[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] (Book 6) Chapter 5

While flying above the mountaintops poking through the clouds on Orrittam’s back, Hal learned that there were certain monsters that weren’t scared of dragons at all.

Furthermore, there were monster nests floating far, far above the clouds, resembling maliciously designed wasp hives glittering with icicles.

“Festive,” Hal muttered to himself, rising to one knee and splicing eldritch essence. Orrittam, being a dragon–the natural opposing force to eldritch creatures–grunted with disdain but otherwise did not voice a complaint.

Monster essence surged through Hal’s veins and Spirit channels, begging to be released.

“I must admit,” Orrittam began, confessing his surprise at seeing those monster nests. “It has been some time since I have stretched my wings this far from home.”

“I didn’t know anything even lived up here!” Hal told him. “What are they doing?”

“Migrating,” Orrittam told him. “Those are sleet wasps. During the winter season they launch their nests high above the clouds like tufts of dandelion so they can fall down somewhere else and spread their vile infestation. It would appear we got the drop on them though. Normally there would be thousands of them!”

Hal did a quick count. He could see at least a hundred. “Any clue as to their weakness?”

Orrittam boomed out a laugh. “You are the Beastborne, are you not?”

Frowning, Hal tried to remember what insects were weak to. While eldritch was undoubtedly a potent essence, it wasn’t in direct opposition to insects.

Bugs would be considered Vermin, wouldn’t they? Hal thought to himself. That means Lizard spells would work… which I don’t have.

But Hal had the next best thing. He had Lizard essence. Not a lot of it, however.

His highest was ganor essence, barely Copper Rank, which was almost the weakest measure of power. It would have to do.

It had been a while since Hal was able to splice multiple essences together, and doing so while riding on a dragon was even more difficult, but he managed to splice together Lizard and Outsider.

He wished Val was nearby so he could ask her for further information. He was used to doing Beastborne things on his own, and her appearance had been a dramatic change of pace.

She was the main reason he was able to splice two essences again. Her insistence on training with him had been a catalyst to improve himself beyond what he thought he was capable of before.

Readying himself, Hal stood up and spread the fingers of his hand. The icy wind sliced right to the bones of his fingers, freezing them solid, but he held the pose, ready and waiting for the cloud of icy insects to come closer.

“Any time now,” Orrittam rumbled. “Their sting is quite painful, Hal. I would never hear the end of it from Naitese. Now that I think of it, perhaps you wouldn’t either.”

While the insect monsters were still at a distance, those stingers were larger than Mira’s spear. Getting hit by one of those would be less like a sting and more like being skewered by a Dragoon.

“Just keep flying,” Hal said. They weren’t close enough yet. He was intimately aware of the limitations of Anvil Lightning, his preferred area-of-effect spell. If he was going to get them all, they needed to be nearly on top of them.

Orrittam, to his credit, did not speed up or slow down. He kept the same pace as if he didn’t see the sleet wasps at all.

Hal was grateful for the golden dragon’s confidence in him. Any change, no matter how minor, could have not only upended his tenuous footing on the large dragon, but caused him to misjudge the distance of the monsters.

Now that they were closing in, he could see their malicious dark compound eyes and banded bellies in grays and frosty blues. Down below, with the clouds dark and sullen, you could never see them flying through the sky until they were literally on top of you.

It would be a gruesome death.

Only the darkening purple of twilight allowed Hal to see them clearly. He imagined against the bright blue sky they would be easy to spot as well, but he wasn’t lucky enough to be fighting in broad daylight.

Hal began charging Anvil Lightning, building up its power to greater and greater heights. Arcing lightning buzzed and crackled all along his arm.

The sound of hundreds of buzzing wings filled the air. Their black stingers looked like miniature lances, all poised to spear him and Orrittam.

Not yet.

The buzzing reached a crescendo. The creatures were close enough now that Hal could have thrown a snowball and hit them with ease.

Still, he held the spell back. Sweat broke out across his brow, and instantly froze to his skin. Tiny flecks of sweatcicles formed on his beard.

He could practically hear Komachi say, “That’s not very nachi, man.”

“I do not mean to–” Orrittam began, just as Hal released the built-up pressure of the spell.

Arcing bolts of lightning shot from his hand. Five individual bolts split into ten, twenty, forty, eighty, on and on the bolts split and struck at their targets with impressive concussive force.

Lizard essence lent some extra strength to the spell, but Hal could tell even without it he would have obliterated the creatures. Anvil Lightning tore through their ranks.

Every line of zig-zagging light that struck a wasp caused it to shatter like a crystal sculpture. Tiny bits of glittering shards rained across the sky. But that was not all.

Hal had not gone through all that training with another Beastborne, regained a Monster Core, and learned to master his dragonfire all to repeat the same effects he had once been able to do.

Time for a new trick, Hal thought with a smirk.

Using Goldflame, Hal empowered his Anvil Lightning further, granting him greater control. He gathered up all the loose threads of the spell, weaving them together like a great loom of electric light.

