"You know that point in time, when you finally know you're trapped?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't get there. Kill all your enemies first, and leave no trace."

~ Two assassins talking about the dangers of their profession

I stared at them in a brief moment of shock. My gaze traced over the hundreds of buffaloes and the relatively small group of tiger-people. I- I- I need to prevent situations like this from happening. I muttered as my mind reeled. I need to get more powerful. I focused on the tiger-people. After I survive this at least. I turned my attention to my core which was the same colour, shape, and size as when I arrived in this place. The only thing different was a light glow that emanated from the dense Tier 1 Mana within. Okay. I got my mind into place and focused on planning.

An obvious thought slammed itself against me.

Oh.

~~Mohianot(Ger'r're'ret'tr're'err'regr'r)~~

I narrowed my eyes and moved my gaze down as I felt Mana shift below us with the evident tint of the being's influence. "Up!" I shouted and the others obeyed. Meanwhile, I stopped in place, not needing to move in my projected form. Spikes of stone and copper shot towards us, 5 for each. The ones that were aimed at me passed through as if there was only mere air, which was partly true. I raised my staff up, which I didn't really need to do in this form, but it was ingrained in me from my training and would probably stay that way for the rest of my life.

I glanced at the states the others were in. The spear-wielders had managed to dodge and deflect the attacks on the shafts of their weapons, while most of the sword-wielders parried them away. A slightly inexperienced sword-man having only just ascended to Tier 2 a week ago got impaled in the torso and shoulder by 2 copper spikes. He groaned in pain and wobbled in the air. A quick healing spell from my staff removed the metal in the wounds and sealed the gaping holes enough for him not to immediately die. Then an order sent him flying back home to recover.

One sword wielder down already. I sighed. We've truly come across a high-leveled foe.

A loud gurgle came from behind me and I turned back around to see the young one die from a flying spear of copper to the throat. My eye twitched unconsciously.

I turned my narrowed eyes to the rest of my subordinates while increasing my flight speed to catch up.

They were unharmed, but were still assaulted with spikes.

I looked at the buffaloes to see them in a deep pit, scrabbling on its smooth copper walls, some of them dead, or at least handicapped due to injuries on their legs and hooves. I could see a few of them making progress, but this would delay us significantly if we wanted to keep our meat shields.

I growled telepathically to my soldiers. R-!

But before I could tell them anything more, my form got sucked away and my consciousness returned to my body.

"So, uh, did you succeed?" The replacement guard asked nervously.

I glared at him and spat out. "What do you think?!"

He answered hesitantly. "Er, you fai-?"

"It was a rhetorical question!"

~~Dave~~

I felt moments of pride as I outwitted them.

First, I attacked them with waves of spikes, and surprisingly managed to heavily wound one on the first wave. The ghost-leader-tiger-woman who I soon found was also a healer, patched him up and sent him away though. But it turned out to my favour as I dropped spikes from above, and since he was busy looking at the ground for attacks, he was too distracted to notice one catch him right in the throat.

Then, I excavated a large and deep pit below the buffaloes lined with copper and sharp copper spears at the bottom that killed, maimed, and trapped them.

And finally, I removed the leader. I did not kill her unfortunately, but I figured out that her form was made of Mana, and so I simply absorbed that Mana, which was actually quite a lot.

Now, all I had to deal with were 5 tiger-people, 3 spear ones, and 2 sword ones. Which would still be quite difficult.

If only I absorbed enough iron to be able to recreate it. If only I absorbed a creature that could deal with flying... I paused.

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Oops.

~~Aweguya(R'er'r'r'rr'rerr'gr)~~

I batted aside copper and stone with my spear as I solemnly gazed at the mountain where the monster awaited. It had killed the 23rd most powerful warrior, and then it murdered one of my friends. I could tell because I glanced behind me to see how he was doing and saw him lying on the grass with a spear in his throat.

A tear made its way down my cheek.

It will pay.

~~Dave~~

I expertly wielded my unearned Mana control and spawned in 10 thousand meerkats literally on top of them and ordered them to use their 'special attack'.

~~Thwegirino(Gre're'er'gre'ereg'gr)~~

My sword twirled through the air in a deadly dance, partnering with and spinning away stone and metal spikes gracefully. I glanced at Aweg and scoffed as I saw him crying. What a crybaby. I continued my flying as I was until darkness descended over us.

I stared up in awe at the mass of fur overhead, still parrying away shooting spikes and spears.

