Thirty-Three
“CLEAR!” Alice bellowed as her shield exploded in a spray of crystal shrapnel. E-grade insectile monsters, each the size of a man, dissolved into green and white paste. Alice’s laughter rang out as Regrowth blazed and the shield rebuilt itself in a moment, crystals appearing in a new design as Alice swung her arm in a wide swing to split another of the creatures in half, the razor sharp edges splitting E-grade carapace with ease.
“Down!” Alice barked and Kon leapt behind her as her shield widened. A moment later the world exploded as all those shards she had launched detonated.The hive shook, chunks of earth fell in a rain that shattered across the ground. Smoke and viscera choked the area as Kon peaked over the edge of the shield to see the path through the hive was clear.
“Most of the time I don’t like bugs, but these have been entertaining,” Alice said as she crushed a mortally wounded bug's head under the heel of her boot.
“You’re just saying that because you get to try out your new toys,” Kon said as he started down the closest hallway. That these bugs weren’t in a rift but had rather built their hive in reality had made them a strategic target. Benny had been clear that the death of the hive and the retrieval of the treasure it had been built around was to be one of the first missions the duo had run together.
Beeny oversaw the hunts the rest of the crew were on, piloting them to hot spots on the mostly abandoned world while Kon and Alice pacified the area. Alice had been enjoying using her shield to great effect, while Kon practiced his few formulas that he knew off the top of his head. Mostly fire based spells that he could power with just the ambient heat in the area. That stripping the heat from a tunnel could leave entire regions covered in ice and frozen corpses was a nice extra to the ability.
His mace still had a bit of gore on it, cracking the bug armor with relative ease the few times they’d gotten close enough to engage him. Kon was itching for a closer fight, ever since he’d pierced D-grade for physical cultivation nothing had been able to challenge him aside from Alice. Who’d used him as a punching bag.
Even without armor and modern weapons, Kon had come so far as to be nearly unrecognizable from who he had been a year ago. It filled him with pride, a sense of accomplishment even if he looked back at who he had been and missed that boy a bit. The innocence that had been stripped away slowly, piece by piece since the first time he’d heard his colony’s warning alarms screeching as rift beasts overran the walls.
“We’re almost there,” Alice said as she walked ahead of him, her long legs eating up the distance with ease. Kon grunted, happy to be finishing up with their little foray. Now that the new cadets were working hard on building their first layer, he wanted to be there for them as they finished inscribing the runes. None of them had shown his instinctive skill with energy manipulation, but all of the mages were skilled at it. Practice from using rift energy through their rigs to cast formulas. More than his own personal growth, watching them rapidly catch up was nice.
His lead in strength was secure and it wasn’t like he was slowing down at all. Benny and Alice had already pulled him to the side to go over the planning for his next layer of runes.
“Head in the game!” Alice barked as they turned a corner and a series of bugs scuttled forward. These were larger, their carapaces thicker, and blade-like mandibles protruded from their mouths as they leapt at the duo.
Kon pulled the heat out from the tunnel, starting five feet in front of Alice. Bugs froze solid as heat filled his skin. Icicles formed around the bugs as they were killed in an instant. Alice sighed in annoyance, carefully shattering the six bugs and pulling out their cores to be thrown into her bulging collection bag.
“Why don’t more people do this? Find some abandoned planet with rifts on it and just clear them? Made more money doing this than we did in months at the damn tournament,” Kon asked.
“Think it through. What advantage do we have over everyone else?” Alice asked as she broke apart another of the monsters.
“Benny,” Kon answered instantly, annoyed he hadn’t thought of it first.
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“And Daniur. Ancients know a lot of shit. A planet they saw starting to be overrun a century ago becomes a perfect spot for a descendant to cultivate. Or they do it themselves,” Alice muttered the last part quietly enough that Kon nearly missed it.
“There’s still lots of old people out there. Shouldn’t these places be cleared up?” Kon asked, genuinely curious.
