Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands (Monster Crafting "Nature" Paladin Lit-Rpg) 126- Prey

126

Vraxious—The Forsaken Lands

Vrax scoured his imdiate surroundings with an uncontrolled smite just to make damned sure the sneaky-ass monster wasn’t right next to him, then he looked towards Lux with wide eyes. The Spriggan thankfully had realized how bad this was.

The hunt target was here, and the moss was spreading at a questionable rate, blanketing the already dense ruins in a thicket of bullshit. Vrax pointed towards the lone-standing building nearby. Lux nodded in understanding and started rushing that way.

I an, it’s a bad idea; that place is obviously bad news, but it’s better than getting murdered by the invisible dragon that decided, “Hey, I’m going to hunt the new guests.”

Vrax tore forward, leveraging his talent to the extre as he leaped from precarious perch to perch, trying to always stay above the general tangle blanketing the ground level. At the sa ti, he turned his cistern on the creeping moss, rending the life from it to stop it from cutting off his path. It blackened and wilted inward but kept trying to billow right back over the top of the rot.

A flash of movent drew his eyes towards the side; a large stone randomly tumbling from on top of a broken roof spilled partially into the street. Vrax turned a smirk on his lips. Already pulling his special slter moss from his pocket. Eyes focused for the slightest movent.

A single rock lazily sailed through the air over his head, landing in the sa spot he was watching. Vrax realized with dawning horror the horrible mistake he had just made. The monster was smart enough to cause distractions. He flung himself from his perch forward as fast as he could.

A shimring, nearly translucent tail tipped with a fine, nearly clear erald blade punched straight through his armor midair. Vrax felt the blade tear into his guts, then pull back out sickeningly as his montum carried him forward off the blade. It tore sideways on its way out. He hit the ground in a hard roll, coming up into an agonizing sprint towards the nearby building.

Vrax pushed a smite out behind him, splattering a swath of the ruins in blackened plant rot and washing briefly over the form of sothing. Its invisibility shimred slightly as it retreated from the miasmic wave. He pushed as much healing energy from his cistern as he could into himself. Between that and the smite, he had bought himself at least so ti.

Vrax didn’t even scout the building, just diving through the nearest window with a shattering crash and stumbling to a stop against the far wall, his spear held defensively towards the front door. Lux ca flying through it a second later, also looking panicked. He skittered to a stop, using one of his claws to arrest his montum and the other to slam the halfway broken door shut.

Vrax painfully shuffled back to the front window and leaned out with a quick, stilted grab to snatch a handful of normal moss off the nearby wall. He slapped it onto the windowsill. with a flare of mana and adapted it into a haphazard patch that covered most of the window. It didn’t block the whole thing, but at least the invisible nightmare couldn’t climb through without him noticing now, hopefully.

Vrax slumped down into a really questionably rotted chair and looked at their temporary shelter while the cistern tried to stitch his intestines back together, and he fumbled a healing potion from his side pouches.

The inside of this place didn’t match the nearly immaculate outside. He wasn’t sure what ancient magic had kept it standing for this long, but whatever it was, was clearly fading. Cozy counters sagged in under the weight of themselves, and cupboards hung from rotten fragnts of wood precariously balanced on the end of nails.

The bedroom he could see down the nearby hallway was just rotting cloth that barely held any vestiges of color. The entire inner roof in there had fallen unevenly, dotting the floor and exposing the attic.

“Lux, keep an eye out while I heal. I’ll try and think up sothing. I don’t want to just call the others out of the sky right now without at least a plan of action.”

Alright, I absolutely can’t fight it out there. In the tangle of rubble, that place is far too easy to hide in. The biggest advantage I will have in this fight is the ability to utterly ruin that moss. It keeps growing; it’s using it for cover, and I would bet money it needs the stuff for so of its abilities, or it wouldn’t bother growing it when it ambushed us.

Vrax looked out the bedroom’s intact window towards the castle on the nearby hill.

I an… It would be its ho turf, but gods, I would much rather fight it sowhere that I can narrow its angles of approach. If Sunshine could get ahold of it in a castle hallway, I would absolutely be able to sic everyone else on it and slam a few smites ho, or at least get it covered in the damned sparkly moss.

Alright, that’s the loose plan: get into the fucking castle and let the only greenery around be my own. Now the tricky bit: how the shit do I get to the castle without getting diced… Ahh hell, I'm sorry, my beloved murder floofs. I need a distraction.

Vrax peeked carefully out the front window from a safe distance, really scouring the surroundings with his gaze. He didn’t see a damn thing other than a thick layer of that unnatural fluffy moss and a few monster corpses bleeding blue-black blood across the ground. He did catch sight of Duchess high above with the flock in tow. She was thankfully smart enough, or more likely cowardly enough, that she was staying far away from a situation that had obviously gone sideways.

Hell, that craven wannabe dragon probably cackled watching us flee like damn rabbits. If we had died, she almost certainly would have just skedaddled onwards with her flock to commit acts of wanton evil across the countryside. Oh no, that’s not quite fair; she might have kidnapped poor Edward first for his fear skills.

His enhanced hearing gave him a few more hints as to what was happening outside of their temporary refuge. The sound of long claws occasionally brushing against stone. The rub of scales lightly traced along the tops of bushes. Whatever it was, it was still out front sowhere, and it was damned stealthy. Vrax was barely getting bits and pieces of where it might roughly be, even with his Talent.

With a rough, albeit very risky, plan for how to get to the castle in mind, Vrax turned towards Lux. “Okay, buddy, I’m going to need you to go hide in the garden really quick. I’m going to be booking it, and I really don’t want you getting bisected trying to keep up.” Lux looked like he wanted to argue briefly but blessedly nodded in understanding.

Vrax sent out a recall towards Duchess and the flock overhead. He needed to at least get the monster damned well distracted before he ran for it. And unfortunately his best bet for that right now was feeding it Devourers. He had a tiny glimr of hope that maybe a devourer would get a good stab of five off on the beast, but he doubted it.

Duchess would almost certainly not join the fight unless the invisible murder machine was suddenly very visible and very helpless. Honestly, Vrax was okay with that; he was pretty sure whatever this thing was could and would dice Duchess if it got in range.

Vrax watched as floofy green orbs descended from the sky, flanked by a much larger black shape trailing the tiniest hints of shadow behind it. The devourers bobbled to a stop and began curiously inspecting the rubble for about half a second before the freshly spilled blood triggered their transformation.

One by one in a horrific cascade, they unfurled their faces back over their bodies, exposing the green piercing spider eyes and letting organs sag below themselves. Feeding tendrils flashed into the bloody corpses with a whir as they started sucking the Rummager corpses dry. Duchess watched from above like a manager just waiting for sothing to go wrong. Not so she could actually help but so she knew who to point and laugh at.

Vrax watched in rapt attention as mana nervously flickered along his fingertips. He was ready to call a few abominations to join the chaos, stuff Lux into the nagerie, and run. A full thirty seconds passed with nothing happening other than the devourers getting so coated in dark core they nearly looked like giant flying blueberries.

Then another minute passed. Vrax nervously shifted from foot to foot, looking all around the front room he was in to try and make sure he hadn’t missed sothing major that was going to get him killed.

Just when he was finally starting to think the creature might have gone back to its nest, it struck. If it weren’t for the devourer’s dinsional properties, the kill would have been nearly silent and just outside of his vision. A devourer bobbled behind a wide pillar that obscured it briefly; instantly hundreds of gallons of blood and gore gushed across the streets, accompanied by whizzing fragnts of bone.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringent.

The monster had cleanly killed it in one hit; it had also ruptured the dinsional space inside the devourer. The utter deluge of gore gave Vrax his first real glimpse at the creature as the crimson liquid splashed across its form. The damned thing was still invisible even under the coating, so it was just a vague silhouette.

It was long and lithe, shaped like a dragon mixed with a damned gecko. Its tail was nearly as long as the entire body and flared to a leaflike end that tapered back into a long blade. That was all Vrax glimpsed before it was just gone again. And not turned invisible, gone. The gore previously coating it fell to the ground where it was instants ago.

Oh, fuck sideways with a lurker mushroom; it can teleport… Why the fuck can it teleport?

Vrax had a hunch that he prayed was right and looked back towards the cottony moss. He let out a breath of relief as a patch in the dead center yellowed, then died before crumbling in on itself. It could teleport but only to its bullshit moss patches.

While not good news at all, it was at least counterable; don’t fight in the moss, lt it whenever it starts growing—doable. If it had had a nonconditional short-range teleport like so high-tiered monstrosities had, he would have been truly screwed.

