Relicts, embodiments of natural power, gradually manifest in the wilderness over time. Some theories even suggest they entered this realm through the Conjunction of the Spheres.
This is the definition provided by The Witcher's Bestiary. Although somewhat vague, one point is clear:
All relicts are magical creatures with a profound connection to nature.
Leshen, Fiend, Shaelmaar…
Many relicts are even worshipped as deities by locals!
But reality differs from games. In games, ghouls, specters, relicts, and hybrids only differ numerically. Using non-specific methods may result in slightly reduced damage, but as long as the level gap isn't too large, every monster is killable.
Reality, however, is different.
The traits of various monster species are extremely distinct—so distinct that unless you employ the proper method, killing them becomes impossible.
The most prominent example is the specter.
Despite their relatively low levels according to The Witcher's Bestiary, wraiths, even when damaged by a silver sword, will result in an unbearably long fight if specter oil isn't used.
Allen had a strong premonition.
Or rather, it wasn't just a premonition—the abnormally low [Monster Hunt] values in front of him made it unmistakably clear…
Relicts might be an even tougher foe than specters.
And he didn't have relict oil.
"What now?" Allen murmured, spinning and slashing downward.
A red light flickered.
Elsa still felt like a dull blade slicing through leather.
The tentacles bore one white mark after another, as though mocking him. So too did the system prompts in the corner of his vision.
[Monster Hunt] 2%
"Roar—"
Terrifying howls erupted one after another, resounding through the Mahakam Mountains.
Allen's sword froze mid-swing, as if countless beasts lurking in the darkness had locked their gazes on him. A chill ran from the base of his spine to the top of his head.
He turned his head.
And locked eyes with a massive, crimson, vertical pupil.
Not just that one.
Dozens of crimson eyes—supported by exposed pale bones and taut muscle fibers—were also staring at him coldly.
The summoning ritual had recovered from the flash spell's damage.
"Roar~"
The sluggish ghouls nearby suddenly seemed invigorated.
Four Scurvers spread their arms and roared, ignoring the griffin circling and harassing them from the sky and Vesemir, who was in the process of dismembering one of them.
Their eyes burned red as they roared and charged straight at Allen.
Behind and around the Scurvers were other ghoulish creatures still bound to the summoning ritual—alghouls, rotfiends, and regular ghouls, seemingly there to complete the ritual.
Though their numbers weren't vast—only twenty or thirty in total—their crazed and ferocious demeanor was chilling.
Smashing rocks, flattening shrubs, snapping trees…
As Allen glanced at them, the black spines on the alghoul's back were broken, the rotfiends' already mutilated features became even more grotesque, and the ghouls were covered in fine wounds, bleeding all over.
But their reckless ferocity and savage appearance sent shivers down his spine.
"You won't get past me!"
With a loud shout, Vesemir curled his middle finger and thrust it forward, causing a charging Scurver to lose its balance and crash to the ground.
Abandoning the heavily-armored Scurver in front of him, Vesemir took a few quick steps into the pack of ghoulish creatures.
With a twist of his wrist, he swung his longsword in a half-circle, decapitating a ghoul in his path.
Without pausing, he kicked a blindly charging rotfiend, sending it flying into a alghoul and tripping another Scurver.
In mid-air, Vesemir spun gracefully, switching his silver sword to his left hand while curling his right index finger.
Igni Sign.
His golden, cat-like eyes reflected the rotfiend's twisted form.
From his palm, fiery sparks ignited the rotfiend he had kicked, then spread to two more rotfiends nearby.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
A series of explosions rang out.
In mere moments, Vesemir had delayed two Scurvers, incinerated three rotfiends, and slain five ghouls and one alghoul. But even so, a few slipped through the cracks.
Two more Scurvers, leading the remaining ghoulish creatures, continued charging toward Allen.
At this moment…
"Skree—"
The royal griffin let out an angry screech, faint cyan light flowing along its black wings.
It dove down from the sky like a comet. Just three meters from the ground, it suddenly spread its wings wide.
The howling wind roared.
The intense air pressure blew away the ghouls and rotfiends, forcing the alghoul to halt, its claws digging into the ground for stability.
The two Scurvers, already lacking intelligence and poor in bodily control, were knocked flat. But it wasn't over yet.
