When the notifications appeared in my vision, all of the accumulated tension and the focus of battle disappeared in an instant and my concentration wavered, causing the axe in my hand to burst into a flurry of golden sparks.
Over a thousand mana indefinitely vanished from my pool. Unprepared for the sudden drain of energy, I stumbled, barely keeping on my feet.
My mana pool had grown significantly, but a thousand mana was still a big amount, and losing it all at once was just as uncomfortable as losing a sixth of your total energy should be.
I ignored the notifications for the time being, dismissing them and settling down on the ground to keep myself from collapsing. Taking deep breaths, I tried to suppress some of the lingering anger that remained after digging up all of the memories related to Malik and the clan. It kinda ruined the moment of triumph. Though I suppose the sudden nausea also took some part in that.
“That was impressive,” a voice cut in from my side, pulling me out of my thoughts.
A shadow fell over me and looking up, I faced Veraxia, who was staring down at me.
“You think so?” I asked in between labored breaths. My stamina wasn’t even empty, yet I was exhausted. My body was weird.
Veraxia nodded, then walked around me and seated herself before me. I traced her with my eyes. Apparently, I was the only one feeling exhausted after the fight, even though it was she who exchanged most of the blows with the Awoken. If only I had a body that didn’t waste stamina when moving…
“Awoken individuals are typically stronger than non-Awoken within the same species. Beating a level 55 at your levels is already a considerable achievement. I must admit, I am impressed. You have come a long way since I was inside your head.”
Was I being praised right now? A warm feeling spread in my chest and a sense of pride washed over me. Laying a hand on my chest, I felt the heart in my chest beating slightly faster than usual.
“It wouldn’t have been possible without you, though.” As the words left my mouth, an unfamiliar warmth rose in my face and something within me refused to meet Veraxia’s eyes.
Before figuring out what my emotions were doing, Veraxia answered. “True, however, I was unable to break through that skill, while you shattered it. That in itself, is already impressive. It will not be long before you can beat me in this form.”
Her praises seemed a bit overstated, I mused. There was still a big difference in capability between the two of us and far from beating her, I could not even imagine myself lasting more than a few seconds in a fight against her. However, considering she mentioned her level in this body was around 70-ish, my combined levels were now matching that. In my opinion, this was still not nearly enough to claim that I was her equal though.
Veraxia stood up again, approaching the Awoken corpse. She took the two halves of its head and tore them further apart until half the corpse was split in two. Shoving her right claw into the corpse, she dug out gore and flesh alike until she retrieved a yellow crystal that was about the size of my head. Even in a different color and size, I could easily identify it as a mana crystal.
Once outside, Veraxia tossed it my way, where I caught it mid-flight with Telekinesis, however, before taking it into my hands, I removed the…remains…that were still sticking to it.
“Awoken have larger pools than the common individual, which causes the crystal to be bigger. It used up quite a bit by defending against our attacks though.”
So this crystal would have been even bigger if the Awoken died with a full mana pool? This was some useful information for the future.
Having cleaned up the crystal to some degree, I finally placed it in my hands. As my fingers touched the cold surface of the crystals, the mana inside vibrated slightly. Interesting.
I widened my jaws as much as possible, attempting to somehow sink my teeth into the crystal. Though challenging and awkward, my canines eventually found purchase and pierced through, allowing the mana inside to flow into my mouth.
A flavor that prickled across my entire tongue spread in my mouth, almost making me stop drinking. It was dry, almost like swallowing sand. Nevertheless, the mana was already flowing and rushed down my throat, making it impossible to stop without wasting any of the mana.
Once no more mana entered my mouth, I pulled out from the crystal and discarded it to the ground, briefly glancing at my status before the assimilation started.
Mana: 7,100/7,100
The foreign mana started clashing against the confines of my body and the pain was unlike any of the previous times. I closed my eyes, grit my teeth, and tried to hold back a scream, but I lost to the pain, crying out as the mana started ravaging my innards, threatening to burst open my flesh and skin.
Cramps seized my limbs, rendering them stiff and unresponsive. My fingers twitched uncontrollably, and each breath became a struggle, caught in my constricted lungs which seemed to be filled with rocks. A crimson haze obscured my vision as blood pooled in my eye, while the taste of iron overwhelmed the prickly flavor of the mana in my mouth. Simultaneously, my nose was bleeding, but my head fell backward, causing the blood to flow deeper into my nostrils instead of out of them.
