Chapter 121 A Bloody Battle.

To beat a stronger opponent.

You need to outsmart or outnumber them.

No matter how strong they are, everyone can lose a fight.

It’s a question of wit, numbers, and sometimes blind luck.

Nuriss, the Maiden of War.

The small cracks near the earthy ceiling shed dim daylight on the crumpling wine cellar. Broken barrels and rotten wood pile up at the corners of the room lean on moss covered walls. At the far wall there’s a large gaping maw of what seems to be a cave entrance leading downward.

The cellar is flooded with wine, the entire floor bathing in a glossy rich red. Just how much wine was here for it to flood like that? I pause, sniffing, testing the fetid air for the sour stench of so much alcohol left to turn bad above the odors from the rotting corpses behind me. Instead, something metallic and meaty assails my nostrils and I recoil.

I gulp and step down, my foot sinking into the shallow liquid. It’s warm against the snake scale of my boots and thick, thicker than wine. The red tide seems to ripple lazily around my movements with the quality of slowly clotting blood.

Blood. I notice with a frown.

The blood flows into the cave at the very back like a darkened river at the edge of this bloody lake.

It's hard to see in the darkness, but the orcs are fighting some... things. They're hacking around at objects within the bloodied cellar. It takes me a few moments to discern what these things even are.

Bloody child-like creatures emerge out of the bloodied floor, each no bigger than a three years old toddler. Their red skin is stretched across their tiny bodies like tanned leather dripping blood. They’re jumping and attacking the orcs using odd bone-blade appendages they have in place of hands. Their attack patterns have no order or unity to it, they just swing wildly, pouncing at their chosen targets. They keep emerging from the ichor covered floor as if they were submerged underneath it, yet the scarlet liquid barely reaches my ankles, they have no way to hide underneath it.

I focus on their faces or the lack of it. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, just a stretched patch of skin where their faces should be. Each time one of these faceless creatures dies to an orcish axe, an inhuman shrill breaks out from deeper within the cave. They’re only soldiers… We need to find the main creature behind them… At least it’s hurting when these things die… Let’s kill them all first!

Learning from past mistakes, I down a pain tolerance potion before I enter the flooded room and join the orcs in their extermination. While the potion would muddle my thoughts if I get hurt and will prevent me from casting stronger spells, I'll still be capable of responding well if I won't feel pain.

I toss ‘Repulses’ and ‘Wind Blades’ at first, then ‘Icy Spikes’ when I run out of wind mana. We keep fighting, and the small creatures keep dying. My heard pounds in rhythm with my spells and the orcish deathblows. Every breathless second feels like a long minute, but I doubt we're fighting that long.

They aren’t very hard to kill, and I start counting my kills. Five, ten, twenty, forty, there is no end to them! They emerge from the bloodied floor and die to the orcs’ blows. I gasp, putrid air entering my lungs. We’ve been fighting for a while now. I really don't want to run out of mana before we even reach whatever created these things...

The orcs are thrilled about it at least, they laugh madly as they swing their weapons left and right. These creatures aren’t a real threat, not to me nor the orcs, and each of their deaths is followed by a satisfying shrill scream from deeper within this cellar. Are these things just here to slow us down?

One of the orcs drops to his knees with a dull splash. I catch a glimpse of his face, blood pours out of his nose, mouth, eyes, and ears. The volumes of blood coming out of his orifices are unnatural, almost as if someone empties his body of its blood through the face. I notice the wide dark patch around his crotch too and recoil in horror. What happened?! None of these odd creatures even touched this orc, he just dropped all of a sudden.

The kneeling orc falls face down into the bloodied ground with a sickening splash. He then dissipates into the blood covering the floor, leaving the hides he wore and his weapons behind. The level of the blood in the cellar barely covers my ankles, it definitely isn’t high enough to cover an orc. Yet, he somehow sunk underneath the bloodied floor.

It’s also not high enough for these creatures to hide in either, the blood probably forms them. They aren’t increasing in number, but they aren’t decreasing either! We fell right into this thing’s trap! What about the screams? Can be a lot of things… Even if they’re just meant to fool us, they’re doing their part…

“We need to get out of here!” I call out to the orcs.

