Aster Fall 47: A Distant Flaw (Patreon)

Crystal flame flared around him as he jumped, buffering his fall toward the third layer twenty feet below. Snow flew up in a welcoming billow around his shoulders as he landed.

He’d taken the staircase down from the first layer to the second since it had been too steep to jump, and then made his way around to the west. Now, he was facing the direction of the most distant flaw.

Flaw 5, as he’d decided to call it.

On the way back, he’d hit Flaw 4, and then meet up with the church and his father once they'd cleared out Flaws 1, 2, and 3.

He pulled the snow around him in swirl as he sprinted forward through the layer, stretching his muscles. The Guardian Star’s map was shining in his mind, highlighting the location of beasts and monsters.

Every time he got close to a reasonable fight, he moved toward it, eliminating them as quickly as possible. Then he harvested the key materials, auras, and experience. Most of the beasts and monsters were in the Level 40 to 60 range, which meant the experience was a steady trickle and the materials in his collection were increasing.

His confidence with Elemental Manipulation was also increasing, especially now that he'd used it in a life and death battle, but he needed more practice to really understand the depths of the ability. It was like a natural muscle. He might be able to reach out and grab a ball, but that didn't mean he knew how to play the game.

He practiced as he went, attacking the enemies that were closest to the path. It took him four hours to make his way across the second and third layer, passing through more than a dozen battles, and by the time he reached the cliff down to the fourth layer, he heard the World Law’s announcement ringing in his mind.

Congratulations, Guardian.

You have gained a Level in your Class. You are now a Level 79 Battlefield Reclaimer.

Total Experience: 49,709,990 / 56,000,000

He ignored the rest of the notification, letting the World Law’s voice wash over him. Then he took the three free points and assigned them all to Charisma, pushing it to 52.

He was going to have to put a few more points there before he was comfortable, since there were a lot more Outsiders ahead. He hadn’t like the feeling of being overwhelmed by essence.

The points in Intelligence and Aura brought them to 193, which was 199 with his bracer. A year ago, he’d have thought that was a lot, but at the rate he used essence, it didn’t last that long.

More importantly, he was almost at the Expert tier. Hopefully, he could get there before he reached the Flaw, since it would be an immense help. At the rate he was going, it would take fifteen or more opponents around Level 50, since the World Law was still assigning him extra experience. Otherwise, it would have taken him ten times as many, or more in an area with limited experience.

If the town guards in Highfold were around Level 120, like the church officials who were leading the forces here, and if they had done most of their leveling the slower way...how many battles had they seen?

They definitely weren’t people to underestimate.

He looked down at the cliff in front of him. Like the one above, it was an almost vertical slope, but it was nearly sixty feet down. It was also cracked in places, with ice packed between the cracks and spurs of stone jutting out. The builders of the relic had cut into the mountain to make these walls between each layer, and they must have once held real defenses, but now it was just the height.

He launched himself from the cliff, wind and flames swirling around him as he jumped from one protrusion to another, using his evasion skill and the help of the snow to keep his balance. A few seconds later, he skidded down onto the fourth layer.

He checked his map to make sure he was still on target, and then he dashed off again, disappearing into the snow.

---

The high mountain winds blew around him and made his cloak stretch out like a banner as he ran through snow-drenched, abandoned streets and across tumbled rooftops. The total distance to the flaw was 54 miles, and he’d crossed twelve of that, but he was just now approaching the sixth layer.

The lower layers were farther down the mountain and much broader, with room for tens of thousands of people to live, but except for the monsters and a rare traveler, they were abandoned, home to only the wind and snow.

On the Highfold side of the ruins, there would have been more adventurers, but here there were very few, which made it easy enough to avoid them. The size also meant there were a number of monsters living here. Without detouring much, he found quite a few.

He glanced down at the corpses of three Ebonstreak Hunters in front of a half-broken building. Their strange, thin forms were a sharp black against the snow. They’d been living in the building and something about their presence had made him single them out, heading for them instead of monsters that were slightly closer.

