Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands (Monster Crafting "Nature" Paladin Lit-Rpg) 130- The First Step

Vraxious— The Forsaken Lands

Vrax stretched his arms out in the fort courtyard while he stared down the pink glowing flowers climbing up the side of the tower. It was ti. It was ti to start taking back hopes' end. The first step to that was simple.

He was going to expand his influence into a noose of lethal foliage and creatures from the paladins' worst nightmares that literally wrapped around hope's end. They were playing it smart right now, waiting in town, holding the line. Probably waiting for so special reinforcents they hoped would change the ga.

Vrax was fairly sure that reinforcent would include his own double agent Slev; he didn’t trust that evil bastard at all, but he did trust that he was rightfully scared shitless of him. And the agreent they had hashed out was basically all upsides for Slev if Vrax succeeded.

Before the reinforcent ca, he intended to have the enemies in hopes end far more worried about being eaten in their fucking sleep than how they were going to cleanse the lands. Vrax gave an evil smile thinking about so of the horrors he had been considering making since he got his class. Most were well within his reach now.

He glanced down at a slightly rotting raven on the ground; maggots were squirming out of its eyes. He reached down and plucked one carefully with his armored gloves. “There is no reason my deadliest creations have to be large.” He whispered to the maggot and then closed his fist, green mana swirling around him intensely as he channeled adapt life.

[Mana 8/306]

Vrax staggered slightly and opened his hand back up, looking at the maggot. It wriggled as if nothing had happened, looking exactly the sa other than a slight green shine to its tiny mouth. Vrax smiled and carefully placed it into his spear along with the magebane worms. He turned to the fallen raven, eager to at least try out his new skill.

If he understood the wording correctly, it would be the first creature he had that would actually follow commands. Ironically making his Loamcaller Vines the safest option he had for fighting around civilians.

He let his mana return to nearly half, then held his hand over the bird, activating the skill. The ground beneath the bird browned slightly, and then the bird shuddered as a thin white stem wound its way through a rotting wound and then out again before diving in and out through the eyes and then the beak, almost like a sewing needle might. A single bloodred flower blood unevenly from the side of the open beak, forcing it into a silent caw, before the entire bird shuddered.

It stumbled to its feet unevenly, and Vrax could feel it, a root-like tether of mana connecting it to him. Almost like a puppet string.

[Mana 150/306]

Oh…that was delightfully cheap on mana for such a minor creature…

He willed it to flutter on top of the fort wall, experinting with his new power. It looked at him, then flew upwards in the most uneven, disjointed flight Vrax had ever seen; the wings beat out of synch, and one of them flapped in shorter sweeps of its wing twice as fast as the other. It heavily alighted on the wall, falling onto its face briefly before righting itself.

Alright…that’s going to take so getting used to, but that confirms one thing I was really hoping for. It should be able to use the physical abilities of the corpse at least…sowhat. That wasn’t a graceful flight, but it could fly.

If I used the power on sothing like a Voruk’s body, it could probably use all the tails and the maw just fine. It certainly wouldn’t be as fast or graceful, but I don’t think that would matter against most average humans facing down a “totally not undead” Voruk being flesh puppeted by a vine.

The limits on it are interesting too; I think I'm just constrained by mana and how long the corpses last before the vine consus them. If I found a monster's lair stuffed with half-eaten bodies, I could probably get an impressive number of them going at once to flood foes with before I ca in half-invisible, surrounded by actual nightmares.

I'll keep an eye on how long that raven lasts to try and get an idea for how long the vine takes to consu its host.

Vrax looked back to the pink climbing vines while letting his mana regenerate more. He waited nearly an hour, the raven still shifting from foot to foot unevenly the whole ti. Once his mana was topped off, Vrax placed his hands onto the side of the tower, wrapping both fists around the neon pink flowers. Please work.

The world around him shuddered as he began channeling Adapt Life. Birds went still, and for leagues around, prey animals shuddered in their burrows. Vrax began shaping the vines into a perfect circle halfway up the tower, creating another kingdom anchor with his talent.

It was like wrestling with the forces of nature themselves. The flowers writhed and bucked, trying to escape his power. Vrax closed his eyes and pushed through, forcing the anchor to form. He felt the circle above him finish, and then a shudder rolled across the landscape.

It wasn’t a physical force; instead, it was pure instinctive fear, the feeling a mouse has as the owl approaches. The deer feels when the wolf is near.

The paladin when my champion approaches.

Vrax snapped his eyes open as that thought was thrust into his mind from Vurune. The flowers above ford a perfect circle on the side of the tower, glowing a deep pink beneath a tangible haze of green shimring energy that lightly wafted down the side of the tower.

[King's Claim Placed]

There was no other notification from the system, just an affirmation that the terrifying presence that had washed over him wasn’t in his head. Instead, it was Vurune happily surveying another patch of land claid in the na of his sole champion. Vrax laid his hand on the new shrine and cast himself into his kingdom's sanctuary; he wanted to see what his borders looked like now.

He had spent days seeding the land with his creations and had left Torvald in charge of spreading his adapted life farther from the grove, so his hopes were reasonably high. His soul was plucked upward and deposited into the simple, plain room. A table in the center of the room held a map depicting his holdings.

A touch of grass and moss crept from the base of the table across the otherwise featureless white room. Vrax looked over the table and its indistinct depiction of his domain; it had zood out dramatically from the last ti he had looked at it.

Most of the city that the ravenous grove was in was now within the border save for the edges farthest into the forsaken lands and the patch that housed the Mimic lord and the aberrant zone in the old zoo.

The border extended out across the fields that held the broken mill and only stopped once it reached the ashen stands, breaking around it like a wave upon a stone. That was where the original king's claim border ended.

Then there was the new anchor Vrax had just placed. Its borders were surprisingly decent, encompassing the fort and stretching out like fingers towards Hope's End and slightly back towards the Ravenous Grove.

The way it sharply warped around certain areas made Vrax almost certain there were powerful beings in those unclaid strips he would have to evict or hunt if he really wanted to solidify his claim in this area. But it was a damn good start, and it let him skip over the ashen stands. He had no idea how he was ever going to claim that region. Hell, he didn’t know if he wanted to.

The fort king's claim reached about a league from the edges of the forsaken lands nearest hope's end. Vrax threw his consciousness back to his body and got to work.

He looked at the radiant elm one more ti but decided not to be that much of a dick and instead started jogging lightly towards Hope's path. He didn’t have Duchess with him at the mont or Lux, so he would try and avoid any direct confrontations with the paladins, but that didn’t an he couldn’t be a problem.

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***

Vrax looked out from the branches of a willow right on the edge of the forest, scanning the field that led right up to Hope's End. He would be shocked if anyone spotted him even if they were right next to him. Forest Specter was putting in work for him right now. The entire tree had glimring touches of green light that had all dimd just the right way to leave the little pocket he was tucked into in shadows.

That wasn’t even counting the few branches that had wound up to drape protectively in front of his fra, utterly annihilating his silhouette. The Loamcaller Raven was still with him, perched quietly on a branch above him. It had lasted longer than he expected, but it was starting to look rough, well, rougher.

A few feathers had fallen off, and the whole head’s flesh had been consud, leaving just the flower sprouting from a bird skull, but it was still going. He looked out over the fire-scorched field ahead. The forces of Rembrandt were actively trying to scour every trace of life from it still.

A small group of two warriors and a paladin that was nearly level ninety angrily walked to a tiny patch of glimring life. A single lurker mushroom not even grown enough yet for its tendril to have ford. Its stabby appendages were just starting to jut from the stem but were still too small to do any harm.

