Limitless Path

This time it was a massive overhead blow that sheared through both vines, quick and clean, like a surgeon's blade. Beth wasn't able to stop the sword after severing the vines, and even with the fibrous plant matter having absorbed much of the energy, the blade of her weapon still slammed into the floor of the jungle with enough force to dig out a nearly foot deep gouge. Beth gave the sword a swift tug, freeing it fairly easily, as it had done more to displace the ground than wedge into it. She still didn't rest, rushing for the fourth and fifth vine before repeating her earlier feat, slamming the sword through both in a massive overhead blow that cleaved the fibrous plant matter apart.

Seeing the end in sight, she rushed to follow the vines back to the source, finding the plant surprisingly only two steps into the undergrowth outside the clearing. The center of the being was about three feet tall and two feet thick, a somewhat bulbous cylinder with large, wide-bladed leaves on top where the vines emerged. The dark green mass of the body of the monster had thick, ropey vine-like roots emerging from the base which dug into the ground around it.

As Beth stared at the strange being with slightly widened eyes, the roots churned, slowly moving the plant away from her. She wasn't having any of that, stepping forward swiftly and swinging her sword with her full power. The blade slammed into the plant and bit deep, but it was clearly not a lethal blow, as the monster thrashed and tried to grab her with its damaged vines.

She growled deeply, mimicking her bonded partner, and swung the blade back and forth again and again, ignoring the vines attempting to tangle her up. Her mad burst of sword-swinging power was enough to keep the damaged vines back out of sheer brutal ferocity, and she hewed through the center of the monster one strike after another. After more than half a dozen strikes, she slammed her blade clean through the center of the creature, chopping it completely in twain. She immediately planted her sword in the ground, leaning on it as she breathed somewhat heavily, eyeing the dead monster in front of her.

Another ninety-nine of these was going to be a pain in the ass, no doubt about it. She enjoyed the fight, but this was going to turn tedious and dangerous rather quickly. She hoisted her sword after a minute and returned to the clearing where Blood was pacing around, giving the wolf a glance before she rested against her blade again, not wanting to sit now that the fighting had started in such a climate.

The next crazy plant took a minute or so to show up but announced its presence soon enough with a wild mass of vines trying to grab Blood. Blood reacted instantly, pivoting around the vines and biting the outermost, not managing to sheer through it, but still dealing it quite some damage. Blood danced among the vines, having more trouble in dealing with them with her teeth and claws than Beth did with her sword, but her higher DEX allowed her to avoid the vines and strike more easily.

It took Blood longer to take care of the vines as she had to deal damage multiple times to one vine before crippling it, but she was able to persist quite well. The real problem came when Blood had to deal with the main body of the plant itself, the very tough and durable material quite difficult for her to chew and claw through. This led to the two girls setting up a system right away, understanding one another rather well, where Blood mostly took care of the vines and Beth worked to chop the core of the plants apart.

The fight became an endless grind of vines, the whirling monster appendages constantly pressing the two fighters. It wasn't so bad at first, but when the second monster joined in the pressure definitely increased. They had killed about a third of the monsters by that point, and Beth was really starting to feel the weariness. Apologizing to Blood, she let her companion deal with the two plants after they had mowed down about fifty of them, taking some time to rest and recuperate. Once twenty minutes had passed, they switched off, Beth confronting two plants alone while Blood meditated to restore her stamina.

The real hell started around plant seventy. Hours had passed, the plants being incredibly tough and them attacking in pairs pushing the girls into two more rest phases. When a third plant joined in, they were pushed to their absolute limit, barely hanging on to avoid getting constricted. It was at such a time that Beth really excelled, focusing in until her world was just the fight.

Every movement, every step, every swing of her sword, every kick to deflect a vine became her focus, flowing naturally as she melded into the battle. She was living within every moment and, though she didn't feel it, was pushing her skills to new heights. This sort of state was something that many less skilled Wayfarers would never be able to achieve, but it was something Beth found naturally through her supreme focus in battle.

Beth barely noticed the time passing anymore, flowing around all fifteen vines they were challenged by as well as Blood in a deadly dance. The river of time seemed to stretch on endlessly, Beth flowing along with it from one strike to the next to the next, plant after plant falling to her relentless attacks. It was with a daze that she awoke from what could only be described as a battle trance, looking around as she realized there weren't any vines or additional enemies attacking her. Blood was sitting on her haunches in the center of the clearing, lungs heaving like great bellows, looking at Beth with eyes slightly narrowed, brows scrunched and ears flicking incessantly.

Beth couldn't be bothered with anything at that moment, collapsing onto the jungle floor at the center of the clearing, spent so thoroughly she could hardly move. Seeing Blood walk over and sit again beside her she no longer tried to resist but slid off right away into a deep, dreamless sleep. She hadn't the energy or motivation to do aught else, even review the two's rather considerable gains from the battle.

It was only hours later that Beth woke up, finding Blood also passed out against her. Luckily, there never seemed to be any monsters that attacked the starting area after the initial one hundred, though Beth knew in the future that they couldn't just randomly fall asleep out in the wild like this. She shifted around a little bit so she could fully embrace Blood before she brought up her screens and scrolled through everything they had gained from that fight. After assigning both her and Blood's free stat points, she brought up their screens to review where they were at.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Brawler

Level

18

Strength

44

Dexterity

26

Endurance

32

Intelligence

16

Wisdom

16

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress Inheritor

Skills

Ancient World Gate[0]

Crush Copper[9]

Focused Meditation Copper[6]

Identify Copper[6]

Lordly Reconstruction Copper[8]

Monstrous Blow Copper[8]

Pain Tolerance Copper[9]

Swords Apprentice[7]

Toxic Resistance Copper[4]

Unarmed Apprentice[5]

Wealth

3s 82c

Emblems

CRA Copper Badge

Bonds

Blood

Name

Blood

Race

Red Wolf Queen

Level

18

Strength

34

Dexterity

44

Endurance

36

Intelligence

18

Wisdom

18

Free Points

0

Titles

-

Skills

Meditation Copper[6]

Regeneration Copper[6]

Swift Copper[9]

Toxic Resistance Copper[3]

Wealth

7s 57c

She was super happy that she had gained two levels in her Sword skill and a level in her Unarmed skill as well. She also was rather pleased that Blood had maxed out her Swift skill from that fight, and she had dumped four points into DEX for Blood, making her an absolute speed machine, particularly for her level.

