Mash pulled his staff out of a wolf corpse. The gravity effect made it surprisingly capable of piercing things like a spear. He didn’t have much trouble with the wolves before, and it was even easier now. He was still the last one to finish his fight, and he realized that the others had begun eating a snack and waiting for him. They had probably checked their levels already, and he didn’t hesitate to do the same now.

Name: Mash Stellumbra Class: Draconic Thunder-wood Imitation

Level: 92 → 97

Health: 1703 / 2090

Energy: 1689 / 3560

Fortitude: 210

Endurance: 136

Strength: 171

Agility: 173

Intelligence: 220

Wisdom: 102 → 105

Charisma: 96

Free Stats: 45 → 70

Skills: Hunt, Thunder-wood Creation, Inhuman Hibernation, Monstrous Transformation, Thunder-wood Imitation, Draconic Domain, Adaptable Monster Core, Monstrous Humanity, Wooden Body, Mimic’s Avarice, Golden Body

It was a lot less than last time but there were fewer wolves this time too. Most of them had probably been at the hot spring when they had arrived, and these were just the leftovers. Still, he was happy with the gains. This time he made sure to eat some wolves while they were alive, and he received a small boost to his stats from them. He was surprised to see the improvement had been in his wisdom as most monsters improved his physical attributes. He should’ve tested the transformation and the new affinities after the last pack, but he hadn’t worried about it too much. While fire and ice magic was useful, he had been focused on working without skills for the past few days. Honestly, learning the other affinities would be annoying, and he would work on them when he had the chance.

Three levels were a lot considering how many wolves he killed. He had made a mistake t the start of the fight, not adjusting properly for the shift in weight, and letting one of the wolves get a nasty bite on him. It wasn’t so bad that he couldn’t heal on his own, but it stung a little bit as he walked over to the others. The injury had been on his thigh, though the wound was mostly gone now. Just some lingering pain persisted when he applied a lot of pressure. That would fade on its own, and even faster if he meditated.

He walked over to the others, plopping down on the ground beside them to start meditating. They were on the outskirts of the forest, and the trees looked normal now. Brown wood and green leaves adorned the trees here. The grass was a bit taller too, though he was more excited about where they were headed. According to the map, it was essentially called the Riverlands, or at least that was what the name translated to. Either way, it sounded like a nice place. He enjoyed the water and was excited to see it.

They would know it when they got there as, the ground was entirely made of wide stones, and water continuously flowed over the top of it. Aifells’ people didn’t know where the water came from but suspected it had to do with the flow of water between two larger bodies of water. The assumption came from the fact that the water shifted the direction of its flow regularly. There were apparently two oceans beside the lands, and it was believed the water came from both.

After recovering with his meditations, they continued to head northward. Flying made it easy to see where they were going, and the maps were designed for those who could fly. There were no other monsters along the way, and they only had a vague idea of what to expect from the monsters. From the description that they received, the monsters they were hunting would have an outer shell that was vaguely blue or purple. She also mentioned that the monsters had nasty weapons on their arms, a type of claws that were strangely shaped.

Eventually, he caught a glimpse of their destination as the forest ended. The forest seemed to end suddenly, and he saw the smooth grey stone of the Riverlands. He didn’t expect it to be so flat. It almost felt like it was made intentionally but that was impossible considering the size. It was far bigger than he thought it would be, and he didn’t actually see an end to it for a while. There was something in the distance, but he could only make out shadowy shapes. There was a fog resting just above the stone, reminding him of the clouds above.

[Let’s land. I kind of want to travel on foot.]

Mash sent the message, heading down as he sent the message. He let the wooden shoes he normally wore fall away. They fell somewhere in the forest, but it didn’t really matter to him. He splashed a little as he landed, the water chilling his feet a little. The water wasn’t high enough to even reach his ankles, and only barely covered his feet. He liked the feeling though, and it rippled outward as he stepped. The other landed shortly after he did, the water getting pushed more violently as they did. He looked around trying to find the monsters but didn’t’ see anything. According to Aifell, the monsters were enormous, and he wondered why they couldn’t see any of them. There were supposed to be a lot of the creatures.

“Shouldn’t we have seen the monsters already? I don’t think I saw any when we were flying either.”

Luke sounded concerned looking around somewhat nervously. From what Aifell had said, they should’ve been able to find the monster already. Then, Mash noticed something within his domain, and the fog parted as an impossible large limb crashed into the stone beside him. The limb alone was as tall as a city’s walls. He noticed several joints along the blue carapace, and it ended in a pointed tip that somehow didn’t break the stone. It made a loud clacking noise, but the stone was undamaged. Mash wondered how hard the stone was.

