For what felt like the thousandth time, Janet picked up the mana signature of yet another locust as it homed in on her position. Her brain was on fire with exhaustion, and her core was beginning to feel like an overused waterskin, mushy and overstretched and just one solid thwack away from complete collapse.
Still, she marshalled her resources to calculate the locust’s trajectory. Her headache was beginning to get in the way, but she pressed on regardless. A deployment of an explosive bolt of compressed mana followed by actuation of needle-sharp shadow constructs at its landing point, and she was ready for her next opponent.
The fight was unending. Already, she had been forced to down two more mana potions. Her muscles twitched with exhaustion, yearning for a moment’s relaxation, and worst of all her mind was closing in on its absolute limits. The fight had pushed her that far.
‘If only Aurelia was awake,’ she thought, ‘then we’d take turns obliterating the insects.’
She had already given up hope of Darius and Sylthis coming to their rescue. Not to say that it was out of the question, but expecting to be bailed out was just asking to die at the hands of the relentless swarm.
By that point, she’d built up a rhythm in her attack. Locusts entered her sphere of perception, which consisted of the hundreds-meter radius covered by her [Construct Zone]. [Shadow Authority] gave her command of every shadow the zone called into action, relaying all that information directly into her brain.
Once the assailants entered that sphere, it took her less than a split second to calculate their trajectory – locusts were not very maneuverable in their flight. Before they closed in on her position enough to cause any damage, an [Empowered Shadow Bolt] took out their wings.
Since every blade of grass on the ground cast its own shadow, all she had to do was mobilize the shadows at the exact spot that the locust would unceremoniously land into thin yet sturdy spikes. Gravity took care of the rest, depositing the insects right atop their doom.
Her strategy, although simplistic, ensured that her resources were utilized efficiently. Mana was only used to fire the shadow bolt and to deploy the spikes. There was no need for fancy, wasteful workings of magic. As such, although the fight had been going on continuously for close to an hour, she was yet to deplete her supply of potions, and her core was in relatively good health.
The only flaw in her strategy was the mental aspect. She needed her mind to efficiently track what locust to focus on next, to track its flight so the bolt would not go to waste, and to designate what area of her [Construct Zone] in which to activate the spikes.
The fight hinged on the longevity of her mental resources. Unfortunately, it was that very resource that was closest to the verge of bottoming out. She did not dare think of what would come after her mind became too fatigued to go on.
Tap!
Janet had grown used to the sounds of battle. The droning swarm, the sound of wings getting shredded by bolts of shadow, the satisfying thump of locusts dropping to the ground like ungraceful lumps of rock… not once in the fight had she heard a tap.
Instinctively, her eyes tracked to Aurelia’s position. She was still unresponsive, and her eyes were closed.
The momentary distraction allowed eight locusts to get close enough that the breeze from their wings ruffled her hair. That could not be allowed to stand.
Amidst a flurry of calculations and deliberations, Janet gathered bolts in both her palms, two to each. The difficult part was accurate targeting, but at the last minute she decided to instead just let the bolts explode against each other.
Eight big locusts were heading for her position, all flying in from different directions. The spectacular explosion caused damage to their eyes and impeded their sight, which made finishing them off that much easier. Disoriented by the explosion, they did not pose much challenge as she aided their plunge onto her skewering spikes with constructs of rope.
The victory aside, her battle rhythm was interrupted by the time the eight were dispatched. A few minutes of frantic flailing as she struggled to get things back under control ensued, but she got through it unscathed.
Tap!
This time, Janet kept her focus on the battle. She kept all her senses trained on the locusts, only dedicating her [Mana Sight] to scour the clearing for whatever was making the soft and understated yet conspicuously ominous sound.
In battle, she’d come to learn, often the variable that went unaccounted for was the one that determined victory or loss.
As expected, the clearing was filled to the brim with chaotic swirls of mana. The dying locusts sent mana churning, as did her exploding bolts. It would take some time to filter through the chaos for…
Tap!
‘Oh, there it is,’ Janet felt despair settle like a blanket of fog over her already gloomy outlook. Her nose was bleeding.
Transfixed, she watched as another drop of the life-carrying fluid dripped from her nose and glistened in the sun as it dropped onto her boot. Tap!
Three locusts that had sought to take advantage of her distraction were dispatched accordingly. Janet also kept an eye on the colored balls of light that began to dissipate as soon as the kill notifications arrived.
Tracking the souls was yet another drain on her mental resources, which elicited another sanguine drop for her trouble.