I grew weaker by the second, my senses growing distant and my consciousness starting to slip away, when everything suddenly went dark, the pain vanished, the taste of blood was gone and I felt simply… nothing. The next instant, my senses returned, my eyes shot open and the darkness was gone.
High above me loomed the infinite darkness that acted as this chamber's ceiling and from the sides the soft light of luminous moss touched my eyes. The pain had subsided, but every part of my body ached and felt as if had been torn apart and would crumble the second I overstrained.
Even without touching, I could feel the dried blood on my face, the tear lines running down my eyes and over my cheeks, and the stains at the corners of my mouth and below my nose.
Just in case there was an injury I was unaware of, I sent a wave of Regeneration through my body. The result surprised me, since despite how shitty I was feeling, my body was completely fine.
“I feel awful,” I groaned, forcing myself to sit up while my arms and torso screamed at me to stop and keep lying down, struggling to even push myself off the ground. How is my body completely healthy?!
“It looked worse,” came a calm voice from my right. Turning my head, I saw Veraxia, who was watching me intently at a few feet distance. “I think we already talked about this, but did you forget that you wanted to absorb mana carefully and over an extended period instead of all at once?” She asked and even though her wording would suggest otherwise, there was no sarcasm or ridicule in her voice. If I had to put a finger on it, she was scolding me right now.
I nodded reluctantly. “I tried.” What was supposed to be a strong voice came out as a subdued murmur and did little to defend me.
It was not like I intentionally absorbed the entire thing in one go. When my teeth dug into the crystal, the mana just flowed through it, and before I knew it, all of it was already inside of it. I would need to be more careful with crystals of a similar size in the future.
Veraxia sighed. “Just keep the near-death experiences at a minimum for a while. You had me worried.”
I tilted my head. An unfamiliar emotion coursed through my body. It felt strange to be told someone worried about me, and it was probably the first time someone had done so out of genuine concern. I could not say that it felt bad, although a great part of her concern about my well-being probably stems from me being her last hope of survival. I understood as much, but it did not change how I was feeling about it. However, I dared to believe that some of it was directed at me as an individual and not just at the weapon that would—hopefully—kill the Queen for her.
Taking a deep breath, I left the complicated thoughts for a later time stretched my arms, and attempted to stand up. My legs felt as if they would rip away from my body, but otherwise, it worked just fine.
Once on my feet, I wiped my face but realized how futile that was since even before my seizure just now, I already had a face covered in blue and red blood—and I did not even want to start to talk about the smell. In my current state, I would need much more than a few wipes with dirty cloth to get rid of all the filth and the stench.
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“You don’t happen to have a lake or something down here, do you?” I asked while wiping my hands on my shirt. If this continued, my clothes would soon be soaked in blood, too.
Unfortunately, Veraxia shook her head. “There was, but I removed it after losing territory to the Exapoda. I thought cutting off their water supply would force them to leave again.”
“That didn’t work out,” I blurted out, quickly shutting my mouth after the words left me.
Veraxia frowned but did not seem to take offense to my comment. Much to my relief.
“I take it you cannot make the water come back?”
“I could… do you want to?”
I thought about it for a second, but my answer was already quite obvious. I would kill for a chance to get rid of all of the blood and grime—which, technically, I already did.
“If you can, then yes,” I nodded.
“I understand. I will vacate this vessel for a brief moment. This is not going to take long, and I expect to return in just a few moments, however, please refrain from venturing further into the maze during my absence,” she said, her voice turning serious toward the end. Even though she said ‘please’, this was not a request.
I wanted to protest that such warnings were unnecessary, but seeing the look on her face, I refrained and just nodded my head. Considering the last few days, I guess that’s fair enough.
Veraxia lay down on the ground, curling up her body and hugging herself with her tail, then the glow in her eyes slowly faded.
“Veraxia?” I called out, nudging the body. I tried to use Identify, but the skill didn’t work. “You are gone, then? Y’know, a goodbye would have been nice, just kidding.” I retracted my hand.
With Veraxia gone somewhere, I was left to my own devices, which meant playing around with my mana manipulation.
