The monster’s long, serpentine neck, whiplike tail, and draconic head made it easy to identify.

  “Stygian Wyvern, level 49 elite. These apex aerial predators are rare sights so close to the planet’s surface. They prefer soaring miles above the highest peak, diving onto prey with deadly precision. Immune to most magic, they are fierce fighters with an eternal hunger for flesh and shiny treasures.”

  “Oh, fridge,” I muttered as I threw Switchblade into a dive. Avoiding the unknown monsters below was a lot less important than surviving certain death from above.

  The stygian wyvern gained way too fast, its maw opening wide enough to swallow a hot tub and everyone in it. I couldn’t avoid it, and its immunity to magic might negate Energy Ward.

  At the last second, I banished Switchblade and pulled out 2 silver-tipped steel spears, one pointed up and the other down. The wyvern’s jaws blotted out the world as they encircled me and snapped shut.

  The spears punched into soft flesh of both its upper and lower jaws, each spear sinking at least 8 inches as the force of the monster’s own bite drove them home. The hafts bend dangerously, but did not snap.

  Razor-sharp teeth the size of butcher knives surrounded me, but did not tear into my flesh. They stopped short, leaving me crouching inside the monster’s maw. Its tongue was rough and raspy, but one of the spears punched right through it, so even though it twitched underfoot, it did not slam me against those deadly teeth.

  The wyvern screamed, the sound so loud I screamed with it. The hot breath smelled surprisingly like fresh mountain skies. It shook me so hard, it nearly blasted me through the half-closed mouth. I clung to the spears as the wyvern twisted and turned in the air.

  One enormous claw reached inside and scratched at the spears as it opened its maw wider. I danced away from the claw, which was the size of a longsword, then pulled my harpoon into my hands and blasted a bolt straight down the wyvern’s gullet.

  It might be immune to the fire, but that harpoon tore down its throat in a wave of pure destructive force. Hot blood sprayed all over me and the wyvern screeched again. This time I wasn’t set properly and tumbled out its open maw. The harpoon launcher flew from my grip and fell spinning down toward the waters.

  I cursed in my mind so Cyrus didn’t change the words to stupid fake swears. I loved that harpoon. Stupid wyvern!

  Thankfully, the monster was too distracted by its most recent wound to snatch me out of the air with those wicked talons. I spun in midair and summoned Switchblade as I fell toward the fast-approaching waters. The monster had dived low before starting to bank back up, so my bike appeared just in time. I grabbed hold of the handlebar and hit the throttle.

  Switchblade accelerated hard, thrusters spraying water to either side in a spectacular geyser as my falling momentum turned into pure speed. As I’d hoped, the hover function worked well over the dense water, keeping me just above the waves. The geyser followed, a constant eruption from the screaming thrusters.

  Water churned right behind me as unseen monsters snatched and clawed through my wake, trying to catch me. I wrenched the elevation control to gain height and shot up to 6 feet. Moving so fast, I doubted even those fast-swimming monsters could catch me.

  That didn’t help me against monsters dead ahead, though.

  A titanic monster the size of a blue whale, but with an orca’s sharp teeth rose out of the water barely 20 feet ahead of me, mouth opening wide enough that it could have swallowed a yacht. I was moving way too fast to stop or even swerve, and shot into that cavernous maw.

  It closed around me with the finality of death.

  I triggered my scroll of Time Out.

  “Scroll of Time Out. Forcibly eject one enemy combatant from a fight you are engaged in. Randomly teleports them up to 1 mile.”

  With a whooshing sound and a vast sucking of air that swept Switchblade 50 feet into the air, the leviathan disappeared. I didn’t see where it landed, but might have heard a titanic splash a moment later. It was hard to tell with all the thunderous booming and shaking still rattling the entire stage as the apocalypse tore it apart.

  Laughing hysterically from barely escaping death, I poured on more speed until I dropped back to within 6 feet of the surface. Cresting waves broke the wide expanse of the waters and I used them to leap Switchblade many times higher than its max height for precious seconds as I raced across the churning waterway that had been the vast grassy plain.

  More flying monsters gave chase, and hidden monsters swarmed under the surface. Several tried leaping to catch me, but I managed to swerve in time.

  As long as I didn’t have to slow, I could outpace most of them. I set a swerving course to make it harder to anticipate where I might go and set a trap ahead of me like that leviathan had.

  A pair of giant hawks swept in, propelled by literal tornado cones and I threw Switchblade into a full barrel roll to avoid their first strike. One talon struck the underside of the bike and one of the thrusters started whining in a way that spiked my fear to new levels.

