Diven pulled back his spear and pushed Bird away with his foot. Then he jumped up and started running. With Blighted Passage and Bird too busy dealing with the rotting hole in her wings, he escaped without more complications.
Skill leveled up: Rotten Spear Lv8 -> Lv9
Skill leveled up: Sundered Mind Lv8 -> Lv9
Once Div and En had put some distance between them and danger, they divided their tasks. En would find the river again and keep advancing toward the mountains while Div would focus on channeling Echoes of the Heart. With their back wound still bleeding, they wouldn’t last long. They had to close it as soon as possible.
Bird didn’t catch up to them, and Feline was still suspiciously absent. En couldn’t help but twitch when he heard the wind rustle the gigantic pine trees of the valley. The masked guardian could be hiding anywhere.
There was a sliver of hope in his heart that the hit they landed on Bird would make the guardians think twice before attacking them.He had seen how terrible the hole in her wings was, with dark streaks of rot already spreading through her body.
Maybe Feline was forced to assist her in dealing with it. En doubted it would be enough to end her life. She was a high level Evolved Rank after all. But he was amazed that they were able to injure her to this level.
Rot was powerful. Too powerful. He had faltered under the insistence of Div. He really needed to talk some sense into his other half. Using their rot-attunement, tapping into the Rot Heart… It wasn’t what they wanted.
How could they convince the elders to let them stay in Kheiron if they reeked of rot?
Their bloodline scared him.
He was painfully aware of the power inside Uncle Basil’s Sun Heart. Div didn’t seem to realize it, but the difference between Evolved Rank and Ascended Rank was a lot larger than between Basic Rank and Evolved Rank.
Yet, Uncle Basil was already considered a quasi-elder.
En’s stomach was rumbling. He was starting to feel the effects of the lack of nutrition they were suffering from. The effect from the orange fruits had completely faded by now. Working on an empty stomach wasn’t good for morale, but it especially wasn’t good for their strength.
It was time to stop and catch something to eat. If he waited any longer, he wouldn’t have enough energy. Their wound wasn’t completely healed, but it would have to be enough for now.
(Div! Wake up.)
Div was forced out of his trance, his head still wobbly after enduring the rot for so long.
[En?]
(We need to eat.)
[Ugh. Don’t hit me with that as soon as I stop channeling Echoes of the Rot Heart.]
And so Div and En got back to work.
The rot issue was still there. They had to disable both Rotten Spear and Rotten Spearfishing so that the fish they caught would not rot instantly.
After some practice, Div was able to turn off the skills for a short period of time. A few seconds at most.
(I’m sorry…)
[It’s fine, we’ll get lucky eventually.]
The remaining problem was that En was incapable of landing a hit. It wasn’t really his fault. With Div suppressing all their spear-related skills, it was normal for his aim and strength to suffer.
It was expected, but still frustrating.
(What are we going to do? We need to catch at least one.)
[We can only keep trying. Those waters have plenty of fish inside, we’ll make it happen. We did in the Wildlands before we had any skills.]
(Actually, we had Spear already.)
[Well, it will be a tiny bit more difficult. But we’ve been through worse.]
They tried and tried and tried again. For hours on end, they tried but every attempt failed.
(I’m really terrible at this.)
[You’re trying to land a spear strike while doing your best to not use all you know about landing spear strikes. It cannot work.]
(Then what? We starve?)
[No, there has to be a solution. Let’s think about it.]
Div and En tried once more to land a hit, but as the spear approached the water, it was clear it would miss. Right before it made contact with the surface, Trap Detection triggered.
Div and En snapped out of it. Expecting Feline, they didn’t use Blighted Passage to dodge. The guardian would be ready for it and with his own skill, be able to hit them.
Carried by the momentum of their spear, they fell into the river just in time to avoid Feline’s claws.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
(I have an idea!)
[About?]
(Fishing! It will work! I’m sure.)
[Great, but let’s hear it later. We have a faceless to shake off.]
Div and En stepped into Blighted Passage. Without the element of surprise, they weren't going to try and fight their attacker. They could barely escape using a skill tailored to counter him, fighting head to head wasn’t going to work.
It had become a habit now: whenever the guardians came closer, Div and En escaped through Blighted Passage. They were convinced the guardians were letting them go on purpose. Especially after Bird had shown them that her wind blades could catch them.
But in the end, it was a good thing for them, so they didn’t complain. Being underestimated was not a bad thing. However, it seemed Bird had changed her mind so they would have to be extra careful if they encountered her.
They stopped further up the river, ready to try En’s idea. The idea had popped into his mind when their spear pierced the water’s surface while they were avoiding Feline’s attack. While they had started their strike with their spear skills inactive, he had noticed the water had rippled with rot-attuned mana.
In their rush to deal with the ambush, Div had stopped suppressing their skills. Rotten Spear and Rotten Spearfishing had reactivated mid-strike.