The paladin walked up, shield held in front of him cautiously. He pulled his empty hand back, and a ball of golden light began forming, spinning faster and faster as it shifted from pure mana into a fire so hot the nearby warrior had to step back. He heaved the shimring orb straight at the baby lurker mushroom.

It lazily sailed through the air, leaving a mirage of heat in its wake. When it hit the lurker, there was a dull WUMP sound followed by a screaming column of fire that sucked air in so violently it caused the warriors' cloaks to billow. The fire burned bright in a searing orange column for three heartbeats before dying out suddenly.

The field was so fire-scorched that the impressive smite didn’t even light anything else on fire, simply turning the lurker to ash and making the ground glow slightly. The paladin inspected his handiwork, poking around with a sword in the glowing dirt.

He gave a heavy sigh and gestured with his sword to another spot a dozen strides away that had a singular glimring insect fluttering around an odd bell-shaped plant.

Oh ho, are you guys having a hard ti getting rid of all the traces of adapted life? I hate to tell you this, but it's about to get worse!

Vrax experinted with his range on his cistern briefly; it could reach nearly halfway into the field. A small circular patch of flicker grass sprung up. With a half-grown glimring willow at its center.

Vrax cringed as the paladin imdiately noticed it, but instead of screaming about the forsaken paladin being here like he expected, the man started in on a frustrated tirade while he stomped towards the patch of new life. “This is fucking stupid! We should be hunting this idiot down, not trimming the damned shrubs he leaves behind!” He raged at a soldier next to him.

He didn’t even wait for a response, lobbing another ball of fire into the patch Vrax had just grown with his cistern in a dramatic display. He looked into the burning embers from his full helm, breathing heavily.

Oh wow, how many days has this guy been out here cleaning up the damn field? Half of it looks like fucking glass now…oh…that’s a an idea; there is no way he will be that stupid…

Vrax teased out another tiny mote of power from his cistern, slightly closer this ti just as the paladin turned. The man next to him frowned at the new patch of growth blooming past the still-smoking smited patch. The paladdin looked at his companion’s face, then back at the new patch of life. “Rembrand! Give strength!” He rushed back, already throwing another smite.

Vrax tid the next bit of the cistern's growth with when the smite hit so it would have so cover from the explosion, trying to lure the paladin closer. He looked to the raven and gave it a ntal command. Go attack him when he casts his next smite. The raven took off in an uneven flutter overhead, sailing at a slant towards the n.

The smoke cleared, and the paladin stared in wrathful disbelief at the next patch of greenery that had sprung up another ten strides ahead. “Sir, it’s never done that before. Should we go report it?” A scared-looking fresh-faced warrior with a shield and spear said.

The paladin looked at him like he was stupid. “None of it has ever been done any of this before!” He bellowed, gesturing widely at all of their surroundings and finishing by pointing at the green glittering adapted willows. “That’s why we are here!”

He ignored the warning and stepped forward, already throwing another smite. Vrax smiled; he had wandered dangerously close to the edge of the forest now being far more than three quarters of the way out from the town. The raven hit him square on his helt, ineffectively slamming its beak less skull against his visor and flapping like mad.

It caused his smite to go wide, detonating a few strides from the patch of greenery. The bird survived another half a heartbeat before the paladin caught it in one hand, and fire burned from his palm, turning it and the vine to ashes. He stepped forward wrathfully closer to the next patch of growth. The bird served its purpose and pissed him off even further.

Ahh, yep, I think that’s close enough for this to work. I’m going to have to be quick about this…So much for not engaging with the enemy, but this idiot is all the way out here by himself with just two low-level helpers. I can’t let them think they can trim my garden with impunity…Besides, this guy is one hell of a hothead. I can’t believe his “this is a trap alarm bells haven’t gone off yet.”

As if to prove his point, the Paladin walked damn near next to the patch of verdant, glimring green flicker grass and pointed his hand straight at it, making damned sure he didn’t miss again. When he started gathering mana, Vrax struck.

