Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 16 - Hunt (Patreon)

The Ruins were well named.

Remnants of a long-dead civilization stood amidst a vast wilderness constrained only by the system of rings and bridges built around the distant core.  It remained thousands of miles away.  Tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands.  And yet, it loomed over everything, roiling with so much energy that, despite being contained by the outer shell, blistered even Ok’tarik’s sturdy skin.

The damage repaired itself as quickly as it burned through his hide, but the pain remained a constant reminder that he did not belong.  By nature, orcs were more resistant to extreme ethera density.  However, that trait proved a thin defense against such volatile energy as what the core emitted.

He’d known to expect it.

As a child, he had experienced something of the core’s power.  He’d only ventured into the outer rings, but even that was enough to melt a young orc into a grey slurry.  He had set himself apart, though.  He was stronger than all his peers, and as such, he had taken part in the First Hunt.

Stalking that little fox was meant to teach him patience – the sort necessary for leadership.  And in that endeavor, it was successful.  The secondary benefit was that enduring the core’s latent ethera would temper his body in a way that nothing else could.  Those orcs who managed to survive were stronger, more durable, and more capable with ethera than their peers.

Only when he interrogated his captive dragon did Ok’tarik realize that the practice tracked a parallel path to what those favored by the system referred to as cultivation.  The levels were obviously different, but it was close enough that Ok’tarik had made the inevitable connection.

Looking back, it all fit together too well to have been a coincidence.  Nor did Ok’tarik think that the Father of All had established it on his own.  For all that he’d founded their civilization, the Father of All was still just an orc. 

Wasn’t he?

Or had he been like Ok’tarik?  Cursed by sapience.  Entranced by the possibilities standing before his people?  Taunted by the system’s refusal to let them truly develop?

The more Ok’tarik thought about it, the more he believed that the Father of All had bypassed the same limitations that Ok’tarik had left behind. 

A depressing notion.

After all, if the Father of All had failed, what hope did Ok’tarik have?  Not only was he meant to fight against orcish nature, but he also had to somehow battle the system as well.  Because he knew that dreaded entity would never allow them to escape the shackles it had imposed upon them.

But Ok’tarik was not one to back down, even when his mission proved hopeless.  He would continue to fight.  That was the orc in him, and it formed the backbone of his resolution for resistance.

Ok’tarik floated miles away from the ring.  Miles behind him was another ring, and there were seventy-one others in expanding circles surrounding the core.  They rotated around the center of Orveth Kaal, imposing their own gravity.  The outer seventy-two rings were overgrown with dense jungles that grew across every surface.  However, the innermost nine rings featured architectural marvels amidst the vegetation.

There were beasts as well. 

Most of them were capable of flight, and they swarmed around the ring.  However, they didn’t venture too far from solid ground. 

Ok’tarik hoped to find his prey there. 

The wyrm had been spotted during the last surge, fighting side-by-side with the mindless beasts who responded to the call.  Every orc in Agmar had rushed to meet the tide, and nearly half the overall fleet had been destroyed in the effort. 

That was how it always went.  Every surge claimed a significant portion of the orcish population, but it would have been much worse had the flood of beasts been left to progress unopposed. 

Ok’tarik had cut his tusks on many such surges, and he’d seen countless orcs destroyed in the effort.  More than once, he had nearly died, but his strength had always won out.

Most were not so formidable.

He pushed himself to his feet, settling them upon a plane of invisible ethera suspended in open air.  The dagger remained in his waistband, and the white paint continued to shimmer, even in the light of the sun.  He stepped forward, the air rippling with each footfall.

His long strides covered a lot of ground, but he didn’t hurry.  Instead, he watched with the keen eyes of a hunter.  As it turned out, his caution was warranted, because a couple hundred yards from the edge of the ring, he was attacked.

The creature came out of nowhere.  An insect of some sort, with a hard carapace covered by bristling hairs.  It was also nearly three times his size, and it lanced in with a pair of pincers that were bigger than Ok’tarik’s arms.

He was unsurprised, though. 

Ok’tarik had felt it coming almost a full second before it appeared out of nowhere.  That brief warning was enough to give him an opportunity to wheel around.  When the insect came in for what it probably imagined – in its tiny mind – would be an easy kill, Ok’tarik caught its pincers, one in either hand.

Even so, the creature’s momentum sent him skidding backward.  The ethera responded to his desperate summons, extending the plane of energy behind him.  Still, his pace nearly outpaced the ability. 

His bare feet dug, and he grunted with the effort of stopping the insect.  Its body curled inward, and its legs came toward Ok’tarik like segmented spears.  They pierced his flesh, sending a cascade of blood raining through the atmosphere.

Ok’tarik ignored it.

Instead, he let out a furious roar as he flexed.  The mandibles resisted his pull, but only for a few moments before the sound of cracking chitin filled the air.  The cracks came one after another in rapid succession as the hard exoskeleton shattered.

Twin rivers of ichor gushed from the broken mandibles.  The insect reeled, its legs stabbing out in chaotic fury.  Ok’tarik pressed his advantage, kicking off a plane of ethera and ramming his forehead into the beast’s injured face.  In a battle between the orc’s skull and the insect’s helmet-like carapace, the skull won.

