Ariel woke up sputtering, her body expelling the water that had built up within it. Coughing, she sat up on the cold floor, trying to gain her bearings.
She seemed to be on a white raft of some kind, floating in vaguely turbulent seas. She lifted her head, looking around to recognise her surroundings, and at the sight that fell on her eyes, she rubbed them before opening them again to the size of saucers.
That was a drake. Why was it several times the size of the largest drake she had seen? Oh, wait, it transformed. So that must've been Noah. He was an ogre now, and it was the size of an average wyrm. Why were his forms so big?
Upon Noah's next transformation, her already wide open jaw dropped even lower. His ogre form decreased to around half the size it was, but now he had eight massive Arachne spider legs sprouting from below his torso that accompanied the two powerful and muscular ogre legs. Was he... half Ogre, half Arachne?
What astonished her even more was the power the mimics generated. No ogre could punch hard enough to split the sea. No Arachne could jump quick enough that even her eyes, reinforced with her Lord-ranked mana, couldn't keep up.
Ariel had prepared herself for death the moment the rope snapped. When Noah introduced the strategy of using the rope to tie up the leviathan, she was certain of their victory. Arachne clothing was used as an interweave in armour by many adventurers due to its strength and resistance to tearing. It was an affordable replacement to mithril, a material most adventurers would be hard-pressed to get.
It seemed, however, that her worries and resolve were unneeded.
It was by a slight margin, but Noah was winning. If she believed the fight before was a battle of gods, what was happening now was surely that between primordials. She was entire kilometres away, but the beams that the drake had spat rivalled the heat and light of the sun itself. The ogre-arachne form broke the sound barrier every time it accelerated, and she would occasionally hear it every time it happened in front of her, reinforcing the image she had of the kind of powers that were clashing.
Ariel was an embodiment of a warrior through and through. Strength was her ideal, and tenacity was her way of life. But it was lonely. She spent her days in training, at an age where other women on the continent were getting married and beginning to bear children, or were engrossing themselves in other sorts of fun.
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Witnessing the battle reminded her of Noah's state a little over a week ago, when his chest acted like a literal window to his heart, green and already beginning to rot from the infection, a sight that had immediately seized her heart, from realising she had found one just like her, who could absolve her of her solitude as well as from fear he would die, right after she had found him.
What followed his recovery were days where she rigorously worked to make marriage happen. She had no doubt in her mind that becoming a couple was inevitable, and she went to all extents to make that happen. Even when her efforts for marriage were thrown out the window when Noah had invited her out that night, she was filled with incomparable joy. He was finally reciprocating. And on the journey here, their relationship had been cemented. She didn't know what went through Noah's mind to get him to feel the same, but it wasn't important to her.
Ever since that day that Noah had been injured, she had trained harder than ever, and their training sessions together had convinced her that it was possible for her to catch up to him, even if it would be a slow, arduous process.
But now? She gazed upon the picture before her, one of pure strength. She clenched her hands into fists.
'I will not lose sight of you, Noah. Not when I've finally found you.'
-
Noah was high. Mimicry had never before felt so…freeing. It was as if the skill was truly his, as if he had evolved to a newer stage.
'Mimicry - Wyvern x 3, Ogre x 5!'
Magnificent and grand wings of the purest white sprouted from the back of the ogre, five times larger than the usual ogre. A single flap of its wings that rivalled the size of a mythical dragon on par with the leviathan sent the ogre rocketing towards the already dented glabella of the leviathan, and he tried to deliver another spike. This time, the Leviathan knew what was coming and tried to dodge. Yet, the amalgamation of monsters that was Noah was too fast.
He missed the glabella, but his blow struck the entire lower jaw of the leviathan and dislodged it.
At this point, the leviathan knew that the prey had turned predator. It didn't rampage like before; it had learned its lesson. Still, its pride did not let it run, and it tried to release a defiant roar. But the leviathan's roar was abruptly cut off.
'Mimicry - Direwolf x 8!'
A wolf with blue and white accents running down its black, colossal body and was the quarter the size of the leviathan bit its head clean off as it fell downwards to the sea.
'Mimicry - Vampire'
A Noah with red eyes lazily flew above the sea, watching as a beast that would've witnessed the rise and fall of countless nations and men fell to his hand. Or rather, bite. The head that the wolf had spat out sank along with the body it belonged to.
And then he watched the lonely small orb of light emerge from its head, slowly fly up to him, and sink into his skin with a gleam in his eyes and a slightly maliciously joyful expression.
"Get fucked, dumbass."