WolfWrites

The Rise of the Winter Wolf - Book 4 - Chapter 56 - Plans and Parenting Issues (Patreon)

Published:

2022-12-06 06:46:12

Imported:

2023-02

Content

The Void

A strange silence fills the center of the void as The Reaper sits on a throne of roiling darkness, made purely out of void energy that would devour any other creature that might even attempt to touch it. Around him are dozens of void creatures, each with varying appearances.

Some of them look like eldritch abominations, such as the floating eyeballs, the large monstrosities made up of pure black liquid, and the even stranger examples of giants whose body parts are all mismatched in the wrong places. But others look regular, to an extent. Such as the vaguely dragon-like creatures with pure black scales, and the black skinned dragonoids, or the few devourers located throughout the area.

But The Reaper simply ignores it all to focus on the screen floating in front of him, rimmed with the inky black flames of the void as it shows Wolf fighting with a large robot in some sort of hanger bay. The hanger has an exit at the very back, marking the room as the boss room, along with several dozen elite droids scattered throughout the hanger, frozen solid by Wolf’s ice.

After over a dozen minutes pass by – long enough for Wolf and Sapphire to finish off the boss and begin looting the boss chest that comes from it – one of the devourers manages to gather up enough courage to ask The Reaper, “Do you have plans for the young reaper, my Sovereign?”

The Reaper doesn’t even bother looking at the man who had spoken as he taps his finger on the armrest of the throne and says, “No.”

This response seems to surprise the void creatures as they all begin sharing glances with each other, only to pause again when The Reaper continues, “It’s best to let a child grow on their own. Especially when you’re using them as bait.”

The eyes of the devourer who had originally asked the question widen in shock at that response, meanwhile another creature – one whose form is that of a giant floating eyeball with several scale colored black arms growing out of it – doesn’t manage to hold back its own shock and blurts out, “Bait?!”

The Reaper raises his hand and snaps his fingers, causing the floating eyeball to suddenly disappear and reappear in front of the man with terror in its eye. But despite what the other creatures expect, The Reaper doesn’t kill him and simply stares at him before snapping his fingers again, causing another screen to appear so that the creature can see it.

Whatever the creature sees on the screen makes its eye widen as much as physically possible while it blurts out, “Is this real?!” but it quickly turns its gaze back to The Reaper and corrects itself, “No, it must be. But how?!”

Without answering its question, The Reaper just snaps his fingers again, making the screen vanish while also sending the creature back to its place on the outskirts of the center where it falls limp to the ground out of both fear and shock.

‘Let’s see if you can still hide now…’ The Reaper thinks with a frown on his face as he closes his eyes.

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Wolf
One week later

“Are we there yet?” Sapphire asks for the umpteenth time from my shadow as I continue flying through the open sky in the direction of the star facing the North. And just like the last what must be a hundred times she’s asked, I answer, “No. Now please stop asking that.”

Of course, she just ignores that second part and lets out a whine. One that makes me think that if my shadow was actually touching the ground right now – ground that doesn’t currently exist beneath my feet – then she’d be poking her head out of it and pouting.

A headache begins to build up at the thought of having to deal with having to raise a child.

Before now it wasn’t bad, especially since she seems to have taken on a lot of my own habits and personality traits. But it’s at times like these that it’s obvious she’s still a kid.

I can’t help but feel a shiver running down my spine at the thought of a teenage Sapphire.

“What’re you thinking about, papa? You have a weird look on your face,” Sapphire asks, somehow able to see my face despite being in my shadow.

I wonder how that works?

“Nothing,” I answer her before a smile makes its way on my face at the sight of a floating island. “We’re here.”

And of course she lets out a loud squeal at that as I continue flapping my wings towards the island.

This floor theme makes me hate hazardous floor themes. A lot.

I glance at the flying ship parked next to the island for a few seconds before focusing on the swarm of harpies flying towards me. The ship ended up being way too slow when I tried it, so I just decided to use my wings for a first and fly on my own. Which turned out to be several times faster.

But even then, it still took me hours just to make it from one island to the next.

Without even stopping in my flight path, I send a wave of voided flames straight towards the harpies, burning them all to a crisp as I fly through them on my way to the island.

The only bright side of this theme is that it’s full of plenty of EXP orbs on each of the islands. And that’s probably the only reason I’m not cussing out the dungeon for the stupid floor theme.

Although in hind sight, the hazardous floors aren’t exactly supposed to be a walk in the park. This one for example, for those who can’t fly for long distances at least, is meant to make the Competitors board the boat and fend off flocks of flying monsters that never get close enough for the Competitor to attack them. And this is with very little food and water – not that I need any at this point – and some rather annoyingly powerful winds constantly batting them.

All in all, a very annoying trip, and one I only made once before switching to my wings.

“Come on, go faster! I want to get out of here!” Sapphire rushes me, jumpy as ever to get out of my shadow after being stuck in it for hours on end.

I let out a tired sigh at that before speeding up ever so slightly.

Will this floor theme ever end…?

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