Chapter 14

  Expedition 1

  Kelix did not get a chance to ask the obvious question. Instead, something invisible connected with his chest.

  It was not a touch, nor a pressure he could brace against. It was a sudden, absolute shove that hit him from the inside out, as if the world had hooked a hand behind his sternum and decided it was done listening.

  The wind left him in a single, humiliating burst, as his feet lifted from the ground.

  He flew backward and crashed into the green ocean with a heavy splash that swallowed sound and replaced it with rushing water in his ears.

  Cold surged over his head. For a second he did not know which way was up. He thought he would drown or be dragged to the depths below by who knows what. The blue sand vanished under the surface, and the water's strange color made the world look like a dream with the saturation turned too high.

  He flailed, more anger than panic, and clawed his way back toward the surface.

  His head broke into air. He sucked in a breath that tasted sharp and clean and wrong.

  Kelix sputtered, coughed, then kicked toward shore and dragged himself onto the blue sand. Water poured off his clothes. His hair stuck to his forehead. His palms ground blue grit into his skin as he crawled forward, lungs burning.

  He growled, low and furious, because there was only one thing in front of him that had any right to strike that hard.

  Endigo!

  Of course it was Endigo. Of course the creature that had looked like death would decide to finish the job on a beach with bubbles in the sky.

  Kelix pushed himself up on one elbow and snapped his gaze toward the shore, ready to snap something reckless.

  His anger faltered just enough to let confusion seep in.

  Endigo stood where it had been, small and cloaked, deer-skull head tilted slightly. It had not moved. If it had attacked, it had done so without a twitch. That did not make sense.

  Something else did.

  A woman stood beside Endigo.

  Kelix's brain stalled as his eyes failed to decide where to land first. She was an astonishing sight, more than merely pretty. She was the kind of presence that made his sense of normal feel like a joke.

  Horns swept up from her head in elegant curves, polished like ivory. One wing on her back resembled a bat's wing, yet was white as bone, stretched and veined like thin parchment. The other was a black feathered wing, glossy and heavy, the feathers layered like a crow's in mourning. A barbed tail lashed behind her, slicing through the air in furious swipes that made small hissing sounds, as if it resented being attached to anything that had to stand still.

  Her arms were crossed tight over her chest. Fury sat on her face without restraint, bright and immediate, like she had been waiting for the moment Kelix could see her.

  Kelix blinked water out of his eyes. "What the hell."

  "If that were an option, you'd have been sent there." The woman pointed at Endigo as if presenting evidence in a trial. "Look at him!"

  The outburst left Kelix momentarily perplexed, but he oriented himself quickly. His gaze flicked to Endigo. The small, cloaked figure stared back, dim-eyed and silent.

  The woman's face twisted with disgust. "You did this."

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Kelix pushed himself up onto one knee. Blue sand clung to his pants, and his wet shirt hung heavy against his skin. He felt ridiculous, soaked and half-buried on a foreign shore, and the humiliation sent his temper rising faster than the pain in his chest.

  "I did not even know he existed ten minutes ago," Kelix said.

  The woman's reply was not words at first.

  It was a screech, maddeningly high and sharp, utterly unhinged. It made Kelix think of clips he had seen online of someone raging in a game after losing a rare drop. The sound carried across the beach and sent a few of the floating bubbles overhead wobbling in its wake.

  "You caused my knight to fall," she spat, voice shaking with outrage. Her tail snapped hard enough to cut a thin line in the sand. "You caused Endigo to fall to his Fledgling stage."

  Kelix stared. "His what stage?"

  All monsters had stages of growth. Everyone knew that, or at least everyone who spent enough late nights digging through wikis and half-abandoned forums did. They started small, weak, and unstable, then evolved as they survived, fought, or bonded. Some changed shape completely. Others just grew sharper or stranger.

  The names varied depending on who you asked. Fledgling, Rookie, Lesser, Tier One. Most of it was crowdsourced and contradictory, but the idea was consistent. Progress went forward.

