Lazerus gazed up at the sapphire blue sky, dotted with white fluffy clouds, each taking its own unique shape. He was laying on his back and was covered head to toe with bandages, assorted spell formations, and various other healing knick nacks. Lazerus had no idea who had done this but felt no rush in figuring that out. He simply enjoyed the lack of danger, pain, or disturbances. After coming close to death with that bunny, Lazerus came to have a new appreciation for how nice these things are, despite how in a rush he was to become strong.
"My my, aren't you enjoying yourself?"
"Mhm."
Lazerus gave a grunt in response, not wanting to open his mouth to speak, lest he feel the pain inside his chest even more. He was aware that the owner of this female voice was the one who healed him, buthe still found it annoying that his tranquility was altered. Lazerus did not even offer her one glance, which was quite humorous to her, apparently, as she laughed quietly and spoke once more.
"Not one of many words are you, Lazerus?"
" . . . how do you know my name?"
Lazerus tilted his head to look at her, a little alarmed at how she knew his name. Upon seeing her, Lazerus was once again startled for a second because she was very, very, very pretty. She had golden hair that hung down to her shoulders, bright blue eyes, and clear milky white skin. She was also tall, around six feet. With such a angelic appearance, it was hard to imagine her as a fighter, but despite this, upon her waist hung a long sword resting inside a jeweled scabbard. That sword was worth more than a house if the jewels were real.
Upon hearing his question, the golden-haired lady gave an apologetic smile and replied in a similar manner to her expression.
"I'm very sorry, but I took a quick peek at your person with Inspection. I needed to see the extent of your injuries. You almost died after all."
Lazerus was confused. Although he knew himself to be heavily wounded . . . he had almost died from his injuries? Lazerus knew he almost died in the fight, but had no idea how much damage he had taken. Upon seeing his confused face, the lady who healed him gave an explanation.
"You have the Pain Resistance skill, so you probably didn't feel most of it, even if it's at a low level. For a child to gain such a skill is a tragedy in itself. I'm sorry you had to go through that fight. . ."
"I'm fine. Your concern is appreciated, but not needed."
Lazerus spoke curtly and politely, but contrary to his words, his mouth was tugged down into a frown.
Am I really so weak to need your pity?
Lazerus balled up his fists unconsciously, and rose to his feet slowly, careful not to fall over. He knew himself to be injured, so he took it slow, however, the lady was having none of it. She scowled and scolded Lazerus like an angry mother, quickly pushing him back down to his previous position. Much to his embarrassment as a man . . . she was completely, without a doubt, two hundred percent stronger than him.
"Oomphf!"
Lazerus let out a not so tiny grunt as his back hit the ground, sending a little pain tingling down his spine. It wasn't because she had been rough, but rather because Lazerus had tried very hard not to be overwhelmed by her, to no avail.
"You don't have to act so stoically. You have multiple injuries to heal, mental and physical. Stay put . . . please?"
Lazerus frowned and turned his head away so that she wouldn't see him pouting as she was talking, leading to the added please at the end of her sentence. Lazerus did not respond, but after a moment, sighed and nodded after coming to realize his childishness. Satisfied, the lady nodded and returned to what she was doing earlier as Lazerus did the same, gazing up at the sky from his supine position.
Lazerus tried to enjoy the feeling of comfort that he had earlier, but that feeling was long gone now. He was too focused on who this person was, and just exactly how much information she knew about him from her 'Inspection'. It sounded like a skill that adventures often had, but Lazerus was not as well versed in skills as he was Spirie and spells. For instance, he knew that the Spirie formations drawn and applied on his body were ones that enhanced his own body's healing factor, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out how skills worked. Most skills did not require Spirie to use, which leads to the obvious question, how did they generate the effects they often have without a power source?
For instance, the skill 'Iron Legs' makes it so that you have iron legs, just as the name implies, yet it costs no Spirie to use. Where did the power to change one's legs to be as hard as iron come from? How was it done without any kind of Spirie? Lazerus was sorely lacking knowledge on skills. It was quite a glaring weakness he had, one he would have to fix if he wanted to avoid being violated by peeping eyes, like this lady. He needed to know more in order to protect himself.
