Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

The caravan slowly came to a stop as the drivers pulled on their reins to stop the horses. All the guards that hadn't already been walking leaped off the wagons they were riding and quickly formed a perimeter around their charges. Snowlily, Selena, and Lexiana weren't exceptions to this. Thomas, on the other hand, stayed sitting next to the driver of their cart. He raised his hand and let the metal ball hover above his palm. From what he could feel the monsters coming towards them weren't very big so it should be enough.

A few minutes later roars began to emanate from the sparse woods surrounding the road. Just a few seconds later the bodies of the charging monsters could be seen. They were bipedal lizard-looking creatures that looked similar to lizardmen but about half their size. All of them were covered with pitch-black scales from their snouts to the tips of their tails. Their small eyes glowed bright red while horns sprouted from their small skulls.

Selena took one look at them and sighed before shouting loud enough for the caravan to hear, "Demonized Slinkers! Be careful! Their bite is highly venomous!"

Thomas glanced at Selena for a moment, surprised at her knowledge of monsters. He might have a book on them somewhere in the pile stored inside of his inventory. He was too lazy to look at the moment and instead smiled. The metal ball in his hand suddenly shot out like a bolt from a railgun and slammed into the skull of one of the little monsters. Its head exploded into fragments of skull bone and brain matter. It slid forward a few meters as its momentum continued to carry its dead body. The slightly more battered and blood-covered metal ball flew back to Thomas and hovered in front of him.

Selena and Lexiana were appropriately shocked at the display. They really shouldn't have been given their experiences with magic. What was the big deal about what he'd just done? Others could do the same with a simple Earth spell to lob rocks at the monsters. They snapped out of it quickly as the Slinkers got closer to the caravan. Snowlily, Selena, and the other spellcasters along with the ranged weapon users began their assault. Spells and arrows flew through the air and damaged, decimated, or destroyed the charging creatures.

Thomas just stayed seated where he was and lobbed the metal ball at anything that came within range. Even if the Slinkers managed to see the ball coming and tried to dodge, he simply changed the trajectory while it was in flight and killed them. There was nothing the little demonic monsters could do to stop the metal ball of death from reaping their lives.

The battle was brief but intense, it only lasted a few minutes before the ground was littered with the corpses of Demonized Slinkers. Thomas glanced at Selena while pointing at the nearest, mostly undamaged, corpse, "Are they edible?"

Selena glanced at Thomas with a slight look of disgust on her face. She still couldn't understand the immortals like for monster meat. Still, she answered Thomas honestly, "Not unless you want to have a mind-altering bout of vomiting."

Thomas just nodded and dismissed the idea of getting some fresh meat. As he was looking away Selena added, "You should never eat the flesh of demonized creatures. It's always poisonous due to the high amounts of miasma contained in their bodies. Even their mana crystals are useless." She gestured to the adventurers around them. Normally they would be carving the mana crystals out of the beasts by now. Instead, they were just cutting off their horns as proof of their kills for the guild. Even Lexiana was doing so.

Curious about the little creatures, Thomas finally hopped off of the cart and made his way to a nearby corpse. It took little effort for him to carve the horns off of one of the Slinkers. His eyes began to glow as he examined the trophy.