“*CHRACK*” A skull cracked open as a dull stone sword bashed its head in. The fresh carcases’ flesh was already beginning to rot due to the weapon’s unique ability.
“Etta stay behind me!” “Y-yes madam!”
The little girl’s voice trembled, even knowing that the president was a strong person didn’t prepare her for this show of violence. The blade of the woman was so dull and chipped that it was closer to a bat, but she swung it so fast it could slice the wolves’ tough hide.
She also noticed although the blade was pre-chipped, it seemed to never be damaged more. Extremely durable, that was the story’s advantage. ‘I wonder how it got damaged, and aren’t stories supposed to regenerate after a while’. However, this obviously didn’t apply to the blade which was damaged in its normal state.
‘Depth of seas tridents’ The blue haired thought, creating an image of tridents made from water and shadow piercing the swamp in her mind. With that she commanded her mana to manifest it.
“*TCHK*” Approximately a dozen spears ascended. Just as planned they slaughtered any animal that was unfortunate enough to be in their paths. ‘Depth water rain dance’ She imagined again, creating another reference for her spell, this was how chantless magic worked. “*Fi! THU.*” With a simple command the stalwart staves turned into rows of balls of dark water, when she swung her sword they followed her trajectory.
It quickly became a tornado of penetrating bullets, even more of them fell as they became nothing more but flesh sacks with dozens of holes. At the same time the blue robed woman’s sword never stopped, even for a second. With each swing multiple of the furred creatures was murdered.
‘Shadow water strike’ She spun her body along with her blade, “*Swuf.*” When she reached a sudden forceful stop the water from the swamp rose in a blast of sharp water to throw away anything that was hit by it.
‘Seeing’ an opportunity, several more wolves strengthened their hides with mana and rushed to attack. But it was a trap, spinning as she pulled her sword in a straight line, and with a single swoosh her dull blade rot their meagre defences and tore out their flesh.
Still. They didn’t relent in attacking, more and more wolves were grouping up with this main group. She switched to a half sword grip, this way it was more like a shortsword. ‘Tch, the mud is slowing me down. Depth water steps’
Thin platforms of water appeared beneath her feet, giving a more stable surface to use. ‘River flow stance’ Her blade flowed in a smooth cursive line. Turning a single attack into a chain of attacks. She made sure the wolves worst move was to rush her all at once.
‘Maybe this is good enough as a warmup, they live to their title as one of the best warhounds’
Tactics were instilled genetically into the wolves, although crude ones. Three wolves came together, creating a ball of compressed mana. The wolves threw the ball, it whistled in the air as it accelerated forward.
‘Hmph!’ She used the flat side of her stone blade to block the attack, redirecting it to the side. It destroyed another thicket of swamp mangrove trees.
She jumped forward as slayed the winged wolves. “*Whistle*” She spun around as she bat away another mana bullet, she spotted a whole another array of canine trios doing the same as the first one.
‘Huu… This is a bit annoying.’ Everytime she entered into battle she always seemed to switch from a worrywart to a calm headed warrior, maybe Etta should learn from her.
She landed next to the brown hair. “Etta, can you use any more spells?”
“I still can a bit.” Thankfully she already collected a couple more nice behaving mana clouds, just like her mother once said, ‘Time was gold’.
“Then shoot some to disturb those wolves.” “O-okay!”
The brown haired girl created small floating pellets of lava by melting already pre-existing rocks to conserve energy. She hurled them at the preparing wolves with laughable accuracy, but still it was good for someone with almost no long-range fighting experience.
The pain of being pelted with hot lava stopped them from manifesting anymore mana bullets.
‘Vortex pull’ As the blue hair switched to a stalwart stance ‘Still water stance’, the mud floor spiralled and pulled the canines closer. Most managed to climb up trees but alas, almost half of them were stuck knee deep in mud. As they were forced nearer, the blue haired monster started her move.
Her stance was grounding her to the ground, stable to a fault. Even as the mud beneath her feet moved violently, she still remained unwavering, approaching the helpless ‘predators’. Like a grim reaper collecting a debt.
Each swing of her blade rent asunder flesh and hide, their thick hides and mana defence was totally helpless under the deterioration causing blade. Their bodies rot unnaturally as their heads flew into the air. She jumped from one prey to another, almost clockwork.
