Book 5: Chapter 11 — Second Tier |
The Second Tier stretched out around them, a maze of ruined seating and overgrown passages that offered countless places for creatures to hide and for other hunters to observe.
No sooner had they stepped foot onto the higher platform than the group from the encampment came coincidentally meandering along in that same direction.
"Company," he murmured to Aurelia.
She followed his gaze, her hand drifting to her blade. "The Thornback Collective?"
"Probably."
The pursuers emerged from the ruins a moment later, and any doubt vanished. The leader rode a mantis twelve feet tall, its bladed forelimbs catching the light. Its rider was a scarred man in his forties, his armor covered in thorn patterns that matched the emblem Noah had seen on their tents.
[Mantis Lord - ???]
[Razorwing Mantis - ???]
Behind him came the others. A woman with close-cropped dark hair and a permanent sneer astride a serpent that flickered between visible and invisible, only its yellow eyes consistently apparent.
[Phasecoil Viper (Epic) - ???]
Four riders on smaller lizards bristling with launch-ready spines.
[Thornback Rider - ???]
[Spineback Drake (Rare) - ???]
All of them armed and radiating the steady confidence of hunters who knew exactly how dangerous they were.
Noah ran the numbers in his head. He was a brand-new B rank, and Aurelia was still only a mid-range C ranker. Even if they were pretty good at punching up, and they’d been taking out creatures throughout B-rank all day, this was a few too many for him to be comfortable taking on.
Don't give anyone a reason to remember you.
The scarred Mantis Lord reined his mantis to a stop twenty feet away. His eyes swept over Noah and Aurelia with an almost detached assessment. "New blood," he said calmly, almost friendly. "I'm Korgan. This is my territory."
"We're just passing through," Aurelia replied. "We don't want trouble."
"Nobody wants trouble. Trouble just has a way of finding people. Especially people who walk into someone else's hunting grounds without permission."
The serpent-rider leaned forward on her mount. "Pretty one looks like a bitch. The other one looks fancy, but I wonder if he's actually dangerous."
Noah felt his void energy stir in response to the assessment, darkness gathering at the edges of his vision. His Dragon Fear threatened to leak out, the draconic instinct to establish dominance warring with common sense. He pushed it down. Starting a fight here would be stupid. They were outnumbered, outpositioned, and on unfamiliar terrain.
But part of him wanted to. Part of him wanted to show these raiders exactly what a B-rank Voidborne with dragon blood could do when properly motivated.
Tony could help intimidate them, Tony offered helpfully. Tony's aura combined with your Dragon Fear would make them reconsider their life choices.
Aurelia's hand found his arm, her fingers pressing against the inside of his wrist. "We killed a Shimmerwolf pack," she said, keeping her voice steady. "We'd be happy to offer a tribute for passage. Call it a gesture of respect."
Korgan's eyes flicked to Noah, then back to her. "What kind of tribute?"
Aurelia reached into her own storage and withdrew one of their few intact spinal crystals. "Quality material. Undamaged. I’m sure this is worth at least a few days of letting us wander through?"
"I’ll be the judge of that." He held out a hand, and Aurelia tossed the crystal to him. He examined it briefly, then threw it up and caught it a few times. "You say you took out a whole pack? I’m sure this isn’t the only trophy you’ve brought with you.”
“Most of the other crystals shattered in the fight,” Noah told him, still struggling to hold back the draconic need to prove himself superior regardless of how unrealistic such an outcome would be. “That’s the nicest one we have.”
“And you didn’t bring their teeth? Fur? I’m disappointed. Dimensional spaces and all, and only brought back this measly little thing?”
Noah grimaced. If the man had been alone, he’d have already been punching him in his smug face, A-rank or no, but there were six of them. “If I give you the whole wolf, will you let us be?”
“This once.”
Noah tossed the lowest level wolf corpse out of his storage on the ground at Korgan’s feet. “Fine. Take your tribute.”
Korgan’s mantis picked it up in its claws and turned it over. The rider examined it, then nodded. “This buys you passage through the Second Tier. Today."
"And tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, you'll have more tribute. Better tribute." The smile returned, sharper this time. "That's how this works. You hunt. We tax. Everyone stays happy, safe, and prosperous."
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The youngest of the beast-riders shifted uncomfortably, a lanky man barely out of his teens. His lizard's spines were smaller than the others, less developed.
"What if we want to go deeper?" Noah asked.
Korgan's amusement turned colder. "Then we'll want more than crystals and wolf pelts. Much more." He leaned forward on his mantis, and the creature hissed in response to some unspoken command. "Don't make yourselves worth hunting, new blood. You seem capable enough. It would be a waste."
He turned his mount without waiting for a response, the Collective following in practiced formation.
Noah and Aurelia watched them go in silence.
"Well," Aurelia said finally. "That was fun."
"Mm."
"You were about to do something stupid."
"Probably."
"I could feel your anger building. You were three seconds from letting loose."
