My eyes twitched at her insult.
“You… did say that!”
“Nuh-uh. I said I was going to be the queen of beasts and giant centipedes. Something so.”
“Whatever you say, failed abortion.”
Her smile disappeared as she stared at me. “I’m going to kill you.”
I lit a fireball in my hand. “Round two, let’s go.”
She leaped down from the giant snake, but Hessien quickly stepped between us. “Okay okay. We have more things to be concerned about.”
Whatever.
I crossed my arms as Vacinay made a hmph sound and was about to turn into the cat but stopped and said, “I want to recover all my EP first.”
Ghomas nodded. “Yeah, same.”
I too needed some rest. We sat down for about 23 minutes. Then the first one to stand was Vacinay.
Instantly, she morphed her nose to that of a cat then grew cat-like ears, and a tail. Oddly, it was proportionate to her body.
That made me wonder…
I asked, “Is the size of those cat elements natural or do you focus to make them that big?”
She looked at me, “Eh, why are you asking a failed abortion?”
“Bitch, you called me a damn wench! It’s not like you are actually a failed abortion.”
She crossed her arms. “You don’t know my sad, tragic backstory…” her voice cracked. “H-how I felt when… when—“
“Just get to the damn point,” I interjected.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine fine.”
“Anyway, yes, I do.”
“So, you ever tried to just make the cat form huge like a tiger?”
Her annoyed expression turned to one of wonder. “Did… well, I thought of that! But…”
She looked around, “Anyway, let’s get back to moving.”
“Did you think you skipped a cutscene or something?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she extended her cat claws and leaped towards the ceiling she had pointed at before the snake appeared.
Clinging to the ceiling with just her feet and left hand, she used her right hand to push, causing a square part of the ceiling to move.
With her hair flowing down, she looked at Ghomas. “Give me a clone.”
“Right.” He created the fast clone which crouched low, building up force in its leg before leaping into the new path created for us.
We listened intently, waiting to see if there was going to be a sudden monster appearance—
“Intruder!”
We nodded.
Vacinay’s body quickly morphed into a massive tiger with metallic-ish green fur. With extreme grace, she climbed in and the next second, all I heard was screams.
She worked fast. I went next, jumping in through the ceiling… door? I wasn’t sure what to call it. But anyway, it was like another regular dark tunnel.
Upon entering, Hessien was next.
In front of us was Vacinay in her tiger form walking ahead of three brutally torn apart half men.
Talk about insanity.
She then out of nowhere turned back to normal, leaning on her knees. “Okay… turning that big drains quite a bit of EP. Not too much, but too much to use when not needed.”
I said, “It seems pretty powerful, so it’s not that bad.”
“I know right!” she smiled before standing back up and morphing her face above her lips into a cat.
She moved low sniffing the ground.
Hessien giggled. “That’s quite a sight, ass high, head low. Perhaps… a mating call?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“That makes me wonder. If Ghomas made a female version of his clone and fucked, would that be incest? Selfcest? Or would be it ethically wrong?”
... That's a good question...
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”
"that's a crazy thing to think," Ghomas said.
We came across three routes, one straight, one left, and the other right.
“So, what is it?” I asked.
She stood up. “Straight, but I smell people there…”
Hessein stepped forward. “I want to try clearing them out.”
I asked, “What if they are one of the mega-strong guys?”
“Then I will just die, duh.” He said as he walked towards the room with three fingertips of his having the explosive mist pellets. However, they looked very different, they seemed incredibly dense.
FYI, I didn’t know the actual name of the skill, I just referred to it like that.
Hessien then smiled and ran in.
As he ran, those inside, over nine giants with various skin hues and tails turned towards him.
“Heh… food!” one of them rushed at him.
What’s his level….
Level: 20
Level: 22
All of them ranged from level 20-22!
Hessien kept his pace up as they came running, creating huge thuds along the way. A blue one jumped onto the rocky ceilings before using it as a platform to launch at blurring speeds toward him.
That fool!
Time—
He shot the pellet at its face, and when it hit, the half-man cried out before crashing to the ground.
Huh?
However, they weren’t done. They came in like a flood. Hessien shot the remaining pellets at their faces, and they exploded. And just like the blue guy, they fell to the ground, coughing… as if they had water in their lungs—
Vacinay laughed, “The mist water content is so dense, they are drowning in it?!”
That’s… really pushing the limits of the skills. What if he applied that logic to his general mist skill?
Incredible.
Hessien’s moment of glory disappeared in that instant though. He turned back, running towards us at full speed.
The sucker was drained out of EP, wasn’t he?
“Come back here!” A green giant with a snake tail leaped over him, zooming down on him like an asteroid.
“I didn’t mean to attack you all! It was an accident!”
Hessien jumped to the side, saving his head from being beheaded by the skin of his teeth.
“Accident?! You ran in here and targeted us!” The giant pulled his massive axe out of the ground and locked his eyes on him.
Hessien looked at the three giants who were barely twitching. “Yeah, but… if you think about it. It was future self-defense.”
The other giants dashed at him from every direction.
Time freeze.
As soon as I launched my time freeze, Hessien, who was a single second away from being cut down, was saved.
I ran over with the knife in my hand. I kinda felt like I was an assassin.
Heh.
I jumped over an axe and wrapped my legs around one neck before putting my knife in front of his head, with the knife pointing towards his skull.
As soon as the knife left my hand, it also froze in time.
That was about 2 seconds.
