140 - Cultist Monsters?

I took a deep breath, letting the experiences of the past few days wash over me to make sure I was ready for what was to come. After my evolution to the eighth tier, I spent a few days consolidating my gains. This included minor things such as getting used to moving around with my longer body. I also did some extensive testing with the crystal symbiotes together with the mutation expert. This mainly involved me getting blasted by various attacks to see how much damage I could mitigate. Not the most fun way to figure things out, but effective. At the end of it all we came to the conclusion that the symbiotes acted like the equivalent of a tier four armor, which wasn’t crazy, but not bad for a tier six mutation that was always on and didn’t hinder me in any way. Investing more into my little helpers would definitely be a good idea for the future.

Another thing I’d put extensive training in were my void feelers. The overlapping sensations from my eyes and feelers were novel, to say the least, and took some getting used to. All in all, it felt like I gained a whole new level of perception, where better eyesight was just the beginning. There was an argument to be made that the feedback from the feelers was superior since it allowed me to keep tabs on a big field around me, but that would be like comparing apples to oranges. Yes, the feelers gave me a field of near omnipresence, but everything beyond that field might as well not exist. That’s what my eyes were for. It was still a bit touch and go, but as with all system-related things, the instincts on how to use everything properly had been baked into my very being. 

But, knowing how to do something and actually doing it properly still took some practice. 

Redax was beyond annoyed at my newfound abilities and our little game had been steadily escalating. He was pushing himself further and further in order to improve his stealth skills, to the point where I felt it was getting unhealthy, but Nimma assured me that Redax tended to get a bit obsessive once his skills were challenged like that. Ironically, this time I was the one offering to lend an ear, should things get too much to handle.

As for my other new abilities, void resonance was definitely the most interesting one. According to the skills description, I would start resonating my spells with the void, whatever that meant. As it turned out, it mostly meant more bang for my buck. More kaboom. More destruction. All of my spells now radiated the unmistakable aura of the void, which gave them something akin to a passive effect. I was once again reminded that regular people and monsters didn’t take very kindly to the presence of the void, long exposure possibly turning them mad. In the case of my spells, though, it mostly made them incredibly uncomfortable. 

Not the greatest effect, but a disconcerted enemy would tend to make mistakes eventually. 

My actual aura, the void emperor one, got a bit of a qualitative upgrade as well. After exposing Orbos and Andrius to my new aura skill, they mentioned that it was just a slightly stronger effect than before, which was odd for an SS-tier skill. My guess was that the skill would show its true value when I visited the void again. As for the other skills I got, mainly endless growth and the extra skill slot, they were put on the back burner for now. It had been three days and I had yet to receive a mutation point from the passive. Hopefully, I’d get one soon. I did meet with an expert on attributes, and he did point out some interesting choices, while strongly recommending that I wait to choose.

Sure, I could get a headstart and get points for the new attribute, but he pointed out how rare of an opportunity I had here. Usually, the extra attribute just got assigned to you, be that via evolution or quest rewards and you had to live with what you got. I had a chance to freely choose, so I should better damn well be sure before I did. Making the right choice could be the difference between getting a bit stronger and ascending to a whole new stratosphere. 

As for the B-tier upgrade token I’d received from evolving, among the many great choices I had, I eventually decided to use it on Wisdom King. Sure, other skills might be more interesting, but the biggest advantage I had over others had always been my truly massive MP pool. Upgrading the skill to A-tier just compounded this advantage even further, while providing benefits far into the future. With all my other MP bonuses, the upgrade didn’t amount to anything crazy, but down the road… 

Finally, after getting used to my new abilities, I found myself once again sitting in Lophans office. The only way to get XP on the seventh layer was by doing quests, so there was little point in me sticking around if I wanted to progress. It was time for me to tackle the last quest of this layer and power up a bit before descending to the final layer of Suigoss.

“Now, I hardly need to remind you that I have never done this before,” Lophan said sitting opposite me. Generating quests had become somewhat of a routine and today as well, we were in the same constellation. Me and Lophan sitting on couches opposite each other, Nimma sitting off to the side, Andrius and Orbos flanking me, while Redax tried looking mysterious by one of the windows. “This will be the first time a country-tier quest has ever been generated, and honestly, anything could happen. I have the city guard on high alert and a public announcement has been made. Our new country might be put to the test before we can properly establish ourselves.”

