Chapter 270

A Grinding Workout

(Mallory)

Slaughter, slink, slice.

Mallory had to hand it to the little pixie, but she was amazing at picking weapons. The new Ephemeral Scythe of Slaying was amazing, able to slice through monsters hundreds of levels higher than her own with seemingly little effort.

For a moment she almost chalked it up to being the equivalent of one of those glowing light sticks the people in togas used during that little space movie. The one with the talking puppet with old man ear hairs.

Yeah, not the best mental image, but one that was brought to mind, as many of the mange covered beasts that were now falling right and left around her ephemeral blade, all seemed to have ear hairs as well. Well, most of those that still had hair left had said ear hairs.

Apparently, there was a phase two of the Blight, at least that is what Mallory was now realizing.

See off in the distant lands to the west, reports kept coming in detailing a vast wasteland filled with high level monsters that were far above the normal standards.

“ARAAGHGHHT”

The loud squeaking sound of a monster with a long trunk could be heard calling out to the lands, calling for help to defend against the lone invader. An invader who had seemingly fallen upon the equivalent of the elephant graveyard.

There was of course just one problem with this elephant, or mammoth type graveyard. Namely all the large pachyderms that were all here had apparently tried to die, but the Blight that had infected their bodies would no longer let them just die. Instead, there was a lingering process to the Blight, one that seemed to speak of what many feared. Namely that the Blight was just a pretense for the zombie virus.

Seeing the rotting monsters that were apparently on phase two of the Blight, Mallory originally felt revulsion at the sight of the creatures. But then after killing the creatures, she swore she could almost see the way the spirits of the slain monsters finally looked at her, then seemed to look relieved.

That was the word, relieved.

They were all relieved that she had freed them. That was why even now she continued her ruthless slaughter of creatures. Creatures that while giving out large amounts of experience per kill, were not enough to truly see any real increases in her levels.

At least not compared to the copious amounts of experience she had gained recently from completing the super high-level quests that Cass can seemingly spawn out of nowhere.

Sweat.

Working so hard in the desert caused even her exceptionally high levels of endurance to be pushed to the maximum.

Still, she almost felt she owed it to these cursed creatures to offer them some form of release from the anguish of undeath that seemed to be plaguing them.

That was it, looking at these creatures she could truly see the effects of undeath claiming them.

While ghosts and the ghouls of the Deolar empire were technically listed as undead entities. These creatures right here, these were the creatures that were the true undead creatures of the world.

At least, these were the undead creatures that Mallory felt the most sympathy for.

Had things gone differently, had she herself not found her, then she wondered if she too would be just like these beings.

Or if she would have eventually been granted the mercy of death. Only to then be reborn to one of her extra lives that were left, always striving for the glory that she had achieved in this lifetime.

No, she knew from fighting right now, that she had changed. While she was lower level, and therefore theoretically at a disadvantage, the creatures that she now had their attributes halved. Meaning that even fighting monsters hundreds of levels above her own, her exceptional attributes were able to easily cut down the monsters.

The only thing that was a problem was the exceptional Endurance that each Blighted creature had. For it seemed that even cutting off limbs and other body parts would not be enough to stop the creatures. The only true way to end these creatures was to decapitate them, or to quickly and violently remove the soul from the bodies.

However, soul striking was something that was thought to be impossible. At least, it should have been impossible, but there was a change.

Mallory herself had changed, and not just a minor change either.

For almost a week now Mallory had known that she was a Mythical being.

At first these were just words to her. For she had known that this would be the next logical step after achieving the vaunted ranking of awakening her Legendary bloodline. Something that she stumbled upon and was lost for decades about how to replicate the process.

Yet, all it took was the Doctor just looking at the world around her, for her to understand the workings and patterns of the world. Patterns that she took for granted as facts but were both universally accepted and then explained so easily by her that you couldn’t help but realize they were universal truths.

Honestly, Mallory couldn’t tell when Cass went from being just Cass to the Doctor.

Mallory had of course been there when Cass got her first doctorate, but that felt like mostly a title for her accomplishment of rising in the Arcanarus Tower. Now though, now she truly was a doctor.

Her insights alone into the workings of magic were astounding, I mean who can come up with a mathematical formula to describe how Killing Intent would work. Killing Intent, a completely theoretical construct of magic and Qi, but somehow now made real.

That or it was just her mind being directed in the way both the Doctor’s notes from her class, and the few details she got from the other students.

Seeing the formula presented, one that focused on exponential use and abilities based on sympathetic skills that could be linked. It was groundbreaking. No, not just groundbreaking, but ingenious, and went to show so much about why Dr. Cass was able to accomplish so much, so effectively.

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All her skills blended together in a way that was truly hard to fathom.

Over the course of close to a century, Mallory herself had close to three hundred different skills ranging from everything from making managerial decisions, to creating leasing agreements, to how to adequately gauge the market for certain goods in various markets. Yet, that was her problem.

