‘It will be different this time,’ Janet promised herself. At the same time, she was looking forward to seeing what horrors she and Aurelia would unleash upon the incoming tide of insects.
“I can’t stand the itching,” Aurelia complained.
She always lodged the same complaint every time they practiced this particular joint magic. Yeah, her cells were getting inundated with shadow mana and that was causing them to turn over at an unnatural rate, but in moments, they would all be regenerated.
Even better, the soul matter she was about to inject into her would make them stronger, like a metal’s quench tempering cycle.
“I’m going to inject the soul matter now. You ready?” She made sure that her voice remained calm and measured. In this step, it was crucial that Aurelia remained calm.
The redhead whose skin had grown deathly pallid nodded, and she obliged.
Janet activated her soul [Talent]. In more accurate terms, she let her awareness nest entirely in her soul rather than her corporeal body, through [Meditation]. This way, she had active control over every shred of soul matter that she’d collected.
In that meditative state, all her senses were completely engulfed by her soul and her world became the Realm of Souls instead of the Physical world. She could still vaguely feel her body in the same way she could perceive her soul in her awake state, but she was limited in what he could do.
First, she did not possess control over mana while in this state, so any attacks that managed to land on her would meet an undefended Janet. Secondly, the cry of her ever-present hunger was deafening. She had to restrain herself from going into a feeding frenzy lest she devour her only friend. That stole a lot of her concentration.
On the other hand, since her perception of the world was no longer constrained by organs like unempowered eyes and ears, her range improved by a startling degree. Since her mushy, exhausted brain was not in charge of processing information here, she could take in practically unlimited amounts of data – without ever getting tired, at that.
Even now, she remained cognizant of every single locust on the clearing and their positioning. She could also discern that while they were technically alive, the nethergill had suppressed their functions to a state of hibernation.
Only one explanation came to mind. To remotely control so many insects took energy, and the nethergill’s reserves were not inexhaustible.
On the horizon – which didn’t mean much in a realm with no ground or sky – Janet spotted the herd of buffalo she’d passed as she escaped the locusts’ pursuit. Their souls were multiple times larger than the locusts. They were the color of unblemished snow, as was common in beings with little affinity to magic, but some of the individuals spotted brown bands that signified earth-element affinities.
She took particular note of the calf. If she was interpreting the situation correctly, it possessed all four primal elements, but they were slowly getting incorporated into the wider soul, rather than coalesce into bands of [Talent].
She reminded herself to raise the phenomenon with Darius the next time they explored soul magic. It was not the first time she’d seen it, and her curiosity was piqued. Why would the beasts allow themselves to lose control over the elements? Didn’t that make them weaker overall?
Beyond the herd was a cloud of tiny lights reminiscent of the firefly mating season. Most were gold-colored, an element Janet had never encountered before. Without fail, all of them had dark, root-like intrusions that crudely dug into the ball of energy.
Clearly, the nethergill had done something different with these locusts.
Having mapped the horizon and accounted for all threats, Janet turned to her immediate side. Aurelia’s soul, complete with four understated elemental bands and the intriguing runed chains that intermittently glittered with light, took up most of her vantage.
Since they encountered each other, the soul had grown bigger thanks to the ridiculously rich food they ate on a daily basis. The bands were beginning to glow brighter as Aura came to comprehend her magic better, but that was not the biggest change. Not by a mile.
That honor went to chains. The very same that had drawn Janet to the seemingly pampered city girl.
They had grown so much more resolved and distinct. In a single glance, Janet could now discern some of the runes that populated them, and oddly enough, she had no clue as to what any of the configurations meant.
It had been a big surprise when Darius, after extracting an incident report about the tunnel incident out of them had declared with certainty, “So that’s where your [Talent] was hiding.”
Yes, the chains, with their runes and their mesmerizing flows of power, were Aurelia’s [Talent]. Not even her Status readout had managed to pick that up.
Without further ado, Janet got to work. Aurelia’s [Talent] were their trump card in the unwinnable battle, and her role was to awaken them.
Gingerly, as though afraid to ruin the masterpiece of magic and runecraft dominating her sight, Janet extended a tentacle from her almost-completed band of shadow. Her first Circle was almost closed, and the [Talent] had grown right along with it.
