Chapter Twenty Three:

— Lovisa —

The late afternoon quiet of the forest was broken by a series of strange tea kettle-like whistles and sharp rattling clicks.

Lovisa paused to listen more closely to the sounds and frowned. As best as she could tell there were at least six of the creatures, likely in a clearing up ahead. Even as she planned her next move she stalked almost silently, flitting effortlessly through the dense underbrush.

As she approached the edge of the clearing the sounds were coming from she saw a partially hollow log almost as wide as she was tall leaning against a tree. It looked like as good a place as any to observe her targets from. Like much of the forest the ground beneath the tree was littered with piles of fallen leaves but they were clearly damp and soft rather than crunchy. More importantly there were familiar fungi emitting a shifting pattern of blues, purples, and greens.

Being undead changed how she had to approach stealth in all manner of ways. Most were fairly minor or situational. She didn’t need to breathe and had no heartbeat but those were almost never sounds she’d needed to concern herself with anyway. The fact her body temperature pretty closely matched the ambient temperature would be useful at times, especially against creatures from the mountains, but didn’t currently make any real difference. Having an entire arm made from luminescent soul stuff, on the other hand, was definitely a concern in the dim light of late afternoon.

As that thought crossed her mind a small grin formed on her face. She made a mental note to use that accidental pun the next time she saw Keir. She could easily imagine the soft chuckle and gentle smile that her joke would be met with.

Unfortunately she needed to focus on dealing with the flock of dangerous creatures getting uncomfortably close to the outlying farms rather than think about Keir’s smile.

She barely needed to duck slightly to avoid the dangling chunks of bark and curtains of hanging moss of the fallen log.

From her new vantage point she got her first clear look at the creatures she’d been tracking for the last few hours. Eight terror birds were moving around the clearing, occasionally puffing up their green and brown plumage revealing their bright purple and red down feathers and vocalizing at each other.

Lovisa recognized both the calls and behavior as the typical dominance struggle the birds engaged in to fight for the best spots to build their strange bone nests.

With that in mind she simply watched and waited. Posturing only took the creatures so far and soon a squabble broke out as a powerfully built bird started pecking the smaller but brighter colored challenger it was vying with.

That soon spilled over to encompass the nearest pair and soon more of the birds were fighting among themselves than not, scattering feathers and blood around the clearing.

Lovisa tapped into “Soul Blade Creation” to make throwing knives as fast as she could accurately through them. She started by targeting the few birds who were cautious or secure enough to stay out of the fight. Her first blade took the largest bird in the side of its muscular neck; a painful but far from lethal strike. Her next blade that impacted just below its ear hole corrected that issue. Even as it staggered, quickly losing the strength needed to stay upright, she put another blade into the eye of a smallish bird that couldn’t stand over six feet tall.

Her blades didn’t draw blood but the over nine foot tall bird staggering into the middle of the fight definitely drew the other’s attention. Mostly that took the form of the more opportunistic ones piling onto it, pecking and clawing. Nonetheless, it still heightened their awareness enough that Lovisa was only able to kill one more before a more alert bird spotted her.

Her blade took that bird in the neck but not before it began to let out a deep warning call. In an instant the rest of the flock zeroed in and sprinted towards her.

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Terror birds moved extremely fast but she had just enough time to throw her last knife before they could close in. Her through was rushed and stuck deep into the leg of the leading bird causing it to tumble to the ground with an audible crunch of bones.

The rest weren’t even slowed as two darted to either side and the third jumped over their fallen flock mate.

Terror birds were a common threat within the forest that Lovisa dealt with often. She not only knew their typical attack patterns she also knew that while they could sprint shockingly fast they were slow to turn. Even as she dodged the beak of the first bird to reach her she created a sword. Over the next few seconds she dodged around the remaining birds lashing out at their legs and necks when an opening presented itself.

When the last of the three fell to the ground she walked over to the squirming form of the wounded bird and finished it off as well.