Once she was done with reviewing the stat screens and making her updates, Beth sat up and shook Blood awake. They decided to set out to see if they could find anything unusual but, more to the point, if they could find any fresh water that might be potable. They journeyed for fifteen minutes directly towards what was likely the south, but barely managed to cover a hundred feet. They kept at it for a while before getting too frustrated to continue and returning to the clearing and the doorway onward. Before moving on, Beth decided to take a look at the plants they had killed.

At first, she found very little, but upon examining the second of the plant monsters they had killed she found something interesting. In the monsters' body was something that at first, she thought was a gem, but after cutting the body further open, she found it was something much more resembling crystalized sap. It was about four inches in length and an inch in width, possessing a deep violet color. Beth practically saw the dollar signs, or silver coin symbols, floating in front of her, and she spent some time hacking cores out of other plants before they were ready to move onto the next floor.

Beth tossed all the hearts into her trusty and now slightly smelly sack, and after hoisting it over her shoulder, they proceeded into the door to the next floor. Stepping through the door, they found themselves in a totally different environment, not like anywhere Beth had ever been or even seen. It was a huge, fractured plain of dark stone, looking barren at a glance, under a darkly bruised sky filled with the clouds of an approaching heavy storm. Lightning arced across the thick clouds, often followed by a booming rumble, enough for Beth to feel the thump of it in her chest each time. Despite the storm clouds filled with lightning, there was no rain, the area appearing more parched than a desert in a drought.

As per usual, Beth dropped her bag and began looking around at the environment, searching for dangers. It was pretty clear that getting struck by lightning would be an added danger in this place, and she tried to find any beasts or monsters that were nearby. Fortunately for them, the beasts of this floor were much more obvious than the last floor. Unfortunately, they appeared like they would be quite challenging opponents.

Beth and Blood moved a little way away from where they had entered this floor, still within the "safe" area that the trial spawned at the start of every floor, and began to examine their nearest opponent. It was, to relate it most closely to Earth species she knew, a giant salamander. They had dark slate-grey hides that resembled the stone of the fractured plain without fully blending in with it, while having thick, heavy legs with the bulbous, webbed toes common in the species. They had dark, yellow-colored eyes, like burnished gold in lamplight, and Beth could see a few thin streaks of yellow on the underside of their jaws.

She approached a little closer to the nearest beast, Blood trailing along just behind, and tried to determine if there was anything out of the ordinary. She was assessing both the beast and the surrounding area, not wanting to be caught by anything, including more stealthy enemies. Finally, seeing several of the creatures generally close by, she had to simply assume this floor would be like many of the others. She used Identify on the creature to see what they were up against.

Level 18 Lightning Salamander

This was likely to be a difficult series of fights, Beth just hoping that they didn't have the ability to electrify their whole body. There was really only one way to find out, however, and Beth moved forward with her sword drawn to confront the first enemy. The salamander turned to her almost lazily, its mouth opening wide, golden arcs of energy appearing within. Beth started sprinting towards the creature, but she was still too far out. Three jagged lines of yellow electrical energy shot towards her, and she leapt to the side, still getting a bit of a shock from the breath attack.

Beth felt the muscles in her left leg spasming from the blast, causing her to slow down and stagger a little bit before she was able to shake the effect off and continue at speed. The salamander turned a little again towards her, having not expected her to avoid its attack quite so well. The beast had started to charge up another blast to unleash, but it was too slow, Beth's DEX and STR combined certainly being high enough to propel her across the last twenty or so feet more quickly than the creature expected.

She slammed her sword down using a massive overhand strike just as she arrived next to the salamander, not using any ability to empower it, but using all her power to smash it down. The blade of the sword smashed into the head of the salamander and left a moderate wound, much of the force being absorbed by the rubbery nature of the beast's hide. Beth was actually glad for her sword at that point, the beast not emitting electricity from its skin in any way or, at least, the strong leather of her gloves absorbing the shocks.

She found that the beast turned surprisingly quickly, likely having adapted after many years to some kind of predator with the speed to move out of the way of the electric breath at close range. Beth was anything but a typical predator, as the salamanders soon found out to their great misfortune. After the almost trance-like fighting of the last floor, the first part of clearing this floor was far easier. Even once a second salamander joined in the fray, it merely required Blood to work together with her to defeat the two at once.

Once the third salamander joined in, after they were halfway through, was when the danger really started. The beasts seemed utterly unaffected by each other's breath attacks, and they had no problem blasting out a breath of electrical power across one of their fellows to hit either Beth or Blood. This put pressure on the two girls, but nothing that pushed them too far. What did push them to the very edge was the fourth salamander joining in.

This led to some far more dangerous situations, such as when Beth was trying to finish a beast, only to have two large streams of electricity race towards her. She dodged to the side and threw herself down, trying to avoid both the blasts, only to find herself staring directly into the salamander she had been trying to finish off's maw. It was like an angry sun glowed from within, the yellow light blazing with the deadly radiance of a solar flare right in her face.