He poured his cistern of bloom out centered on the paladin and spiraled it outwards while at the sa ti rending so of the forest behind himself to fuel it further.

There was an intense few seconds as Vrax struggled to maintain his focus on the extre use of the skill, pouring life into the barren field while rending it from the forest behind himself.

The effect was imdiate; it was like the Forsaken Lands themselves suddenly lurched forward nearly forty strides into the blasted field. The paladin was surrounded by hissing lurkers and more than one other adapted plant trying to get a nibble of him, and he was separated from his allies by the dense foliage.

Vrax slid from his tree, summoning Malice as he fell. He spurred his mount straight at the flashes of light visible through the trees. Malice made a gleeful cackle before simply flinging himself at dangerous speeds between jutting trees and through more than one thin sapling that couldn’t hold up against his speed.

The paladin was dead ahead and had managed to burn a small clearing around himself. One lurker was already nothing more than smoldering acid; he was squared off with another one and facing away from Vrax and Malice.

The paladin didn’t see the swarm of retrievers sailing toward him until it was far, far too late. They scurried over and around limbs, looping themselves securely. He looked back just in ti to see Vrax pointing into the forsaken lands, directing malice. “Zoomies, buddy, as fast as you can.”

The paladin left the ground in a sudden violent jerk as Malice exploded away, trailing the dangling paladin suspended by dozens of retriever umbilicals like rciless bladed cable. He dangled in the air behind them as they flew forward, bouncing off a tree with a crunch.

Vrax held on for dear life, foliage and monsters zipping by as Malice gleefully tried to beat his previous sprint speed. The Paladin behind them cartwheeled through the dirt, cutting vast rents in the loam and crashing off trees and through bushes.

He finally managed to get his hand wrapped around so of the umbilicals, gaining a small semblance of control over his tumbling. He imdiately began trying to smite Malice. Balls of searing light detonated all around them in the trees as his impressive skill went wide.

Vrax frowned as the man realized he wasn’t going to hit them from his position and began painstakingly pulling himself up the umbilicals like a damned rope, his lower half still dragging through the dirt.

Man, these full-fledged paladins are tough bastards. He’s taken out more than one tree with his damned face, and he’s still coming. Just needs a hard enough knock to finally send him into an eternal…oh duh.

Vrax focused his stigmata drain right behind Malice and rendered the life from a patch of trees they blasted through. An oval portal sprung into existence directly in the paladin's path, and he sailed straight into the waiting arms of the nagerie without even having ti to react.

I need to use that evolution more often. Throwing people straight into the nagerie skips a whole lot of the steps that involve soone trying to stab .

Vrax wheeled Malice back around and cautiously hopped off to peer into his nagerie and make sure his creations didn’t need any help with the battered warrior. “How ya doin in here, buddy?” Vrax snarked as he poked his head inside.

He imdiately had to drop prone as a smite sailed over his head and incinerated a nearby tree. The paladin was knee-deep fighting off everything in the nagerie. A mauler tree was trying to pull his arm off and looked damn close to succeeding. That’s where the random toss of the smite had co from.

His other hand was clutched around a gullet diver dandelion that was quickly cooking alive in his grasp while still trying to stuff its too-wide fra into his visor. Two separate devourers were crowded overhead, feeding tendrils shoved into his armor, awful whirring sounds and blood spatter emanating from them as they fed.

Vrax watched for another few seconds to make sure everything was handled. The man's arm sailed off, and a devourer more or less suddenly got coated in gore as it totally overca his resistances. Seeming to slurp half his blood out in one go and dropping him like an armored rock.

Yeah, they got this. Alright, let's go cause a bit more stress before I skedaddle back to the safety of the grove for a strategy eting.

He stepped back out of the nagerie and leaped onto Malice. “Oh, I’m going to feel this tomorrow; I need a padded saddle. Alright buddy, more zoomies, let’s go!” Malice chittered as he flung them through branches and ferns with reckless abandon back towards Hope's end.