“Galaxy is a big place. Infinitely expanding one might say. Also, you’ve only experienced the far ends of the spectrum when it comes to traveling. Shit’s expensive and most people will never leave their homeworld let alone their home system. Humans and wolves are the weird ones. Goblins and Teno, groups like that normally stick to small areas where they ply their trades. There’s plenty of little planets like this that are loaded up with monsters and rifts, but they aren’t harvested frequently,” Alice explained.
“Why was Crucible different then? How did it get so strong?” Kon’s question was briefly ignored as they reached the door the big bugs had been guarding and poked their heads inside.
“That’s an evolving monster, right?” Kon asked as they stared together at a cocoon of silk and melted stone. With a clear line of sight, Kon could feel the emanation of power out of it, significantly stronger than everything else they’d fought so far.
“Yeah. Crucible had a large native population. More life forms, sentient life forms too, draws stronger rifts. They fought back but couldn’t contain the rifts, but didn’t die off and started to cultivate the energy. It’s a bigger draw which leads to more and more rifts to come. Rift energy corrupts the local flora and fauna which begins the process even more. Crucible is what Earth will look like when we find it. Except Earth was filled with nearly eleven billion people and we fought for centuries. If nobody has found it, it should be a paradise world for a cultivator. If they’re strong enough to claim it,” Alice said.
“Even when we find it, we’ll have to fight for her,” Kon said with a shake of his head as he entered the room. It was a large dome, the earth had been covered in white silk that had turned the dirt into solid brick. Remnants of meals hung from the webbing, bones and bits of rotting flesh in place. Scattered remnants of eggs near the center of the room showed the room had been a hatchery, but there were no little bugs to be seen.
“Break it before it finishes evolving and kill it?” Kon asked as he hefted up his mace. A bladed weapon would be better, but with the runes he had and the heat buried in his body he could make quick work of the cocoon.
“Not at all. Shouldn’t be more than a day or so before it’s done,” Alice said as she walked around the cocoon, whistling softly as she observed it.
“Huh?” Was all Kon got out.
“Notice anything strange?” Alice questioned him as she walked away from the cocoon and looked through the remnants of the meals still plastered to the walls.
“No baby bugs, nothing living, and no treasure in the room,” Kon listed. Alice nodded along with him and then pointed toward the cocoon with a single finger.
“Monster ate everything it could to get the energy it needed to evolve. Why would we interrupt it before it finishes? I want something a bit more expensive than some mid E-grade cores,” Alice said as she finished her examination of the room and sat down.
“How long till it’s done?” Kon asked, an itch to return back to the cadets burning down his spine.
“Could be up to a day, but can’t you feel the energy around it? It’s rock solid, shouldn’t be that long at all and then we can get a perfectly formed D-grade core instead of some fractured leaking core,” Alice said as she leaned against a pillar and threaded her fingers together and used them as a pillow.
Kon formed a formula and vented the excess heat he’d been holding to the side in a burst of fire that scorched the walls and burned away pieces of the webbing. It was a relief to have that heat gone, but he didn’t like not having power ready to go at a moment’s notice. It’d take a second or two to gather the concentration needed to pull heat out of an area and in that time something could go wrong.
“Relax. I can see that scowl from a mile away. This will be your first D-grade fight, right?” Alice asked.
“The elders at the tournament,” Kon said with a shrug.
“Doesn’t count. This will be your first real D-grade fight. It’s good to get it out of the way now. Need you to start harvesting cores anyway,” Alice said as she stifled a yawn and let her eyes close.
“Are you really going to take a nap?” Kon asked, with an incredulous laugh.
“If someone would shut-up for five minutes, then yes,” Alice fired back and Kon couldn’t help himself as he sat down and kept his eyes locked on the cocoon. He’d be ready for the monster when it broke free and this time the evolving monster wouldn’t have a chance to escape.