Path of Dragons

Fire raced through Elijah’s body, melting his muscles from the inside out. And on instinct, he very nearly used Guardian’s Renewal.

Guardian’s Renewal

Instantly and completely regenerate. Cooldown affected by Regeneration attribute. Current: Once Per Week

But he caught himself before he activated the ability. It had a lengthy cooldown, and so, needed to be saved for emergencies. And while he was in agony as the venom coursed through him, liquifying and necrotizing his flesh, he knew he could endure much more than that. So, he shoved the pain to the back of his mind and focused on the fight at hand.

The decision was made in an instant, which meant that by the time he retook control, the spider’s fangs were still buried in his meaty shoulder. Which was fortuitous, because that put it within reach of Elijah’s claws.

In his guardian form, his claws weren’t nearly as sharp as they were as a predator. Nor could he activate Venom Strike, which meant he only had the strength of his limbs on which to rely. Fortunately, the form came with a significant boost to his Strength, and with the spider already in his grasp, he could leverage that attribute to its fullest capacity without having to worry about his lacking coordination.

So, he reached out and grabbed the first thing he could, which happened to be the monster’s chelicerae. Elijah’s fingers wrapped around the meaty mouthparts, and with the other hand, he grasped the thing’s foremost leg. It writhed in his hand, but his grip was like iron.

Then, with all the power he could bring to bear, he pulled.

The mouth parts came loose in a shower of thick, light blue blood and Elijah got a brief look at the pale flesh beneath the harder exoskeleton. The glance didn’t last long, because only an instant later, it lashed out with panicked fury that sent Elijah tumbling backward until he hit the boulder behind which he’d recently hidden.

The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, and he felt multiple ribs crack before he fell on his face. For a second, stars flashed before his eyes, and he struggled to make sense of his situation, but his Regeneration, augmented by Aura of Renewal, quickly showed its worth, and it only took a few moments for the worst of the concussion to clear.

When it did, he pushed himself to his feet – wincing with the pain of his broken ribs – and coughed up foamy blood. But as much as he wanted to use Guardian’s Renewal, he held off. He could still function with what was obviously a punctured lung, and the spider’s venom, while painful, wouldn’t incapacitate him anytime soon. Even now, his natural Regeneration, which was augmented by Aura of Renewal, was hard at work counteracting it.

He shook his head, clearing the cobwebs as he stared across the pass at the still panicking spider. For a moment, Elijah took pity on the creature. It hadn’t really asked for the battle. In fact, the argument could be made that he was the aggressor. But whatever pity he felt was quickly quashed by the pain coursing through his muscles. On top of that, he’d long since recognized that being part of the natural world didn’t mean abstaining from killing. In fact, it meant the opposite.

He would kill, just like any other animal. Sometimes for subsistence. Other times, for dominance. But regardless of the reason, he was no pacifist. Down that road lay weakness and death.

And yet, just because he was resigned to the necessity of killing, it didn’t mean that he wanted to watch the creature suffer. So, it was with renewed determination that he stepped forward in an ape-like gait, though after the spider’s venom had robbed him of most of the mobility in his right arm, it was a bit off-balance.

As he turned his approach into a charge, the spider mastered its panic and skittered forward to meet him. The resulting clash was titanic, and Elijah felt it rattle his teeth. Beneath its fur, the spider had the benefit of a chitinous exoskeleton protecting its most vital parts. Elijah still had his scales and high Constitution, but it wasn’t nearly as durable as the spider’s natural armor.

But armor or no, the force each combatant could bring to bear was monumental, and soon enough, the sound of cracking carapace filled the air as Elijah hammered his fist into the monster’s head and thorax. Meanwhile, it used its own legs like spears, jabbing them into Elijah with ruthless precision.

The first time Elijah had used Shape of the Guardian against Cabbot, the gnomish berserker had been largely incapable of penetrating his scales. That wasn’t the case with the spider, which was far and away more powerful. Elijah had no capability of determining another entity’s level, but he knew that, on the most basic of levels, the spider was more powerful than him.

In fact, it reminded him of the guardian orca he’d fought back in the Sea of Sorrows, though that context didn’t really do it justice, given that Elijah himself had grown more powerful since then. In any case, he didn’t have time to think about relative power. Instead, it was all he could handle to simply endure the spider’s attacks while trying to punish it with his own.

