The Divine Hunter

Chapter 515: Search

A dark, dank cave stood in the middle of nowhere. Bizarre stone formations lined the walls, jutting and protruding at weird angles. A puddle in the center of the cave's ground gleamed grey, a cloud of fog floating over it.

Like a cat, Roy walked on his tiptoe, quietly skulking through the cave. Thanks to Cat, Roy's eyes were shining in the dark, and he saw ribbons of green intertwining and entangling among themselves in the air. At the end of the ribbon was a patch of bizarre flowers with diamond-shaped leaves and buds as big and bloody-red as human hearts. They were also beating like live human hearts.

Underneath the stalactite on the other side, an old stroller, tattered cloth, and a petite skeleton belonging to a baby slept. "Lives in dark caves, grows mutated plants, kidnaps babies… I know what you are now."

Now that he knew what the monster was, Roy delved to the deepest part of the cave, where a dark chamber stood. A patch of yellowing vines covered the entrance, wriggling and writhing slowly like pythons. These plants were abnormally alive. A chilly gale whispered through the cracks between the vines, as if a beast were hiding behind the plants, whispering to the witcher.

Roy cracked open a bottle of Thunderbolt and downed it. Black blood coursed through Roy's veins, creeping up his face, and his slow, quiet heartbeat started picking up pace. The young witcher quickly covered himself with two layers of magical barriers. One yellow, one black. Underneath him, a magical circle of different colors shone, and he injected mana into the rune sleeping in his mind.

A purple ball leapt into existence, and then a beautiful maiden made of crimson flames stepped out of Oblivion, hovering above the ground and spinning around.

***

Snaps of fingers broke the silence of the cave, and streams of flames burst forth from the witcher and his minion, burning up the monstrous flowers hiding in the corner. The flowers shivered in the face of the fire, filling the air with weird sounds that resemble the scuttles of insects when they moved. In a moment, the flowers were burned to a crisp.

When all eight flowers were burned, some contraption was triggered. The vines blocking the deepest chamber's entrance parted away and shrunk back into the crevices of the boulders.

And then, a burly, humanoid creature emerged from the darkness. It resembled a leshen, its groin covered by a pair of yellowing, tattered boxers. The creature had a gray, slender torso and spindly limbs. Upon its body, green ferns and moss grew.

Leshens had sticks jutting out everywhere on their bodies, but this creature had no antlers or bones on its skin. Its head and torso seemed like they were made out of flesh. Instead of a leshen, this creature looked more like a lanky old man with sharp claws and gnarly legs.

'Spriggan (Modified)

Age: 126 years old

Status: Modified creature (This creature has undergone a modification process, granting it abilities that surpass regular spriggans.)

HP: 300

Mana: 120

Strength: 25

Dexterity: 18

Constitution: 25

Perception: 16

Will: 16

Charisma: 18

Spirit: 20

Skills:

Plant Whisperer Level 6: Costs a minor amount of mana. Grows a few plants. Range: anywhere the user can see.

Vampiric Vines: Fast, resilient, and powerful vines. They can coil and kill the spriggan's enemy, absorbing their blood and life force to nourish the user.

Acid Weed: A plant filled with corrosive liquid. Whenever an enemy appears, the weed will self-destruct, spraying the target with acid, burning through their armor, flesh, and bones.

Venus Flytrap: This plant sways and tears apart its target with its canine teeth, injecting paralyzing poison into its enemy's veins.

Greenpath Level 5: Costs a minor amount of mana. The user can teleport to any nearby plant or location infested with seed. 20-second cooldown.

Camouflage Level 7: The user can blend in with the plants around it whenever they are in the woods, hiding themselves from sight completely.

Child of the Woods (Passive): Spriggans are the guardians and chosen ones of nature. They are blessed for their protection of nature. Whenever spriggans are in the woods, their recovery of stamina, mana, and wounds are doubled.

Modification (Passive): This spriggan has undergone an unnatural modification. It possesses an abnormally great life force and recovery ability. +10 to Constitution, +50 to HP. In exchange for these increased stats, this spriggan is filled with bloodlust and aggression.'

