Chapter 74 - Subjugation Target

"Master! Dive!"

All of a sudden, Claret stiffened up. She made some sudden movements on my back before yelling at me. There was a fierce impact in the small of my back, propelling me down towards the ground.

As adrenaline, or whatever vampires had as an alternative, kicked in, the world around me slowed to a crawl, allowing me to react and reorient myself.

Turning my upper body around, behind me, Claret had splayed out her arms and her legs were buried in my back, pushing me away from her as her own body rose up into the air from the counter force. For a moment, I couldn't understand why she had just kicked me, nor why she was trying to get away from me.

Even though two of this world's three moons weren't visible and one edge of the third's was obscured in the world's shadow, the bright light of the green moon over her shoulder forced me to squint. But doing so made me realize what it was that Claret had already noticed. There was a shadow approaching from behind her, from behind us.

(That stupid familiar of mine!)

If sound worked as I was used to in this supersonic state I was in, I would have clicked my tongue. It looked like Claret was doing exactly what I had specifically forbid her to do back after we fought that hydra.

If she wasn't going to do as I told her to, then it was up to me as her master to take responsibility and force her to stop doing such stupid things.

Just as the dark spirit's foot lost contact with my back, a light flap of my left wing while pulling in my right let me quickly spin around, and an outstretched arm reached out and grasped her ankle before pulling her back towards me.

Ignoring the look of surprise on her face, I kept my momentum and pulled her with me, putting my own body between her and the shadow above. As I finished my spin, my wings spread out to arrest my momentum and I pulled Claret into my arms, pinning her against my body to prevent her from trying anything else.

Turning my head once again, the shadow flying above had grown much larger. Its wings were clearly visible despite the moon's glare, along with its narrow body. While any further details were mostly obscured, I was able to make out that the wings greatly resembled my own. They were clearly more akin to a bat rather than a bird's.

With a quick flap, I fell into a dive in an attempt to buy time. The only way to explain Claret's behaviour was because she sensed some sort of clear danger with her [Danger Sense] skill. Even still, she needed a good scolding for trying that sort of crap again.

"Mas…"

"Shut up. Shut up!"

I was pissed. I didn't know what her excuse was, or even if she simply forgot in the moment, but I didn't want to hear it.

"Once again you're trying to sacrifice yourself for me?! Do you have some sort of martyr complex or something?! I won't have it! I told you before how I felt about such…!"

Distracted with my lecture, I hadn't noticed what the shadow was doing. That was, until there was a sharp pain in my back.

"Aaaahhh!"

Letting out a grunt of pain, we tumbled end over end. The mere act of trying to stop our spin made pain shoot out as I tried to catch the wind in my wings. But maybe there was more damage than I thought as they wouldn't move as I wanted. Each time I realigned my wings, they wouldn't quite open properly, putting me into a different spin, making stabilization with only my wings impossible.

Frustrated and in pain, I tried to retract them to at least get them to remove all torque being created by them, but even that didn't work. The harder I tried to retract them, the more pain shot out from my back.

In the end, I simply gave up and used [Tempest Magic] to create a bubble of dense air around me, shielding our bodies from the wind as we tumbled. Applying some telekinesis, I reoriented us to face down, then expanded the bubble towards the ground.

With our descent, while far too fast to be considered even remotely comfortable, at least stable and mostly in control, I expanded my awareness the best I could and searched for the shadow that attacked me using [Sense Presence]. It didn't take long to find it. A strong and clear response appeared above, lazily circling around while pulling away. Rather, it was probably slowly descending while I was falling like a rock.

Keeping awareness of our assailant in the back of my mind, I turned my attention to the rapidly approaching ground.

As we approached a section of craggy terrain halfway up Firestone Mountain, I allowed the air bubble to bend and yield against the jutting rocks, slowing our descent. As more and more crags came in contact with the extended air bubble our bodies slowed down, and when I judged the distance and speed right, allowed the bubble to deflate, gently letting us to the ground.

Releasing of all my active skills and magic aside from [Sense Presence], I let go of Claret and got back to my feet, wincing as the pain from my back flared up once more.

"Master!"

I quickly found the dark spirit behind me with her hands against my back. There was the feeling of her mana caressing my back, a warm, gentle touch that soothed the pain in between my wings.

A quick glance at my stats told me that I had only lost about 6% of my HP, but was steadily recovering it thanks to Claret. Most likely that thing that got me had gotten either incredibly lucky or was incredibly precise and had severed something very important to have made it so difficult to move my wings properly despite not doing nearly as much damage as my immobility had suggested.