  No. Losing Switchblade would be a death sentence. My speed dropped. Not by much, but I noticed.

  As if sensing new vulnerability, a shark the size of a school bus leaped out of the water to my right. At the same time, an elephant seal with tusks longer than spears, lunged out of the water to my left.

  Were they getting smarter and working together, or was that just coincidence?

  I swung Switchblade hard over to the right, closer to the shark, barely managing to avoid its plunging rows of teeth. It splashed into the water bare inches from my left boot and the impact wave shot my bike high.

  As torrents of water blasted my face and ran off my goggles in sheets, I used the extra height to swing over and ride right up the shark’s body. It was falling into the water, but was so long its tail was still 20 feet in the air.

  Engine whining, thrusters screaming, my bike took the meaty ramp and we shot up its long back and off its tail, arcing high and gaining another hundred yards before dropping back to the water’s surface.

  The hawks swept in again, and this time Eva identified them.

  “Windborn hawk. Level 46. Rare. These fast flyers can outrun any prey and avoid any predator. They’re the unrivaled masters of the sky and can twist the very air currents to draw their prey in for a kill.”

  As if to prove Eva’s point, a hurricane blast of wind struck me from the side and shoved Switchblade into the air, spinning me around so the diving hawks could strike at my side in a perfect broadside. I couldn’t dodge.

  I pulled out a mammoth-hide whip. I had proved I was terrible at using whips as weapons, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. I lashed it out just as I leaped off Switchblade and again banished my bike. The hawk’s snatching talons caught nothing but air, snapping closed right beneath my feet.

  My whip wrapped around its beak as the giant raptor swept past, so close one leg brushed my Energy Ward and one giant wing covered the sky overhead. I held on with all my strength as the whip went taught, then yanked me upward so hard my arms nearly dislocated.

  Awesome! I whooped as the whip flung me up under the hawk’s wing. I flew up behind its feathers as the whip wrapped around the wing and yanked me forward.

  I let go, letting the end of the whip twist around the front of the wing as I landed in the center of the hawk’s wide back. The hawk tried to scream in frustration, but the whip was holding its beak closed. As it tried to flap its wing to gain altitude, it yanked its own head down sharply.

  The bird pitched hard over to the right and down as it was forced to stop flapping or risk snapping its own neck. I plunged Fang and Soulrend both into its back to keep from getting thrown.

  The bird stiffened as both blades bit deep. Fang pumped poison into its system while Soulrend cut deep into the center of its spirit. Clutching to Fang to keep my footing stable, I spun, dragging Soulrend across the hawk’s torso, severing spirit from one side to the other. My Tesla Coil bracelet grew warm as it fed off of the hawk’s bleeding life force.

  The hawk was moving so fast, it didn’t immediately plummet from the sky, but the whirlwind driving it forward dissipated and we glided through eerie silence as it twitched beneath me.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Yanking Fang free, I dove forward and plunged Soulrend through the back of the hawk’s skull. Not waiting for the expected announcement, I rolled to my feet and sprinted down its back.

  The waves were close. I spotted the other hawk banking away just above me. I triggered Soul Feed and loot, then jumped and cast Tether Slide again, selecting the other hawk.

  Again the golden line shot out and touched my target, then yanked me toward it. I closed on the fast-moving hawk like an arrow, wind tearing at my face. Thankfully my goggles protected my eyes and I could enjoy the unbelievable speed.

  Behind me, the dead hawk crashed into the waves just as it started to dissolve into black mist. The waters frothed and boiled as monsters attacked the prey, then each other as the hawk disappeared.

  The second hawk didn’t notice me sliding up the air after it. Why would it? It was used to being the fastest. My entire body shook from the force of the wind as I shot upward and closed on the monster.

  I’d selected its central tail feather as the tether point of the slide and I slammed into that point with enough force to scramble right onto the monster’s back before it realized I’d landed.

  It shrieked and spun, trying to dislodge me, but it reacted a second too slow. I slammed Fang into its back, tethering me in place and pumping poison into the fast-flying hawk.

  It spun several times, the world a blur of confusing images as we rolled over and over in the air. Even gripping Fang’s hilt with one hand and a fist full of feathers with the other, I nearly tumbled free. I barely managed to hang on until the crazy giant bird leveled out, banking sharply to the left and flapping its wings.

  I didn’t know if it somehow thought it could escape me by gaining altitude, but I wasn’t about to complain. The longer I stayed out of the water, the longer I had a chance of living.

  Between powerful flaps of its vast wings, I yanked Fang free and sprinted up its back, taking a chance that it wouldn’t change direction too fast for me to react. It did start to spin, but I leaped and drove Fang down between its shoulders near the base of its neck.