He still remembered how two of them had tried to ambush him.

He bent down, gathering the auras from them as the taste of boiling dark acid and corrosion hit his senses. A moment later, three Auras of Ebon Corrosion (Advanced) flowed into his storage. With his Wisdom at 65, he had the maximum 85% chance again, which let him get most of them.

He’d also figured out that he could intensify an Advanced aura up to 30 points of essence, which made them a much better source of energy than the Basic ones. On his infrequent breaks, he’d managed to charge up a few while meditating.

He looked up from the corpses to the early afternoon sun, tracking its position across the sky. He needed to get moving if he wanted to reach the flaw by evening. If he took longer than that, he wasn’t sure he’d make it to the Grand Flaw on time.

He could practice more with Elemental Manipulation on the way.

---

He darted across the eighth layer, heading for the cliff, and then he leapt into the air. Snow, wind, and ice surrounded him, swirling upward to brace his fall, and for just a moment he floated there, looking down at the next layer sixty feet below

This time, instead of falling, he drifted downward, the wind condensing to provide some resistance beneath his feet as he pulled it hard around him. A moment later, he touched down on the snow, bending his knees slightly to absorb the last of the force. Then he was off again, sprinting through the tumbled ruins.

The slow fall was a part of Elemental Manipulation that focused on Wind, and he’d just figured out how to do it. He couldn’t fly, but maybe one day he’d be able to do more. For now, it made it easier to jump between the layers.

The ruins on the lower layers were much more spread out. There were fewer buildings and more room for what must have been fields or parks, with a few pillars and tumbled walls that were widely spaced. The streets were also broader, capable of allowing four wagons to pass side by side, although now they were only straight, open expanses covered by snow.

He kept to the edges and off the main roads, following the Guardian Star’s directions. He felt a pang of regret at the number of monsters he was passing, but he was short on time now.

It took him about an hour to reach the ninth layer and then two more hours to run across it and jump down to the tenth, but eventually he reached it, landing on the packed snow with a soft thud.

The broad shoulder of Sun’s Rest stretched out before him, dropping away gradually toward the horizon where the peaks of more distant mountains could be seen, shimmering faintly purple and red in the sunset. The sun was dropping swiftly behind them, bathing the Western Reaches in dusky gold and peach hues.

The eastern view was blocked by the peak, but he knew Caelus would be rising.

It was a good time to seal a flaw. A hard determination flickered across his cheeks.

---

The tenth layer was more than ten miles across and he moved carefully, following the star’s directions. Now, he was looking over the top of a ruined pillar as snow dusted over his features, settling on his cloak as it hid him from view.

He was over half a mile away, which should be out of range of the Icebloods’ sense for essence, but he wasn’t sure. He’d have to get within a quarter mile to sense them, so it should be enough. For now, he was relying on the Guardian Star's scan to tell him what was there.

The flaw was inside a large ruined building, something that might have stored wagons or grain. It was a whispering sense at the edge of his mind, pulling him toward it with a promise of rage, destruction, victory, and battle.

It was...tempting.

He pushed the feeling aside, settling himself in his own sense of personality as he focused on his aura and breathing. Now that he was aware of the effect that essence and experience had on him, he planned to manage them like any other part of his personality.

If experience was champagne that bubbled with joy, then essence was a blood-drenched whiskey that punched you in the gut and said you could do anything. There might be a time to let those feelings out and really appreciate the glass he was holding, but right now, he needed a clear head.

Fifteen monsters are guarding the Flaw, as well as two Iceblood Shamans, three Iceblood Hunters, and an Iceblood Warrior. The star’s words rang in his mind, identifying the opposition. The average level is around 55.

They are located approximately thirty feet inside that old warehouse, with guards on both sides of the entry, inside and out.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Sam whispered back, his voice more a thought than a reality. “I'll just have to hit them hard and fast.”

