/The Earthmother, patron Eye of the third floor. The first has the Keeper of the Tunnels, and the second is shared between the Calamities. These three are known by almost all climbers, due to the fact that most climbers interact with them, to some degree.
The Keeper maintains law and order in the tunnels with their avatars. The Calamities are the true test of the second floor - whether it be the storm, the drought, the pest, or any of the others. You would need to travel far across those bland hills to see more than one.
But the Earthmother is the most vocal of those. She protects her forest, she challenges, she uplifts, and she respects one thing more than anything else: Fairness. If you catch her ire, there is a game. Run and escape, or beat a champion and survive. Those are how you live if you mess with the rules of the undergrowth.
Live as a creature of the forest would - or prove you’re strong or graceful enough to survive anyway.
Well, most of you’d die in a ditch while fighting, of course. So really, run. Run fast, run far. The hunt may be fair, but you are hunted. Prey, not hunter. You’d do well to remember that./
-Jill Êras - Bloom, level 143 Grovekeeper, Avatar of the Green Tide.
- - -
The scythe of the [Fungal Stalker] hisses through the air in front of my face again. The hive-plant puppeteers the flesh of the wulven it ensnared rather well. It moves almost gracefully, even in ways that its muscles wouldn’t allow, and I suspect its insides must have been rearranged in some ways.
It’s a creepy thing to look at, and full of bothersome effects. The spores from the mushrooms try to make me sluggish and lethargic, a slow acting toxin that settles in my joints and sprouts from there. A parasite.
Meanwhile, the flowers that grow a wreath across the wulven’s empty eyesockets smell wonderfully enticing. They are beguiling things, drawing eye and awareness away from the pseudo-avatar’s lethality.
And it is lethal. Not a true dryad, not a true forestkeeper. It is meant as a challenge suitable to me. A victory the mother could respect. And she would be right to - beating this thing with an empty vessel seems like one hecc of a task. And yet, I’m up for it.
Gently, my machete glides through the air, beating the scythe aside, and stealing from it. Parts of that weapon crumble upon the clash, and a tiny bit of mana reinforces my disintegrating sword. The wulven roars, and the forest answers.
In a moment, the grass and leaves beneath my feet rise up, stopping me in the middle of a step. I’m off balance, and my ankle twists a bit. Despite that, I bring up the machete again, and the scythe slams into me. It’s strong.
The wulven’s body is strong, and the parasites have strengthened it even more. The blow is powerful enough that I feel it resonate up my entire arm. My feet lift off the floor, the plant matter around them shredding, and I’m thrown against a tree.
My bones creak from the impact, but hold, supported by my heart stat. The wood splinters slightly behind me. I blink to clear my vision, and the avatar is upon me again already.
It’s faster than me. It’s stronger than me. The environment is supporting it. A thin smile spreads on my lips.
I’ll break it all the same.
With a quick motion, I bring up the machete to block the scythe, bracing it against my shoulder. Bio-metal crashes into my mana construct, the scythe only inches away from my neck, and both fracture and break.
Except, my sword is better. It’s made from my entire pool of vessel, made to kill. It carves into the scythe, and the wulven’s weapon crumbles around it. Pieces of mana are devoured by my apathy, and though the sword wants to absorb them, I command them myself.
When the wulven moves again, I [Suppress] it.
[Suppression 15 > 16]
Suddenly, some of that monstrous strength fades away. Some of its speed breaks into flakes of ash and it staggers. I smell blood in the air, and step forward. A quick stab, and the avatar parries. Mycelium moves to block my strike, but it costs it. More damage. More bits of its body break away into motes of mana, feeding me.
I double down on my skill, making it even heavier. The monster roars, and I feel my muscles contract, stunned. Crap.
It sends me flying with its other arm, claws digging into my chest as my ribcage creaks from the impact. I slam into another tree, my sword still clenches in my hand. I cut the tree, breaking bits of it to feed my weapon. The cracks on its surface mend again, and when the monster slams into me, [Biological Restoration] has taken care of the worst of my wounds.
This time, it tackles me to the ground. Fangs snap shut right in front of my eyes as I pull back as far as I can, then place my sword in front of my face. The thing’s teeth close around the flat of the blade - and then they break. The runes on my machete glow as more mana feeds into them. The sides may not be sharp, but they still carry that same imbuement.
As the thing howls for a moment, I kick its stomach, sending it back a step, and hack down with the machete. It brings its scythe up to block, and yet more of the metal is worn away. It looks ragged by now.
Then again, I must not look amazing myself. Blood leaking from my ears, and mouth, with a few holes on my chest. I smile, nonetheless, and walk forward at the staggering monster. It’s fraying at the edges, I can see it.
For a moment, I am entranced by the flowers, but a single sweep of the machete through the air clears that up. Its spores and pollen shatter. Snarling with a toothless maw, the thing goes on all fours, an awkward position with the massive weapon grafted to its arm. I watch, and observe, calmly.
My heart beats with adrenaline, and I feel alive. There’s a song in my ears. A musical hum that speaks of power and domination. An epitaph? That’s what it sounds like, to me. I tune it out, and focus.
The world narrows. It’s me and it. The avatar, wreathed from a corpse. A test to see whether I’m the hunter or hunted.
It dashes at me. My machete cuts through the air.
[You have killed a lv. 43 Avatar Amalgam]
I breathe. A line of blood trails across my cheek. The broken pieces of the scythe embed themselves in a tree behind me. One of them trailed near my face, leaving a shallow cut.
[The Earthmother smiles at your offering.]
[Level up! 34 > 36]
On the ground, there lays the corpse of the wulven. Its scythe shattered, broken by my sword. I look upon it, the flowers wilted, the mycelium dead and dry. Already, parts of it turn to motes of mana, and other parts get devoured by the living forest. The tower is claiming its share.
And, of course, there’s the final bit.
[You have been granted a possible epitaph. Accept?]
[Epitaph: Hunter’s Heart]
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter