Blake walked back out into the wilds with a new quarterstaff in-hand. It was a simple shaft of rough wood with a metal cap at each end. Looking at it, two contribution points might even have been a scam, but he had no idea how much a contribution point was worth.

  He walked until he couldn’t see the pavilion behind him anymore, then stopped, turned to the woods, and slipped the Honour Ring back onto his finger. “Alright, Ethbin. You know the plan?”

  I’ve got an idea, Ethbin replied. I’m more concerned about your…level of exhaustion, and how many rations you have left.

  Blake winced, then pulled open his backpack. He only had two ration packs left, which, if he was careful, could last him two days.

  “Then we’ll have to kill this fogterror quickly,” he said. “It’s the only way to get into the sect, right? Unless there’s another sect somewhere nearby.”

  Not within a two days’ walk. And even then, if you found another pavilion, it would likely still be part of the Hunter’s Sect. Sounds like there are only two sects worth paying attention to out here: the Red Pine Hunters and the Green Bears. A fur trading organization, and a more traditional martial arts organization.

  “How do these sects…work?” Blake tilted his head. “Like, so, this is a branch of a bigger sect? Ulfreld isn’t the sect leader, is he?”

  He’s simply a lower elder, Ethbin explained. There is the core of the sect, which they usually call the inner court. Then the lesser branches, the tendrils that leech out into the surrounding area, expanding the Hunters Sect’s control, are outer court pavilions. They’re outposts, usually. We are likely quite far from the inner court pavilion.

  Blake nodded, then kept walking. “So even if I left, and tried to find a different pavilion, I’d have the same troubles. They probably wouldn’t let me join without a test of some sort.”

  Correct.

  “At least we have a somewhat precise location. Just gotta figure out where this Imor Ridge is. You wouldn’t happen to know?”

  I do not know the geography of your planet, kid.

  Neither did Blake, because technically, this wasn’t even Earth. It was slice of a different planet altogether. “It was worth a shot…” Blake muttered.

  He trekked until he reached the village, using his new staff as a walking stick. It was slightly flexible, and more so than the rebar he’d been using before, but with its thickness, it was heavier. It would take some getting used to, but at least he had something to use.

  When he reached the village, he asked anyone who wouldn’t run away immediately where Imor Ridge was. It took a little while, but eventually, he surmised that it was at the top of the valley he’d come from, the top specifically immersed in the mists, and the ridge itself was a row of jutting stone wedges that stood on the very border. He could only barely see it from here.

  Still, he walked until he reached it. He’d walked plenty before, and spent many days standing, but something about today left a bit more of a dull ache in his legs. Perhaps it was because it felt like he was backtracking.

  By the time he reached Imor Ridge, the sun was setting behind the mountains on the other side of the valley, and it shone directly on the rolling fog surrounding the ridge. Just over the top of the fog, he could see the very top of the manaship still hovering over the city in the distance, back across the merge border.

  Blake climbed up the first wedge until he found a sheltered crevice. He could go looking for monsters—or more accurately, a fiend—in the morning. But the ridges themselves were bigger in person, and they reminded him of an enormous lizard’s scales. Judging by the lack of trees, and how the landscape around them had been torn up, he guessed they hadn’t been here before the Integration, on this planet or Earth. The fog of the merge-mists washed up and over it in the wind and got caught in the scales, leaving it swirling in the low patches.

  Blake slept with Ethbin keeping watch, but nothing came to visit him. Nothing hostile, at least.

  In the morning, he awoke with something faintly nudging the side of his head. It was surprising soft, but also cold, like it was made of water, and—

  He bolted upright when he saw the blue face of the baby eiknir. It jumped back in fright, too, but then walked in a circle and dipped its head. It nudged his backpack with one of its hooves, then bleated softly.

  “Hungry?” Blake asked. “Tired of foraging?”

  Clearly, it had a way of living on its own without his good graces. And he knew he shouldn’t feed wild animals, but the way the eiknir looked at him…with its head tilted, its black eyes soulful…

  “Alright, fine, you got me,” he muttered. As he ate his breakfast, he fed it again. Then, he said, “Well, I’ve gotta get moving, little guy. Uh, girl. You finish up here. I’ll try to be quick and finish the job today, and then I’ll have extra rations on the way out.”

  He secured his backpack, tightened the straps, then marched out of the rock crevice he’d camped in. It was damp, and his shirt was soaked again, but at least it was somewhat warm outside. The seasons would change soon, but not just yet.

  “I had one day of warmth…” he muttered. “And half a day to dry off…”

  But once he got into the sect, he reminded himself, he’d have plenty of time to dry off and warm up.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He walked the ridge for the entire morning, scrambling over boulders and using his slightly enhanced strength and durability provided by the Honour sea to jump down off ridges or cross large gullies.

  The entire Imor Ridge seemed a lot larger up close than it did from a distance. Even if the fogterror hadn’t moved off, there wasn’t much chance of finding it quickly.

  That is assuming it hasn’t noticed you, Ethbin said. It is a predator too, and chances are, it has locked onto you. It’s probably following you as well.

  “Can you sense it?”

  It is very effective at veiling itself. That’s one of its best strategies. It can perfectly avoid a cultivator’s spiritual senses.

  For a moment, Blake considered ‘veiling’ himself too. He knew that most cultivators could hide their presence through a method they called veiling, though he didn’t know what it did. For him, it would be much easier. He could just break his connection with the elixir vial.