After fighting the Awoken, I became convinced that this skill was going to be powerful in the future and would grow stronger as time passed and my mana pool and control increased. But that was not all I took from that fight.
There was something else that I was curious about and that was the skill the Awoken used. It was a skill that used mana to create a barrier to protect its body. In theory, I should be able to replicate something with a similar effect.
I tugged on my mana, channeling some of it into my right hand. Like usual, I expelled it from my body, but instead of molding it into a definitive form, I kept it fluid and slowly coated my hand with it. Imagining the unwavering barrier that blocked Veraxia’s attacks easily, I tried to replicate it with my mana.
Holding the thought in mind, the mana suddenly pressed against my hand and before I knew it, I was completely unable to move my hand. It was like wearing a glove made of metal that restricted the movement of my fingers.
I quickly abandoned the unwavering barrier in my mind and the mana returned to its soft, fluid state. So the mana takes ‘unwavering’ literally, huh?
“Maybe like this…” I mumbled to myself, gathering the mana in my palm and then forming it into a literal shield—a round plate of mana. When I knocked against it, there was no sound, but my hand collided with something hard.
I need to test how it holds up against the attacks of a soldier…
Dissipating the shield, I continued to try to build a protective layer of mana over my hand—the whole body was way too difficult right now and it did not even work properly, so first I had to figure out how it worked before I could realize it over my whole body.
Like that, time passed without any particularly noteworthy results and soon enough two verdant orbs appeared in Veraxia’s empty vessel and her body rose to its feet.
“You are back?”
“I am—“
Before Veraxia could press further, a low rumble echoed through the cave. The roots trembled, and loose pebbles danced along the uneven ground. Veraxia’s head snapped upwards, her gaze peering into the endless darkness above.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice tinged with concern.
Veraxia did not answer, seemingly uncaring for the shaking earth.
The ground beneath us started to shudder even more violently. The roots, once stable and seemingly unbending, now swung menacingly from the top and some even completely separated from the walls or crumbled in themselves.
Suddenly, from some of the holes left behind by the crumbling roots, fountains of water shot out of the wall, rapidly cascading down into the chamber. Due to the limited vision in this maze, I could not see the place where it touched the ground.
The quaking earth briefly calmed down, Veraxia nodding with satisfaction before another strong rumble coursed through the chamber, this one even more violent than the ones before.
“There’s more?!” I shouted, my voice almost drowned out by the cacophony of vibrating wood.
“No.” Veraxia looked up again, this time, a glare on her face that was unlike her prior calmness.
The earthquake intensified, knocking me off my feet. During the fall, I conjured a mana sword and pierced it into the ground, using it to keep my body from rolling across the floor. When I looked above, fragments of roots and bark fell out of the blackness above, raining down on us. One of the large fragments was directly on its way to me, threatening to crush me if I didn’t move, but I was unable to dodge.
Luckily, Veraxia appeared over me, feet firmly planted on the ground and whipping her tail upwards, destroying the piece of wood before it could squash me to death.
“What’s going on?!” I yelled, grabbing onto one of Veraxia’s toes with my left hand, while my right one kept hold of the mana sword.
Veraxia was too busy defending against the falling rubble to talk. To not interfere with her movements, I let go of her leg, but at the same moment, a particularly strong rumble slightly made me lose my grip on the mana sword as I rolled out under Veraxia’s body.
Barely in time, I conjured a mana shield, blocking a sharp piece of root from skewering me to the ground. The splinter shattered upon impact, proving that my shield could at least take some damage.
This struggle continued for a while, and after multiple shattered shields and a handful of near-death experiences, the shaking finally subsided. With the ground no longer shaking, I eventually managed to get back on my feet.
“A warning would have been nice,” I said, dusting off my clothes.
“I would have required to know what was going to happen to be able to warn you, girl,” Veraxia spoke, a hateful glare on her face, not directed at me, but at the darkness above.
“So that wasn’t you?”
“The first few quakes were, but the last few were not. Someone forcefully intruded into my lair.”
“What? Who?”
“A human,” she spat.
“A human?” I frowned.
She nodded. “A human female fired her way into my lair. After your arrival, I had sealed it off from outsiders—with quite the extensive protective measures, mind you.”