Vrax pulled himself slightly away from the window as another devourer suddenly had its entire top half sheared off. He used his stigmata, and the entire house buckled in protest; walls sagged in even farther, and a beam and part of the roof fell from above. The rubble before the ho was scoured down to the stone, leaving a black moldy paste in its place. A single dandelion seed and a retriever hive were now perched out front to add to the chaos.

Vrax rushed towards the back door as soon as he saw the air start to fill with hungering glowing pricks of light. He hoped that would be enough to keep it busy for a damned mont. He added Lux back to his nagerie and dived through the back bedroom window, activating his stigmata again. Malice rose eagerly from the roiling rot ahead of him, and behind the house finally gave up its long, valiant struggle. Folding inward and listing sideways all the way into the road in a trendous crash of splinters and splash of liquified wood.

Vrax leaped onto Malice, spurring him forward. “Fast as you fucking can!” He looped an arm around Malice's neck and prayed. Malice excitedly bunched his legs down so far his body scraped the ground and then exploded forward. The ground around him blurred at the sheer reckless careening speed. He didn’t even try to dodge hunks of rubble, simply hooking his talons firmly into cracks and crevices and pushing off even more violently.

Vrax ragdolled side to side, letting out a few panicked yelps as his dangling legs occasionally clipped the landscape. He managed to mostly get back on top of Malice and imdiately blasted the landscape behind them with his cistern, aiming specifically for the area around the ho he had sown with seeds from the nagerie.

The house’s remains were roughly lifted from its foundations as a circle of hungering plants rose from below and within the building, both overtaking it and tossing it aside. Flicker grass interstewn with lurkers raced across the rooftop. Willows with too-sharp branches jutted through the floor and traced a thin scar across the land. Retrievers dotted surprisingly densely all around the ho like a hungering minefield.

Vrax looked at his own hand in surprise, then grabbed back onto Malice desperately. “Damn, that was a good one!” He had to hope that was enough to slow the bugger because if he let go again, he was pretty sure he was going to end up a sar on the ground with Malice off on his own in the castle wondering why his rider fell off.

Malice looked up at the fast-approaching castle walls with far too much eagerness and made a clacking sound with his jaws that sounded an awful lot like a cackle, sohow putting on even more speed before leaping up. His talons hit with a resounding force, still propelling him upward with three more steps that felt an awful lot more like flying than climbing, and then they were clear of the wall.

“Oh shit,” Vrax managed. Malice didn’t slow down because, of course, he didn’t; he simply flung himself from the wall, giving Vrax a brief mont to view the castle courtyard and figure out where the hell to aim the Thresher’s montum.

The thick, impenetrable blooming moss hallmarking the creature's lair rolled head-high from the right side of the castle, seeming to originate from a wide servants' entrance. It crept from there towards the walls and slightly down the road. The courtyard itself had three circular fountains, long dry and overflowing in poppy-like tufts of white flowers.

Vrax had to make a snap judgnt, so as they ca careering down straight towards the largest fountain, he pointed at the main castle doors. “There, Malice ahead!” Malice “landed” roughly, slightly slowing his descent by kicking off the fountain and continuing his headlong sprint into the yawning castle archway. Vrax was sure at this point with how hard he was getting rocked without his defenses and armor this ride would have knocked him out sowhere back by the house.

Malice blessedly slowed as they entered the castle's main reception room. Vrax leapt from the mount and jogged forward. Wide sweeping staircases wrapped up to a second level that went farther into the castle. The room he was in was too open for what he wanted, so he cut left down a wide hallway that led, hopefully, away from the monster's lair.

Vrax passed a number of small servants' quarters and past one large room that appeared to be a grand kitchen. The hallway wrapped around again, and he found himself leaving the narrow hallway to wander straight into a greenhouse of so kind.

It wasn’t massive, only spanning twenty strides long and half that wide. One wall and the ceiling were a hazy yellow glass that was mostly obscured by thick, dense roses. The greenhouse itself was organized into a pair of neat rows that ran the length of the room. The rows were made of very sturdy-looking pillars that ran all the way to the ceiling, strewn with small hollow pockets that acted like planter pots.

He looked around at the moderate vegetation and sturdy cover. This could well work. Three hallways led inside the room, but if he blocked two and heavily trapped another, he would be fighting sowhere a beast that large would have a hard ti maneuvering, and he had all the plants he could hope for to power his armor and call forth his creations.

