Chương 180: A Green Hell

Infernal Orcs were the least of the hazards in the green-tainted wastelands. There were frenzied goblins of every description, and mutated beastmen that were not at all like the goatmen they had fought with and against so far. Those were a species that bred true from generation to generation. These beasts were nothing like that. Some might have started as men, and others as animals, but it soon became apparent that the true source of their disfigured visages was the flesh they feasted on. +2, 196 Life Force.

+34 Lesser Monster Souls. +22 Monster Souls. To the blade that was a cautionary tale of what might have happened to it if it had devoured the souls of the Demon Princes, it had claimed only a little more carelessly. Even now, it was nearly as tainted as this foul place, which put it all into context for it. Here, things were more visual, though, than judging the state of things by a handful of stained essence threads.

If a lion man ate the carcass of goblins, it might grow red eyes or a mane of small, grasping limbs. If a goblin ate the remains of an elkman, it would grow hooves or even a small thicket of thorns that was more like a halo than a proper set of antlers. It was a ghastly transformation that occurred in hours instead of days, but the blade often watched such scenes before it alerted its wielder of their presence. The blade had expected the creatures to be tainted, but not so tainted that they mutated freely.

Only strong opponents like the orcs maintained some semblance of who they should have been, and as it turned out, even those brutes did not place their nomadic encampments in the worst parts of the valley, below the waterline of pooling evil. That did not entirely surprise the Ebon Blade. It had lingered among them long enough to see that they had a primitive culture and a bestial sort of intellect. That they retained vestiges of it in these circumstances was only a small surprise.

The only solution to this was to burn what they killed, rather than leaving corpses in their wake. Hellfire excelled at this at least, though when they killed a dozen smaller enemies, Geral would drag them into a pile first, to reduce the amount of Life Force that needed to be spent igniting them. +1, 118 Life Force. +13 Lesser Monster Souls. +21 Monster Souls. Those weren't the only hazards they faced.

One night, while Geral slept soundly, and the blade watched a six-legged bear that had more in common with a wolverine than a grizzly dig into, and tear apart a goblin lair, it failed to notice a different threat until it was almost too late. It was so caught up in the raw spectacle of the violence that it didn't notice that its wielder was in jeopardy until it saw his Life Force tick down, first by one, and then by three. -4 Life Force.

The first time, it assumed it had somehow done it by accident, which should have been impossible. The second time, though, it commanded him to rise. We are under attack it blared silently, even if it couldn't find the source of the attack at first. There were no archers, javelineers, or mages anywhere in sight of them. For a moment, as its wielder rose, it allowed itself to worry that the gods might have found them after all, then its wielder flinched in pain.

The Ebon Blade didn't care at all about pain, but this time it revealed the source of the wound: the ground itself! As Geral tried to rise, it became clear that some parasitic plant had tried to infest him, and by standing, he ripped it free by the roots. Its wielder didn't even need to draw it to defeat the strange foe. He just pulled out where it's anesthetized had penetrated his skin and begun to drink his blood; the weapon's healing magics did the rest.

He did use it to set the main body of the hideous green worm creature ablaze with Hellfire once he found it. That unleashed a shriek that neither of them suspected, but while the large mole/worm/plant creature burned, revealing a broad parasitic network of burrows in the area they'd made camp, the two of them talked. +61 Life Force. -44 Life Force. +1 Lesser Monster Soul.

"It would seem even sleeping in an open field is not safe here," Geral commented. Nothing is safe here, the blade answered. It would have elaborated on that point, but as it was about to do so, the giant ursine behemoth it had been watching earlier, noticed the commotion they'd caused and charged them in a long, loping gate that ate up the ground between them with terrifying speed. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

That speed was nothing without technique, though. Geralt moved fast now, too, and even half-naked and fresh from slumber, he had time to side-step the furious charge and hack off two limbs on its left side as it plowed past. The roar then was furious, and echoed for quite a distance, making the blade wonder about what else the fight might attract. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for any encounter in this place to slip into a feeding frenzy. Tonight, though, the fight didn't last long enough.

