Chapter 132: At the Mountain’s Feet
The gem, extracted from the shattered skull of the boar-bear by Maggie with the tip of her blade, was small, murky, a dull brown streaked with reddish veins. It fit in the hollow of her palm, warm and pulsating. A bitter disillusionment painted itself on her face, still taut from the adrenaline.
"Second rank," she muttered, rolling the stone between her blood-stained fingers. "Fucking second rank." Frustration rasped in her rough voice. They had nearly died—Dylan had almost been gutted—by a creature real hunters or warriors would’ve likely taken down with far less trouble.
The monster’s sheer size and blind fury had made them feel like they were fighting for their lives against a third-rank calamity. This cruel world toyed with their nerves, distorted their sense of danger. They’d been lucky against other threats before, but second-rank beasts... they remained a deadly challenge—especially for the poorly armed and inexperienced like them.
Dylan, wiping the thick mud and viscous blood from his jian with a scrap of his already-tattered tunic, looked up. "Only second?" His tone was a blend of disbelief and humiliation. He had felt every useless blow, every misstep. The weight of his clumsiness crushed him just as much as the sword itself.
Élisa nodded, impassive, though her golden eyes scanned the creature’s carcass with renewed scrutiny. "Its endurance, its rage... yes, typical of a starving, territorial second-rank. A third-rank would’ve had a more... insidious presence. Or brute, overwhelming power." She turned to Dylan. "Don’t underestimate the fact you survived. Or the weapon you’re holding. Even poorly wielded, it bit deep."
Her praise was matter-of-fact, without warmth, but it marked a truth: the jian, even in novice hands, was deadly. For Élisa, the fight had confirmed something: the spear in her grip felt like an extension of herself, an echo of the years spent hunting prey in the deep forests of her childhood. It was an anchor in this chaos, a sliver of familiarity in the strangeness of their path.
"And sure, maybe you’ve survived worse. But don’t get cocky."
But it wasn’t time for introspection. The scent of fresh blood and spilled entrails thickened in the damp air—a siren call to every predator within leagues.
The spiritual essence, that diffuse vibration now clinging to their skin like a second atmosphere, was thickest here, around the site of the carnage. Heavy with a foul attention, like invisible flies drawn to rotting meat.
"We don’t linger," Élisa said, her voice regaining its usual sharpness. She stabbed the spearhead briefly into the soil to probe the surroundings, her keen ears alert. "That gem, pathetic as it is, is worth several gold pieces. We move. Now."
They left the sullied clearing at a brisk pace, driven by a renewed urgency. The excitement and impatience that had fueled them when leaving the Cemetery of Heroes still pulsed somewhere deep inside, buried beneath layers of fatigue, pain, and sharpened caution.