The moment I exited the office Pierce called out to me. "So, that old goblin give you any good ideas?"

I lowered my head, I hadn't precisely forgotten to ask about things, it was more like, I didn't want to take up any more of the already irritated man's time. I definitely hadn't kept quiet because I didn't want to hear more disappointment from the man. Besides I felt like the way my class worked, having preconceived notions of what mana could do would be limiting myself.

"Ah, no, sorry. We talked about something else."

"Have a seat Angel, we'll talk strategy, since it doesn't seem like we're going to be forced to move right away. Here, I found a description of our target." Ivo stood up to reach across the table and set a rather large book in front of my normal chair.

I sat down, and glanced at the page it was open to. There were several sketches, and a couple pages of text describing the monsters and their habits. I thanked Ivo, and settled in to read.

The very first line made me struggle to continue reading. "Despite the fact that devourer worm meat is considered a delicacy among the more magically inclined due to its high mana density, hunting of the creatures is restricted unless they leave their home range."

It was enough to make me wonder if Belua had sent these creatures. Just reading about their mana dense meat made me want to fly out the door without reading any further. I had to call on survivor to help me keep my ass in my seat. Knowing what they were capable of would make killing them a lot safer.

Once I got my hunger under control and read on, I found out that they were very interesting creatures. Adult specimens ranged from between 10 to 50 feet long, depending on their level. They were thin, the biggest ones only reaching a foot in width. The monsters were described as physically weak, but hard to kill cleanly. It was advised that they could not be considered dead until you removed their mana crystals, and even then, it was considered best practices to make certain that you carried every part of them back with you for the butchers. Pieces left behind would regenerate into new worms that would draw in the dominant mana and quickly become new monster worms. There had never been a recorded instance of a devourer worm forming a true core to become a spirit beast.

Reading on, I found that there were two reasons hunting them was restricted. The first was the fact that they rarely attacked sapient races, their preferred prey was other monsters. The other reason was the distinct likelihood of an adventurer accidentally leaving behind enough pieces to cause the worms to multiply.

Skipping ahead to their abilities, it seemed that they had a strong control of their element within a foot or so of their bodies. They would use that element to create something resembling an armored carapace that served as both defense, and offense. The most successful variants depended on location, though the earth affinity worms seemed to be the one that thrived in the largest variety of places, as they could move through their element with ease.

The sketch I saw of the earthen variant had jagged stone segments surrounding its body. A note below said that it was most common for the worms to attempt to grab their prey and spin the segments around their bodies in alternating directions. The damn monsters were mobile blenders. They preferred to move below ground, but they could use their element to lift themselves into the air for short periods. So I'd have to be prepared for that.

The guide recommended blunt force as a means of combating the creatures; they were susceptible to being stunned for long periods, and if you could remove the substance they had under their control, it would take them quite a while to form a new carapace. My guess was that they had to saturate the material with their mana to control it well enough to use.

They could also be burned, but a note said that such methods would ruin the meat.

The information definitely limited the types of mana I would consider using against them. No slicing air, earth seemed dicey. Death wasn't something I liked using anyway, but it was definitely an element to avoid if I wanted the mana in the meat to be preserved. I licked my lips thinking about mana infused meat.

Even if Ivo and Pierce seeing me devour the devourers would empower my hunger, those worms had exactly zero chance of being transported back to town.

My thoughts were absolutely obvious to the two men. Pierce spoke up, I don't think he realized how lucky he was that I was too kind to react to his words like my instincts wanted.

"Come on Angel, you can't have it all, that meat's worth good money."

My lips were in the middle of being pulled back from my teeth when Ivo saved me from having to deal with Concepts and instincts warring in my head for too long.

"That's true, but we don't have an official adventurers guild contract for them, so we would have a lot of explaining to do. It would be quite the job to restrain the creatures long enough to get the appropriate paperwork to make a sale. As much as the meat is worth, I'd still say we should simply let Angel dispose of them. You know how the man is with food."

I could practically feel a small amount of power entering the Concept when Pierce laughed and nodded.

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I felt a small amount of anxiety at the prospect of being stuck with the Concept for the rest of my existence. The only reason the constant sensation of emptiness was not driving me crazy was the fact that I kept telling myself that it was not forever. I had the memories of years of constant discomfort already, I did not want that to be a trend.

"Please keep that between us? I don't want people to know I get like that. It's embarrassing."

I practically heaved a sigh of relief when Ivo said he would keep it between us, and Pierce nodded.

After I finished reading up on our prey, we discussed our strategy, such as it was. We would move into the path of the monsters. I was to come up with a way to force the worms to surface, then Ivo would draw their attention, and Pierce would hit them really hard with his ability. If I could come up with a way to restrain the worms so Ivo didn't have to be near Pierce's shockwaves it would be best.