Janet could not remember the last time she’d felt so overwhelmed. The blood meant that her brain was overheating. Her mana-enhanced body which was sturdier than most did not just succumb to a nosebleed at the least inconvenience. That it was happening meant that she had overclocked her processor to such a degree that it had begun to experience mechanical failure.
No matter how she framed it, Janet could see the writing on the wall. The swarm was still flying in, and her body was falling apart. If something did not change soon, it was likely that she would once again experience death.
And if there was a time when she was truly vulnerable, post-death intervals took the cake. She really did not want to see what it would mean to revive with her mind under the control of the Nethergill Mycelium.
“Aurelia, are you awake?”
It was futile, of course. Just as she was struggling to contain her mental fatigue, Aurelia’s body would need some time to fix any damage done by the nethergill’s influence.
The situation brought Janet’s mind back to her early days in the jungle. She was up against unsurmountable odds, all on her lonesome. The glaring difference this time is that she was armed with months of combat and survival experience, guile, and skill drilled into her by consummate veterans of deadly battle.
Just as she had done throughout the fight, she made certain no souls went to waste. The locusts continued to perish with every ill-advised, mindless attack, and her reserves of digested soul matter continued to build.
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‘Any time now,’ she thought to herself. ‘There’s no way this amateur showing is all the mycelium is capable of.’
The fungus had managed to influence Aurelia to attack her. That had shown Janet that it was capable of more than simply driving the locusts into a frenzy. The fact that it had made her use her metal magic? That was a dead giveaway as to the extent of its capability.
Aurelia’s control over her primary element of metal was beyond atrocious. She could form it up into spells and brute-force some manipulation at the cost of nearly 100 points of MP, but conjuring up literal claws of metal that were sturdy and sharp enough to cut through leather and tear into her spine…
‘It must be capable of so much more.’ The glint of challenge in her eye brightened, even as she felt the headache assailing her mind ramp up by a few notches due to her heightened emotion.
In the meantime, she tore through four more locusts. Her soul easily picked up their fast-dissipating orbs of concentrated power. The resulting well of reinvigorating, empowering and regenerative energy built up inside her, but she held its effects at bay.
Tap! Tap!
The rate of fatigue-induced bleeding was increasing. By all accounts, she was minutes away from the breaking point. Since the mycelium did not seem to be in a hurry despite her obvious weakness, Janet allowed her mind to wander.
Most of the locusts were mid to late Second Circle beasts. A brief glance into her storage revealed that she had slain more than 300 of them, yet her level had not gone up even once. Something fishy was going on.
She made a mental note to investigate whatever that was when the fight was finally over.
As for the only tangible progress she’d made during the fight, a Class Skill had levelled up. [Shadow Authority] had gone up one notch. It was now on par with [Shadow Bind], both at [2/10].
She had used the Skill plenty of times. As a matter of fact, her strategy would have been impossible to implement without the frankly miraculous Skill. Yet, despite utilizing it to kill countless beasts above her level, it had only gone up once.
‘Is something impeding the progress in the same manner as my level, or am I missing something?’
Holding on to that thought, Janet decided to review the conditions that had stimulated the rise in proficiency. First, the Golden-Specked Locust attacked. She had been forced to deploy [Shadow Bind] to seal its movements…
Was that the reason? Did her Class Skills only level up when used in accordance with the Mysteries that powered the Class?
Her Class, Binder of Shadow, had been designed using the blueprint of a spell that was meant for sealing and restraining opponents. Janet had to wonder whether the Skills tied to it would only increase in proficiency when used in denying an opponent their ability to move.
The thought opened up countless possibilities. While sealing and restraint appeared to be a limited field at first glance, everything could be sealed. From an opponent’s ability to fly or walk, all the way to their sight, hearing, or sense of smell. Not to mention, all the possibilities that binding mana, or more conservatively an opponent’s access to their core…
Lost to her spiral of thoughts, Janet missed the accelerated descent of a second Gold-Specked locust by a split-second. Before she could conjure up the loops and ropes needed to restrain its movement, it had already crashed into her.
“Ow!” she exclaimed in pain as the momentum behind the three-meter-long insect’s strike knocked her onto to the ground and drove all the air out of her lungs. Her shoulder was dislocated from its socket.
Quickly, she activated [Shadow Bind] and willed her shadow to connect to the locust’s. As she directed her efforts to containing the bigger threat, a dozen green locusts descended upon her position, eager to take advantage of her apparent weakness.
Disregarding her throbbing headache and breaking her rule against wasting mana, Janet opted for a quick resolution. [Empowered Firebolts] took form in both her palms, complete with the unstable runic configuration that would amplify the explosion.
She then directed both bolts to explode just as the dozen were about to begin tearing into her prone form. That meant that she was caught up in the explosion as well. With her already weakened constitution, her decision looked like a hasty last-ditch effort borne out of desperation.
