The team continued to swim through The Old Sea. Arvena had never been to the Ruins of Aqumus before, but she firmly believed that it was easy to find the location, on the count that the ruins are huge. It shouldn't be hard to miss them, even under the sea. Furthermore, she's read enough books about it to know how to analyze her surroundings within The Old Sea, she even labeled herself an expert! Progress was inevitable.
They were five kilometers away from the sea shores right now, and although they weren't in danger, this was where they met with a bit of a barricade. The sea floor was at a higher elevation here, they were up against an underwater hill of sorts, point being, they had to swim upwards, and above it! Considering that their muscles twitched while they swam upwards, it meant that this was no different from climbing an actual hill. It was tiring.
However, there were benefits to this ‘climbing’, because once they swam up to the top of the hill, they started feeling a lot less water pressure on their scales, because on top of this hill, they were only four-hundred meters under the sea surface. Apart from feeling a bit more mobile now, they could also observe their surroundings easier!
“There are too many bastarding fish around here, and they all look powerful…” Tim expressed a moment later, “Are you sure that there's any mana for us to munch on? The ruins could be stripped clean.”
“That's impossible! Mana quantities in the ruins do not deplete, they haven't depleted for thousands of years, because we're approaching a god's former home, after all, not some mere mana root! We shouldn't underestimate the power of the man who created this universe, you head-head.” Arvena explained, her words were honed, like daggers.
“With all due respect to Rempegan Lus, we went toe-to-toe with a god back at that forest. I killed a god there, I killed that bastarding yeti that called himself ‘sir Lestuk’! Excuse me if I think that we might be risking our biscuits for nothing here.” He argued, and he was a bit abrasive, because the Sea Orcs were making him nervous.
“Gods are celestials, not mortals. That yeti wasn't a god, and it was probably just commanded to attack us, it might as well have been - I've thought a lot about this. The blizzard we had to go through afterwards, may have just been a symbolic way to try and kill us, meaning that whichever god made the attempt, used the blizzard to honor the yeti's untimely death. Either that, or that yeti has killed more mages than we can count, and it summoned a blizzard right before it died.” She argued, and this was a compelling argument, though it inevitably got them debating over nothing.
Skendus intervened, and said. “We can all agree that the yeti was weird, and also, the ruins are very close, so we can't afford to turn back now no matter what we think, or how dangerous it is! We're not cowards.”
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Furthermore, he pressured. “Where's your courage, Timeeth? You were riding on lava just a couple of weeks ago.”
“Surfing,” Tim corrected.
“Lava riding and surfing, whatever, we must-” Skendus tried to speak, but his words were interrupted by Tim's sudden movements!
Tim beamed forward, and then he summoned a massive thunderbolt, and channeled it right through his long tail! His barb then behaved like the barrel of a gun, and unleashed the massive, nine-foot wide thunderbolt that he summoned!
Although the team hadn't caught up with what he was doing, Tim had already unleashed countless bolts of electricity, and the bolt was hot enough to melt the sea water as it flew forwards! The electricity didn't branch across the waters around them, though, so he and the team were not shocked, thankfully.
[-20,000 mana points] The system flashed.
Such an expense was massive, regardless of how his mana pool was up to par. He made an expense that might as well risk his life later on, but he did it, because he was aiming at something significant, and didn't want to waste any time!
“Swarm!” He then yelled, and the team finally understood what was going on.
There was a swarm of creatures in front of them, or best called a school of creatures, on the count that they were in the ocean. The creatures were about two hundred meters away, though they were a bit tough to spot because when together, they looked a lot like the dark sea! It wasn’t surprising how the rest of the team had required a moment to figure out what he was shooting at!
“Holy shit!” Gustav then cussed.
There were a couple of thousand creatures in front of them, and although they were not individually massive, a crowd of them was bound to be dangerous! It was beyond challenging to face them, and yet the team didn't have another choice, because the creatures were approaching quickly, and it was unlikely that they were swimming over to have a talk!
[You just killed 92 Raptor Orclets, and won 18,400 points as a reward. Killing a single raptor will give you 200 system points.] The system beeped, just after a few seconds.
“Dang! Now that's a good exchange rate! Totally worth the 20k mana points!” Tim rattled.
However, no one heard what he said, because the raptors’ short, but collective screams muffled his words entirely! They were close enough to be heard, so Timothy didn’t waste another second, and attacked the swarm once more!
With a single, but maxed out thunderbolt, he attacked the raptors, and killed tens of them as a result! The bolt he unleashed was too powerful, so he ended up flipping around like a pancake for the second time! His one-ton body was nothing in comparison to the sheer, linear force of the bolt!
You just killed another 53 Raptor Orclets, and won 10,600 points as a reward.] The system beeped.
Although such a massive amount of points was attractive, it still didn't get rid of their problem. Timothy merely managed to kill a fraction of his enemies, and although his friends were attacking the raptors as well now, they were simply running out of time!
The Raptor Orclets were very close to surrounding them, and if they got surrounded whilst unprepared, death would be imminent! They had to get into a defensive position immediately!
A dark mist of sorts started oozing out of Timothy's barb. He was summoning the Bone Multiplier ability, because that was the best form of defense that he knew of!