Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 29: Inscriptions

Zac was kneeling next to the body of the female ranger, panting with exhaustion.

The hunt luckily had ended quite quickly. She had immediately tried to run when Zac started approaching, jumping from one tree to another. Her speed up among the branches had actually been slightly higher compared to his own down on the ground.

She likely was a Dexterity based class. She even had the time to shoot a few arrows while fleeing. Zac was fully focused on keeping up, so could only manage to deflect the projectiles if they headed straight toward his head or chest. That was because he simply held his axe right in front of his throat, moving it slightly upwards or downwards to intercept the arrows.

Suddenly, as she had tried to jump to a branch on another tree, Zac had used a sneak attack with his last dagger. As she was mid-air he flung it with full force, punching a hole in her back.

She didn’t immediately die from the attack, but she did fall down from the tree tops. And before she managed to get back on her feet, Zac was upon her. He ended the fight with a swing without any words. He didn’t want another suicide bombing incident on his hands, after all.

It was lucky as well, because if that dagger didn’t hit, he’d likely have been forced to flee instead. He didn’t want to try throwing his axe, as it was his most important tool for survival on the island. Then the enemy would have a detailed description of him and his power.

He grabbed her bag and found some cloths he assumed were for bandages. After a quick sniff to make sure that it wasn’t actually doused in some chemical or the like he used it to bandage himself up. His whole body had holes punched in it, from everything between arrows and roots, and the bandage was only enough to treat the worst ones.

He was still bleeding, but it seemed that the wounds hadn’t hit any major arteries or organs. By now normal puncture wounds usually stopped bleeding by their own after a few hours. He could still tentatively put weight on the leg, but he wouldn’t run a marathon. His whole body felt like he had been used as a punching bag, mainly from the black lightning of the leader.

Unfortunately the ranger’s bow had snapped when she fell down from the tree, so he didn’t bother taking it with him as he planned to leave.

He did take the quiver and remaining arrows though, as they had survived the fall. He also skipped taking the armor, as his axe had destroyed the whole thing.

After dragging the body into some thick bushes, he turned back toward the location of the fight with the others. After slowly waking back for a bit he was there.

A barghest had found its way to the corpses from somewhere, but surprisingly it didn’t eat the corpses. Zac had seen those demons eat everything, including members of their own race before, so it was interested that this barghest only dared to sniff and growl anxiously at the corpses.

It reinforced Zac’s suspicion that these demons were not wild animals, rather beasts reared by the humanoids. They were a good tool to use as a meat shield to weaken and tire the enemy. Of course, they didn’t seem to work too well in the complicated terrain of the island. Zac edged to the beast and killed it with one strike as it was distracted by the bodies.

He didn’t bother with it anymore and walked over to the leader. He was most excited about the gear on him, and it was largely intact. The fractals had protected the demon from Zac’s strike on the chest, and the finishing blow had been on his head, which kept all the gear in good working order.

Zac, who was getting more and more adroit in undressing corpses, nimbly loosened the clasps and buckles, and dragged the chest plate from him. He also gingerly touched the great sword, afraid that he would get zapped again.

Fortunately there was no charge left it seemed, and he picked up. The sword was actually lighter than he expected. Of course, he was a bit unsure of his current strength, so making exact measurements was hard.

He carefully looked through the weapon for some hidden function. The leader clearly had been unarmed one second, and in the next holding this monstrosity. It must have come from somewhere.

Zac suspected the sword might be able to grow and shrink at command, and it simply was too small for him to notice before. Or the sword might be able to turn invisible.

After a quick rundown he couldn’t figure it out, and he did not want to delay too long here in case reinforcements arrived. He quickly stripped all remaining items from the leader, including a pouch, a few runed bracelets, and the large knife.

He put all of it inside a backpack, then proceeded to do the same with the other two fighters. He left their weapons and armors though, as he simply was overburdened as is. Just bringing back the sword would be arduous with his battered body.

