Defiance of the Fall

With only two demons left, not including the knocked out warrior, Zac charged toward his next targets. The two demons briefly looked at each other in the eye, and both launched an attack before fleeing.

The tome-wielding demon’s attack was an almost invisible ripple in the air, whereas the earth mage erected a large wall. Zac once again threw his axe just before the wall completely obscured the two fleeing combatants, and then he crashed straight into the wall.

The wall was hastily erected and couldn’t withstand Zac’s momentum, and he blasted through it like a wrecking ball. Just as he did the ripple hit him, making him nauseous and disoriented. But the attack wasn’t as strong as the earlier one, and he soon managed to dispell the effects.

A quick glance at the demon who used the ripple attacks showed her dead with an exploded chest, with his axe stuck in the ground some distance away from her corpse. But before he could continue on to kill the earth mage he felt an intense amount of danger as he heard a whistling sound. It was the sword-wielding warrior who Zac had punted earlier.

Somehow he had gotten up and snuck right behind Zac without him noticing, and his two-handed sword was bearing down on his throat. Zac had no time to dodge and could only put his hopes on the spell on his chest. The familiar golden sheen of the armor’s skill immediately enveloped him, just in time to intercept the large sword.

With a crash, the warrior was flung backward once again, and this time Zac could hear the sound of bone breaking.

The earth demon was still running and Zac couldn’t let him get away. He barreled after him and threw a knife at the back of the mage. A block of rock rose up behind him intercepting the dagger, but the scare made the mage stumble.

Zac immediately rushed to the fallen demon, and ferociouslystabbed down at his throat. However, a layer of rock appeared onthe mage’sskin, creating another layer of defense.The knife simply couldn’t cut through it.

Terror was still evident in the demon’s eyes, and it stuttered some words in its own language. Zac ignored it and brought out the huge greatsword from his pouch. He increased the weight to the max through the inscription on the blade, and slammed it down on the body. It was cruel, but he wouldn’t risk letting the mage somehow alerting the army of what was going on.

Over 130 Strength and a heavy greatsword resulted in a ruptured lump of flesh on the ground, and even a crater was created.

Zac didn’t waste any time, and immediately ran back toward the last demon. He found him limping away from the scene of the battle, his sword discarded where he fell. He soon noticed Zac approaching with fear and hatred evident on his face. Suddenly he completely disappeared, shocking Zac.

He wondered if the demon used some sort of teleportation skill which would allow it to escape. He furiously ran toward where the demon disappeared and looked around for any clues.

Zac saw a glimmer in the distance and immediately threw a dagger at it. Suddenly the background looked like it was distorting, and the warrior reappeared, the dagger lodged in his arm. Zac ran over, and with a swing of the great sword ended the fight.

The last demon had used an illusion skill like his array, or something similar. That was also how he snuck up and almost decapitated him earlier. Zac was a bit surprised a meat head-looking warrior knew such a skill, as that felt like something that usually belonged to rogue-like classes.

It made him realize he couldn’t rely on his gaming experiences for everything. The system was quite omnipotent, and anything was possible.

With the demons killed there was no hurry anymore, so Zac quickly treated most of his wounds and then gathered up all the corpses and their gear in his pouch. This also made sure none of the demons pulled a ruse on him and played dead, as nothing living could enter the pouch. He also retrieved his daggers and axe, and while doing so he was attacked by the last barghest and gwyllgi from the roving party.

With their masters dead they went back to their ordinary hyper-aggressive behavior. Without any demons shooting various things at him he finished them off easily, officially eradicating the war party.

The fight had gone above his expectation, and he was almost like a fox let loose in a hen house. His stats were getting increasingly scary for his level. Furthermore, the fight had also made him realize something. Not one of the demons he had fought thus far used any Dao while fighting. They had used battle tactics and skills, but the indefinable quality of Dao, such as Zac’s heaviness and force he could imbue into his strikes, were missing. Perhaps gaining a Dao seed was something uncommon, or at least hard, making it a rare boost reserved for the elite.

He was also very satisfied with his new skill [Chop]. It worked just as he hoped, providing a great method of sneak attacking. He wasn’t sure if it was designed to be used this way, but he felt it was the most effective method in this type of combat.

Zac had wanted to use the skill a bit more to test it out in battle, but unfortunately, he spent a good deal of the battle without the axe in his hand. He really hoped he would be able to pick up some back-up axes, or even throwing axes, soon. Unfortunately Azzun had been the only demon so far who fought with an axe.