It didn’t sound like these Icebloods were the cream of the crop. Their levels were even lower than the ones he’d killed up above. If he unloaded his bracer and his best attacks, it should be enough to take out a lot of them.

Still, there was a word of caution in his mind that sounded like his father, reminding him that his injuries weren’t fully healed and he didn’t need to take any risks. The ache from too much healing was still there and using any more scrolls would make it worse.

He didn't feel like spending two weeks doubled over with phantom cramps in every muscle. He had to be smart about this one and not just charge in.

He rubbed his chin as he studied the guards, plans flickering through his mind. There were half a dozen Coldfang Beheaders outside the door, their long, wolfen bodies mostly hidden beneath the snow. Only their more humanoid torsos were visible, their blade arms hanging ready at their sides. From time to time, they turned and barked a word to one another, but for the most part, they were silent.

Here and there, bone talismans were stabbed into the ground around the area. Most of them were staves with strange inscriptions, but there were a few long bones from monsters that made up odd, angled pyramids. He wasn’t sure what the enchantment was for, but he planned to take it out as soon as possible.

He pulled a scroll from his belt pouch and then two of the advanced auras as he slowly infused them into it. While he worked on that, he kept his attention fixed on the building. A moment later, he held the scroll in his right hand while a Starfire built up in his left. Then a swirl of crystal flame condensed around him, building up into dozens of brilliant arrows with white star runes on the tips.

He drew a deep breath and exploded out of hiding. His footsteps thudded into the snow as he leapt over the fallen pillar, racing forward. As he moved, the arrows surged around him in a wave and then split off, nearly sixty of them heading for the bone talismans.

KrissSHHHhHHHHhh!

Explosive eruptions echoed down the line as the arrows slammed into a shield that shimmered into existence. It was pale blue with swirling red clouds like a frozen, blood-hued sky.

The Coldfang Beheaders lunged to their feet as they saw the explosion. They raced toward him, their claws digging into the snow and throwing it in every direction. Their gazes weighed on the air like a knife, as if they’d been waiting for prey to appear, and their blade arms swept out wide.

The bone talismans shuddered under the impact, but the pale shield held up. He didn’t hesitate as he hurled both the Starfire and the infused scroll at the barrier. As they left his hands, he was already darting to the side.

A rippling curtain of Fire infused with an Aura of Desolate Life and an Aura of Ebon Corrosion struck the barrier, roaring outwards in a sheet of dark, tearing flames that chewed at the shield with a frightening hunger, licking upward like devouring tongues.

At the same time, slightly farther down, the Starfire erupted with a brilliant, blue-white explosion as the rune at the center blasted outward through the layers of crystal flame, delivering a reverberating, concussive force that shook the pale blue shield like a sheet. Bright flames licked along the edges, burning away the red clouds.

The bone talismans shuddered under the onslaught, and the shield thinned. It was already damaged by the crystal flame arrows and now the staves swayed in the wind like willow leaves as fine lines appeared across the bones. The inscriptions began to shatter, the dark, curling lines turning to dust.

The Coldfangs rushed forward towards him without hesitation. The dark flames and blue-white reflected from their icy blades, giving them a scintillating light in dusk.

Sam poured more essence out into his crystal flame spiral as he formed another Starfire in his left hand. He paid only half attention to the Coldfangs as the flight of arrows condensed around him. His eyes were on the building behind them.

At that moment, the ground around him shuddered as if an avalanche had struck it. Snow, rocks, pebbles, and chunks of frozen ice flew into the air, where they shivered for a moment before falling again.

The building exploded outward, the stones erupting like a volcano had just been born beneath it as they flew in every direction. Some slammed into snow banks and tumbled pillars. Others ripped through the air like spell shards, flying away faster than the eye could track.

Two stones collided with Sam’s Essence Shield before he could react, but then he dived to the side and rolled behind a hill of loose rocks that was covered in snow. He darted back to the the edge, trying to see what had just happened.