After spreading its wings, the royal griffin hovered in the air for a brief moment before extending its sharp claws. It grabbed one of the Scurvers, which had lost its balance, and soared into the sky.
By the time the Scurver thought to struggle, it was already two or three hundred meters high.
The griffin's claws, embedded deep in the flesh, loosened.
"Roar!"
The Scurver flailed wildly as it plummeted straight down.
Gravity is impartial. No matter how blessed by the elements a creature might be, a fall from sufficient height brings certain death.
"Boom!"
The ground was struck hard, leaving a deep crater as dust and dirt billowed into the air.
A moment later…
"Bang!"
A loud explosion echoed.
A green flame abruptly rose in the valley, and in the wake of the blast, the Scurver's crimson spines shot out like arrows.
The ghouls and rotfiends, which had just been thrown aside by the wind, were all impaled and pierced through. The spines even snapped a few oak trees on the valley's edge and embedded themselves in the cliffside. They corroded a large chunk of the rock before finally falling to the ground.
"Good girl!" Allen couldn't help but exclaim.
After failing to leave a scratch on the massive eye earlier, he hadn't expected such an impressive performance from the royal griffin. It had been the first to kill a Scurver through sheer strength—faster even than Vesemir, who had enhanced ghoul oil.
But then again, it made sense. The royal griffin was far stronger than Vesemir. Back in Vengerberg, when they killed the previous royal griffin, they had ultimately relied on [Monster Hunt].
Flying creatures naturally hold a massive advantage over ground-based monsters.
Moreover, the Scurver wasn't particularly intelligent; its main danger lay in its massive size, its explosive death, and its toxic spines.
Vesemir's difficulty in killing the Scurver had stemmed from its self-detonation, which had forced him to tread carefully.
With Vesemir and the royal griffin performing admirably, Allen let out a slight sigh of relief. But what followed was immense pressure.
"Roar!"
From where Ianna was fighting, the sounds of battle and cries filled the air, loud enough to reach even this distant valley.
But they hadn't managed to stop all the ghoulish creatures.
"Rumble…"
The ground trembled faintly, the vibrations growing steadily stronger.
A massive wave of ghoulish creatures that had been lured away was returning.
A monster tide of this scale wasn't something Vesemir and the royal griffin could stop.
"It's all up to me now," Allen took a deep breath.
The countless bestial eyes of the summoning ritual still stared at him, but they made no further moves. It seemed as if driving monsters was the only ability it had.
But that wasn't the case.
Not to mention the intense psychic attack it had unleashed when he first arrived, an attack that had left him dizzy despite the protective barrier he erected.
The wooden amulet from Lysa swayed on his chest.
"Creak… creak…"
A faint, unnatural noise came from the amulet, as if the fibers of a decaying staircase were snapping under a heavy weight.
This was not a good sign.
The massive vertical pupil staring fixedly at him, along with the countless other vertical eyes, constantly assaulted him.
Terrifying questions kept surfacing in his mind.
For instance…
Would the tide of ghoulish creatures reach him first, or would the goddess-blessed amulet fail?
Or in other words…
How would he fail—or die?
"Creak…"
[Monster Hunt] 4%
The shadow of failure seemed to loom closer with every swing of the sword.
Even the spinning force of Elsa seemed to slow.
At this moment—
"Buzz~"
A faint vibration came from his chest, and a wave of coolness rushed into Allen's mind, clearing his thoughts in an instant.
"Mirage Pearl!" he exclaimed in shock.
Cold sweat broke out all over his body.
"Damn it!" Allen, still shaken, looked toward the summoning ritual that had never shifted its gaze from him. "When did it start affecting me?"
The crimson vertical pupil blinked, shrouded in a hazy, dangerous red mist.
"Creak… creak…"
The faint sounds from the amulet grew more frequent.
"This can't go on!" Allen stopped swinging his blade.
[Monster Hunt] 4%
But thirty seconds had already passed.
The duration of Monster Hunt was only 450 seconds, and blindly attacking like this would accumulate at most 60% progress before it ran out.
There wouldn't be enough time!
"But what should I do?"
He focused again on Balmur at his back.
The divine sword wrapped in its scabbard remained silent.
"Why?" Allen didn't understand.
"Clang!"
He drew Balmur sharply and struck downward.
This time, the tentacles of the summoning ritual didn't even show a white mark.
