Drake crashed through a tree, turning the entire trunk into splinters. She continued to fly through the air, smashing into a second tree, bouncing off its side, and stumbled into an all out sprint.
Her search for the DragonFruit felt to be a lost cause, but she found herself far more annoyed at her current circumstances. She wasn’t one to be okay with running from any sort of challenge, but for the first time in her life she faced levels of adversity that she had no means of overcoming.
This is what her entire night had turned into. Fleeing for her life, and not looking back.
She had been able to keep up with the amount of enemies for quite a while, but after a few difficult opponents managed to bunch up around her, nearly trampling her to death, she fled at the first chance she could take.
It didn’t matter how many attacks she landed, her new foes were far too advanced in ranks and levels for her to conquer alone.
Her two magical minions flew circles above her, firing at any and all targets they could to slow down her pursuers, but even their combined attacks did nothing but Buffett uselessly against the bodies of the Skeletons. Only now slightly able to singe the white bones of the monsters that chased after her.
“Son of a bitch!”
Aurora hurdled a slide tackle from one skeleton, and barely took a few steps before she was forced to dive into a roll to dodge a flying kick from another. Her body froze once she came to her feet; a streaking green lance of energy piercing the air directly in front of her chest, causing a tree a few yards to her left to explode, igniting into a burst of green flames.
She didn’t even try and look at where the attack had come from, sprinting again in an instant.
She could see light in the distance, and felt it to be her only chance at survival. If she was being honest with herself, she had no idea where she was, nor how to get back to the manor.
She hadn’t found the DragonFruit, nor could she any longer find the will to care. Her survival instincts had been kicked into overdrive once she realized that she more than likely wouldn’t be able to survive an entire night in the forrest on her own merit.
For Drake who had always been a fast runner, outpacing the skeletons at first had been simple, but the higher their levels seemed to grow as the night went on, the more the skeletons started to not only use tactics to box her in, but their once docile speeds also grew chaotically.
Her new body ran at olympic levels comparatively to earthen standards, but this wasn’t enough. The skeletons were taller as if the average height of Cultivators was closer to seven and a half feet in the realm. Their lack of muscles and any kind of fatty tissue, or even organs for that matter allowed them to run at unfathomable speeds.
Many of the skeletal bodies even whistled as their bones cut through the air as they ran behind Drake, creating a horrifying sound like that of wind blowing through the carcass of an abandoned home.
Drake’s body felt strange as she ran. An odd sensation once again filled her chest, in the same way it had as she rushed up the mountain side. She felt as if lightning was surging through her veins, as if her heartbeat had an echo, that beat wildly with her every step.
The sound of her blood pumping permeated her entire body, and a glow begun to backlight her irises. Her soul drank in mana as if her entire being was thirsty.
Everything slowed further to her senses, and more of the attacks that came into her line of sight moved at a crawl. Aurora spoke in the back of her mind, but Drake heard nothing but the thud of pressure that grew between her rib cage.
She ran across the side of a tree, taking three gravity defying steps as if running up a wall to avoid being tackled. She flipped through the air over the heads of multiple skeletons, landed in a run and continued on. Her eyes narrowed and she saw the trap coming as two brutes charged toward her, flanking her to either side.
Twin spear tackles were aimed at Drake’s knees, and her mind made her move on pure instinct. There was no moment of thought, only an instant intent that was transformed into one smooth motion. They dove toward her and Drake moved, her mind’s momentum trying to turn her body into an unstoppable force.
She performed a no handed cartwheel, putting the handle of Havoc into the hand of Zen, completely upside down as she flowed through the air; the weapon pair lashing out to strike the two brutes that tried to take her out at the legs. Both of the brutes head’s were crushed in the same moment that they collided.
The powerful smash from her weapons was the first kill she managed in what felt like hours. Both skulls and necks broken in a blink, the blows force enough to push her upward.
Spinning through the air, her magical minions orbited her. Her obsidian metal minion caught a multitude of spells, the dangerous mixture of various energies swirling at the center of a singularity, as its partner fired dazzling arcs of chaining lightning. The volatile electricity consuming life in a way it had never done before.
This only made the beating in her chest bloom that much further throughout her being. She landed, performing another no handed flip, kicking an emerging skeleton in the chest, knocking it backward as Havoc was swung outward by Zen. The skeletons head was crushed, the monster dropping to its knees as Drake fell to her back to avoid another charging monster.
Zen swung backward, cleaving Havoc through the knees of the monster that had just charged, tripping the skeleton as Drake kipped up to her feet.
Without hesitating she dashed forward, jumping, grabbing a low hanging branch with her off hand, and swung over top an explosion of magic from a group of casting skeletons in the distance.