***

The spriggan had an almost comically big nose, but the dark eyes hiding behind its unkempt hair were filled with violence and malice.

Roy fired up Gabriel's enchantment and marked the spriggan with a gemstone mark. As another bolt flew through the air, the witcher and his minion's fireballs hurtled toward the spriggan.

The creature quickly turned into a mirage and shrank into a black atom, then it disappeared. Without any target to hit, the bolt and fireballs slammed into the cave's walls. Debris rained to the ground, and sparks flew.

The creature reappeared nearby and raised its arm. As it swung its arm, a curtain of magical light shimmered in the air, and a wave of earth element surged within the cave. The witcher's medallion buzzed violently, and alarm bells rang in his head.

Roy leapt to the side, and a gust of wind grazed him. When he stood back up and had a closer look, the spot he previously stood on was taken over by a patch of vines that broke through the ground.

The vines were nearly ten feet long, and their tips were sharp as blades. Thorns adorned the vines from tip to base. If Roy was hit by those, his flesh would be torn off. These vines charged straight from the ground. If Roy hadn't escaped fast enough, he would have been speared.

The atronach wasn't as agile as her master, and the vines needled her body. The flames around her dimmed until they were barely sparks, and the atronach was nearly see-through.

Roy gathered up his strength and swung his blade down, cutting the vines into two. He then made a sign and let out a roar, filling the air with the element of water as Clamp was cast, buffed by the power of Wingflap.

His clone leapt out of the void and took Gabriel, then it fired away at the spriggan standing at the corner twenty yards away.

Despite its life coming to an end for now, the atronach didn't stop tossing fireballs at the enemy.

Once again, the ground rumbled, and a row of vines broke through the ground, forming a wall before the spriggan. An impenetrable wall that kept the bolts and fireballs away from their master.

The creature stood behind the wall, casting its spells without a care in the world.

With Aerondight in his hands, Roy charged straight at the monster, puddles splashing across the ground. A gigantic Venus flytrap rose before him, swaying in the darkness. The monstrous plant opened its maw, revealing rows of sharp incisors within. Sickly green drool trickled down the cracks between its incisors, corroding the ground.

And then it lunged at the witcher. A flash of light flew across the air, and a spurt of verdant blood shot into the air.

The witcher quietly stepped past the Venus flytrap, the plant's stalk and its bud falling down with a thud behind him.

A roar escaped the spriggan's mouth, and a row of terrifying plants rose into the air, yet the witcher did not stop. He crouched and charged ahead, swinging his sword again and again and again, crimson arcs of light shimmering across the battlefield.

The young witcher wasted no time in cutting the plants in two, but his shield was broken in the process of the battle. Roy stopped for a moment and cast another sign, but something unexpected happened.

A big patch of cabbage-like plants burrowed out of the ground and ballooned in size, stopping Roy from getting any closer to the wall of vines. Roy grabbed the ground underneath with his toes and leapt ahead like a tiger pouncing at its prey. The young witcher jumped high up into the air and arced across the battlefield like a dancer.

Dull bangs thundered across the patch of plants underneath as the they exploded, spraying green liquid everywhere. The liquid ate through Roy's Quen and made his boots sizzle.

The atronach and clone let out a howl before they disappeared into shards of light as the acid hit them.

Roy finally made his landing, standing right ahead of the wall of vines. He stared at it, and the spriggan too returned the witcher's stare, but its eyes were devoid of emotion.

Roy swung his blade horizontally, a crimson flash cutting through the vines. The resilient plants were torn apart, but the blade's attack did not stop.

The spriggan, however, had teleported to the other side of the cave. Roy fired a bolt and teleported to the monster right away, slamming down to the ground like a meteor crashing into the earth. His sword was raised high up in the air, and he brought it down at the creature without mercy. The blade sliced through the spriggan's grotesque face, gouging out its flesh and leaving a deep gash.

Green blood spurted from the wound, but the injury was already starting to heal. The spriggan howled, swinging its lethal claws around. So fast it swung, the monster left afterimages. It slammed its claws against the ground, leaving craters in its wake, but the witcher didn't defend himself. He moved out of the monster's attacks, slowing it down with Yrden. Without much difficulty, Roy escaped the monster's attacks. All three of them.

