Rise of the Devourer

Book 3: Chapter 45 — Wyvern Cliffs Pt. 15

Two months passed in the blink of an eye, as Noah continued to train day in and day out. He sat atop the back of his nightshade wyvern, the two swerving through a sky serpents trying to attack them, deftly dodging their strikes. The creatures hissed and snapped in irritation, bolts of lightning crackling in all directions in an attempt to stop the two, but the shade wyvern deftly dodged through them all, listening to Noah’s command from the subtle tap of his foot and his pats to guide it and tell it of any oncoming strikes.

A blast formed in the nightshade’s mouth, blue flames spreading around it as juvenile thunder wyverns all reared back. Just below, near the river, a good chunk of their siblings had tried, trying to ambush Noah and his wyvern, when the two had struck back, taking out what had been the leader of the pack. He’d anticipated the younger ones would run off in fear, but instead, they’d grown even more fierce, as if burning with the desire to take revenge.

The nightshade soared through with rapid speed through the fire appearing on the other ahead, leaving behind their pursuers. The wind rumbled under the creature’s command, its wings sleek and powerful, silently carrying the two of them across the forest, into their section of the territory as the thunder wyverns watched in frustration, being left behind.

Noah laughed, flipping a finger off the two creatures as the two of them swiftly headed back into the hive through one of its many entrances. The nightshade landed gracefully when inside, as Noah jumped off, patting the creature’s side.

“Man that was fun,” he said, as the wyvern rumbled in agreement, shooting a small ball of blue flames to show his excitement as well.

The two of them had just raided the thunder wyvern hive, striking at a group of juveniles, and taking them out rapidly. Such attacks had become a regular part of their day and now, any thunder wyvern would immediately attack them on sight.

Noah looked through his notifications from the battle, seeing his level had gone by one on all his paths.

You’ve killed [Juvenile Thunder Wyvern (Legendary) - Lvl 179]

You’ve killed [Juvenile Thunder Wyvern (Legendary) - Lvl 184]

[Wyrmblood Guardian] has reached level 187!

[Runebody Arcanist] has reached level 187!

[Abyssal Predator] has reached level 189!

Noah smiled at his progress. He was close, so close to his goal. The last two months had been filled with constant training, and all his abilities and skills had rose up rapidly in that period.

Some of the most notable changes were his Weapon Mastery, which was pushing advanced rank, having reached level 24, and both his meditation and greater mana mastery had also risen up significantly as Noah had taken to spending his free time meditating and absorbing mana inside the hive beyond his capacity to train his mana limits.

Noah had also gained a brand new skill in his time here and leveled it up to intermediate.

[Wyvern Riding (Intermediate) Level 12]

You’ve successfully bonded to a wild wyvern and learned how to ride it. Find yourself capable of understanding the body language of any wyvern, not just the ones you are bonded to, and the capacity to guide them as you ride on their backs.

Aurelia had also gained the same skill, when Noah had asked, and Vion apparently had ranked hers up to the advance tier in her time here.

It wasn’t just his general skills that had gone up though, all of Noah’s abilities had significantly risen in levels as well. But there were a few that had done so more than the rest. Noah pulled the list of skills up in front of him.

[Abyssal Fusion (Legendary/Advanced) - Level 48]

[Void Annihilation (Legendary/Advanced) - Level 45]

[Arcane Step (Legendary/Advanced) - Level 47]

[Wyrmblood (Legendary/Advanced) - Level 48]

He’d talked to Vion and Aurelia, and when a skill reached the advanced tier cap, it no longer went up rank through just work. That was where the skill points finally came in.

If Noah wanted to upgrade it further, then he would need to use a skill point to do so. He remembered the conversation from Zax ages ago where the dragon had talked about how the reason he had been imprisoned was because one of his resistances had been at level 74. At the Elite tier, and the dragon had not spent the needed points to increase that to Expert.

He also remembered Zax mentioning that level 50 was where abilities and skills finally started to show their true potential. And had told Noah to increase his Pain Tolerance to Elite should he ever level it that far.

He hadn’t done that just yet, it was far too easy to simply turn off his sense of pain with all the fighting he did, but one of these days, he was planning to train that ability up.

Noah opened his quest menu, looking at the timer counting down how much time they had left.

Quest: A Wyvern’s Heart

Obtain the heart of an adult wyvern before the 100 day time limit for your test.

Remaining Time: 3 days

Difficulty: Hard

Reward: Unknown

Noah let out a breath. They were all close, pushing the boundaries of C rank already, but there was no longer any time left to train. Noah patted the wyvern once more, the creature grunting as it remained curled up nearly, with its eyes closed.

“The time has come for our revenge,” Noah said, glancing at the wyvern.

Whatever training could be done, had been done. Now, it was time to head into the hive and finally finish this hunt.

Patting the wyvern next to him, Noah walked out to a separate chamber for his solo training.

***

Noah sat in the chamber, meditating as mana continued to flow all around him. The runic marks on his bodies glowed, pulsing like magical sigils as they soaked in the mana, attuning it to Noah.

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He’d learned this accidentally one time as Noah had tried to speed up his mana regeneration artificially and had accidentally gone over the limit. Instead of causing mana poisoning, his body had digested the excess mana and added it to his total attributes.

Noah had, of course, immediately tried to eat a C grade mana crystal to test, but had found it much harder to do the same with the sudden burst of power from a mana crystal. A bit bummed out at the lack of an obvious exploit, he’d still been rather pleased to have this method.

After the strike by the wyvern, Noah had started heavily prioritizing his constitution and mystic attributes. Wyrmblood made it so that any massive injury healed immediately but it was deathly obvious that if someone could kill him in one hit, no amount of regeneration would bring him back to life.