At the center of the explosion, there was an enormous, dark green mass that was slowly uncurling its bulk from the ruins of the building. It was so large that its limbs extended out past where the building had been, but it had somehow been buried beneath it.

Long, clawed legs covered in scales reached outward, tearing at the dirt that had once been a foundation as they grabbed for traction on the ground. Then a spike-crowned, wedge-shaped head reared above the rest of the body, stretching out a long, muscled neck. Behind it, two enormous wings unfurled, their breadth larger than three of the buildings that had been on top of it.

SkreeEEECCCkkkKKK!

Ice Wyvern Matriarch. Level 105.

A wave of twisted essence flowed around her, the remains of some formation or spell that was quickly dissipating into the air.

The wyvern matriarch’s body shook as she stood, levering herself to her feet as her wings beat at the air. She was at least thirty feet tall and her wings stretched for almost a hundred.

A few dozen feet behind her, the flaw floated in the air, a rainbow gash through the dimensions that drew the eye like a single parchment curling into flame at the center of a library.

The matriarch's head bobbed as she searched the area, her nostrils flaring. The snow posed no barrier to whatever senses she had, and an instant later her head swiveled around to glare at him, her eyes like cut green crystals that pierced across the distance.

Then she lunged forward, uncurling like a bolt of green lightning. Her wings flared behind her, adding speed.

In the space behind her, six Icebloods stepped out from behind a pale blue shield, followed by a dozen monsters, but he didn’t have time to study them.

Concealing formation detected. The relic here was damaged, allowing for an illusion. The Outsiders hid the wyvern within the fluctuations coming from the Flaw. As a monster of Aster Fall, the matriarch lacks sufficient essence to be easily detected.

Retreat is advised.

The matriarch is at the First Evolution. You will be at a significant disadvantage in trying to fight her.

The Guardian Star’s calm voice echoed in his ears, but he ignored it, his attention fixed on the massive monster heading his way. His hands darted to his belt and his storage, pulling out another scroll and aura as he considered how to kill it.

He’d taken down the basilisk...but that had been with the help of his father and everyone else, and it hadn’t been anywhere near as strong as this matriarch.

Crystal flame surged around him as he turned and sprinted away, pulling the wind and snow around him to add more speed. He left a streak of rippling flame in the air as he darted to the top of a broken pillar and launched himself off.

He landed a moment later on top of a building and put on more speed, his hands blurring as he poured the aura into the scroll. The Guardian Star tracked the movement of the wyvern, showing her closing the distance.

She was so large that every step she took was a gliding lunge equal to a dozen of his. She wasn’t just a little faster than him. She was much faster, and she gained on him in an instant, even while she was still running on the ground.

If she took to the air, he had no idea how he would get away from her.

Without looking, he turned and hurled the scroll behind him, just as he felt the wyvern enter his Crystal Field. As the scroll started to explode, he spun in the air, launching himself backward.

The full two hundred charges blasted out of his bracer in an instant, heading toward the wyvern at the same time as the scroll exploded.

The matriarch’s wings curved in front of her, surrounded by a shimmering, light green barrier like glacial venom. The scroll and the arrows exploded against that barrier as she continued to barrel forward, her thick legs clawing at the ground.

For a moment, the explosion deafened everything in the air. It was a roaring echo of a blast with hundreds of staccato bursts inside, a brilliant chain of power exploding in the night.

A moment later, the wyvern crashed through the barrage, her wings charred but intact. She lunged forward, her wings sweeping behind her as she leapt. Then she was airborne, her head swooped down toward him as her jaws widened.

Sam saw the widening jaws and a sense of calm came over him, his hands reaching out as his battle aura sprang into existence. He pushed all the other thoughts from his mind as his reality descended to a single, frozen moment. A rippling cloak of crystal flame spread like an aurora behind him as his talons turned to blades.

Two figures flew through the air above the snow, one a gigantic, green blur covered in spikes and the other small, surrounded by burning flames.