Chitin broke, and the insect’s hissing screeches took on a note of urgent panic.   It tried to escape, but the force of Ok’tarik’s headbutt had clearly concussed the creature.  As a result, when it did manage to break away, it flew in tight, erratic circles that didn’t help it gain any ground.

Ok’tarik descended upon it with barehanded fury.  With every blow, he cracked more of the creature’s chitinous exoskeleton, and he didn’t stop until the thing fell, flightless and dying.

He stood over it, still suspended in mid-air, as he looked down on its steady descent.  His entire body was covered in ichor, but even so, the paint still showed through. 

Ok’tarik took a deep, steadying breath.  Then, without ceremony, he continued on his way, reaching the edge of the ring after only a few more moments.  The second he stepped upon that surface, he realized that everything had changed.  The ethera density rose to untenable levels, ripping through his skin like molten razors.

He closed his eyes and took hold of it.  Not to absorb, but to control.  To enforce his will upon it.

It defied him, but Ok’tarik was not one to give up at the first sign of resistance. He pushed back, but not with fury.  With the steady pressure of untethered power.  And gradually, the atmosphere gave way, eventually allowing him some measure of peace. 

Only when the burning stopped did he look around.

The jungle was even more impressive up close than it had been from afar.  Thick trees and tangled vines dominated the forest, but there were so many varieties of vegetation that Ok’tarik couldn’t hope to categorize them all.  In addition, he saw hundreds of species of mushroom, mostly on fallen limbs and rotting tree trunks. 

The aura of life energy was so dense that Ok’tarik found it difficult to concentrate.  Only his domain-like technique, learned in part from the Druid, kept him from being overwhelmed. 

The sheer nature of it all constantly pressed in, and even with his personal cloud of ethera surrounding him, Ok’tarik struggled to keep his wits about him.

He also sensed more than a few powerful auras in the distance.  None of them seemed to have taken notice of him, but he suspected it would only be a matter of time before they recognized the intruder in their midst.  When that happened, it would become an all-out war.

Ok’tarik intended to be ready for it.

He stepped into the jungle, pushing a few fronds aside.  In seconds, he was entirely enveloped in vegetation.  The light from the sun disappeared, incapable of penetrating the jungle’s canopy and casting everything in shadowy gloom.

He finally drew the dagger from his waistband.  The blade wasn’t particularly long, but it was on the verge of becoming a shortsword.  Which meant that it was perfect for hacking his way through the jungle.

Still, Ok’tarik took care to remain quiet.  Not because he wanted to avoid inviting challenge, but rather because he was on the hunt.  And as such, he knew the dangers of alerting his prey.

Especially one as dangerous as the target of his dogged pursuit .

The wyrm had once been a deity-tier dragon, spatially attuned and wilier than it had any right to be.  The creature’s initial capture was only made possible with a team of shamans. 

Ok’tarik didn’t have that advantage anymore.

He was on his own, just like the Father of All.  And it had been years since the wyrm had escaped, so there was every possibility it had used the environment to grow significantly stronger.  Surviving that long meant that it had assuredly killed many powerful beasts, after all.

But during that previous encounter, Ok’tarik had learned a little about how to track the creature.  And he’d learned even more about the dragon’s nature during its captivity.  During their many, many conversations.  During all that torture, when the ethera swirled so strongly, even with the power-draining shackles. 

And now, Ok’tarik had its scent.

The flavor of the local ethera was subtle, but it only took a single sniff to separate it into hundreds of other scents.  He knelt, resting his hand on the layer of decay covering the ring’s surface.  He felt rotting leaves and other plant matter.  Dirt.  Roots.  Life.  A hundred or so feet beneath that was the silver of the ring itself.

Ok’tarik wasn’t interested in that, though.

Instead, he focused on something drifting along the surface.  He closed his eyes, identifying it as the wyrm’s scent.  It wasn’t a smell, though.  Rather, it was magical residue left behind by the creature’s very presence.

Outside of the rings, such a thing would’ve been all but undetectable.  It was worse in the rings, but the wyrm retained enough of its draconic identity to separate it from the beasts.  A slightly different frequency that made it stand out, at least to those capable of detecting such things.

Ok’tarik was one such orc.

Mentally, he followed that trail for a few feet, just to establish the direction.  Then, he stood and followed it in truth. 

Of course, he only made it a few dozen feet before he was attacked again.  This time, by a quadruped that clung to the canopy and dropped onto him in an effective ambush.  If it’d been any stronger, it might have succeeded in its attack.  As it was, Ok’tarik reacted just in time to slap it aside, stunning the thing in the process.  He killed it a second later by crushing its skull.

More attacks followed.

He couldn’t go more than thirty feet without drawing something’s attention.  But he kept going all the same, and he managed to make progress.  The scent grew steadily stronger with every step.

And then, it happened.

Ok’tarik knew it was coming.  He could feel it, and not with his ethereal senses.  Rather, with the instincts of a hunter that told him that an attack was coming.

Still, when the wyrm finally crashed through the brush and snapped its jaws at him, Ok’tarik was nearly taken by surprise.  Not by its arrival, but rather, by its sheer power.

The wyrm had been busy, and it had grown significantly stronger.

Ok’tarik dove to the side, narrowly avoiding snapping jaws.  When he rolled to his feet and faced off against the wyrm, he wore a wicked grin across his face.  After all the doubts that came with sapience, he was looking forward to a straightforward fight.