Limitless Path

The next morning was much the same, as Beth spent a bit of extra time with Sabs, time she had in abundance thanks to needing less sleep. Eventually, Sabs woke, then she just rolled over and grunted at Beth after kissing her good morning. Beth got up and roused Blood, the two taking care of their morning routine before heading out for the day to continue their explorations.

The next item they had to check for Jaq was well over a hundred miles away, down to the southwest, putting it within what was, or had been, Pennsylvania before the world changed. It would have normally been a couple hour drive to get to their destination, but even cutting cross-country, the two would be able to make it to the coordinates in under an hour, showing just what stats and skills could do for a person. They kept their heads on a swivel the whole way, but rarely saw anything even above level fifty, with most things they passed being between level thirty-five and forty-five, as well a good handful of things even lower than that.

Stopping to make sure they were heading the right way, Beth noticed an odd-looking plant a few dozen feet to the side, walking over to inspect it. She got just slightly light-headed as she leaned close, letting her know it was something at least a little dangerous, but it wasn't anything that really impacted her too badly. She carefully pulled the plant from the ground and made it disappear into her necklace before standing and slapping her gauntlets together to clean them. Blood motioned for them to continue, having taken that quick minute to make sure they were heading the right way and chart their progress.

Beth observed the area around them as they moved, noting that there weren't as many changes as she thought there might be. It had been some time since the world had changed, but even so, they moved through areas of forested hills and a bit of flat farmland, the only differences being the beasts that now roamed the area. There were little pockets here and there of abnormality, a zone of hot springs that shouldn't be there, a small area that looked like it had lava bubbling to the surface, and even a lake that Beth was pretty sure shouldn't be there, complete with a strange waterfall that seemed to lead nowhere. They ignored it all, for now, and continued down to the coordinates, making great time as they didn't have to fight a single thing on the way.

Beth let Blood lead the way once they were close, giving the wolf time to scout the area before they both leapt in headfirst. It didn't take very long, Beth walking towards the area at a sedate pace until Blood updated her. It turned out the second anomaly wasn't anything particularly special, as it was the entrance to a dungeon. There were quite a few beasts in the area, not nearly tide levels, but it certainly looked like nobody had been clearing this dungeon. It was likely on Jaq's list because it was just over level one hundred, producing strong enough mana fluctuations that his scanning and observations would mark it as a point of interest for him. Beth suspected, however, that some of the biggest mana fluctuation, i.e. the most interesting finds, he was investigating himself, though he likely wasn't taking much loot, as even the craziest things on Earth right now would still be almost useless to an Ascended like him.

Beth led the way in clearing the area, killing everything outside. Normally, they wouldn't bother with something like this, but the dungeon was in the middle of nowhere, even before the Path had forced people to congregate in cities and away from the rural areas. It was the same reason they entered the dungeon afterwards and did a quick run of it, clearing it not for any reason but to try to reduce the mana build-up. It was a point to think about; one of the main causes of beast tides was a dungeon left untended for an extended period of time, leading to the mana building up to the point there was a massive break.

Even taking their time to clear the surrounding area thoroughly before the dungeon, they didn't spend more than an hour on the whole thing. Beth noted the dungeon's location, level, and beast composition, as well as putting in a warning that somebody would have to be sent to clear it out occasionally. It was something the CRA sometimes did, though usually only on newly integrated worlds such as Earth, and could be enough to qualify as a Silver mission, though that mission would generally encompass clearing a group of dungeons in a short span of time, often multiple times each.

Blood led the way to the next objective on Jaq's list, the two not bothering to return after taking care of that second item so quickly. The next item proved to be very similar, a dungeon that was another hundred or so miles away, much more to the west than south, putting them fairly far west in Pennsylvania, though still a way from the Ohio border. They were in an area of mountains, though they had been worn down over time to nubs compared to the greater ranges of the world. Still, the range was more than hills here, with the terrain having seemingly turned much more impassible since the arrival of the Path.

That didn't bother the two of them, however, as they cleared the next dungeon, a place full of hobgoblins. The job was quick, and they moved on from there to the third item of the day, the fourth overall, finding it located almost directly south, over seventy miles away. They had moved quite a distance from home at this point, but it was still only midday; the speed at which they covered ground, particularly uneven ground, being rather ridiculous.

The next thing they encountered was a very weird area, something strange seemingly happening with the gravity in a region stretching a handful of miles in every direction, including up and down. Massive sections of rock floated in the air, including something that looked as if someone had taken a massive axe and hewed apart the top of one of the mountains in the area and somehow set it in midair. The two explored the area for a while, finding some rather annoying bird-like beasts and a few strange, armored cat-like beasts resident therein. After discovering nothing else of note in more than an hour, they decided to move onto the next item, making it their last for the day before returning to the Hall. Whatever they found at this location, that would complete the initial request, making it rather easy for a Silver-level mission, but Beth also suspected that Jaq, despite his extremely prickly exterior, was handing them a bit of a gimme.

"Hey, does it kinda feel like…" Blood started.

"Don't," Beth replied.

"It feels like we're doing fucking chores," Blood continued.

"Yeah, we're checking all the annoying shit Jaq doesn't want to actually look into in person," Beth answered with an eyeroll. "But it'll get me Silver and let us start working on your missions, so let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

"What horse?" Blood asked.

"Never mind, it's just an expression. Focusing on scouting the next place out," Beth replied with a sigh as they moved along towards the last destination.