  The blade pierced the thick ranks of feathers and bit deep into the hawk’s flesh, pumping in more poison. It shrieked in pain again and leveled out. The poison must be taking effect because the tornado wind driving it forward was fading and its movements were becoming sluggish.

  I held onto Fang’s pommel and scanned the area. We’d risen to at least 10,000 feet. The hawk was fast. It had banked much farther south than I wanted, so I pressured Fang toward the right and leaned my weight in that direction.

  As I had hoped, the hawk shrieked again, but banked that way to lessen the pain. I eased up and allowed it to fly in a westerly direction. I settled to my knees and let it soar.

  As time ticked by, we crossed miles while the land far below boiled with water and lava and collapsing mountains. Scanning the land, I spotted a group of maybe a dozen people clustered at the top of a low bluff.

  The water had nearly reached their level and would swamp their position in seconds. I zoomed my vision on them and recognized Martin and Trish and their band of vicious psychos.

  Huh. I hadn’t expected them to last that long. They were getting swarmed by monsters clawing up from the boiling waters on every side. They fought with desperate intensity, but they were doomed.

  I hated seeing people die, but I couldn’t reach them in time to help. Even if I could, I had no means to carry them to safety. I’d warned them of the danger and they chose their fate.

  A huge blob of bright green ooze flowed up onto the shrinking patch of dry ground they defended. Arrows and spells did nothing to slow it as it rolled right over Martin and Trish.

  That broke their lines and monsters swarmed the rest of them. I turned away, cursing softly. The fools should have listened. Their fate would be mine if I stopped moving.

  Thankfully I was riding one of the fastest fliers around. We flew above most of the swarming flying monsters too, and for a moment, I spotted no threats. With wind howling past my face, I shouted with exultant hope. I was doing it. I could fly the hawk all the way to stage 2.

  Then the hawk’s entire body stiffened and a bright orange spear of bone blasted up through its back, inches from my right boot. The bone spear thrust up a full 3 feet before stopping, nearly skewering me too.

  The hawk started to screech, its voice weak, but it shuddered again and more bone spears tore up through its torso in a staggered line down its back.

  “Congratulations, Lucas, you have defeated windborn hawk. Bonus experience gained for defeating a higher-level enemy.”

  “What the smolder?”

  I pulled Fang free and crouched on the hawk’s neck as the rest of its tornado wind dissipated. It glided still and silent, starting to lose altitude. I peered over and spotted the new enemy.

  “Spiny Eel, level 49. Elite. This denizen of the deep rarely rises to the surface, but when it does, it leaves destruction in its wake. Able to fly through air as easily as water, the spiny eel can use its bone spear barrage to flatten entire villages. Poisonous, with a hide tough enough to resist even full-powered ballista bolts, it’s a nearly unstoppable death machine.”

  The giant eel had to be nearly 200 feet long and 30 feet thick. I hadn’t spotted it because it ascended directly beneath us. Our straight flight had made it easy for the monster to target us.

  Idiot. If I’d made the hawk bank around more, we might have made it all the way to stage 2. Then again, how could I know another monster strong enough to fly this high could catch us, even with the hawk’s speed slowing so much?

  I cast Soul Feed and focused most of the energy to fueling Energy Ward.

  Then I cast Harvest. I could harvest up to 2 spells now!

  “You have successfully harvested Gale Flight.”

  “Gale Flight. Spell. Uncommon. Fly with the speed of the wind. Mana cost: moderate. Uses Remaining: 1.”

  “Only 1?” I shouted.

  “Don’t complain. Gale Flight is a fantastic spell. You’re doing great. Keep up the good work.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered darkly.

  “You are very welcome.” That chipper voice made me want to punch Cyrus in the face.

  Still, I had gotten another awesome spell. I was tempted to use it immediately, but I only got a single use. I decided to wait until I ran out of other options.

  The eel was still closing. It would reach the disabled hawk in seconds and its mouth looked big enough to swallow both me and the hawk in a single bite.

  I waited until the last second, then triggered loot and leaped off the hawk’s back. Half a second later, the eel crunched down over the hawk’s body, severing the wings and consuming the entire body one big chomp.

  Stinking black smoke wafted out between its sharp teeth and it hissed in anger as its meal evaporated. The sound was like a thousand tea kettles set to boiling and its beady red eyes fixed on me as I fell past.

  Maybe I should have let it swallow the hawk.

  The eel didn’t bother with its bone spears, but undulated its long, snakelike body through the air and shot down after me, maw gaping open again.