By now the surrounding area was cleared out, trees were felled beyond repair and corpses of animals littered the ground. The remaining wolves stared angrily at the perpetrator, how many had of their brethren had she kil— no, murdered. They would never forgive her for this tragedy, the victims were their friends and family.
But going any further would just do nothing but kill the rest of them, “Awooooo!” As the call of retreat reverberated, they left. Disappearing into the darkness of the blessed yet forsaken swamp.
“Gosh, every time I take my eyes of you trouble would always happen! What did you do to make a pack of Chamrosh mad this time huh!? Explain or I’ll hang you with the clothes!”
“ehe, y-you see, I fell into this tunnel. Then I walked and found a grave site, so I touched the tombstone, which was glowing by the way. Then they got mad and started chasing me..”
“What! I never thought you would be this unsound! Didn’t you think if it was a curse or something!? And why walk through an unknown tunnel and enter a suspicious gravesite! That’s really dangerous! I rea!@#$&*%@#( (Incoherent Sounds)” Etta’s focus shifted into a daydream as the babbling went on, the words slowly shifted into incoherent sounds when she started to dream. This was going to be a long impassioned fury filled speech, like always.
She had switched back to her worrywart personality. Truly, she is a powerful warrior. Being able to deter such a massive pack in such little time.
Well, my ears still hurt after that yelling I got. Buuut…. I still got the worm! All alive and still wriggling in that mud ball right there. And right now I am in front of the bunnywoman’s front door.
Still I knew she should would be special and especially strong, but what! I never thought I would see someone with a patterned core in my whole life. They’re extremely rare, like suuuuper rare, mythical levels kind of rare. Anyone with one would be guaranteed to become a member of the world’s truly strong.
They get special access to normally unusable elements like that dark water, maybe that was darkness combined with water? And some get extra buffs, its cheating levels of unfair! Dad said he once met someone whose core made his spells quadruple strong, dad said that was because his core was mutated by the mana from his adoptive dragon mother’s mana leaking into him.
“*Knock knock* Helloooo! Anybody there?”
“Oh is that you little girl? Wait for a second!” The voice was muffled by the walls. Sounds of footsteps got louder as the woman got closer. Her tall frame appeared when she slammed the door open. Damn she is tall, I want to be tall too!
“Hello! I your delivery of one healthy and plump blue worm!.” I lifted the worm above my head to show it.
“Ah! Thank you, come on in. I’ll get your reward in a minute.” She took the worm from my hands and saved me to come inside, so I walked inside. Is it me or is the smell even more pungent than before... When we arrived to the living room once more she gently placed the worm into a big glass case filled with a glowing biomass mix.
She took small cloth pouch from atop the drawer besides the glass case, other than the pouch it was filled with jars, bottles and pouches filled with all kinds of weird materials, herbs, dried fruits, and even glowing mana potions. The drawers was practically bursting from being overfilled.
“Here smally, this is your reward. Thanks I really needed the worm for research .” I shakily took it in my hands, t-this is it, my wonderful reward. My eyes gleamed with renewed energy and greed, I can feel my eyes turning into money symbols. Calm down Etta, take a deep breath, act natural.
“Ahem, your welcome. May I ask you what kind of research it is?”
“You see little one, I am researching about the lack of mana and slowed growth. Poor things those kids are, a 10 year old kid’s growth without mana is equivalent to a five year old like you.”
“What! No way, I can’t believe some people live without mana...”
“Not only that, its actually a permanent effect, mana just flows through their bodies instead of collecting inside. Its all because they don’t have a catalysation point in their body.
“C-catalysation point?”
“It’s the term for a unmature mana cores. So you see little one, I am thinking the worms hold the secrets on how to create a cure for them. Afterall, how do they hold so much mana inside their bodies? How do they reintroduce the mana back into the ground so effectively? Every time I theink about it my body begin to tingle in excitement.”
‘Uh oh, its getting weird, I should probably go now. But wow, I never knew some people live like that.’ The girl thought to her self.
“Sorry miss I gotta go, I have something else to do! Goodbye!” As she lied she dashed away with frightening speed.
“Oh, don’t you wa— She’s already gone.”