As the mana settled into his body, Noah felt the sigils thrumm, as the notification chimed of his mystic going up by one point.

Noah opened his eyes, before he opened his status menu to take a look at his attribute points.

Power: 1,524 [1,828]

Agility: 1,381 [1,657]

Constitution: 1,640 [2,214]

Mystic: 1,823 [2,461]

Noah smiled in satisfaction. To think he’d barely reached a thousand points with all his buffs when he’d arrived here. He wondered just how he would compare to Kaelan now, or the guildmaster Raesar.

He couldn’t wait to test his abilities.

Standing up, Noah moved on through the next step of his exercises. Taking out his spear, he began to brandish them, using moves one after another as he trained and refined his skill. Frequently, Noah would switch between the spears and his chains, using the two in tandem, before swiftly forming armor from his clothing with Tony’s help to block strikes, or transforming just his hands into claws to strike.

It was a strange, almost chaotic way of fighting, with the spear inflicting rot, the chains putting suppression effects onto his enemies, and the armor making him sturdy with the claws allowing Noah to get in close and strike with his full strength.

It was only when he sensed Aurelia arriving nearby did Noah stop his training, sweat beading down his body and his breath heavy. He stored the spear in his inventory, wiping off the sweat as he watched Aurelia enter his training chamber.

“Hey,” the woman waved. “Vion wants us to gather up and meet up with Quazithril. It’s time for us to make our move.”

Noah gave a nod, before following behind the woman.

Aurelia had changed significantly over the past two months as well. A swirling aura of ash and ember surrounded the woman, like a lingering specter of death.

She’d told Noah it was the result of one of her abilities ranking up to Elite. She’d promptly used the skill points she’d gained to rank it up and now her aura was a fiery promise of death that whispered in the ears of any nearby.

It was far from the only change that had happened, her hair had started to take on a slightly lighter shade, like it was slowly switching to an ashen color, and there was a distinct magical presence around the woman now.

Noah suspected just by virtue of her abilities Aurelia would be able to give him a fight, despite him having much more attributes by now.

Outside, he jumped upon Aurelia’s wyvern, as the giant fiery creature let out a breath of flames, before taking off to the uppermost layers.

Noah and Aurelia had at one point wanted to name their mounts, but Vion had informed them how important names were to wyverns, and to not do so, unless they intended to stick around for life. Noah had found that a shame, as he’d already come up with a bunch of cool names, but he’d decided to respect the creatures.

For better or for worse, they were guests here, and despite how amazing his time had been, they would soon need to depart.

As the wyvern came to a stop, the two adventurers jumped off the creature’s back, Aurelia giving the big wyvern a mana crystal in thanks.

Noah noticed Vion standing a little further ahead, looking up and clearly engaged in a conversation with Quazrithril. The giant wyvern matriarch spent most of her time sleeping, her passive aura and abilities deterring anything stupid enough to want to come inside to attack.

It was partly why the thunder wyverns mostly stuck to their own territory. The attack that Noah had been struck by had been one of the kind of attacks which a hive could use against its enemies within their own territory and it was part of what made a wyvern hive so dangerous.

That and the thousands of angry wyverns of course.

Noah walked up next to Vion, Aurelia following behind him. The giant wyvern matriarch’s eyes shifted to regard him, and soon he felt the mental connection snap into place as her still rather surprisingly motherly voice came to him.

“You three children have grown rather well in such a short period of time,” Quazrithril said, bringing her face closer. Noah could feel her breath, and the power contained inside of her mountainous body.

“Even our strongest childrendo not grow this fast usually. But with you three, our hive has found its strength rising. No children wish to be left behind after all, and the strength of those you carry, pushes the others to rise above as well. For that, you have our thanks,” the ancient wyvern said, lowering her head slightly.

Noah grinned. “The pleasure was ours, really. It’s been extremely fun to fly around all day, hunting all sorts of creatures and fighting monsters and picking off pesky thunder wyverns. I doubt either of us could’ve grown this much on our own either,” Noah said, before glancing sideways at Vion.

As far as growth went, Noah had not been the fastest in this group for the first time since he’d arrived here. He used Identify on Vion silently.

[Race: Draconian Humanoid - lvl 97 (Mythical)]

[Path: Magma-mancer (Rare) - lvl 194]

Her changes were less apparent than Aurelia’s, more subtle, but you could see it in the way she held herself. While before, she’d felt like a child lashing out at adults, now there was a calmness that permeated her, accompanied by the slight smile of confidence she held on face.

With their frequent sparring, Noah had watched Vion grow first hand, and he’d started to understand what people must’ve felt like when watching him grow. She’d grown adept at her transformation rapidly and had managed to unlock the ability to use a lot of her draconic abilities even in her human form.

At some point, Noah had no longer been the dominating force between the two of them, and he found himself wondering just what kind of strength she would unlock, when her race finally reached D rank.

Vion noticed his look, and glanced back at him briefly, her smile expanding as she understood his expression. It was a smug look of pride, challenging him to keep up with her.

Noah found himself grinning even harder.

“It is true, our children have certainly helped. And now, it is time to utilize that strength. Given the circumstances, and how the enemy hive has started to push into our territory as their strength grows, we must send our children to cull their ranks and push them back,” Quazrithril said.

All three of them looked at the giant wyvern, giving her a nod.

“This is not true war, but it will likely be the closest thing any of you will have experienced. The time has come, our children prepare. You should too. Tomorrow, at first dawn, we will move towards the hive, to try and bring as many of their numbers down,” Quazrithril said, and a pulse went by through the entire hive.

The three of them resolved themselves.

Noah clenched and unclenched his fist, finding an aching itch rising inside of him. It was time, at last, time for a second match against the thunder wyvern, and for him to take his revenge.

Tomorrow, he would take the heart of an adult wyvern.

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