“We wining! Shaman afraid?” Agilla huffs, swinging at another babybug creature.

“You decide where we go Shaman, but I command the fight!” Balgrum reminds me.

“These creatures aren’t decreasing! Ritsa!” I fling away another babybug who jumps at me. “And the wolves are falling. I don’t think these creatures are even alive. Ritsa!”

“Of course they’re alife!” Balgrum calls out angrily as he chops another babybug in half with a single swing.

*Splash* Another orc falls to one knee, blood spraying out of her orifices. The volume of ichor is so powerful that her head jerks back from it and a hole form in her leathery pants, spraying blood violently.

“Nimuwal!” I move between the orcs, and wash her with a ‘Water Jet’ in a desperate attempt to save her. I hit the ground beneath her with a torrent of water, trying to create a spot free of blood beneath her. But I am too late, the orc falls on her back and disappears under the blood, leaving behind a pile of hides and weapons.

“These creatures are here to slow us down. While their creator uses a cowardly curse to kill us. We have to get out of here!” I call out.

“Grahhhhhhhh!” A large callused hand blocks my mouth violently, and blood enters my mouth. The hand turns my head sharply to meet the angry face of Balgrum. “I’m the chief!” he shouts in my face. My heart skips a beat, goosebumps forming on my skin. His gruff face is quite scary up close.

I can always blow off his head if it comes to that… I calm myself.

“Ti-a’ark kra’a gra’asha, gu ti-a’ark krek!” he calls out, still covering my mouth. The orcs howl and rush deeper into the cellar, shrugging off the babybugs that attempt to attack them on the way.

Balgrum lifts me by my armpits, and makes me sit on his shoulders. I hold onto his bald head, trying my very best not to fall off. With how high he is, my head almost touches the earthy ceiling above us.

Moving closer, I notice that the cave opening is actually a broken part of the brick wall.

The creatures keep emerging from the blood, and pouncing at us from the sides. But the orcs whip them aside and stomp them as if they are mere bugs or at least big rats in their way.

The speed the orcs charge forward is impressive, I would never manage to keep up with them on foot, especially because the blood level rises. We are deep within the cavern by now, some of the orcs light torches in the darkness as they charge ahead.

“Revissor.” I use my light mana to create a ball of light and send it ahead of the charging orcs to light their way. My magic receives a mad cheer and a screech from the edge of the dark cave.

In my magical light, I note the stalactites hanging from the rocky ceiling of the cave. Blood trickles down and drips down into the crimson pool below. While the very tip of a few stalagmites bulge at the edges of the blood’s surface.

Moving my light forward, I freeze when my eyes spot a movement.

The creature at the edge of the cave looks like an overgrown combination of a human, a mosquito, and a mantis. It has a humanoid head with a long sharp nose, four arms, two with blade-like appendages, and two with humanoid hands. It seems like its skin is covered by a thin exoskeleton. Its slender waist and below is covered by blood that reaches the orcs waists by now. A swarm of babybugs emerge from around the creature like an army, double the number we fought in the cellar.

"Fuck..." I mumble in Toml'a, there's no better word to describe our situation.

The Fae lets out a sharp screech and slashes at the blood pool.

The slash creates a thin and tall wave in the blood, so thin it vertically splits an orc in half. The orc’s inner organs spill onto the bloodied pool as the other orcs avoid the dangerous wave. The babybug creatures are still around, attacking us from all sides. "Fuck!" Snaking deadly… Definitely couldn’t have taken care of this by myself… I wonder how much I can advance after consuming this thing soul… Eating it though… Yuck! Better than eating humans!

“Ti-a’ark!” The orcs howl, they ignore the babybugs and charge directly at the creature who responds by creating its deadly blood slashes.

The next blood slash heads for me and Balgrum. “Rial aluwe ri!” I call out desperately the image of the bisected orc still vivid in my mind. The cold pulse freezes the blood. It forms a thin bloody wall. Balgrum growls angrily, along with a few orcs that got caught by cold pulse. The blood around their waists is frozen too.

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“Rinim uriss nim.” I attempt to melt the blood, but the blood remains frozen. Unlike a cold wave which simply create instant sub zero wave, this spell works on water directly, not blood.

