Gor motioned for her to run, and she didn’t hesitate to do so. She remembered the stories told of the last time he went all out, and she had always wanted to see it happen if he ever released that [Slumbering Giant] Skill again, but there would be a next time. A time when their son was not in danger of a recognized Shaman.
No matter how strong Gor was when he used his final trump card, matching a Shaman in a one-to-one was just not something the average person could do.
She had made it down the street, nearly around a bend where she would lose sight of Gor, when a mind-based tracking spell landed on her. She was able to slow it down enough to prevent it from spreading to Dei, but it still hit her.
‘Dammit! If it used Tracking alone as the base, I could easily remove it from me, but she placed it somewhere on my soul. That’s not something you can just remove.’
She still ran. She would find a way to get Dei to safety, somewhere Iora wouldn't find him. Besides, Iora wasn’t the only one with tricks up her sleeve, and it seemed like she would need more than a few of them to get out of town.
***
Around the same time Gor had told the crowd to get the council, Iora sent out a message of her own to the five people who would understand the conversation the two of them were having.
“Get the council as he says. I will need to justify my actions before them, and I have nothing to hide” she sent out confidently.
To the rest of the town, she sent out a second message, one that was slowed down so that anyone could understand it.
“To anyone who can reasonably stop her, please apprehend Fou! I am saddened to announce that her son, Dei, has most likely been replaced with a mockery-type creature. Do not allow her to escape! She is a mother grieving, and deserves better than this.”
While she did ask the entire town, she had little hope for them to actually catch her. Iora knew that Fou was mainly a Snap-based fighter, and they tended to be a slippery bunch. Still, she just needed Fou to be slowed down enough for Iora to catch up with her before she did something to hurt herself.
With her preparations out of the way, she focused fully back on this fight. It was time to fight not only a Sloth user, but one that had been charging for over a decade. Iora had seen the last release of it, one that was charged for only five years. If he would have fought her at the time, she would have had to actually focus on the fight to win, despite her title of Shaman.
‘This will strain even the abilities of my staff, but I doubt he will be able to slow me down’
Unfortunately for her, Sloth users were kind of known for slowing people down.
***
When she noticed the people around her absentmindedly listening to something, then immediately hardened as they looked at her, she knew that Iora had sent out some sort of warning to them. More than a few of them moved to intercept her, but she would NOT let anyone stand in her way.
Three behind, four in front. None shot anything at her, so it was clearly not some sort of kill order. Multiple boosting skills were used, but she activated her own [Beat Breaker] Skill, a confluence between Love, Snap, and her Stamina.
Every heartbeat she would be hit with an extreme bout of speed for the duration of the beat. She pumped Stamina into her heart to speed it up, kicking off the ground with each thump, she rapidly accelerated into the four people trying to block her.
They hardly had a moment to panic before the two people directly in front of her were sent flying.
‘They wont try to kill me, but I won’t hesitate to kill them if they try to stop me.’
She felt the ground beneath her turn to mush from some earth spell, but with how she was running to maximize the speed on [Beat Breaker], she hardly touched the ground at all. She could run across water if she needed to right now.
Crowds of people moved out of their house to block her, the people who reacted first were behind her, but now others were getting ready to stop her.
Even those who weren’t fast enough to stop her simply stood in the road in the hopes that they would be able to slow her down for a moment.
‘What the hell did Iora say to them?’ She thought frustratedly, as even those who she thought would sit the fight out seemed determined to stop her.
She combined [Beat Breaker] with one of her Snap Skills, [Point Flash]. It compressed her entire being into a single point and moved her through any obstacles in her way, so long as there was a path to take.
It only moved five feet in any direction and was an instant movement ability, but combining it with [Beat Breaker] made her beyond elusive.
Despite the hundreds reaching out to grab her, she dodged and ducked under those she could with [Beat Breaker], and when they thought they had her cornered, she would [Point Flash] between limbs. If a single one caught her and began pumping her with foreign mana, [Point Flash] would become much more expensive to use
A few Tracking spells hit her that broadcasted her location to those around her, but she ignored them.
The crowd was becoming too dense to avoid being caught completely, so she began taking side paths that twisted around each other. Even if they knew what direction she was in, she heard some of her pursuers get lost in the alleys trying to chart a course to her location. Those that were on her though had much more room to move without the crowds surrounding them, and they even started using some projectiles to try and knock her off balance.
A few stone cuffs flew out to catch her but she [Point Flashed] around them. Stone spikes rose up in front of her to form a wall, but those were completely ineffective as she did the exact same thing as the cuffs. She accidentally stepped in what appeared to be a puddle, only for it to explode into action and try to cover and bind her, as it was actually a trap set by some sort of Darkness element.
She panicked for a moment and prepared to fire a [Snap Shot] arrow when Dei woke up slightly. He had been in an absent daze the entire time, but his eyes glowed brightly for a moment as he looked at the darkness, and it was instantly banished.
She didn’t miss her next step as she continued to run through the alleys.
