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2.2
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The medicine tasted awful.
As to be expected of something that was mostly mana. To elves, it would be something akin to seasoning, giving taste to their food, allowing them to actually ingest it and enjoy it. But put too much mana in something and the taste was so strong that it could knock you out for hours.
Medicine, being mostly mana, thus tasted awful.
Zinnia’s medicine, being high quality, even more so.
‘By the mother tree, it’s strong.’
She coughed out, handing over the flask to one of the guards as she pulled herself together, eyes flitting over the battlefield as the older elf, Hemlock, took off on a run. The familiar glow of mana illuminated him as he awkwardly started shooting at the Mana Beast, supporting the strange creature in armor who now kept the monster at bay.
Jasmine gawked.
Her senses screeched the moment she looked at the thing.
Or whatever it was.
A void in the world, her skin crawled just being near the complete lack of presence. As if it wasn’t a living being, rather than bounce off of him, its body completely ignored the flow of mana. She felt nothing from it. No impressions. No thoughts or feelings. Just a cold nothing where the comforting reminder of life should have been.
Was that some form of undead?
She’d heard tales about them.
Animated Skeletons who crawled out of the depths of the Ironhold, ravenous and single minded in their need to feed off of the living. Beings who challenged what they thought they knew about life.
A myth used to scare misbehaving children.
Jasmine took a deep breath. And nearly choked as she felt mana being drawn to her. Beyond what she expected. Beyond what should have been possible. As if the massive Mana Beast before her wasn’t present at all, she could feel the currents stabilizing as the Captain shot another liquid arrow from afar, dousing the beast’s flame as the walking suit of armor pushed it back, away from the village.
So, as a faithful assistant, Jasmine chose to focus on what was important.
‘Buy time, protect the village.’
She could worry about details after putting out the fire.
Leaving the flask to the guards, Jasmine stumbled into a run, the feeling of raw power thrumming through her limbs like the string on a harp. Every movement seemed to echo on her senses, the world itself a mix of chaotic notes and ripples as she approached the fight from the side and added her own efforts to the mix.
She doused the flames when they spread.
She shot arrows when the beast recovered its bearings.
It was so easy compared to the struggle she put up before.
‘Why is its control so weak?’ Did it have to do with the stranger? Was he doing something to mess with the Mana Beast? If the hulking brute of a monster had senses as finely attuned to mana as her own, it was possible that being so close to… whatever that thing was, caused it to lose focus.
The Captain’s arrows rained from above.
Larger than anything she could hope to make, even with the temporary performance enhancer.
Now that the terror had mostly vanished this felt… exilerating.
The danger.
The sense of actually doing something. Standing up against this damned monster intent on putting her home to the torch. It stoked within her a sense of accomplishment she couldn’t quite recall ever feeling, and the more pot shots she took at it, the more real it felt.
They could do this.
They could win.
And then… the world exploded.
Not all at once, Jasmine felt the build up. The tension in the air as something pushed against the mana, pulsing like a heartbeat, echoing on her ears in a strange way. As if it wasn’t quite there, a sound she couldn’t understand or decipher. The smothering, unpleasant heat of the creature was replaced by a warm summer breeze, a bonfire bursting from the stranger as he shouted at them to restrain the creature.
‘Something is coming.’
Jasmine was paralyzed, the power which swirled around the stranger transfixing her as it spread and roared like flames.
Hotter than the boars.
Yet burning nothing.
A rain of arrows peppered the Mana Beast at the command, the Guards who recovered joining the archers on the trees, adding his own arrows and spears to the effort as the stranger took some kind of stance, rising his weapon above his head, the flame spreading and burning higher around him.
‘Was everyone else seeing it?’
It didn’t look like… anything she could remember.
Like clouds, but not.
Like fire, but not.
A distant rumble caught her ears, the entire world seemed to grow dull and colorless as her focus narrowed into the creature in armor as he let out a breath, and brought down the sword with a thunderclap.
A gust of wind nearly bowled her over.
The earth shifted, no, the force of the blow upturned it, mud, ashes and fresh soil flying at the point of impact, whatever else happened, just the mere force of the blow alone seemed to smother everything else.
She saw the Mana Beast.
What remained of it, at least.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The blow hadn’t so much bifurcated it, as it had sheared off a full third of its body. The front paws, the lower half of its skull, its skin muscles and ribcage had been completely pulverized, the creature thrashed and slumped to the side as mana rich blood poured from its grievous wound.
“Don’t let up! The core is exposed!” The Captain’s voice echoed in the distance.
Jasmine started.
Yes, she could see it, startled as she was.
The pulsing, beating heart glowing in the monster’s body. A mass of pure blue mana shifting and beating despite the beast’s chest having been carved open. The organs of a Mana Beast were normally just for show. They didn’t need those to function. All they needed was to store and then spend the mana inside their cores.
Then she saw its body twitch.
And then the core started beating faster.
‘Pinecones.’ She cursed, shaping a spear from the aether.
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“Well crap.”
That was another sword wrecked.
And his shoulder too.