I smiled as I came up with a plan using abilities I had already uncovered in the arena. I asked them if it was okay to use the life mana bonding ability for this fight, and they agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly in Pierce's case.

The moment we agreed I felt a strange awareness of where our targets were. Unlike the previous pulling sensation, it was much more informational. I could tell that there were only two creatures, and they were both above my level, but not by a huge margin.

Pierce and Ivo reacted instantly, the two men practically left out of their seats. "Well that's a hell of a thing, right to it then. I'm glad we brought our gear."

I was more than a little annoyed when I noticed how tense and strained they had suddenly become, as they hurried to put on their helmets and rushed to grab their gear. It seemed that the goddess's oath did nothing to prevent her from commanding my friends. I almost wondered if she had used it in such an obvious way to warn me of that fact.

I was outright angry with Belua when I saw how Ivo's hand shook as he threw open the door and started jogging towards the gates. I threw my bag of bags onto the table by the door. I had faith in my fellow guildmates that they would be there when we returned.

I could tell that the men were barely keeping enough control of themselves to stop at a jog. If this kept up, the men would be exhausted by the time we reached the town gates, never mind the monsters.

I sprinted ahead of them and shifted to my ram form. I didn't mind being seen carrying my friends on my back. It was the kind thing to do after all. The men jumped on top of me, their haste making them land uncomfortably hard. If I was a less resilient creature, they would have done some damage. As it was, I simply snorted and stomped in annoyance before I carried the men onward.

I felt the pair grip me tightly every time we had to slow down in our journey. It hadn't been nearly this bad last time. In what would probably be a bad move with most deities, I cursed Belua out in a short "prayer" through my mark. I got a slight feeling of apology, but that was it. The men didn't seem to relax one bit.

I ground my teeth as I pushed myself to move faster for their sakes. Switched to my air core shortly after leaving town, with a focus on the speed and stamina restoring Concepts that I knew. We reached the place we would have to leave the road in short order. Thankfully we only passed one other traveler on the road. I'm quite certain that the tale being leapt over by a giant galloping ram that was carrying two armored people would be an interesting story for the man to tell.

I had to switch my core away from air and slow to a more reasonable speed when we started moving through the forest. Eventually it was more efficient for the men to dismount and have me shift to a smaller form. I had tried to regulate my size when I shifted, but having done so quickly, I had ended up a lot larger than was convenient for traipsing about among the trees.

I focused on shifting to something between my mana beast and snowy prowler form. I leaned on my instincts to help me come up with something that wouldn't be hindered in the area.

I ended up quite a lot smaller than I expected. My head was at chest level for my friends. My body was lean and agile, it actually seemed like my instincts had pulled some aspects of my squirrel form's anatomy into the mix.

My claws and muzzle were all cat though, and I could feel the venom leaking into my mouth as we drew closer to our targets. I waited for us to come within a mile of the worms before I switched my core to life. It may have been selfish, but I did not want to have to feel the effect of the command through the connection I intended to form with the men for any longer than I had to.

After I switched my core, I moved us into the path of the monsters and began to work my magic. I released great gouts of mana into my aura, trying to repeat the experience I had in the arena creating the vine elementals. This time I would make sure that I wasn't anywhere near them when I switched away from life.

I sent my aura more down than out. Creating something of a twenty foot wide cylinder of super dense life mana that I urged to create restraining, crushing magical vines.

When the monsters were nearly upon us, I called on the mana to see if it could manipulate the roots of the trees to act as a barrier for the worm's travel.

That ended up being a very bad decision for the health of the poor trees. I felt it as the roots were shredded. Even with my mana aiding them, they were just normal wood, they could not stand up to the creatures.

As it turned out, attempting to force them to surface was entirely unnecessary. Whether it was because they could tell the attempt to stop them came from me, or because they registered me as prey I do not know. All I knew was that if I hadn't had a running feed of their location below me, I would have been torn apart in an instant.

As it was I narrowly missed being turned into ground meat when they burst out of the ground. A flurry of spinning jagged rocks sailed past me as I threw myself out of the way.

Level 145 Earthen Devourer

Level 132 Earthen Devourer

I had to dodge the second one mere moments after evading the first. I wasn't certain, but I didn't think they even realized my companions existed. The vines I had created whipped up to try to grab the invaders. I could only hope that they would fare better than the roots of the trees, because these worms were much, much faster than I anticipated, considering my experience with earth elemental mana.

I was more than a little worried when I heard Ivo shout. "I'm sorry Angel, I'm trying, but I can't make them target me!"

I could feel a sense of helplessness and frustration coming through my link with him. I couldn't blame the man, his whole class relied on his ability to draw the ire of his opponents.

As the huge whirling line of jagged rocks that was one of my enemies flew at me again, it occurred to me that I might have made exactly the wrong preparations for this encounter. I was stuck using my life core until my vines were dead, or Ivo and Pierce got clear of them, and I couldn't focus long enough to send the message to move.