The Lone Wanderer-Chapter 313: Hail of desperation

“You think we’ll make it?” Nesha asked, stabbing her left pick a foot higher than her right.

“Looks like it.” Percy replied, wiping the sweat off his brow with his forearm.

It was already late in the afternoon, but they’d climbed over three quarters of the way. The edge of the cliff was in sight. They could certainly get there by nightfall. They had to.

Granted, Percy wasn’t having a great time. He was breathing heavily, each step a challenge of its own. Keeping Synchronization active was starting to weigh on him, even though it wasn’t usually a problem.

Supporting his own weight wasn’t that hard. Even a Red could have done that: let alone somebody with two Orange cores and a boosting art. But the sheer distance they had to cover, along with the strict time limit, was quite brutal.

And that wasn’t the only issue. They’d all slipped several times. It wasn’t their bodies that kept failing them, nor the picks he’d crafted. It was the stone that crumbled every few metres, sending them plummeting. If they hadn’t tied themselves to each other, they’d still be stuck near the bottom of the ravine, most likely.

‘Just a little farther…’ he sighed.

Not that their troubles would end once they reached the top, but he’d at least get a moment to catch his breath, right?

It appeared it wasn’t going to be so simple, however…

Turning his eyes up, he barely noticed a shadow barrelling towards him. Kicking against the rock, he leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding what would have certainly been a painful collision.

But that was merely the start of his trouble.

Having lost his purchase: as well as his left pick: Percy struggled to stop his fall. Hastily stabbing his remaining tool into the stone, he helplessly watched it carve a deep gash into the material, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake as he slid over a dozen metres down.

The screeching sound of his reinforced mana grinding against the cliff only halted a few moments later, when the rope around his waist finally tensed.

“The hell was that?” Nesha asked, holding the other end.

Even Elaine: who was farther away: had paused, staring at him warily.

Glancing down, Percy tried to make sense of this. The dimming sunlight struggled to reach the base of the cliff, but his mutated eyes saw more than just light. Right there, in the distance, he faintly spotted a tiny Yellow dot, about to go out like a candle in the wind. The owner of what he assumed was a mana core wasn’t moving, having probably turned into a puddle of blood and gore by now.

“A beast?”

He hadn’t seen it clearly, but its size certainly matched its grade. But why had it jumped to its death?

Beasts at the lower grades might not be as intelligent as humans, but they weren’t dumb. Even the weakest Red animals possessed some basic survival instincts.

“More incoming!” Elaine suddenly yelled, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Turning up again, he caught two more shadows falling towards them. One of them missed them entirely, falling in the gap between him and Nesha. As for the other, it was about to hit his cousin, when she effortlessly sliced it in half with a bright flash of azure, the elegant arc of her spell even shielding her from the bloody remains.

At least, Percy had seen them more clearly this time. Two more beasts, also at Yellow. A leopard and a wolf: both a little larger than usual.

‘Weird. They’re not even the same species. What’s going on here?’

The trio all looked up, preparing themselves for another wave. Sure enough, another four beasts plummeted towards them just seconds later.

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“Shit!”

Calling the discarded pick back to his free hand, he dodged one of the beasts. Unlike his companions, he could retrieve his tools if he dropped them, since they were all made of his own mana.

The others dealt with the beasts using their own means. Nesha leapt aside like him, while Elaine fended off one of them with a second construct.

“Elaine, can you protect us from them? We’ll pull you up!”

Any one of them could have made quick work of a few Yellow beasts while standing on solid ground, but the situation didn’t allow for that. Percy couldn’t fight properly without his hands or his mobility. Nesha’s butterflies were certainly lethal, but they didn’t carry enough momentum to push stuff aside. Elaine was the only one who could effortlessly brush multiple beasts away while hanging off a wall.

“Not like this!” she replied.

