I soared through the sky, enjoying my newfound ability to fly. Sure, it may not be proper flight, but gliding had its perks. For one, only a little input was needed for me to keep flying, and depending from where I jumped off, I could still cover a big distance. While I was this high up, I used the opportunity to chart my course to my destination, the island in question looming straight ahead.

I could theoretically just go in a straight path, but it was mostly open grasslands all the way, which wasn’t exactly my favored terrain. I’d much prefer either going through or along a forest, since that way I’d have ample places to hide should things go sideways. It also seemed like the stronger monsters were hanging out in the plains if my earlier encounters were anything to go by.

So I banked towards the closest forested area that extended towards the island, steadily descending toward the ground. I kept eyeing the other flying monsters, making sure that none of them got too close to me when I suddenly got hit by something. I lost control of my flight and plummeted downwards, desperately trying to right myself in the air while trying to figure out what attacked me.

I was spinning out of control and rapidly approaching the ground, my world a swirling mess of colors. Another hit connected, causing a moderate amount of pain, but also killing some of my spinning momentum. Not wanting to let this chance pass by, I waited until I was the right way up before snapping my wings out. Barely in time for some speed to bleed off before I crashed into the ground.

I shook off the confusion and started moving immediately, not wanting to make myself an easy target. Something crashed into the ground where I just was and I spun around to meet my assailant. It was a feathered snake, pure white feathers covering its incredibly long and lithe body, and two large and out-of-place-looking wings extending to the sides.

The snake rose to look down on me, wings spread in a display of intimidation before lunging at me. Unfortunately, its attack was pretty straightforward forward so I easily dodged to the side. I felt smart for a second before it extended its wing, smacking me with more power than I’d given it credit for. I took a bit of a tumble and before I could right myself I could feel something wrap around me, the snake having caught me in its grasp.

Not wanting to stay like this and find out how the snake would follow up, I quickly activated my mucus armor and detonated it, the explosion giving me enough wiggle room to free myself. I cast two poison assassinations to get some deadly poison going while dodging another lightning-fast strike. I barely managed to dodge getting clipped by a wing again and sent out a poison bomb.

The bomb detonated upon impact, sending both it and me sprawling apart. Now that I finally got some distance between us I prepared a few void javelins, letting them hover above me, ready to be used as needed. The winged snake wasn’t being lazy either and I saw the telltale glow of magic being activated, although I couldn’t see what was happening. I got my answer when I was speared by a dark, shadowy spike emerging from my own shadow.

The spike held me in place as I struggled against it, while the snake was once again rushing at me. I staggered two of my prepared javelins and sent them out. It managed to dodge the first one, but the second one slammed home. The explosion did a number on the snake and apparently made it lose focus on its own spell, releasing me from my prison. I capitalized on the moment of weakness and hit it with my last javelin.

I created some more distance between us while it was reeling from the explosion, wary of my own shadow, and started sending out some poison spears. The snake managed to dodge quite a few of them and was visibly growing more annoyed, until in a grand display, it rose to its full height, wings spread wide apart.

I paused my barrage for a second and paid attention in order to dodge whatever move it was going to throw at me. For a split second, we just stared at each other until with a mighty flap of its wings the feathered snake took to the skies. Shit, so it was fully intent on leveraging its aerial advantage, huh?

I sent some more spears after it, but now that it was in its own element, it was dodging them with almost no issue. A quick glance behind me revealed that I was close to the forest I was gunning for, so in order to use the trees as protection, I hauled ass to get there. I pushed my agility to my limits and arrived there as fast as I could, keeping an eye on the snake at all times. Now that I was in the trees I essentially negated the advantage it had gained.

The snake stared at my small form between the trees for a few seconds, looking mighty pissed before it banked away and just… left.

I continued staring while trying to process what just happened. Was that allowed? Could monsters just decide to not fight? I had never seen a monster give up mid-fight like that and it threw me for a loop. I took a few more moments to compute this new development, before shrugging, turning around, and continuing on my merry way as well. Our fight was bound to have lured some more monsters over and I wasn’t planning on being here when the big brawl started.

I was making good time through the forest. I’d been treating my current situation as more of a stealth mission instead of the usual gung-ho fight fest from point A to B. So all of the monsters I spotted were professionally avoided via void cloak or just regular sneaking around. At the same time, I’d started observing the monsters a bit more.

I hadn’t really paid too much attention to it, but some of the monsters really were acting just like regular animals. The first three layers had been home to monsters that fought each other tooth and nail except for a few exceptions. For example, the watering holes on the first layer seemed to be some sort of no-aggression zone. The second layer had some animals hunt in packs, like goblins or harpies. And the third layer… well, I guess the day was relatively peaceful?

But here, on the fourth layer, the monster population seemed to adhere to a set of rules like I’d seen it on earth. Sure, they fought each other when they crossed paths, but other than that, they felt like a bunch of animals going about their thing.

The mountain on the floating island apparently was a resting spot for all sorts of flying monsters. I saw several packs of similar monsters hunting together. And the snake I fought earlier made the judgment to stop pursuing instead of fighting to the death. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the animals were getting smarter.

Be that as it may, I had run out of forest to slink around in, and the rest of the way was a straight shot to the goal. I could see the island lazily floating ahead of me, across another grassland. This one had significantly shorter grass than I’d seen so far. Shit looked like a golf green.

The usual cornucopia of monsters was running around in the field. Horse-types, monkey-types, canines and felines, and everything in between. I could see some of the more outlandish ones, like water elementals, imps, ogres, and what looked like a gelatinous cube. I really, really didn’t want to get into any fights in an open field like that, so my best bet would be to throw up a void cloak and haul ass. Of course, that meant I’d need to take a break to restore my VMP to teleport to the island once I was within reach, but I wasn’t willing to risk causing a mass fight here.

I still hadn’t recovered to anywhere near my past strength, so no funny business for now.

I quickly activated my cloaking spell and shot out into the open, on a straight path to the target. Thankfully, the monsters that I passed paid me no mind, a testament to the cloaking ability of my spell. I had a close call when an unnaturally fast turtle thing almost bowled me over, but otherwise, my journey went on unimpeded. Eventually, I once again stood in the shadow of a floating island, looking up and judging the distance.

It looked to be around the same height as the last one had been. The last time I jumped up to the island, I overcharged the spell with about four times the required amount, which was barely enough. I’d have to charge it a bit more this time, especially since I could just glide down if I went too high up. I quickly peeked at my status and realized with a mild surprise that I still had just about enough VMP to make the jump. My investment in Wisdom was already paying off again, once again proving that it deserved to be my favorite attribute.

I carefully charged the spell until I was satisfied, the now familiar void portal appearing before too long. Not wanting to spend any more time in the plain, and looking forward to what I may find on this island, I hopped through.