My eyebrows furrowed at the unexpected information. After entering the lair for the first time, I had thought about leaving just like that, but the exit vanished.
After all the things I had learned and seen since coming here, it wasn’t much of a surprise that it was Veraxia who locked me inside her lair. Back then, I might have made a fuss about it, but not now. Knowing that she did it kinda pissed me off, but it was also true that thanks to that I managed to get a lot stronger. So, while this was something she and I would talk about later, for now, there were more important things we had to deal with. Namely, the intruder.
And it was not just any intruder, but a human, of all things. Was there a reason for them to come here? Maybe it was reinforcements for Johanna and her dead companions? Was she sent here by the same person who ordered the other humans to intrude into this lair?
I briefly suspected that it might be a member of the clan, but the females of the clan were rarely fighters and to my knowledge, their base was quite far away from this place, and after falling into the river, there should not have been a trail left by me which they could have followed.
“Should we do something about the human?”
“Not for now. She burned her way inside, but she stopped her violent actions afterward. Her behavior is strange.”
“So we just let her be like that? Shouldn’t we fight her off? We both know that humans cannot be trusted,” I spoke. It was strange that Veraxia was so calm, despite knowing that a human had wormed her way into her lair. A member of the very species that had betrayed her in the past “Isn’t she an enemy?”
To me, most, if not all humans were enemies and I would not meet them under the assumption that this one was any different. At least until they had proven to be something else. Hearing my question, Veraxia finally looked at me.
“You would do well to pray that she is not.”
“‘Pray’?” I repeated the unfamiliar term.
Veraxia sighed. “Regardless. My point is, that in our current state, the two of us would be unable to prevail against her. She is too powerful.”
At that, my eyes widened. It was because that meant she was well over level 70 and stronger than the two of us together. My pride wanted to object to that sentiment, but Veraxia would not make a mistake with such an evaluation.
“What’s her level?”
“Her mana pool is enormous and the weight of her aura places her at least above level 200.”
I was left speechless, my jaw dropping. What?! This was beyond bad news. An intruder was bad enough, but now we had to potentially fight a level 200 human?
“Is there anything we can do?”
“At this time? No. The only thing that could save us in case a fight with her broke out, would be my original body.”
“And for that, we have to exterminate the Exapoda and kill the Queen,” I added.
“Correct.” She nodded. “Luckily, the presence of the human will make this a little easier for us,” she said.
“What do you—“ I was interrupted by a loud screech, followed by another and then another. The entire chamber was filled with a cacophony of loud and violent shrieking. Shortly after, thousands of legs moved around us, shuffling through the entire chamber in places hidden from my sight.
“What is happening now?” I asked, jogging over to Veraxia until I stood right by her side.
“Unlike when you first appeared here, the human is not only strong but also quite conspicuous. Her existence is a very obvious threat to the hive—and a much more dangerous one than us. The Queen seems to have ordered a threat removal.”
“They are trying to kill her? Do you think they stand a chance?”
If the two sides decided to fight against each other, then I would rather have the Exapoda win. Or maybe the two sides could even kill each other.
Veraxia did not reply immediately, seemingly thinking my question over carefully, before she eventually opened her mouth. “They would be exterminated without putting up a fight. Yet, in light of the existence of Awoken in the ranks of the hive, predicting the outcome of a confrontation is virtually impossible.”
Just as she finished her evaluation, a group of Exapoda soldiers appeared at the end of the room, they were not accompanied by drones and as far as I could tell, there were no Awoken with them.
Both, Veraxia and I, immediately prepared for battle as a golden spear appeared in my right hand.
When the soldiers rushed at us, Veraxia lunged forward, taking two of them out with her claws. Another ran at me, which I quickly impaled with my spear, while the rest of the soldiers did not stop and instead ignored us entirely.
You have slain [Exapoda Soldier | Lvl. 45]. Experience will be awarded. Bonus Experience for slaying a higher-leveled enemy will be awarded.
I looked at Veraxia with a questioning look, wondering if we should pursue them, but before we could even try to do so, even more soldiers were approaching us, but none of them seemed to even do so much as regard us.
Not that I was complaining about it. Soldiers kept coming, but not putting up any resistance. System notifications tried to block my vision, but I dismissed them as soon as they appeared and focused on the only important thing at hand.
Slaughter.