Lazerus was not too mad at her, however, because she had a valid excuse. The magical formations drawn on his body drew Spirie from inside him and then used that to heal his wounds, and this process was something Lazerus could feel himself, thus she was indeed helping him, and most likely not lying about her use of the skill she called 'Inspection'.
Without anything to do, Lazerus reluctantly tilted his head and asked his savior a question.
"When can I get up?"
"When you're fully healed."
"How long will that be?"
"Depends on just how badly you were injured, but If I had to guess . . . a few days?"
" . . ."
The lady laughed a small bit, amused by Lazerus's obviously displeased expression. She then offered a question to him while he was silently frowning.
"Why are you in such a rush?"
" . . . I don't have time to dilly dally around. I have things I want to do."
"Hmm . . ? Things you say?"
"None of your business."
"As you wish, I will stay out of your 'business."
" . . ."
Lazerus turned away from her as she sighed unhappily. She felt that children of his age should be a bit more . . . happy, for a lack of words. She felt that something was wrong deep inside of his mind, some traumatic event had probably forced him to grow up faster than he should have. She felt this way because she was the same as a youngin. She had been gloomy and moody at one point in her life too, but those days were far behind her. Revenge was no longer her goal in life, but every time she looked at the gloomy Lazerus, the more of herself she saw in him.
Eventually, his Spirie ran out once more from the magic healing formations, and he passed out into a deep slumber. Once his Spirie was regenerated, the spells drawn on him would once again begin healing his body. The reason she did not use her own Spirie is that it might cause an immune reaction from him, as direct Spirie sharing between individuals required a great deal of trust between individuals in order to work properly, something that he obviously lacked.
He was like a wounded dog, backed into a corner. Anytime she stuck out her hand in friendship, he would nip at it untrustingly.
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Lazerus found himself awake once more, except this time he was not met with a bright blue sky, but rather the red gleam of a rising sun. It was just as pretty as the bright blue sky, maybe even more so. Lazerus pulled himself up into a sitting position, feeling a great deal better than last time, and then rose to his full height in a standing position.
Lazerus proceeded to take a great deep breath in, focusing on the Spirie within himself, which had almost doubled or maybe even tripled since his fight with the Ravenous Rabbit.
I am really that weak . . . I cannot believe such a long-ranking monster had that much more Spirie than me.
Lazerus, painfully aware of his own weakness, grimaced with quite the sour look. Even though he had overcome a great obstacle for himself, he was still frustrated deeply with his own inadequacy. Growing that much from one monster battle only reasured Lazerus of his own weakness.
A baby's first steps are hard for them at the time, but when compared to an adult who can walk as easily as breathing, those first steps do not seem that hard. The same concept applies to Lazerus, who was taking his first steps on the journey to a higher level of strength. This is why Lazerus, without thinking of that lady completely, walking back out into the forest looking for a challenger without a weapon.
Lazerus tested his limits by beginning in a slow jog, before slowly speeding up into a sprint. His legs felt stronger than before as they beat the ground with considerable force, completely different from his weak wobbly legs from before. The air felt fresh as it flew against Lazerus like it was trying in vain to slow him down, however, it didn't last. It seemed Lazerus lacked stamina at the moment, as after a minute of a full sprint, he came to a stop with deep breathes, gulping down air.
Lazerus, once he had gotten his breath back, suddenly felt the presence of a monster. For some reason, Lazerus could feel very distinctly the Spirie of a nearby creature, and sure enough, a small fox-like creature with red fangs and a white pelt pounced on him. Lazerus, who had felt it coming a few seconds before this sudden fast attack, reacted on instinct and jumped backward, dodging the fox as it landed where he had just been.
The fox turned to him and gave a cry of anger. Lazerus felt the hairs on the back of his head tingle as he felt the presence of another monster, a second fox. This time, instead of running away, Lazerus twisted his hips as he primed himself to deal a devastating kick, but did not turn himself fully around, thus acting like he didn't sense it. The fox in front of him began to yelp loudly, almost as if it was trying to gain his attention. Lazerus came to an understanding at that moment. They were laying a trap together.
