“Awroooooooh!”
Like two rival packs of wolves readying themselves for a fight, we growled and howled in an effort to threaten and intimidate the other party. With a loud howl from one of the garms, all four zombie garms jumped into their shadows and reappeared a few feet away from me. Having anticipated something like this would happen from our last encounter, Silva and Tasianna had already completed their own preparations.
“May the Goddess of Wind bless me with her winds of protection, Air Shield!” Silva cast, creating and then expanding the protective dome of air around our party.
“Freeze, Icicle Gust.” Tasianna’s spell created a cold wind with ice spikes, but instead of shooting them at the garms, she controlled the wind and ice with [Cryokinesis] and froze the front part of Silva’s [Air Shield]. This materialized a thick half dome of ice, blocking the garms’ attack. After Tasianna did her part, Silva also dispelled her spell to allow us outside.
With my two shadow wolves, I rushed to the right side of the ice dome and produced a [Claws of Darkness] to cleave at the garms perfectly standing in a line for me. However, thanks to their natural agility as garms, they avoided my attack by splitting their group up, dividing them. This gave my wolves and me a chance to target one of them and hunt them down.
Of course, this was risky as it would leave Silva and Tasianna to fend off the other three garms alone, but we already talked this over before the battle. According to Hestia, Tasianna was able to delay the onnikai beast for a couple of minutes by freezing it. Hestia was confident Tasianna could buy me some time to take down a garm.
As expected, once the other zombie garms saw my group attack their isolated member, they targeted Tasianna and Silva. Casting [Droplet Torrent], Tasianna shot a barrage of water bullets out of her magic circle and clashed against the [Dark Bolt]s the garms cast, nullifying each other. A garm managed to bypass the storm of [Droplet Torrent] and the giant ice dome with a [Shadow Dash], but it was quickly deterred by Silva’s light elemental, Igniculus, who shot out a [Holy Smite].
Meanwhile, on my side, I was having a bit of trouble pinning the garm down. [Identify] still considered the garm as a corpse in its inspection, preventing me from looking at its stats, so all I could say was that it probably had stats worthy of a rank C monster. Whether [Dark Tendrils] or my mana threads, the garm dodged them well.
I was a rank C too, but my stats were currently not on par with a C rank due to my humanization, while my two shadow wolves were undoubtedly weaker than these onnikai-possessed corpses purely because they were constructed using magic—spell golems, as Kushlek’zar called them. They were made using my intelligence stat, and I knew I couldn’t make them as strong as my actual form.
So, the fight itself felt like a duel between me and this zombie garm, where I had the support of two of my summoned wolves. We exchanged dark spells against each other, shooting [Dark Bolt]s and [Dark Slash]s in an attempt to create an opening to attack.
Once we realized that we both had the same idea on how to fight, we began using [Shadow Dash] more aggressively, slipping through projectiles and slashes to launch back or surprise attacks. With everybody either having their bodies covered in shadows or being made from it, this fight looked like a ferocious clash between shadows.
“Guck!”
The first to draw blood was the zombie garm. As I stared at the open wound along my left leg, I could only groan.
My mistake! The other onnikais seemed too unskilled, so why are these garms able to push me back? It was the same thing when I fought them for the first time, but I thought it was due to my berserk status.
I hadn’t given Hestia a detailed explanation of what sort of training I was given by the vice guild master of the hunter’s guild, Gael. The reason was that Gael wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. I asked him to train me, as I wasn’t used to using daggers fully yet, and he reluctantly agreed only after I bribed him with some alcoholic drink.
The only problem with the arrangement was that he wanted alcohol as payment for every training session, and he eventually got fed up with the normal stuff. He wanted something from Earth if I wanted him to continue training me.
I didn’t have any knowledge of making alcohol, nor was I a bartender with drink mixing skills. So, yeah, it should be obvious that I haven’t been able to get him to train me for a while. I didn’t want to tell Hestia something this embarrassing. Besides, none of the sessions were as intensive as the ones I had with Grazlahta and Krim-Slak, the saurians. I wish I had more time to train with them.