"Alicia, are you alright?"

Now that I had some more leeway, I was reminded of the one person amongst us who had almost no real experience with combat.

<I, I'm alright. How about you?>

"I'm fine."

Alicia's voice sounded tense, like she was trying to suppress some pain. Or rather, she was definitely mentally suppressing pain, the same pain I was currently feeling and came from my body.

"But are you really fine? You're not used to getting injured like I am."

<T, this is normal for you?>

(Shit.)

Even with a voice that sounded like it was strained from between clenched teeth, Alicia caught on to something I didn't want her to know.

"No, I wouldn't say it's normal. Just that it happens, so I've learned to deal with it."

<B, but it's happened enough times for you to get used to it?>

"Well, I've been in a few mishaps, so you'd get used to it whether you want to or not after only a few incidents, you know?"

<T, then I can get used to it as well.>

(Shit squared.)

"There's no need for that! I don't plan on getting into dangerous situations more than absolutely necessary in the first place!"

<But it's going to happen, right? If I can't handle the pain, then I can't help you when you need it the most.>

(Urk!)

Alicia's reasoning was completely sound as far as I could tell. While I could make excuses if she still had her body, as things stood it would be impossible to completely shield her from experiencing pain if I were to come to danger.

Maybe I could if I could make a skill that dulled or blocked pain, but something like that was liable to backfire in the worst moment possible, so I was reluctant to make such a thing.

"Fine, but we won't deliberately get hurt, and you have to let me know if something hurts more than you can handle, alright?"

<Alright.>

I got her promise, but frankly it was pretty much worthless, and only good for making me feel a little better. I was entirely in control of the first bit, and the latter wasn't something she could avoid no matter how strong her willpower was.

"And you, Claret…"

"Y, yes Master?"

There was a distinct feeling of her cowing and her words shook, but for a complete different reason from Alicia.

"We'll talk about it later, so prepare yourself."

"…Yes Master…"

I wanted to give her the lecture right then and there, but the presence above us had suddenly increased its speed towards us. It would have to wait until we were out of danger.

Fortunately for me, my back was mostly healed and my HP was nearly full. Regarding the condition of the back of my robes would have to wait until afterwards. I just hoped that the damage wasn't significant, as fixing it would take forever and I didn't have a replacement.

Looking up, the shadow was approaching us at high speeds, in a steep dive reminiscent of a peregrine falcon.

I was angry. Angry that this thing had made Alicia suffer through pain. Angry that it had drove Claret to do something unreasonable once again. And angry that I was unable to prevent either.

Whatever it was, at a glance it did look like some sort of winged lizard. It had large bat wings and a narrow body with a thick tail that lazily swayed to manipulate its balance. The high speed it was moving along with the darkness and angle made it difficult to get too much details, but it was hard to deny that this was likely what the reports had spotted.

Unexpectedly, when I focused on it, there was a thick aura enveloping its body, drawing out in an elongated shape like the tail of a comet, but also much more ferocious with wisping tendrils akin to a bonfire.

In one part to do the job I was asked of and two parts to let off some of the anger that brewed inside of me, I fired off lances of magical ice into the air one after the next at high speeds. Each one making loud booming noises as they broke the sound barrier less than a meter away from me causing my robes to flutter in the shock waves as lance after lance fired into the air as fast as I could generate and launch them.

Above, the creature banked sharply, barely avoiding the reversed hail of projectiles as it broke from its dive and tried to increase its distance from me.. I continued the barrage, tracking its movements, but it stubbornly refused to allow itself to be obediently swatted and impaled. Undeterred, I increased my fire, instead of conjuring and firing a single lance at a time, I invoked multiple smaller spears and fired them off in a spread out pattern, covering a larger area of effect.

Surprised at the sudden increase of fire being brought upon it, the damn lizard thing took a hit. A small hole opened up in its left wing, but it quickly recovered and furiously dodged my shots as it tried to escape.

Growing frustrated at the lack of results, I kept up the hailstorm of ice spears trying to predict its movements to score more hits despite the distance between us increasing over time. I completely ignored the feeling of lightheartedness as my mana supply was quickly being drained at the overly unconstrained use of magic.

Most of the ice spears flew out of sight into the sky, but some impacted on the craggy mountainside around us blowing chunks out of the cliff sides and spreading clouds of gravel and dust around. From the corner of my vision there were movements of panicking monsters but my mind hardly registered them as I focused on my target.

