The air was still. The darkness cast onto me by the gigantic cliff just behind the wolves and I blanketed much of the light in the rocky and walled glade I had been cornered in. I felt the grasping fear of the realization that I might die here, alone and in the company of monstrous creatures that would happily eat my remains. I began to wonder whether I've lived a life that's worth living, working in a flower shop left to me by Sis, and being below average and ignorable everywhere else.
The eyes of whatever monster it was that had gazed at me suddenly disappeared, its bright neon-like green suddenly fading into the darkness.
I peered into the forest, darting my eyes from bush to tree, waiting for any sign of whatever those were that I met my eyes with. Yet, my eyes could see nothing but the ominous foliage that separated me from the rest of the Academy, a forest that separated me from safety.
I can't see anything at all. The cliff is overshadowing too much of the forest, and I can barely see light past the leaves.
As I kept a high alert, I looked behind me to quickly look for an escape path. There was only the insurmountable cliff in front of me, extending high up into the sky and maybe even further than the clouds. There weren't any stones on the cliff that I could climb, at least nothing I could see.
Shit. Why are these cliffs so insanely tall?!
Ascertaining the options available to me in the clearing, I was startled by the sounds of snarling behind me. I quickly turned back to look at the source of the growling, preparing myself to fight or flee depending on what it was that I would be met with.
Deeply growling beyond the darkness, grassy forepaws and two leafy canine heads leapt forward from the forest's shadow and attempted to rip and tear my body as they pounced. I rolled over and dodged the monster, taking notice of its eyes, which carried the same colour as the eyes that were trained onto mine just a few moments ago. A giant two-headed wolf-like beast brought itself up from the ground, its body much larger and more fearsome than the ones I delayed earlier to keep Mori and the girl safe.
The pack leader really did come after me. Shit.
Not long after it brought itself up from the ground, the leaves around the two of us shook as both of its heads cried out, aggravating the birds settled on the tree branches and causing them to fly away, as well as causing a slight deafening ring to erupt in my eardrums. I felt my legs tremble slightly as my body instinctively cowered from the terrifying howling of the large hound.
I'm so screwed.
"H-hey there buddy," I said, taking a defensive stance as I try to calm the dog down. I readied myself to evade another one of its lunges, bending my knees as I maintained eye contact with one of the beast's head. "Look, we don't have to do this. We're all friends here," I said out loud, as if the creature would suddenly listen and go on its merry way.
It began to slowly move towards me, accompanied by the sounds of rustling leaves behind it. As it walked towards me, I took a few steps back before noticing that behind it were three moving shadows behind the shade of the trees. Emerging out of the bushes, the three Orthus I slammed away arrived and began encircling me with their pack leader. They spread out like leafy wings towards the side of their leader, staring at me with their hungry glares. But, they didn't make any moves, seemingly waiting for the Greater Orthus' lead.
Great. I'm definitely screwed.
I held my hand out as if to keep the wolves at bay and kept darting my eyes to look around for any forms of escape, trying to keep my distance as I gauged my surroundings. I glanced at my watch resting on the hand I kept out towards the hounds, and looked at the system information to see if it could be of any help.
[Accessing information...]
The pack leader crept closer, and I took a step back and stepped on something small, shattering whatever it was. Come on, give me something useful.
[Successfully accessed!]
I could feel the pressure coming from all of the wolves as they walked towards me, and took two more steps back. As I moved backwards, I glance at the strange crystalline plant on the ground. Please, please, please. Why is this thing so damn slow? Load faster!
[Uploading information...]
The wolf to my right jumped towards me with two open jaws. I slid underneath it in reaction and stood up with my back up against the wall, my legs using as much as force as they can to kick the lunging wolf from its stomach causing it to yelp in pain and whimper as it rolled over towards the left wolf. The left wolf reactively dodged the right Orthus, leaping quickly to the side as its comrade crashed into a tree. Seeing its comrade be kicked painfully, the three Orthus standing became more wary of me and observably became more attentive. As the wariness of the wolves increased, I used the time they gave me to glance at the watch.
Species: Greater Viridian Orthus
Class: F+
Notes: Greater Viridian Orthus are typically the leaders of packs, and adopt the same characteristics of their Lesser counterparts. They are much more intelligent, and are capable of trickery and tactics. They have weak abdomens, but extremely solid backs.
Weak abdomens? How the fuck am I supposed to get under that thing?
There was already a small chance that I'd be able to beat or at least injure the Greater Viridian Orthus. I mentally sank in the extremely low odds of me getting out for a moment, realizing how unlikely it was for me to succeed. But as I felt my hopes of getting out lessen, the wolves crept closer, and I noticed the Greater Viridian Orthus creeping only two feet away from the shattered glassy plant, many of its small leaf shards scattered on the ground in front of the pack leader.
