The snow drizzled across the ruined cathedral, painting jolting stones with a soft white highlight. The sun cast a radiant glow over the space as Zach's boots crunched while he strolled around.
A monster nestled in one of the far ends of the ruin, resting peacefully.
It looked like a dwarf, with green soggy skin that looked somewhat like melting ice cream. It was a bald creature with a long nose, nestling on a plank at the outskirts.
Its most stunning feature was its large head, which spanned half of its entire body, glowing as it frantically dug up the rubble.
[Monster: Goblin.]
[100/100 HP]
[Rank: Imp]
[Weakness: (pretty obvious).]
[Strength: Cunning]
[Attack potency: Relatively weak.]
[Poison type: None]
[Existence stone drop: 0]
[Blood essence drop: 1]
Zach, standing behind a boulder with his shadow cloak activated, scanned the creature's information.
It seemed relatively weak compared to the wraith.
And what was with the 'pretty obvious' tag on its weakness?
'The system must be mocking me.' Zach had a faint frown.
He also noticed the creature's health was weaker than that of the fiend.
That was expected though; imps were relatively weaker creatures.
He brandished his blade, jumping out of cover with a leap, slashing the creature's head with one clean swing.
The creature split open with no resistance and green blood gushed out, its lifeless body collapsing on the snow.
[Congratulations! You Have Killed The Imp Goblin]
The creature's blood had to be the worst-smelling liquid ever.
Zach stepped away from the cathedral, sighing. Over the past few hours, he had managed to find just three imps.
Which was unsurprising, considering this fissure's size.
Well, this was a low-level fissure, so that was understandable.
Zach walked until he left the ruins. Ahead was a sloping landscape covered in snow.
Zach had always had the impression that this place was an island, so if he could walk until the edge...
He began his journey across the snowy plain. The drizzling of snow had stopped completely by this time, and the glorious sun was at its full glory.
Zach walked for a while until he could see the island ridge sloping downward.
'A cliff...'
As he arrived at the final ridge, the island fell away into a desolate expanse of white ice.
"This..."
Zach stared at the shimmering blue-white expanse in front of him.
"The ocean..."
Waves stood still mid-motion, jagged shards of ice jolted from the surface like glass spires, scattering the sunlight in fractured hollows.
"Is frozen."
It didn't look like the ocean froze naturally. The ocean seemed as if it had been frozen in the middle of a raging storm.
Half-bodies of wrecked ships stood above the surface, broken, waves crashing into them.
The wood was jagged and broken from a distance, and Zach could see countless creatures on the surface.
Zach squinted his eyes.
"Are those...?"
Zach looked into the distance to see hundreds—
No, thousands of tiny monsters on the surface.
Zach stared at this horrendous sight, perplexed.
In that moment, a dark figure shifted beneath the sheet of glassy ice, highlighting a huge behemoth.
Zach's eyes shifted to the moving object beneath the ice.
'What is that...?' Zach looked on in confusion.
Then the ice shattered.
Zach's eyes widened.
A huge, wingless, serpentine dragon with two forelimbs and a massive coiling body.
Its robust arms clawed their way to the surface of the ice. Scales glistened as streams of water flowed from its hide, its eyes scanning the area.
Zach watched from afar as the frozen sea now had a massive hole, and a towering monster loomed over it.
"What... is that?" Zach stared, awestruck by this massive structure.
Zach was sure he was more than a kilometer away from this beast, yet its shape was massive, towering over the little monsters on the surface that scurried to the side.
'Wait...'
"Is that..."
The monster staggered, its movements sluggish.
From the distance, Zach could make out large uneven gashes that oozed with dark red liquid. Chunks of its icy scales were missing, forcibly ripped away by an unseen force.
Now that Zach looked at it, it seemed the monster had run to the surface to escape something.
The ice cracked under the monster's feet, and large tentacles shot out from the depths, wrapping their barnacled lengths around the lindworm. The blue-scaled monster let out a loud hiss.
The titan's movements grew desperate, its robust tail lashed, shattering icebergs into drifting shards of glass.
Its claws latched onto the glassy sheet of ice beneath it, breaking it under its weight.
Its massive body was dragged beneath the depths.
Zach blinked as the frozen sea quieted down once again.
Zach didn't know what the old man meant by monsters stronger than brown elephants.
No, to even compare this titan to a measly elephant was like comparing an ant to a full-grown cat.
And the tentacles that pulled the monster beneath the depths were even bigger.
There were really levels to this.
Zach exhaled.
This was a testament to the dangers in the fissure.
Zach couldn't believe how dangerous a delta-type fissure could possibly be. Forget about delta-type fissures—what would an alpha-type fissure even bring forth?
Zach sighed in defeat.
On the topic of delta-type fissures, another question surfaced in Zach's mind.
How were they going to get out of this place? Ivy had mentioned something about fissure anchors, but Zach wasn't paying attention.
'I think it's time to head home.'
Zach turned around to leave.
SCREECH
Zach's gaze shot to the source of the screeching sound, and he saw a massive winged creature in the distance.
Its body was slender and white, and its feathered wings flapped and curled into a dive.
Zach unsheathed his blade as the figure of this creature became clearer.
It was a seagull.
A humongous seagull. Its wings cast a shadow over Zach as he brandished his blade.
Flying monsters were expected to attack residents this close to a cliff; it was just strange that this one was a bit...
[Monster: Skyrim.]
[100/100 HP]
[Rank: Fiend]
[Weakness: Wings.]
[Strength: Bladed beak.]
[Attack potency: Potent.]
[Poison type: None]
[Existence stone drop: 0]
[Blood essence drop: 100]
[1 Random Astra]
'Fast..!'
Zach charged his blade. This monster was as strong as the shadow wraith. He gritted his teeth as red energy flowed into the blade.
[Moon Slash]
Zach swung the blade vertically, creating a stunning arc that traveled fast, cleaving the bird's long neck clean off.
[Congratulations! You Have Killed The Fiend Skyrim]