After arcing up, the creature rolled over and dove beyond the edge of a cliff, my projectile barrage blowing the rocks away. But when I blew a gust of wind, there was only dust and stone that scattered away. There was no signs that my target had been hit, and instead there was simply large gashes where the rock face once was.

I pushed out my thoughts and scanned through the myriad of presences that surrounded me. If the monster was hiding, it was doing a good job as I couldn't distinguish it from the random ones near where I blasted craters into the mountain.

Scanning around with my eyes, I spread out my senses as I widened my search. There was no way I was going to let that damn overgrown lizard get away so easily after hurting my precious family members.

I spread out my cone of detection using [Sense Presence] from in front along to the sides as well as above and below, just in case the monster had found a patch I hadn't predicted. Despite that, I couldn't find any presences that stood out.

Suddenly, Claret froze up. Alerted to that unusual action, I turned around, and just as I saw from the corner of my eye Claret doing the same with her eyes wide open, a strong presence jumped out of a narrow fissure in the rocks behind me.

Before I could get a good look at it, the monster swung both arms towards me. A cloud of black fog rushed towards us, obscuring all view ahead.

In response, I made another air bubble with an even more strengthened shell of compressed air to protect us. The smog wrapped around us, but what surprised me was that it was dense with mana. It wasn't only a black mist, but a magical smoke screen that dulled [Sense Presence], making it difficult to pinpoint where my target was exactly.

Using my full suit of senses, I tried to peer through the black smoke, but all attempts failed miserably as we fell into true darkness where not even a single photon could smuggle its way to me.

It was a blackness I hadn't experienced even once since being reborn into this new body of mine. My vampiric night vision had always been the true and reliable thing that brought light to my eyes no matter the conditions, even if it was to my detriment, but now not even that allowed me to see beyond the air bubble I had made for the three of us.

But while I couldn't see anything through normal sight, nor could I see past the mist made opaque to magical sight due to its density, [Sense Presence] at least still gave me something, and that was enough.

The monster had returned to flying above us, orbiting around like some weird satellite. Here and there, something impacted the outer shell of my air bubble. While they felt solid, what was hitting it I couldn't tell as it wasn't alive, and I couldn't see through the fog for anything else.

Most likely, it had sensed the barrier I had erected and was trying to come up with a way to breach it, and for that sake, it was trying some pot shots.

(If it won't come when it was up, then I simply had to take it down.)

Letting the condensed shell wane on the impacts, I felt the projectiles grow in strength and speed, its barrages increasing in pace as well like the creature was growing confident.

<Claret, don't move.>

<Yes Master!>

With a voice full of trust and confidence, the dark spirit standing beside me froze like a statue.

After allowing the barrier to wane and buckle to the creature's barrage, I released it at the same time as one of the impacts. The black mist rushed in to fill the void at its centre while I erected a flat wall of ice to block the following projectiles.

As the hard projectiles chipped into the weak ice wall I had created, the scent of ash filled my nose and my skin tingled slightly as the air around us went from comfortable to smouldering. It really felt like I was enveloped in the smoke of a large fire as tears filled my eyes and every breath I took was painful.

For the sake of mitigating the worst of it, I erected new air bubbles around both of our heads, allowing us to breath painlessly. Rather than make air from mana and risk any potential pitfalls that came with it, I had simply drawn in the scattered oxygen and the bubble simply pushed out anything else.

<Are you alright Alicia, Claret?>

<Yea, I'm feeling a lot better now.>

<Yes Master. It wasn't anything I couldn't handle.>

I wasn't sure if Claret even needed oxygen like I seemed to, but it was better to give her a bubble of her own just in case. It also prevented her from feeling left out, presuming she'd even take it that way.

Moments after we were enveloped by the pervasive black mist filled with foreign mana, the presence of that offensive monster started its approach, accelerating first upwards, then towards us at high speeds, roughly at a 45 degree angle, bypassing the ice wall I had erected in defence.

The surrounding mana that glowed to my [Mana Perception] grew even brighter in a specific point, right in the same area where I could feel the opponent's presence. The vague brightness grew as the overgrown lizard approached, and when it got close, the light split like a cell performing mitosis.

As confusing as the sight was, the presence immediately behind the light didn't split at all. Instead, as it grew closer, the monster's trajectory became clear: it was attempting to dive in between Claret and myself.

If I was right, then the glow was likely it trying to attack both of us at the same time.