Occasionally, Fou would notice as Dei would zone back in for a moment, eyes glowing, and a random shadow would brighten up marginally. Each time, he went right back into a catatonic state afterwards.
She was worried for him, but she could pump no more Love mana into him, as she had none to spare. She didn’t know how much she would need to escape the town, but if she did end up with some extra reserves, she’d give the rest to him when they were out.
She was especially worried about the glowing cracks covering his skin, but he seemed fine for now, so she ignored it.
Breaking out of the alleys she finally made it to the gateway of the town as several people turned the corner behind her. She saw multiple [Hunters] standing in front of the gate searching for her, and she unhesitatingly rushed towards them.
When one of them spotted her, they called out and the rest turned to face her.
“[Twisting Warp]” She called out loudly as she held her hand towards the crowd and snapped. She did not, after all, actually want to kill people, so she would give them a warning and leave the rest to them.
The few Barrier users were in the town square trying to contain the fight between her husband and that bitch, so there was nobody here to stop her. The people who recognized the spell she was going to use picked up their neighbors and dodged to the side as the near instantaneous wave of Snap mana tore through flesh, bone, and stone alike. A less-known combination of skills was that [Point Flash] was able to ride the wave of mana. Instead of coming out a mere five feet ahead, her body was carried hundreds of feet through the clearing, past the crowd, and into the cave as her [Twisting Warp] ripped the conjured stone gate apart.
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Sparing a glance behind her, it looked like a human-width circular wave of fifty smaller blades had randomly torn everything apart, dissipating the conjured stone seconds later.
The faces of the crowd showcased clear panic at the security threat. After all, without that conjured stone for the gate, monsters would come running to find the source of the wave of mana that was released from the previously sealed off gemstone cave.
They needed to block it quickly before too much was let out, or it might attract something they couldn’t handle. She wasn’t worried for her other family, she knew they would have the gate up in time, as she had practically led all of the strongest people in their village straight to the gate, and the majority of [Gem Dwellers] were natural born earthshapers.
The risk of a monster attack was one she was willing to take, as they couldn’t chase her and restore the barrier at the same time.
Taking off down the tunnels without slowing, she stopped using so many [Point Flash]’s to conserve more mana, but continued pouring Stamina and Mana into [Beat Breaker].
She took time to locate all of the tracking spells on her, and most were physical in nature. Those that were surface level, she cut out with a knife. Those deeper into her organs, she focused on loosening with her Mana, then used [Point Flash] when it struggled to remain stable. With this combination, the spell placed on her would quickly lose track of where she was, and she whittled all the tracking spells she could sense from thirty seven different spells to just a single one, the mind-based tracking spell that Iora had placed on her.
Even if she could sense it, regular mana had no way to interact with such a deep concept.
It wasn’t over yet though.
Fou had been a Shaman candidate in her early years, but failed and settled on becoming a Hunter for her village. Even a failed Shaman could not be underestimated. She had, personally, failed as she was unable to transform her Love affinity into the Heart affinity. It was common knowledge that every Shaman needed to have a Soul-derivative affinity to pass their training, as one of many requirements. Otherwise, it would be far too easy for enemies to interrogate secrets from each Shaman, if one was to be caught.
Her Love affinity was still on the verge of transforming, she just couldn’t find it in herself to take the final step. The Heart affinity was simply too fundamentally disconnected from her personality. The brushing of her Soul that her Love affinity was capable of would be enough for her purposes though, as she had her catch-all Skill [Love is Blind].
[Love is Blind - Level 156 - Love affinity
You care so deeply about those close to you that it has rewritten aspects of who you are. Your love touches upon deep concepts that others can fathom, and you do not need to. You do not need to know why you love someone, the mere fact that you do is enough reason to protect them.
Manifest a guardian which you cannot interact with, sense, or control within your soul. It will act on its own accord to do what it thinks is best for those you love.
Variable mana cost dependent on what goal the guardian wishes to accomplish.
Level 100 evolutionary upgrade- The guardian has never failed you, it has completed its duties valiantly and you choose to trust it even further with your most sacred of sanctums. Allow the guardian deeper access to your soul, increasing its versatility while also granting it the ability to deal you harm, if it chooses to do so.]
Her instructor had called it a pseudo-Soul Skill, and while she considered it progress towards transforming her affinity, he had considered it the final nail in the coffin that ended her training. As he had said, in the description itself, she innately understood that she did not need to understand her soul, so she had subconsciously given up.
It had served her well through the years, and she had perpetually given it at least a small trickle of mana to put up some basic defenses around her soul. Now she gave in to the full draw of mana it was calling for, and felt as it suppressed both Iora’s tracking mark and fully annihilated a tracking mark she had not previously sensed.
It did not remove Iora’s tracking mark though, so Fou believed that it was out of the guardians ability to do so. Even her pseudo-Soul Skill had limits, but this limit would serve her well enough. She already knew where she was going to take Dei, she would just have to rush, as she was now on borrowed time.