I'm out of Potentia, but what other choice do I even have? Using up more than my Available Potentia's going to make my body go through an Overdraw state. But if I'm going to die, I'd prefer it be from overdrawing Potentia to sic some monsters than to be from getting eaten by them. I just hope those leaf shards are sharp enough to do any damage.
As I thought more thoroughly about my situation, the three remaining wolves once again took the same position as they did earlier before they lunged. In their positioning, I noticed that the leader had taken its position a mere two seconds later, which meant the other two hounds on its sides are going to leap first.
Guess I'm going to have to really risk it, huh. The only way to win right now is if I can either dodge or get both of these two dogs out of my way while channelling my Potentia on the freshly destroyed leaves.
With my back against the wall and the three wolves preparing to attack me, the Potentia on the soles of my shoes emitted a pale light green glow as some of it began coursing into the ground, flowing through whatever roots it could attach itself to as it searched for the crystalline shards. As I channelled and controlled my Potentia, I began feeling my lungs burn, my heart pulsate in pain, and my brain throb intensely as I draw out more Available Potentia than I could. My watch blared as I continued drawing out Potentia to control my Art.
Fuck. Not even my technique can finetune the amount of Potentia I use. I really might die from the drawbacks of this before I even get to kill these hounds.
[Warning: Your Available Potentia has fallen to the value of 0. Safety tools are currently unavailable. Do not use anymore Potentia or catastrophic damage may be induced in your body, and it will enter Overdraw.]
[Warning: Your Available Potentia has fallen below the value of 0. Your body has entered Overdraw. Seek medical attention immediately.]
Three seconds before the leader jumps.
While I channelled the Potentia in my body to reach the strange plant's leaf shards, the two wolves a few metres in front of me leapt with all their strength, instantaneously closing the distance with me. As I felt my body begin collapsing from the amount of energy I was using, I fell to my knee and winced in pain before rolling over to the left, further past the left hound about to bite my head off with its two hungry heads, and attempted to kick it towards the other hound.
Two seconds before the leader jumps.
I managed to kick it away successfully, but in doing so, one of the left hounds' head was able to take a bite off part of my right arm, making me scream in pain and weakening my kick on the hound's body. Though it hits the other and pushes the both of them to bounce back a couple metres away, I knew that it wasn't going to be strong enough to do any real damage to either of them. "FUCK!" I shouted, holding onto my now profusely bleeding arm. The hounds immediately got back up from their prone states, and ran towards me quickly, probably itching to take another bite off of me.
One more second.
As the hounds run towards me, the leader began to prepare itself to jump within the next second. I hurriedly used as much control over my Potentia as I can to use Control Flora on the crystalline leaf shards. The crystal shards quickly glowed in a light green hue, but as quickly as they glowed, the glow of my Potentia disappeared from them.
"Art Rejection?! Right now?!" I exclaimed in surprise and dismay.
Now would've been the time. if it weren't for Art Rejection. Why'd my Art have to be so damned weak? They're shattered leaves for fuck's sake!
I looked in fear towards the two wolves to my right running straight at me with four sets of fangs ready to maul me, and the gigantic Greater Viridian Hound leaping towards me. I felt the heavy load of pain throughout my body as the effects of Overdraw finally take over my motor skills, and realized then that I was well and truly dead.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
That is, I expected to be well and truly dead. But, the moment which I prepared myself to be bitten in half for did not come.
As if time slowed down in that very moment, the crystalline glass shards that rejected my Art's control began flickering from their translucent colours to the pale green colour of my Art. As it flickered, I saw the leaping pack leader above it in slow motion, and the frantic and hungry hounds at the right corner of my eye running towards me, slowed down as well. Then the glass shards began flickering from the translucence of white, to the paleness of green, and finally to the opaqueness of pitch black. In that moment of flickering, the shards began to grow roots in milliseconds, before turning into small spear-like plants that immediately shot up into the stomach of the Greater Viridian Orthus.
I felt time quickly return to normal, with the Greater Viridian Orthus falling into the ground on its side, yelping in pain and making a deep, horrendous noise as its stomach became pierced with around six to seven small leaven glass spears. The two Orthus chasing after me halted instinctively to look at their leader, before turning back to me to finish their business.
As the pack leader fell, the piercing leafy glass spear began emitting a shadowy dark and green aura that wrapped itself around the Greater Viridian Orthus. I looked at the Greater Viridian Orthus on the ground as it began to bellow out a noise that I had not heard it make before, the sound of countless whispering and rustling of leaves engulfing it in a black and green smoke. The hound's encapsulation in smoke lasted for a few long seconds, the Greater Orthus' followers whimpering as they watch their pack leader get swallowed by pitch black and dark green shadows.