“Again, if you really need me to, I can wait a few more days. Or weeks, if need be,” I replied, torn between wanting to extend my stay here and getting into a good and proper fight with whatever the system would throw my way.

“Nonsense,” Lophan shot me down. “None of this would have happened without you, and letting you get on with your quest is the least we can do. We’ll pull through this, no matter what.”

“Alright,” I nodded thankfully. “Do it, then.”

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New Quest!

A murder of Cultist Ravens(T10) has appeared in the newly formed country of Lophan. As is their sole purpose in life, they are attempting to summon their dark deity. Find and eliminate them before they can achieve their goal. Or maybe…

Goals:

Either find and eliminate the Cultist Ravens before they can complete their ritual (0/4)

-or-

Defeat the creature that has been summoned (T12) (0/1)

Rewards:

Depending on which goal has been achieved.

Failure condition:

Death, or the complete destruction of more than 40% of Lophan.

Failure Penalty:

Death

-or-

Devolve to tier seven, level 1.

Current evolution will be made unobtainable forever.

Unable to generate quests in asphon settlements.

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As soon as I finished reading through the quest, a timer appeared in my periphery, starting to count down from six hours. I stared at it uneasily for a few seconds, before letting my eyes wander back to the failure penalty. That was the harshest penalty I’d seen so far. Not only would I devolve back to when I was a wee royal voidling, most likely losing everything I gained between then and now, but I’d also be barred from doing quests. And since monsters didn’t give out XP, and both being level twenty and completing quests were part of the conditions for descending… I would probably get stuck here forever. I briefly wondered if dying might be the lesser evil of the two.

“Well?” Lophans voice snapped me out of my shocked state. I shook my head, getting my head back in the game. What was done was done. All I had to do was complete the quest, the penalty was irrelevant. “Don’t keep us in suspense, what is the quest?”

“Sorry… sorry. Before I tell you though, remind me, just how big is the country again?”

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As it turned out, the country was quite big. Of course, the cities and villages were the meat and bones, but the space between them was apparently part of the whole thing as well. And these in-between spaces tended to be quite big usually. Add to that the fact that usual quest rules applied and excessive help by the quest giver was grounds for a failed quest, I was looking at a huge area that needed to be combed through. Seeing as the quest mainly consisted of actually finding the monsters attempting the summoning, I was more or less on my own. 

The good news was that I had had something approaching x-ray vision with a decent range since my evolution, which helped tremendously with speeding up the whole search process. As it was, I was rushing through the streets of the newly founded country, in search of the elusive monsters. The first thing I’d done was comb through Lophan City, just in case the system was attempting to send me on a wild goose chase, but the place turned up clean. The countdown ticked down mercilessly as I shot through street after street at a break-neck pace, Redax and Andrius by my side. 

The two were accompanying me for mostly the same reasons they had joined me on previous quests. Redax for his tracking abilities that, while he couldn’t outright tell me if he found anything he could nudge me in the right direction. Supposedly that would be skirting the line of what was allowed, but Lophan assured me that it would be fine. Andrius meanwhile was here for communication reasons, his spells allowing him to report back on our progress. The two of them also took out any monsters that could potentially become an obstacle, no matter how small, allowing me to fully focus on the search.

We’d been running around for the better part of two hours, at least trying to hit up areas that could be a likely hiding spot for the monsters. Just about four more hours were left, and we had nothing to show for our efforts. Considering how big an area I still needed to search, my prospects of locating the monsters were starting to look grim unless I had a lucky break. Of course, luck was kinda my thing, and I was praying that it would pull through once again. Attempting to sleuth out any hint at all, I read through the description of the monsters I was hunting for what felt like the hundredth time.

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Cultist Raven (T10)

These creatures are not an actual raven evolution line, getting their name instead from their look that vaguely resembles their namesake. Unlike most naturally occurring monsters, Cultist Ravens are the result of a botched summoning ritual. Excess mana taken shape, possessed by a combination of residual ritual command and mislead purpose. 

It is almost impossible to tell whether a cultist raven will spawn or not after an accident during a summoning ritual since their formation can happen up to two weeks after the fact, but steps are taken to catch them before it’s too late. These masses of mana usually stand at the height of an adult human, with just about the same build. Their form is made up of a roiling mass of blackened mana, a beak clearly present where the face would be, and feather-like protrusions emerging from their arms.

