It was too far for details, but he'd seen Crinoptera. An impossibly large shifting mass moving amongst the rock. The skinks he'd taken down were mere ants to this thing's size.

What kind of attacks would something that big even use? What could its magic do? How should Reid defend himself against something that large - and what should he do to kill it? Organs were a good thing to damage, and even at that size, the thing still had to have similar anatomy to the smaller skinks he'd butchered. He just had to find the right spot, and deal damage. No different than any other beast.

His mind shifted and raced as his feet carried him closer.

Reid wanted to see it - to truly see the creature. His promised challenge, and the tutorial's final fight. The temperature dropped the closer he came to the mountain. His Weather Resistance skill started to tug gently on his mana pool, and he stopped for a moment to take a few extra layers of fabric from storage. He wrapped himself in them until the skill stopped using mana.

There was no liquid water anywhere that he could see, and his drinking water froze if he didn't down it quickly enough. Reid saw an occasional dot or shadow in the snow that seemed like the activity of some small creature, but almost nothing was visible near the ground. The sun went from visible to hazy behind cloud cover. The wind picked up, and Reid got to see a small flight of four grey birds rise into the air. Their unfurled wings were twice as long as he would've expected for their size, and it made them look like blankets with a knot tied in the middle, twisting through the whipping winds. They faded from view, off to unknown destinations.

The closer he came to the mountain, the more he appreciated its size. The spot where the rise of the mountain's slope met the surrounding terrain was defined by a dip in the terrain that could've been mistaken for a moat - except the surface of what was once water had frozen over completely, and there were drifts of snow coiled through it. Closer in, Reid also realized what a chore laid ahead of him. The mountain itself posed problems.

While the volcano had been annoying and difficult, that was mostly due to the heat and loose stone. This summit instead had snow obscuring the surface of the mountain itself - and that meant Reid didn't really know what the best or easiest path up would be. He could pick a way through and suddenly find himself plummeting down through a crevasse, or shift a block of snow wrong and have the whole thing kick off some sort of avalanche. Figuring out which way up was safe could be the difference between plummeting down to the ice and actually being able to summit the damn thing. In the end, he had to trust himself to make it up safely - and stealthily enough that he didn't set off the beast lord while he was mid-climb.

Reid made a bone miniature of the mountain, then used his bangle. He filled in details the map seemed to capture naturally, and determined himself a path. Or, the first few options his path could take.

He looked up again, at the same spot where he'd seen the beast move. A shiver of excitement ran down his spine, and he sucked a breath through pursed lips.

Crinoptera was a true beast worthy of its title. A massive, impossibly blue tongue shot forward from its massive maw and flicked itself against the air. Each time it moved, chunks of rock and ice scraped against its motion or tumbled down the side of the mountain. Its coloring, like the smaller variants, included mostly white and grey scales and a light blue tail. Unlike its small variants, Crinoptera also sported a prominent frill. Reid had seen one of the smaller skinks with a similar feature, but the tenth lord's version was much more intense. It was a long, properly thick protrusion that wound most of the way around the creature's neck, like a collar studded with extra thick scales. Every so often, it shifted and shook off the inconsistent flurries of snow falling on the mountain.

In the sky overhead, grey clouds circled lazily around the mountain and the creature. Reid pushed down a twinge of fear. When he'd faced the magma crab, Gerald, Brinkha, and Norton had to help him back to health. He didn't have that now. Inhospitable and terrible as this place was, there weren't even animals to hunt in the surrounding area.

But he wasn't alone.

"The Eastern face might be a bit harder to climb, but it would put you on the opposite side of the beast, provide a bit more cover till you're ready to face it."

"Nyx! Are you alright? Did you finish everything with the evolution blocker thingy?"

"I'm fine, Reid. And - I don't remember telling you what I was working on, but I guess there weren't really that many options it could be. I'm done, I think - but we won't know if it works until it happens."

"Fine by me. Hey - you wouldn't happen to have any advice for fighting something as big as a strip mall, would you?"

"Don't underestimate the giant lizard. Dodge or defend more than you attack. And when you have the opportunity, let loose."

That last bit wasn't what he'd expected to hear. "Let loose, like...?"

"Fight like hell - like you've got a team to support you. Pour yourself into the attacks you land, and let me take care of the rest. You're about as good as we're going to get on multiple fronts for the foreseeable future, and I still have plenty of energy to work with from the little lizards. I've got your back, Reid. Go kick this King's ass."

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Reid nodded his head in the empty, frigid air. "Right."

#

#

The climb was long, and Reid was going to heavily redact the number of times he'd nearly slipped and fallen if and when he retold this story. It was only partway up that he'd started to make changes to his kit to help the climb - spikes on the bottom and front of his boots to cling to the ice, and a series of bone anchors to create handholds and footspace where there was none. The wind on the mountain was harsher, and the air colder - but it evened out with his body warming up with the physical exertion. When he'd made it to the peak, and looked out over the broken half with its cliffs and shelves. The juts and cuts made for difficult surveillance. Reid could initially only see Crinoptera's tail, as the rest was obscured by one of the shelves of rock jutting out below.