  But there was no point. He wanted the fogterror to find him, and it was better to pretend he didn’t know it was following him.

  Mid-afternoon, when he was about to jump across a ravine, he saw a glimmer of gray movement out the corner of his eye. It blended into the rock, but something was there. He looked closer. Too much fog, too many loose stones and boulders. Something could have been hiding anywhere. But he knew the general direction.

  Making himself look vulnerable, he jumped across the ravine. Sure enough, a foggy blur surged toward him mid-jump, trying to hit him while vulnerable and drag him down. He swung his staff out, calling on Honour and his annoyance with the beast. An ambush? While it was stronger than him?

  Honour swelled, and he used an Augmentation technique, while pushing Honour through his lungs and heart. His new staff hit something with a deep crack and sent it flying to the side.

  Blake landed on the other side of the ravine in a crouch, then looked down at the beast.

  Its body was wreathed in swirling thunderclouds, like the fog was its fur. They crackled and sparked with miniature bolts of lightning. It crawled on four legs, moving like a lion, and each of its feet was reptilian—covered in black scales, and tipped with glowing talons. When they touched the rock below, they crackled with static.

  Instead of a head, it had only a black, humanoid skull, with clouds swirling below, and two black horns sticking out the top.

  Fiend. Fogterror.

  “It’s the right strength?” Blake asked.

  Equivalent to Body Tempering Three, Ethbin confirmed.

  Blake took a two-handed grip on his staff, turned his head slightly, then jumped down. He held his staff up to strike. Augmenting his arms with Honour, brought the staff down in a heavy smash on the beast’s skull.

  It dipped to the side, and his blow missed. The beast slithered, moving faster than it should have been able to. As his staff cracked down into a rock, shattering it, the fogterror charged from the side. It slashed at him with long talons.

  Blake redirected his Augmentation and pushed himself away, dodging as quickly as he could, but the beast’s talons still raked his side. Lightning arced into his body, lighting up his channels and sending shocks down his spine. The impact alone sent him tumbling over the rocks.

  When he came to a stop, crackling electricity still rolled off his fingers. He shook himself out and shuddered, then turned back to the beast. The lightning had taken a very specific route through his channels, and…instead of frying his flesh, it had tried to do spiritual damage.

  There was pain. It was the same type of pain as trying to open a meridian, and thank the Fates it had been a Smite technique, only taking a path through the Aes channels. But the pain was nothing compared to trying to open the meridians in the first place.

  He looked back at the fogterror and smirked. “Alright, beasty. That wasn’t so bad. Now it’s my turn.”

  The fogterror was eerily silent. Its black skull, nearly three times the size of a human’s, turned to face him. Its loose jaw didn’t even move. There was only a faint static crackle.

  Blake charged toward it, holding his staff out. He feigned a swing before he arrived, then planted the staff down and used it to launch him forward and up. His feet connected with the startled beast’s skull, shifting it back into the creature’s body with a horrible crack.

  The skull was made of some kind of black stone. It didn’t break under the pressure, which was probably a good thing, because he needed to bring it back to the hunters.

  As the beast staggered back, it slashed with its claws, but Blake was already dodging to the side. They cleaved the air in front of his nose, crackling with lightning, but this time, they didn’t connect.

  He couldn’t see a weakness, but that never stopped him before.

  Most monsters have weak points, Ethbin said. Cultivators exploit them.

  “Yeah, but I’m not really a cultivator,” Blake replied, dodging away from another claw slash.

  It is called Honour cultivation for a reason.

  “Eh, that’s not what I meant,” Blake replied. He swatted one of the beast’s limbs away, matching its enhanced strength with his Augmentation. “And unless you can find a weak point, then I’m going to go with the good old reliable.”

  Which is?

  “Hit it really…hard!” Blake sprang off a rock, then, holding his staff with both hands, brought it down on the beast’s back. The new, heavier staff bent slightly, flexing as a staff was supposed to, and collided with the beast’s back with a satisfying crack. It did twice as much damage as a length of rebar would’ve.

  The fogterror fell to the side, its legs buckling. Lightning surged up, trying to snake back through Blake’s channels. It took the same route through his body as before and struck a point deep within him, some place he couldn't yet identify, before he got it under control and expelled it.

  He didn’t know how long he battled the creature. Half a minute, maybe three, it was all the same. He dodged, swiped, striked, and weathered the lightning. It seared him, but he kept it under control, ensuring that he expelled the mana before it did any serious damage. The bigger concern was the beast’s claws, which earned him a few slashes and scrapes, and one close call near his throat.

  Until finally, he landed another good blow and flung it to the side—into one of the rocky scales. It tried to get up, but he didn’t let it. He darted over to it and slammed his staff down again and again, dispersing chunks of cloud, cracking fiend bone. The more he hit it, the harder the lightning snapped back. He had to end this sooner than later, and he couldn’t let up.

  “Just…die already!” he snapped. “Disgusting fiend!”

  The clouds dispersed, whisking off into the air, and he fell back. The beast wasn’t moving anymore, but he poised to strike it one more time, this time aiming for the skeletal joint between its fiend body and its skull.

  The world would be so much better without fiends. Without demons. With one last shout, he unleashed the blow.

  Bone cracked, and the skull fell loose. Victory was his.