What the mutant grizzly was huge, and its hide was thick enough that even the blade would have had trouble reaching its heart, Geralt's first blow had created a huge blind spot for him to maneuver, and almost two dozen minor wounds later, it was lying there, growling but exhausted as the blade stole its strength from it one small cut at a time. +634 Life Force. The Ebon Blade would have been fine with setting it alight then, but its wielder insisted on severing its spine and putting it out of its misery.

Only then did they walk away from the greasy bonfire and the tainted campsite. -25 Life Force. +1 Greater Monster Soul. That monstrous bear was far from the only monster here to reach terrifying proportions, though. In that first month, they discovered two ogres. One looked like a giant orc that had feasted its way to a gluttonous sort of majesty, and the other looked like it was a collection of a thousand beastmen and goblins.

The blade could even see the faces of many of those damned creatures amidst the thing's rippling, warty cellulite. The former they avoided because it was being worshiped by a dozen black-skinned, red-eyed orcs, which would have complicated things. The latter, though, they fought. It was a gory spectacle, though that wasn't just from the dark blood and pustulant ichor that fountained with every strike.

It was because each time the ogre's flesh was rent open, a few of the smaller monstrosities it had consumed escaped its grip. Those little half-digested creatures were the worst thing it had tasted since the sword had escaped from hell, but it did its best to ignore their soft bones and vomit-tinged souls as it focused on its wielder's skill. It had always known that iron sharpened iron, but that old saying was never more in evidence than on this trip.

Three weeks in this hellish valley fighting tainted creatures that could end him in a single blow that removed his head from his shoulders had done more for Geralt's technique than three months of fighting goblins and goats. He didn't avoid every blow, but he dodged or parried and counterattacked the worst of them, and that was all the blade could ask for. +448 Life Force. +26 Lesser Monster Souls.

Despite the foulness of their opponents, it took real joy in watching its wielder bring his giant opponent down to size. It was not a quick battle, but blow by blow, the thing shrank. No, that was the wrong word. It deflated. At the start, it had appeared to be a swollen muscular giant, but as it lost fingers and then limbs, it deflated until its skin hung loosely around it like an oversized woolen cloak.

As poorly as it fought, the battle would have taken only a minute or two if not for the waves of disgusting creatures that spewed from it. Each time they swarmed, the fight ground to a halt as he dispatched them. The blade interfered a little bit in those moments, using Position of Privilege so that he could scythe down the half-melted little bastards in a single sweeping blow.

That was expensive, but no more costly than the power it reaped from them, and it let its wielder get used to one of its more complicated powers. +691Life Force. +36 Lesser Monster Souls. +1 Greater monster Soul.

"Is there anything you can't do?" Geral asked it, chest heaving when the fighting was done. There are many things a weapon cannot do, it answered, but I can do anything a weapon might, and more. That night, its wielder bathed in a stream while the two talked strategy, and the weapon critiqued his performance. It did nothing to reduce the pollution being absorbed by his spirit, but it did wash away the guts he'd become plastered with.

Your movement has come a long way, but your awareness needs work, the weapon explained. There were many times when— Their conversation was halted when they heard a thunderous crash a mile or two away, and both looked toward it. For a moment, a gout of purple flame lit up the night, revealing a large figure absolutely destroying several smaller ones before they could do much more than cry out in pain and alarm.

Judging from the position of the fight, which was one of the main passes leaving the valley, the blade instantly decided that what it was seeing for the first time was whatever champion the gods had assigned to make sure the corruption that pooled here didn't escape to the wider world. From this distance, the blade couldn't see exactly what it was, but the ripples of its power echoed through the ether. It looked like a dragon, but it didn't act like one. Still, it could think of nothing else that size.

"Should we try to hunt that down next?" its wielder asked as they watched the carnage on the horizon. We should not, the blade answered. It wasn't afraid of the thing, but it wasn't at all sure its wielder would survive it. Not even if it fully unleashed a few of the powers it kept in reserve. Normally, that wouldn't have bothered it, but it was becoming attached to Geral and his one-man quest to purge the valley of evil. In a way, it was futile. The blade knew that now.

Every corpse they made would provide a feast for the next wave of monsters. In that way, even if they burned them all, this valley was nearly as infinite as the deepest pits had been, but in a way it was fitting for blade and wielder alike. It would never run out of enemies, and Geral would feel like he was making a difference, and as the man talked with excitement about coming home to see his wife soon, the weapon did not feel like crushing those hopes.