Novigrad (Part 8)

"The trail goes up, to the top of the trees and in south-east direction." - Alan saw prints of aura on space itself. He was a perfect predator. No creature can escape him unless it deliberately cleaned up its aura. But where can one find such a smart monster? It takes magic to perform such tricks.

Coen traced sheaths of his swords with a hand and entered the forest, while Alan went after him.

"Shh, you hear that?" - said Coen after half an hour of pursuit.

"Silence." - Alan nodded in confirmation. - "No animals around. Fiend's lair should be near."

"Let's stop here." - Coen sat by the tree and opened his bag with practiced movements. Perhaps he can't even count how many times he did it.

Alan withdrew his own potions while placing Dearg Aeánn on his knees. As usual, he smeared battle oil witcher use against monsters. The one meant to bring down relicts was easily the strongest poison in witchers arsenal, however, it worked wonders only on relict type monsters, as they have a special bloodline.

It could directly burn and blow up their special mana, thus creating gaping wounds from a slight cut. However, Alan had a fair share of doubt that it will work this time.

Coen drank his elixirs, the standard combination for reaction, stamina, and regeneration. Alan did the same, albeit he didn't need to adjust to them like others, instead, they worked nearly instantly.

"I'll place tripwires on the way."

"Need my supply?"

"I have bombs of all kinds. Coen, I'll use an enhanced version of Grapeshot, so it's going to be loud and bloody. Remember where traps are. I don't want to run around gathering your body parts."

" You are such a positive lad, Alan." - snorted the witcher with a bored look. He was awfully calm for someone who just admitted his fears. - "I doubt it will work on the fiend of this size. His fur must be thick enough to stop arrows. But whatever. It is a back-up plan for escape. Place them on the height of the waist, that will aim at its knees."

"I know, Coen, stop nagging like a grandma." - outwardly Alan disregarded old witcher, but inwardly he felt the pressure of the unknown. One thing was to hunt monsters, portrayed in the bestiary, and another something they never faced before.

Venturing into the unknown always takes more courage, knowledge, and preparation.

Especially for witcher jobs where they forced to run on a razors edge, on a thin line between life and death.

"It's time." - said Coen, while opening his eyes and looking at Alan who just came back from setting traps. Completely black eyes on the pale face with gray veins glanced sideways. - "I'm all set. After that, I want a bottle of cola with a hamburger."

"Should I call you greedy or a man of culture?" - Alan scoffed but relented in front of such a simple demand. He still had a truckload in the ring.

"Both I guess. Remember my motto!" - smirked the witcher and waved his sword several times, making cutting noise and wind pressure spread through the surroundings. He was so fast, that blade nearly disappeared during strikes.

"Yeah, you keep repeating it again and again. Really, once is enough for a lifetime for me." - grumbled Alan and dived into the forest. - "Follow me, we will go through the route I placed tripwires on."

The duo stopped talking when Alan created a vibe channel for mind speech. Not everyone can use telepathy, but witchers were among the kind who accustomed themselves to it.

Soon they arrived beside the entrance to a cave.

'See the marks. It dug through stones to broaden the cave.' - said Coen through the channel.

Alan only nodded, calculating the length of its claws from the deep fissures in the wall. The result wasn't heartwarming at all. It can easily cut an adult apart.

They entered the darkness and found an entire world inside. It was huge, like a grotto.

'I never expected this place to be so big.'

One must note that normally caves are very narrow and require special equipment to venture inside. Let alone such an expanse, even the ones where a person can freely walk could be found only on rare occasions.

They stepped inside soundlessly. Even on stone with an echo from drops of water around witchers moved like the wind seamlessly. Soon they heard a sound of deep breathing.

'It is awake. When fiends sleep they barely breathe.' - commented Coen.

Well, who said it will be easy?

They sneaked into a wide tunnel. There was a glow of neon light at the end of it that made both wary. Especially Alan, since he felt a very strange but potent type of primal mana seething from inside. It was both scalding and destructive, yet brought a feeling of contamination, filth, and disorder. As if it was there to oppose nature and order of things.

As if it was something to only bring ruin and decay with no birth afterward.

It is commonly said that the main definition of a monster wasn't looks, deadliness, or special traits. It wasn't even a term that pointed out the difference in intelligence. No, in fact, monsters in witcher vision are entities extricated from the natural order of things.