“Shaman…” Balgrum growls lowly, he hacks his way out with violent axe swings.

“Sorry!” I get off his shoulders and step on the red ice.

The world turns upside down.

*Splash!!!*

The warm blood covers my head. I struggle under the dark liquid, it's near impossible to find my way back to the surface. I find my magical light and use it to orient myself. I get up, gasping for air.

The blood level here gets close to my neck, just below my collarbones. I wipe the blood off my face and put my hand in my pouch to cast a flying spell, but my pouch is empty. The blood washes away my flower supply. My heartbeat increases as the danger and challenges of the creatures rises. The blood is warm, and the icy patch I’ve created and slipped on melts away rapidly, vapors drifting upward.

“Ritsa!” I yelp and blast away a babybug that aims for my throat. These babybugs are walking on the blood as if it’s solid ground. I have to get out of this blood! Balgrum is too busy digging himself out thanks to me. Being at the center of my spell, he got the worse of my cold wave. He also has to fight off a group of these creatures at the same time. I should get him out with ‘Kinetic Burst’. No! I’ve done enough damage, kinetic burst can knock some ice shards into his body! Focus on the blood Fae.

I look at the rocky ceiling above me and touch the nearest wall, channeling wood mana into it. “Rod’ena!” The ceiling drop down three rope-like vines. I hold onto them and direct them with my mind to tie themselves around my thighs and waist. I direct the vines to tug me upward in my odd makeshift harness.

After a second or two, I’m hanging near the stalactites in the ceiling with my vines wrapped around my thighs and hips, out of reach for the babybugs and the deadly blood waves. This cavern is much larger than the wine-cellar, and I have a great vantage point on the battle that rages underneath due to the soft light of my cantrip and the violent splashes of blood.

The orcs corner the weird blood Fae, but this thing is fighting with everything it has. The large bug-like creature looks like a whirlwind of blood as it exchanges blows with the orcs.

The red-pinkish Fae spins around as it uses a blade appendage to rip an orc’s belly open, organs spilling out in the bloodied lake. The monster's sharp nose is used as a weapon as well, both to parry blows and to stab at an orc’s neck. It lets out a breath filled with black particles, and a group of orcs drop down with blood spurting out of their orifices in unnatural volumes, soon fading into the blood pool. But the five that remain by the time I reach the ceiling don’t give up.

I guide my vines to move me above the creature’s head. From what I can tell, it doesn’t have wings, it wouldn’t be able to reach me up here. This would be ideal for an electric channel... but I have no idea if my electricity will harm the orcs too and how well blood conduct electricity... And I lost the lavender, I can't cast it... Focus! Cantrips only! “Nimuwal!” My water torrent hits its head distracting it.

The distraction is enough for Agilla. The creature shrieks when Agilla catches its bloodied blade-like appendage and chops it off, she laughs madly as she dodges the other blade-like arm. The creature’s humanoid arm catches her axe and uses it to chop another orc’s head.

The orcs numbers four now, Balgrum, Agilla, Shufa, and an unfamiliar orc. The unfamiliar orc makes choking noises as bone blade juts out of his throat. A babybug stabs his nape from behind, and he drops to the bloodied pool, blood pouring out of his orifices.

Three remaining orcs, and an army of bloody insects

“Rial aluwe ri!” I turn my water torrent into an icy rod, letting it drop on the blood-fae’s head.

I stare wide-eyed when I see the blood-fey holding my icy rod and swinging it like a club at Balgrum with both of its human hands, while battling Agilla and her spare axe with its remaining blade-like appendage.

“Rinim rill shariss!” I cast an amplified icy spike, weaving seven amplifying patterns into it for a threefold amplification. The icy rod in the monster's hand turns into a sharp lance and shoots itself from the creature’s hands into the creature itself.

The creature holds onto the sharp tip, stopping its penetration into its exoskeleton. The whole creature gets pushed back toward the edge of the cave by the force of my ice spear, leaving a wave-like trail in the blood.

“Rinim ril, shariss!” I weave a duplicated icy blade and the lance breaks into five icy spikes all flying toward the creature. I move the light and vines to follow the creature from above.