But gradually, he found himself losing ground.

Bit by bit, the venom, combined with the spider’s persistent attacks, wore him down. However, Elijah did plenty of damage of his own, and though the spider was clearly winning the battle, doing so required that a steep price be paid. To Elijah, it felt like some of the old heavyweight boxing bouts he’d seen growing up. Just two powerful fighters trading blows until one simply outlasted the other.

As a spectator, those sorts of bouts turned into gruesome, awe-inspiring displays of perseverance, and as a participant, it wasn’t so different, save that he traded awe for exhaustion.

Long minutes passed as the pair hammered one another with blows that would crack boulders, and yet, neither backed away. With the understanding that to lose was to die, neither even considered concession. Instead, they both threw everything they had into the fight, and soon enough, the minutes passed into more than an hour.

On both sides, endurance began to lag, and the blows lost some of their impact. And yet, they both persisted, harnessing every ounce of their waning strength in the effort to dispatch the other.

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Blood – red from Elijah, and light blue from the spider – flew as flesh was rent, and slowly, the gap between the two widened. With fatigue mounting, Elijah found that he could avoid fewer and fewer blows. The spider slowed as well, but at a much more gradual pace.

The writing was on the wall.

Elijah had picked a fight he couldn’t win.

For a moment, he considered fleeing. If he used everything he had in an all-out assault, he could get enough room to dash away. The spider might follow, but Elijah was banking on it retaining some of its instincts. Spiders favored ambush as a hunting method, and as such, they were poor pursuers. Elijah could only hope that the mutated version before him was hampered by those same limitations.

Yet, Elijah hesitated, and for one simple reason: he wanted to win.

But was winning a battle worth the increasingly real risk of death? Sure, he could probably use Guardian’s Renewal and win the fight. But was it worth using an ability with such a long cooldown?

No.

Despite his current form, Elijah wasn’t some heavyweight brute meant to trade blows with enormous and powerful monsters. His strengths were rooted in his versatility. And he chastised himself for forgetting that.

So, without further hesitation, he altered his strategy. Instead of returning the spider’s assault with attacks of his own, he started looking for openings. And soon enough, one presented itself, and he pounced, grabbing hold of its legs and, harnessing every point of his Strength attribute, heaved it off the ground. Then, he spun like he was an Olympic hammer thrower, and tossed the spider into the distance.

In the past, he might’ve followed that attack up with a charge and a heavy blow. But with his new strategy in mind, Elijah did the opposite. He pivoted, then sprinted away. The off-balance spider gathered itself for pursuit, but by that point, Elijah had already begun his descent down the pass. There was no way the monster could catch him, especially when, around thirty seconds later, Essence of the Wolf kicked in, increasing his movement speed by twenty percent.

Soon enough, the spider recognized the futility of its pursuit and gave up on the chase. Still, Elijah kept going for a little while longer until, at last, he switched back to his human form and cast Healing Rain. It soothed his injuries and served to counteract the venom coursing through his body, but the spell wasn’t nearly strong enough to heal him in any reasonable amount of time. So, he used Touch of Nature, harnessing his Ethera to send life-giving vitality throughout his injured body.

The first cast only served to stop the bleeding from the multitude of wounds Elijah had sustained. However, he had plenty of Ethera to keep going, and after the sixth cast, the spider’s venom had been nullified. It took a few more to reverse the damage it had wrought, but Elijah kept at it until, with only a third of his Ethera remaining, he had brought himself back to perfect health.

And this time, he hadn’t even added any new scars to his collection, which was progress, as far as he was concerned.

He sat near a scraggly tree and focused on his Mind, funneling Ethera into his Soul. As he always did, he pushed against the boundaries of his cultivation, forcing the aperture ever wider. According to the basic guides he’d read, that was the accepted method to prepare the Mind for the next stage of cultivation. But while Elijah would take any improvement he could, he was more focused in regenerating the energy in his core a little more quickly.

So, he cleared his thoughts and pulled as much Ethera into his system as he could, and over the next half hour, he regained enough energy to fuel Shape of the Predator. So, after only a few more minutes – he wanted a little buffer in case he needed to shift back into his human form and cast a quick heal – he embraced the spell and transformed himself into a scaled panther.