Until now. The little amount of daggers skills I was able to learn from Gael were effective, and my movements have improved after he pointed out my flaws. It was helpful, admittedly, but we never sparred against each other like Hestia and Farron. That meant, I still haven’t had any experience fighting with a fast rogue type like me.
Hestia was fast; the monsters we fought in Belzac forest were fast, but their fighting style didn’t rely so much on trickery and speed. Hestia could be crafty by leading you with spells and attacks to land a critical hit, but she was “honest” compared to how I fought. To fight with dark spells, you needed to be unfair.
So, I was surprised to see how well these garms were fighting. They outmaneuvered me, despite our difference in tools and skills, in our first encounter, and this one was proving itself against me again. The damage was neglectable, as it was quickly healed by Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze], but my pride was hurt once again. And with my hurt pride, that damn itch appeared again.
Calm down, calm down. Think! How can I stop its movements?
I commanded my wolves to attack the garm while I cast [Umbral Pendulum] to summon a giant double-edged scythe from the ceiling. It swung, nearly cleaving the zombie garm into two. Simultaneously, I dived into the shadow world with [Shadow Dash] and reappeared behind it, and launched an attack with one of my daggers.
The garm anticipated the attack and summoned [Dark Tendrils] to block my movements, but I countered it with my own tendrils. Using my skill [Shadow Armament]’s ability to control and distort my dark element spells, I turned the ends of my numerous tendrils into sharp spears and had them pierce a way through the swarm of hostile tendrils. I dashed through the open path with my dagger eyeing the back of the garm’s head.
Shadow Pierce! I shouted in my mind, coating my dagger in shadows.
Twisting its body, the garm narrowly avoided the strike to its head and returned the gesture by opening its jaws and baring its fangs at me, at which point, I slammed my leg at it to use the momentum to dodge backward.
“Catch!” I shouted and threw a few white mana threads at my wolves, who caught the ball of threads with their mouths. As we were connected through our bond as master and golems, they quickly understood what they had to do and began to execute it.
Once again, the umbral pendulum swung at the garm, causing it to back off once again. My wolves and I used this opportunity to strike a coordinate attack on the garm, using the white mana threads to constrict the garm. It tried to escape into the shadow world, but before its body completely submerged into its shadow, I caught its leg with a mana thread lasso, pulling it out.
Flustered by being caught, the garm’s reaction time was slowed, allowing my wolves to fully constrict the garm in the white threads. Letting my mana flow into the strings, a shining light began to emit, searing through the black slime on the garm’s body like fire melting butter. The garm struggled wildly, but it was all in vain.
Taking out a bottle of Hestia’s new venom from my storage, which was a viscous liquid made from her [Corrosive Fire], I drenched my frog fang andurium dagger in it and used [Shadow Pierce] as I aimed at the now captured garm with pure focus. The garm tried to defend itself by summoning [Dark Tendrils], but I avoided them by using [Just Blink].
Pouring my mana through my [Shadow Armament] armor, for a single second, I vanished from everybody’s perception. This one moment was enough to cause the garm to hesitate, directing its attention away as its sensory skills couldn’t find me. A nasty trick; all so I could reappear right in front of its head, having barely moved at all.
Before the onnikai garm could react, I grabbed its scruff by its fur and dragged it forward with my strength. I then stabbed its neck with my venom-coated dagger.
As expected of a zombie, or more specifically an onnikai controlled corpse, the garm didn’t howl in pain. It reacted to my attack by turning its head, but I held it in place by stabbing my assassin’s eoriant dagger into its head. My wolves also stopped its flailing body by biting into its limbs, giving me the chance to break its neck with the eoriant dagger. I coated this dagger with the vial of venom on my belt and inserted it deep into its chest where its heart was. As a wolf monster myself, I knew exactly where our hearts were and I was confident I hit it. Well, as long as the onnikai made sure to regenerate it.
“Noooooooooooooooo!” the onnikai from the orb screamed. “Cooooommeeeee baaaacccck! Suppoooorrrttttt!”