Finally he dragged the bodies away and looked over the battlefield. A discerning eye would quickly notice that a battle took place here, but Zac couldn’t be too bothered anymore. This was the second scouting party he had killed, besides a herald and a throng of demons.

The humanoids would have to be crazy to not know that someone was hunting them by now. They had seen the trap used to kill the herald, so they knew it wasn’t a beast either.

He wasn’t too sure why they weren’t scouring the island for him. He guessed they either had limited resources or was preoccupied with something else. Who knew, maybe there actually was a city with humans hidden in the mountains that waged war on the demons.

He put the axe into his belt end hefted the great sword over his shoulder and turned back. He had been out for half the day, and either had to turn back soon or sleep in one of his hideouts.

He decided to head back, as the fight had given him some insights about the inscribed items that he wanted to try out in a safe environment.

Zac started heading back, heading a slightly altered path. Even if he was hurt it wasn’t to the point that he couldn’t hunt some demon dogs on the way back. The worst part was his leg, and luckily the demons always came running so he didn’t have to chase them.

He soon ran into one and with a swing of the great sword completely split the barghest in two. The sword continued with its momentum and slammed into a tree, cutting clean through it.

The power was great, but it felt too unwieldy for jungle warfare. More importantly, Zac noticed that killing the barghest with the sword didn’t improve his quest for axe mastery. On second thought he felt it made sense that the kills had to be made with an axe to complete an axe mastery quest.

As he continued on he had to continuously swap weapons every time he ran into a demon.

Finally he arrived at his camp as the suns were starting to set. After the customary sweep he entered the camp. He threw some lumber into the fire pit and lit a small fire, and got some more dried meat. He was starting to run low so he’d have to hunt something edible tomorrow as well.

His wounds had actually turned a lot better during his hike back, as he hadn’t sustained any new wounds from the lesser demons.

A quick glance at his status screen showed that he had gained roughly 10 000 Nexus coins in one day. It made sense, as he had more than doubled the speed of killing barghest with his upgrades. Furthermore, the demons seemed to give out roughly a thousand Nexus Coins each.

Zac was somewhat surprised to find out that he actually had gained nexus coins and cosmic energy from the demon that the leader accidentally killed. He had somewhat felt the rush of energy during the fight, but at the time had been preoccupied with getting zapped by demon lightning.

He also felt that he almost had gained half a level from the intense fights. Risking your life really was the most effective way of getting stronger with the system.

His Axe mastery had progressed as well, currently showing a (69/1000) progress. Most of the kills had been barghest while traveling, with a few of the more agile Gwyllgi peppered in every now and then. Zac felt that if he put his mind to it then he could kill roughly 100 lower demons a day, which would allow him to complete the quest in another 10 days.

He decided to put the 10 days as a deadline. He would also match the quest for Chop, so he’d chop a thousand times a day. Zac figured it’d take somewhere around two hours per day to get it done. He had no real idea as of yet what to do with the last skill, as it still showed 0/30.

He turned his gaze toward the day’s pile of loot after being finished with his meal. He had gained a whole new set of gear and a sundry of miscellaneous items in the backpacks. At the battle site he hadn’t had time to properly go through everything so he planned to do so now.

The two underlings had had small leather bags that were attached to their belts on their back. In them were nothing of value. It held some gauze, flint, a whetstone, a small knife that seemed to not be for battle and a small water bottle. It felt like it was some basic ordinance.

Both the bottles had some very rudimentary inscriptions on them so Zac wondered if they had some special function. He poured the water out, but was surprised that the small bottle held far more water than it should.

It took almost two minutes for all the water to pour out. Zac was amazed that some inscriptions could do something magical like this. He felt no cosmic energy movements around the bottles, and it looked normal when he peered inside.

The magic bottle gave him a new idea about the sudden appearance of the giant sword. If a bottle could somehow store large amount of water, then it wasn’t impossible that the leader had some similar gear that could store items.