Free Web NovelChapter 14: Level Capped...?
The wyrms were just the beginning.
Ronan pressed north through the dead forest, his boots crunching over brittle undergrowth that had turned black and skeletal long before he’d ever set foot in this world.
The violet moon tracked him through the twisted canopy above, its light filtering through dead branches in strange, angular patterns.
He didn’t bother with stealth anymore.
The things that had hunted him forty-eight hours ago, that had made him crouch in shadows and hold his breath until his lungs burned, were no longer threats. They were experience points with teeth.
And he was hungry.
The next pack found him twenty minutes later. Chameleon wyrms again, eight of them this time, probably drawn by the scent of their dead kin. Ronan didn’t even break stride.
The first three died to javelins before they cleared the tree line.
The next two met the chain whip, barbs tearing through scales and flesh with wet, ripping sounds that would have made him vomit a week ago.
The last three tried to flee.
Shadow Merge activated with a thought. Fifty meters of distance erased in an instant, Ronan’s body dissolving into darkness and reforming directly in their path.
The expression on the lead wyrm’s face, if a creature with needle teeth and chameleon scales could be said to have an expression, was almost comical.
His fist went through its skull.
[Soul Absorbed: 150 EXP]
[Soul Absorbed: 150 EXP]
[Soul Absorbed: 150 EXP]
Eight kills in thirty seconds.
"This is getting almost boring," he said, pulling a javelin free from a wyrm’s corpse. "Guess I’m going even further north."
***
The dead forest stretched on for hours, and the hunting only got better.
Ronan killed twenty-seven more chameleon wyrms before the terrain shifted again, the brittle trees giving way to a vast, open marsh.
The ground turned soft and wet beneath his boots, black water seeping up with every step, and the air grew thick with the smell of rot.
But the monsters here were bigger.
The first marsh-dweller rose from the water like a boil bursting, a bloated humanoid with too many arms and a face that was mostly mouth.
B-Rank again. It was faster than its bulk should have allowed, each of its six arms ending in claws that dripped with something that hissed when it hit the water.
It lunged.
Ronan sidestepped, caught one of its arms mid-swing, and tore it off at the shoulder. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
The creature screamed. The sound was wet and gurgling, bubbles forming at the corners of its too-wide mouth. Black blood gushed from the wound, steaming where it mixed with the marsh water.
Ronan didn’t give it time to recover.
The chain whip lashed out, wrapping around its throat. He yanked hard, pulling the creature off its feet, and drove a javelin through the center of its chest as it stumbled toward him.
[Soul Absorbed: 400 EXP]
"Better," he muttered.
The marsh was full of them. Bloated humanoids and serpentine things that swam through the black water like eels, and something larger that moved beneath the surface in slow, deliberate circles.
Ronan killed twelve of the humanoids before he decided to stop pushing his luck with whatever was swimming below.
***
He found the second flesh golem at the edge of the marsh, where the black water gave way to a field of broken stone and twisted metal.
This one was bigger than the first. Twenty feet at the shoulder, its segmented plating thicker, its single eye burning with a darker, angrier light. freewēbnoveℓ.com
It was kneeling in the center of the field when Ronan spotted it, its massive claws buried in the corpse of something that looked like a dragon.
A dead dragon. The golem was eating a dead dragon.
Or, at least a creature that looked like one.
Ronan didn’t hesitate.
[Titan Greatbow] manifested in his hands, the massive weapon feeling almost weightless now. [Greatarrow] followed, the black steel head gleaming in the violet light.
He didn’t bother with stealth this time. The golem was facing away from him, completely absorbed in its meal, and at this distance, with his strength?
He drew the bow in one smooth motion. The weapon no longer resisted him, and whatever test it had put him through back at the ruins, he’d apparently passed.
He aimed for the back of the golem’s skull, where the plating was thinner.
And released.
The greatarrow hit like a missile.
The golem’s head snapped forward from the impact, its skull plating cracking in a spiderweb pattern from the point of impact. Black ichor sprayed, painting the broken stone field in streaks of darkness.
But it didn’t die.
The golem rose with a sound like grinding boulders, its massive body turning toward him. Its eye blazed with fury, the cracked plating around the arrow shifting as it tried to locate the source of the attack.
Ronan already had a second arrow nocked.
This one he aimed for the eye.
The golem saw him just as he released. That massive glowing orb fixed on his position, and for a moment, Ronan felt the full weight of its attention. The same attention that had probably ended dozens of hunters before him.
Too late.
The greatarrow punched through the eye and kept going.
The golem’s death scream was shorter than the first one’s. Less thrashing, less destruction. Maybe because Ronan’s aim was better, or maybe because this one had been older, more tired, more ready to die.
It collapsed with a ground-shaking impact, its massive body flattening the broken stone beneath it.
[Soul Absorbed: 5,000 EXP]
[Level Up: 12 → 14]
[Ronan Night]
[Class: God-Bound (???)]
[Level: 12 → 14]
[STR: 26 +20 +110] → [STR: 28 +20 +110]
[AGI: 24 +20 +15] → [AGI: 26 +20 +15]
[CON: 22 +20 +150] → [CON: 24 +20 +150]
[MAG: 16 +20 +0] → [MAG: 18 +20 +0]
A level.
Finally.
But more importantly, there was another shadow waiting for him.
[Shadow Stored: Flesh Golem (B-Rank)]
[Shadow Storage: 3/3 Slots Occupied]
[Slot 1: Skitter (B-Rank)]
[Slot 2: Flesh Golem (B-Rank)]
[Slot 3: Flesh Golem (B-Rank)]
Two golems now. He could feel them in the darkness beneath his skin, two mountains of potential waiting to be called. If he discarded the skitter, he could have a third.
"Okay, first a quick break, then I’ll keep grinding. At this pace, I might be able to—"
[Leveling is now impossible; increase intimacy with (Bonded) to unlock]
"H-Huh?"
