Sowhere far away, a beam of light streaked across the morning sky like a falling star. Rusty felt weightless, formless. He could see nothing and feel nothing, yet he was still sothing—pure energy, or as his guides once explained, particles of light.
Traveling in this form took almost no ti, though the distance covered was imnse. It was a useful skill for quick escapes, but it ca with one major drawback: he could never quite predict where he would end up. He had only used it once before, during his journey with Gleam. That ti, he had landed in the branches of a tree, disoriented and unaware of his location. Fortunately, Gleam had managed to track him down, and they were able to continue their travels.
The sensation of motion ended with a sudden jolt. His body reassembled like molten tal cooling and solidifying, piece by piece. In an instant, the scattered particles of light beca solid mass once more, and his steel form reappeared, still airborne and carrying leftover montum.
‘I’m alive… but…’
Rusty was still flying, but that wasn’t the problem. He was slowing down, and he knew all too well that what goes up must co down. The clearing he had started from was nowhere in sight, and the landscape below looked unfamiliar. There were far fewer trees here, and he was on a direct collision course with a jagged cliffside. He had hoped for a soft landing, maybe among tree branches like before. Instead, the hard face of a rocky mountain rushed up to et him.
‘Have to protect my core!’
While still soaring through the air, Rusty pulled out another mana potion and splashed it across his tallic fra. A faint glow followed as the liquid was absorbed into his tal. He quickly lowered his helt and curled into a tight ball, hugging it close to protect the vital core inside.
To protect himself, he activated Fortify Armor, bracing his body for impact, then triggered Weight Control to reduce his mass. He had a rudintary understanding of physics, knowing that the heavier he was, the harder he would hit. A loud clang rang out as he slamd into the mountainside. The collision rocked his entire fra, sending sparks and shards of tal flying into the morning light. A mont later, he ricocheted off the rock face, tumbling down the cliffside like a runaway barrel of steel, clattering and crashing over sharp stone.
His tal scraped against stone. Pieces of armor chipped off, and each collision threatened to crack open his helt to expose his core. He bounced once, twice—then broke through a patch of loose brush and crashed into a hollow depression in the mountainside. The fall finally ended in a thud, half-buried among shredded leaves and broken twigs.
Rusty groaned, or would have, if he had lungs. Instead, the strained sound of bending tal ca from deep within his chest as he directed what steel he could spare toward repairing his damaged fra. He had escaped the Orcs, but he had no idea where he had ended up. His visor flickered as the light of his guides reappeared, both struggling to make sense of their new surroundings.
"This doesn't look like the forest anymore.”
Alexander said quietly as he scanned the area. Aburdon let out a sharp laugh to mock him.
"How brilliant of you to notice, great hero."
Rusty slowly gathered himself and took a better look at where he had landed. The ground beneath him was sunken, forming a wide, shallow crater. Thick vines curled along the edges, and the stone bore deep claw marks. Bits of shredded fur and broken bones littered the ground around him.
Then he saw them. At the center of the crater rested four massive eggs. Each one was about the size of a goblin, their glossy shells dark blue with green veins that pulsed with a faint glow.
"Those aren't normal eggs.”
Alexander said as he tried to bring attention to the gravity of the situation.
"Rusty, we have to leave. Right now."
As the words left his glowing form, one of the eggs began to crack. A mont later, another followed. The first creature that erged was rather small yet terrifying. Sleek scales shimred in the morning light as it stretched out its wings. Its talons looked like blades, and its glowing yellow eyes locked onto Rusty with a predatory focus. It was a baby wyvern.
The second egg burst open next, revealing a sibling. Smaller, but already hissing and fluttering its half-ford wings. The creatures turned their attention to Rusty, drawn to his movent, or perhaps the magic emanating from his core.
“They don’t look that strong to …”
Rusty wasn’t quite sure why his two guides were panicking. The creatures before him looked fragile and unsteady. They struggled to stand, their movents clumsy and weak. He doubted they could survive even a single strike from his sword. Still, as he rose to his feet to get a better look, the first wyvern let out a piercing, high-pitched scream. A mont later, the second joined in with the sa shrill cry.
