The spiritual eruption didn’t affect the physical things but Keynes was still thrown off the igloo created out of the monster bodies. He didn’t expect the Medium stage breakthrough to produce that crazy amount of spiritual energy.

But that wasn’t on Keynes’s mind right now.

The monsters were.

Just before they were about to finish off Syberius Sael, their attention was caught by Esopp’s Medium stage ascension. Keynes still had the [Spiritual Ghost] active so he was technically invisible but it didn’t matter much when a flood of monsters was about to hit them. The worst ones were the small critters the size of a squirrel. They were like a carpet between the larger, elephant-size monsters that moved at a slower pace. The tree monsters just stood in the perimeter not making a move.

Then more monsters dropped dead from Syberius Sael’s [Poison Aura] and the massive tide of monsters stopped just before it was about to smash into Keynes, and Esopp inside the igloo. The whole scenery turned into a mayhem but Keynes noticed that some monsters stood motionless at the periphery between the large trees.

“We should better get going,” Keynes said as Esopp came out of hiding. They saw a bloodied figure of Sael. The other man tried to jump into the air but some of the creatures had long tongues or tentacles that wrapped around his body and dragged him to the ground.

They turned toward the centre of the island and found a wall of trees and larger monsters watching them intently, all of them were Level 3.

Without a warning, Esopp shot forward, his spiritual aura kicking hard. It was enough to stagger the Level 3 monsters, Keynes wasn’t going to miss the opportunity and added his aura on top of Esopp’s. The two overlapping spiritual auras stunned the monsters that blocked their path. They knew they had to avoid killing them to keep the Hateful Slayer debuff inactive as long as possible.

Behind them, Sael still fought and screamed.

But as they reached the first monsters, something changed and Keynes felt the familiar spiritual signature behind them. It arrived the same moment as Sael fell silent.

Keynes sharply turned around and froze.

Above Syberius Sael stood a gigantic monster in the shape of a bird but with an extra pair of wings. There ended resemblance to any bird. The sub-boss was made out of interconnected branches and roots like a wickerman. One of its extra wings had stabbed Sael and many little branches and roots exploded out of the man.

He was dead but something told Keynes that it wasn’t over. And just a few seconds later, the sub-boss withdrew the wing leaving Sael standing. Did the monster turn Sael into some kind of zombie or a puppet? It appeared so.

Sael’s head squinted, then he shot forward, assisted by roots protruding from his body.

“What the hell is that?” Esopp asked.

“Some kind of animated body spell. He’s dead,” Keynes replied and with terror realised that the sub-boss vanished. Given its size, it must have used some kind of movement ability or camouflage.

Left with no choice, Keynes and Esopp engaged the dead Syberius Sael. Stranger still, no other monster made a move while they battled their man. Presented with a long list of limitations, both men were very careful about the way they fought. The first rule was to not get wounded. Secondly, they were trying to incapacitate him instead of killing. It was impossible to tell if the Hateful Slayer debuff would activate but they didn’t want to learn it.

Because of that the fight dragged out dangerously as each attempt at freezing or mind controlling was easily rebuffed by the dead man. He didn’t possess the speed of Level 8 but was still faster than Keynes. The good thing was that the dead Sael didn’t have access to his skills.

“What about the sub-boss?” Esopp asked as he dodged a root that tried to spear him.

“I am watching the perimeter, if it appears I will attack it.”

Esopp twisted out of more root attacks coming from Sael, then in exchange, he hit the other man with several [Ice Shot]s. Chunks of Sael’s body were torn off and swiftly replaced with a multitude of branches.

The sub-boss decided to make an entrance and attack Esopp when he was solely focused on fighting Sael. Keynes stayed out of the fight for the last few minutes, recovering. The sub-boss blurred next to Esopp, confirming some kind of movement ability. Keynes tried to access its system screen but was rewarded with a wall of unknowns.

Woodbird Queen (Epic)

Level

5

Abilities

Unknown

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Unknown

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Unknown

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Unknown

Details

Woodbird Queen is a ruler type monster.

How was he supposed to fight this thing if he didn’t know its abilities? Well, at least it had revealed one of its skills. The ability to hijack a dead body of an ascender.

“Watch out!” Keynes screamed at the top of his lungs as the wooden bird slammed its wing into Esopp. The other man dodged but wasn’t fast enough and the attack turned into a glancing blow that sent Esopp into the ground with a loud groan. The dead Sael reacted immediately, going after wounded Esopp.

But Keynes got there in time and caught Sael’s head, using on him [Mind Illusion]. He didn’t know if the spell would work but it was his best bet against a stronger creature. As the threads of illusion entered the dead Sael’s mind, he went still then, following the fake vision he attacked the sub-boss.

“What the…?” Esopp murmured, getting to his feet with Keynes’s help as the sub-boss jumped back, avoiding the dead Sael’s root attacks. It was not going to last long though. Keynes wasn’t strong enough to make such mental constructs long lasting.

The sub-boss watched Sael with confused eyes, unable to understand what had happened to its puppet. Because of the confusion, Sael was able to score a hit. One of the roots got the sub-boss’ wing. The sub-boss screeched and some of the monsters rushed toward Sael.

“Don’t get close to the boss,” Keynes said to Esopp, though the other man was too wounded to do anything.

