My eyes were glued to the dome containing Gary until a tree blocked my line of sight. Shortly after, we softly touched down, and our own dome dropped away. The earthy scent of a forest tickled my nose as I took a deep breath, savoring the moment. My highly mutated nostrils filtered out all the information it could provide, which, at this point, was a lot. I hadn’t paid attention during the descent, but with just one hearty inhale, I learned everything I needed to know. The smell of stone and cold from my right, indicating a mountain. Heightened moisture to my left, a lake. The smell of grass straight ahead, grasslands. I could tell which monster had been dropped in what area of the arena and how big said arena was.
All of that, from a single inhale.
I could not help but genuflect and pray, offering my profound thanks to the lord. It was he who gifted me with my many new abilities that I did not possess as a mere human. It was he who provided me with a constant source of slaughter and rewarded me for giving it my all. It was he who provided me with the opportunity to embark on my greatest hunt yet. The hunt for Gary. Another follower of the faith, and without a doubt, the strongest monster on this hallowed planet. He was to be my final test. My final tribulation. If I could beat this paragon of slaughter, I would have earned my place as an envoy of slaughter.
I took another deep breath, relishing in the feeling of inexorable slaughter. I could smell the dirty mutt that had been dropped in the forest area approach me in an attempt to challenge the great me, and had to scoff. That lower being wasn’t worth my time. No, there was only one monster I cared about, and it had landed in the grasslands ahead. Just as I was about to command my pack to move out, the smell of poison hit me. I immediately recognized it as the poison of my prey, wondering why the smell was hanging so thick in the air.
I got my answer moments later, as a wall of poison fog washed over me, a quick inhale revealing that the entire arena had been filled to the brim with it. I got excited, even as the poison was taking effect in my body. A spell of that magnitude was almost incomprehensible to me, yet Gary had used it as a simple greeting to open the hostilities, declaring death to all the monsters present in this battle. Truly magnificent.
I basked in the pain as the poison ticked down my HP at an astounding rate, but only for a few seconds. It wouldn’t do to simply lie down and accept my death without accomplishing anything. So I mentally commanded Green to get rid of the poison for us and Pink to stack up some resistance buffs. Ignoring the Kobold still trying to make its way over to us, we moved out, rushing through the underbrush in the direction I knew Gary to be. My pack fell into a practiced formation around me, barely managing to keep up with my superior speed. I could rush ahead, and part of me wanted to do so, but against a prey as strong as Gary, I couldn’t afford to handicap myself.
The pack was a part of me, and as much as it pained me to admit, without the pack at my side, I was not at my full power.
I could smell that the mangy mutt had given up its pursuit, clearly recognizing that it had no chance of catching up. Good. It would either succumb to the poison or be dealt with by me. But only after I’d dealt with the target of my desire. Seeing it so eager to die and end its pathetically weak existence was a pleasure, but all in its own time. While running, I kept my nose sharp to observe Gary, which wasn’t easy. There was close to no discernible smell to his chosen evolution, and it was easier to track his spells than him directly.
On the other end of the spectrum, there was that absolutely revolting rat. Its stench was so pervasive that it was almost masking everything else. If it wasn’t making a beeline toward its own demise, I would have seriously considered making a detour and taking it out myself. But alas, there was no need for me to bother, as it didn’t even take two minutes for the damn thing to get killed. It felt like a long time, considering how strong Gary was, but I could tell he was merely toying with the rat while gathering some info before finding it lacking. There was a sneaky attempt at survival, but ultimately, the rat was crushed with no mercy.
Delicious.
It had been a nice treat to observe the battle while running, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get there in time to start our fight. I stopped dead, concentrating to catch a whiff of where my target was moving, made all the more difficult by the combination of the poison filling the air and Gary having close to no smell. I absentmindedly picked up that the lizard close to the lake had been killed as well, eliminating another participant and potential disturbance. The kobold was still in the forest where I left him, apparently setting up some kind of druidic spell, while a fight was raging on top of the mountain, the acrid smell of lava clashing with the cold smell of metal.
If I were Gary, that’s where I would go next. I was about to rush over there as well, but paused as a thought struck me. If nothing changed, I’d be running after Gary until he had eliminated the other disturbances, all without having some fun for myself. As much as I wanted to chase after and confront him, there was a chance that I’d be too late every time, just like it happened this time. Was it not more prudent then, to engineer a confrontation? And what better way than to quickly whittle down all the other monsters, so that we would be able to duel as the last remaining contestants, without the disturbance of the small fry.
