118: Reconnaissance of the Shadow Demon (Patreon)

NOTE: Today's bonus chapter! The $10 tier is now 28 chapters ahead of RR, and on our way to 35!
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Vir flew through Aranya Forest. Not on the floor, but up on its many branches. Not only were the treetops far easier to navigate, but taking the high road saved him invocations of Dance of the Shadow Demon when skirting around enemies.

While Ash prana was relatively abundant in this area, it was always a scarce resource, and Vir didn’t see that changing soon. Not unless he went to the Ashen Realm itself. After his harrowing experience of infiltrating Daha’s castle, Vir swore never to prematurely deplete Ash prana ever again.

His escapades that night had only been so harrowing because he couldn’t use Dance, having already depleted the Ash prana in that area.

Prana Vision and his elevation kept him safe, but it was nonetheless a stressful experience. The Brood Matron’s scouts had an uncanny ability to sense even the slightest motion, and only by straining Prana Vision to its maximum was Vir able to avoid the groups of scouts.

At least initially. As he penetrated deeper into the forest, enemy units became more and more dense. The only reason he could proceed was because there were fewer scouts and more workers and hunter-gatherers.

While Haymi’s healing orb still protected his armor, it was only good for a onetime activation. The orb in his weapon was similar. Without Haymi nearby to power them, they’d spend themselves after a single use.

Vir paused on a branch to analyze a group of a dozen workers as they went about their business. Resembling oversized ants, they had none of the gelatinous features of their scout brethren. In fact, if Tia hadn’t told him about the Brood Matron variants, he’d never have guessed they were related.

The workers lacked pincers or sharp limbs of any kind and looked heavily specialized for transport. Even their sensory skills seemed lacking—Vir had no trouble slowly approaching to within ten paces without them noticing.

He didn’t risk going any further, but after sizing them up, he determined they weren’t a threat. In fact, he doubted whether they had a Balar rank at all. Their prana signature was a hodgepodge of various affinities, and they didn’t even have armored hides.

It made sense. Workers were built for labor, not battle. That was left to their far more impressive brethren, the hunter-gatherers.

Vir soon came across a group of six, and this time, he used Dance to hide himself. Knowing that they specialized in combat, he couldn’t risk being detected.

The hunter-gatherers walked on six bladed legs, had thick plates of natural armor, and a segmented tail that ended in a point that looked designed to penetrate objects.

Vir’s ten counts of time ran out, and he reactivated Dance, but this time, he moved slightly further away and left his legs out of the Shadow Realm. Time passed at a third of its normal speed, allowing him to observe their behavior. Because while holing up in the Shadow Realm made him invincible, it wasn’t all that conducive to monitoring an organism’s behavior.

It was only after observing these beasts for several minutes that Vir realized the true danger of their tails. Occasionally, a drop of green liquid oozing with Life, Earth, and Shadow prana would fall to the ground, sizzling when it touched the foliage below.

Poison.

And a potent acid at that.

They’re gonna be tough to deal with. Vir felt confident he could defeat one of these in isolation, but they never moved in groups of less than six. Only rarely did they ever split up far enough to ambush one, but it was still close enough for the others to respond to.

He also learned why they were called hunter gatherers. Several of them carried corpses on their backs. Because of their size, they made good beasts of burden, and Vir suspected it was the hunter-gatherers who retrieved corpses from the front lines, bringing them back to safer zones for the workers to dismantle and carry the rest of the way back.

Which meant they were incredibly sturdy. While Vir was no expert at estimating Balar Rank, he put them well above the scouts, which Tia had said were in the ten to twenty range. These hunter-gatherers couldn’t have been anything less than double that.

The only deficiency Vir found was that their sensory range was less than those of the scouts; he’d snuck up to within twenty paces of them without detection.

But what intrigued Vir the most about their behavior was how they communicated with the scouts. Occasionally, a group of scouts would meet up with the hunter-gatherers, forcing Vir to retreat.

From afar, he saw the two clack and gesture to each other. Likely the scouts communicating the locations of new prey.

Which means they’re at least semi-intelligent.

Every Ash Beast Vir had encountered until now seemed to possess a level of intelligence that simply wasn’t seen among run-of-the-mill Prana Beasts. Not only did they boast absurd Balar Ranks, but they were intelligent, too. A deadly combination. But every record he’d seen said that Ash Beasts in the Ashen Realm were mindless. Perhaps the prana density of that realm simply addled their minds.

It meant that while Ash Beasts outside the Ashen Realm were naturally weaker due to the lower prana densities, they could think far more clearly.

Vir left the hunter-gatherers and pressed on. It wasn’t difficult to know which way to go—at this point, Prana Vision blazed with countless enemies. Vir merely headed toward the area with the greatest density.

As he did, he was forced to rely on Dance of the Shadow Demon more and more to avoid detection. Tia might have considered his mission a success already, but Vir wasn’t satisfied. They’d eventually fight the Brood Matron, and that meant the more information they had on that beast, the better. Did it boast combat capabilities of its own? Or was it more of a queen that needed to be protected by its minions?

Vir found out in just a few moments. A familiar series of wooden spikes came into view, and for a moment, Vir wondered whether he’d gotten turned around. But the swarm of hunter-gatherers and workers told a different story.

The Matron’s lair is fortified!

Just like their own base, an array of palisades surrounded the Matron’s lair, though her walls lacked the spikes Vir had crafted for their own base.

