The staff was there. A sigh rippled through her as she confirmed that she did finally have it back. The same dark brown wood that could have been from any random tree. Althea shoved a little mana inside, trying to incite some reaction from it. As usual, the staff did not react. The mana just washed off the staff.
Shaking her head, she continued flying. The village was still a couple of hours away and she was already looking forward to a nap. Having some time off would be nice.
Then she remembered that she could not, in fact, sleep. The Great Mother was still around. Heck, she had forgotten about keeping her out of her head for a while now. The fight and the journey had just...made it slip from her mind.
Closing her eyes, she slipped into her mind, searching it for any signs of interference. Of course, there were none. There did not seem to be any memories that were lost, or anything that would point to the existence of any unnatural thoughts. But it wasn't as if there had been any before. The Great Mother was far too good at this for her to leave traces of her work.
Nathan had been in her mind several times, even if it was just when he broke through ehr defenses. But he had not found anything. Perhaps she should have him search for stuff when she got back. Yes, she should definitely do that. When she got back…that wouldn’t be for years.
A disturbance in the surrounding mana had her turn her attention back to her surroundings, finding herself facing a flock of birds. Of course, she would find herself attacked on the way back, while she was tired. Gramma had warned her about this shit, but still. This irritated the fuck out of her.
Well, it wasn’t as if she was going to sleep when she got to the village.
Fire burned around her as she looked at the flock of approaching birds. There were five Master stages within the flock. And a lot of Journeyman stages. The flock had reason to be confident about its chances. Althea considered fighting for a moment, but decided it wasn't worth fighting the birds. Five Master stage beasts should be easier to deal with than the bandits, but it was still a risk. And she wouldn't even get anything if she succeeded.
Magic blurred towards the flock as the wind pushed them away, giving her a headstart as she headed off in a different direction. The north this time. Perhaps she should just head on ahead and send a message to Gramma?
A part of her knew that it might be a good idea. Gramma's village was a big detour. BUt it was also quite rude to just leave like that. There might not be any chance for her to meet them again. Saying goodbye face to face was the least she could do.
The air thinned around her as she flew upwards, forcing the birds to fall back to cover the weaker birds that couldn't take the altitude. The Masters would be able to follow her, but the rest of the flock wouldn't be able to take the scant oxygen. Not to mention fight against the winds she was throwing in their direction.
Smiling at her plan, she turned around to find that one of the birds had followed. Oh, fuck it. Why was one of them leaving the flock to follow her? Althea observed it for a second, watching the rest of its flock, before deciding what she should do. On one hand, she could keep running.
On the other, there was no need.
Althea decided to press the attack. Mana churned around her as she set the birds' wings on fire. The bird cawed at her, flapping its wings as it started rushing towards her. That confused her. The fire was still burning its wings, why was it- the fire fell off.
Not extinguished, no, the fire literally fell off its wings like it was water. Althea's eyes widened as she retreated in a hurry, the bid speeding up to catch up to her.
A feeling of confusion emerged within her as the bids' mana continued to increase. The situation was beginning to look suspicious now. A feeling that only increased as she continued to fly away. The bid chased after her, increasing its speed as it gave chase, forcing her to run with wild abandon.
A boom sounded out around her as she sped up, hastily protecting herself with mana. What had happened? There were no explosions around her, no magic either. Why had there been-another boom entered her ears as the bird sped up, making her turn around to see what she was going on?
The cloud she saw behind it told her what had happened. The two of them had broken through the sound barrier one after the other. Was she really flying as fast as a fucking supersonic jet right now?
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Wait, no. That wasn't what she should be thinking about. There had just been two loud booms in near proximity. Just about any creature that had ears had caught them. If there were any Adept level beasts in the area, they knew about them. And might even be enraged by their actions.
Traveling through their territory was one thing, making massive booms that disturbed them was quite another. As if to make her point, three different roars sounded out, piercing through the forest air.
Althea didn't look back to see what it was the booms had woken up, she just ran for her life. The bird seemed to have gotten the idea too, because it sped up, its speed matching and even overtaking hers as it flew.
The fucker had been traveling slower than it could? Why? Was it one of those things that took pleasure in chasing its prey? Forcing the prey to fight for its life just so it could get off on it?
The situation made her frown as she sped up even more, attempting to travel as fast as she could. Calling on wind mana from her core, she accelerated, narrowly dodging an attack that came at her back.
The bird wasn't as lucky.
There was no time for her to look back, or even pay attention to where she was going, but the sound of flesh tearing told her what had happened to the thing.
The next target would be her.
Searching her head for ways she could speed up even more, she called on the air, practically begging it to help her. To speed her up. The air listened. A sudden acceleration took her, forcing her forward by her back.
