Forty-One
 
Breathtaking. The interior of the rift stole away his thoughts as he stood on the precipice of a mountain and looked down upon a valley filled with more of the monstrous trees. Warm air blew across the valley to crash against the unyielding rock face, heat suffusing him as he looked upon the circling birds far below. There were well over a dozen of them, each the same size of the one in the clearing.
Pulses of power radiated from down in the clearing, riding the wind to gently tickle his senses. There was a path that led down the path, nothing more than a mountain goat trail. Before his recent growth in power and increase in physical ability, he doubted he could make his way down the trail. Now, it was nothing more than a simple jog down the hill.
At times the trail would become steep and it was a challenge not to lean forward and begin tumbling, but he managed to always correct himself. If it wasn’t for the massive, lizard-bird hybrids flying around, it would have been a nice excursion. The constant dark, damp, forest was something that had slowly been wearing down on him. There was only so long one could go without seeing the sun.
This sun was gorgeous. Round and bright with a rich yellow glow, not the sickly orange of his old world. A faded away star limping on its last few million years. This was bright and energetic, the world filled with life. Sweat beaded along his forehead and he ran with easy, loping strides as he got closer to the valley floor. Energy grew more and more dense with every passing second.
His nodes hummed comfortably, flaring to life with every breath, dimming a second later, only to flare back again. If he understood what Diur had told him, a cultivator would be able to hold that strength in afterwards, slowly collecting energy. His nodes didn’t allow that, they just consumed it.
At the end of the trail and into the valley floor he ran. The grass here along the idle valley was similar to what had been outside. It was nearly thigh high with a waxy outer coating that slowly smeared itself across his leathers as he ran. Above him the birds continued to lazily circle, not seeming interested in flying down upon him at all.
Kon took what little help he had and continued to jog toward where he could feel the energy was radiating. It was the end of the valley, or at least that’s where the power was emanating from. He kept his rifle tucked to his shoulder and tracked the beasts, but he crossed the kilometer long valley in record time. There were only a handful of massive trees in the valley and each of them were bigger than the old lightning scarred monster that had been outside. Kon had to crane his head back to see the top of them all the way to the top.
There were at least two nests in each of the trees and the old piles of bones scattered at their bases were the same as what had been outside. The birds seemed almost lazy in their flying, lethargically flapping their wings as they floated on the updrafts.
“What type of food is out here for them?” The thought stuck to him as he kept walking, but his question was answered in only a minute. One of the birds dove on another and they began to tear at each other, a hail of bloody feathers floating across the sky as they crashed into the ground hard enough that the ground shook.They screamed as they fought, slashing and ripping at each other.
Kon avoided them by angling to the side and leaving the thrashing creatures to fight each other. The other birds began to circle, waiting for the victor to rise up from the ground. Kon made it to the end of the valley before the screaming stopped. He risked looking back to see that the rest of the birds had dove on the fallen.
In between the trees he could see chunks of flesh and feathers flying up into the air. Streaks of blood splattered the trees as the birds circled around it, gorging themselves on the downed creature. It lasted only a moment before they all launched themselves up, holding the remnants of the bird in their talons. They landed in their individual nests and proceeded to eat noisily.
“That’s gross. All of them cannibals?” Kon didn’t wait for them to finish eating before he started to run toward the source of the power. At the end of the valley was a broken open chasm that led deeper into the earth. The cry of the monsters faded behind him as he started working his way down into the chasm. Gray rock rose up and above him as the warm wind was cut off. A chill started to worm its way through his leathers, but he kept the rifle tucked to his shoulder. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Down and down he went until light was only a distant thing far above him, a sliver of light hardly visible through the crack of the world. Kon fought off a shiver as a pale blue light started to glow across the rocks that broke apart the shadows as he walked deeper.
The narrow canyon opened up so he could see further into the depths. He paused as he stared at a large, blue, mushroom. It was where the emanations of power were coming from. It was at the end of the chasm, high rock walls that rose far above him. It was a ten feet wide cul-de-sac with only the two foot tall mushroom standing there, wide cap glistening with wax.
“Something is off. Where’s the guardian?” Kon looked over the rocks around the mushroom. There was nothing around the mushroom that gave him a hint. He looked back up and into the sky, but with how tight the canyon walls were there was no way that the bird monsters could get down here towards him.
“The ground?” The ground was all churned up around the mushroom, soft soil laying turned up around the base of the mushroom. All over the cul-de-sac the earth was turned up in soft soil where something had broken through. The faint luminescence of the moss on the rocks made it hard to see how churned the earth was.
Kon reached over and searched along the edge of the rocky cliff until he found what he wanted. A loose stone that was easy to grab and pull free and he tossed it with a flick of his wrist. The stone landed in the soft loam, sending a spray of loose dirt around.
Jaws snapped closed, rising from the soft earth nearly instantaneously. Albino alligator head with wide, broad, teeth that ground together in a rumble as it crushed together the earth and stone in a single second. It sank back through the earth nearly as fast as it had arrived. Kon froze, breath stuck in his lungs as he watched it sink away again.
“That’s terrifying,” Kon muttered. He kept his rifle close to his shoulder, but hadn’t been fast enough to fire on it. His tongue wetted his lips as he stared at the dirt and he thought. The monster didn’t seem to be armored at all, but Kon couldn’t risk it surviving a single shot. It would be too fast for him to escape.
He scrambled up the side of the cliff, getting nearly ten feet off the ground. Keeping the rifle in one hand while holding on for dear life with the other, he started to make his way around the edge of the cul-de-sac. Kon kept his breaths shallow, hardly daring to disturb the air above the trap. The ground further up the chasm had been fine, not touched at all by the creature. Kon just had to assume that the beast was stuck in this area.
“How often do things come here for it to eat enough not to die?” The entire rift was weird. It didn’t seem like there was enough food for everything to survive. It was like he was missing a step. That or they were just weird creatures who were birthed from the concentration of energy.
“Focus on the task at hand, Kon. Can’t let yourself be eaten on your first mission. Or ever. Being eaten sounds like it sucks.” The constant train of thoughts helped keep him alert as he got to the deepest part of the cul-de-sac. Right next to the oversized mushroom.
He looked at the rifle in one hand and then the mushroom firmly rooted into the ground. Then back at the rifle. Kon twisted carefully to get his heels embedded on the little ledge to look over at the mushroom. His free fingers cramped as they clutched at a small ledge, holding himself in place.
So close to the mushroom he could feel the power radiating off of the mushroom. It pressed against him, compressing his skin and bones, each breath an inferno of life energy that made his nodes flare brighter and brighter. His senses sharpened to the point he began to feel the nausea of the overwhelming increase of his senses.
Kon tried to slow down his breathing, trying not to draw in more energy. It was useless though, the power was seeping into him at an alarming rate. His fingers tightened and rocks crumbled under his fingers.
Kon felt his breath freeze. He started to fall forward as his handhold broke apart. Time stretched out in front of him as he hung suspended over the turned over earth. He shot a hand over to the mushroom and caught himself with a finger, the rest of them curled around the trigger guard to keep the valuable weapon from falling to the ground.
He leapt, landing on top of the mushroom, and the entire thing swayed dangerously. His feet shot upward before they brushed against the loose dirt. Kon curled up on the mushroom and looked over the torn up dirt. Sitting on the mushroom the pressure increased further, more and more energy pouring into him.
With strengthened eyesight he was able to catch the slight movement of the earth. How it rippled so softly that without the sudden increase he would have never noticed it. His bicep spasmed, but he kept his eyes on the dirt as he lifted his rifle as the guardian rose up to protect its prize.