Even so, this level of organization spooked him. It spoke of intelligence near to that of humans, or perhaps even on par with it.

Wonder if we can communicate with it?

But one look at the number of enemies that surrounded him quickly squashed that idea. He didn’t have a death wish.

Vir sank into the shadows and settled into the pitch-black realm, observing the Matron inside her lair.

He’d expected a large, bloated creature capable of churning out minions, but what he found instead looked more like an oversized hunter-gatherer. Standing higher than Vir, its six pincer legs connected to a long, slender body that had even thicker armor than the hunter variants. Two tall antennae protruded from the Matron’s head, which Vir assumed it used for detection. Based on their size, the Matron might have had better senses than even her scouts.

What’s more, her prana was pitch black, without a trace of any other affinities. Just like all the other Ash Beasts Vir had encountered, except hers was several-fold denser. He noted her minions didn’t share the same composition. In fact, they usually had several ordinary affinities, ranging from Life to Shadow to Earth. But not Ash.

Is it because she’s eating regular prana beasts to birth them?

Right now, the Matron was preoccupied with eating. A pile of Ash’va, Bandy, deer, and other animal corpses lay beside her. And based on the pile of excrement behind her, it looked like she didn’t move overly much.

Then again, her body allowed her to move as freely as she liked, so Vir suspected it was a choice rather than a limitation.

The Matron was supposed to have a Balar Rank between 400 to 700. But that accounted for the combined might of her entire Brood, and the figure applied to the Ashen Realm and the prana densities there. Vir doubted this Matron would be over two hundred, but that didn’t mean he could take her lightly.

It was far too dangerous to leave any portion of his limbs outside of the Shadow Realm this deep into enemy territory, so he couln’’t observe the Matron’s behavior. Their estimates of a few dozen opponents had been woefully inadequate. They were up against an army of two hundred or more. Many of those were workers and scouts, but while the former might be safe to ignore, the latter certainly was not.

Between the scouts and hunter-gatherers, Vir estimated they were up against a hundred combat-capable foes. Plus the Matron herself.

Once his ten counts were up, Vir chose a shadow at the very edge of his range and retreated. He’d seen enough; being discovered might set the entire Brood after him.

Activating Dance repeatedly, Vir covered ground quickly, but he didn’t return straight to camp. There was still some time before he was due back, and there was still something he could do.

Vir jumped from branch to branch, taking his time to locate a suitable candidate for his experiment.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally found it. A group of six hunter-gatherers, isolated from any of their brothers. Except these six were currently stalking a group of deer. They’d spread out, with twenty paces between them, and their attention was focused entirely on the hunt.

Vir chose the hunter-gatherer at the very edge of the group and moved in for the kill.

With his Talents, there was no need for a flashy charge or the warrior-like roar Vason was so fond of. In his case, he wanted to attract his enemies’ attention. Vir was the opposite.

He Empowered his legs and shot into a shadow, emerging with an Empowered Prana Blade right under the hunter-gatherer.

Even with a seric katar, he normally couldn’t penetrate the beast’s thick armor, but the prana wreathing his blade, and with Empower accelerating his thrust, combined with the momentum he carried through the shadows, his blade sunk deep into the hunter-gatherer.

Unfortunately, while it penetrated the armor, the blade wasn’t long enough to reach the prana nexus buried inside it. It was a brutal reminder of the deficiency of his katar.

Maybe I ought to consider getting a longer weapon. But that was easier said than done. The only reason his Prana Blade worked was because of the short length of his blade.

Vir rolled out of the way and Leaped in for another attack. The hunter-gatherer immediately repositioned itself, opening its maw. In it, Vir saw green liquid, ready to shoot out.

He threw himself aside, narrowly dodging the acid that flew through the air and landed on a tree, burning away its bark.

So it can throw poison from its maw, too? Apparently the Brood Matron wasn’t a picky eater. He didn’t imagine acid-washed corpses tasted any good.

Vir Leaped again, using the momentum to throw himself into a forward roll. Right under the hunter-gatherer. Vir extended his Prana Bladed katar to the side, rotating as he rolled.

The spinning blade sliced into the hunter-gatherer’s foreleg, then its midleg, and finally, aided by an Empowered thrust, bisected its hind leg as Vir exited his roll.

With all of its legs on one side out of commission, the beast slowly fell over. Its massive weight meant it couldn’t right itself, making it vulnerable.

Vir jumped up onto its back and drove his katar down, right into its heart.

The beast quivered for a moment, then lay still. The forest was silent… for a single moment.

Its remaining five brethren had noticed the fight and had surrounded Vir while he’d fought.

It hardly mattered. With Dance, no enemy could ambush Vir.

Glaring at his foes, Vir sunk into the shadows.

This, too, had been a probing test. Not only had his fight shown him the capabilities of the hunter-gatherers, but if the Brood Matron was as intelligent as he thought it was…

Then she ought to send reinforcements to this area of the forest, where a threat lies.

Except, Vir was currently far south in the forest. Their camp was to the north. If the Matron sent her hunter-gatherers here, it would mean less resistance for Spear’s Edge. It meant the Matron would leave herself open to attack.

With a satisfied smile, Vir set a course for due north to return to base.

It was only then did he notice that his upper forearm was burning. Searing hot with acid. Acid that numbed his pain and ate into his skin with each passing second.