Looking at it now, Mallory realized that she had gone for the diversified portfolio of skills and abilities. Where she was able to a lot of everything. Her resource management skills alone showed her that Cass was in her best optimal role to the guild. Her productivity assessment skills showed that Cass somehow was always just one minor note of brilliance away from a major breakthrough.

Before Cass, there was just Penelope who came so close to always teetering on the peak of brilliance.

Yet, in all the times that Mallory knew Penelope, she never made as many epiphanies as Cass could in a week. That was part of the reason Mallory all but forced Penelope to be with Cass. Not only did that effectively ensure that Cass would protect Penelope, somehow, likely by finding, or worse creating, a brand-new realm where only pixies and Penelope could exist. Cass would no doubt survive there as the queen pixie, while Penelope would just build a magic absorbing space suit that would help her survive the dense magical environment long enough for everyone else to perish around them.

No, placing them together was a calculated plan meant to hopefully bring Penelope up by exposing her to the creative genius of Cass, while hopefully dropping Cass down to the realm of mortals, at least for the moment.

Movement left.

A large blur of muscle and force charged forward, causing Mallory to lash out and strike out. Her body mostly on reflex at this point, as the danger and thrill of battle was somehow missing.

Slink.

The Ephemeral Scythe sliced through the giant corrupted pachyderm like she was wielding a sharp hot knife cutting through an overfull water balloon. The effect was much as one would expect from such a situation, as blood and viscera sprayed out wildly.

Splash.

Mallory felt the rot land on her, coating her face and causing her to momentarily flinch. For she knew the blood was corrupted. Just by looking at it, Mallory could all but see and smell the rot of Blight coming from the creature.

Sizzle.

Yet, as the putrid substance landed, she felt her body’s now natural resistance spark to life, causing the tainted blood to burn apart almost immediately upon contact with her skin.

What had once been a true fear of Mallory, was now becoming a way of life.

Panting.

Even the art of breathing out here. The art of breathing in these cursed sands, Mallory could feel the Blight once again trying to take root within her body, and failing.

Even now, with her body pushed to its maximum, she could feel that the Blight that was all around her would not take hold. That her lungs, which had held in the poison and slowly rotted away for years were now fully healthy and resistant to the Blight.

It was a miracle, and something that even now she had a hard time coming to terms with.

STAMPEDE!

Of course, just as Mallory was getting used to the violent pace of combat, that is when the pachyderms all started to charge in mass. This was too many, but Mallory had brought this on herself, as she had come out here to get rid of some pre-wedding day jitters and stress by going into a deeply needed physical therapy session. At least that is what the old timers like her used to call such excursions, physical therapy, the art of relieving stress by working out, while leveling.

The only problem is that, after so many years, Mallory found more and more of her friends passing away due to stupid injuries, until she was one of the last to survive.

Exhausted.

Now, it seemed that she too would die here, overrun by hundreds of monsters that were all hundreds of levels above her. All because she got too greedy.

“Fine, let this be my last stand,” Mallory hissed as she picked up her glowing scythe and prepared to swing until either she couldn’t anymore, or all the monsters around her were dead.

Then staring forward, she knew she had made a mistake as somehow a monster had appeared behind her. Not close enough to strike out, but one that was clearly waiting for her to be distracted.

Still, she didn’t look, she couldn’t, as that would give away the element of surprise that she now had over the recently appearing monster.

Instead, all Mallory could do was stand there with her back wide open to attack, and wait for either the monsters in front to get within range, or for the cowardly monster to strike out from behind.

Thunderclap!

Then a moment before the monsters got to within a hundred charging paces, the skies began to cry out in rain. Piercing bolts of lightning struck out wildly, then a miracle happened, rain began to fall and almost instantly the creatures that had been charging forward, began to slow down their advancement. Going from a full-on charge forward, to a half-paced jog, to a slow walk, and then finally the creatures stopped entirely a few paces away from Mallory.

Drip, drip.

The rain even coated Mallory, and instantly she felt the oppressive chunks of gore that had been stuck to her from her endless time out here working off her fears and jitters. But this was no ordinary rain, for the effect was too clean, too refreshing.

Even just being under the waves of water, Mallory felt energy seep into her skin. That was when she realized what it was, or more importantly who was behind her.

Turning, Mallory saw a sight that instantly caused fear to grow within her. For there behind her was a perfectly calm and perched eleven-foot-tall dire phase wolf, with black hair and fiery red stripes that panted out corrosive acid saliva that even now caused the ground at its feet to sizzle and melt away into glass.

The only thing that kept Mallory from going completely lost to her fear was the fact that on the right shoulder of the massive beast was a pixie who was idly focusing her attention upwards as if to control the downpour.