Keynes wasn’t about to waste a chance like this. He shot toward the sub-boss using [Flight]. At the low altitude, barely a metre above the ground, the flying little critters seemed to not get triggered.

Keynes got to the sub-boss at the same time as Sael was being torn apart by a horde of Level 3 monsters. Praying for the sub-boss to not share the immunities with the dead champions, Keynes slammed [Chaos Aura] into the woodbird’s head, pushing all his mana into it.

The monster jerked its head, which wasn’t going to help the creature, then used two of its unwounded wings and tried to skewer Keynes. With terror, Keynes realised that he’d underestimated the sub-boss’ speed and would have died if not for Esopp’s [Ice Shot] that hit the sub-boss’ head, veering its attack off the course.

While the sub-boss wasn’t immune to chaos, its resistances were much higher than anything else Keynes had encountered. It took several seconds to show the first signs of the damage but Keynes’s mana was getting low.

Alice, is there anything you can do to hide my spiritual aura?

No. Your control over spiritual aura is pretty bad and as long as you are projecting it, I cannot do anything, master. You have to wait for [Spiritual Ghost] to come off cooldown.

Keynes didn’t have that sort of time. The sub-boss jumped back, getting out of Keynes’s aura’s range. Then a silent command spurred the entire clearing. Every single monster turned toward Keynes. Even the swarm appeared in the sky, although it didn’t attack.

“How much mana do you have?” Keynes shouted to Esopp.

“Why?”

“I need your Talent.”

Keynes returned to Esopp and briefly explained to him the plan.

“I told you, it doesn’t work like this.”

“Or so you believe. Everything in our bodies can be changed and modified with essence. Now that you’re in the Medium stage, each of your skills should be upgraded and even your Talent should be stronger.”

After a few seconds of ‘silence’ Esopp nodded.

Keynes used [Create Water] channelling as much mana as he could and threw it around. He had only a few seconds before the first squirrel monsters arrived. He didn’t bother killing them as Esopp used his Talent freezing everything around him. The water helped to speed up the process and proliferate the ice at a faster pace. It wasn’t anything he’d seen in the vision where Esopp touched the ground and a planet turned to ice.

Here, the whole process was more stubborn and clumsy with many monsters forcing their way through toward Esopp. In twenty seconds, everything in a thirty metres radius was frozen though.

Esopp collapsed but Keynes didn’t have the luxury of time. There were many monsters left. Luckily, the ones that remained were slower than their brethren and didn’t pose a threat to Keynes as long as he was aware of their location.

The sub-boss grew wary of him now and kept its distance from Keynes, which in other circumstances would have been hilarious. The positive thing was that the island seemed to have a limited number of the monsters and no new creatures replaced the dead ones.

But it wasn’t the end of the trouble. Some of the larger monsters, while very slow, had ranged attacks. It was a new development for the dominion. So far, all the monsters attacked in melee range.

The shards of wood hit a spot where Keynes stood a second ago. It was a fairly close call.

Their behaviour is so unnatural and strange, he complained. The woodbird queen was clearly controlling the monsters around and while it was fairly intelligent, it wasn’t a tactical genius. Keynes was able to distract the sub-boss with [Telekinesis] a couple of times, easily dispatching a few slower creatures. But that wasn’t his plan. Keynes was aware that killing all the creatures wouldn’t be possible. There were over a hundred of them but he would run out of stamina sooner or later and on top of that, there was the sub-boss.

So he took his time and waited for [Spiritual Ghost] to come off cooldown. Evading the monsters wasn’t easy though and the sub-boss seemed to grow frustrated after a while, sending the smaller flying creatures after Keynes. They died to Keynes’s [Chaos Aura] but while Keynes was occupied by the litter critters, the sub-boss approached.

Shit.

Keynes used [Chaos Aura] against the wing that tried to stab him but like the bird’s wooden head, it resisted.

Do not waste your mana, master.

Luckily, Esopp recovered some of mana and made a ‘grand’ appearance, mostly sending a couple [Ice Shot]s at the sub-boss. The large monster spun around and redirected remaining monsters toward Esopp while its attention returned to Keynes. It appeared that the monster had enough of playing.

That was fine. [Spiritual Ghost] just came off cooldown and with 20% of mana left. Keynes flew above the sub-boss and concentrated all his attention on the monster’s neck, aiming to cut it off with his [Chaos Aura].

At first, the sub-boss looked around confused, searching for Keynes but when the first signs of damage appeared on its neck, it became frantic. It started moving faster and faster, trampling its minions without regard.

The moment Keynes saw parts of the neck turn to dust or boil like a cauldron of lava, he knew the sub-boss was done.

His mana ran out before the deed was done though but he swiftly landed on the monster’s back and swung his shortsword at its neck several times. The sub-boss screeched, but the debuff it tried to inflict was too weak to take effect and by the fifth swing, it went cleanly through and then the shortsword broke apart, fulfilling its purpose.

Altera has been defeated.

The Dominion of Altera has ended.

All local dominion monsters are enraged.

Then came the wall of congratulations and rewards Keynes received for killing the sub-boss.

The enraged monsters couldn’t see him and Esopp was once again buried beneath the mountain of frozen bodies so they started tearing each other to death. He almost lost consciousness when the flood of essence from the sub-boss hit his body. It was a staggering 10%.