Mostly mindless, they attempt to complete their only purpose in life, to finish the failed summoning ritual that spawned them in the first place. Since they aren’t powerful enough on their own, they seek out more of their kind. Once three or four of them have converged (which can take a long, long time), they will start the ritual to summon forth… something. They don’t know what they are doing, acting on pure instinct, combining the broken pieces of their own summoning into a chimeric abomination of a ritual. The result is the summoning ritual snatching something powerful from their home, which usually angers the summoned monster quite a lot.

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Just like every time before, the description didn’t offer any kind of hint. The archive of asphon offered more data of course, which I’d combed through, but sadly the cultist ravens was one of the monsters that the asphons rarely, if ever, got their hands on to study. So all of the information they had was hearsay and conjecture. The damn monsters were hard enough to find either way, and the recommended way to deal with them was to kill them as soon as they spawned. Once one of them gave you the slip, the most likely scenario of finding them was by following the path of destruction left behind by whatever they summoned.

For now, it looked like I was looking for a needle in a country-sized haystack.

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I watched as the countdown dropped below two hours, equal parts annoyed and tired. Annoyed that I hadn’t found the damn monsters yet, and somewhat tired of looking. I’d been running around at full tilt for four hours now, with nothing to show for it. Part of me felt like waiting out the timer and taking the open fight instead of blindly searching like a fool.

The rational part of me told me that this way of doing it would be insane. The emerging monster would be tier twelve. Twelve. A whole four tiers above my own. I was more likely to get squashed like a bug than to put up a proper fight. After all, I had struggled against tier nine asphons in the tournament, who were a mere two tiers above me. Sure, my giant hunter passive would be a gap closer, and more likely than not the summoned monster would be a lot dumber than an asphon, lacking a proper fighting style. But the monster could also potentially destroy vast swaths of land, including but not limited to, actual asphon settlements. 

I felt like I owed it to my hosts to at least give it my best before it came to the worst-case scenario. 

Then again… System quests, by design, were never impossible. Super, super hard? Absolutely. But not impossible. The quests were meant to push me further beyond my limits, rewarding me according to the effort I put in. Then, wouldn’t it be the better choice to go for the harder-earned reward? Who knows what amazing rewards I could get from completing the first-ever country-tier quest on hard difficulty? Plus, I’d get to have a proper fight once more, where I put everything on the line… 

I shuddered with excitement just thinking about it. But no. I shouldn’t. Best to find the crows and stop them from summoning the big bad monster. It was time to lock in and give my all for the next two hours. If I still didn’t manage to find them after putting my best foot forward, they wouldn’t be able to blame me if the summoning went through… right?

========================================================================

Just ten more minutes. 

I softly landed on top of a skyscraper, letting my gaze wander over the broken buildings. Running around for almost six hours looking for something had a way of demotivating a person, and I couldn’t help but feel annoyed. I was starting to see why this was a country-tier quest. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was not an easy and a hard way to complete this quest. The options were between extremely hard and stupid hard. According to the archive, there was no known way to reliably find these buggers, so this had been an exercise in luck from the outset. 

You’d think that that would give me an inherent advantage, but apparently not enough. In almost six hours, giving it my all, I barely managed to search about half of the country, which was impressive given its size. You’d think that my luck would let me win a fifty-fifty chance, and I’d beaten worse odds many, many times before. This just proved that luck was unreliable at best, and no matter how good the odds, I could still just as easily lose as long as there was a chance. Somebody more skilled at tracking might have been able to take luck out of the equation, but seeing how Redax hadn’t shown any indicators that he’d sensed anything, I had to wonder just how good you’d have to be to find these things. 

“What’s wrong?” Redax asked, touching down next to me. “We still have time, don’t we?”

I could see by his body language that he was quite agitated. Reading asphons wasn’t easy on a good day, even if I’d gotten quite proficient at it, but Redax was a tough nut to crack even then. So, seeing the usual tells of a regular asphon show up on my friend meant he must be even more frazzled than he let on. Understandable, really. After all, an unprecedented, unknown threat was about to descend.

“Just about nine more minutes,” I say absentmindedly as Andrius lands on my other side. “Nine more minutes to search the other half of an area that took me almost six hours to comb through.”