"What... the... hell?" I said out loud, shocked at the scene I was seeing. Despite the strange event occurring in front of me and the confusion I had, my heart was strangely unfettered and I realized my body was somehow under my control again.
Watching the peculiar shadows in front of me, I stared as the black and green figure of the Greater Viridian Orthus began to stand up as moving and churning shadows wrapped around it in great intensity. This continued for a few more seconds before I felt a strange new consciousness in my mind begin to make itself known, though weak and faint. The shrouded Greater Viridian Orthus' figure began to slowly become smaller, eventually matching the size of its two still-whimpering followers. In a swift gust of wind, the shadows emanating and covering the entirety of the figure blasted away from it, slightly pushing myself and causing one of the hounds to yelp, as a new figure is revealed.
In front of me was a creature like the Lesser Viridian Orthus, except it had the stature and magnificence of the Greater Viridian Orthus. Its razor-sharp back was clearly more serrated than those of the Lesser Viridian Orthus, and it held a grandiosity to it that maintained it to be a creature capable of leading and dominating. What would normally be calloused green grassy paws became brown bark-like paws with very small wisps of black smoke, the fangs on the sets of teeth on each of its two head much more serrated and deadly than those of regular Orthus.
What surprised me more than the strange transformation I had just seen was the fact that the new consciousness in my mind was directly connected to the new creature in front of me. Similar to the way my Control Flora would allow me the control of any plant I channel my Potentia into. Yet, new in that I didn't feel the need to exert more Potentia to control it precisely. It was as if I had a higher-classed Art.
Testing out my theory, I ordered the second consciousness in my mind beside my own with a command to kill, with the intended targets of the combat being the two Lesser Viridian Orthus in front of me and to the left of this new being.
Without restraint nor a second thought, I watched as the creature immediately leapt towards the two Lesser Viridian Orthus, who were completely dumbfounded by the strangeness of the metamorphosis their leader had experienced. Despite this confusion, their instincts clearly told them that they had to fight, as I watched the two begin to coordinate some sort of attack towards their leader as it pounced on them. They quickly dodged the pounce their leader made, splitting into two to surround the transformed beast as it lands roughly on the vacated dirt, causing dust clouds in the air to appear. The new Greater Viridian Orthus quickly regained its footing and used its two heads to keep an eye on both of its sides.
As if awaiting one party to make a move, the three leaven hounds stared at each other with patience and wariness in mind. I looked at the three feuding wolves carefully, before deciding that this new creature is likely my ally. I tugged towards its consciousness to attack the wolf on its left, as I mustered the newly found energy I had gotten during the pack leader's transformation. I picked up one of the broken-off glass spears from the crystalline plant and began charging at the same wolf.
In that moment, the Greater Viridian Orthus lunged at the wolf to its left, causing the smaller hound to fall sideways with the clearly stronger beast standing with its forepaws on top of it and both of its heads gnawing at parts of the downed wolf. In turn, I accelerated towards it with my broken spear and pierced its side, causing it to howl in pain as both mauling heads and a piercing spear ravaged it, before falling flat as life left its body quickly.
During this, the wolf which had been to the right of the Greater Viridian Orthus pounced on its back, biting and tearing pieces of the stronger wolf's leafy flesh. The Greater Viridian Orthus naturally did not take kindly to this attack, and landed on its back as to use its weight to crush the attacking wolf, and used its bark-like paws to tear away at the Lesser being's body. As quickly as the duel began, I watched the transformed beast take the life of its adversary away with one final slash with its paws, enshrouded by a shadowy smoke.
"Holy shit," I said out loud as I look at the strange creature that I had just fought against in its previous form and now fought with in its transformed state. "What the hell just happened?" I asked in disbelief of what just occurred.
I thought I was going to die.
I began gasping for air as I felt my lungs burn from the Overdraw, quickly finding some sort of twine from the nearby trees to wrap my bleeding arm in. Then, I fell to my back in severe exhaustion and pain as I realized that there had been several new alerts that the Academy-issued Metimur watch had given me.
[Your Available Potentia has been replenished by the value of 18. Your body has left Overdraw. Seek medical attention immediately.]
[Warning: Your Available Potentia has fallen to the value of 0. Safety tools are currently unavailable. Do not use anymore Potentia or catastrophic damage may be induced in your body, and it will enter Overdraw.]
[Warning: Your Available Potentia has fallen below the value of 0. Your body has entered Overdraw. Seek medical attention immediately.]
Should I just move and start looking for Mori and the girl?
Attempting to get up from my sitting position, I felt a pain in my chest as the toll of two Overdraws took over me. I immediately fell on my back again, as my vision began blurring for a few moments. As my vision became clear again, I quickly looked at the newly-transformed wolf in front of me, and used the Metimur watch to identify it.
[Accessing information...]
[Access failed. There are no entries in the database.]
[Would you like to register this creature to your personal database, Aster?]