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Clever, but not clever enough.
As the second fox behind him pounced at his neck, Lazerus fully rotated his hips and felt his leg accelerate with deadly force, slamming into the fox and instantly killing it in one blow. A half-second later, the first fox pounced on him, unaware of its friend's death. It failed to realize just how powerful Lazerus's legs had become. Lazerus, unable to pull his leg up in time, swung his fist at the fox clumsily, knocking it back to the ground where it sat, dazed. Lazerus finished it humanely by breaking its neck.
Upon further inspection, Lazerus guessed that these foxes were a part of the monster genome called Elemental Foxes, which can range from 10 tailed city-destroying monsters to these one-tailed minor nuisances. If Lazerus remembered correctly, they were just barely stronger and way more aggressive than a normal fox. When compared to the Ravenous Rabbit, they were much easier to defeat.
Lazerus heard a familiar voice praise him from behind him.
"Look at you, moving like that after only a days worth of rest."
" . . ."
Lazerus turned around and looked at the golden-haired lady who had seemingly followed him into the woods. Her striking blue eyes looked at him with a curious expression, like she was pondering how he had healed so quickly.
"Why did you follow me?"
"These woods can be dangerous. Ravenous Rabbits and Demon Foxes are the least of your worries."
"I don't need your help,"
Lazerus lashed out in anger, his voice filled with frustration and anger. Despite his harsh words, the golden-haired lady only smiled sadly, like she wanted to help but couldn't. This only made Lazerus angrier, but he barely contained himself, coming to realize that his anger was unjustified and rude.
"Goodbye."
Lazerus turned around after pocketing the two monster cores and left. He knew how foolish it was to go on his own, but his pride prevented any other course of action.
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Ann watched Lazerus's back fade into the wood with a sad expression, and then she sighed.
Such a troublesome child . . . was I this bad back then?
Ann knew she was being rather weird by following him and watching over him, but she couldn't help herself. She knew what he was going through, as she recognized every expression he wore because, at one point, she had the same ones. After Lazerus had gone a certain distance, Ann began to follow him again. If she left him alone, he very well could be killed by a Turtle Bear or some other yellow threat, the second-lowest threat level.
Monsters could be sorted into five categories. From weakest to strongest, they go red, yellow, green, blue, purple. Each color level had an easy, medium, and hard sub-category. For instance, demon foxes were easy reds, while Ravenous rabbits are red mediums. Turtle bears were native to these forests and were on average easy yellow, however, one singular bear could be a huge threat for a small village, thus, Lazerus stood little to no chance. These Turtle Bears were the main reason why she followed him, as Ravenous Rabbits or Demon Foxes would stand little to no chance.
That last part confused Ann greatly. To have such a huge boost in power from one monster core was unheard of, and on top of that, he had recovered extremely quickly for his Spirie level. He was weak when he battled that Ravenous Rabbit, but nearly enough to justify such a huge leap in strength. Ann had two possible reasons for this. One, he went up against a usually powerful Ravenous Rabbit, or his Tenacity and Tenacious Spirie skills had something to do with it. Both of these were skills that she had no idea existed, and the simplicity of their titles was misleading.
What the hell kind of skill name is 'Tenacity'?
It was rare that Ann ran into a skill she hadn't heard of, as she had been a top-tier adventurer for many years. She had heard of other skills that related to mental states, like 'Rage', a skill that gave extreme power at the cost of no control, or the opposite 'Calm' which kept the user calm at all times. It's possible that her Inspection skill wasn't high enough level to see the true effects of 'Tenacity'.
All in all, she had no idea, so she simply observed him do combat with many different creatures. In every fight, he seemed to be favoring his legs more than his arms, rare for a male fighter. It was probably a side effect of the Ravenous Rabbit Blood skill he had, another unknown skill for Ann. She had never heard of gaining skills from eating monster cores directly, even when unprocessed. It was another mystery she had to solve.
For the entire day, she watched over him, until what she feared finally happened. After hours of combat, he finally ran into a Turtle Bear bathing near a river.