When the spriggan raised its claws for the fourth time, its arms froze, and something pulled it off the ground. Crimson tentacles wriggled out of the void, coiling and constricting it in a cocoon as it raised the spriggan high up into the air before presenting it to the witcher like a present.

Silence reigned for three seconds, the only sound a sickening squelch as Aerondight was plunged into the eyeball of the creature. Roy slammed the edge into the creature's face, bursting its eyeball in a spectacular show that gained him a splash of green blood and white, gooey brains. Quen deflected the liquid, and it slowly slid to the ground.

Again and again the witcher stabbed, until the crack of a bone rang out clearly through the air, and the stabbings stopped. Roy pierced his blade through the skull, charged through its brain, broke through the back of its skull and peeked through the back of the monster's head.

The young witcher let go of the hilt and heaved a sigh of relief. The blade pinned the monster on the wall behind it like it was some fish ready to be grilled.

'Spriggan (Modified) killed. EXP +300. Level 12 Witcher (11200/12500).'

***

The monster's corpse quickly shattered into motes of green light and melded with the air, leaving the skull, the claws, and a greater blue mutagen that was brimming with mana behind. Roy quickly tucked them into his inventory, and he wiped his blade clean.

"The leshen was stronger."

A moment of rest later, the young witcher went around the mess and entered the abode of the dead spriggan. On his way into the abode, he lit up the brazier, and the light from the flames shone upon a small but fully decked out lab. Vials and jars and vessels commonly seen in laboratories lined this chamber.

The most prominent aspect was the cage in the center of the lab. It was made of alloy with dimeritium mixed in it, and something tore a hole in it.

Not far from the hole were the remains of a blond, adult man with dried hair. The cadaver sat with its back leaning against the wall. The blue robe it wore was torn and filled with holes, chaos energy lingering around its bones, an obvious sign that the corpse was a sorcerer when it was still alive.

"Algernon. An expert in genetic modification. Dead for at least two and a half years."

Roy scoured the lab and found a diary with its black cover covered in soil sitting near the corpse. Most scholars loved to jot down the details of their experiments.

May 1258. I, freckled Axel, Gorazd, cruel Ortolan, and Idarran reconvened for an exchange. All experts in the field of genetic modification, of course. And it was a wonderful conversation between geniuses. The brainstorming brought with it countless inspirations. In the end, we came up with a stringent genetic modification process. The subject? The leshen subspecies I caught: a spriggan. I cannot wait to see the results of this plan. We shall be creating a new species of creature.

March 1259. After copious amounts of experimentation, we have found something. Spriggans are more plants than they are animals. Their body contains the chlorophyll necessary for photosynthesis, but they can also hunt for sustenance like all beasts do. I plan to weaken the plant side of this spriggan and stir up more of its animal side.

August 1260. My experiment is almost done. I have created a brand-new kind of spriggan. I cannot wait to contact my colleagues so they can witness my work. They will be surprised, I'm sure. Still, I am concerned. The cage seems unable to stop the spriggan's increased strength. I'll have to reinforce it.

September 1260. Some of the words were covered by blood. So this is how it feels to be absorbed by a spriggan. Unlike leshens, who absorb the life force of their believers slowly from a range, this spriggan utilizes vines to suck out blood and mana. More words were covered by blood.

At the same time it absorbs my strength, the spriggan injects a paralyzing toxin into my body, numbing the pain and killing my resistance. I even feel a sense of delight. Alas, I cannot use even an ounce of my magic. The bloodsucking vines coil around me like a cocoon. The creature only allows freedom in one hand, and so, with this hand, I shall write the last entry of my life.

To die at the hands of their creation is bliss for a scholar. ~Algernon.

"Hm."

The journal ended there. Apparently, Algernon's reinforcement of the cage went awry, and he was killed by his own creation. There was also a lot of experiment data in the journal. Roy tossed the book into his inventory space and took quite some time to dismantle the dimeritium cage. He then took the parts away as well. Dimeritium was worth a lot, after all.