She ignored the group and instead continued to chase the embrace of daylight that grew in the distance, continuing to sprint for her life.
…
“Shouldn’t we help her?”
Lilith looked toward Vanish, and shook her head.
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“She’s grown more in the last bit of time she’s spent out there alone than she has since she started.”
Vanish nodded and Lilith looked back toward the mirror her and Vanish used to watch Drake.
She hadn’t killed any of the skeletons in a long time, but Lilith could tell something had changed once again.. Lilith would have assumed that Drake gained another achievement, but doubted it.
Its either some sort of unification of skills, or she’s obtained a grander understanding of her capabilities…?
Lilith continued to pace, her thoughts saturated in confusion and dismay. She’d spent the night watching Drake and knew one fact more than ever before the longer she watch.
The girl is dangerous, but she wields my family’s gifts better than any new Cultivator I’ve ever seen… How can I ignore this, what if I don’t have to damn someone of my own blood to be stuck within this bloody dungeon…?
With what Lilith’s mind was turning toward, she’d end up training Drake for a diversity of reasons. Not because it was a good idea, or even that she secretly knew she wanted to just to see what would become of her, but because the girl may be her only chance to escape her prison.
“She makes me want to create minion weaponry of my own,” said Vanish, and Lilith found herself nodding.
“I’ve seen many a necromancer create limbs as servants to help craft and even complete chores, but this style of minion craft is completely new to me, if it was ever done before, it was well before my time,” said Lilith, ruminating on the idea of weaponized minions herself.
“I honestly have no idea what kind of path I want to take, I never thought I’d have such a power and now that I do, I find myself both scared of the possibilities and lost in the wonderment of what I may be able to do,” said Vanish.
“We are a rarified bloodline child, anything you decide will come with the upside of being hard to counter when it comes to combat and warfare, but also the downside of not being researched as much as everything else in the world of Cultivation, Drake is the perfect example of this,” said Lilith, gesturing toward the mirror.
“Does that mean that she is potentially creating a new style of necromancy, some sort of weapon crafter, or armor smith, it hasn’t even been a fortnight since I met her and she is covered in bones, don’t think I’ve seen her take them off since she got them?”
“Yes, she could be a first of her kind, but I doubt it, anything you can think of has been done before child, maybe not to this extent, but believe me, until she receives an achievement for creating a completely unique class, I will hold my doubts that she is a first.”
Vanish nodded, closing his eyes to focus on his meditation once more.
“Well I can’t waste any time then, I don’t want to be left behind by her…”
“Good boy, I want you able to stand by the end of the day, no excuses…”
“Yes ma’am.”
…
Drake didn’t even realize that she was no longer being chased. She ran into a clearing to find a small pond and a large tree that abed the water, completely enveloped in the light of artificial daylight.
Though her goal was in sight, she didn’t look at the tree with the strange glowing fruit that seemed to pulse with heartbeats of their own, but instead stared at the massive skeleton taking a knee beside the water.
The monster was easily ten feet tall, and seemed to be looking directly at Drake. Two golden flames in the sockets of its horned skull.
Remnants of the DragonFruit sat all around the monster, as if it too was in need of the powerful crop.
Drake’s every instinct would have normally told her to run, and her mind would have told her that if she turned her back to the monster she would die. As well that if she didn’t get some of the fruit that she was as good as dead anyway.
Yet in this moment, with her starvation reaching heights they’d never seen before. No thoughts, nor warnings filled her mind. Instead, her eyes narrowed, and she dashed.
The hunger within her had long diminished her ability to think beyond her basic needs, and in this moment, she only had one desire.
The smell of the DragonFruit was the only aroma that could be smelled in the area. The subtle breeze around her bringing the scent of the ambrosia to her nose, further driving her into a state of animalistic urge.
By the time she made it a quarter of the way, the skeletal giant had lifted its head. Without her normal sense of reasoning an functioning ability to analyze the situation, the abundance of killing intent that was sent in her direction was missed completely.
By this point in time, Drake had pushed her maximum sprinting speed closer to 40 mph,, and after an entire night of running, her body’s natural refinement had easily increased her dexterity drastically. This wasn’t significantly faster than she’d been just a day prior, and was astounding for her height, but the distance between her and the tree was more than 400yards. An impossible distance to cover faster than the ten foot creature staring her down, even if it was merely running.
The skeletal giant rose slowly. Its eyes remaining on Drake the entire time. The monster began to turn,. Its bleach white bones steaming as the sun touched its form. Its bones cracked, spilling light in every direction, before the light of the day was pulled back inside its skeletal body, causing a pulse of sunlight energy to reverberate outward.