Even though he luckily stopped the signal flare and finished the battle quickly Zac didn’t feel relieved. The fight took place right by his camp, making him realize it was just a matter of time before he was exposed.

He spent the next hour going over the scene of the battle, meticulously removing any traces of battle that he could. He was forced to crush the earthen spikes into rubble, but the wall was crumbling by itself for some reason. Perhaps it was erected so hastily that it couldn’t properly stabilize, sort of like his [Chop] blade when making it too long.

When finally done it wasn’t readily apparent a battle took place outside his camp. There were sections of overturned earth though, as Zac had to hide the blood and viscera somehow. Hopefully a day or two in the sun and wind would make it appear more natural.

Finally Zac returned to the camp and properly stitched himself up. He had already removed the arrow-head, but the ugly gash in his face was still open. He prioritized hiding the scene of the battle and had only kept his mouth closed in hopes that it would help the wound close by itself.

After taking a look in the mirror he saw it was already slowly starting to close. He knew that it would leave an ugly scar though, permanently disfiguring his face.

‘Well, better ugly than dead I suppose’ Zac thought with a sigh. Besides, that scar was only the latest in a litany of wounds on his body accumulated over the last month.

Finally he closed his eyes to sleep for two hours before getting up. His wounds were getting better. Most of the wounds had been quite shallow thanks to his high Endurance, and he felt healed enough for another day of battle.

While cleaning up the scene during the night he made a difficult decision about his future. He would abandon camp, at least for now. The risk of returning home after a day of monsters grinding and finding himself in an ambush started to feel too high for comfort. He would only return if absolutely needed.

He started to pack up anything of use to bring with him. Luckily he acquired another magic pouch from the battle, although its space was smaller than his first. It was half-way packed with various rocks and plants. It seemed that the demon parties were roving the island to collect samples of various things. Zac didn’t know why, but he felt they didn’t do it to compose a botanical encyclopedia.

His guess was that it was for healing remedies or poisons. Even before the world changed plants with healing properties existed, and if they got crammed chock-full with cosmic energy the effect might be far greater. Maybe the demons had some means to test whether the local flora possessed any value, so they collected it to be tested. That would explain why it was only a few samples of each type in the bag.

He left the rocks and herbs in, as he didn’t require a lot of space. The herbs might come in handy in the future after all. He filled the other half with spare gear and the two luxurious chairs. He kept the table, rug, and parasol in his original pouch. He had grown fond of the furniture and didn’t want them seized by the demons if they found his deserted campsite.

He also tried storing the nexus crystals and the array flags, but it didn’t work. He wasn’t surprised, as he already knew he couldn’t move them too far from the camp either. He once tried it earlier, as he had wanted to use the gravity array as a trap device. But when he moved the flags too far away from his designated outpost the flags started to vibrate ominously.

Apparently, they would self-destruct if they were moved too far. They were bought by the System as an outpost improvement, so the System restricted them somehow. Maybe he could purchase non-restricted versions in the future in the shops he had seen in the outpost store. He could only leave them where they were and hope that the demons didn’t destroy them. Most of the things would be pretty cheap to purchase again, but losing the gathering array would hurt.

Finally he tried to store his new pouch in his old one, but it didn’t work either. Perhaps one couldn’t place a magic space inside a magic space, as it would violate some law of space or whatever. He could only carry the two pouches next to each other on his belt. ꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛʀs, ᴘʟᴀs ᴠsᴛ N(o)vl(F)ire.nt

Having packed all his essentials he paused as he looked over the camp briefly, some sadness welling up in his heart. He probably wouldn’t return here until the demons were dealt with. He now had both brought a demon here for interrogation and also fought a large battle right at the steps of his camp. The risk of staying here was too large.

He could buy defensive arrays, but he held little assurance that something that only cost around a 100 000 nexus coins could keep a whole demon army at bay. Besides, they simply needed to siege him by leaving a hundred men outside, and sooner or later he would run out of resources and also fail his quests.

With a sour feeling he set out, moving toward the western part of the island, where he fought the Herald. After arriving at the vicinity he dumped the bodies and tried to stage the area to look like it had happened there. He wasn’t too optimistic that he’d fool anyone though, but he didn’t want to waste time with burying them. They’d know the party was dead one way or another soon anyway, and he hoped to move their attention to this part of the island.

The corpses were left on the ground without any of their gear and weapons, as it was all pilfered by Zac.

Done with the task he set out again, this time heading for the mountain.