Chapter 98 Membranous Wings

The wilderness outside Kalanfor.

“Huff… huff…”

Sparse weeds and scattered stones blurred past on either side of the road.

Xia Nan ran with everything he had.

His arms pumped hard.

The light plate armor over his torso scraped against the chainmail beneath it, producing a constant metallic clatter. The heavy backpack on his back bounced violently with every stride, its contents knocking together in a chaotic jumble.

He did not waste time thinking.

The strange mushroom identical to the one in the Goblin lair.

Forgan’s sudden change in attitude.

That enormous aura that had erupted for only an instant.

And the barbarian’s abrupt decision to walk straight toward Kalanfor.

Xia Nan had already formed a rough guess about what Forgan was hunting.

So when the barbarian told him to run in the opposite direction, Xia Nan did not ask a single question.

He turned and sprinted.

There was an extremely high chance that the mysterious enemy who had forced a Transcendent-Tier barbarian to cross half the continent, chasing them all the way from the distant Northlands to Rivervale Town…

Was currently hiding in Kalanfor.

The same town Xia Nan had visited only days ago.

[Who is it?!]

Sweat rolled down his cheeks and fell to the road in glittering droplets.

[The priest in judge’s robes at the Church of the Sun God?]

[Or that gravedigger living alone outside town?]

Or perhaps it was some stranger Xia Nan had never encountered.

His thoughts tangled together as the situation shifted too quickly for him to sort through them.

His legs, however, only moved faster.

A battle at that level was not something he could survive.

At his current strength, getting close meant dying.

Forgan had given him twenty minutes.

Then Xia Nan would use every second of those twenty minutes to get as far away as possible.

As for the battle’s aftershocks…

“BOOM!”

A blinding white light erupted behind him.

The night vanished.

The entire countryside was illuminated as brightly as midday.

For a fraction of a second, Xia Nan could clearly see a ground squirrel fleeing through the grass ahead, apparently just as terrified as he was.

He instinctively looked back.

“Holy shit!”

On the distant horizon, above the faint silhouette of Kalanfor’s buildings, an enormous sphere of light had appeared.

A miniature sun.

Brilliant.

Scorching.

Its dazzling golden radiance carried an orderly yet violently destructive power, lighting up almost half the night sky.

Even the bright stars overhead faded until only a few scattered points remained.

Beneath that sphere of light, the neat rows of buildings in Kalanfor began to disappear.

To melt.

[What the hell? They even made a mushroom cloud?!]

Xia Nan’s scalp went numb.

He snapped his head forward and ran even harder.

Only then did the shockwave finally reach him.

A blast of scorching wind slammed into his back, carrying with it a distant, hollow wolf howl.

Whoosh!

His hair whipped wildly.

A faint burning sensation spread across the back of his neck.

The fresh night air suddenly turned murky.

Dark purple mist flooded his vision from every direction, carrying the heavy scent of decay.

Spores.

Spores blown all the way from the distant fungal colony.

Xia Nan instinctively tried to hold his breath.

Anything that looked like that was obviously not meant to be inhaled.

Unfortunately, he was also sprinting for his life.

Holding his breath for long was impossible.

Two seconds later, his lungs demanded air, and his mouth opened as he sucked in another desperate breath.

At this point, there was nothing he could do about it.

First, get farther away.

Worry about the spores later.

Compared with whatever long-term consequences they might cause, surviving the battle’s immediate aftershocks was far more important.

Fortunately, the distance seemed to have weakened the spores significantly.

With Xia Nan’s current physique, even inhaling quite a lot would probably amount to nothing worse than two days of sneezing before he recovered.

Clack!

A loose stone rolled beneath his boot and was driven deep into the muddy road.

Xia Nan kept running.

Behind him, the golden radiance gradually dimmed.

The wolf howls grew louder and more vicious.

The purple mist thickened.

Each one was like another death knell driving his instincts forward.

He was not the only creature fleeing Kalanfor.

The dangerous energy erupting from the town had flushed out animals that normally stayed hidden beneath the darkness.

Lop-eared rabbits.

Guinea pigs.

Coyotes.

Predators and prey alike seemed to have forgotten their usual roles.

They fled together through grass and mud, crying out as they went.

Then Xia Nan heard something above him.

Weak wingbeats.

Mixed with a cry of pain.

Like a glider making a bad emergency landing, a dark shape wobbled through the night sky.

It descended in an awkward arc.

Then crashed into the ground barely a dozen meters ahead of him.

Bang!

Dust exploded upward.

A piercing, high-pitched shriek stabbed at Xia Nan’s eardrums.

At the same time, a pungent stench of sulfur filled the air.

A hideous monster lay ahead.

Two wings grew from its back.

Its narrow face resembled a goat’s skull, and a pair of savage vertical pupils glowed bloodred in the darkness.

When it opened its mouth, jagged teeth filled every inch of its maw.

Brownish-green sulfurous smoke leaked between them.

The creature stood only about four feet tall.

Its body was hunched and wiry, almost skeletal, but a pair of enormous wings covered in thick, resilient membranes folded protectively around it.

Barbed bone spines ran from the top of its head down the length of its back and all the way to the tip of its long tail.

Now those spines trembled violently with agitation.

They looked ready to tear free and launch at any moment.

A Spined Devil.

One of the lowest-ranking monsters of the Nine Hells.

And one of the most commonly seen kinds of devil in the world.

Its intelligence could not compare with the dukes and grand dukes among the Lords of the Nine Hells, whose minds far surpassed those of ordinary intelligent races.

Its raw strength was also nowhere near that of high-tier devils such as Pleasure Devils or Pit Fiends.

In the food chain of the Nine Hells, a Spined Devil stood only one step above a Lemure.

Because of that, the vast infernal legions usually used them as messengers or scouts.

But anyone who thought “low-ranking” meant weak was in for a painful lesson.

The dozen or so spines along a Spined Devil’s back were sharp enough to punch through steel.

Both Goblins and Spined Devils might be considered low-level monsters.

That did not mean they were remotely comparable.

One lived in ordinary forests.

The other survived in the legendary Nine Hells, a realm where even the air itself seemed soaked in evil.

Across most of that plane, an ordinary person would not last two minutes.

Either the environment would kill them…

Or one of the countless monsters roaming the wastes would.

The fact that Spined Devils had not only survived there but multiplied until they became one of the most numerous infernal monsters said everything that needed to be said about their strength.

And then there was the most direct measurement of all.

Challenge Rating.

A common Goblin had a Challenge Rating of 0.25.

One-fourth.

A Hobgoblin without any class levels, combat techniques, or other special training had a Challenge Rating of 0.5.

One-half.

The Bugbear, the strongest of the Goblin races and the nightmare of countless Low-Level Adventurers, had a Challenge Rating of exactly 1.

A Spined Devil?

2.