Ning Xin pushed herself off of him the moment they burst out of the snow.
It knocked both of them apart and saved them from getting washed like dirt on a plate.
Hiding had never really been an option. Thanks to the wide area of the snow lake, their pursuers didn’t manage to surround them well as they didn’t have a clue as to how large the pit was.
It was hard to say who was faster but Ebony had the advantage as he was familiar with treading snow while Ning Xin almost tripped. She vapourised the snow in her path so that it was no longer a problem.
“Mount them!” Ning Xin yelled when they realised that they were getting caught up in less than a minute.
Ebony didn’t hesitate to jump and did exactly what she advised. Those fishes had monstrous reflexes but nothing a little gravity magic couldn’t fix. Ning Xin had more trouble as the Jetfins appeared to be wary of her to some extent. Annoyed, she sent flaming lances towards them. Only 2 of them were lucky enough to hit the wings of Jetfins but the flying fishes protected themselves with a dense layer of water, barely receiving any damage. The tiny bit of lightning made them shiver for a moment but nothing more.
He quickly yanked her over successfully, the Jetfin under him was trying to stop him from freezing his butt onto it. A battle of mana wasn’t something he was afraid of and this film of water wasn’t exactly the best element to resist freezing.
“Don’t kill it, Jetfins will not attack their own kind. Unless that tamer’s command can override their natural instincts.” She explained why she even bothered mounting.
With her sitting in front of him, he did his best to prevent the flying fish from slamming into the ground or shaking them off. The good thing was that the streams of water stopped momentarily.
The Jetfin slowed down a lot and allowed the others to catch up and surround them, it was only a matter of time before they were shot at. He found it hard to believe these fishes couldn’t hit them without harming the Jetfin under them.
He put his arms around Ning Xin’s waist and cast Phantom’s Flicker onto the furthest Jetfin. He was internally shocked that dozens of Jetfins reacted and even cast their water jets at them in the middle of his flicker. His body twisted awkwardly while he pushed Ning Xin’s head around. Narrowly evading them and successfully attracting himself to his target.
“DIE!” The Troll deemed it necessary to change the language she spoke.
A Tremor Stomp landed on his target’s tail area and forced it to lurch forward in pain. The burst of speed didn’t last as he had to leap away immediately. The tamer and her mount were the fastest and stabbed at his previous location with her stone-tipped spear.
‘Around 800 shields…I hope the tamer’s stupid.’
Ebony Flickered with a conjured platform, deeper into the Glades. The Jetfins matched him which was great. He stayed close to them and always found a way to be hidden in the direction where the least Jetfins had him in their sight. Frigid Refraction was really helping as their sight didn’t appear to be very good, the slight hesitation they had in attacking their own kind was all he needed.
He could only hop from one to another for ten minutes before the tamer ordered the bulk of the fish to retreat. Although the Jetfin that the tamer was sitting on was the fastest Ebony had far better 3 dimensional manoeuvrability compared to a winged creature that usually swam. Without cover, it made things much harder for him to stay out of sight.
He was too elusive for the tamer and it clearly angered the Troll to unending degrees.
Sadly, the tamer was mostly screaming things in their own language and he wasn’t able to understand anything she was saying other than die or that she was going to kill them.
‘I got faster again, did my skill refine again? I can’t keep this up, the stamina consumption is too high. I have to reduce the consumption further but I can’t lose any speed...’ Ebony found that his speed was almost the same as some of the slower Jetfins. He purposely changed directions sharply as the Jetfins had a hard time slowing themselves down before turning. He was fortunate they weren’t familiar with air resistance instead of water but he could already tell that this advantage wouldn’t last. The Jetfins were also improving as they understood the differences between swimming and flying.
Their speed wasn’t changing much but they were getting noticeably better at turning and braking over such a short time. Perhaps these Jetfins were practising when they were taking a break.
Ning Xin sent her blood halos to slice at them and she was relatively accurate but the damage done was only shallow cuts on their scales or light burns.
A hundred or so Jetfins surrounded them in a cylindrical formation with the tamer and his mount right behind them. He braked as hard as he could before slipping out of their encirclement but the rest of the Jetfins who stayed a distance back would not let the chance go.