Without any need or desire to confirm such a theory, I lightly pushed Claret and sidestepped myself. As the distance between our bodies enlarged, the lights suddenly jerked as if they were trying to follow, but it was clear that such movements weren't fast enough, even if it was capable of stretching the full two meters of space that had grown in between us in that split second.

The brightly glowing mana signals whipped past us harmlessly as the centre of the presence came in between us. Despite being so close, the black fog still made it impossible to distinguish any details of the monster that had been attacking us, and only a vague shadow along with the slight glow of its aura could be seen.

Raising a hand, I fired off an ice land at the centre of the presence in front of me.

Like all the other shots, a powerful shock wave expanded from the flight of the supersonic projectile as it flew through the short space between us.

At the same time, I extended my shadow and shaped it into a soft cushion to break Claret's fall on the other side of the offending lizard.

Despite my expectations, while I could feel Claret safely land in my shadow within this pervasive darkness, the monster in between us flapped its wings hard, altering its trajectory in the last moment.

The sudden change prevented a direct hit on its torso as I had aimed, but it didn't get away scott free. Even though the thick opaqueness of the black mist, I could see the ice lance break through the thin skin of its wings while the shock wave of the sonic boom it produced at such close range reverberated through its body. While the same happened to Claret and myself, not just this time, but for every shot I had fired during this fight, the sonic boom was a purely physical phenomena and had absolutely zero effect on Claret who was normally an incorporeal being, as well as myself who had still been using [Spirit Form] ever since we took flight outside of Knossos.

Being reminded of such a fact made an idle thought about how this monster could so clearly target us while in this state, but it wasn't such a concern at the moment to actually force me to deal with it and instead I pushed it to the back of my mind to be brought up or forgotten in the future.

With the monster's sudden manoeuvre, it slammed into the ground in between Claret and I, but against my expectation, when I saw its teeth shine within the darkness, it didn't look like a beastial snarl but instead a grin.

In a panic, I stepped away from it, but my delayed and poorly coordinated reaction allowed it to approach me faster than I was making space.

Something flew towards my head, but I rolled my neck to the right and avoided it without issue. It was a limb. A foreleg or a wing or something. It was too difficult to see when I was forced to rely entirely on [Mana Perception] to see, and even that was heavily obscured.

I back-stepped, trying to make some more distance. As bad as visibility was for me, I had grown used to ranged combat over melee. While my claws were still as sharp as ever, I lacked the confidence to use them effectively half blinded and while on the defence. I much preferred being on the offence and being able to chose the range I fought at.

Simply put, I was not experienced at reactionary fighting.

Suddenly there was a sharp pain in my right calf. Something had grabbed my leg and was digging sharp points into my the soft muscles behind my shin. It might have been the angle, but at least it didn't feel like the claws particularly embedded far into my leg. Rather it only did slightly more than dig the tips through the skin.

Of course just because it was only the tip didn't make me particularly less accepting that it had happened.

(Oh screw this.)

I had had enough. This guy was being such a pain in the ass and I wanted this to be over.

Using all the strength in my body, I kicked my grappled leg back, pulling the overgrown lizard along with it. At the same time, I grabbed the thick limb that was withdrawing from beside my head in both hands and rotated my body forward, flipping the monster onto its back and using my own body to pin it.

Unfortunately, while I did manage to slam it against the ground, my body wasn't anywhere near heavy enough to hold it in place without first bracing it against something, and my body flailed wildly as the thing released my leg and tried to buck me off of it.

Undeterred, I tightened my grip on its limb, stuck my knee into the middle of its torso, then stabbed the claws in the middle joints of my wings into the ground. Now with a point of resistance against any forces that this creature enact with, my small size nor weight no longer had any meaning thanks to the weird physics interactions this world had with the skill and status system.

The creature tried to buck me off once again, it pulled and pushed against my grip on its arm. It even grabbed my right arm and tried to push me off, but the difference in strength was painfully obvious. As long as I put in my full effort to resist, it couldn't make me move at all.

But the fact that I needed to put in such effort to resist its actions was telling. It explained how it had managed to avoid being killed for so long, and why it even had the confidence to even try to take me down after I showed a bit of how strong I was with that mad barrage of ice.

I switched the grip of my right hand from its arm to its vaguely yet surprisingly humanoid skull, somewhere around the forehead.

Now that I was so close and had it pinned so completely, there really was only one thing for me to do.

I bared my fangs and brought my face close to its neck, all the while overpowering its desperate attempts to get away.

"Wait! Wait! I yield! Don't kill me!"

A deep and unfamiliar voice came out from the creature I had pinned.

(Fuck.)