Yes, that was good.
Leaving the mountainous area to Gary, as he would no doubt be able to take out the two monsters there easily, I directed my attention to the remaining two down here. The kobold didn’t pose much of a threat, plus, I was interested in the spell it was setting up. This left the water elemental that was busy absorbing the entire lake. If left alone, it could prove to be an annoying distraction, so I decided to go after it first. I once again took off, my pack following me without being prompted, this time away from my original target, instead of toward it.
I bounded across the grassy plains, mentally preparing for the fight against the water elemental. The fight shouldn’t be too hard, quite easily, actually, since all elementals shared the same weakness I was used to exploiting. An elemental was essentially a core that surrounded itself with the appropriate element. As such, if you destroyed the core, they’d fall apart and die. This could prove difficult, since they could amass quite the armor, and finding the core in all that mess wasn’t easy. Yet, after some practice over the various layers, mutating my nose, and some good coordination with my pack, I had developed a surefire way to pinpoint the core. All that was left was to destroy the surprisingly fragile core after that.
It had been a while since I confronted an elemental, but I had made sure to drill any and all tactics that could reliably take out a specific type of enemy, making recalling them as needed easy.
Shortly before reaching the lake, I could smell the kobold finishing his ritual. Almost immediately afterward, a violent wind picked up, and the poisonous fog was dragged in the direction of the forest. The air cleared up, increasing visibility until I could see the small tornado rampaging through the forest, sucking up all the poison that had filled the arena. I chuffed at the disrespect of the kobold, daring to negate the fantastical spell Gary had cast with something as basic as that. I mentally promised to kill that damn kobold the first chance I got.
The absence of the poison fog allowed me to see and smell properly again. The first thing I noticed was the towering form of the water elemental, which had absorbed most, if not all, of the lake water. Certainly a threatening display to intimidate lesser beings, but just because it was big didn’t mean it was any harder to kill than its smaller brethren. Absentmindedly registering that there was no more fighting on the mountain, I commanded my pack to spread out around the water elemental.
The elemental noticed our approach immediately, and a barrage of water bullets and high-pressure water jets rained down on us. In classic elemental fashion, there was little more finesse to the attack than attempting to drown us in a deluge of simple, straightforward projectiles, which made it easy to utilize our superior speed to evade. Thanks to the distance I maintained, the attacks were visible for a long time, and since they all flew in a straight line toward me, I tried to move as little as possible while dodging as a small game while waiting for my pack to get ready.
I didn’t have to wait long for them to spread out and around the elemental, and once I verified everybody was ready, I linked myself to the pack. I was immediately assaulted by the sensations of all of them, as they shared their senses of touch, hearing, and smell. The first moment of using this skill was always a bit disorienting, but I’d used it enough to quickly filter out anything I didn’t need, which usually was everything except smell. As I did so, sifting through the information our combined noses gathered, triangulating the faint smell of the elementals' core became easy.
I gave another command to the pack, and, as one, we each used an elementally attuned laser spell. I was able to share some of my own skills with the pack, allowing the others to use them as if they were their own. Six wind attuned lasers shot toward a spot close to the lake bed, all hitting home at the same time. I couldn’t see the core, but that didn’t matter. The system confirmed the kill immediately, and if that wasn’t enough, watching the controlled water collapse back into the lake was confirmation enough.
A quick sniff revealed that I had no idea where Gary currently was, but he had no doubt seen the water elemental get taken out. Considering that the Kobold was closer to the mountain than I was, he was the most likely next target. The tornado was still raging, destroying swaths of the forest, ejecting trees at a high velocity, although not aimed at anything in particular. I couldn’t help but suspect that the kobold didn’t have control over its own spell, most likely having lost control the instant the ritual had been cast. What a fool.
My clash with Gary was now all but guaranteed, but before that, why not play a little game? Both of us wanted to kill the kobold, and we were roughly the same distance from the target. It would be a race to see who could eliminate the lesser creature first. I snarled, displaying my teeth in the closest thing I had to a smile as my pack gathered around me once again. I let loose a bone-shaking howl, which served as the starting shot to the race.
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Eighth Layer Quest:
Participants: 3/8
Personal Kills: 1