Orrittam gasped as he watched the golden threads sparkle throughout the darkening night sky. Fused into one mighty bolt that would have made Zeus green with envy, Hal struck at the sleet wasp nest itself.

You defeat the [Sleet Wasp Swarm | Lv.49].

You defeat the [Sleet Wasp Swarm | Lv.49].

You defeat the [Sleet Wasp Swarm | Lv.49].

You gain 25,000 Experience Points.

You earn 25,000 Sparks.

You gain Sleet Wasp Essence (Vermin).

You obtain:

(4) [Bundle of Sleet Wasp Stingers]

(7) [Sleet Wasp Nest Fragments]

(5) [Sleet Wasp Carapace Sheets]

Hal watched with more than a little surprise at the devastation. He had expected to damage, possibly destroy the nest as it fell to the ground. What he did not expect was the golden light show that lit up the bruised purple sky, raining fractured shards of the once airborne nest.

“You have been practicing,” Orrittam congratulated him. “That was quite a bit of Experience, my boy.”

Iced over with sweat, Hal was surprised by the ferocity of the attack. It had taken a considerable amount of effort, but the quantity of Spirit it took was meager by comparison.

It had been one of the only things he never trained openly. Weaving Dragonfire into his beast magic was difficult work. It demanded the utmost concentration.

He had never been able to gather up the threads of Anvil Lightning like that before. Once the bolts were split, that was it. They weakened with every splitting until they were rather mundane in power.

But if he could weave them back together for less mana than it cost to use the spell in the first place? It was a clear advantage.

And I didn’t even empower it with Fell Magic.

Though he did use Bestial Drive to enhance the spell, allowing him to charge up the spell at the cost of being unable to do anything else at the time.

It was amazing what he could achieve when he wasn’t distracted by deep, internal pain from using his monster essences.

Unfortunately, despite the large quantity of Experience, it still wasn’t enough to get him to his next Beastborne Level. Each Level was getting harder and harder to obtain, and despite the unnerving strength of the sleet wasps, they were still below his base Level.

If only Experience worked based off my Classes’ Level, Hal thought sourly. That’s where the majority of my combat abilities are coming from. So what if Oathforger and Osseochemist are my Classes too?

He knew that wasn’t being entirely truthful, however. Those two Classes contributed to a good portion of his stats, even if they didn’t directly offer traits, spells, and abilities that modified his combat capabilities.

Still, it didn’t seem like that was the way Aldim should work. Perhaps if he really was able to raise the Worldshard’s Level with Fused Quests, some things like that might change for the better.

It was just one more reason to look forward to the future.

Orrittam dipped through the open space around the Cirta ruins. The clouds here could sense the Abyss below, Hal thought, which kept them away from the ruined city.

“What would it take to rebuild this marvel?” Hal wondered aloud as Orrittam took them lower.

What felt like an age ago, Hal had inadvertently slipped into the ruins, deactivating and weakening the barrier that kept the calamity of the place in check.

He could now see that the corruption had spread out a mile in all directions, but no further. It seemed to have weakened in the process, and though the change was sad to see, it did mean that the ruins themselves didn’t look quite so horrific.

“I would not wish to take a stone from this place’s grave,” Orrittam told him with all seriousness. “You do not need to rebuild a city razed to the ground by man’s hubris, Hal. You can make your own monuments.”

“Still, it seems like such a waste,” Hal said, looking at what must have been a sweeping metropolis of fantastical origins once upon a time.

“Their lives were their own to waste and throw away,” Orrittam said, harboring no pity for this fallen civilization of men.

Hal had to remind himself that Orrittam was a dragon who had lived through centuries. He had seen civilizations fall and rise, likely across multiple worlds. His perspective on time and people were dramatically different from his own.

Cirta was a ruined city at least as large as Seattle or any other American city back on Earth. Hal had never seen it from such a high vantage point, and as they spiraled lazily toward the ground, Hal was surprised at just how massive it was.

Orrittam was not shy about the ruined city. He held it in great disdain, no doubt because of the calamity that befell it, but he did not fear it, as Hal would have expected.

The large golden dragon alighted onto a ruined slab of some building’s facade that had fallen over eons ago. If it had stood tall, Hal could imagine it towering over the Space Needle.

“This is as far I take you,” Orrittam told him. “You would do well to be on your way as fast as possible. While no time is safe to be out here alone, the nighttime is likely to be the worst.”

Hal hopped off Orrittam’s back and gave his flank a hearty pat of thanks. “I’ll be okay, Orrittam. I don’t intend to stay aboveground for long.”

“Yes,” Orrittam rumbled, “that is what I am afraid of.” He dipped his head. “Fare you well, Hal. I look forward to your arrival.”

With that, the golden dragon flapped his massive wings and took to the sky once more. Without Hal on his back, he twisted through the air like a gilded corkscrew, gleefully disappearing into the distance.

Hal watched him go. “Probably should have asked for a ride back.”