Drake continued to ignore the threat that had entirely honed in on her. She was entirely fixated on the tree, as her minions prepared for the powerful monster that took a step toward her.
It was as if her weapons began to panic. Havoc and Zen started to draw on all the energy they’d claimed through out the entire night. While her two magical weapons charged both distorted space and lightning.
Zen extended Havoc toward the monster, while both her magical minions aimed, palms held outward toward the target.
The skeletons foot touched the ground, and its leg bent slightly at the water’s edge. It pushed off the ground, launching itself at such speeds that in a fraction of a blink it had soared half way across the large pond, traveling not but a few inches above the water.
All of Drake’s weapons converged. Havoc opened its hand, swirling with the crimson energies of its life lich skill. While Drake’s magical minions settled below Havoc, a triangle formed between the gap of the now three connected hands; the corners of the skeletal appendages touching to allow for the various energies being summoned to flow between each other seamlessly.
An explosion occurred at the side of the lake where the giant skeleton had stepped from, as if the ground there had only just been effected by the skeleton’s powerful movement. The pond water gushed into the new hole made at its edge, in the same instant that the skeleton stepped on the water. The water seemed undisturbed as the monster flashed forward once more, reappearing again at the opposing side of the pond from where it had started from.
Drake crossed three fourths of the distance toward her goal, and a large hand manifested in front of her minions made of twisted space, lightning and condensed life force. The hand resonated with a pressure that began to darken the area, drinking in light and mana from the surroundings as it grew.
A ripple stretched across the pond, like a drop of water being dripped into a cup, and water roared, gushing upward into the sky like a geyser. The pond water shot upward nearly thirty feet into the air where the skeleton had stepped across its surface.
The skeleton took its third step on the bank of the pond it’d crossed in a single breath, lunging with a superman punch, cocking its arm back as its fist began to vibrate with a terrifying light emanating outward from its clenched fist.
Drake’s hand wrapped around the lowest hanging fruit, and she stopped running. She pulled the fruit to her mouth and bit down, and immediately felt bliss. A sensation like drinking water after a hearty meal washed over her after a single bite, and Drake blinked as her conscious mind returned instantly.
“What the fuck…?
Drake looked over her shoulder in the same instant her weapon fired and the giant skeleton struck out at her.
The conjured magic and the skeletons fist collided,, blowing everything in the area backward.
Drake was sent hurtling through the air, flying end over end, launched through the canopy of trees, clearing the distance between where she had stood and the nearby forrest in a second.
Her body was lashed by every branch and tree top for a quarter mile, landing in the unforgiving arms of a tree entirely upside down an unconscious.
…
Lilith and Vanish watched the attack formed by Drake’s minions and the giant skeleton’s punch collide. The color spectrum displayed through the mirror inverted and Vanish was forced to look away as Lilith’s eyes went wide in shock.
The magical palm strike stopped the giant completely, its arm trembling as the collision caused a minor spatial tare.
The magical hand clamped down and exploded, causing a wave of destruction to ripple out in an calamitous dome of chaotic energies.
Nothing could be seen as the dome of distorted space and lightning expanded, its volatility further influenced and fueled by the life force infused during the attacks creation. Everything was set ablaze, and Vanish screamed as Drake was flung through the air like the tossed toy of an angry child.
Lilith stared in bewilderment as the energies roiled for longer than she would have thought the attack was even capable of producing; the energies slow to disperse, leaving the giant standing in a crater beside the completely unaffected tree that bore the DragonFruit. Its arm was missing, but seemed to be slowly growing back.
The monster stepped free of the hole, and strode slowly toward the nearby tree, before plucking a fruit and eating it whole. The speed of its arm’s regeneration increasing drastically.
Silence was all that remained in the glass room atop the manor. Lilith’s thoughts a jumble of awe and shock.
She waved her hand through the air, and a portal opened up beside her. A section of destroyed forrest that looked as if a storm had struck its interior appeared, and Lilith spoke as she stepped through.
“Wait here child, I must go…”
…
Aurora set her book down. She felt a sensation like fire race through her mind.
Her head began to hurt, and when she called for Drake through their bond, nothing happened.
Drake….?
She got no response. No matter how many times she tried, all that was given in return was silence.
She rose to her feet, and began to run. Her heart pulled her in a single direction, and without even realizing it Aurora began to run straight through walls.
Once outside, she ran across the water of the lake that surrounded the manor, speeding into the trees of the surrounding forrest, dashing straight through the vegetation and dense wilderness as if there was nothing between her and her goal.
In a speed that defied reason, she stopped at the base of a teetering tree, and looked up to see the battered and broken body of her charge and screamed.
“Drake!”