They looked at us. Thousands of tiny beady eyes staring at each of us straight in the eyes, getting larger and larger as they got closer.

Then they opened their mouths while falling and... I knew no more.

~~Dave~~

Well, that was surprisingly easy. I commented. All I needed to do was create some meerkats and they were defeated.

I glanced at the battlefield and winced.

Spikes everywhere. Literally.

They made a layer on top of the grass which actually...

I focused intensely on the grass.

It was actively growing over the spikes and bare patches of earth.

Squelching sounds rang out.

Oh. The meerkats.

But before I could absorb them, they got wrapped with lightning and yanked into the sky. The bodies disappeared into a single point in the air with even more squelching, which only preceded a squawk of satisfaction.

The bird. I thought mournfully. It is still here.

~~~~

Patches of the landscape in the plains disappeared into thin air. First, chunks that were roughly 1 hundred cubed metres. Then, 2, 3, 4. Until, someone got fed up.

The remainder of the grass formed up into a massive meerkat. Its glowing red eyes in its otherwise empty sockets pierced through my territory and directly to my core.

My core shivered.

I reached out my Mana and tried to absorb the grass it was made of, but my Mana was blocked by an invisible barrier. The kind that stops me from absorbing living things if I don't have enough Mana to overwhelm it.

The grass beast stared at me in hatred and opened its mouth.

I, in panic, drew all the Mana in my core and formed a thick wall of Mana in the way of the attack.

It worked, to an extent.

The sound waves of the bark, more like a roar at this size, visibly rippled through and dissipated the Mana wall, slowing down and decreasing in power from the energy expended to get past. But it still managed to reach me. I retreated my perception to my core and wrapped it in Mana, hoping that would help. And as the waves of sound reverberated along the rock of the mountain, I compressed more and more layers on top.

Then, when I just started feeling it would be okay, the Mana transformed into a thin layer of brown crystal, barely a millimetre thick. My core shook in fright. OH-! But before I could finish my thought, the attack hit, and got deflected away by the thin layer of inconspicuous crystal on my surface. -yay? I finished my sentence in confusion.

I transferred my attention to the meerkat who seemed to be waiting for something, but as soon as my focus appeared, it snarled in bewilderment. It released another sonic attack, but it was much weaker, and a quick wall of Mana removed it entirely. The grass meerkat's eye sockets widened in apparent shock and it started running away.

What the-? No you DON'T! I shouted at the grass monster as if it could hear me. It's ear twitched and it took a quick look behind itself before loping away faster on its 4 legs.

I quickly raised a thick wall of copper all around it and tried infusing it with Mana to see if it would make it harder to break. I poured in half of my remaining reserve of Mana and the copper gleamed with newfound shininess.

The meerkat just looked at it and jumped over.

SON OF A-!

I created another wall of copper, making sure it definitely was tall enough and on an afterthought, added a copper floor and roof. I pushed Mana into it before the grass thing could ram through and it shrieked at the sudden darkness, then the huge amount of Mana that shone brightly even though it was barely a quarter of my current maximum Mana pool. It felt around with its clawed hands and dug into the soft dirt ground, but it hit the copper layer after half a metre.

It frantically clawed at it, hoping that it would give way, yet after half a minute it barely had a scratch.

What I was doing in this half a minute? Simple. I was moving the ceiling down slowly but surely.

Hehehe. I chuckled in delight at the turn of events, not even contemplating the possibility that I sounded like a villain about to murder his nemesis. You tried to kill me, so I'm going to kill you. Hehehehe. The meerkat's ear twitched again and it whimpered in despair.

The grass creature looked up and saw the ceiling inches away from its nose. It shrank back in fear, eyes darting back and forth between the spikes I added on a whim.

It closed its eyes and turned its head away.

Then my control slipped. Why? The big bird in the sky of course.

Invisible claws grabbed hold of the copper cylinder, denting it and ripping it from the ground in a spray of dirt. This in turn caused the grass monster to smash into the spikes above and die from one of them to the head. Which caused me to swear.

As I was whispered angrily to myself, the bird was hovering a kilometre or two above me. It shook MY kill around, seemingly just to hear if there was anything in there, and lifted the copper container to what might have been its mouth. The annoying purple bird then pecked it with its beak to make a hole and tipped the contents down its throat with its oddly dextrous talons.

It's drinking it like a coke can! I said in distress. That should have been MY meal!

The now purple crow (from turning visible again) dropped the 'can' and with a cry reminding everyone who's boss, flew away, turning invisible once more.

I gotta kill that bird.