‘Their aim is getting better and they are locking more and more possible paths of evasion through teamwork or natural hunting instincts?’ Ebony was still as calm as always. It hadn’t gotten to the point where he felt that he couldn’t slip through their one type of linear attack method.
The tamer screamed again when he managed to evade hundreds of high-pressure beams at the same time.
“UP!” Ning Xin grabbed him tighter.
His Will flipped gravity for him and he flickered up, narrowly slipping through dozens of Jetfins that charged at him at an accelerated pace.
‘Did she buff them or did they use some skill that gives them a burst of speed.’ Ebony couldn’t let himself fall into a trance if he wasn’t sure of his opponent's abilities.
“!!!” His Will yanked him to the side as another hundred Jetfins were already waiting for him to ascend.
His mana was currently in a deficit and he didn’t like it.
❅❅❅
“Not good. They’re getting used to flying.” Ning Xin warned.
Ebony was on her back, letting his legs rest and his mana recover. He was forced to experiment and make slightly more drastic changes to make his body learn how to refine his flawed movement skill. Tearing his own calves was a poor move.
No matter how fast he regenerated, any amount of lag would kill them. He was glad that Ning Xin’s reflexes were so ridiculously fast that she got him out of a bad spot and flung him onto her back. It wasn’t exactly the best ride as she ran on the ground.
“What are our chances of escaping?” He asked, she seemed extremely familiar with the Jetfins.
“Zero. They are known as the rulers of the sea region around Tova. Creatures that we would have trouble against even if we were at the same level and evolution. You sped up noticeably earlier but they’re also speeding up, likely flying in the air for the first time. That tamer acts angry but was allowing the Jetfins to acclimate and didn't push us from the start, we would’ve died ten times over before Koawe even warned us if they truly wanted to kill us.”
“...” Ebony didn’t reply but he imagined that the tamer simply wanted to see them or Ning Xin suffer if they could really kill them that easily.
“Are they heat resistant? We’re about to get into the icy region, the ground would turn to superheated steam when you run past in your enhanced state. The earth is at an unknown depth as well so we wouldn’t have to worry about earth magic.” Ebony noticed that the Jetfins were flying through physical means, those that didn’t attack them were actually regenerating mana so a battle of attrition wasn’t really in his favour either.
“They can be found sleeping in underwater volcanoes. I think there’s a variant that manipulates lava. Lightning had some effect but mine is too weak. Actually, I heard the mature Jetfins stay near the surface of the sea whenever there’s a storm and fly up to get struck by lightning to train their resistance.”
“They are intelligent? Are they the type of creature the Empire calls aberrants?” Ebony was a bit shocked at how spartan these fishes were.
Monsters usually grow naturally by absorbing the world’s essence but these Jetfins were actually capable of training. The Imperials didn’t have a very good understanding of different types of monsters when it came to strength. What they called elite or aberrant monsters were those monsters that had way higher stats than normal monsters of the same level but it was a very crude way of classification.
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This was probably those monsters that learnt to absorb more ambient essence than the natural amount that entered their bodies. To do the opposite and remove the world’s essence was how a monster became sapient. It was different from intelligence as there were tons of monsters that were intelligent but had no sapience. A Class seemed to be the indicator to not be considered a monster, like Gen.
The Jetfins could be tamed and didn’t appear to have their own thoughts. They might just be an intelligent race.
“They herd creatures and have their own underwater farms. I didn’t think they had a tamer capable of getting one under control.”
Ning Xin zipped around as the Jetfins dived at them and caused shocks and craters to appear. She drastically changed directions the moment there was no snow under them and only ice.
Ebony didn’t know the region well so he didn’t really know where to go either. The last time he was here, he had been physically blinded for over a year.
Ning Xin did her best to evade the increasing amount of attacks with his support and defence magic but the Jetfins began to attack with greater enthusiasm. The tamer didn’t charge at them with her mount that could outmanoeuvre them. She was either too cautious or understood that her strength was controlling monsters and not fighting herself.
“Keep running in this direction.” She said softly. Ebony found her tone different from usual. She seemed really calm despite her assessment that they had no chance of escape.
