"This place is just as horrible as I remember." Ashton sighed as he found himself back on the top of a familiar hill.
"Are you sure you don't want any of us to accompany you?" Virgil asked him a final time, "Fighting them alone wouldn't be a-"
Ashton was strong. Anyone who doubted that or said otherwise was nothing but a fool. However, hundreds of adventurers had died in the monklin forest in just the last week and Ashton had decided to head into such a place by himself.
"Who said I'll be alone?" Ashton smiled and headed off, "Take care of the territory while I'm gone and tell baiter to have those explosives ready. Who knows what those fuckers would do while I'm here."
Virgil nodded and disappeared into the portal, leaving Ashton behind, "Good luck."
***
According to the reports the monklins had become really aggressive. They no longer waited to trap the invaders and then hunt them down. Instead, they viciously attacked them the moment anyone stepped foot in their territory.
But it had been a couple of minutes since Ashton entered the forest but nothing happened. Neither did he sense anyone around him through his [High-Grade Perception]. Nevertheless, that wasn't the only thing he found a bit odd.
"Isn't this a bit too hot in here? It almost feels like I'm walking over a volcano."
Being a tribrid had its advantages. One of which was the resistance to extreme temperatures. He wasn't immune and thus could feel the difference in temperatures, but even water-boiling temperature could only make him sweat a bit.
"Hunting them down by myself would take a lot of unnecessary time." Ashton shook his head, "Come out now."
Sven and Celeste crawled out of his shadow, paying him respect. Their appearance had changed quite a bit since Ashton had evolved and his intelligence was increased. Sven had grown horn extending from his helmet and he looked a lot tougher now.
While Celeste on the other hand had gotten a bit slimmer, her outfit remained just as provocative as it had been before. But more importantly, her magic had grown by quite a lot. Also, both of them had their levels in the forties, which made sense as their 'evolution' was linked to Ashton's.
Sven had evolved into a Death Baron, while Celeste had evolved into Death Mage. Ashton had no idea regarding the extent of their new powers since he couldn't find a proper situation to test their new abilities.
But he knew one thing for sure. Both of them now had dominion over death. In other words, both of them could control dead creatures to some extent. Much like Ashton, Celeste could summon skeletons to do her bidding, but unlike him, she didn't need a medium to summon them.
She could simply pull them out of the 'underworld', or so she says. While Sven could also control skeletons. But in his case, Ashton had to provide him with skeletons in order for him to control them.
"Alright Celeste, summon as many skeletons as you can and instruct them to look for anything alive in the forest."
"As you wish master." Celeste acknowledged the command and her eyes turned black as if they had been swallowed by death itself.
The next moment, the ground around her burst open in numerous places, and through each aperture, a couple of 3-4 feet tall human skeletons crawled out. No matter how many times Ashton saw this scene unfold, he could never get used to it.
The skeletons surrounded her like a bunch of lost children looking for their mother. As soon as she gave them their instructions, all of them happily ran in various directions as if they wanted Celeste to feel proud of them.
[This is why I urged you to master the dungeons you own. You could have used those sturdy wolves to hunt these primates easily.]
'I would have if you hadn't slipped up and said it would endanger everyone around me as the wolves might attack them.'
[Might. MIGHT! But yeah, I'm almost certain they would have...]
While the two of them were busy chatting, it looked like the skeletons already found something, well, it was quite the opposite because something else might have found them instead. The ground began shaking along with the thunderous footsteps of a gigantic creature.
Suddenly, countless trees were uprooted as the gorillan charged straight towards Ashton and company. Ashton stared at the massive creature and immediately realised this gorillan was much bigger than the previous one, about twice in height.
However, the Gorillan wasn't alone. Along with her were hundreds if not a thousand Monklins. In their hands were the broken bones of the skellies Celeste had summoned.
"You should not have pissed her off..." Ashton shook his head thinking what Celeste would do to them for 'killing' her 'babies', "Sven, I'll leave these Monklins to both of you."
Sven nodded and unsheathed his greatsword, "Hack and slash..."
"As for you, I'll take you on myself."
Ashton rushed in to attack her but stopped at the last moment. It was the right decision to make considering the Gorillan spat out a ball of fire in his direction.
"How can you control elemental magic?"
Night creatures that were capable of controlling elements were rare, so rare that only two of them had ever been encountered by the mutants. On top of that, no one knew how or why these creatures that shouldn't possess enough intelligence to manipulate mana could use elemental spells.
'At least now I know why those adventurers got wiped out. It would take a fucking army of those adventurers to take someone like this crazy bitch down.'
[Broken planet-]
'Yeah yeah, I know. I can't do much to stop her, it'll take time to summon Bone Goliath.'
Unlike his summons, Ashton could not just call a goliath out of nowhere. He had to make preparations to do so and since he intended on summoning the bone goliath, he would need a lot of bones. Bones that Sven and Celeste were farming.
"I guess you're up, Balmond."
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