Noah didn't deny it. The encounter had left hot anger burning in his chest at the whole situation and the reminder that power wasn't just about individual strength. That even at B-rank, surrounded by his abilities and his familiars and his hard-won evolution, he could still be outnumbered and outmaneuvered.
"The serpent-rider," he said. "Vera. She insulted you."
"I noticed." Aurelia's voice was dry. "I'm capable of defending my own honor, you know. I've been doing it since before you arrived in this world."
"I know."
"Then why did you almost start a fight over it?"
The question hung between them. Noah thought about deflecting, making a joke, changing the subject. But the words came out before he could stop them.
"Because the idea of someone threatening you makes me want to hurt things."
Aurelia went still.
The silence stretched, filled only by the distant sounds of the arena's ever-present wildlife and the settling of ancient stone. Noah kept his eyes forward.
"Noah..."
"Don't," he said. "We're in hostile territory with A-rank predators who'd love an excuse to pick off weakened prey. This isn't the time."
"Then when?"
He finally looked at her. Her eyes were bright, her expression caught between frustration and something softer. "After Death Valley, when we're done constantly fighting for our lives. When we have time to figure out what this actually means."
Aurelia held his gaze for a long moment. Then she nodded, her jaw tight.
"After Death Valley," she repeated. "But we're having that conversation, Noah Brown. You don't get to keep almost-saying things and then walking away."
"I know."
"Good."
She turned and started walking deeper into the Second Tier, her stride purposeful, her shoulders set with determination.
Noah watched her go for a moment, then followed.
Behind him, Bun Bun chittered. Coward. The dragon princess was right.
"Not now, Bun Bun."
You are afraid of a conversation. You fight gods and monsters, but words scare you.
"I said not now."
I am right and you know it, the dragonspawn said smugly, refusing to let him have the last word.
Tony also knows Bun Bun is right, but Tony will refrain from commenting further. Tony respects pack dynamics.
"I hate both of you."
No you don't, they replied in unison.
But even as they moved away from the confrontation, Noah found his thoughts drifting back to Aurelia's question. Then when?
He'd been asking himself the same thing for months. Every moment that seemed right got interrupted. Every quiet conversation got derailed by combat or chaos or, more often, his own cowardice. And now they were preparing to enter even more dangerous territory, with even less time for the kinds of conversations that mattered.
After Death Valley, he'd said. But what if there was no after? What if one of them didn't make it through whatever waited in that cursed place?
The thought was uncomfortable. He pushed it away.
Ahead, the entrance to the interior yawned open, a gap where the ancient seating collapsed centuries ago, revealing the tunnels beneath. Cool air drifted up from the darkness, carrying scents of decay and stagnant water.
And he was as prepared as he was going to be.
"Ready?" he asked.
Aurelia drew her blade, flames licking along its edge. "Always."
They descended together into the dark.
Noah's vision compensated within seconds, Abyssal Awareness, Truth Sight, and Dragon’s Eyes combining to map the tunnel ahead as though it were full daylight. The labyrinth of interconnected passages stretched before them, carved by centuries of burrowing creatures, expanded by collapsing infrastructure, part architecture and part organic growth.
The air was thick with humidity and dense flows of mana that made his skin prickle. His Dragon's Heart beat stronger in response, his body automatically beginning to absorb the ambient energy.
"The mana's heavier here," Aurelia murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. Her flames cast dancing shadows on the walls. "I can feel it pushing against my core."
"Centuries of creatures living and dying in a confined space," Noah replied. "The energy has nowhere to go. It just... accumulates."
Tony is absorbing the excess. This environment favors us. Tony grows stronger with each breath.
They moved deeper, footsteps echoing despite their attempts at stealth. The tunnel widened and narrowed unpredictably, sometimes forcing them to squeeze through gaps barely wide enough for their shoulders, other times opening into chambers large enough to hold houses. Ancient cages lined one wall, massive iron constructions, their bars corroded but mostly intact. Some contained recognizable skeletons, forerunners of the monsters that roamed the arena now, while others had been broken open leaving nothing but dust within. One even contained a nest of small white serpents that hissed and retreated when they saw Aurelia’s light.
“Level 100s? Guess not everything here is monstrously overpowered.”
Bun Bun ranged ahead. Through their bond, Noah received flickers of what the familiar sensed: old trails, fresh scents, the distant vibration of movement through stone.
Big, Bun Bun communicated. Ahead. Many pieces moving as one. Waiting.
Noah extended his Abyssal Awareness to its maximum range, searching for the threat—
There.
A single creature made of hundreds of smaller signatures clustered together, forming a rough humanoid shape that entirely blocked the tunnel ahead. The individual components shifted constantly, the overall form maintaining cohesion through some principle he couldn't identify.
[Hollow Swarm - lvl 312]
“Swarm, eh?” Aurelia's flames brightened, her expression settling into focused determination. "Fire should work."
"Then let's introduce ourselves."