Rather than flying around in a boiling swarm, Janet picked up countless signals of green locusts breaching her sphere of control. Oddly enough, they did not choose to attack her, instead landing on the ground then standing still.
Any other day, Janet would have deemed it normal for locusts to alight onto the grass upon arrival at their feeding site. This was a whole different situation, however, and she was forced to take the new development into account as she used spears condensed from shadow to tear holes through the locusts that had attacked her. They were not a danger anymore, being on death’s door from the explosion, but she needed them off her battlefield.
‘Wait!’ her eyes panned through the clearing where every inch of grass was covered by a locust that was standing still as if dead. ‘Are they trying to block out my shadows?’ She fired off [Appraisal] to get a better picture of the situation.
Mature Woodland Locust – LV 24 (Enthralled)
Mature Woodland Locust – LV 17 (Enthralled)
Mature Woodland Locust – LV 14 (Enthralled)
Mature Woodland Locust – LV 22 (Enthralled)
Mature Woodland Locust – LV 26 (Enthralled)
As she finished hobbling the gold-specked locust by hacking off its legs with her dagger, she wondered at the change of status effect. Before, the locusts all registered as (frenzied).
The mycelium had chosen to deploy them as shock troops, counting on them taking massive casualties as they attacked with abandon…
“Oh, no!” her heartbeat intensified as she realized that the fight had progressed into the next stage. “If these were the disposable pawns…”
Right on cue, a deeper, more sonorous drone produced by gigantic wings drowned out every other sound. Towards the southeast, Janet spotted an approaching cloud of gold and brown that blotted out the sky.
She was near the point of exhaustion. Her shoulder was broken, which meant that her casting of shadow bolt would be slower. When her headache was added on, there was no silver lining anywhere on the horizon.
Not to mention, the carpet of locusts on her battleground would impede her from casting [Shadow Bind] or deploying long-reaching constructs. Not unless she was willing to dump all her mana and bind the shadows of every one of the locusts or commit to killing them in the few seconds before the heavy hitters arrived, which would instantly exhaust her core and lead to defeat anyway.
She'd been outmaneuvered. The nethergill had outsmarted her.
The glint in her eye returned. She felt her blood boil with fury. With a smooth motion, she activated [Throw] with added mana reinforcement to her arm so her dagger pierced clean through the gold-specked locust’s head. Without missing a beat, she collected its corpse and retrieved the dagger, stumbling as the exhaustion from the action hit her all at once.
“How long will you keep pretending to be asleep?” she questioned her friend, as she let the cocoon of shadows that was restraining her dissipate.
“What was in that wrap?” Aurelia asked as she stood up, yawned loudly and stretched out the kinks in her muscles.
“My mana should have helped clear off any remaining spores,” Janet explained.
“How did you do it?” Aurelia asked as she inspected her body, as though in disbelief. “And why is there blood under my fingernails?”
Any watching eyes would have been in utter astonishment of what could only have been extreme stupidity. In the middle of a battle, the two girls were bantering away despite the enemy revealing their trump card. Janet looked like she was a stiff breeze away from collapsing, and Aurelia should have just recovered from a mental attack, yet they were treating their situation with complete heedlessness.
“Ready?” Janet asked, her eyes tracking the incoming crowd of unbeatable flying armors.
“Are you sure it’ll work?”
“I have gobbled up about 300 Second-Circle souls worth of energy,” Janet revealed with a smile. “It’s been a very productive afternoon.”
Aurelia simply smiled, then she cracked her knuckles and straightened her spine. She smoothed away the creases on her dress and adjusted the ties on her hair. When she looked up, her face was lit up in a bloodthirsty grin.
“Okay, then. Count me in.”
She stood still as Janet’s shadow linked to hers. The [Construct Zone] around them dissipated, and all that mana - most of it of shadow affinity, was funneled into her.
Her face grew into an unhealthy gray as the element ate away at her lifeforce, but she didn’t seem to mind. As a matter of fact, she almost seemed... eager?
"I thought you hated [Construct Zone].”
"Oh, I absolutely hate it,” her voice sounded like a wheeze from a terminal patient, but Janet picked up on the underlying bestial growl full of emotion. “But I hate the nethergill more. I’ll make it pay for using me as its mental sock puppet.”
Janet smiled at the fire she saw in her friend’s eyes, then she closed hers so the only way she could perceive the world was through her mana and soul. Getting a metal mage to deploy a [Construct Zone] with a [Talent] they could barely control was an operation that called for a delicate hand. She didn’t want to mess it up again.