Nightmare Realm Summoner

The trip through the Mirrorlands back to the campsite went without any major disturbance. Claire handled the majority of the monsters that tried to attack them along the way, dealing with them fairly easily.

Alex didn't mind letting her take the energy from all the fights. She was still trying to catch up to him and he'd gotten a whole bunch of extra strength recently — not to mention there was going to be more than enough power waiting for them to harvest very soon.

He took the time to observe Mite. The boy was quite interesting. Alex would have expected him to be at least a little on edge from the Mirrorlands. They were unsettling, even in comparison to what the apocalypse had done to Earth.

The monsters within them were considerably stronger and creepier than anything Alex had seen on the surface — and yet, Mite barely even seemed to care. He just stood by silently as Claire took the fights. Only after the monsters died did any interest spark in his eyes.

He'd looted every single monster she'd killed, digging through their guts like a delighted child playing in a sandbox. Mite had harvested everything from claws and teeth to strips of organs and other assorted bits that Alex had no idea as to the origin of.

Everything had gone right into a spatial ring on Mite's hand. It looked similar to the one Alex had, which meant it wasn't going to be able to store any magical artifacts, but evidently the System didn't see normal body parts as magical.

Mite's ring was definitely bigger than Alex's — the sheer number of things he'd stuffed into it was ridiculous. If anything, it was a bit surprising that Mite wasn't shoveling entire monster corpses into the thing.

He and his puppet just followed Claire around, harvesting pieces from the monsters she killed along their way back to the rift leading to the campsite.

The three of them eventually arrived at their destination in the thick forest that surrounded the town, both in the Mirrorlands and on 274-50.

"Right," Alex said as they came to a stop in the trees. "We're here."

"Where?" Mite asked.

"The portal," Alex replied. "We'll hop through it and the town will be right beside us, assuming it hasn't been destroyed it. It probably hasn't. I think we would have seen some form of reflection in the Mirorrlands if a Region Boss had awakened. Probably."

"You don't sound particularly confident about that."

"Anyone who sounds confident about anything to do with the Mirrorlands is probably lying," Alex said. "I don't know if even the System knows what goes on here. They're kind of just a trashbin where all the shit without a place to stay falls."

Strands of Riftwarped energy crackled across Alex's fingertips and coiled up his arm as he extended his hands, grabbing onto the thin line that marked the closed passage between the Mirrorlands and 274-50.

Energy hissed as he begun to pull the rift open. His fingers prickled as power coiled along the protective magic barrier covering his arms and the portal steadily grew.

"Brace yourself," Claire suggested.

"For what?" Mite asked, glancing around them curiously.

"Every time a portal gets opened, there's a small chance that we might have—"

The portal snapped open fully.

A glossy black sheen flashed over it before any of them could even think about trying to use it.

"—company," Claire finished. She lowered her stance and raised her katana. "If you've got any defensive abilities, I would suggest preparing them."

The ground before Alex turned pitch black. Bubbles burst from the shadowy pool as Princess rose up from within it, the centipede legs on her back twitching and squirming as they folded into place.

Ringing glass marked Glint's arrival as he emerged to stand beside Alex, and Spark rose from his shadow.

"I really don't have much," Mite said nervously. He stepped behind his puppet and hunched in an attempt to make himself look smaller. "What's coming? It's not another one of those goliath things, is it?"

"There's no way we'd get the attention of something that strong," Alex said. His eyes scanned through the air before he turned his attention to the ground — he wouldn't put it past the Mirrorlands to have the Riftwarped monster just appear from the ground beneath them. "This is just going to be a bit of cleanup."

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Something crunched in the forest to their side. Glint's head snapped toward the source of the noise and Alex's gaze followed a moment later. A dark mass slithered through the trees, just out of vision. He caught a glimpse of the tip of a tail and a flash of heavy black scales.

Mite's features paled and he took a step back. His puppet moved to stay between him and the monster lurking in the shadows of the trees.

"That looks big," Mite muttered.

"This one's yours, Alex," Claire said, stretching her arms over her head and letting out a yawn. "I've gotten my fill for the time being. I just want to take a nap and meditate."

"Glint," Alex said. The fact the snake hadn't struck yet meant it was probably some sort of ambush predator looking for an opening. And if it needed an opening… it probably wasn't going to be particularly powerful if they caught it off guard. "Lure it out."

The Glasmir blurred into motion. He vanished into the trees, his graceful movements barely even making a noise. There were several long seconds of silence.