Once he’d assumed that form, Elijah used Guise of the Unseen, then stalked across the pass and returned to the battleground he’d left behind a few hours before. After his use of Calamity, the earth had settled, but the smaller spiders’ corpses – as well as the remnants of their prey – remained. Elijah spent the next few minutes watching for movement, but he saw no sign of the larger spider.

So, he padded forward on silent feet and sniffed at some of the drying blood it had left behind. That familiarized him with the scent, so he had no issues following the wounded spider’s trail up the pass and into a large cave. There, he found the monster curled into a ball. Gossamer webs coated almost the entirety of the cave’s interior, and Elijah knew enough about spiders to recognize the danger that represented. Even if it wouldn’t catch him like it would smaller prey, if he stepped on that collection of webs, he would almost assuredly alert the spider.

And that would ruin his plans.

So, with slow and delicate steps, Elijah silently stalked through the cave. With his heightened Dexterity, he had almost perfect control of his body – especially when it came to something that, from an instinctive perspective, came so easily to the scaled panther form – so while it took time, Elijah’s progress was never in question.

Once he drew to within a few feet of the injured spider, Elijah took a few moments to simply admire the creature for what it was. He’d never been much of an arachnologist, but he’d have been a fool not to acknowledge how impressive spiders were. The one in front of him was even more so, and not just because of its size. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that it had ruled the pass ever since the world had been transformed, and it probably would have continued to do so if Elijah hadn’t come along.

In a way, it was sad, the loss of such a magnificent creature.

But such was the law of nature.

Maybe he could have simply let it live. Certainly, now that Calamity had cleared the way of smaller spiders and their webs, he could keep going without much issue. But what about the next time? If the spider was allowed to recover, Elijah might not get another chance to kill it. And if he tried to use the pass again, who was to say that it wouldn’t be the one to come out on top? After all, animals could progress, just like the sentient races. They didn’t have the benefit of the system, but they could still grow stronger – at least according to Elijah’s experiences as well as the basic information provided by his guides.

No - he needed to kill it while he had the opportunity.

So, after using Predator Strike and Venom Strike, he pounced. With his Strength and the enhancement provided by the first ability, his claws went through the creature’s head with comparative ease. Still, though, it didn’t immediately die.

Instead, it flailed, nearly catching Elijah with one of its spear-like legs. He bounded out of the way, using the cave’s wall to reverse course before hitting it again. This time, his claws weren’t nearly as effective, but the attack still carried with it another dose of the neurotoxin associated with Venom Strike.

Elijah kept moving, leaping off the spider’s back and racing across the cave. Then, he reversed course, and crouched low, watching the spider’s continued flailing. It found him a moment later, then surged forward. But Elijah was too quick, and he easily dodged, returning the spider’s attempted attack with one of his own.

Like that, the fight continued. Each time Elijah’s claws made contact with the monster’s furry carapace, he delivered another dose of neurotoxin. However, even as injured as it was – the result of the previous fight as well as Elijah’s continued attacks – the battle didn’t end quickly. Instead, Elijah balanced on a knife’s edge as he narrowly avoided one assault after another. Eventually, the spider’s movements began to flag, but Elijah continued his own efforts unchecked.

It was then that Elijah realized that, back when he’d been in his Guardian form, he hadn’t been nearly as close to defeating the spider as he’d thought. Even if he’d used Guardian’s Renewal, the rejuvenating effect likely wouldn’t have been enough to fuel his survival.

But now?

He only had to keep going, and his scaled panther form would see him through to the end.

Over the next half hour, Elijah persisted, and the spider slowly lost the battle to the neurotoxin. And, as fatigue started to work against Elijah, the spider finally succumbed to its wounds, collapsing in a mass of legs and furry carapace.

Elijah skidded to a stop, but he didn’t immediately approach. He didn’t think the monster was intelligent enough to play dead, but he didn’t intend to take any chances. So, he waited until a wave of kill energy washed over him, confirming the monster’s death, before he let himself relax.

Congratulations! You have reached level thirty-two. Attribute points allocated according to your class.

If Elijah hadn’t been convinced of the monster’s power, then the fact that it gave him most of a level on its own served to confirm that it was no run-of-the-mill animal. But for now, he was more interested in the next notification he expected. However, when it didn’t come, he realized that his assumption that he’d get a new spell at level thirty-two clearly wasn’t accurate. So, it was with a little disappointment that he left the cave and continued on his way.

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