[Yes / No]
"What? So this is a totally new beast? Like a fully new species or something?" I exclaimed in shock, looking at the wolf that is now sitting and staring at me like a puppy waiting for its master's orders. "What's with the cute act?" I said in disbelief, before pressing the 'Yes' command on the watch.
[Assessing subject...]
[Successfully assessed!]
[Uploading information...]
Species: Shadowbark Orthus [Summoned]
Class: E-
Physique: E+
Techna: F
Passive Skills: Pack Leader [F+], Umbral Hide [F-]
Active Skills: Umbral Howl [F+]
Notes: The Shadowbark Orthus is a completely new species, having evolved from a Greater Viridian Orthus interacting with an Art. This creature may have room to evolve further.
"...a new species? Evolved from interacting with an Art? The hell do you mean? My Art doesn't affect beasts, even those with affinities with plants!" I exclaimed in extreme confusion. "Hold on," I said, quickly realizing what the information may be implying. Did... my Art transform too?
I swiftly glanced at my watch again, seeing one more alert.
[Would you like to register this creature to the public database?]
[Yes / No]
Seeing the alert, I instinctively pressed 'No' in fear of the implications registering a completely new species as a newly-enrolled student may bring. "I'm not going to make this any more complicated than it already is," I muttered. Quickly after, I opened my Profile to see if any new changes had been made.
[Accessing profile!]
Name: Aster Iris
Class: Unavailable [Assessment Required] | Level: Unavailable [Assessment Required]
Portens: Unavailable [Assessment Required] | Art: ██████ [Z+] / ██████ [Z+]
Base Potentia: 32
Available Potentia: -4/32
Physique: Unavailable [Assessment Required]
Techna: Unavailable [Assessment Required]
"Z+...?" I said to myself. "Is... that even in the ranking systems?"
The public ranking systems for an Art typically only ranged from F- to S+ Class. If you were unlucky, you'd have a G Class Art, which meant that its effect was so minuscule it would likely not affect your daily life at all. Those with G Class Arts were also simply called Artless, though this didn't mean they were incapable at all. There are countless Artless who've done incredible work for the general population, so this only meant that their Arts were dismissible, not them as people.
I quickly rubbed my eyes in confusion. I looked at the watch again, and almost as if what I had seen had never been there, I found myself a new profile, which is somehow still unbelievable.
Name: Aster Iris
Class: Unavailable [Assessment Required] | Level: Unavailable [Assessment Required]
Portens: Unavailable [Assessment Required] | Art: Dominate Flora [E-] / Command Shade [E-]
Base Potentia: 32
Available Potentia: -4/32
Physique: Unavailable [Assessment Required]
Techna: Unavailable [Assessment Required]
"H—how is this possible...?" I looked in astonishment. "My Art... altered?!" I shouted in disbelief, the large hound in front of me turning both of its heads in confusion as they looked at me both with concern and adoration. "And I have two Arts all of a sudden..."
In my consciousness, I felt the Shadowbark Orthus comforting me with its own consciousness. As I attempted to make contact with it, I began to close my eyes, wincing at the pain of my body for a moment before entering a slight meditative state.
In my mind was a vast sea of green stardust-like clouds, as well as shadowy whirling winds of mist and fog that float incohesively and without aim. Instead of a darkness beyond my vision, I saw a trail of smoke that had the same features as the Shadowbark Orthus, and began to move towards it. Strangely, despite being incorporeal in the space, moving through this ephemeral place was no problem.
The Shadowbark Orthus began to jump around, bouncing from clouds to fogs, and swimming through the air. This happened all the while small whimpers of excitement and happiness came out from its two heads. Finally, it arrived at a small circular green cloud that was even stranger in comparison to the rest of the sea. The cloud had a small glade covered in the shade provided by large green trees, with leaves not unlike the Shadowbark Orthus' hide and a bark not unlike its paws.
"Bow!" Its two heads barked at me, before my consciousness exited the ocean of greenery in my mind.
As I come back to reality, I realized that the Shadowbark Orthus that had been sitting in front of me had disappeared, some of its leaf-like fur left in the spot where it sat.
"Is this Control Shade...?" I thought further. As I made the Orthus dissipate, I felt a pang of pain in my body once more, as I suddenly began to feel my consciousness waning. My body fell limp onto the dirt that had been softened by the battle in the glade. I looked around with my eyes slowly closing, feeling the consciousness of the Shadowbark Orthus display some sort of emotion of alertness and safety. I slowly gloss my eyes over my shadow, and watched as the Shadowbark Orthus slowly emerge and walk from it, looking at me, and then licking at my face with both of its heads before sitting on guard while it wagged its tail.
Wait... I can't fall asleep in the middle of nowhere... I need to make sure that... the other two... are safe...
Or... I guess.... I... could....