Opening large holes with my two daggers, one at its head and chest, I left the now motionless zombie garm drop to the ground. I didn’t harm the onnikai itself, but even if it could regenerate the garm’s body with that black slime, it would take too long. The corpse’s wounds were severe, and Hestia’s venom was probably tormenting it by now.
This wasn’t a normal paralyzing or blood-clotting venom, like you see in Earthen snakes or spiders, but a mana disturbing one. It probably wouldn’t be useful on the bodiless onnikai beast, but on a corpse? The venom will undoubtedly disturb its flow of mana and prevent the onnikai from healing the body. This was our strategy to win!
As I turned my head towards Tasianna and Silva, two cries entered my ear.
“Arrrrgh! Uragghhh! Gahhhhh!”
“Sister Tasianna! Urk! Gaha!”
____________________________________________________________
Party Leader
Name: Saori Segawa Level: 73 Job: Fighter
Health: 3431/3431 Mana: 1182/1606 Stamina: 2229/2848
Effects: [Humanize (Minor)] [Lifetaker (41 Kills)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Various Spell Buffs]
____________________________________________________________
Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 55 Job: Torrent Sorcerer
Health: 1223/2289 Mana: 2512/5703 Stamina: 1051/1724
Effects: [Elvenize (Major)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs]
____________________________________________________________
Name: Silva Fleurette Breezeflower Level: 55 Job: Light Elementalist
Health: 541/1921 Mana: 2051/3674 Stamina: 515/910
Effects: [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Bleeding (Minor)]
____________________________________________________________
Not good!
I took too long. Tasianna’s ice dome was destroyed and shards of ice, remnants of her [Frozen Shield], were lying on the floor. Tasianna herself didn’t look anywhere close to being fine, having been flung through the air after finishing my garm opponent.
Faefolk do not bleed, so there weren’t any patches of red on her body, but two large holes and multiple large scratch marks littered her body, while her dress was ripped and messy. She had a pained expression as she gulped down a mana potion to heal herself.
Silva still had Igniculus to support her, but she was coughing up blood as the light elemental slowly healed her wounds. However, compared to Tasianna, her situation was dire—two of the three garms were ganging up against her as she had her back against a broken piece of the ice dome.
“Haaa—No! Tsk, Wind Blast!” As she was about to empty her mana potion, Tasianna was ambushed by the third garm, who knocked the glass vial to the ground, spilling the contents but the bottle didn’t break.
No, no! Dammit, leave them alone!
“Go! Go! Help Tasianna!” I ordered my wolves, before delving into my shadows and reappearing before Silva to block the attacks of the garms with my spells and daggers.
“Miss Saori!” she yelled out with an elated face, her elven beauty still shining despite the wounds and blood on her face.
Humanize!
Storing everything not made from mana threads into my storage, which included my party bracelet, I activated [Humanize] and transformed back into a cadejo. Without wasting any time, I picked up Silva on my back, who already retrieved Igniculus after I communicated with her telepathically, and dashed towards Tasianna.
The two garms gave chase through [Shadow Dash], but with my stats having returned back to that of an upper rank C wolf, I easily jumped over them and then used [Air Walk] to escape through the air. Simultaneously, I cast [Umbral Pendulum] and [Claws of Darkness] to delay the two garms.
During this run, my shadow wolves were valiantly protecting Tasianna, helping her regenerate a good chunk of her lost mana by letting her drink two additional mana potions. She then took one of Hestia’s holy flame bombs from her belt and threw it at the remaining garm while it was preoccupied with my golems. It was a direct hit, burning through the black slime on its body.
I pounced at the burning garm and bit its neck with my fangs. I managed to pierce through the fur and muscles of the garm but, seeing as I was a “young” cadejo, I was far smaller than my adult counterparts. I punctured its defenses, but my fangs couldn’t reach its neck like my daggers.
Tch, just a bit deeper, dammit!
Although I probably wasn’t taking as much damage, being this close to the garm while the bomb’s flames were still alive was damaging me little despite my shadow armor. They were Hestia’s flames, after all. The garm quickly shook me off, able to ignore my bite due to its complete pain resistance as a corpse. Using [Air Walk], I reunited with Tasianna, our party back together.