[Name: Balmur]
[Type: Artifact]
[Function: Steel Cleave, Demon Slayer, Armor Break, Banish Evil, Extinguish Fate]
[Note: This sword's history is even more legendary than that of its master, Zatret Voruta. Also, here's a little secret: Zatret Voruta was a Child of Miracles.]
"Why?" Allen questioned the ancient longsword in his hand once more. "What about slaying demons? What about banishing evil?"
Earlier in the day, just seeing the summoning ritual from afar had made Balmur tremble with excitement, enough to bruise Allen's back.
So why, now that he was so close, was it completely unresponsive?
The sword remained silent, making him feel even more foolish.
"Caw~"
"Boom!"
Trees snapped, dust filled the air, and shattered stones rained down on the ground.
The royal griffin and Vesemir were locked in fierce combat, buying him time.
But under the watchful gaze of countless eyes from the summoning ritual, Allen felt powerless, nearly despairing.
"Wait!"
Allen frowned.
He felt as though he had grasped a crucial idea.
"Clang!"
He sheathed Balmur.
"Countless eyes watching… The eyes… Eyes!!!"
He muttered to himself, then suddenly widened his eyes, staring at the summoning ritual. This time, however, he didn't look at the massive eye on the elven tower.
Instead, his gaze fixed on the nearly thousand eerie vertical pupils nestled among the pale bones and crimson flesh below.
"The royal griffin couldn't break the big eye, but that doesn't mean those smaller eyes are just as tough!" Allen's eyes lit up.
Whether it was the inertia of the griffin's failed attack or the ritual's influence, he hadn't thought of this earlier.
But he remembered clearly.
Earlier that day, ghoulish creatures had walked from the valley, only to be crushed and disassembled by the tentacles without resistance. Then, their eyes had been consumed, growing anew on the fleshy mountain.
Those nearly thousand eyes seemed to come from ghouls, alghouls, and Scurvers.
"Roar!"
Allen's intense gaze appeared to provoke the summoning ritual.
Distant roars echoed from the pitch-black forest.
The lured ghoulish creatures were getting closer.
"Phew!"
Allen exhaled deeply and gripped Elsa tightly.
"Let's go for it!"
Shouting internally, he dashed toward the elven tower covered in grotesque flesh.
The tentacles forming the ritual's texture were everywhere—at his sides, below him, around him.
The closer he got to the tower, the denser the squirming, intestine-like tentacles became. Within twenty meters of the tower, he had no choice but to step on the squishy, unsettling flesh to move forward.
Dark red pools of blood, still wet, surrounded him.
The indescribable stench of amniotic fluid, blood, and rotting meat grew stronger.
"Creak… creak… creak…"
When he was just ten meters away from the tower of eyes, the sound of cracking wood from the amulet became almost constant, as though it could shatter at any moment.
But Allen paid it no mind. The blue cat-like pupils of his eyes narrowed into slits, locking onto the thousand eyes ahead.
[Monster Hunt] canceled.
He downed three drowner heart essences to restore stamina.
Then—
[Monster Hunt], Step Halt, Spin to Build Momentum…
His adrenal medulla surged.
With adrenaline flooding his system, Allen's breathing quickened, his heart and blood pumping so fiercely it felt like a river roaring through his veins.
Then—
Thrust!
"Boom!"
The tip of his silver blade pierced the air with a sonic boom, turbulent airflow swirling around the blade.
Looking ahead—
The crimson blade seemed to warp under the immense force.
"Pfft!"
The satisfying sound of flesh being pierced rang out.
Elsa's tip drove straight into one of the vertical pupils.
Murky, translucent fluid mixed with blood sprayed out.
"Roar!"
Terrified howls erupted from the ghoulish creatures behind him.
From the sound of their footsteps, several had already returned to the valley.
[Monster Hunt] 3%
"It's working!" Allen's eyes lit up with excitement.
Though the progress was minimal, gaining 3% per strike meant he could easily reach full capacity before Monster Hunt expired.
"Slash!"
He withdrew the blade.
Then, facing another glaring crimson pupil, he thrust three more times.
[Monster Hunt] 6%
[Monster Hunt] 9%
[Monster Hunt] 12%
Just as Allen eagerly drew back the sword to strike again, his movements suddenly froze.
An unexpected development occurred!
"Crack!"
A loud snapping sound came from his chest as the wooden amulet shattered.
.....
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