Many years ago, Gor and her had explored as deeply as they could into the earth. Not for any reason, simply out of curiosity. After they suffered a near-death experience, they were separated, and she was chased into a little hidden pocket cave, one that she couldn’t sense before randomly entering it, and she hid there until the monster that had chased her finally gave up and fled when another, larger beast appeared. It was also one of the few places she had never told Gor about, so Iora wouldn’t be able to read his mind to find out where she had gone.
They had agreed to keep certain secrets from each other in case a situation exactly like this appeared before them, and now their preparations would pay off.
It would be a risk to reach it, especially in the time she had. She estimated that she only had around two weeks until her mana would run too low to keep the suppression up, and that was if she used no mana for anything else. Most of the time spent exploring deep cave systems was actually accidentally moving in circles until you successfully mapped everything out.
The week and four days spent to reach the cave was a massive distance, but she would do it. She expected to have the drain on her mana increase massively very soon, as the moment Gor was defeated Iora would begin to actively seek her, but she didn’t want to waste a single moment she currently had while the Shaman was distracted, so she rushed through pathway after pathway trying to put distance between her and the village.
‘I will keep you safe, little Dei’ she thought lovingly to her son.
***
A day had passed since she began her journey, and surprisingly, Iora had not begun seeking her out. Her mark was still active, so Fou knew she was alive, but no extra mana was being consumed to suppress it. ‘Did Gor manage to severely harm her?’ she wondered absently, but did not stop moving. She sustained herself on foraged food, saving the rations she had in her bag. She had enough food for two weeks for both of them, but she didn’t know how long she would need to hide in the cave ‘or if I will need to stay there indefinitely…’ she thought pessimistically, but shook off the thought. Things would get better. When the tracking mark disappeared, Fou would know that the council had arrived and called Iora’s actions unreasonable, potentially even executing her. At that time, she would return home to watch everything play out.
It would be weeks before that happened though, she needed to bide her time.
***
Three days had passed, yet still Iora’s mark made no extra noise. ‘What did you do to her, Gor?’ she thought with amusement. She was proud of him for putting her down so thoroughly.
***
A week had passed, and there was still complete silence from the tracking mark. With each passing day, her pride in Gor’s actions turned more into an unsettling feeling in the back of her mind. ‘She’s not dead, but if he harmed her so thoroughly that she couldn’t heal in just a day or two, it had to have been a close fight, and she might just barely be hanging on right about now. Killing a Shaman will get him executed’ she thought with a shiver.
The mark changed from a weight in her mind to the last hope that her husband would survive his own reckless actions.
***
Finally, she reached the crack in the wall that led to her former safe haven, she was just barely small enough to fit into it with her son. It was unassuming and almost devoid of mana compared to its surroundings, so she didn’t wonder why it was ignored by the creatures this deep. Her tracking mark had still yet to activate, and now she suspected Gor had done something other than lethal damage. She couldn’t imagine what, but a desperate gamble to protect his son by creating a new spell to trap Iora was exactly something she expected Gor to do.
‘That's why I love the big oaf.’ She thought while smiling brilliantly at the thought of him.
She finally saw the bright opening at the end of the tunnel she was shuffling down, and prepared herself in case there actually was a monster that had settled in.
When she broke through though, she saw that the small room was devoid of anything larger than a beetle and breathed a sigh of relief. The room was about thirty feet in diameter and seven or so feet tall. The floor was covered in a lush, soft grass, the walls had some thick moss that she knew was edible, and there were copious amounts of gemstones in the wall that boosted the natural levels of mana in the cave to levels better than even the settlement she lived in.
She also felt as the mark within her was cut off from Iora, and how she didn’t need to pour any mana into it to maintain its silence. ‘Some sort of natural concealment phenomena?’
Now that they were in safety, she sat down with Dei and prepared to talk to him. He had slowly been coming to his senses more often as they ventured down, but he still refused to talk again after that initial time in the forest. She set him down in front of her, and faced his body towards her own.
“Dei.” she said gently, and he looked up at her. “Dei, I love you. I don’t know what Iora did to you, but I will always love you. Do you know that?”
Fou watched as tears welled up in his eyes, and his little chubby face contorted into the cutest little frown. ‘He really does understand whats happening.’ She thought he had been far too aware as they moved through the caves, but it was only just now being confirmed to her. ‘I don’t know how he got so smart, but him understanding what people are trying to do to him is all the more reason to protect him.’ Crying loudly, he raised his arms up for her to hold him, and she happily obliged, pulling him into her shoulder and consoling him. She suspected that Iora had done horrible things to him, but she didn’t know how to help. He still had those slightly glowing cracks all across his skin, and they were not fading with time. She took the chance now that she knew she had mana to spare, and poured all the love she felt for him into his body, hoping to help her little boy.
She would keep pouring Love mana into him every chance she got, because she wanted him to know how much she felt for him. She wanted him to know the lengths she would go to keep him safe.