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Lazerus was angry, more so than usual. Every time he landed a blow against a monster, he felt those feelings of anger grow. No matter what creatures he defeated, 1 tailed demon fox, Ravenous Rabbit, a pack of Corrupted Mice, it didn't feel like it enough. For some reason, Lazerus lusted after the feeling he had while facing that Ravenous Rabbit. That feeling of being just on the edge of defeat, but still triumphing over your opponent. That feeling of overcoming something so much stronger than yourself, the feeling of progress, that's what Lazerus yearned for.
Lazerus became alert in an instant. Just as he walked out of the tree line and into a winding river, which swung wide and low as it cut through the land, creating a small sandy area around its banks. Occupying these banks was a huge three-meter-tall bear-turtle hybrid, with a bear's head and body, but a turtle shell fixed on its back. It turned its head towards Lazerus as he broke into this open space, and bore its teeth at him. Lazerus felt a tiny smile surface on his face and wasted no time starting the fight.
Lazerus sprinted forwards towards the lumbering beast as it stood on its hein legs, roaring at Lazerus in an attempt to intimidate him, and it worked. Lazerus felt his hands shake in fear but did not slow down. The thought of backing down and failing to get his revenge scared him more than this bear, and thus, he started the fight by ducking under the bear's swipe, and slammed a kick directly into its stomach, dealing little to no damage. Lazerus used the recoil from his kick to spring off the bear, landing far out of its reach.
It has a strong defense, if its body is that hard then attacking that shell is suicide.
It began to charge at Lazerus, slowly building up speed until it came at him like a freight train, however, this was also its weakness. As it charged at Lazerus, it was building up a lot of inertia, and as such, it would be hard to stop or change directions. Lazerus knew what he had to do, but that didn't stop fear from leaking into him, slowly trickling into him as the seconds ticked by.
Almost . . .
The beast closed in just a few feet from him. Lazerus opened his eyes wide as his hands began to shake even more. Lazerus felt like he was seeing the world in slow motion as his mind worked in overdrive. After what seemed like a minute, but was probably a few seconds, the beast finally reached Lazerus.
NOW!
Lazerus leaped to his right side, barely dodging its charge at the last moment. As soon as he hit the ground once more, Lazerus sprung up to his feet and flew unto the back of the bear, which had yet to turn around from its charge. Lazerus raised his hand in the air and gathered his Spirie. While he did this, the bear looked up at him and began to throw its own body around in hopes to get Lazerus off its back, however, in just a moment, Lazerus had prepared his trump card.
Solar Flare!
This time, with his increased Spirie, 5 circles formed above him, magnifying the sunlight into a deadly beam of superheated air. Bright purple light exploded from the sky as the air expanded into a plasma, singing Lazerus's retinas. Before it hit the bear, Lazerus had already jumped off the beast's back and had gotten far away, but he still felt the heat on his skin like he was in an oven.
After three or four seconds, the light dissipated, leaving a steaming, angry Turtle Bear. It was huddled to the ground with its shell facing upwards, which had been turned black from the heat. All around the bear, the air wiggled as the heat distorted it. The beast rose to its full height and gave the loudest roar yet, hurting Lazerus's ears. All the fur on its face had been burnt off, and one of its eyes was closed, but besides that, Lazerus's trump card had done very underwhelming damage to the beast.
Shit! I used at least half of my Spirie for that!
Unable to think of another plan in time, he focused on dodging the beast's swipes and bites, which had increased in speed from the beast's anger.
Duck, step left, jump, duck, step right.
Lazerus danced around its paws for minutes on end, sweating bullets as he failed to come up with something to do. As his mind went into double overdrive, desperately trying to craft a plan, one of the bear's swipes finally hit him, but just barely touch the other section of his leg.
Despite how the bear had just grazed him, the force from the impact still ripped a chunk of Lazerus's leg off and sent him flying dozens of feet away. Blood cascaded out of his leg like a river, quickly reaching the bear's nostrils. Like a shark who had smelled blood, its pupils got wide and it roared out even louder and began to approach Lazerus at a frightening pace. Within two seconds, it would be on top of Lazerus.
