Tim shot at one of the green, tubby fish that had emerged from the pool of anti-mana. He didn’t want to fight this particular battle, because he felt that he would lose, but it wasn’t like he had the option to pick his battles right now. The enemies were attacking the team, and in response, he attacked them as well, by paralyzing one of them with the nerve-splitting ability, his response was immediate!
Tim’s attack was pretty effective too. Rabid or not, every creature seems to have responsive, and vulnerable neural nerves. He used that to his utmost advantage, that one fish couldn’t stand a chance!
Anyway, since the two sides clashed all within seconds, it wasn’t a surprise how the enemies came up with an interesting attack of their own. They shot out these beams of light that seemed anything but holy!
The beams swirled around a lot, as they traveled forwards, they even seemed like ribbons for a split second. The beams traveled very fast, however, so one wouldn’t even notice most of their art-like swirls. The damage they delivered was impactful, and yet, it was not physically harmful as one would expect!
Skendus was the biggest fish in the team, he had been the easiest target, so he was the first to figure out what kind of attack this was. The beams of light passed through the lower half of his body, and within a second, he was stripped out of every single point of mana that he had!
This was disadvantageous, because he couldn’t use his illusion-based magical powers now! The powers were still within him, he could feel them pulsing so thankfully the enemy hadn’t stolen them, however, he couldn’t use them for a while, which was a really rare occurrence for him! Skendus rarely ran out of mana, he knew better.
Anyway, the enemies were getting ready to attack again, it was obvious, but he did have a little window of time to utilize here. He used this window to complain, or best described, he wanted to warn his friends!
“Bloody hell, they stole all my mana! Stay away from those beams!” He warned them, and then sulked. “What a stupid way to be rendered defenseless, but I guess that's what these fat bastards used those barracudas for? They turned them into anti-mana beams, that's gotta be it, and that’s pretty… unlucky.”
Skendus’ train of thought was understandable, he was really agitated. Though he was okay physically, it was clear that he had already lost his greatest advantage in this battle, his powers, and that was why he sulked. If he could have used his powers, then he would've unleashed a sensational wave of calmed nerves against the enemies. He could have made them feel so numb, to the point where their brains would’ve simply stopped working for a while!
That would've been advantageous, but he couldn't do anything right now, he could only hope to survive. For that matter, he floated idly by and tried his best to hide from any other pending attacks. He felt that the opposition had other, more dangerous tricks up their fatty, manky fins, and they were about to use them soon!
Timothy wasn’t so lucky either, in terms of magical arsenal. The beams of anti-mana had hit his lower left fin, and although that was a smaller, afflicted area, especially in comparison to how much Skendus got hit, he still lost plenty of points! Most of them, actually.
[Well, you're fresh out of luck.] The system said, and then she briefly explained. [You spent 50 mana points while using the electro-nerve splitter, and you lost most of your mana points thanks to that green beam, 2,013 points, to be exact. You only have 120 of them left, so attack efficiently, because your life may depend on it!]
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“The nerve splitter is as efficient as things are gonna get,” He thought.
Then, he went ahead to attack another one of the blobby enemies. He felt that the enemies needed a few more mere seconds to attack, and he would rather beat them to it, so the bolts of dark light that he shot across the waters, were the few remaining fragments of his good will. He tried to put up a fight!
Tim hit one of the blobs, then he hit the other one. Everything happened within a second, and it was so fast, that his friends didn't even register what had happened. The battle was seemingly over, and although that was hard to believe, it seemed to be the case! He was agile.
“That was fun,” He said, and then he complained. “I wish I could've done that without losing all of my fucking mana, though! I only have twenty five points left!”
The system didn't have to tell him about the latter, as he understood math now. It was astounding that he understood it, but then again, the presence of comprehensive math in his mind wasn't as refreshing as he would imagine. He was pissed!
The system did then tell him about something more encouraging, though, she announced. [Congratulations, you killed three huge, and seemingly diseased anglerfish. One of them got you 900 points alone, as she seemed to have been a queen of some sorts. The overall reward for your kills is considerably handsome, you received 1,900 system points, and as of now you've accumulated a total of 2,663 points. Good job, you did well!]
“What good job? I don't have a drop of mana left in me, so I'm practically naked out here… Also, did you just say that I killed an anglerfish? Those did not look like anglerfish.” He babbled along.
[Well, they likely arose from the deep depths of the sea. Their bodies have been severely damaged while and after they arose from those depths, so that’s why they look like that. They can't adapt to the different, although lighter water pressure up here around you. Their skin, and even their bones are simply not made for this environment, so it's amazing how they even survived for this long. Though, as ironic as it might sound, I guess that the pool of anti-mana fueled them with some kind of power of its own, and this might explain how they survived, vaguely.] She concluded.
“Well, they got their death wish.” Tim boasted, “They had to have had a death wish since they came up here. Hell, they even stole some of my system points from the looks of it? I didn't get any points from those barracudas that I killed earlier, so yeah, they had a really bad death wish.”
Tim tended to his friends afterwards, and tried to figure out if they were okay. The team hadn't faced any physical challenges, so they were doing good, thankfully, but since they were stripped out of mana, it may be best for them to get out of here while they still could! Tim was especially motivated to leave.
Ortana, the little stingray, insisted otherwise for some reason. Such bravery was rare from her side, and in this case it was just weird, it struck suspicion!
As she tried to assure them of something, she said. “Don’t worry, guys. I still have a lot of mana in me, so I'll keep you safe. Let's see what else there is here, maybe we can figure out how to destroy this stupid pool?”
“It is very unlikely that we can destroy it,” Skendus tried to reason with her.
However, they weren’t given enough time to bicker with each other, as something very unusual afflicted the waters shortly after! Tim noticed these freckles of life frolicking across the waters in front of them, and then he warned the team, and made them stop arguing immediately.
“Bloody look at that!” He said.
These things in front of him seemed like fireflies, especially from a distance. Considering that the light that they were radiating was very green-colored, it was unlikely that they were fireflies, this could not be anything good. Tim then noticed that these dots of light gathered together into a cluster, and this was alarming because they gathered up right next to the three blobby, anglerfish carcasses!