"Bonehead was spitting straight facts," Deacon muttered as he leapt from one moss-slicked branch to the next, creating a noise that was barely audible even to his own ears. The three porcelain vials were cradled tightly against his chest with one arm; in the other, his short sword glinted in the low light, held loosely but ready.
"Goths are hot, and if you meet a Goth Mommy… Praise the damn System, you've been blessed."
The trees thinned ahead.
He landed silently on the final branch before the clearing. Below him, fog clung to the earth like a blanket of ghosts, parted only by the heavy pressure that radiated from the center.
He dropped down.
The grove was circular, unnaturally symmetrical, its edges framed by towering stone thorns half-buried in the soil. And in the very heart of the clearing stood the statues of the Three Sisters of Fate.
I guess it's fitting somewhat, Deacon mused as he took notice of the heavy residue of ritualistic mana that permeated through the air and the varying painted sigils atop the massive stones that went around the grove, acting as a deterrent to the beasts. Witches and their ritual and nature mumbo jumbo.
A Mommy Goth Witch, Deacon shook his head, eyes closing for a moment. Bonehead would be barking the moment I mention this quest to him and send him a photo of her.
The statues loomed over him, they looked to be at least three meters in height, cast in ash and marble. They looked to be untouched by time, pristine, really.
Urd, the Writer of the Past, sat hunched on a throne of gnarled roots and cracked tomes. Her face was hooded, but from beneath the veil, one weathered hand extended outward holding a rusted quill, along with her gut. Scrolls spilled from her lap, curling around her feet like dead leaves. Her eyes were closed, yet Deacon, for some reason, had an eerie feeling that the statue was watching him.
Lachesis, the Weaver of the Present's statue was a lot taller compared to the statues of her sister, and whether that was for aesthetics, considering she stood in the middle or because she was supposedly supposed to be depicted as the stronger sister, he didn't know, he normally zoned out when people mentioned gods, so this was his first time ever hearing that they even existed. Her face was uncovered by her cloak's hood that was pressed to the back of her neck, revealing her long auburn hair and bright green eyes. Threads of gold and blood-red stretched from her fingers across the loom. Her gaze was fixed forward, unwavering.
Morta, the Spinner of the Future, was half-wrapped in chains, her body looking to be split between flesh and serpentine. A blindfold covered her eyes, and in her lap rested a spindle made of bone and obsidian. From it unraveled a long thread that coiled down into the earth and disappeared into the dark soil. Despite her blindfold, Deacon could feel her stare drilling deep into him.
Deacon let out a tiny sigh and clicked his tongue. "For the love of the System, please don't let this be another moving statue bullshit trial like the one in forth year's combat final. I barely fucking pulled out a win while having to carry four rando dipshits from Class D and E."
Deacon stared up at the statues, eyes narrowing.
"Three meters, huh?" he muttered. "Real subtle, ladies. Totally reasonable height for god statues that definitely aren't going to come alive and slap me into next week."
He popped open the first bottle labeled Urd and approached her statue. As he did so, he felt the air around him become colder. But seeing and feeling no other effects of the statue, he quickly scaled it.
And given the shock he'd felt upon learning that gods actually existed, confirmed by the System's own words during a Floor Quest, he couldn't help but wonder how others might react if they knew he was currently standing on the face of a goddess of fate's statue.
Kicking off the face of Urd's statue and reaching the top, he gently poured the contents of the vial across Urd's veiled head and extended hand. The fluid shimmered like molten moonlight as it fully enveloped the statue and made it faintly glow orange.
"That's one."
He dropped down, landed with a grunt, and moved to Lachesis, noticing that the air around her felt a bit warmer.
She stared at him with her fully open eyes. "Oh yeah, that's totally comforting," he muttered before he began to scale her statue.
"Note to self, get a ladder. A really long ladder that can fit into a pouch."
He poured the second vial. It fizzed faintly on contact, vanishing into Lachesis's smooth, marble skin before faintly glowing orange. "Two down."
The last was Morta. She gave off the most uncomfortable feeling, she radiated a kind of oppressive pressure that made the hair on the back of Deacon's neck prickle.
"Okay. Let's get this over with."
He reached the top and uncorked the last porcelain bottle. The second the liquid touched the statue, the chains around Morta's body vibrated, humming with power. The thread in her lap trembled, glowing faintly, but as he dropped back down to the dirt with a solid thud, the whole statue began to faintly glow orange.
"Right," he said, dusting off his coat. "That's all three of them. Now what?"
Then the System Notification chimed in his ear.
Do you wish to begin Wave 1?
[Yes] [No]
Tossing the three porcelain bottles at the foot of the statues, Deacon let out a breath and took out his short swords from their sheaths on his back and cast Flame Armament before confirming. "Yes."
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Wave 1: Initiated.
Hostiles Detected: 17
Classification: Mixed Beasts – Levels 1–2
Threat Level: Minor
Objective: Eliminate All Threats
Deacon rolled his shoulders, the edges of his short swords igniting in a slow, flickering blaze from the Flame Armament enchantment. Fire licked along the steel, casting harsh orange and crimson shadows across the statues and the twisted underbrush.
"Seventeen, huh?" he said under his breath. "That should be good for a warm-up."
