The two of them had finally gotten out of the heavy jungle area, and now there were fewer trees and more large rocks could be seen. The ground underneath them had also slightly changed. There was no longer soft mud underneath their feet, but it was solid and black.
It was a sign that Borden and Quinn were getting close to the foot of the volcano now. Just like Borden had said, they could see fewer beasts, or next to no beast at all in this area. They no longer needed to creep and bend around corners and were just walking normally.
“Can you tell me a bit more about this beast, if you know where it is, I’m guessing you fought with it before?” Quinn asked.
“Of course,” Borden replied. “I want you to improve. I don’t want you dead. The beast is large in size around four meters tall and wide. I imagine it weighs a couple of tons as well, judging by its size. Its skin is black in colour, it has hooves on its feet but claws as hands.”
“A humanoid beast?” Quinn asked, a bit concerned now. If it was a humanoid beast, then it would be a lot more difficult to deal with than a regular Emperor tier beast.
“No, its body is too beast-like for that, and it wasn’t clever enough,” Borden replied. “On its head, it has too many eyes to count going along either side. They glow a bright yellow color, and it also has a thick golden mane going around its neck and then following a single line down its back.”
“However, now comes the most important part, it’s tail. It has three tails in total, each one has the head of a serpent creature. From their mouths, they have the ability to shoot fire. When fighting it, I was doing quite well against it, until it started to use its tails. I knew from then on, I could no longer win the fight, not while I was on a time limit.”
If the beast could use fire, that meant it was an elemental Emperor tier beast. The one Quinn had fought before was just a regular Emperor tier, this would be a tough opponent for Quinn. That was unless one had an ability that was better suited to going against these elements.
If Quinn remembered correctly, Leo had gifted him three advanced tier crystals that all contained the lighting ability, which was why his gauntlets had such an impressive active skill. Now Quinn was starting to imagine what the crystal from the beast could be used to make, before even beating it.
“Stop smiling, you fool,” Borden said, jumping up and hitting him on the back of the head.
“If you look too far ahead and not at the tasks in front of you, then you will end up dying. Do you want to die?”
Quinn shook his head quickly and was rubbing his head. He didn’t want to get hit by the heavy-handed little Borden.
Eventually, they had reached the bottom of the volcano. Walking around, they were now looking for an entrance. The beast didn’t scale or live up the volcano but instead lived inside.
Finally, they had found a large cavern entrance and when they entered the first thing that hit Quinn was the extreme heat inside. The heatwaves in the air in front of him could be seen, and he was starting to sweat in an instant.
“Is this an active volcano?” Quinn said, seeing that there were pits of lava in certain places. Whole lakes that flowed. The view looked quite nice with the hot lava all-around lighting up the place, giving it a glow.
“Come on, the beast is in here somewhere. Let’s just be careful. If we fight against it, it would be best on one of these larger platforms that aren’t surrounded by lava that can kill us.” Borden commented.
They walked for a little while, and Quinn was starting to wonder how much longer he could bear the heat. He was having similar effects to when he was out in the sun as a vampire. Although checking his status, everything seemed to be normal, his stamina was down by a couple of points, but it was nothing drastic.
In a way, seeing that his system said he wasn’t being affected by everything too much just made him seem and feel like a big crybaby, who was complaining about it being a little too hot inside.
“There it is!” Borden said, pointing at the beast, but he quickly hid to the side behind a red rock and pulled Quinn as well. The two of them peeked over the rock and could see the beast. It was exactly how Borden had described it. However, there was one thing that was in their favour, the beast was asleep.
The two of them looked at where the beast was, as it didn’t seem to be in a favourable position. Where they stood was a large platform, surrounded by nothing but the walls and the way back out of the volcano.
As for the beast, in order to reach it, one would have to walk across a thick large wide bridge that eventually led to a larger platform on the other side where the beast slept.
The bridge was wide enough to fit three or four trucks on it, so they weren’t scared it would break or anything, and it looked to be very sturdy, having large support underneath. What they were concerned about was either side of the bridge, there were pools of lava underneath.
If they fought with the beast and it knocked them over, it would be the end of them, super healing or no healing.
“What should we do?” Quinn asked.
“I know this was meant to be part of your training,” Borden replied. “But I feel like the fact that it’s asleep we can’t just waste this chance. The crystal will be a great help, and if we can get out of this without getting any big injuries, that will be great.”
It looked as if Borden was suggesting that Quinn attack the beast while it was asleep. He looked at where they stood, and where the beast was.
‘It shouldn’t be a problem. The platform on the other end is large enough to fight on and is just like this one. It isn’t surrounded by lava or anything. As long as the beast doesn’t wake up while I’m walking across the bridge. Then everything should be okay.’ Quinn thought.
“Alright let’s go, but you’re coming with me,” Quin said, as he moved and dragged Borden by the wrist.
Walking across the bridge was fine, and when they had reached the quarter waypoint, they released that it was unlikely the beast would wake up. There was already far too much noise going on from underneath. The lava was consistently spewing out hisses, crackles pops, and more and the beast seemed to be sleeping through all of that fine.
Their footsteps would do nothing to add to that small amount of noise, and now they had finally reached the halfway point.
At that exact moment. A strange voice was heard.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” A man could be heard laughing. Quinn quickly turned around along with Borden to see who it was.
“I finally found you, little man. Did you think you could get away after our last fight? Oh, and it looks like you brought a friend.” Immediately, Borden had recognized the man. This was the one who he had fought with before. Now of all times, this was the worst.
With Duncan behind them and the emperor tier beast in front, they had nowhere to go.
Quinn, on the other hand, was more concerned with the beast. He turned his head back to take a peak.
‘Phew, the beast is still sleeping away, I guess it won’t wake up just from someone shouting then.’ Quinn thought.
“When I take you back to the castle, I’m going to hang you up little man, that way everyone can see how I wasn’t lying. Because of you, everyone thinks I have gone mad!” Duncan shouted and started to laugh out loud again.
“I’m thinking that you have gone mad,” Borden said.
“Quinn, you deal with the Emperor tier beast. I’ve fought with this guy before, I won’t be able to beat him, but I can hold him. You do whatever you can to kill that beast as quickly as possible while it’s asleep.”
“You got it,” Quinn replied.
Suddenly, the beast that Duncan was riding upon, started to run about in circles, then it lifted up its front two legs to get Duncan to eventually fall off it.
The others thought the poor beast must have been tortured to work for him and would simply run away, but that was never its plan.
It ran around until it found what it was looking for. Using the tentacle that was uninjured, it wrapped it around a small rock. Then it looked in the direction of Quinn, not Duncan.
“Don’t tell me it’s planning to…”
Before Quinn could finish his sentence, he could see the rock flying over his head. It went far and wide and eventually plopped on top of the large beast’s head.
“Is there any chance that didn’t wake up the beast?” Quinn thought, looking away and not wanting to see.
“ROARGHHGHH!” A loud growl was heard throughout the volcano, and it felt like the whole room was shaking.
“I guess not.”
*******
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