He really needed to get more practice before trying this kinda thing. Just the force alone was enough to hurt him, never mind damaging the weapon and armor. Vita wasn’t Mana, after all, and equipment meant to handle and repel mana didn’t fare nearly as well when put against brute force.
Still, Ghoti couldn’t help but laugh.
This was a new personal record.
Two thousand strikes into one? His Teacher would have dragged him by the ear for a scolding if she ever found out he tried something like that. Then again, that mad woman would have dragged him to fight an Elemental or some other unknown horror just to see whether he could do it without hurting himself.
The results certainly spoke for themselves.
Upturned trees.
A massive trench dug into the ground, stretching several meters ahead of him. The air was thick with dust and ashes which had been blown back by the wind, and ahead of him, he could tell he’d carved out a nice chunk out of the monster’s body. That it was still alive even though he’d blown it to pieces.
A leg over here.
A lung over there.
‘It really isn’t a Familiar.’ This kind of wound would have already made the mana inside one of those beasties to leak out and vanish.
This one was still alive.
Probably in massive, horrendous pain, but still alive.
“Don’t let up! The core is exposed!”
He heard someone call from the distance. Gods, he felt sluggish after striking hard like that.
But he could see it, the faint light peeking out of its body.
‘Crap.’ He tried to move, really. But it felt like someone had strapped in some extra weights on top of his armor and his legs just weren’t budging, muscles complaining at his latest bout of idiocy. The shocks of pain traveled up his spine with a vengeance as he failed to move so much as an inch.
Not to self.
Don’t do that again.
‘At least nothing’s broken.’
And he hadn’t wasted as much Vita as he did fighting the Turkey. Though spending half of it in one go rather than doing his usual three techniques before resting had been… risky. Strong as he was, the human body just had limits one had to abide by unless you were a literal freak of nature.
Now he got to sit pretty and watch the pointy eared folks do some clean up.
Growl!
Man, he was hungry.
Those rations were tasty, but they just didn’t fill your stomach the same way a proper meal would. He’d been pretty much running on fumes lately.
“That was utter recklessness, Mr. Ghoti.”
Eartips sat by his side, looking a bit ragged but not worse for wear.
Ghoti gave him a thumbs up.
“Plan worked, didn’t it? Thought you’d be happier.”
The blonde elf rolled his eyes, the first time he’d caught him doing that actually.
“The plan was for you to hold it and disrupt that things control over mana. Then we would have slowly and carefully killed it to prevent any more damage. What wasn’t part of the plan was you jumping straight into its jaws with… whatever that spell-”
“Technique.”
“Technique was.” His friend amended it. “What was that anyway?”
The man in armor shrugged.
“Just a normal swing. Just… well… I did it with a lot of force. Might have dislocated my shoulder there.” He winced at the uncomfortable feeling. When he could feel anything under his neck again, that was going to be annoying to put back.
Hemlock snorted back a laugh.
“I’m sure Ms. Zinnia will be delighted.”
Oh gods, no.
“Please don’t.” The human whined. He was pretty sure the physician was only looking for an excuse to dissect him.
He paused.
“Is it okay to leave that thing as is?”
He pointed his chin at the downed beast. It was trying to heal, even now, though the Guards were fast at work, putting their weapons to good use, hacking and slashing at the tendrils of flesh and bone as the body tries to heal itself. Two of them trying to pry the jewel-like heart out of the body.
His friend shrugged.
“It will be fine as long as they work fast. That attack of yours really rattled it so we have complete control over mana back.”
Ghoti nodded.
He didn’t understand how it worked, but accepted the explanation.
“I still want that bacon, by the way.” He’d fought too hard not to demand some kind of reward for it. And hey, he was hungry so might as well demand something useful.
Hemlock snorted.
“Feeling a bit spiteful, aren’t you?”
Ghoti nodded unabashedly.
“My kill. I might as well decide what to do with it, right?” He was feeling a tad vengeful towards the now deceased Mr. Piggy and all the trouble he caused.
Unfortunately, the monster carcass didn’t distract the other elves from gawking at him. Some of them looking ill the longer they stared, as if they couldn’t look away from whatever effect he had on them. He was starting to get tired of everyone he met in this damn forest acting like he was the abomination.
It hurt his maidenly feelings.
Pfft.
Yeah, no. He couldn’t even think of that joke with a straight face.
“So where do we go from here?”
The village was… mostly on fire. Not completely, and while they’d put out the flames before they spread through the rest of the woods, he could say that at least a third of Hemlock’s hometown was all but gone.
“We’ll rebuild I suppose-”
He stopped.
Ghoti felt it too.
Not like his friend did. But he could tell there was something coming. Vita rippled in the wind as it got closer, approaching fast with a gale. No, not a gale. It was plain wind… caused by a wing beat.
It blew away the ash and dust, blotting out the sun as a very large… very familiar beast dove from above.
The human groaned.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
It was missing a few heads, and its neck wasn’t as long as it was before. But there was no mistaken those wicked golden eyes. Or the ravenous hunger as its talons flash with murderous intent.
A very familiar looking Turkey.
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It roared.