With his domain, Mash was able to feel what was happening. The creature was appearing out of the fog. It wasn’t camouflaged but was materializing from within the fog. A teleportation skill perhaps? That seemed likely, and he bet that it was reliant on the fog.

“They can teleport in the fog!”

Mash yelled the words while preparing to blast the creature with lighting. He raised his hand towards where he assumed the creature’s main body would materialize, but Jill appeared beside him, knocking his hand further up.

“That’s where the main body is, and don’t use lightning.”

She sounded casual, but he could tell that she was somewhat excited. She probably thought that fighting an enemy that could teleport would provide an adequate challenge. Mash was about to question her about the lightning but realized that they were standing in water. If they were all flying, he would use it, but for now, he could rely on raw strength. If he was going to rely on his physical abilities to kill the monster, then he would probably need his dragon form. Scales started growing on him, layering themselves like armor.

Mash followed Jill’s gaze as the fog, parted to reveal the monster. It was even bigger than he had imagined. The creature’s body was probably as big as a castle, but its legs were even bigger than he imagined. It had six pointed legs, that bent multiple times before reaching a flat round body. It had two large arms, both ending with thick pincers. The entire thing was a mix of blue and purple. Mash couldn’t make out much of the main body but saw two black eyes staring down at them. They were round and pure black, looking more like gems than eyes.

Mash leaped towards the body; his dragon wings finished forming during the leap. He sped up, as he struck the monster’s underside with a closed fist. There was a loud cracking noise as his fist collided with the shell. He was amazed that it managed to hold together after a strike from him. Even if it was a shell, he didn’t think a monster at this level would be able to resist his raw strength. Something struck him from the side, sending him crashing and skipping along the stone ground. He had barely even made out the attack in his domain but understood what had happened a second later. One of the creature’s arms had just materialized beside him at the moment of the attack. Then its whole body vanished and reappeared around the claw that had swatted him. The attack had only done a small amount of damage, but Mash had landed awkwardly and had to push himself up on to his hands.

Instinctively, he rolled to the right, as another pointed leg attempted to skewer him. Another of the monsters materialized. Mash was surprised to see that the stone seemed fine despite his crash landing and the fierce attacks of the monster. He really had to wonder what the stone was made of.

“Here come more!”

Red’s voice was echoed by a similar shout from Luke. Mash realized abruptly that the fog had thickened, and he could only barely make out where the others were. It seemed like they had run into a pack of the monstrous crabs. When he saw the full body up close, he knew that these things were crabs. He wondered how many there would be but decided to focus on the two before him. The others sounded like they had run into their own enemy, which meant that he needed to defeat the ones in front of him. Eating these could be useful too. A teleportation skill of any kind would be nice to get, although he couldn’t be certain that he would get it. The defensiveness of a shell could also be valuable.

With a bit of desire in mind, he leaped at the new crab, hoping to take it off guard. He clenched his hand tightly, attempting to swing even harder with his next blow. It never landed, and jets of water lanced at him from the first crab. It was far faster than he thought water could move, and it struck his scales with a lot of force. He was sent flying and was surprised to realize he couldn’t push against it with raw strength. He hit the stone hard, but it didn’t even get a single crack. The water on the ground splashed and was pushed away from him as the jets of water grew more intense. Thinking quickly, he focused on his anti-magic attempting to make a shell of it like the demons had.

While it didn’t stop the water completely, he did manage to lessen the force a little. It was enough and he managed to use his wings to push himself to the side. It got him out of the stream and let him dodge another descending leg. He noticed a shadow moving on the ground and started changing to his treant form. As his form changed, he began growing some wood around him in the form of a giant spike. With Priscilla’s help, he covered it with hardening glyphs and poured mana into it. It only partially worked as his transformation took a while to take form. Still, it turned out to be good enough.

The monster’s claw smashed against the wooden spike and cracked as it had from his earlier punch. However, the sharper shape of the wood let it pierce through the shell partially. Oddly green blood fell onto the spike as it raised its injured claw. Mash didn’t let it go that easily though, taking advantage of his form to start forming a treant imitation on him. As he did so, Priscilla started covering it with hardening and gravity glyphs, making the whole imitation function like the quarterstaff. This was his first time using the treant imitation since getting the golden body, and he was surprised by the difference. The imitation’s legs linked together and formed into a tree where its branches acted as arms. He was surprised to realize that he couldn’t actually move from where he was growing, but he didn’t think it mattered.