“Statistically speaking, that’s impossible,” Andrius sighed next to me. “But a miracle could still happen. You always go on about how lucky you are, right?”

“I am,” I chuckled, as in that very moment, a green glint appeared in my vision. It pointed out a location quite a ways away, but definitely reachable. “But… I just have to ask. Would you hate me if I said that I actually wanted to fight the summoned monster? That I was looking forward to the life and death struggle? That I wanted to put my life on the line, just for the thrill and the promise of a greater reward from the system? Consequences be damned?”

Redax went completely still while Andrius looked at me incredulously.

“You actually want to fight a tier twelve monster?” Andrius sputtered. “That’s suicidal!”

“As things are going, I might not have a choice,” I replied, conveniently keeping my hidden radar ping a secret to gouge their reaction. 

“I don’t think we could begrudge you for wanting to fight,” Redax said slowly. “You’ve certainly given it your all these past hours, and not even I caught a whiff of them.”

“Right?” I said, my eyes locked on the green glint in the distance. “Might as well take a moment to rest and prepare before the timer hits zero.”

I could probably barely make it if I went now. But who knows if I actually managed to defeat all four monsters before the timer ran out, they were of the tenth tier, after all. Sure, technically the ritual should fail if I killed two or three of them, but this was a system-generated quest. Surely the ritual would proceed with just one of them alive. Maybe I could weaken the summoned creature by defeating some of them, but did I really want that?

“Right,” Redax confirmed, looking at me as if he suspected something. I held his gaze for a few moments before his shoulders and tail sagged in defeat. “Call it in Andrius, this is happening.”

Andrius looked between Redax and me a few times before letting out a defeated sigh. A quick spell later, he sat down on the ledge, his legs dangling over the side of the building. 

“Want to take any bets on what is going to get summoned?” Andrius asked, his nervously flicking tail betraying his light-hearted question. 

“Could be anything, really,” Redax replied stoically. “All we can hope for is that it will be a match-up in Gary’s favor.”

“I hope it’s something really big and strong,” I blurted out, which earned me a few odd looks. “I don’t like small enemies, they tend to be more annoying to fight, with tons of tricks up their sleeves.”

“So, like you, then?” Andrius chuckled. 

“I’ll have you know that I fight like one of the big, dumb, strong monsters, throwing out straightforward attacks that make pretty explosions most of the time,” I countered with fake offense in my voice. “But seriously, big and dumb, I could probably barely take. Small, fast, and sneaky? It was a pleasure knowing you guys.”

“I think you could deal with sneaky, due to your stupid void feelers,” Redax said with thinly masked annoyance. 

“You know,” I said while remembering something from my early days as a monster. “I did something like this before.”

“What, potentially doom a country because you get high off fighting?” Andrius mocked, the silent accusation not being lost on me. 

“No, fighting a monster four tiers above my own,” I said somberly. “In fact, managing that was probably the catalyst that allowed me to thrive instead of getting killed early on.

“Let’s hope you can recreate the miracle, then,” Andrius sighed. “It’ll be a problem if you don’t.”

“Oh, I definitely won’t,” I immediately denied. “The only reason I pulled that particular feat off was unreal amounts of luck and perseverance.”

“Fantastic,” Andrius jabbed. “You won’t be mad if we step in with our full forces to stop our county from being destroyed, right?”

“I suppose I don’t have the right to be mad about that,” I said, feeling a bit guilty. “All I can ask is that you let me get in an honest attempt before stepping in.”

“That’s what Lophan promised you,” Redax confirmed. “He won’t go back on that.”

“Right, right,” I nodded, remembering that particular conversation before we set off. “Anyway, the last time I only won due to everything falling into place just the way I needed it to, coupled with an unhealthy dose of insanity. This time… I’d like to prove that I can do it by my own effort.”

Andrius and Redax both nodded in understanding. We spent the last few minutes in silence as I watched the timer count down to zero. As soon as it disappeared, there was no doubt for anyone just where the crow cultists were hiding anymore. A massive amount of mana got released, causing a massive explosion at the point my hidden radar was showing. Shortly after, a massive roar shook the world, proclaiming the summoned monster's anger at being ripped from its home. It wasn’t visible through the smoke and debris from the explosion, but it was definitely something big. Now I could only hope that it was also dumb.

“Wish me luck, guys,” I said, as I jumped off the building, starting to glide towards what might very well be the final fight of my life.