  Fledglings were designated as F (Blue), Emergents as E (Green), Dominants as D (Yellow), and the nomenclature continued along that evolutionary lineage as monsters evolved and developed with increasing power.

  Regression was the weird part. According to the stories, it only happened when something went very wrong. Severe trauma. Energy burnout. Broken bonds. A few posts claimed it could happen if a monster was forced to fight far beyond its level, like throwing a starter creature into a boss encounter. Kelix had always assumed those were exaggerations, or game logic bleeding into real-world speculation.

  For an unbound monster to devolve like that made no sense at all. But looking at Endigo, small and silent beneath his cloak, it was hard to laugh it off.

  Endigo continued to stare, unmoving, as if this had nothing to do with him. Or as if he had no energy left for reactions.

  Kelix felt the aggravation claw up his throat. Confusion was one thing. Being blamed by an angry horned woman with mismatched wings was another.

  He wiped water from his face with the back of his hand. "Lady, I do not know who you are, I do not know where I am. And I definitely do not know what you mean by Endigo's Fledgling regression."

  The woman's posture shifted from rage to smugness so quickly it was almost impressive. She lifted her chin, eyes narrowing like she was offended Kelix had not bowed.

  "Princess ZiE," she said, as if announcing a title that should have made the world kneel. She looked at him with a kind of satisfied contempt, like she assumed the name alone should explain everything.

  Kelix frowned harder. "I have never heard of you."

  ZiE huffed, took a step forward, and before Kelix could decide whether to flinch, she reached out and poked him in the forehead.

  The gesture was small. The effect was not.

  Kelix's vision flickered.

  Not like dizziness. Like something sliding over his sight again, that same invasive layer that had appeared over the crocoraptor's core. Only this time it did not feel like a glitch. It felt deliberate.

  Like a door opening.

  Text appeared. Clean. Certain. Wrong in the same way certainty had been wrong before, except now it did not stutter.

  It held.

  Name: {Kelix}

  Discipline: {None}

  Rank: {F}

  Progress: {84%}

  EX = [50%] AP = [100%] MP = [100%]

  STR: 25 END: 25

  AUR: 55 RES: 12

  SPD: 55 TEQ: 60

  [Passive] LMT: 25 · INS: 45 · CTRL: 20

  Kelix stared at the words until his eyes burned.

  ZiE's smugness deepened when he stayed silent.

  "Finally," she said, as if she had done him a favor.

  Kelix's mouth opened. Nothing came out at first.

  His brain grabbed the first thing it could make into a weapon.

  "Discipline," Kelix said. The word tasted strange. "None."

  ZiE waved a hand dismissively. "Yes, yes. You are unclaimed. Undeclared. Unrefined. Humans are always behind."

  Kelix forced his gaze off the screen and onto her face. His irritation was now a steady burn. "What is this?"

  ZiE smiled like she had been waiting for the question. "Zeldritzon."

  "He already said that word." Kelix glanced at Endigo.

  "And you still do not understand," ZiE said, tone sharp with satisfaction. Her barbed tail flicked again. The white bat wing shifted slightly. The black feathered wing remained rigid. "Of course you do not. And I'll enjoy every moment of that."

  Kelix's fists clenched at his sides, water dripping from his sleeves, blue sand sticking to his knuckles. He forced himself to stay calm. He had never fought a human-like monster before, but today might change that. Even so, he sensed no immediate hostility from her, only arrogance and control.

  Besides, ZiE looked like a fallen-angel type monster. Kelix had read enough to know how dangerous those could be, even at the lowest reported stages. She appeared highly evolved, claimed a royal title, and her aura was difficult to perceive at all. That alone was worrying.

  Against her, his chances were unclear at best.

  Endigo stood behind her, silent, watching Kelix with dim hollow eyes.

  Kelix did not know which part of the situation was worse.

  The system that had decided to show him his own numbers.

  Or the fact that the only other creature here who might explain anything was the one being accused of falling apart because of him.

  ? Phoenix Flight [Lite LitRPG - Dungeon Diving - Slow Romance] ?

  by RainyLiquid

  Weak to Strong, gathering of powers, skills, and spells.