Once he was done looting, Roy whipped out a diamond-shaped crystal and rubbed it thrice. The light of magic blinked, and a diamond-shaped screen was projected in the air. A moment later, a beautiful sorceress appeared, nervously pulling her bangs away, strands of hair tickling her nose. She looked adorable.

"I found Algernon near the address you gave me, Triss. Well, what's left of him anyway. Killed by his own creation. A feral spriggan. Nothing more than a skeleton now, and he's been dead for more than two and a half years."

Triss gasped and huddled closer, her eyes filled with worry as she looked at the witcher. "Are you hurt, Roy? Did the creature injure you?"

"Thanks for your concern." Roy smiled brightly at her and flexed his biceps. "But do I look hurt? That monster wasn't even enough for a warmup."

Triss held her hands together before her belly and gave Roy an adorable smile. Almost dazzled, Roy quickly said, "Oh, found some names in his journal too. Axel, Gorazd, and Grandmaster Ortolan."

"Ah, I was just going to tell you that." Triss stared into Roy's eyes. "According to my investigation, those people are experts in the field of genetic modification, Ortolan especially. He's one of the assistants of Alzur back in Rissberg, when the experiment was going on. Gorazd, Axel, Ortolan, and the missing Idarran are fanatics of the field of genetic modification, and they are close friends. They would periodically hold conversations about that matter. However, two of the quartet have died in the Battle of Sodden Hill, their names engraved on the obelisk. It has been years since Grandmaster Ortolan showed himself in the brotherhood. Rumors say that he is conducting the experiment of a lifetime."

"Another genetic modification, perhaps?" Roy mused. That's the only lead I have left that can lead me to Idarran. Ivar, Erland, Arnaghad, and Elgar are proving to be too elusive. Auckes' team failed to find anything that could lead us to them.

"I've asked Tissaia, and she's given me an address. It's a house Ortolan used to live in. That house is in Hindarsfjall of Skellige Isles. You can take a look when you have time."

"That's really helpful, thank you." Roy stared into her eyes and said, "Once I figure out this whole mess and deal with it, I'll be certain to thank you personally."

The witcher's gaze was a bit too aggressive, and Triss blushed. She stared at the ground and smiled. With her best effort, she tried to stay relaxed, and she said, "It's alright, Roy. I owe you my life. Twice. If you need my help, just say the word. But this is the most I can do for now. If I go any deeper, it's going to backfire and gain some unwanted attention."

"Then you should stop for now, Triss." Roy said, "Come back when you have time. See the kids."

"Sure." Reminiscence filled Triss' eyes, and she looked a lot more at ease. "But I have a lot of royal duties to deal with. Within two months, the north and Nilfgaard will be signing a ceasefire. Vilgefortz will be spearheading the effort."

Roy's pupils contracted. Vilgefortz. Like the original timeline, he has gained fame after the battle and climbed up the hierarchy in the brotherhood. He's a formidable enemy indeed. Ciri's under our protection, so Vilgefortz can't lay a finger on her. Roy wanted to find the grandmasters first, or he would never rest easy.

He was surprised that the north and south were going to sign a ceasefire. Northerners all thought Calanthe and Eist had died in the battle of Cintra, but not too long ago, Roy had just ascertained that Calantha was alive and pregnant in Skellige Isles. So why didn't she stand up and rally the Cintrans?

***

"Oh, Keira's calling me. I have to go now." Triss smiled and twirled her hair, her eyes glistening with delight. "Stay in touch."

"Yeah."

The screen dimmed.

***

Roy sorted out the lab and teleported himself back to the underground lab in rural Toussaint. He picked up Gwyhyr and shared Gryphon's vision. The young witcher saw a white-haired witcher and a beautiful raven-haired sorceress having a talk in the conference hall, and he smiled.

He gave Gryphon an order, and the beast shook off the pestering whippersnappers, then it craned its head closer to the conference hall's windowsill, keeping its eyes wide and ears pricked up, ready to gain intel for its master.

***

***