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”So...a Tressym? Really?” Tsumi asked, not entirely convinced of Karna’s choice. She was aware that Karna could seemingly pick almost any magical bloodline, Divines only knew how, and had expected something a bit more impressive instead of a tiny kitten with wings.
"I think it's adorable!" Anaire squealed. The only reason she wasn't trying to scoop up Karna's new form to pet it to oblivion was because she'd already tried and had the claw marks on her cheeks to prove how bad of an idea that had been. She was already using her druidic abilities to heal the cuts, but they still stung.
Karna narrowed her eyes at the elven princess but replied to Tsumi. “You shouldn’t underestimate what you don’t understand. Besides, you should know that it’s not always the size that matters, but how you use it.” She joked.
“We both know no one actually believes that.” Tsumi shot back immediately without a single second of hesitation. Her voice was deadly serious as well.
“Are we still talking about the kitten?” Anaire asked a bit confused.
“No.” Both Karna and Tsumi said at the same time.
“O-okay then.” Anaire just shook her head.
“But seriously. Tressym are beyond broken as a bloodline, even if as magical beings they don’t seem that impressive at first glance.” Karna got a bit more serious. “Their senses are second to none, and perhaps more importantly, they’re very sensitive to spatial forces. They’re completely immune to all known poisons, magical or otherwise, and can sense their presence just by taste, touch, or scent. They can sense invisible creatures. I’m going to repeat that for emphasis. They can sense invisible creatures, not just see through the invisibility. They’re inherently one of the most magical creatures in the multiverse, can instinctively tell when someone is lying, and they have natural luck that borders on the illogical. They’re also naturally loved by the heavens and fates, and as long as I have the bloodline, I don’t have to worry about any Heavenly Tribulations, unless I specifically want to face them. And here’s the best part. Tressyms grow up so fast that instead of having to spend decades or even centuries reaching the peak of their abilities, unlike with my Phoenix and Titan bloodlines, I’ll get access to all of that in a couple of years.” Karna explained seriously, which was a bit spoiled by the fact that she was currently looking like a baby cat with huge butterfly wings.
“And you look cute!” Anaire supplied.
“And I look downright adorable!” Karna agreed firmly and puffed up her chest and stamped her tiny paw on the air ineffectually to emphasize her point. It looked very silly.
“Well, when you put it like that.” Tsumi couldn’t help bursting out in laughter. She had really not expected this. She’d expect something like a Chimaera or maybe some eldritch abomination, but she should’ve known better. Karna had said that this Awakening would be for a form that would not bring direct combat power. Also, she knew that Karna could be quite vain, so she wouldn’t activate bloodlines that would make her ugly, unless the benefits were too big to ignore.
“Alright. Let’s get this show on the road.” Karna decided and jumped to stand on the control crystal of the ship.
“Dawwwww!” Both Anaire and Tsumi made a sound as the tiny kitten balanced on top of a crystal three times its size.
“Shut it, both of you!” Karna growled, though it sounded more like an ineffectual mewl. Her stomping paw wasn’t any more effective this time either.
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"This is gross no matter how many times I see it," Wolfgang commented. "The combination you and your spirit make is just…"
Around them, countless shadow soldiers assaulted the forces of the Underworld. The seemingly mindless shadows ignored most of the attacks hurled their way and devoured the aberrations that were used to being the ones doing the devouring. Most of the aberrations relied on mental effects and different sorts of detrimental spells to tear down their victims, but the shadows ignored those completely. Another Aboleth was dragged down by a shadowy dragon while screaming an impotent mental screech, and a dozen Beholders had their eyes pierced by shadow lancers riding equally dark steeds. Any shadow that got destroyed by their eye-beams emerged back immediately from the black ground beneath them. Elsewhere countless gibbering abominations were turned into pincushions by shadowy archers.
The ground beneath was covered by a layer of dark energy for a dozen kilometers in all directions from Arjuna. It was like someone had poured a large amount of black sludge on the ground, and more and more shadows kept emerging from the darkness. This was one of the main reasons Arjuna was so feared on the Higher Planes. There were other rank nine mages and even other Medjai of the same rank, albeit those were much rarer. There were also those of similar rank that were even younger than him, as well as those that were closer to Ascending. What made Arjuna special, or at least one of the main reasons, was the fact that he together with his spirit had already managed to develop a Domain. And inside that Domain, very few could challenge him in battle.