It manages to swat two of them aside, but the other three hit its insectoid body. Two breaks on its carapace, while one spike lodges itself in a crack near the creature’s neck.

It bellows in a low rumbling voice very unlike the fake shrill shrieks of pain we've heard from it until now. The blood in the pool climbs to its wound covering it like an odd blanket.

An ice spike to its throat! It’s not dead yet?!

Agilla catches up and swings with her axe, and the monster blocks her strikes with its remaining blade appendage.

Balgrum and Shufa stand back to back, they hold the wave of babybugs all by themselves, shouting their battle cries from the top of their lungs, but they are about to be overrun by the sheer amount of these faceless creatures.

Oh for the love of! I told you we should get out!

“Latsa!” I use my ‘Minor Telekinesis’ on six of these babybugs and drop them above their blood-Fae father. The creatures evaporates into a red clouds before they even reach the Fae.

I repeat the process over and over, if they are so easy to kill then why not do it? The orcs below see what I do, and copy it. They grab the babybugs legs or blade-like appendages at their base, and throw them at their blood-fae father.

The blood-fae screeches, the creature ignores Agilla and charges at Balgrum. The blood-Fae slashes at Balgrum with its blade-like appendage, the orc dodges back, but not fast enough. Balgrum groans as the blade tears his stomach open, a piece of his intestines hangs out in the open, floating on the blood that covers the room.

No!

“Yraggggaaahh!” Agilla jumps at the creature from behind and bury her axe into the back of its skull. She hacks the axe again and again caving the fae’s skull over and over until it drops into the bloodied pool. All of the babybugs disappears in a scarlet fog.

“Balgrum!” I call out as the vines guide me down toward the orc.

“Grahh, stop with your human empathy, it makes my skin crawl. I’ll be fine, it’s just a scratch,” he growls and shoves his intestines back into his stomach under the ichor's surface.

“Here!” I hand him a healing potion. “Drink this.”

“This is the shaman’s role, healing!” he growls as he accepts the metallic bottle. He gulps it down, holding his intestines inside his belly as the wound heals slowly.

Agilla chops off the blood-Fae’s damaged head and lifts it high above her head, howling like a wolf. The sight of the bloodied orc holding a severed long nosed head and howling at the ceiling is a disturbing one to say the least.

Shufa—the orc who made my armor—gurgles, blood pours out of her orifices as she drops into the blood pool. I expected her to disappear in the blood, but unlike the rest of the orcs, the blood volume isn't as violent and she simply floats there, face down in the scarlet liquid.

“We have to get out of here!” I call in a panic.

“Grrrrr agreed!” Balgrum growls. “This place is cursed!” Blood comes out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. He collapses headfirst into the blood pool.

“Balgrum!” Like Shufa, he floats in silence.

I turn him and Shufa to float on their backs. When I turn to Agilla to ask for her help, she also floats in the blood pool, face toward the ceiling, blood trickling out of her eyes and nose. The gory fae skull floats near her shoulder, four black insectoid eyes staring blankly at me behind a long barbed mosquito nose.

If all of them were hit by the same curse, why didn’t this curse affect me the same way? No time to think too much about it! I need to get them out of here! Find a way to heal this thing! Yes, but first, I need to absorb its soul. This is the strongest creature I’ve ever encountered. Think of how much power I can get from it! But what if Balgrum will die just because I delay here?

Stop thinking and absorb the damn soul already! It’ll be gone if I won’t!

I tie out my scaled pouch to my neck and let the vines go. I drop, splashing in the blood. I pick a glassy bottle, hoping I can drain the soul of a headless creature.

I channel my mana through the diamond and move my bottle around. I find out that I can in fact drain the soul near the creature’s sharp nose. Red gas flows into the glassy bottle, turning into a dark blood-red liquid. I fill up all of my ten ectoplasm bottles, and I can only assume there’s probably more.

I grab the creature’s head, doing my best to suppress my disgust. I don’t know how much I’ll need to eat to absorb the soul, but I hope that eating the brain will be enough.

*~*~*

Power level: 3rd stage apprentice.