“Is that what your Intuition is telling you?” He transmitted with sound magic.
She shook her head slightly.
He had gravity flipped around them but it was impossible to keep up with their running speed since he was manipulating surrounding gravity. He could only cheat and conjure ice to use the gravity mana within but it was miniscule and didn’t have much power behind them. Rather than increasing gravity, decreasing and flipping it around usually worked better against opponents when his strongest pull wasn’t enough.
The Jetfins were holding back less and less as his Imperishable Frost Scales with Chaotic Repulsive Membrane, durability runes at max compression simply melted away and added volume to their water jets.
Two hundred of them sprayed water over a massive area far above the other Jetfins. It cooled the invisible superheated steam and froze the surroundings even more. The Jetfins didn’t even need a layer of water barrier to protect themselves from the cold. The increasing cold as they went deeper into Hoarfrost Glade did nothing to the Jetfins.
Hundreds of Jetfins gained a burst of speed and passed over them, they descended till they were meters off the ground and smoothly turned around.
“Don’t get too absorbed into training, okay?” Ning Xin had put him down so that he had the freedom to move and deflect water that splashed onto the ground and shot at them. They swiftly drifted but there was no opening and they found themselves coming to a complete stop.
“What?” He didn’t know why she got so random.
“Don’t worry yourself sick. Make sure you eat on time. Get some actual sleep once in a while.”
“...You k-”
“Don’t get yourself kidnapped…please be there when I wake up.”
Ebony’s Will reflexively built layers and layers of shields. His body moved towards her and Icicle was placed in front of him. His robe was fully scaled up and every possible defensive means of his were raised to the limits.
“Prey gets more tender after chasing it for a bit.” The Tamer’s voice was right beside his ear as a spear pierced through Icicle. His domain barely slowed down the bigger Jetfin.
The spear didn’t even slow down when it came into contact with his bones but his entire body was lifted and rammed back, hitting Ning Xin. It pierced his lungs and came out through his back, stabbing the swordswoman together with him like a skewer. Neither of them could follow the leader Jetfin’s movements.
The swordswoman actually swung both her swords to parry but it didn’t make it in time and Ebony had long been pierced. Conjured hands tried to pull her aside but dozens of Jetfins were chomping on them as they got conjured. He was well into overdrafting mana but even one Jetfin was a problem not to mention dozens and hundreds just laying back. They were even fencing them in with their water jets freezing up into a dome.
The tamer’s laugh was lost on him. He could only focus on the fact that the spear hit right where her heart was. Her bodysuit’s back stretched but didn’t tear. In fact, the front didn’t tear either, it just stretched but didn’t stop the spear. The blunt spear didn't tear her suit like Mr. Kidnapper could.
The Troll swiped her spear and let them course through the air but her arm up to her upper half was mostly frozen together with her spear. They broke the flimsy ice dome with ease and he grabbed Ning Xin’s legs, she wrapped her arms around his neck right after she got stabbed. Ebony wasn’t able to notice that she already expected that to happen and conveniently placed herself there.
He didn’t take notice of anything else as he had fallen into another trance.
Slumber Survival Instincts wasn’t making his body escape in the direction Ning Xin had pointed out. Their figures flickered and he appeared right in front of the tamer that saw him coming.
❅❅❅
The tamer, Gash’ah squeezed the Jetfin under her to ascend since she hadn't gotten rid of the ice freezing her bone deep on her weapon arm and torso but both the tamer and Jetfin froze as a soul-piercing roar hammered into them. Every single Jetfin dropped like flies as their wings stopped flapping.
Most of them flinched and tried to regain control over their twitching wings and bodily control but they couldn’t even think straight as the soft, piercing roar echoed within their tiny brains over and over again.
Gash’ah and her ride did better as the race of warriors reflexively kicked the ground and pushed both her and her mount back the moment they landed.
She twisted her hip so hard she swung the body of her dear Jetfin to slap aside the man who carried the body of her son’s killer with the fish’s giant tail. Her unfrozen hand placed on her ears but the roar continued to ring in her head, her very body trembled but quickly got under control as she enveloped herself with condensed vitality. It was something else that hurt, it was extremely uncomfortable and she didn’t know what was hurting.