Their extermination will never influence the balance of nature. In some sense, it is a species foreign and hostile to the normal environment of the world.

Even wolves bring something good to the forest. They hunt, they kill, but if they disappear, it will severely influence the ecosystem. Monsters don't influence it as a species at all and can be exterminated freely. They don't have a place in the food chain of the world.

Perhaps... humans are closer to monsters than any other beings of nature in that sense.

The same nature had this mana. It was like a monster among magic affinities. Hostile, foreign, and unbalances. Pure destruction outside the cycle of elements. And that made Alan extremely tense because it meant only one thing.

They were facing something demonic. That threat could go beyond their wildest guesses and calculations.

'We are in trouble, Coen. It is something demonic.'

'Ya sure, boy?' - the witcher frowned and readied his sword. Demons were a variable. They can be anything but extremely rare to find. After all, normally, without summoner from this world, it is impossible for them to appear.

Still, if nothing works, witcher blades should. Alan marveled at those masterpieces of forge masters and runecraft. One can even deflect and cut through magic-using them. He still remembered how during spar in Kear Morhen Geralt cut through his changed Quen with ease.

It was all due to runes and dimeritium in its alloy.

That was why Alan has a certain amount of trust into his own Crimson Edge and his focus was on both swordsmanship and magic, as they complement each other instead of contradiction.

'Get ready.' - Coen said and looked inside the cave. - 'The hell is that!?' - came a startling thought soon after.

Alan shifted through space to another side of the wall and inspected the monster inside. Chills ran through his spine a moment later.

By all means, it really resembled a fiend. A huge creature with antlers and strong ape-like arms adorned with long claws. But that was it about the resemblance. What astonished him were flaming wings, cracks on fur that were burning with tongues of neon fire, and somewhat demonized appearance.

'Well, Coen... let's go for plan Z directly.' - sent Alan the thought while crouching behind the boulder.

'And that is?'

'Careful improvisation. We can't use bombs inside the cave. I'll try to control it with magic. You go after its rear legs. As far as I remember, fiends are weak there.'

Alan breathed out once and a familiar coolness entered his mind. Logical thinking stepped in front of anything else, leaving mercy and hesitation behind. His face transformed into an icy mask devoid of any emotions and state of mind went from a regular one to a perfect unfeeling war machine.

Both stepped inside together and ran in different directions across the cave. It was spacious, nearly round, and had no places to hide.

Fiend noticed them, spread out its wings and roared with a thunderous sound, induced with magic. Witchers had good resistance to magic overly and with Quen around the bodies resisted the first attack easily.

'Coen, its third eye is fully grown.'

'Noted.'

Alan with the first step conjured a wave of shadows and while slapping the ground sent them at the monster. Darkness converged into seemingly unbreakable chains that escaped the black pool of mana and tried to tie the monster down, but to duos shock, they couldn't even come close.

Wings of the fiend flared up and neon fire spread everywhere, melting them all away like snow under the scorching sun. Coen shifted to the side in a pirouette, while cutting the wave apart with a silver sword.

Alan didn't stop and let failure influence him. This time he changed for earth spells, but even spikes of earth turned to ashes.

The monster roared in rage and charged at him. It was so fast that looked like an enormous speeding blur. Alan disappeared from the front of its head on a wake of turquoise light and while appearing behind immediately slashed at its legs in a whirlwind motion.

The silver blade went forward and only sparks were the result.

'Its weak places protected by sturdy chitin plating. Hit where the fur is.'

Before Alan could gain distance, fiend performed a splendid kick like some horse. Its huge hoof slammed into the chest of a young witcher and the impact sent him flying away. Even Quen shield suffered and bent over.

Alan fell down, rolled over his head, and stood up while sliding on the wet stone floor. He breathed in and out several times without stopping to move around the monster that received a stab from Coen. He never took his eyes from the foe and remained calm.

Fiend roared with anger and spun around, but old witcher could duck under its ferocious strike.

'I will try fire, Coen.'

Alan again teleported, but this time directly above. His arm already had an aqua-colored fireball between his fingers. Silently he let go of the binding lines on the spell and it accelerated down like a cannon blast. Spells used by mages here were nothing to scoff at in terms of speed and power. They were nothing like the ones from the previous world.