The tentacle of shadow, reminiscent to her shadow constructs but populated with a lot more Mystery, landed on one of the chains. A stream of refined soul matter quickly flowed through it, and Janet thought she was about to go blind as rune after rune came alight, quickly cascading into a blinding light.
The connection was established. The chains were awakening. Janet was needed in the world of the waking.
She broke her [Meditation] and quickly got to constructing the Skill template for [Construct Zone]. While Aurelia now possessed some rudimentary control over her metal-based magic after almost constant practice, it would not be enough for the next step.
There was still so much that remained unknown. What the chains were made of, what spell was inscribed upon them, whether they were an inborn trait or one that had been added onto Aura’s soul after her birth…
Most crucially, why the System failed utterly even now, to identify what they could be.
Magic was all about comprehension and since Aurelia lacked that, Janet would step in and help.
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The Skill template was finished. It was complicated and definitely something a person of her Circle should have possessed zero capability of casting.
With every learned Skill a template was implanted into the practitioner’s mind. Janet had spent three nights transcribing all the template’s runes onto paper. Since she technically understood the Skill’s magic on an innate level, it was trivial to manually replicate the effect with the template in hand.
“Almost done,” she communicated to Aurelia.
The grey pall on her skin was fast receding, which implied that the shadow mana she’d forced into her pathways was getting eroded. To avoid a repeat of the last time they’d deployed this magic on the field, Janet clamped down on Aurelia’s core, filling it up with shadow mana and only allowing the production of metal mana.
By all means, she would stop the generation of water and fire mana. It would lead to the formation of another crater, and she didn’t want another scolding from Sylthis.
“Are we going to wait for the gold-specked ones?” she asked with vengeance in her voice. The receding pall meant that her mana was beginning to build up. She clearly was itching for some action.
“We could slaughter all the ones already here,” she gestured at the dormant locusts standing still on the grass.
“I sense a but coming.”
“I’ll have to simultaneously collect their souls while maintaining enough concentration to keep feeding you with the juice.”
Aurelia understood instantly. “I’ll keep your body safe, princess, don’t worry.” There was a mischievous glint in Aurelia’s eye that she didn’t like one bit.
“What are you planning?”
“Nothing…” Aurelia uttered then turned to face the locusts, but Janet still caught a glimpse of her smirk. She was definitely up to something.
“Remember that my body is still very worn out,” she pointed out in seriousness. “I might not be able to bail you out if something goes wrong.”
Having said her piece, she handed Aurelia the completed template. [Shadow Authority] made certain that it would not unravel until she said so.
Then, she walked into the shade where Aurelia had snoozed through the beginning of the fight and sat down.
“Just point and shoot?” Aurelia brandished the construct of shadow like a wand, the output end directed towards the locusts.
“I’ll keep supplying the good stuff, so you’ll not be running out of mana any time soon. Feel free to go nuts.”
As soon as those words left her mouth, Aurelia’s core revved into action, driving the produced mana into her shadow. Through the still active [Shadow Bind], that mana was quickly rerouted to the template on her hand.
Then, the real magic began. Her Skill was [Construct Zone - Shadow]. Janet had eliminated the shadow part, leaving it ready to act on any and all types of mana. Including unknown ones.
First, just as happened when Janet activated her Skill, the ambient mana went nuts. As Aurelia’s mana coalesced into ten then a hundred tendrils, the mana in the air dug into them, inflating them from the size of a little finger to the size of tree trunks.
Aurelia chortled in maniacal glee. With deft manipulation, she broke up the thick trunks into shining spheres the size of a balled fist. Once she had enough balls, the true play began.
She propelled all of them into the air. A moment later, the balls all stretched out into sharpened stakes. And as anything metallic was bound to do when allowed to interact freely with gravity, they all whistled as they homed in on their targets.
Aurelia had taken to calling the attack “Hail of Stakes”. The System did not recognize her magic, so they had to come up with the names themselves.
The hail landed on the locusts, which began to stir and extend their wings, but it was too late for them.
The horror of Aurelia’s metal was not that it was so receptive to mental commands. Her shadow was the same way, and she would not call its effect horrific. No, the true power was revealed when the stakes came in contact with water.
Blood was mostly water. The stakes did not pierce too deeply into the insects, but it was enough to come into contact with the liquid. At that point, Aurelia gave up control over her constructs so they could act according to their nature.