[“Tasianna, are you alright?”] I asked as I let Silva off me.
Now drinking Hestia’s dragorade, Tasianna answered with a distorted face, “Y-yes, but I apologize for not being able to hold on for longer. I’m sorry, I am always being saved …”
[“No! Do not say that, Tasianna. You were exemplary!”] I praised her, noticing her morale dropping. [“You held on long enough for me to take down the first garm. You and Silva did amazingly. 100%! I give you 100% for your efforts! So, stand up straight and continue fighting with me, Tasianna! I cannot win without your help!”]
Still showing some doubt in her abilities, Tasianna nodded after taking a deep breath. She began casting a spell, but it didn’t look like she was very confident right now. However, our party had no time to mull over it as the garms continued their assault recklessly.
“Whyyyyyyyy?! Wheeereeeeeee?! Suppoooorrrtttt!” the onnikai from the orb screamed. The zombies were probably attacking the baron’s castle right now and the beast was fighting Hestia. No reinforcement would come.
We too won’t get any help, and I have a feeling that the same trick won’t work again with these garms. Especially when Tasianna and Silva were now wounded.
Covering for Tasianna and Silva to heal themselves with potions and dragorade, my wolves and I engaged the garms. Pouncing at each other, each garm became preoccupied with one of us. “Use those threads!” I told them as the fight intensified.
There was the option of summoning more [Shadow Clone], but the problem was that I had to control my clones while fighting and casting spells. More than one clone was impossible for me to handle, especially when I was so focused on spell casting. [Shadow Pack] had the advantage that I didn’t have to control their actions, as they could operate independently from me, but the downside was that I could only summon one of them.
I wanted my wolves to have more support, as they were clearly getting overwhelmed by the garms, but my priority was to take this garm before it took me down. We needed to thin their numbers, and I could resummon any of my shadow wolves afterwards.
As I was thinking about it, the first shadow clone dispersed. I resummoned it and sent it back to the same garm that killed it, but I wasn’t hoping for it to buy me a lot of time. I had to save some mana for my own attacks.
Just Blink!
Using one of my unarmed abilities, I vanished from my opponent’s sight and reappeared right in its face. Our eyes locked onto each other for a split second, before I lunged forward and bit at its throat.
“Graaaa!” It gasped.
It tried to attack me with its claws, but I held it back with [Dark Tendrils] before having two [Shadow Snakes] emerge from my shadow armor to take up strands of holy element mana threads and wrap them around the garms body.
I was crushing the garm’s windpipe, but as it was a zombie, it didn’t need oxygen. So, my only choice was to get a good hit with the venom, and I needed some time to apply them on my claws and fangs. Due to my venom immunity, I didn’t have to fear Hestia’s toxic creations anymore.
However, while I was taking the vial out of my storage, another garm tackled me off from my garm opponent and gouged out a piece of my flesh.
Urgh!
The wound was healed up with [Sanctified Blaze] but it, unfortunately, disrupted my venom application. Noticing it was my [Shadow Pack] that died, I resummoned it and shot a [Claws of Darkness] at the interfering garm. My shadow snakes managed to wrap some of the white mana threads around the first garm, so I activated them to unleash some holy damage on it in order to prevent it from breaking out from the threads and my tendrils.
However, while trying to pull it closer to me, the third garm attempted a surprise attack. This time, my attention wasn’t drawn away, so my [Foresight]’s and [Danger Perception]’s came in time for me to dodge it. Spending some mana, I activated [Foresight]’s secondary effect to have it predict the future movements of the garms.
Using this knowledge, I decided to not resummon the [Shadow Clone] wolf, and instead growled. “Kriiigraaaaaaaaaa!” I let out from the top of my lungs, activating my [Bloodlust] skill. This immediately attracted the attention of all the garms—they glared at me as if I just insulted and challenged them to a duel. Maybe it was garm-ish for something, but I had no idea.
