Divine Beast Ascension

Chapter 523: Hiding in the Snow

Oli was relieved not to feel any of his anxiety from the night before, nor did he sense anything out of the ordinary.

As dawn appeared, the entire team was awoken to throw together some fast food. The wood and carcasses were recollected, the fire was doused and buried with snow, and the team moved out without any worries. Everything went smoothly as they pressed on under the growing daylight.

Very quickly, the scenery began to feel... redundant. With so much of the same terrain contained in a blistering storm, it was hard for the surroundings to feel new. Even fresh tracks would be covered in a matter of minutes thanks to the wind and snow. So not only would hunting and tracking be far more difficult, it was hard for the team as a whole to keep track of an environment that never seemed to change. Without the beacon, everyone was sure they’d have gotten lost and walked in circles now that the mountainside was falling out of view.

But they could only press on. So, they stuck to their formation and traveled at a relatively slow pace while being as aware of their surroundings as possible.

By noon, the party was eating basic jerky and cheese rations while moving along. Since they were moving so slowly already, they did their best to take as few breaks as needed. However, Fulkar quickly signaled for the party to stop.

“... I think we’re about to be attacked. And we might be surrounded,” Fulkar stated while scanning every possible direction to confirm his own thoughts. “I think it’s more lizards. And they’re concentrated over there.”

Oli leaped away from the team, aiming where Fulkar had directed. “Prepare to defend yourselves!”

.....

“Yes, sir!”

KHIIIIZZ! Khiz! Khiz! Khiz!

With Oli charging and the entire team on guard, a blue lizard two and a half bromes tall popped out of the snow. Its cry pierced through the weather and alerted every nearby lizard, causing the whole pack to burst out of the snow all at once. While three normal lizards were standing between Oli and their leader, there were also nine other lizards surrounding the rest of the team.

But Oli acted without delay. He had already retrieved both his gauntlets and his new mace. Showing no mercy or hesitation, Oli’s mace crashed down on the first lizard that dared to slow him down. And within a second, earth and dark essence crushed through the lizard’s insufficient essence, the mace turned the lizard’s internals to mush, and Oli spun around to swing anew at his next target.

KHIZ!!

A shrill, sudden cry rang out from the lead lizard as it darted toward Oli with impunity. It smacked the backmost lizard to the side and dove to confront Oli.

Yet it was too late to save Oli’s second victim from having their arm and neck crushed with a single swing.

“Too slow!” Oli roared and stopped in his tracks. He could sense the difference in power between the leader and its followers, so Oli didn’t dare take the leader lightly, not when it was a peak-elder.

The normal lizard by Oli ran to join the others, forming a ten-lizard perimeter around the four team members.

“Any ideas?” Fulkar asked while readying his sword and essence.

“Well, I’m sure Yeter wants to fight them all at once. Should we let him?” laughed Trenk, making sure the tension of the situation wouldn’t overwhelm anyone.

Yeter accepted the challenge and kicked up some snow. “Bring it! None of them stand a chance!”

“Stick together!” Oli shouted out his order, “Yeter, make sure we can keep an eye on you. We can’t get separated inside a blizzard!”

“Will do!” Yeter yelled. He started sprinting in a tight circle around the party. But after one lap, Yeter adjusted his path and dared to plow through the entire encirclement with his strangely thin essence armor, which Zelsh had modeled after Bradok’s.

The first lizard fell for the ploy and was trampled to pieces under the charge, unable to breach Yeter’s defenses. This put the other nine on alert and forced them to all evade as quickly yet narrowly as possible, or else they would leave a gap for their prey to flee.

However, the team had no plans to back down and turn tail. They were fully ready to defeat their enemies and restock on lizard meat.

Trenk and Fulkar stood on opposite sides of Freele while launching attacks at a lizard each. Fulkar caught his target off balance thanks to Yeter’s crazed charge, allowing Fulkar to make a quick killing blow. Though Trenk wasn’t as lucky, he still managed to land an attack on his reptilian target.

At the center of it all, Freele created a powerful ball of light and raised it over her head to make sure everyone’s visibility was as good as it could get. Then, a small tempest began to gather around her palm before it expanded and flew out toward two lizards.

One lizard backed away but the other dared to confront the tempest. And it instantly regretted taking that challenge. It had greatly misjudged the tempest which was dwarfed by the ongoing storm around them. A barrage of slicing winds hacked into the lizard as it backed away, leaving it bleeding and limping.

In a matter of seconds, the four-person group instantly killed two lizards and crippled two more, leaving only six white lizards fully capable of fighting back.

Khi- KHI- KHIZ!

The lead lizard immediately understood what the problem was. It had unestimated the five-man team and was wrong to rely on numbers to overcome its prey. But whenever the lead lizard tried to cry out for its comrades, Oli’s mace would get in the way and force the lizard’s full attention back to him.

Oli didn’t care about the other lizards. He could see well enough to know that his team was just fine. And Oli easily understood that the lead lizard was already considering flight as its next course of action. So Oli had no choice but to end the fight quickly and suddenly.

C-crsh...

Without warning, Oli’s mace slipped out of his hands mid-swing and skidded through the snow.

The lead lizard noticed the error and moved to capitalize on it. Without the menacing mace, the lead lizard felt much better about its odds to win. Ice covered its entire body and formed extended claws and fangs, giving the lizard a sharp increase in offensive power. Then, without waiting, the lizard lunged at full speed, making use of its snowshoe-like feet to gain another advantage.

Oli seemingly panicked and tried to back away. But his footing slipped, causing Oli to fall onto his back.

It was a dream come true for the lizard, so it fully committed to a killing blow against the floundering human.

C-crack! CRACK!

An earth essence hammer suddenly collided with the lead lizard’s head, landing at the same time as the lizard’s clawing attack. However, it was only the ice that cracked and gave way in the collision. The icy claws failed to fully breach Oli’s defenses, but Oli’s sharply pointed essence hammer shattered the lizard’s ice armor and cracked its unsuspecting skull. And an ethereal, spiritual pressure brutally crashed down onto the lizard’s unguarded soul.

KHIIiiizz...

The lizard’s final breath was drawn out as its skull caved in and its blood painted the snow crimson.

Some of the other lizards noticed their boss’s struggling cry. But most of them were either unable to hear it or too focused on survival to care.

Another lizard had been crushed under Yeter’s hooves thanks to Trenk kiting and distracting it. Freele finished off her injured opponent and kept the other at bay. Fulkar also claimed another lizard’s life, not losing track of any trying to lurk and move under the cover of the deep snow.

Oli quickly recovered his thrown mace and jumped into the party dynamic, crushing a distracted lizard with ease. That left only four more lizards on death’s doorstep.

Not even a minute later, all lizards were dead and their flesh was stored in the team’s food stock. The team also started cleaning up the battle scene. If there was red snow anywhere, they did their best to cover it up before moving along. The last thing they wanted was to get tracked by whatever it was that normally preyed upon lizards.

Once everything was covered as best it could be, Oli and Fulkar led the party back on course. They sped up the pace a bit, but only for about half an hour. That was to try and put distance between them and the place where so many lizards had died. Then, the team was back to its steady pace, marching and trudging through the snow.

But Oli remained vigilant. Though his senses were heavily weakened in the current terrain and weather, Oli kept his eyes peeled for anything that dared to track down the party. He had already felt like they had been targeted before, so he didn’t dare assume it wouldn’t happen again, especially after walking away from a bloody battle.