Shadow ate away at life. Demonic flame ate away at magic, and air always dispersed into the atmosphere. Aurelia’s metal really hated water.
The explosions began almost instantly. Trees shook violently and any brave birds that had remained in their nests fled for their lives. Locust flesh and blood flew everywhere, and during that flight they encountered more of the stakes, which brought about even more explosions.
Tiny holes became gaping wounds, then in seconds all the locusts were reduced to smithereens. There was no need for Janet to collect the bodies since all that was left was paste.
“I forgot how loud that was!” her ears were ringing.
“What?” Aurelia turned, a beatific smile on her face. She was squinting, which meant she’d looked directly into the explosions.
“I said, I forgot how loud…” The shouting match was leading nowhere. “You know what? Forget it.”
“What!?”
“I said forget it!”
Aurelia shook her head as her free hand pointed at her ears. Janet got the point and even as she rushed to vacuum up the wealth of souls produced by the locusts, she directed some of the energy pouring into Aurelia towards healing both their ears and eyes.
“That went well,” Aurelia said as she surveyed the field of carnage.
“Yeah…” Janet chuckled. “Let’s keep this as a last resort.”
Oddly, Aurelia agreed.
“What about the incoming swarm? Can you increase the speed of your projectiles? They’re better defended and way faster,” she reminded the grinning redhead.
A quickfire strategy session began. They discussed ways to keep the swarm in check, which would be difficult since Aurelia could not cast a pseudo-domain like Janet could.
Eventually though, they settled on their craziest gambit yet.
Just as the deliberations came to an end, the first gold-specked locust flew in. Its speed was almost double what the earlier varieties had managed. [Identify] returned a curious result:
Gold-Specked Locust - LV 31 (Mindless, Enthralled)
It likely meant that the nethergill had completely hijacked the locust’s brain.
While the creature had changed, the fight was still the same. It was she and Aurelia against the mind-stealing mushroom, and a loss was unacceptable.
Janet cast a tiny ball of fire and directed it to intercept the locust. Just as it was about to swerve out of the way, one of Aurelia’s stakes flew into the firebolt, setting off a deafening, blinding explosion.
A hole was opened up on the side of the locust’s head. Through it, Janet caught a glimpse of a cloud of dark fibers. Before she could peer any deeper, another silver-grey stake flew into the gap and the locust’s head was separated from the rest of its body. Most of the black substance burned up in the explosion’s heat.
When the body landed, it made a sound like a hollowed-out bark impacting the ground.
“What was that?” Aurelia asked. She attempted to go forward and check, but Janet rooted her to the ground with [Shadow Bind].
“Something’s different. We need to tread carefully.” She cautioned as she swallowed the soul left after the locust’s death. It was still covered with those black, root-like structures even after the locust’s death.
“The locust was hollowed out.”
“By a nethergill, Aura. What if they now carry some of those spores inside their bodies? What then?”
Her friend heeded her advice and remained by her side, but her gaze kept darting towards the brown shell that had once been a locust. “Do you think the nethergill is smart enough to alter the locusts’ [Appraisal]?”
It was impossible. The nethergill was at best a beast and at worst a sentient fungus. It should not have had access to the System. One possibility came to mind, and Janet hoped her caretakers had taken note as well.
First, golden locusts only emerged once every 1,000 individuals. The incoming horde boasted around 100. Second, the [Appraisal], combined with the odd behavior of the green locusts that had simply waited for slaughter, as well as the seemingly well-thought-out strategy to tire her out while the heavy hitters awaited their chance…
It all spoke to an intelligence working behind the scenes. A person-like intelligence.
Amidst her rumination, the swarm arrived. Janet released hundreds of tiny bolts, supplying all of them with just enough mana to remain alight. Aurelia had the harder job, tracking and targeting. Lucky for her, her core was spewing out enough mana to bury the entire clearing and more in her metal, without any chance of her tiring out.
This time, they both closed their eyes as booms rang out that slayed more than 10 of the beasts in one go. The other locusts began circling warily above the canopies.
Ding!
Your party has slain…
You have reached LV 18
You have gained the Title: [Locust Slayer]
As she hoovered up the souls, Janet wondered. What were the black, root-like tendrils doing inside the balls of energy? Weren’t souls meant to be inviolable and impervious to all magic?