With a thunderous blast, bluish flames exploded above the monster, slamming it into the floor. The force of its fall send shard of gravel, dust, and shockwave. It was as if the enormous monster suffered from a sudden megaton press coming at it from above.

'My aqua flames seem contrasting to neon ones. Mine are purity, neon taint. Yet they both bring destruction.'

Coen didn't dawdle and attacked, aiming for its third eye. The creature is yet to use it, but he knew firsthand how troublesome fiend with mental powers can become.

Alan teleported to the back and wanted to get a proper hit for its legs.

They both underestimated the resilience this new fiend had. It was just burnt on the surface, but the magical power of demonic nature protected it thoroughly. What Alan did only angered the beat further.

It roared, and with all the might jumped forward, aiming its claws at Coen. The latter barely had time to take a blocking stance reflectively. He received the strike on the sword while jumping. That was a way to let a huge enemy toss him away without blocking all the power of the strike.

And true to the move, Coen flew away in breathtaking speed while somersaulting in the air and lending with his legs on the wall. Still, the strike was so strong that he could help but be slammed and stone sound cracked with several bones in tow.

'I'm good. Just ribs. Continue.'

Alan only gave a brief glance at Coen to determine his position and a moment later teleported under the fiend to attack its stomach, but the creature suddenly flapped flaming wings and jumped high in the air, hurling neon fireball straight in Alan's face.

With a frontal chop, the spell fell apart, blocking his vision with a flash of flames and light. Iris narrowed to vertical slits. Still, the fiend acted faster.

It was a split second lag in action, and yet Alan paid for it. Fiend descended back with a swipe of its claw. He avoided the first attack in a pirouette. Alan could barely offset it with a sword, however, that sent the entire stance in disarray.

The second claw got him. It went straight through Quen, ripped armor apart, and left two deep gushes on the stomach. Alan registered the damage and cringed further when he realized that its claws had some strange decaying power to them.

It prevented regeneration and directly evaporated any magic and medical effectiveness of elixirs.

'God dammit. Coen, its claws are dangerous. You won't recover from them, even stopping blood is difficult.'

But that's where the natural healing factor of Alan's bloodline kicked in. Magic can't, elixirs can't, but the force hidden deep within the blood was on another level altogether. The bleeding stopped nearly instantly. However, the healing process will still take time.

Hours, to be exact. But not bleeding is enough to last for days with such injuries. As long as he keeps going all will work out, eventually.

'Noted.' - came calm thought in response. None of the duos panicked. None backed off. It was their job. And they were damn good at it. - 'From now take a conservative approach. Adapt to it.'

Soon they got used to the speed and battle pattern of the fiend, that received damage. One thing to note was that once Alan cut off its magic wings, the overall magic power of the monster went down. Yet, they still had claws and antlers glowing with concentrated neon flames.

'Looks like we need to plunk out this glowing shit first.' - snorted Coen. - 'Support me.'

But that was a mistake.

Alan never saw mana work like that.

Fiend ran at Coen, and neon light from its claws entered the bloodstream. It directly influenced flesh and bones, tainting it with something impure and degrading, yet giving tremendous might. Who could have predicted that?

"Shit!" - Coen cursed, realizing that he got careless at the last moment. He tried to avoid its charge, but could only slightly shift before the right antler impaled his chest and fiend crushed with him into the stone wall.

Witcher coughed out blood but didn't stop his purpose. He seized the antler with his one hand and with another directly impaled its third eye with the sword. The creature turned its head away, protecting most of the brain, yet it could see the bloodied smile of the witcher, who created a sign.

Aard at point-blank range worked as a hammer, inserting blade up to the hilt and directly killing the monster. They both slumped to the ground.

'Coen! Coen!' - when Alan saw the wound, slight panic and pain gripped his heart even through the battle trance state of mind. He reached out with shaking hands, removing the antler. He thought he could heal him if he uses the whole reserve of mana, but failed to do so.

Healing spells descended on the witcher body, yet broke down the next moment. Elixirs slightly lessened the threat, but the entire stash of it could only stop bleeding for a time.

That is when he decided to find the intersection. A point of convergence of magic.

'Coen, just stay with me... don't you die!'

In response, witcher only gave him a hazy, but warm smile.