Unlike everything else so far, this last stop was going to make them work for it. Specifically, when Blood arrived at the coordinates indicated on their maps in the communicators, she found…nothing. There wasn't any obvious 'weird stuff' happening anywhere, and there wasn’t a big dungeon or some kind of strange instance with a glowing portal for them to jump through. Instead, there was just more forest and a bit of an open field with an old, quite old, tractor parked at one end. There were some more wooded areas further south, though it looked like part of that had crept over what was a farmer's cultivated land, reclaiming it within the last several months, the mana giving the trees a bit of an overdrive in growth.

Blood wandered around for a handful of minutes, Beth hanging back and letting the wolf do her thing, before either of them noticed anything. For Blood, it manifested as a slight, but noticeable, strange smell, something that she caught scent of at the exact same time that Beth felt a stirring in the mana around them. Perhaps it was because of that special link to a more advanced concept that her encounter with Liveria's memory had given her, but she was able to detect an odd fluctuation had started to push on the mana in the surrounding area.

The smell and the mana fluctuations were both heralds that presaged the coming of a powerful beast. A pillar of light suddenly appeared, and it did more than glow, as it struck the ground with enough force that it carved a small crater around where it landed, knocking clods of dirt and rocks into the air. Beth had to squint slightly to focus through the brightness, her much more powerful eyes mostly protecting her from that level of light.

When the light dissipated, there was a large being standing in its place that looked very much like a crystal golem. It wasn't a clear or reflective crystal, but a pale white color that seemed to shine brightly in the late afternoon light, casting odd reflections and causing shimmering distortions in the air around it. The strange creature was more than ten feet tall, with two thick legs and two arms like giant, white steel beams. It panned what passed for a head, a huge chunk of bullet-shaped crystal, left and right, seemingly scanning the surrounding area for any threat. Beth quickly Identified the beast to get some idea what was even going on.

Level 180 Crystal Dread Light Guardian

Beth wasn't really sure what basically any of that meant, other than the fact that likely none of it was any good. She noted that Blood had circled around to almost directly behind the beast as it was recovering from its…fall? Teleport? Creation? She also noted that as soon as the beast detected her, either through sight or sound or some other sense, it immediately charged at her. It cared naught for anything caught in its path, simply plowing through trees and bushes and rocks as if they were made of paper, dust and debris spuming into the air as the beast pulverized everything, huge clods of dirt tossed through the air to bounce off the surrounding scenery.

Beth was already fully equipped, of course, and ready to meet the beast. Despite how easily they had taken out the Deep Gator, she wasn't going to underestimate something that fell out of a magic beam of light and was thirty levels above them. Thirty levels was never a tiny gap, and in the mid-hundreds, it was more like a towering wall than a little space to jump across. Keeping such things in mind, she didn't meet the charge of the strange beast head-on, but instead moved around it at the last minute, burning everything except her Presence to move out of its path while dishing out a heavy strike to its side.

Beth frowned as the beast slowed, feeling like she was a normal person and had just tried to punch concrete. Perhaps that wasn't wholly apt, as her fist was basically undamaged after the exchange, but it clearly hadn't done anything but irritate the beast even further, considering it was already hopping mad at the start. Despite reminding her of a golem, the beast didn't behave in the slow, plodding, methodical way that she would expect of a construct. It instead charged her with near-reckless zeal, taking wild swipes at her whenever it was close and roaring when it missed.

It was also clearly very strong but, luckily, it shared the same kinds of weaknesses that golems often had, though not to such an extreme extent. It was physically very strong and durable, but it was slow to move, taking time to wind up before every action and having trouble course-correcting, whether that was changing direction while running or while swinging. While its DEX clearly wasn't quite up to snuff, it wasn't as bad as other golems Beth had killed before, just being slightly outdone by Beth herself. This would be different than her previous fights, however, as Blood now had the capability to do damage, even serious damage, to an opponent with such a hardened exterior. Her soulbound claws and new damaging ability combined to allow her to dish out severe damage, especially if she charged her energy claw attack in her weapon but didn't release the attack, a variation of the skill she had been working on recently.

Another positive working in their favor was that the beast's tactics weren't really anything to write home about, either. After two minutes of fighting, they had only dealt minor damage to it, but they had observed that it certainly attacked in the same manner over and over, starting with a lumbering charge, then stomping towards them when that missed and swinging its arms with abandon. Not that there wasn't any danger present, as catching the edge of a swing lifted Beth off her feet and sent her tumbling through two trees before she rolled to a stop, the oak and maple tree she had destroyed the bases of toppling atop the beast.

It merely roared in response, swiping its arms upwards and shattering the trunks as it charged her again. Blood intercepted as Beth rose to her feet, the wolf in her natural form as she used the size and weight to her advantage, smashing into the beast from the side and tackling it off course. The elite enemy stumbled slightly as it continued charging forward, staggering through another tree before it righted itself, coming to a stop with three massive, pounding footfalls. It didn't even have time to turn before Beth slammed into it, dumping a massive amount of mana through her right arm in a full-power Crush that cracked the beast's side.

The cracks were little more than skin-deep, however, as the guardian staggered slightly before taking another retaliatory swipe. Beth had learned from the last backhand, sliding well out of the way before slipping forward to dish out a quick combo, stepping back after three punches to avoid another haymaker. She boosted herself further, pumping more mana into her body through Swift while brawling with the beast, not backing up to allow it to charge any more.

Blood stepped in beside her, sharing some of the load as the two weaved back and forth around each other, dodging every swipe while returning strike after strike. Beth seemed to suddenly accelerate even more as something clicked, the girl focusing on refining her movements to a greater degree so there was absolutely no waste in anything she did. The two were focused in to the extreme and it was only a passing thought for each of them, noting how Beth became faster and smoother, but it allowed their cooperation to become even more seamless.