Percy gritted his teeth, blasting another beast away with a burst of pure mana, nearly sending himself tumbling again. They wouldn’t be able to advance like this. Sadly, Elaine was only linked to Nesha, so it was difficult for them to hold her up.

‘We should have placed her in the middle from the start…’ he smiled bitterly.

It made more sense, as she was the strongest in the group. But hindsight was twenty-twenty, as they said. They hadn’t expected to run into a situation like this.

‘What’s done is done.’

They didn’t have time to climb back down, to rearrange their formation. They’d have to think of a different way to deal with this. One solution was to try and adjust the ropes on the spot, but they might get themselves killed in the process.

There was a better way.

“Elaine! Fly to the top and hold them back!”

Completing the climb alone with Nesha would be much riskier, but it was better than having to deal with the raining beasts.

Nodding, she untied the string, activating Circulation. Next, she released two streams of pressurized water from her feet, shooting upwards. Percy could tell her core was draining faster than her boosting art could replenish it, but it would definitely last long enough for her to make the trip.

A couple of beasts fell towards her, slowing her down slightly. But she handled them easily enough, dodging some while knocking others away with her whips. Just moments later, she vanished from view, the flood of beasts soon halting too.

Percy was about to exhale in relief, when Nesha tugged at the string.

“Come on! We need to hurry!” she yelled, some anxiety seeping into her voice.

Trusting her, Percy pushed his boosting art to the limit, picking up the pace. His picks dug deep holes into the rock one after the other, his bones aching and his muscles tearing with each hurried step.

“Why are we rushing? You know she can handle them for hours, right?” he couldn’t help but ask as he moved closer to Nesha.

She shook her head.

“A patrol unit is going to pass over us in about an hour! I was planning to have us lay low until they left, but that’s no longer possible!”

The colour drained from Percy’s face as he realized how dire the situation was. Regardless of whether Elaine fought the beasts up there or down here, their adversaries wouldn’t miss the commotion. They had to get there before that happened!

‘What’s the deal with these beasts anyway?! Why are they doing this?!’

Clearly, they were hungry. That much was easy to tell. And not just because beasts of that grade always were. Percy hadn’t missed them salivating at the mere sight of him and his companions. Even as they fell to their doom, they stared at them with maddened fury, trying to take a bite.

But was it worth it? Leaping to death for a fleeting snack?

Then again, it wasn’t that strange, given everything he knew about the Valley. The Green beasts had it much better than their weaker counterparts. While they needed more food to survive, they at least had a few options available. They could compete against each other, hunting down the Yellow beasts to stave off their hunger, in a desperate bid to survive a little longer.

Meanwhile, the Yellow beasts were entirely hopeless. They didn’t even make for good opponents for the Holy Children. The only reason the Root even bothered to send them here, was to feed the Green ones, so they wouldn’t die as quickly. The poor creatures were constantly on the run, zoned out of every resource by their overlords. Their only option was to scurry about like rats, trying to delay the inevitable.

From that angle, Percy could see why they’d abandoned all reason upon seeing him and his companions. They might have thought they were easy targets, choosing to gamble their lives in desperation. Perhaps, they’d hoped to survive the landing. Or maybe, they didn’t even care, as long as they managed to grab one last bite before perishing.

‘What a brutal place...’

Turning his gaze ahead, Percy sped forward, a faint smile creeping its way into his face.

Wasn’t this the perfect environment for him?

While he’d fought a few tough opponents over the years, he hadn’t had many chances to hone his combat skills against an endless onslaught of enemies. Hunting the Starry Wasps had been a little like that at the beginning, but it had swiftly grown monotonous, turning into a quest for efficiency than a true life and death struggle.

The only other time he’d experienced something similar, had been against the trolls in the Grisly Bog. But he’d only spent a few weeks fighting in the Trollsden, and the demi-humans hadn’t really pushed him to his limits: with the exception of their leaders, of course.

This time, he’d have a full decade to pit himself against all sorts of monstrous creatures, pushing his spells to the next level.

And he was all for it.

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