Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 10 | Day 23

I continue trudging through the dark cave for several minutes before narrowing my eyes at the sight of a strange dark mist covering everything around me. But when the mist touches me, nothing actually happens. So I continue walking for a few seconds, just to hear something very faintly shifting near me.

Without even thinking about it, I launch a fireball in its direction, making another series of shrieks cry out as the dark mist vanishes to reveal another plant monster.

A different type of illusion this time? That’s annoying.

Although I’d still take these plant monsters over humans right now since they don’t have blood for me to end up hungering over.

Right as I’m about to continue walking again, another roar echoes throughout the cave. But this time it sounds a lot closer.

I place my hand on the pommel of my sword before walking further through the cave for another few minutes, just to end up running into another of the plant monsters.

Seriously. How many are there in here? And where they getting their food if the villagers aren’t here?

I end up killing three more of the plant monsters before arriving at a wide open cavern, with only a single one of them actually managing to trick me into its mouth. But that didn’t really do much for obvious reasons, and I ended up cutting it open with my sword from the inside.

The cavern I’m in now is incredibly large, with a spiraling path down towards a small area at the bottom.

Surprisingly there doesn’t actually seem to be anything in this room outside of a couple more plant monsters part of the way down the spiral.

As if contradicting my thoughts, another roar echoes directly from the very bottom before a large creature steps out of what I’m assuming was a cave in the bottom that I couldn’t see from my spot here. The creature has two large horns, with two equally large fangs jutting out of its upper mouth, and a size spanning nearly three meters in height. It has a humanoid form despite its size and monstrous appearance of random black spikes sticking out of random parts of its otherwise sickly gray body and is staring directly at me with some rather creepy glowing red eyes.

Although I guess I’m not the one to talk anymore about creepy glowing red eyes, considering my own.

It lets out another roar and jumps, clearing several meters in height before its hand digs straight into the wall and it begins to climb up another layer of the spiral.

I quickly pull my rifle around and aim it directly at the creature, waiting just a second for it to peek its head over another layer of the spiral before inserting my mana into the rifle’s gem and shooting. The flaming bullet then flies straight towards it, only for the monster to let out a loud roar again, making some sort of death mana barrier appear over its skin.

My brows furrow at that and the monster still manages to end up getting knocked off of the wall by the impact of the bullet striking its barrier, but other than that it appears to be perfectly unharmed. In fact, all it seems to have done is making a small crack in its barrier and piss off the monster.

Before the creature can even get back to its feet, I send another shot straight at it with even more mana. This one strikes it in its shoulder instead of its head, knocking it off balance and further damaging its barrier as it struggles to get back to its feet.

Huh. This isn’t that bad.

Just gotta keep sho-

My thoughts cut off when I feel a piercing pain in my back before finding a vine shooting out of my gut in front of me. I cough out a mouthful of blood and drop my rifle, giving the monster a chance to get back to its feet as I turn my head to find a different type of plant monster behind me. Unlike the other ones which had the mouth of a flytrap plant with various blossoms at its base where the illusory mist would shoot out from, this one looks like one large unbloomed blossom, with sharp vines and thorns sticking out from its entire body.

I reach down with my hands to grab the vine before crushing it and physically shoving it with a grunt through my own gut, helping my own immortality kick the thing out. And after it’s out, I fall down to my knees with a burning pain in my gut. One that would probably have left me incapacitated just a year ago, but is tolerable now as I reach for my sword and swing it directly behind me, cutting straight through a few of the monster’s vines.

It lets out a shriek of pain that is echoed by the continued roars of the monster down below, but I ignore them as my wound finishes sealing itself up and I climb to my feet with my sword and a scowl on my face.

“Not sure where you came from, but…” I mutter before bisecting the thing straight across its middle with my sword in a horizontal sweep, leaving its plant fluids to spill out as the top half falls to the ground. I then turn back around just to find the larger monster already on the section of the spiral directly below me.

I look down to find my rifle on the ground and partially covered in the plant monster’s overflowing fluids.

Guess I’m not using that.

I tighten my grip on my sword and burst into a sprint straight towards the edge of the layer of the spiral I’m on, which the large monster just now begins to climb up. And right when I reach the edge of it, I reverse my grip on my sword and hold it in both hands before jumping straight down towards the monster.

Let’s see if its barrier can deal with an Arcadian metal sword to the face.