The second garm bodychecked my shadow wolf away to run directly at me, while the third quickly began the assault by shadow dashing to me to launch an attack with close-range [Dark Slash]es. The first garm was, of course, still struggling to free itself.
Using my smaller size, I slipped past the garm’s attacks and summoned another [Umbral Pendulum] before diving into a shadow. Once I came out of the shadow world, I saw that the pendulum dropped down from the ceiling while the third garm easily dodged it, however, once I reappeared from the pendulum, as the whole thing was a shadow, the garm was too surprised to react.
Similar to the first garm, I bit its throat, and then pushed it down onto the floor. Meanwhile, the first garm managed to break out of the dark tendrils, ignoring the white mana threads as they weren’t active right now. In a synchronized attack, the first and second garm pounced at me and bit my legs.
Damnit, [Foresight] didn’t show this!
[Foresight] only showed information a few seconds into the future depending on the level of the skill, and while it helped me take down the third garm, I reacted too slowly to the remaining agile garm. I groaned mentally as they pulled me off their companion. [Sanctified Blaze] was aggressively defending me by attacking the two garms, but they ignored the flames and bit even deeper into my hind legs.
Urrraaagh! I need to control the pendulum to attack these two!
I panicked once the third garm stood back up and was about to take advantage of the fact that I was immobilized. However, that was when something fortunate happened.
“Miss Saori!”
With a noise that sounded like a grenade being released, something flew through the air before crashing onto the garms attacking my hind legs and covering them up in white flames. They abruptly let go of me as they attempted to kill the flames attacking the black slimes covering their body.
Thank you! I thanked the owner of the voice, realizing that two of Hestia’s holy bombs just saved me. I endured through the flames and narrowly dodged a lethal bite to my throat. Extending the claws on my front legs, I slashed at the third garm’s face and blinded its eyes and let go of it.
It flinched backward, giving me enough time to pull out a vial of venom with my mouth, break the wooden bootle, and then coat my claws and fangs with the spilled content. The garm escaped through a shadow, which made me direct my attack on the garm closest to me—the second one.
Using [Just Blink] to make sure none of them could anticipate my attack, I escaped their vision and senses for a split-second before drilling my claws right into the garm’s head. Like a frenzy beast, I ravaged its heads into a gory mess with my claws, inflicting as much venom damage as possible before leaving its motionless body on the ground to react to the third garm’s attack.
However, I didn’t have to. A torrential rain suddenly fell down from the sky, pushing the garm back with sharp, bullet-like water droplets. The rain then stopped and the water began turning into white ice, freezing the garm in place for me to sink my claws into it. Similar to the second garm, I didn’t give the garm a chance to recover itself at all, destroying its head and chest with my venom-coated claws.
As I turned my eyes to the last remaining garm, something surprising came into my view. My [Shadow Pack] wolf, who I thought perished from the second garm’s attack, was on the first garm’s back. It was pulling the remaining white mana threads with its mouth, choking the last garm, and then decapitating its head with the threads.
It then looked at me and howled—its body dispersing in the white flames, as it had fulfilled its duty. I was honestly confused at this point. [Shadow Pack] created wolves that could act independently from me, but they weren’t sentient. They weren’t like Hestia’s parallel minds that sounded and acted like clones of Hestia.
So, why did I feel like it was trying to communicate with me? Why did I feel proud of a spell created golem? I mean, wasn’t this like feeling proud of a vacuum cleaner for doing its job well?
Forget it, just forget it. I don’t want to think about this. It’ll only confuse me …
“Arrrrrrghhhh! Noooooooo!!!” A shrill voice woke me up from my delusion. “Noooooo!!! Nooo! Staaaaaandddd! Fiiiiighhhhtttt! Fiiiighttttt! Ouuuurrrrr reveeeeegeeene!”
It was like the cry of a despairing child. Its panic-filled voice echoed through the chambers as it helplessly screamed for help, telling the garms to stand up and fight. It desperately tried to call for the onnikai beast’s support, asking where it was and why it hasn’t returned yet.