"This doesn’t look good, Rusty. It might be better to jump before..."
Right as Alexander was speaking, a vast shadow passed over them. It was more than a passing cloud. The sunlight dimd, and the sky vanished behind a massive shape that descended from above; it was as if an eclipse was occurring. Warnings glared within his head. Sothing was coming, sothing far beyond his ability to handle.
He raised his helt to look, and then he saw her. The mother wyvern landed with a deafening impact just outside the crater. The ground shook as her talons gouged deep trenches into the rock. Her wings folded against her sides, thick and leathery.
She was enormous, easily four tis Rusty’s size. Her entire body was covered in thick erald scales that shimred faintly with lingering magic. Her head, unmistakably draconic, turned toward him. Her glowing eyes first checked on the two shrieking hatchlings, then locked onto the intruder standing near them. Her gaze burned with pure, unmistakable rage.
"I don’t suppose we could talk this out. Madam, this is just a big mistake…"
He addressed the towering creature, but it was clear she could not, or would not, communicate with a suit of living armor. The mother wyvern let out a thunderous roar, the force of it so powerful that it sent nearby rocks tumbling and leaves spiraling into the air. Her chest expanded, gathering breath, and Rusty could already detect faint traces of elental magic buildup, probably fire, and most definitely fatal. Without a word, Rusty turned on his heel and ran.
“I vote jump!”
Alexander shouted.
“I second that motion!”
Aburdon agreed.
“...”
He sprinted toward the edge of the monster’s nest, his tal fra clanking with every frantic step. Behind him, the shrill cries of the wyvern hatchlings grew louder as their mother’s wingbeats began again, kicking up blasts of wind that nearly knocked him off his feet. Just as he reached the edge of the crater, she roared again and then… she breathed.
A jet of boiling green fla roared past him, lting through the stone like candle wax. Rusty didn’t look back. He launched himself over the edge and plumted into the unknown once more. The wind howled against his fra as he fell, the world blurring around him. Before he could even begin to grasp how far he had traveled, a new sound reached his ears. It was the rush of flowing water, a river.
He struck it like a cannonball, and the impact was explosive. Water erupted in all directions, shooting skyward in a towering spray as if a geyser had burst from below.
*SPLASH*
His tal body began to take in water and sink rapidly. For a terrifying mont, everything went dark and cold as he spiraled downward, his limbs flailing helplessly. He could not die from a lack of air, but the idea of being trapped beneath the surface, stuck in this heavy water-filled body, was a real and growing threat.
He thrashed blindly, reaching for anything that might help. Then, by sheer luck, a log drifted into reach. It had plunged in from sowhere above and was rising back toward the surface. Rusty grabbed it with all his strength, wrapping both arms around it. He even hooked his legs beneath it, clinging as tightly as he could.
The log bobbed violently in the current, dragging Rusty along like a piece of luggage lashed to the back of a runaway wagon. His armor groaned with every twist of the river, but he clung to the makeshift flotation device like a barnacle.
“Well, at least we are alive.”
“Don’t jinx it, hero!”
Just as Alexander was trying to lighten the mood, disaster struck yet again. The river narrowed ahead, the terrain sloping steeply downward. Trees on either side began to blur, and the speed of the current increased dramatically.
“…Wait.”
Rusty muttered, his grip on the log tightening.
“What’s that sound?”
In the distance, sounds of roaring water grew louder with every passing second. Birds scattered from the treetops. Mist curled above the rushing current ahead and soon a strange phenonon was revealed, sothing Rusty had never seen before.
“…Oh no.”
Alexander shouted in panic.
“I told you not to jinx it.”
Aburdon growled, implying that this was all the hero’s fault. Before them was a large drop and foaming water before a steep giant waterfall. Rusty had never seen one before but he knew that he needed to cling to the log with all his might.