His descent closer towards the beast on the sheerer face of the mountain was slow and trying - and wouldn't have been possible without the changes to his kit. It was also thankfully uneventful. Reid gave a silent thank-you to his Venator achievement for every second that passed without Crinoptera noticing his presence. He caught sight of its tongue flicking through the air more than once as he closed in, and slowly the full beast became visible. It was even more intimidating up close.

A hot feeling swirled in Reid's gut. He shifted his hands off the cliff face, and summoned weapons from storage. He was half-sideways on a small ledge just large enough to hold him, over a much larger shelf on the mountainside that held the beast - and a small mound full of frozen creatures and bodies. Ice was a pretty good way to store a food stash. Reid rolled his neck, and let out a long breath. Bonewall shifted to its holding place on his side, and he moved Requiem to the side. Nyx told him he could go all-out, and he damn well intended to.

Power surged as Reid charged a solid slug, and he awkwardly positioned himself with one spiked boot kicked into ice to keep him stable, near horizontal on the cliff face. Reid wound up, and threw.

The bone ball was barely out of his hand when Reid used the throw's momentum to grab Requiem where he'd placed it, then kicked out with his other boot to dislodge himself from the wall - and fly towards the beast. Just like that, Reid was airborne. Cold air tickled at every bit of semi-exposed skin, and Reid shifted his body to better anticipate what would come next. His hands wrapped tight around the grip of his mace.

A solid bone ball flew almost silently through the cold mountain air towards its massive target. Almost.

Crinoptera raised its head - as big as a family room - towards the unexpected intrusion on its domain. With quickness that seemed impossible for its size, the beast skittered forwards and turned its body to remove its head from the ball's path. The only highlight was that it was too big to dodge entirely.

The slug smashed into scales on the side of the creature's body, cracking the white and grey things into tiny pieces before it plunged a foot down into the creature's flesh. It vocalized in annoyance at the blow, and shifted its eyes to Reid - still falling through the air.

Crinoptera's body twisted as its muscles tensed, and its tail shot out like a whip. Reid barely managed to get his shield in front of him in time to take the hit. The impact sounded like a cannon, and Reid was thrown hard into the icy cliff behind him. He bounced off cracking ice, and skidded over the ground of the shelf for a moment before he regained his balance. Reid could feel something broken in his abdomen, already. There were cracks four layers deep in his shield.

The beast lord narrowed its eyes at Reid, a look laced with derision and annoyance. He spat a bit of blood onto the shelf, and charged forward with his shield raised. The closest section of the beast was its left flank, and Reid closed the distance quickly enough to land a hit with his mace.

Requiem's longstanding top spike snapped off as his weapon made contact with the beast, and he felt the flanges strain as they smashed into hard scales, then tore a chunk of flesh on the creature.

It gave a single, angry chirp and rotated its head in his direction. A quick pulse was immediately followed by a massive cone of ice and snow launching forth from the creature's mouth. Reid felt like he was looking at an avalanche. Nyx's words echoed in his mind. Avoid attacks.

While he had his shield, it would do no good to keep heavily damaging it this early on in the fight.

He pushed power into his knees and used the spikes set into his boots to twist himself and leap sideways in a single, fluid motion. The crushing cone of ice and snow slammed into the creature's rear leg just as Reid reached it. Chunks of ice as big as his head flew by around the appendage he was using as impromptu cover. Interestingly, the beast seemed resistant to its own attacks. He wrote off one of his low-probability plans - there was almost no chance he'd be able to get the thing to kill itself with its own magic.

As soon as the attack subsided, Reid slammed his mace up and into the underside of the skink. The beast shivered for a moment, and Reid had to quickly leap away when it dropped its body down to the ground. He wasn't interested in seeing whether the beast could crush him. So far, Requiem was doing damage, but not rending deep enough into the creature's flesh to do what he would consider lasting damage.

Crinoptera spotted him, now out in the open. It pulsed with mana, and ice all around them grew and exploded. Reid hunkered down behind his shield and listened to ice popping around him like point blank fireworks. He pushed mana into his shield, and it shed another three layers to get rid of that attack's damage. He rose from behind his shield, and met the eyes of the creature still staring at him. It snorted, and Reid saw its muscles tense. He kicked off the ground and launched himself into the air - just in time to avoid getting tail-whipped into the wall again.

He shifted his body in the fall just enough to land shield-first near the tip of the thing's tail. It coiled the appendage back in towards itself, but didn't seem to suffer much damage from the blow. The massive lizard gave Reid another look and a derisive snort, then stilled.

It wasn't trying to run, or reposition. It wasn't preparing some other attack.

It just... decided it was done fighting against him.

Dismissive.

Haughty.

Like he wasn't a threat.

Fire churned inside Reid and rose to his throat.

"You oversized snake snack! Come on! I'm right here!"

Reid pushed mana through himself, around each muscle and strand in fine, interwoven threads. His hand shifted on Requiem's grip, and glowed with yellow-orange light. He shifted his left arm, and it did the same. Took a ready stance, and his legs began to shine. Reid inhaled a deep breath of frigid air that only seemed to fuel the fire within him. It blazed and raged - churned like his sea.

He didn't climb a damn mountain and start this fight to be ignored and dismissed. Crinoptera was proud - and misguided.

Reid pointed his weapon at the creature and growled out a promise.

"I'm going to make you take this seriously."

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