En’s plan was to do the opposite. Start striking with the skills active to get the aim and technique right. Then Div would suppress the skills just before the spear connected to stop the rotting effect.
It had to work. The only unknown was if the rot-attuned mana gathering at the tip of the spear would retract fast enough not to affect the fish.
Still, with a little practice, both Div and En were confident they could succeed.
They put themselves into position. En controlling their body to stand above the water. Perched on a rock in the middle of the river, he watched as large fishes drifted underwater. Then, with uninterrupted focus, he signaled for Div to stand ready and stabbed his spear toward the fattest looking fish.
Div watched as the spear flashed toward their target, his mind resting on the trigger that would let him suppress the skills. He needed to wait until the last possible moment. Until En’s influence over the strike had run its course. Until their muscles couldn’t impact either power or trajectory. Moments before the spear penetrated the fish, he put all his mental strength into removing the skill, into pulling the rot-attuned mana away from the spear tip.
The weapon pierced the fish’s side, impaling it.
In an instant, En pulled the spear out of the water and removed the fish.
It was intact.
Of course, there was a gaping hole in its body. But there was no sign of rot.
Skill leveled up: Rotten Spearfishing Lv4 -> Lv5
(We did it!)
[Quick, let’s cook it!]
Their shared stomach joined them in their celebration, releasing gurgling noises as they took the fish ashore to prepare it.
Not only did they finally secure food, but they even received a skill level for their trouble. It told them there might be more to learn about controlling their skills. After all, the fish had been killed with a spear strike without the use of a skill. The level had to come from the progress they made in imposing their will over the skill.
It was something to think about.
Later.
Now, it was dinner time. Anyway, they didn’t have the luxury to train their skills while being chased by the guardians. They only did it because they had to eat.
After cooking the fish, separating some for later, and eating the rest, Div and En continued their journey toward the start of the rift.
Now that they were nearing the mountains that divided this valley from the first black stone, they decided to drop by Cassandra’s cavern to restock some of the items they had lost on the way.
They just had to follow the river.
They found it in the same state they had left it. If the faceless in the area had found it, there was no trace of them. In fact, they hadn’t seen any faceless since Dog had disbanded the army. They had been in this forest to lure them out, that much was clear.
(We can’t stay here for long, let’s just grab all we can.)
[Yes, it would be troublesome if the guardians caught up to us while we were inside.]
Escaping from the enclosed space would be difficult. Almost impossible. Thus, Div and En scoured the place and packed all they could. A few spare clothes and replacements for the tools they had lost in the waterfall.
Unfortunately, they had already taken the most useful stuff and were left with scraps, damaged clothing, and a few self-made replacements. Stopping in front of Cassandra’s three journals, Div and En were seized by an impulse to take them with them.
With what they’d learned of the guardians’ purpose, they had grown suspicious of the cavern.
It had been left intact on purpose. A way for the guardians to indirectly teach the skills they wanted to explorers.
(I’m not sure why they want mind skills, but I don’t want them to get them.)
[Let’s take the journals with us. It didn’t feel good leaving them behind when we first left anyway.]
(Maybe we can pass them on to Cassandra’s family in Kheiron. If anyone remembers her.)
Done with the cavern, Div and En returned outside and continued walking upstream.
The wildlife of the rift had completely disappeared. Scared away by the hordes of faceless that had been roaming around the valley, most likely.
As far as Div and En were concerned, it was a good thing. With the guardians in pursuit, they lacked the energy to deal with random beasts. While their strength was incomparable to what it had been when Diven first entered the rift, some monsters still posed a real threat to him.
They remembered the explosive pinecone rodents. Even now, they had no way to deal with them. They couldn’t even reach the little menaces. Hidden away in the giant trees’ canopies, they were simply too high up to reach. They could climb the trunks, but by the time they reached the canopy, the animals would already be gone.
Furthermore, if it really came down to it, they were afraid the rodents had too many explosive pinecones to throw at them. They had survived until now, but they were far from immortal.
No, dealing with the danger of the guardians was enough. In fact, it was more than they could handle, but they had no choice.
[Speaking of danger, it’s been a while since the last ambush.]
(We’re almost there, maybe they’ve gone ahead to prepare for our arrival.)
[We’re not going straight to the black stone right?]
(Of course not. That would be idiotic. We’re looking for the exit portal.)
[Well, what should we be looking for?]
(Our theory is that the exit portal isn’t too far from the entrance. The rifts expand with the strength of the monsters living inside. The original area has to be limited to the frostcrawler spearfish habitat in the first valley.)
[Are you sure? Couldn’t it be in this valley?]
(I’m not sure. But the environment here is very different. With the giant trees, the river, different fauna… I would say this region wasn’t part of the original rift.)
[Okay, so we cross the mountains.]
(We cross the mountains and we search while keeping our distances from the stone. Remember the footprints that led us there in the first place? That’s the only hint we have. The guardians wanted us at the stone, not at the exit.)