"How many times more can you distract the octopus with that illusion of yours?" Amanda asked Freddy.
The Taulusian tapped the ground three times.
"Okay. Stay close to me but stay safe. I need to see how much damage the vines I planted did."
Amanda took another handful of seeds and stored the box again. She really wanted to harvest some seeds to replenish what she used. Bloodcrest vines were hard to cultivate and its seeds were even harder to source.
She ran back into the dust cloud, casting the sense earth spell again. Freddy vanished. This time, she approached slowly. The smell reminded her of takoyaki and ozone. Fried octopus. Before the creature entered her sight, she saw the massive chunks of burning flesh scattered around. Damn. The monster saved itself from the vines by blowing itself up with lightning. At least she learned what its affinity was. Her shoes' soles were insulating but with this much moisture in the air? the very atmosphere was conductive.
Amanda got close enough she could see the creature, tentacles wrapped around the wound. Thick dark blue liquid poured out of the wound, forming a massive pool as it spread on the ground. It was bleeding. Did her seeds and the thunderstorm do enough damage to kill it? Amanda doubted it.
Two tentacles lay next to the creature but didn't move. They were dead. She tried to find the stumps but couldn't. Maybe it was underneath that mass of tentacles. Now that the octopus wasn't moving anymore, the dust cloud would dissipate soon. She was about to lose her cover.
At least the storm didn't attract another monster. The thought of losing her kill to another monster and then having to deal with whatever came after the easy meal lit a fire in Amanda's stomach. She felt like a coward all this time since she ran away from the reverse recognition squid. And now, she had her chance to redeem herself, to prove she was not a coward. But trying to make physical contact with the octopus was stupid. The monster could turn her to meatpaste with a single swing of those tentacles.
She should temper with the thousand wet hells. And granite bones, stone skin, the whole nine yards. She was being a fool. What good was beauty when you could be plucked out and crushed like a mundane wildflower? And Robert was a Life cultivator. If she could convince him to learn a flesh-shaping spell, he could be her personal beautician.
And didn't Archhumans become more and more perfect as they ascended? Heck, try to find one unattractive three-star. Noah, maybe? Bah. That idiot of a teacher didn't deserve her time, not even to think badly of him.
Amanda measured the distance and readied her disk launcher. She conjured the slate disk, and then shaped a chamber for the seed, leaving an intentional fault line across the disk's diameter. it should crack and split in two upon impact. Thinking better, she added another line in a plus sign. The idea was to make the disk break upon impact and deliver the seed.
She aimed, then cast plant growth, and fired. The disk flew and landed inside a tentacle's sucker. She felt the bloodcrest seed's thirst for blood, and it had copious amounts of it as the octopus' tentacles were drenched in it. Only then did she find the flaw in her plan. She should've prepared all the disks before she fired the first one. But she was so eager to test if her ranged delivery system would work...
The antlers started to glow again. The monster sprang into action as the other tentacles wrapped around the infested tentacle and pulled it apart.
"Freddy, let's go!"
She ran, trusting that Freddy would follow her.
Once again, she crouched, hugged Freddy, and fixed the previous dome, hoping the thing had a door so she could save essence. She was almost out of it. This time, she added ore veins underneath her forming a lattice. The thunderstorm shook the world once again, a little weaker this time.
*
*
Amanda approached the octopus, relishing that the dust cloud was back in place at full strength. The smell of burnt octopus and ozone was even stronger now. She had seven seed delivery disks ready, and two seeds stuck to her special glove. Those two she wanted to test with another delivery system she imagined.
The monster now had four tentacles lying flat on the ground, the others writhing around to protect its wound. Its slitted eyes darted to and fro, searching for threats. Amanda was about to waste the disks in a Hail Mary attack. With a target this big, she doubted she'd miss. She breathed in and out. Then she coughed because she inhaled too much dust at once. Damn. Amanda aimed and fired, slotting another disk and firing again. One disk every two seconds. Twenty-one heartbeats later, they were all in the air or already striking against the squid. The launcher went into her ring as she conjured a ball of water, split it in two, and then inserted a seed in each.
"Water Jet!" She whispered. The spell was one of many prototypes she was testing to learn offensive water magic.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The two spheres shrunk as the water shot forward at a high speed, carrying the seeds with them. One fell short, the other landed in the pool of blood.
"Freddy, back to the shelter!" Amanda shouted as the octopus started to charge another thunderstorm.
Once it had passed, Amanda moved out to see the octopus in a sorry state. It was burnt, bleeding, and five of its eight tentacles and one claw were ruined. It was barely moving. Of her bloodcrest vines, not a single blade of grass or blood-drinking root remained.
She had a handkerchief wrapped around her lower face now. She had also made a note in her journal to buy a proper mask or a helmet with its own ventilation system. She hated to become like those independent Archs who delved with biker helmets but it was better than smelling boiled octopus blood.
"Freddy, I want you to distract it with an illusion of the nastiest wolf you can imagine coming from the other side."
Freddy growled to let her know he heard it.