A crack and a flash of pain told her that there might be something that had broken due to the sudden acceleration. At speeds as high as this, she was lucky she wasn't split in two.
Althea did not spend any more time dwelling on the pain, forcing her body to stop feeling it for a while as she connected to the wind. That was the only chance she had of escaping this. The beast had not attacked yet, but it would soon.
If she wasn't out of its territory by then, she was done for. The only way she survived this was if she escaped the beast's territory into that of a stronger beast. A beast that wouldn't allow any beast powerful enough to challenge to cross over into its territory. And might look down on her enough to not bother to attack her.
Now if only she knew what the beat territories were. But of course, she didn't. Gramma had given her as much information as she could, but the divisions of beast territory were unknown to her.
The best bet they had was on the territory ending at the desert. That made sense. The forest gave way to a desert, a place similar to the Zun Empire, where crops would not grow.
But there were quite a few beasts in that place, some of them quite powerful. There were even a few human clans hanging around, though only the really desperate lived in such a place. The Zhang family whose wayward son she had killed lived there.
That was why Gramma had wanted her to avoid that place. The family was the kind to keep a grudge over small things, and denying them a space mage was not a small thing. If the family even had an inkling that she was the one that helped their space mage escape, they would kill her.
The wind whistled into her ear, making her tilt her head, narrowly avoiding an attack aimed for her head. Althea's eyes widened, her breath quickening as she realized just how close to death she had come. The attack had been invisible to her mana sense. If the wind had not whistled into her ear, she would have died.
Had the wind…warned her? As unlikely as that possibility seemed, it was. What-the wind blew across her hair and she ducked, bending halfway as she overreacted. A boulder hurtled through where her head had been, telling her that it hadn't been an overreaction. That thing would have taken her entire upper body if she hadn't bent so low.
The wind really had warned her.
The elements did technically have that much intelligence, but they usually did not act by themselves. Fire and Earth might, but she had a relationship with them. The wind, not so much. Why was it helping her?
The air vibrated to her right, making her make a rightward jump and then dive downwards before continuing straight to the north. Just ten minutes had passed in the chase, but the desert was coming into visibility. Even if it was far off in the horizon, it was closing in quickly. The only problem was surviving till then.
Althea really had overreacted in the last attack, and that had cost her. The beast's mana felt closer, its massive girth hovering behind her. More than hers by a good bit. This was the first time she was fighting somebody that actually had more mana than her.
The beast had to be an Adept. Perhaps one that wasn't good at flying. That would explain why it hadn't caught up with her yet. But it was close.
The wind whistled at her back, making her sidestep. The whistling continued. The beast must be preparing a massive attack. Althea could feel the mana growing. The attack had to be something that would cover the entire area, forcing her within its range. That was what she would do when facing a faster opponent. In fact, she had tried something similar with Feng.
But she had no idea how to use that to dodge this attack. Feng had been able to survive her fire for some time. Althea doubted she could survive contact with whatever it was the beast was going to throw at her. The desert was coming closer into view, but she was beginning to doubt she would make it.
'Well, wind, thank you for caring.' she thought as she felt the mana increase, transforming into whatever it was that was coming for her. The wind reacted to her thoughts… violently. A gust picked up around her, churning into a typhoon. Mana fluctuated wildly, forcing the transformation back with its sheer force. Althea had not seen that happen before, ever.
Mana did not interact with other forms of mana. The beast was using Earth mana. Wind mana had just gone over and turned its mana around. That was not supposed to be possible. Well, if some of it was non-core mana and her wind affinity was higher…but it was earth, not wind. There had been contests for surrounding mana between same affinities, but different-
Althea shook her head as the attack solidified despite the wind's interference. The wind was a caring friend, someone that helped just because there was someone that needed it. But even it couldn't stop the beast from forming its attack.
Oh, she could even feel it now. A boulder. A massive one. Perhaps even big enough to call it a small hill. A small hill that was going to crush her in a few seconds…or maybe it wasn't.
Althea crashed through the forest's boundary, feeling mana change completely, turning even more chaotic as she found herself losing altitude. Was the mana actually harder to use around here? That was strange. There hadn't been anything like that in the records about the Zun Empire, but whatever.
The beast stopped. So did the small hill. Mana churned on the border, the earth literally shaking as the bear expressed its anger. Althea had turned around now, looking at her pursuer as she still continued onwards. Crossing a rather wide river, she breathed a sigh of relief. The beast had stopped pursuing her, she was safe.
The river ended before her as she went down, trying to land on the riverbed. Finding her way back to Gramma would be difficult, though. Perhaps she would have to send a message instead.
Althea's feet headed towards the river bank, touching the water as she leveled herself onto ground level.
Then the mana spiked. Before she had time to do anything, to even widen her eyes in reaction to the bloody hand clutching her throat, lightning struck downward, crashing before her.