  I summoned Switchblade long enough to rev it and shoot to the side, avoiding the crashing jaws by inches. The sound was like a stone smasher as the teeth gnashed empty air. Fetid wind pushed at me from the force of its bite. I banished Switchblade again just as I leaped off, straight at the giant eel’s head.

  Its hide was tough enough to withstand most weapons, but how tough was its eye?

  As I slammed into the side of the giant eel’s head, I plunged Fang into the huge, crimson orb before the eel could try biting me again. The poisoned blade punched through the outer shell of the eye and sank to the hilt as the eye exploded in hot, viscous liquid. At the same time, I drove Soulrend into its skull and yanked the ethereal blade down with all my strength, slicing down its head.

  The eel convulsed toward me so hard it battered through Energy Ward and smashed into me with the force of a falling building. Even with my armor’s enhanced protection, the blow blasted air from my lungs and rattled my head so hard, I lost my grip on Fang.

  “No!” I shouted as I slid down the eel’s long, slick body, scrabbling uselessly against its hide.

  It would pay for that. The monster had started diving, its long body curled into a tight spiral that seemed to help it speed up. It wasn’t dead, just diving. It hissed in a constant stream of fury and pain.

  I was sliding up the eel’s body, driven by the wind of our passage, so I stabbed Soulrend in. It didn’t provide physical resistance, so I kept sliding and dragged the ethereal blade all the way up the eel’s length until a powerful twisting movement of its tail knocked me away.

  The monster fell beneath me, but its speed had faded. It no longer corkscrewed beautifully in perfect control, but fell in a twitching mass. I’d hurt it pretty badly.

  After one final glimpse of my epic shortsword, still sticking from the monster’s ruined eye, I summoned Switchblade. Pulling myself on, I set a course west, again using the hover bike’s thrusters to buy as much distance as possible as it descended in a graceful arc. The stupid eel had cost me one of my best weapons and dragged me nearly half the distance to the water, but I was still about 5000 feet up. I bet I could cover half a mile before dropping to the waves again.

  Switchblade’s power was nearly red-lined. The brief respites I’d given it weren’t enough to recharge it and I’d been revving it hard. It might have enough juice left to get me to the western slope, but it would be close.

  Far below, the eel crashed into the water with a spectacular explosion of water. It writhed weakly and the nearby monsters swarmed in, tearing at its huge length. I bet they’d usually leave the deadly monster alone, but not crippled.

  Then another giant monster rose from the deep. It was the size of a whale, but with a dozen long tentacles that could have dragged entire buildings under. It scattered the other monsters and pulled the eel under in a frothing eruption of blood.

  “Congratulations, Lucas! You have defeated Spiny Eel, level 49. Bonus experience gained for defeating a higher-level enemy.”

  “Go get ‘em, leviathan,” I laughed. I’d take partial credit for killing that monster. I bet I got a ton of experience from that thing.

  Then a swarm of tiny, fiery gnats slammed into Energy Ward. They sparked as they deflected, like miniature shooting death stars flashing past my face and body, creating a dazzling light show that no doubt would draw other monsters’ attention.

  Individually, the gnats were tiny and weak, but there were thousands of them, if not more. They kamikazied into Energy Ward with a frenzied determination that burned through my mana with startling speed. For a second, it looked like I was surrounded by a flaming, full-body halo as so many of the tiny monsters deflected past at the same time.

  If I didn’t do anything, the tiny monsters would exhaust my mana. I hated to do it, but I triggered one of my remaining scrolls of ice blast. This time, the blast erupted more like a blizzard of ice shards than a single bolt. Was that because I’d mentally targeted the entire swarm? I had no idea it could to that, but I was happy it had.

  The blizzard of ice tore the gnats apart, quenching their flames and dispersing the swarm. I got about 500 notifications about defeating the little monsters, but none were high enough level to give me any experience. I felt my bracelet warming up some, so I’d gotten something.

  I tried looting, just for fun, and was shocked when I not only got a ton of mana crystals and 3 scrolls of Firestorm, but also an unexpected bonus.

  “Spell scroll. Temporary spell. Immolation. Enjoy immunity to flames as you set yourself on fire and unleash a tornado of fiery destruction around yourself in an area with a diameter of 5 yards, plus 2 yards per point in perception. Mana consumption: moderate. Uses Remaining: 4.”

  I laughed. I hadn’t gotten any temporary spells other than harvested spells in a while. This one looked amazing, as long as I was fighting alone in a pretty big area. With a perception over 30, I could devastate a huge area of about 65 yards across.

  Without warning, a giant flying mouth appeared out of nowhere and bit off the front of Switchblade.