High ranking mages were known for their ability to even wipe out entire armies with their spells. Well, Arjuna could also do that, but he also carried around an army of his own, ready to emerge from the shadows. And this army would not surrender or run out of troops until he ran out of power. It wasn’t the only reason he was feared as his might was a combination of many factors, but it was one of the main reasons. “Less complaining and more killing the Scourge. Stop slacking around.” Arjuna gestured upwards.
“Fine, fine. Not that you don’t already have this covered.” Wolfgang grumbled and slashed out with his sword, pulling it out of his scabbard and returning it back in a single flash of movement. Above them, an enormous creature that looked like a flying whale was cleaved into two. The ground shook as the corpse of the massive creature crashed on the battling abominations.
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“Thank you. The noise that thing was making was quite distracting.” Arjuna rubbed his temple a bit.
"You say distracting, others would say quite dangerous." Wolfgang pointed out while gesturing towards the collapsed walls of the nearby city. The walls had withstood days of siege from the abomination until the flying whale-thing had shown up with reinforcements for the attackers. Reinforcements that were now in the process of being torn apart by Arjuna’s shadows.
“This is a relatively large concentration of Scourge. Before the disturbance, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Scourge attacks this large on civilized worlds. And now this is becoming the new normal. Many worlds are facing similar attacks.” Arjuna commented with a concerned tone.
“Yeah, this isn’t boding well.” Wolfgang agreed. This wasn’t the first time they discussed the subject. The recent attacks were worrisome and quite naturally incited discussion and concern.
As the battle started winding down, a large cheer went up among the local defenders. “Are we about done here?” Arjuna asked a little impatiently, addressing his question to the nearby member of the Magocracy’s military. The Admiral in question was overseeing the fight on this world.
“Well, there’s the victory feast and then the repairs…” The Admiral said slowly, knowing he was treading on thin ice.
“Right. You can manage those on your own. I have a disciple to take care of. You can feast and enact repairs on your own time. Damn council sending me on all these missions while I should be helping Duskclaw recover.” Arjuna was not pleased about the constant interruptions. He could get Duskclaw healed much faster if he could consistently help her with his own mana.
“Wait!” Wolfgang suddenly called out, noticing that Arjuna was preparing to make a portal out of here.
“What?” Arjuna asked a little snappishly.
“Can you feel that?” Wolfgang asked, looking around him, trying to find the source. It was the feeling of a pressure mounting. Of space stretching.
Arjuna narrowed his eyes. He would’ve sensed it much earlier if he hadn’t been so impatient to return. “Another disturbance. Or the Expansion is finally starting.” Suddenly they all felt a large power above them and a man in silver armor seemed to materialize from thin air. The man wore the same type of armor as the Emissary’s bodyguard, so they both recognized it. As soon as the being appeared, a large golden formation covered the skies above the world and the feeling of pressure seemed to lessen and go away. Not entirely, hinting that the problem would return eventually, but the danger seemed to have been averted for now.
The man suddenly seemed to notice them below and floated down to meet them. "It seems we have you to thank for taking care of the Underworld forces here. Good. It saved us time. We could focus on more important things." The man seemed to ignore all preamble and niceties.
“More important things like…?” Wolfgang asked quickly, knowing Arjuna was likely not in the mood to ask as politely.
The man looked at Wolfgang and seemed to decide the question was worth answering in the current situation. “The Host has been busy patching the holes these enemies are coming through. And we’ve also spread around to stop the kinds of things I think you just sensed. It might not be optimal in your opinion, but the Divines decided it was better for us to work pro-actively to stop further troubles than to play whack-a-mole with smaller Scourge invasions.”
“Which leaves us to play the role of a hammer," Arjuna said with clear disdain in his voice.
“A role you seem adequately suited for.” The immortal smirked. “To each according to their abilities.”
“What my friend here forgot to mention is that we do appreciate your efforts in preventing further spatial anomalies. How long will this situation go on?” Wolfgang felt a little weirded by the fact that he was the more diplomatic of the two.
“Hard to say. This Expansion seems unlike any other we’ve seen. I think we must prepare ourselves for the fact that this might be the new normal for a while. And it's going to get worse until the Expansion actually happens." The immortal admitted.
"How reassuring," Arjuna said sarcastically.
“My job isn’t to reassure people. In fact, talking to you in the first place is just a courtesy. You’ve been such good little hammers that I thought you deserved that much. Might have been just me overestimating your capabilities. That said, the good news is that the more we manage to repair the damage, the fewer attacks there will be.” The immortal seemed to have reached the limit to which he was willing to humor them and just flew away.