The first to break from the mist was a twisted stag, its antlers grown like thorns and splitting like the branches of a tree, eyes glowing blue from within its face that looked to be half melted off. Behind it, spider-wolves, moss-boars, and malformed panthers slinked through the ferns, each one drooling dark blood and twitching like broken puppets.
"Oh, that's a lot of teeth. You guys trying to compensate for something?" Deacon cracked his neck, eyes flicking between them.
The beasts surged forward in an uneven pack, shrieking and growling.
Deacon exploded into movement.
He sidestepped the first lunge, one of the spider-wolves, and slid beneath its leap, driving both blades upward through its chest and out the back in a spray of black blood. He twisted, flames erupting out of the wounds, searing the beast's insides before it hit the dirt.
The moss-boar charged next, a snort that smelled to be a mix of bile and raisins. Deacon pivoted, kicked off its face, and launched himself over it, slashing across its spine on the way down, trailing fire. It collapsed mid-gallop, squealing for a moment before going silent and filling the air with the scent of roasted boar.
"Two down," he muttered, spinning his blades.
The two malformed panthers came in tandem, jaws looking severely swollen, tongues twitching like eels. Deacon ducked the first swipe, then kicked one into the other, flipping it backward in doing so. Midair, he hurled one of his short blades, impaling the lead panther through the eye. It screeched in pain as the blade tore through its soft skull with ease and penetrated the heart of the one it was on top of.
Quickly sprinting towards the dead, malformed panthers and pulling out his blades, he twisted on his heel to face the other monsters and beasts that were surrounding him.
A lizard-hound with bone hooks for paws rushed him with a second in tow. Deacon parried its claw swipe with one blade, letting the momentum spin him low into a sweeping slash that severed all four of the beast's legs.
The second one lunged at his back, he whirled around just in time to ram both blades through its throat, lifting it and igniting the core of its neck. He hurled the corpse at a charging stag-beast.
The twisted stag grunted as the burning body collided with it. Deacon took the opening, vaulting over the creature's shoulder and stabbing down both blades into its spine before ripping them out. Black blood exploded up like a geyser as the beast crumbled beneath him.
Four spider-wolves encircled him now, their limbs twitching, frothing with hunger. They pounced in sequence.
He rolled to avoid the first, sliced through the leg of the second, and ducked under the third just long enough to grab its jaw and drive a blade under its chin. As the fourth bit at his arm, he let it, then ignited his own sleeve with a quick application of Ignis, setting both the wolf and his coat ablaze. He yanked his arm free with a hiss, steam rising from the singed leather sleeve, and socked the spider wolf in the face with the same arm.
"I should have known that guy cheaped out on me with the enchantment thread," he muttered, wiping blood and charred leather from his face. "When I find him, Imma–"
More came at once. A horned fox with smoke for blood. Two vulture-dogs with bleeding wings. A swarm of bark rats clinging to a large, malformed hound's hide like parasites.
Deacon gritted his teeth. Time to get messy.
He plunged into the hound first, igniting its fur with a blaze along its flanks. As it barked and swiped wildly, he used it like cover, running up its back and leaping into the swarm of bark rats, slashing in mid-air like a cyclone.
Bits of charred wood and steaming flesh rained down as he sliced them into pieces.
Landing hard, he rolled under a dive from one of the vulture dogs, then lunged forward and gutted the second from belly to throat. The first came again, he met it in midair and headbutted it, snapping its beak with his own forehead, before stabbing both swords through its chest.
He didn't even turn around when the horned fox came at him, instead, his left arm let go of his left short blade that was embedded in the vulture dog's chest and flickered behind him.
A heartbeat later, a dagger pierced the beast through the torso mid-pounce, sending it tumbling to the grass below.
Only silence remained.
Deacon stood amid a pile of burning corpses. Blood and smoke hung heavy in the mist-choked air. His chest rose and fell slowly. Flames still curled lazily from his blades.
One final bark rat twitched nearby.
Deacon raised his boot and stomped on its head.
Crunch!
"Seventeen," he counted aloud.
*[Spiderwolf Lv 2] has been slain – XP has been given.*
**
*[Bark Rat Lv 1] has been slain – XP has been given.*
Wave 1 has been completed!
Do you wish to begin Wave 2?
[Yes] [No]
"Yes," Deacon nodded in confirmation, and a moment later the beasts emerged from the outer rim of the fog.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
Wave 2: Initiated.
Hostiles Detected: 10
Classification: Mixed Beasts & Monsters – Levels 3–4
Threat Level: Minor
Objective: Eliminate All Threats
A hulking ape with bark for skin and fire leaking from its mouth led the charge of beasts. Behind it, twin centipedes the size of a cart slithered between the trees, each segment bristling with screaming mouths.
Twin shriek-crows circled above, talons glinting with steel, eyes glowing with curse-sigils. More followed: a skeletal moose with antlers of rusted blades, a snake with feathered wings, twin lion skeletons that were very much alive, and a mole with massive teeth.
The Bark Ape lunged at him, and he met it head-on.
Blade in each hand, he dashed low, then jumped and spun, cleaving through the creature's left leg mid-air. It roared and collapsed on one knee. He landed on its shoulder, thrust his blade into its throat, and shouted, "Ignis!" as flame magic erupted out and detonated the inside of its wooden skull.
"Come at me!"