Mite swallowed. He opened his mouth —

The ringing shriek of glass on metal tore through the silent forest. A huge, shadowed tail cut through the darkness. It slammed into a tree and tore right through it with a splintering crunch.

A rain of fragmented wood pattered against the ground as a furious hiss echoed out and the tail continued to thrash, tearing through the trees around it like they were made out of paper mache.

Princess lumbered forward, throwing herself forward and clamping onto the squirming tail. She wrapped her huge hands around it and used her entire body to pin the tail to the ground. Another furious hiss tore through the forest — and the head of a massive snake blurred free from the darkness.

The monster's head was more than twice as large as Alex was. It could have swallowed a human whole without blinking. Sleek black scales covered its surface, marred by purplish streaks that ran throughout them.

It might have been nearly completely invisible in the darkness if not for its eyes, which glowed with the trademark purple hue of Riftwarped energy.

It slammed into Princess' shoulder, its large fangs driving deep into her sludgy form, but she didn't so much as budge from her spot. The centipede arms on her back shot out to wrap around the snake's head. The tiny hooks along them found purchase in the thin gaps between the snake's scales.

With the monster's form revealed, the System finally granted Alex a look at the Riftwarped monster's stats.

Riftwarped Nightscale (Initiate 5)

"Holy shit," Mite whispered. "What the fuck is that? It's the size of a car! And what's with that level? Why is it so strong?"

That was an exaggeration — or Mite was used to very small cars.

"It's kind of lame," Alex said with a frown. "Only Initiate 5? The Riftwarped Monsters are usually stronger than that. Maybe the Region Boss waking up kind of marked the territory or something, so the good fights aren't hanging around anymore."

The Nightscale yanked its head back, tearing away nearly half of Princess' body in the process. Sludge splattered across the dirt and the huge snake let out a victorious hiss.

"Lame?" Mite exclaimed. "What are you talking about? It just killed your monster!"

Alex arched an eyebrow. The remaining half of Princess body bubbled as black fluid slithered along the ground and up her leg, beginning to reform her. She didn't even try to pull the portions of her body that were still in the snake's mouth back.

Her partially reformed form lunged forward, grabbing onto the Nightscale's upper jaw with one hand. Sludgy tendrils extended from the monster's mouth as her other hand re-connected to her and clamped down on the monster's lower jaw.

The large snake thrashed in her grip as it tried to free itself. Its tail smashed through the trees around it, but Princess wasn't just standing around in wait to get splattered again. She started to strain, slowly pulling the monster's jaws farther away from each other.

Fury lit behind the Nightscale's purple eyes. It convulsed its entire body, sending its tail whipping through the air for Princess like a wrecking ball. The huge wall of flesh slammed into her, obliterating the middle of her body.

And, in that moment, Glint and Spark struck as one.

The Glasmir blurred from the forest. He alighted on the Nightscale's head and drove both of his bladed claws down, plunging one into each of the monster's eyes. It let out an agonized scream, opening its mouth wide for the Night Wraith.

Spark leapt into the monster's mouth, ripping his arms up from the shadows binding him and pressing up to keep its jaws from closing again. An agonized hiss tore from the snake's mouth and it writhed in agony.

It was fruitless. Glint ripped his claws from the monster's eyes and slid down the side of its head, sliding past Spark to drive his claws straight up into the roof of the snake's mouth and through its brain.

The Nighteye jerked. Then its head crashed to the ground as its body fell still. Glint and Spark slipped free from its corpse as Princess' body reformed.

Alex shivered as energy poured into him. The snake hadn't been all that much of a challenge, but it had still been a fairly strong monster and killing it had netted a decent reward.

"Holy shit," Mite whispered.

A shimmer passed over the portal as the dark sheen covering it evaporated. The portal crackled in wait for them.

Alex strode over to the monster and scooped the Soul Flame from the ground, sliding it into a Spatial Mirror before sending a glance back to Mite. "Were you going to harvest anything from this thing?"

Mite blinked his surprise away. He hurriedly nodded and darted over to the monster alongside his puppet. The two of them proceeded to tear the creature to bits from within, desecrating its corpse as they stripped it of everything interesting.

Once Mite had finished stuffing his loot into his spatial ring, he turned back to Alex and gave him a nod.

"Okay. I'm ready. What's next?"

"We head through this," Alex replied, nodding to the portal. "I introduce you to everyone — and then you build us a way to teleport so we can get a merchant and prepare for the biggest fight of our lives. Exciting, right?"

"To be honest?" Mite asked, looking from Alex to the portal as a tiny grin tugged at one corner of his lips. "Yeah. It is."