Even after a few days of patrolling and fighting she was still a bit surprised just how much her new class and tier improved her combat capabilities.

Quite a few villagers could still enjoy meat, though it wasn’t clear if they actually needed it, so she began the process of bleeding the corpses. From within a storage bag Antheia gave her before leaving Lovisa pulled out ropes, buckets, and a dagger.

Lovisa stayed alert as she worked, wary of being attacked by creatures drawn to the sounds of combat or the smell of blood. As the forest grew darker while she worked she noticed the fallen log wasn’t the only part of the clearing with glowing fungi growing there. With so many mushrooms casting their glowing patterns into the clearing Lovisa was reminded that the other term for the glowing dusk spores was the moonlit sea mushrooms.

As she returned to her somewhat grizzly task she smiled to herself. She decided when Keir returned from the dwarven city she would invite her to see this clearing at night.

— Keir —

When it was clear that the largest of the worms wasn’t coming back Keir left most of the others to deal with the few worms who died protruding onto the surface. Instead she limped back to the caravan with a pair of dwarves who carried the man who lost his legs to the female worm.

Fortunately the dwarf hadn’t had any blood to begin with so there was no risk of him bleeding out so his survival wasn’t really an issue. Trying to regenerate his legs on the other hand would not be so simple. Alchemical healing potions might have been the more potent, albeit slower, but ones powerful enough to regenerate limbs were extremely rare. Aside from the fact that any potion that powerful would be absurdly expensive there simply wasn’t much market for potions of that type. Conventional wisdom dictated that injuries that severe would typically require the much faster healing of holy magic based potions. If they were stable enough for alchemical treatment then taking them to a proper healer would be a better and cheaper alternative.

The only practical short term option was either making a litter or room for him on one of the carts. Regardless Keir wouldn’t be in any condition to assist for at least a few hours.

Despite the pain of her regenerating flesh she returned to where she left the books she’d borrowed and settled back into the place she’d been sitting before the attack.

At first she tried to also resume her reading but her hands shook and the pain in her partially cooked muscles made it clear that wasn’t a viable option yet. She also didn’t want to just sit there with nothing to keep her focus off of the boredom or her painfully slow regeneration. She needed to periodically refresh her “Blood Surge” so her soulscape wasn’t an option.

It was when she was recasting “Blood Surge” with the blood from her tide pool that she thought of a solution. The feeling of the regeneration reminded her of first using the skill in the fight with the Ancient Viper Matriarch. That thought led her to remember she had not yet begun the process of claiming the viper’s beast core.

She dug through her pack until she found the core laying carefully wrapped under all of the snake fangs she brought to sell or trade. When she unwrapped the jagged chunk of pale green and dark red crystal she got the same notification as when she first inspected it.

“Congratulations, by right of conquest you have acquired a Nascent Core. Claim Nascent Viper Beast Core (Yes/No)”

After some hesitation as she wasn’t sure if the ripples from her beginning to claim the core would reach the city she finally selected yes.

In an instant she felt the core link to her mana pool and the pressure of foreign mana crash into her own. The amount and purity of the vipers mana within the core felt like her soul was being crushed by the abyssal depth of the sea.

After what was either a few seconds or hours Keir managed to focus her will into her belligerent mana pool. She forced her will and mana into the crushing stream of foreign mana. It felt a little like moving against a tidal wave. Fortunately she was a Tide Carver and eventually she forced a foothold and began converting the viper’s mana into her own.

Slowly by inches she built up momentum until she converted all of the mana spilled forth forth from the crystal into her mana pool. With the pressure taken off she blocked off the connection long enough to refresh her regeneration before pushing her mana into the core. Inside she found a labyrinth filled with even more concentrated mana that fought her every bit of way.

Soon she found herself grinning to herself. Her progress on the core may have been painfully slow but she could feel herself growing stronger by the minute.