Mana pools status:

Crown-knot: Affinity 10: connected: 1 gem replenished per minute.

Neck-Bridge: Affinity 6: formed: max amount of gems drained per day: 79

Abdomen-storage: Affinity 5: formed: 16 gems. Conversion ratio: 6:1

Air: Affinity 4: formed: 26 gems

Fire: Affinity 2: formed: 13 gems

Light: Affinity 3: formed: 19/20 gems

Water: Affinity 6: formed: 39 gems

Earth: Affinity 1: formed: 6 gems

Wood: Affinity 2: formed: 13 gems

Gravity: Affinity 9: connected: 84/95 gems

Cantrip known:

Air: Shavi’s Breeze, Shavi’s Sword. Shavi’s Hair Dryer, Aria’s Enhanced Hearing. Aria’s Sonic Scream. Aria's Increased Voice.

Fire: Nuriss’ Flame. Effrat’s Firefly, Effrat’s Fire Breath. Sorladika's Lesser Heating. Nuriss’ Ignite. Oniga's Soap Creation.

Light: Noxi’s Light. Lako’s Blinding Light. Rika’s energy hand.

Water: Water Evocation, Water to Ice, Ice to Water, Water to Vapor, Vapor to Water, Mayan’s Icy Spike, Ayla’s Water Jet. Ayla’s instant freeze. Ayla's Flowing Shield. Ayla’s Freezing Vapors. Hot Water Conjuration. Boiling Waterjet.

Earth: Alice’s Oil Summoning, Reiko’s Acid Spray. Alf's Copper Bolt

Wood: Arigor’s Lesser Vines. Kolosu’s Vegetable Summoning.

Gravity: Lumina’s Kinetic Burst. Tukado’s Repulse. Tukado’s Lesser Shield II. Imari’s Minor Telekinesism. Imari’s Jump. Leo’s Pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s Light Body. Alino’s Heavy Body. Alino's Orbiter.

Transmutation: Oniga's Laundry.

Spells known:

Light: Rika's Electric Channelb1

Gravity: Alino’s Weightless Bodyb1x2. Tukado's Pushb1x3. Tukado’s defense IIIb1x4. Imari’s Lesser Flightb2.

Life: Brigit’s Lesser Cure Poison. Brigit’s Skin Restoration.

Focus capability: 18 patterns.

Social status: The Queen of Red Cedar City. Shaman of the Twin Moon Tribe. Inara, Daughter of Mysteries. Apprentice to the Maven of Mysteries. Sorceress.

Personal Wealth: 1465 Magic Gems. 1420 Golden Peas, 45 Silver Scales, 32 Copper Bits.

Personal Items:

Magical necklace. Contains 100 gems of general mana, can be drained like a mana pool. It’ll recharge by itself at the rate of five gems an hour.

1 potion of lightning body.

1 potion of mana, medium grade.

3 potions of Lesser Healing.

3 potions of Pain Tolerance.

An enchanted belt with eight pouches, the enchantment keeps the pouches’ content fresh. Each pouch may contain 10g of petals or six potion flasks.

10 Unknown Blood Fae soul bottles. Glass with a diamond stopper, put in scaled leather wrapping.

The Great White Egret grimoire. Dedicated by the Maven of mysteries to Inara. 30/100. Locked.

Present Companions:

Languages:

Toml’a Fluent

Sinteo Fluent

Myrsha 8/10

Felul 1/10

Nim 1/10

A'arkalu 3/10

Injuries and scars:

Curses:

-

Kingdom’s treasury: 3836 gold coins. 123 magical gems.

Kingdom’s citizen: Red Cedar City: 3,881 humans, 1,836 human children.

Apricot City: approximate 800+ humans.

Twin Moon Tribe: 1,138 orcs. 293 orc children. 529 sheep-slaves.

Kingdom's army: 1,136 Orc Warriors. 324 Footmen. 49 Peacekeeper Knights. 500 Blood Spears.

Notables at Court:

Tasiya Keyholder.

Jolla SilverQuill.

Talbot Bookkeeper.

Marasi Chef extraordinaire (spymaster.)

Old Gardner Tiom.

Balgrum Orc Chieftain.