“I hate rivers…”
As the current picked up speed, he was helpless to resist. The log bounced off rocks, spun in the rapids, and then suddenly, the entire world seed to fall out from under him. There was a half-second of silence, a brief and oddly serene pause where Rusty almost felt at peace. The sun broke through the clouds above. A bird chirped cheerfully in the distance.
“Maybe this won’t be so ba…”
*WHOOOOOSH.*
And then he was falling again. The wind scread around him as the log twisted violently, fighting his grip like a wild animal. Together, he and the log dropped like a stone, the sound of the river replaced by the high-pitched screech of air rushing past. Ti seed to slow for a split second. Rusty's mind raced with thoughts of survival, of where he would land, and whether Gleam was safe. Then ca the impact.
With a loud crack, the log struck the pool below. It split in two, but its bulk shielded Rusty just enough. Nevertheless, the force of the landing still tore through his fra. His arms and legs were flung outward in different directions, leaving him without a full body.
‘I… I’m alive.’
He was now little more than a torso and a helt, sohow still clinging to the log. One of its branches had pierced through his tal fra during the fall, anchoring him in place like a skewer. The speed of his descent had finally slowed. The roaring current was gone, replaced by a gentle drift. The river had widened and emptied into a body of still water that resembled a lake. The chaos was over, at least for the mont.
“I think we are floating towards shore, we might be able to figure out where we are.”
Alexander pointed out that the log that they were on was slowly moving towards what looked to be a quiet lakeshore bordered by reeds and willow trees. The water glistened with sunlight, rippling gently as Rusty drifted toward land, still impaled and half covered in water. Birds chirped overhead, and for once, there were no Orcs, no screaming hatchlings, no flaming wyverns breathing death from the sky. Just the rhythmic lap of water against wood and tal.
“I hope we never do that again, best you train that ability of yours first… or learn to use a flotation spell first.”
Aburdon muttered under his breath, clearly displeased with their near-death experience. Rusty couldn’t bla him; he only used that skill as a last resort, but it had worked. For now, they were safe from the Orcs, at least, it seed that way. Rusty had no idea where he was, but the skill had a limited range. He couldn’t have traveled too far from Ferndale. Still, that wasn’t what worried him now. It was Gleam. Had she made it out alive? His status screen flickered to life, showing her status: still alive, but out of range. It was the sa as the last ti they’d been separated.
A gentle bump signaled that the log had touched shore. The shallows sloshed around Rusty's dented torso and helt as he floated in, scraping lightly over river stones and reeds until he ca to a halt against the muddy bank. Willow branches swayed overhead, their leaves brushing the water's surface in lazy arcs. The sun filtered through the canopy, painting golden patterns across the lake. It seed that finally, it was over.
“Maybe next ti, let us stick to the dungeon for leveling? Shall we?”
“That might be for the best…”
Rusty could still rember the surge of greed that overtook him when he saw the Orcs retreating. He had gained several levels, but it ca at a high price. He lost Gleam and was nearly lted by a much stronger wyvern. Now he was stranded in an unfamiliar place with most of his SP and MP depleted. He did not have enough left to fully restore himself, and to make matters worse, his arms and legs were too far away for him to summon them back.
Rusty, lacking limbs and mobility, simply stared up at the sky through his visor, letting the sun warm the water that clung to his broken form. He had to regather himself, locate his limbs, or regrow them, but before he could even begin a repair protocol, a distant sound caught his attention. Footsteps.
Squish. Crunch. Murmurs. Multiple voices, boots tramping through mud and gravel, drawing nearer. He barely had ti to process what was happening when a voice called out.
"There's sothing by the water!"
Rusty’s eye slits dimd instantly. He froze.
‘Play dead. Play very, very dead.’
Through his visor, he caught the faint outlines of figures erging from the forest. There were nearly a dozen of them, all wearing light leather armor with wolf and bear pelts draped over their shoulders. Many had tattoos across their arms and faces, symbols that marked clan lineage, rites of passage, or victories in battle. It beca imdiately clear where he had ended up. He was sowhere within the barbarian-controlled mountain range…
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