NOVGO.NET Chapter 446 - 446: First Monster
The cold air bit into his skin, so sharp it felt like it froze his very hair. Silva’s eyes flickered open. He stood at the peak of a snowy mountain, the world drowned in white. Below him, only endless clouds stretched, hiding the abyss that was beneath the peak.
He clicked his tongue and muttered, “Damn… this is a really bad place to start.”
The exam had no fixed enemy, no set opponent, no clear task. It was simple in theory: survive, adapt, fight monsters, solve whatever trials appeared, all while the Arcane Council registered his score.
But there was nothing simple about this place.
He didn’t know if this was truly reality or some twisted illusion, but it felt real, brutally real. The cold was relentless, the kind that gnawed at bone. If not for the heat coiled deep inside him, the mark of the Dark Dragon, he would have frozen solid by now. He could tell the temperature here was easily a hundred times below zero.
Carefully, he found his footing on the icy slope. He didn’t want to fly. He didn’t want to rush. Not until he understood the terrain. One reckless move could draw the wrong attention, and here, attention meant disaster.
Step by step, he began his descent. The cold pressed against him, fighting to seep inside, but it was the least of his concerns. A few hundred meters down, his senses prickled.
Something was there.
Through the storm of fog and ice, a shadow loomed. Two glowing red eyes burned in the haze, locked directly on him.
“So, my first opponent’s already here.”
He didn’t draw his weapon. He didn’t prepare a stance. He walked forward, calm and deliberate, wanting to understand before striking.
The closer he came, the clearer the silhouette grew. Eight feet tall, hunched on all fours, its limbs disturbingly long and thin. Black, slimy scales crawled down its back, its eyes piercing like shards of hellfire. Its mouth gaped with jagged teeth, a long tongue dripping with saliva, swaying like a serpent.
A grotesque abomination.
The air vibrated as it growled, a low, bone-deep rumble that shook the snow beneath its feet.
When Silva finally saw it fully, he froze, not from fear, but from awe. It wasn’t massive, but his instincts screamed the truth.
This monster was not to be trifled with. The monster locked on Silva and recognized him as a threat. Immediately, it lunged forward, reaching behind Silva in an instant. Silva was stunned at how fast it moved, he wasn’t even able to react to it.
He spun around, kicked the snow, and leaped back, dodging the swinging claw by only an inch. He slammed into the ground, rolled a bit before coming to a stop.
Silva pushed himself up from the ground, his eyes locked on the creature. He couldn’t believe its speed. Those lean limbs shouldn’t have been capable of moving like that.
Before he could think further, the monster leapt again.
His minds screamed at him to move.
He reacted fast, springing backward just as the beast crashed down.
Boom!
The impact split the ground, a crater tearing open where it landed. And in that instant, Silva noticed it. The air rippled around the monster, a burst of force radiating outward from its body.
‘So that’s it,’ he realized. ‘It’s using that force to propel itself, blasting forward like a rocket. That’s how it moves so fast.’ Silva figured it out.
A plan formed in his mind. If the monster relied on linear bursts of speed, then maybe, just maybe, he could turn it against itself.
Silva drew the Abyssal Blade, his stance low and steady. His grip tightened on the hilt.
The creature screeched, red eyes flaring, and launched forward with terrifying speed.
Silva shot toward it as well, his blade flashing in a decisive arc.
For a moment, he thought he had it.
Then, the air cracked with another surge of force. The monster accelerated mid-charge, its speed doubling, its trajectory veering. It blurred past his slash and appeared behind him in an instant.
‘Too fast—!’
Claws ripped across his back, tearing deep into flesh. Pain lanced through him as his body was hurled forward. He slammed against a jagged rock, the impact rattling his bones, before rolling across the icy ground and skidding to a halt.
Gritting his teeth, Silva forced himself up almost immediately. His body shuddered as the wound sealed shut, flesh knitting in seconds.
He got up, but rather than a frown or a look of pain, there was a smile on his face. This monster was definitely unique, he was hyped to see just how far its strength went.
The monster, seeing that Silva was still standing, lunged at him with rage. It began attacking with a barrage of slashes, but Silva blocked each and every one.
Shockwaves spread from them, tearing through the air, slashing through rocks and destroying parts of the mountain.
Silva waited, and when he found an opening, he thrust. His sword cut through the air in an instant. It was a few centimetres from stabbing when the force exploded from the body of the monster, pushing it back and saving it from the attack.
‘That reflex just now, it wasn’t intentional. This monster has an automatic defense mechanism,’ Silva thought.
Things were getting more serious. He pointed the sword at the monster, flames formed in the air and began firing at it.
“If you can only move in linear bursts, I want to see how you’ll avoid this,” Silva said and then fired more than a hundred fireballs.
The monster was stunned for a moment, then it lunged forward, its speed heavily hampered by the flames as it tried to dodge.
But Silva never allowed shit to be that simple. He kept attacking with even more fireballs until one slammed into the monster and exploded, blasting it back with a massive burn on its chest, the wound was heavy, especially against a cold blooded monster like this.