Fuck! God damn it! My leg!
Lazerus hobbled to his feet and cursed inside his mind, but did not give up. His right leg was numb from blood loss, and one of his shoulders was dislocated from the landing, but he still managed to dodge the beast's frenzied charge without an inch to spare. The beast crashed into a tree, completely bulldozing it into the ground, flinging dirt everywhere as the roots of the tree became dislodged from the earth.
Lazerus fell to one knee, unable to return to his feet. His right leg hung limp, as he was now missing a great deal of blood. He could barely keep his eyes open as the world seemed to drift away from him, and doing anything felt extremely taxing. However, even in this state of semi-consciousness, Lazerus persisted.
Just one more time . . . once more, solar . . . FLARE!
As the beast charged at Lazerus, he made one last attempt to fight back. As the beast closed in, Lazerus pointed his hand to the air and musted the loudest voice he could.
"Go to hell you fucking bear!"
The sky began to brighten with the formation of 5 circles, each taking sunlight and magnifying it, turning a nice sunny day into the surface of the sun. A beam of purple, superheated plasma raced downwards, striking the bear one more on its back. Since Lazerus had no time to run, he was too close. As the bear suffered the direct blast, Lazerus was caught up in the heat which radiated outwards from the epicenter of the blast. Luckily, he didn't feel most of it since halfway through, he passed out completely from blood loss.
As Lazerus's body collapsed to the ground, the beast rose up and approached him, anger burning in its eyes. The back of its body steamed, and at the very center, raw flesh could be seen. The heat from the blast had finally burned a hole through the Turtle bear, however it did not penetrate very far into the beast itself, and thus did not do fatal damage.
The beast salivated at the mouth and approached its meal, eager to feast on the annoyance which had caused it so much pain. It slowly picked up Lazerus's body and brought his head to its mouth, but before it could take a bite, it suddenly flinched. The space around a certain female began to crackle and pop as an incredibly dense Spirie manifested itself into the physical world. Golden lightning began to form around the human female like an angel's halo.
Then, In an instant, she drew her blade and took one step forwards. The air boomed as golden lightning broke the sound barrier three hundred times over, closing the distance between it and the bear instantaneously. Just like lightning, there was no time to react.
In one singular strike, Ann's blade passed directly into the center of the Turtle Bears chest, piercing its monster core. As the blade exited through the burned hole in its back, the monster core went with it. The bear's limp paws fell upon a very unhappy Ann.
"Do not touch me."
The air around her blade began to crackle and pop with her Spirie, which began to manifest itself once more. Ann spoke to the bear one last time as she voiced her attack.
"Heavenly Thunder, Third Form, Divine Judgement."
The world was dyed white as her blade shined bright which surpassed any sun, torch, or fire which had ever burned. For dozens of miles, people all collectively looked in awe at the golden light which rose high into the air, pierced the heavens, and left the earth. Those within a mile were blinded for a few hours, and those unfortunate enough to be within less than that went blind for a few weeks.
At the spot where the beast used to be, was nothing. Everything around them remained untouched, besides that Turtle Bear who had been judged. Lazerus slept peacefully, all his wounds fully healed. Divine Judgment is a technique that only harms those deemed enemies, and fully heals those deemed allies.
Such is the power of The Devine Sword, and her wielder, Ann 'Yellow Lightning' Belle.
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As the golden light rose deep into the sky, an old man smirked to himself. He twirled, flipped, and manipulated the knife masterfully in his hands mindlessly, not a care of its razor-sharp edge. After only a moment, this grizzled man rose to his full height and gazed at the light as it dispersed, and then spoke to his assistant next to him.
"Rally the men, we head out at dawn. Ann Belle is the only one who could release such tremendous divine power."
The assistant bowed and left swiftly, knowing full well the weight of such a thing. The old man turned back to where the light had originated and felt her heart swell with determination. His eyes opened wide, as, after all these years of a stale trail, he had finally picked up on her scent.
Finally, we can end this year's old chase. I'll avenge you, father. Watch me! I'LL KILL HER!