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
A black wolf twenty feet tall appeared near the octopus and pounced to attack. The antlers shone and a thick bolt of lightning darted through the illusion, dispelling it. It seems the octopus was no longer playing and fucking around. it might no longer have enough tentacles to slam around willy-nilly, but it was still dangerous. And it had no qualms about harming itself if it meant victory.
"Another one, from further away. You can see the range of its lightning storm by seeing the vitrified dirt it left behind. Stay out of this range, and try to make the illusion dodge or something."
Freddy appeared, nodded, and then vanished again. Amanda slowly approached, crouched and under the cover of the dust cloud. She didn't have enough essence left to cast plant growth on ten seeds again, nor she was willing to see if the monster had enough juice to cast that lightning storm spell a fourth time.
She stopped fifteen feet away from the monster. It really had no way to detect her other than sight or touch. Then she waited.
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
This time, she didn't see the illusion but saw the antlers glow. A peal of thunder and a flash told her a lightning bolt had gone off but the antlers didn't stop glowing. She flinched every time a lightning bolt came out of the antlers, totaling seven.
She waddled like a duck as she slowly approached the monster. Amanda's boots squished as they slapped the thick blood puddle.
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!"
There, the third and last illusion Freddy could cast. She counted five lightning bolts this time. It had to be enough. The monster was still bleeding but this was when it was the most dangerous. Amanda stood up next to it and conjured her sword out of her ring. Holding it in both hands, she started to hack at the octopus' head, putting the slashes as high as she could. Was it a dumb strategy? Yes. But she didn't care. All she wanted was to kill this thing and maybe avenge Robert. The extremely sharp blade cut through the rubbery flesh easily. Amanda tried to hit the same spot and widen the cut.
Her earth sense spell warned of the incoming tentacle. She dodged underneath and watched as the appendage slammed into the creature's own body. That was the reason she slashed so high. To make the creature misread her height and hopefully let her dodge underneath.
She focused then on cutting through the tentacle. The section in front of her had around two feet of thickness. Despite being fifty feet in length, she thought the tentacle was rather thin. She managed to slice it twice, cutting almost half of the cross-section when the tentacle started to flail wildly. it slammed into Amanda, shoved her down, and caused her to drop her sword.
Amanda used her time to grab her weapon and roll before a tentacle slammed where she was. It splashed blood everywhere, including her face. Without the earth sense spell, she would have no awareness of her surroundings as her goggles were covered in the monster's thick blood.
A tentacle came and she braced herself and slashed it in half. Most of the hard lifting was done by the tentacle itself, she just needed to keep the blade firmly aligned. She moved closer to the creature's body because she feared the lightning bolts. The darkness and the drenched mask were suffocating her. She hacked at the creature's mantle, the portion of its head protruding from behind the eyes, with wild abandon.
Another tentacle came. She braced and slashed, taking a hit on her ribs but failing to sever the limb. Before it could move away, she yelled and hacked at it a bit above the cut she made, the tentacle slammed her against the creature's big head and she lost her wind.
"Just die, you motherfucker!" She cursed. Opening her mouth was a bad idea as she was forced to taste the monster's blood. It tasted worse than it smelled and she hoped it wasn't poisonous. A quick water spell washed her mouth as she used her free hand to rip the handkerchief away from her face.
After catching her breath, she chased after the writhing tentacle to hack and cut it. On her count, the monster now had one good tentacle and two that were cut in the middle.
"COME AND GET ME!" She bellowed, her voice cracking halfway. Amanda coughed, turned, and started to cleave her way through the octopus' head.
The antlers glowed. She didn't see it because the goggles were covered in blood. She only noticed the flash of light as a lightning bolt struck her. Amanda flew backward ten feet and landed on her back inside the pool of blood. She convulsed as her muscles locked and twitched from the lightning aftereffects.
She ripped the goggles off. Her hair was a mess. She was all burnt from the lightning strike. But she was alive. Furious, Amanda stood and searched for her sword, lost inside the blood. She didn't find it and gave up after a few taps of her feet. Amanda summoned her biohazard seed box and took the whole bag of bloodcrest vine seeds.
Then she limped toward the octopus. She was going to end this and prove her talent was worthy of being considered a combat talent. She was going to feed fried octopus to Robert, whether he liked alien seafood or not. She was mad, she was seeing red, and she was crying but it was because the dust cloud stung her eyes, not because she believed Robert was dead.
Amanda held the seed bag in her glove and cast plant growth with the last dregs of her essence. The spell didn't have enough energy so she infused the seeds with her talent. She was going to use the monster's corpse as a planter to harvest more bloodcrest seeds. With all the blood this big boy had, she would become a millionaire just from selling the seeds.
No. Wait. She already was a millionaire. Amanda started to cackle as her sanity cracked. Caked in dark blue blood and dirt, with her hair in disarray, and burnt, she was sure she looked like a witch.
And she didn't care. All that she wanted was murder.
Amanda shoved the seeds as deep inside the creature's cut head as she could. If it wanted so badly to burn the seeds with a lightning storm, it could do her a favor and blow its own head as well.
"GROW, MY CHILDREN!" She commanded with her talent.
Supreme Farming.