I did the same for another one. Since I only had two knives on me, I unfortunately couldn’t have a badass moment of all of them dying at once.
Anyway, with that done, I leaped down and laid him on the ground and then stepped aside.
That was about 6 seconds.
Unfreeze.
I grinned as I waited for their death to take place.
The giants continued their movement, swinging their axes and swords at where Hessien’s head was supposed to be.
Upon missing, knives fell to the ground with a clang.
…
Wait… they… also got unfrozen?
Then I got hit so badly that everything went black.
I opened my eyes.
Hessien was running away. “It was an accident!”
“Accident?! You ran in here and targeted us!” The giant pulled his massive axe out of the ground and locked his eyes on him.
DAMN IT!
That was a dumbass mistake of mine.
I was experimenting… which got me killed.
Ghomas dashed inside, electricity cracking around his fingers. As soon as one of the giants almost hit Hessien, a thunderbolt broke into his head.
It wasn’t like the regular ones. It was massive! And the frying scent from the giant drifted to our noses as he fell to his knees.
However, he didn’t go out with that alone.
“Damn, that took everything I had!” Ghomas complained.
Hessien screamed, “I took down three of them and you want to tell me that was everything you had?!”
Speaking about that… his mist clouds were staying around their faces, unlike the orc-half-men we faced earlier. Perhaps he manipulated it differently?
Besides, he didn’t take those giants out yet. They were dying, but still alive.
I manifested a dense fireball the size of a bullet. One of the giants locked eyes on me instead of Hessien, I pointed my finger like a gun.
With a single eye open, I muttered, “Target in sight, asking for fire. Fire request granted, open—“
A red light beam suddenly was shot from his mouth… right in my temple. Perhaps… I should stop playing around so much…
My legs buckled as I fell down. Everything went dark….
I woke up to the giant chasing Hessien getting hit with a bolt of electricity.
Vacinay began hopping around, bouncing her head like she was getting ready for a boxing match. She made a huge circle in the air, before manifesting a 2-meter… 900+ pound two-headed dog.
With her sword tight in her hand, she called to me, “You and I are next up. Let’s gooooooooooo!”
She was still four levels lower than me—
She leaned forward in a psychopathic way, like she was about to fall, and dashed forth as her massive dog ran towards Hessien’s aid.
Now, where did she go off to if it was her dog that went to his aid?
Well…
“First, I will be taking those!” She bellowed as she leaped with her sword pointing down towards the incapacitated fellows.
With a flash of blood, she impaled one into the head, getting splashed with brain matter and blood. She moved to the other, cutting its head open just like the third.
Hessien who saw this, mouth trembled in betrayal. "You… BASTARD!”
Vacinay stood up chillingly from the blood and stared at the remaining half-men.
I asked her, “You want me to freeze time, but make you unfrozen so you can—“
She ignored me and dashed forward, at first skidding from the blood-soaked ground, but she didn’t allow it to bother her. Her legs morphed into that of a cat’s, and she used the claws to dig deep into the ground to dash forward at ridiculous speeds!
She threw her sword straight, piercing into the head of one of the giants that was about to snap one of her dog’s neck.
As soon as it struck, she turned into the tiger (big cat) but… unlike before, it seemed… very different. Not just twice the previous size, but entirely! It had a mane and it was muscular, and the metal fur seemed like spikes!
Did she… Level the cat skill up?
She clawed at the giant’s neck, removing a large chunk, and moved to the other with the help of her dog, which was bleeding heavily.
Welp. Time for me to shine.
With a fire bullet formed, I made the gun gesture and… said, “That’s for the last time!”
The bullet-sized fireball shot forth and hit directly in the mouth of the one that killed me before! It tried the same trick, but look at how that turned out for it!
Its eyes rolled back and it fell down.
Oh wow, that also worked. I had realized something before. The expansion of flames was created by my desire; me instinctively pushing its limits.
After all, it’s called fireball, not explosive flames. So, when I just thought of it as a bullet kind of ball, it functioned at that, burning/melting whatever was in its way.
To put simply, the energy/heat didn't spread out but was concentrated in what it hit. (Obviously, heat would spread out on their own, but I can limit it.)
I looked at the last one, which was struggling to keep Vaciany’s claws from digging into its throat. It also looked at me, fearful. I placed my finger on my lips, as if to tell it silent.
Now, why did I do that? Hell would I know. It sounded cool in my head in that moment.
Anyway… time to do some kill stealin—
With the fury of a mad king, Hessien armed with his spear gun began blasting at the half-man, not that it mattered since it barely did the damage.
Like I was saying! Time freeze baby!
Without knowing why, the half-man suddenly felt the touch of an angel’s hand on his neck. A touch so divine, precious, soft, holy, unnerving, beautiful. And other cool stuff to make me sound cool.
He turned back, but it was too late as my knife stabbed deep into his neck.
I then whispered into his ears. “You should not have abandoned me… I told you I would come back as a ghost…”
His eyes shot wide… spiraling into confusion.
He dropped dead and Vacinay was confused until she realized what I did and turned back human, half covered in blood and innards.
“Kill steal,” She grunted.
“Shut up, wench.”
Hessien screamed at us, “You both stole my kill!”
I turned to him and pretended to fit glasses on my face and hold a book on my chest. “Did you know, murder is a sin? Those who murder shall—“
Bang!
He adjusted the spear gun at me, it glowing red with power.
Argh! He is shooting at me!