“Hey, we were told you were out here, so we decided to ask if we could take your corpses?” Cass asked and hearing her speak in that childlike voice of innocence, Mallory instantly knew she was Cass again. Not the doctor, not some super crazy genius bent on destroying the natural order of the world, but just Cass. Someone who would help when needed and just watch when in the area.

Here she was just idly casting a spell that would cause hundreds of monsters to remain perfectly still, while she could go about slaughtering them.

Seeing the spell and its effects, Mallory instantly realized this spell as the same one that Cass had used earlier when they were first claiming these lands for the Midnight Hunters.

Staring at the girl, Mallory paused, before realizing the ask.

“The corpses?” Mallory asked.

“Yeah, you weren’t going to use them, were you?” Cass asked, then gestured to the dozens of bodies that lay at her very feet. Corpses that Mallory was more than content on just leaving to rot back into these lands as if nothing happened.

Suddenly Mallory wondered if leaving stage two Blighted beast corpses to rot on already Blighted lands was the best use of resources. What if this caused a further mutation of stage three Blight to appear?

Pausing for a moment, Mallory thought about the monsters at her feet, who were even now having the lingering corruption get burned from their bodies as the cleansing rain came down and washed away the lingering traces of poison from the corpses.

“This for your little sacrificial blood altar?” Mallory finally asked.

“It’s not a sacrificial blood altar, it is just a highly advanced pet cleaning chamber that processes excess pet waste and creates it into usable biomass material.” Cass said, her voice clearly defensive over the labeling of her contraption.

Oh, this was too easy.

“So, you’re saying it converts the blood of the animals that are brought there and converts it into reusable energy. Energy that you then use to bathe in, to make yourself stronger?” Mallory teased.

“I mean, if you want to use vulgar terms to describe possibly the best contained pet cleaning system ever, then by all means use your description over reality.” Cass noted.

Hearing that she had gotten under her best friend’s skin, Mallory could only laugh. She was tired, drenched, covered in blood and cleansing rainwater. She had threats coming at her from all over, but for some reason, all that mattered right now was that she had her best friend nearby, who despite everything was even now making it so Mallory could have the time she needed to replenish her energy before taking on a horde of beasts that would have easily been the death of her.

“Fine, you can have the corpses, but on one condition,” Mallory noted.

“What’s that?”

“You let me try out this blood pool as well,” Mallory chided.

“It’s not a blood pool,” Cass shouted.

“Okay, pool made from the blood, sweat, and tears of the enemies of the Kujos?” Mallory pressed.

Cass paused, and looked like she wanted to protest, but then stopped herself.

“Fine, that could work as a technical definition.”

Chuckle.

At that Mallory could only laugh, it was a good thing that Cass took the accusations of being a terror so seriously. For it was the moment she stopped being repulsed by the idea of inadvertently creating a sacrificial blood altar that the world would have to tremble in fear. Fortunately, today was not that day.

“Then by all means, have at the corpses of my fallen enemies.” Mallory said, waving a hand at the corpses on the ground.

With that Cass gave a half jump off of Kujo’s shoulder, while Kujo went about choosing different bodies.

“No, not that one, that one. The other one will be cleansed by the time you get back,” Cass said, pointing out a body that was apparently more cleansed of the Blight than another.

With that Kujo obediently went after the body that she had been pointing at, while Mallory just stared on in amazement at how well trained the beast was.

But then again, the animal would have to have been stupid not to listen to Cass by this point, as she brought him and his wife back to life, and then essentially cared for him the entire time.

Phase out.

Mallory watched, until the giant dire phase wolf picked up an elephant type beast that was easily twice the size of the wolf. Only for the dire phase wolf to effortlessly drag the oversized beast into a pocket dimension only to disappear a moment later.

The entire process seemed to boggle the mind. At least, it caused Mallory to momentarily pause as she tried to take in what had happened exactly.

“You done killing yet?” Cass finally asked, once enough time had passed from Kujo’s magical pachyderm disappearing trick occurred to the present.

Hearing the question, Mallory looked up through the now downpour of magical cleansing rain and could only see her friend staring back at her, with her hands on her tiny hips, waiting impatiently.

Seeing her friend in such a state, Mallory could only smile at the scene, before giving a crisp salute, “aye, aye Captain.”

Then with that Mallory began dashing into and through the various beasts before her. Her Ephemeral Scythe slicing through the stationary beasts as if they were little more than paper mâché depictions of beasts.

And like that, Mallory felt a calm peace come over her as the rest of her stress was finally able to be purged from her body, thanks to her best friend and a much needed workout.

At this point, Mallory didn’t know what the rest of the day had in store for her. The Royal wedding that she had been dreading was only fourteen hours away, but for this moment everything was fine. And best of all, she knew that with her best friend by her side, it didn’t matter what the world threw at her, for the two of them could handle anything thrown their way.

Smiling.

Now back to her workout.