__________ POV Narration__________
Ashton was silently making his way to the top of the steep mountain. However, he failed to notice that something was stalking him throughout his journey up the mountain.
Hiding underneath the rocks and in between the cracks in the mountains. A pair of glaring red eyes watched him warily.
A grotesque appearance of a gremlin, one small and seemingly harmless.
But it was in fact, Pap, a horrifying abomination that could suck out the life force of other beings and use it to strengthen itself.
It let its victims enjoy their last moments, however, sending a special pheromone in their brains that made them oblivious to their quickly shrivelling body.
It was not a monster that could handle frontal confrontation all that well, but it could sneak around the mountain that was in its territory with ease.
Ashton eventually reached the top. Or at least a place near the top. Where he decided to camp and start preparing his trap.
But that was when Pap decided to make its move. A tendril growing out of its mouth and rapidly trying to stab into the old scientist.
Instinctually, Ashton tilted his head to the side, as Pap's tendril cut his cheek a bit. He quickly jumped forward and turned to face the beast that had just attempted to sneak attack him.
Its tendril moved at an unbelievable speed. It seemed to be just a bit slower than that of the Ant King before his death.
The scientist knew he needed to act fast, as more tendrils appeared in Pap's mouth, preparing to rush towards him.
Blocking such an attack would be difficult, but redirecting it would be a lot better. Ashton quickly created a wind barrier around himself.
It pushed aside all of the approaching tendrils as violent winds pushed forward and cut them a bit. The Pap just screamed a bit, it was loud and extremely annoying to the scientist.
But he also knew that something bad was coming. Pap was not exactly a single entity after all...
Alerted by that signal, countless tendrils came from all directions all directed towards Ashton. The monsters remained hidden inside the shadows, only red eyes were visible everywhere.
Ashton reacted quickly this time. He created a series of revolving wind barriers around himself.
Most of the tendrils got past the first one, but by the fifth, all of them had lost their momentum. Ashton quickly extended his hands to the sides. Expanding the sphere as it severed the rocks and cut apart everything in sight.
Until, from underneath him, a tendril came rushing out of the ground. The scientist couldn't dodge, he couldn't block.
So he was forced to let the attack pass through him, using 'Fleeting Existence'. The tendril, however, remained in his nonexistent body.
The beast was intelligent enough to find a flaw in that technique. But it wasn't intelligent enough to realise it was actually a feature.
'Fleeting Existance' didn't allow a person to move, but their Nen could. Ashton quickly expanded his En and embedded the mountain around him in his Parasitic Nen.
He quickly detonated it, the monsters didn't even realise what was happening when they were cooked alive by the rising temperature of the rocks around them. The top was vaporised in seconds.
Ashton however, was still unaffected. As he hadn't moved at all. Only the ground underneath him gave way.
He fell like a statue, completely immobile. Until he no longer could hold it in, letting his heartbeat once more and flying himself above the exploded mountain top.
He had been careless, but there wasn't much he could've done in that situation. Now, he needed to find whatever treasure was inside Pap's territory.
He instantly used his En, scouting the entire mountain top. He found a ruined entrance to a cave instantly. The explosion was obviously what had covered up the entrance.
He quickly used 'Wind Aspect' to pull all of the rocks out of the entrance. Then entered in a hurry.
He looked around the place for a bit. He had found what the first expedition was looking for. But he hadn't found anything else that was useful to him.
Well... Almost. Just as he was about to give up when he heard the beasts cry outside the caves. He found a broken-down altar.
It didn't have anything on it, but there was writing on it. Writing that Ashton could definitely decipher if given some time.
He quickly ripped out the part of the altar with writing on it and placed it in his void. After which he exploded his way out of the cave.
The mountain was already swarming with beasts of every kind, all of them trampling on each other to reach the top faster.
Ashton went and grabbed the body of one of the Paps. The most intact one he could find. Only half of its body was burned. He also placed that in his void space.
He started flying away from the mountain instantly. He was obviously intercepted by another beast that flew into the sky.
The 'Blood Condor' a strange bird that seemed to act more like a golem than anything. Its appearance was simply that of a large bird constructed out of a blood-like slimy liquid.
It was mostly immune to physical attacks, and it was an annoying opponent. Good thing Ashton knew exactly how to deal with them.
He used the air around them to shred them apart and scatter them everywhere. He left while the Condors were rebuilding themselves.
They didn't have a core, so regular attacks didn't do much of anything to them. The best way to fight them was to escape. Which Ashton did.
He had managed to lose the swarm of monsters in a day. Which was a decent time, as he still had a long way to reach the ruins of the labyrinth city.
Although, his encounter with Pap made him a bit mad. Mostly at the fact that he hadn't been able to pinpoint their location at all.
That's why he just blew up the entire mountain top, their stealth was even better than his. Now, he was going to need to take a break in order to decipher the strange writings.
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