The man who looked as thin as a stick in her opinion disappeared again, annoying her with his disappearing act again. She grit her teeth and brings her vitality to cover her frozen arm when he reappears to kick at her. She didn’t want to lose her arm as her regenerative prowess wasn’t that good. The warrior’s instinct within raised the threat level of the kick to the limits.
Internally shocked at how much of her vitality got blasted apart but at least her frozen arm didn’t shatter. She tried to communicate with her mount but nothing was getting through. The rest of the Jetfins had it worse but that didn’t matter much since she was only controlling one of them that led the others.
She was a tamer and unlike her Troll compatriots, used mana to some degree. The Jetfin under her could sense the amount of mana a creature has and it was part of their hunting tactics to herd prey and chase them till they were tired and out of mana. As a cautious individual, she had no qualms about using a tried and true tactic on her son’s killer. The man was an obvious obstacle and also had a strong mark on him that instinctually raised a Troll’s killing intent.
Before, her mount already sensed that her targets were low on mana and she made use of the opportunity but right now she doubted her precious partner’s senses.
The roar that reverberated throughout her entire being came at her with increased vigour that caused her entire body to lock up. A black sun expanded within her sight and all her vitality reacted to protect her life. All her other partners were left behind in the war to deal with the blue and skinny race that used ice magic or she would’ve far more options.
Sadly, she couldn’t materialise vitality to the point where it solidified so she couldn’t form another arm or something to pull her aside. Her lower body started freezing to the ground but it was pointless since she couldn’t move to begin with.
The glowing sword with a hole in it sliced into her skull and got stuck but she didn’t have time to feel relieved or scream at the pain. The echoing throughout her existence continued to distract and hurt her more so than the tiny blade on her head.
A freezing tremor blazed into her body and large wounds burst open, especially old wounds from her younger days. That shock and freezing pain only came for an instant but she regained control over her body as the roar faded into the background. It continued to echo but she was able to ignore it for now.
Her partner also regained control and burst away, up into the skies to create distance. A few of her organs popped and a few were frozen solid with something digging into them before bursting but she wasn’t that concerned. It was a large drain on her Vitality, especially the regeneration and healing of her brain but she still had about 65% of her maximum. The constant healing and regeneration needed would probably bring her down to half if the mana in her persisted at destroying her but she didn’t think it was a large issue.
She didn’t expect the man to float up at the same speed as if a rope was connecting him to her mount. From the tiny humans’ weak vitality, she hadn’t expected such strong resistance. She was hoping there was no more roar to stun her and was, fortunately, able to move her intact arm to block the slash that aimed to decapitate her.
It sliced considerably deep and her vitality skin was melting and had trouble forming to defend herself. The realisation that the blade would cut through woke her up and she swung back hard. But no matter how hard she swung and swatted, the man remained stuck.
There was no ice at first so she didn’t know why he was stuck onto her. Her frozen half wasn’t able to grab or punch him away either.
She was too focused on the sword and didn’t see the kick going towards her head. Her partner enveloped her in water but she commanded it to stop or she would’ve been frozen to death. She ordered her partner to ram themselves into the ground after twisting the man so that he was in front of her mount’s face.
For some reason, her mount had difficulty flying downwards. It was weird to both of them.
Multiple ice copies kicked at her and they shook her condensed vitality pretty hard.
Gash’ah grinned at the desperation. The woman was on his back, held onto him by ice arms. Neither of them would survive a nosedive, weakened or not.
However, the impact didn’t come. The stupid fish under her got frozen by some flower petals that had been floating around for some time. She had not cared for those since they could barely dig into her condensed vitality skin. The Jetfish’s scales and water barrier were both resistant to cold; she didn’t expect a complete freeze.
She roared at the human but it wasn't a roar of rage like the ones that she gave for the past few hours of chase. It was a roar of fear that he replied with that piercing and numbing roar that stunned her. Her arm gave in and so did her neck. Her view rotated a few times before a leg smashed into her face and burst her decapitated head.