnants of octopod as if the ground was flat instead of the thick rubbery tentacles that he was actually stepping on.

Step.

It was a pre-emptive action in case one of the surviving octopods from further away attempted a burst of speed and catch him unexpectedly.

He lowered his head and ran.

Killing them did not matter, all he had to do was to travel the seven hundred metres to see what secret the octopod guard dogs hid.

Nothing flashed into the space he had just left and in moments the broken bodies and their companions were too far behind for him to either sense or worry about.

Possibly, they had been too busy howling to chase him, but that did not make him feel better. After all, there was just as much of their screeching in front of him as behind. He would need to conserve his steps. Luckily, with his upgrade of battle wraith, he would last for even a protracted battle.

Cresting the ridge, he was not surprised to see a sharp drop, followed by another steep gradient.

Adrian leapt down, four leaps taking him down a large section of the decline. Without his air magic and supernatural agility, it would have been the height of recklessness. His knees jolted, but he reached halfway down the slope and figured that was enough. He launched himself sideways, attempting to leap across the chasm. Navigating to the bottom and then climbing was wasted effort when he could just jump across.

Wind gust.

He landed mid-way up the next slope. He had probably only saved a couple of seconds but everyone mattered.

Two octopods from his right focused on him. The closest blurred forward, and Adrian only broke stride to jump a flashing tentacle as his spear parried a heavy swing from a secondary one. The force of that blow propelled him another two metres up the hill towards the centre of the mystery. Leaving the octopod alive, he kept running. His natural speed was faster than the octopod’s, excluding those moments when they boosted themselves.

Alarm bells rang just before he went over the top of the ridge. His domain told him that an entire group of octopods were charging up the slope where he was about to emerge.

Adrian dug his magic sapient spear into a rock and jumped, using it like a pole vaulter. All the power he had gained over the last three weeks from training and cheating with potions thrown into the motion. He arced upwards and spun the spear so the sharp edge cut into a tentacle that flashed towards him. The spike on the edge of the tentacle got lopped off, spurting dark oily blood, the severed appendage thumped pitifully against him. And then he was over the cluster of the octopods. The geography of the area working against them. The ground plunged below him into another deep ravine.

He was flying. Maybe he should use wind gusts to propel himself?

A snake above him suddenly angled toward him and then a second and a third. More were following. That wasn’t a fight he could win and there was no way he had time to fly across to the other side of the ravine. Instead he needed to reach the ground and do it fast.

Wind Gust.

The hurricane force blasted him down to the safety of the rock. He was in free fall below the mass of octopod tentacles before it reached into the sky to claim him. He used his spear to deflect a couple that reached far enough to threaten him. The snakes were following him but unlike the octopods they were just a wild defence. They were not trainable, which meant they were slaves to their own natures. Unless they were starving, they would not fight someone on the ground. He just needed to beat them down.

There was an upthrust of a metallic crystal about a third of the way up on the next slope. It was a similar height to the one that had shattered on him, and positioned where it was it brought the slope that tiny critical amount closer.

Wind gust.

Suffering whiplash, he shot sideways.

The gale swirled against him, robbing him of his breath.

The spear engaged, and it was like he had fallen from an immense elevation onto a soft pillow. Momentum was arrested just inches from the top of the pillar. The moment his feet touched it the four snakes preparing to attack diverted and fled. He jumped off, landing on the ridge proper and started running down the slope. Each of these little valleys, or lopsided terraces, or whatever the right description for them was, were about thirty metres down, sixty across and seventy metres up.

They were steep and enhanced agility or not, Adrian knew he needed to focus to traverse them safely.

Behind him, a fresh round of howling was set off. When he glanced left, he had a view not only of his current valley but of all the ones that went down towards the plains below. Octopods were seething and in motion everywhere he looked and all of them coming for him.

Adrian kept running. Stepping or flashing through the air, as required. Using triple blades liberally to buy space. The availability of steps and mana reserves both dropped even with the extensive use of potions. He never paused long enough to get caught in a pitched battle but multiple times, despite his best effort, he was hemmed in and forced to unleash triple blades that tore mana octopods to pieces and opened up gaps for him to keep going. The number of octopods reminded him of the hoopers, but individually they were hundreds of times more deadly and they were everywhere.

His shoulder got impaled, and he yanked his arm free. Forgoing Lay of Hands for a healing potion in order to conserve mana. Sometimes he retreated to avoid a dense patch of octopods, but the terrain still worked against them. It was so broken that there were always gaps to get through, or at least a high point to leap from. Whenever he got more than about three metres above the ground, the snakes came, but brief detours into their realm were fine, providing it was only for a second or two.

His breathing was laboured as he crested the hill. His sensing domain showed a multitude of octopods surging behind him.

Breath rasped in his throat. Sprinting up fifty degrees slopes was brutal.

Instinct warned him of a change.

Suddenly, there were no octopods in front of him, either in his domain or visually. Even the ones behind him abruptly stopped their frantic pursuit.

Alarm bells rang. Not interface-assisted ones, just the standard paranoia, common sense instincts he had created for himself over the last couple of months.

There had to be a threat. He had to arrest his momentum.

Wind gust.

It was too slow to slow him fully.

Crack!

He slammed into an upthrusted crystal, which immediately partially splintered while his bones held together. Looking back, the octopods had indeed stopped. It was like there was a line that they refused to cross. They stood there, above him, observing but not acting. Packed like refugees pressed against a wire fence. Straining to get through but afraid of the guards with machine guns that were waiting for them if they broke through. He could almost taste the hunger from the octopods as they watched him.

More were flooding closer, and even at fifty metres away at the top of the crest, they froze in the same way, unwilling to pass the line.

Adrian physically and mentally gulped.

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