“That went great.” Wolfgang scratched his neck.
“Grand Medjai. You are free to act as you will, but could we ask that you don’t antagonize people needlessly? At least people you can’t deal with by yourself.” The Admiral who had quietly listened so far requested with a sincere voice.
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“Could I…?” Anaire asked with a hopeful voice.
“No.” Karna shot the request down firmly.
“Just a little! I’m a druid. I’m the best at petting and scratching all the right places.” Anaire appealed for the hundredth time.
"No. Sod off." Karna kept refusing her. At the same time, she finally felt that she could shift out from the form of the kitten, and did so with real relief. Anaire had started to become a little vexing with her insistent requests.
She heard a pair of audible gulps behind her. “You know, Karna, if your purpose was to look less adorable, this doesn't really help," Tsumi commented with a voice that seemed to be suppressing an instinct.
“What…?” Karna asked a little confused before she realized what her master meant. She had retained a pair of cat ears, whiskers, and a long tail. She now looked much like a beastman from the feline tribes.
“So why exactly are you pretending to be a catgirl?” Tsumi asked while holding back Anaire who was desperately trying to reach Karna’s ears.
“I still have to fly the ship. I need the senses the Tressym bloodline provides me, and this is the price for it. For now at least, until I can fully make that bloodline a part of me.” Karna explained briefly. “They’ll go away once we reach our destination.”
“Yeah, well, just as long as you’re aware that the problem wasn’t solved. At least now you’re big enough to defend yourself again. Which makes her entirely your problem.” Tsumi released Anaire at the same time, before the elven princess was punted across the cockpit, and the door to the rest of the ship was closed and locked in front of her, locking her out.
"Problem solved," Karna stated firmly.
“Right. Ok. Avoiding the issue it is then. So when are we going to arrive?” Tsumi changed the subject.
“Right about…now.” They suddenly appeared above a mountain range with a shockwave of displaced air.
“Convenient timing. I like it. You’re learning. Where are we exactly?” Tsumi nodded in approval.
“We’re actually on the world we were traveling towards originally. I noticed that you didn’t search this place yet. There’s a reasonable chance that Mayumi would head here if she was able.” Karna said while looking outside the ship. “I wasn’t sure where the Luminous Sect headquarters are though. I just picked a random spot on the world. As we didn’t use the sanctioned spatial pathways, I thought it might be better to not appear anywhere near the usual exit point.” The benefit of braving the wilds of the dimensional spaces between the worlds was the ability to choose your exit point. It was a lot more dangerous a way to travel, however.
“That’s probably a smart choice. The Sect in charge of the most commonly used paths is actually a competitor of the Luminous Sect. They might have asked several questions we don’t want to answer.” Tsumi nodded. She could’ve dealt with most issues, but it would’ve created a scene and potential diplomatic issues.
“I’ll try to see if any of the items I made are present.” Karna let her mind expand as the words of the divination ritual allowed her to cover the entire world. She noted with some amusement that this world actually wasn’t a planet by the standards of other universes, but instead a gigantic island floating in place. It was big enough to rival a couple of continents on other worlds, but still a single island. That helped her with the wave of exhaustion that hit her once the spell was complete. As the search area was smaller, so was the power expenditure. Her recent rank-up also helped.
“Hmm.” She made a non-committal sound while frowning as she got the results back.
“What?” Tsumi noticed her expression.
“Well, the good news is that I did spot an item I created for Mayumi. It’s just a small trinket, but it did belong to her. The problem is that I can’t sense the other things I made for her, and the trinket is close to the place we just talked about avoiding.
“Ah.” Tsumi made a sound of understanding. Sounded just like the usual luck.
“Ah, indeed.” Karna agreed. “Well, we can still visit the place now that we’re not using the spatial pathways to get there. We could just pose as traders.”
“With a ship like this?” Tsumi pointed out.
“Fair enough. This deathtrap of yours isn't exactly designed like a merchant ship. On the other hand, we could simply point out that we're selling spatial artifacts among other things, and thus don't need the extra space for cargo, for obvious reasons. Speed is more important to someone like that.” Karna argued.
“Or we could just not explain at all.” Anaire’s voice came through the door. “Why volunteer information when it’s not necessary?”
“It seems refuge in audacity is becoming my standard operating procedure anyway.” Karna shrugged.