Without wasting any more ti, Vrax summoned the last two retrievers he had in his garden and then coaxed his cistern to life around the hallway he had just co through, partially blocking it and leaving so nasty surprises. Then he ran to the middlemost hallway and thanked all the gods above for his luck.

It had a sturdy tal door with a crossbar he was simply able to close and seal off. With those basic isolating asures done, Vrax got to work preparing the castle greenhouse for the confrontation. He worked at a frantic pace, not knowing if the creature was right on his tail or still murdering devourers down in the town.

Firstly, he called out to Duchess with Adapt Life and hoped the psycho would get the hint and ander over this way for the fight. Then he opened up his nagerie to get a look at what he was working with.

[nagerie of Predation, 11/16]

[Cascading Vein Diver]

[Mauler Tree](3 Slots)

[Sunshine](3 slots)

[Extinction Vein Diver]

[The Bush] 2 Slots

[Lux]

God, I need to increase the capacity on this; shuffling things in and out is getting annoying as all heck. Well, I'm not exactly loaded to the gills, but it's certainly a good base. Unfortunately, I don’t think the Extinction diver will do much good here. The Cascading diver might hurt it so, or more importantly, make the damn thing glow.

I've also got a really irresponsible number of slter moss vials on , the mage bane worms, and adapt life. Alright, we can make this work, especially if her royal pain in the ass decides to help.

I'm almost sure a lot of this is going to co down to whether Sunshine can get ahold of the bastard for long enough. So everyone else can get their licks in without imdiately dying.

Vrax used his stigmata in the center of the room, depositing both dandelions, the bush, and Lux. He held off on Sunshine and the Mangler for the mont, hoping to use them with so elent of surprise.

The rose vines here were a thick and hardy species with thick thorns; it gave him an idea.

Alright, please let have enough ti for this…

He grabbed hold of the base of the biggest rosebush in the room; it had growth creeping up walls and across many of the pillars. Dull green mana flashed as Vrax eased changes into it, firstly letting it move but only slowly; its purpose wouldn’t be to attack. He stopped once the rose vines shifted around like uneasy serpents.

Okay, hungry, and true sight is all I need. I don’t need it to actually hurt the damn thing; I just need the vines to reach for it and give another way to tell where the fuck it is. Vrax started dotting strange black eyes similar to what Sunshine had along the rosebush, keeping a careful eye on his mana. He didn’t want to get caught with an empty tank by this thing.

[Mana 205/306]

By the ti he was happy with how it looked, the rosebush was curiously writhing around the room, slowly drawing thorns over to anything that moved too fast or was warm. It was even starting to snag the occasional mouse. Vrax really hoped this creature couldn’t hide its warmth from his creations with magical ans, or he was probably screwed.

Vrax let his mana slowly trickle up as he went around, slowly adapting the battlefield to better fit him. Sealing the rows off even further with dense brush that wrapped from one pillar to another, comfortably sized for him to slip through but impossible for anything large to do so without loudly bursting through the greenery.

Eventually Duchess ca to ominously hover above the greenhouse’s glass roof; she had three transford devourers writhing in her claws, likely all that was left of the original flock. Vrax looked over the battlefield one more ti, hoping he hadn’t missed anything important.

Three hallways led into the room; two he had barred and closed, and the third he originally entered through was trapped with retrievers. The pillars down the length of the room separating it had been further enforced with greenery, making three definitive straight paths, each strewn with occasional touches from Vrax for cover. Everything had thin, grasping rose vines snaking slowly across them like a blind guardian.

The shrub was dead center, ready to be used as fuel for his shield or his stigmata. And the entire room swirled with dandelion seeds trailing around hungrily. One much larger, piercingly bright seed still sat on its stalk, quivering, just waiting to be dislodged. Malice had perched on the side of one of the stone walls and was absorbing the sun’s rays.

Alright, we're here. I have so traps… though not as many as I would like… Duchess is overhead, Malice and Lux are here with , and Sunshine and the Mangler are on tap. Gods, I hope this is enough.

A gust of air carrying a strong floral note wafted into the room. Vrax looked up at the trapped hallway; a thick rolling tide of deep green moss that nearly reached the ceiling was inching towards the greenhouse.

Alright, Vurune, if this doesn’t impress you, I’m going to be pissed. Vrax clambered onto the top of a pillar, settling into an adapted patch of roses, and let their thorns entomb his armored form and faded into their shadows.