I looked at the onnikai inside the orb, motionless and still. Only the black slime covering the pedestal it was sitting on was vibrating, but, otherwise, it looked calm, completely contrasting the voice it was giving out.
… How… pitiful.
It was like a prison. The onnikai was screaming and obviously seemed like it wanted to fight us; however, it couldn’t. It was imprisoned inside the orb like a beast in a cage. It relied on its army of onnikai zombies and the mana-created beast to protect and fulfill its orders.
But now it was alone.
I turned back into my wolfkin form as it seemed we won the fight. I looked through the battlefield and at the motionless wolves. The only one still spasming about was the one my shadow wolf decapitated, so I quickly injected a dose of venom and pierced its heart with my dagger, completely silencing it.
… The itch is finally gone. My senses and common sense are really turning into that of a garm, huh? I can’t believe this itch really was related to being challenged by other wolves.
I let out a short sigh, still perturbed by my cadejo instincts. Similar to Hestia’s [Battle Frenzy] and intimidating presence whenever she was mad, I too was being changed by my monster origin. It really felt like my brain was being rewired by my new body. Was it a bad thing, though? I didn’t like it one bit … but this was just my life.
I felt even more annoyed that I couldn’t control it. That control freak inside of me, wishing to keep things as I envisioned was creating a new itch. I felt pathetic. I felt pathetic as when I couldn’t muster the courage and strength to just help Hestia out with the lizardmen rescue mission, or how I couldn’t just tell her to be less emotionally charged.
Dad. Mom. I took a risk, and we did it.
It didn’t matter. My own inner turmoil could be solved later on. Now, we had to finish the mission. This risky mission where I allowed Hestia to let loose to reduce the danger when our group dove into this ruin to finish the onnikai. Our plan worked out because I trusted Hestia to perform … I trusted Tasianna and Silva to perform.
I took another sigh. I made doubly sure the garms couldn’t move anymore—they were no threat anymore. Our only opponent left was the boss.
“Sister Silva,” Tasianna called. Looking at her belt, she only had two vials of mana potions left.
“Yes, I will now perform the Rite of the Fading Winds.” Silva’s belt was empty. It seemed she used up the health and mana potions.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my potions thanks to Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze]. Too bad it ran out just now. My legs haven’t fully healed up yet, but it would be a waste to use a potion now … I really am too stingy, haaaaaaaaa.
I hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to not use the health potion. That was another annoying trait about me. Money didn’t matter if I was dead, but I couldn’t get that through my head.
The battle was over, taking it now to relieve the little bit of pain would be a waste. I could just endure it and let my regeneration do the rest until Hestia comes. The onnikai beast should be destroyed the moment the rite was finished.
Silva stood before the pedestal. Seeing as the slime looked dangerous in our eyes, I took out the holy element mana threads and used their effect to melt away the slime. Once that was done, Silva held her staff up and began the rite.
In the elven tongue, she chanted something I couldn’t understand. Tasianna offered to translate it for me, but I rejected the offer because something about Silva’s voice was mesmerizing. I had no knowledge of the elven language, but I wanted to continue listening to her voice. It wasn’t as attractive as Hestia’s singing voice, but it had a different kind of effect. Hearing a translation would probably break this … illusion?
“Senmial, Jischulla Zephira!”
And then a clear voice, so similar to a calm breeze, escaped Silva’s mouth.
AbyssRaven Saori showed who the better wolf was. Who the Alpha is!
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“Awroooooooh!”
Like two rival packs of wolves readying themselves for a fight, we growled and howled in an effort to threaten and intimidate the other party. With a loud howl from one of the garms, all four zombie garms jumped into their shadows and reappeared a few feet away from me. Having anticipated something like this would happen from our last encounter, Silva and Tasianna had already completed their own preparations.
“May the Goddess of Wind bless me with her winds of protection, Air Shield!” Silva cast, creating and then expanding the protective dome of air around our party.
“Freeze, Icicle Gust.” Tasianna’s spell created a cold wind with ice spikes, but instead of shooting them at the garms, she controlled the wind and ice with [Cryokinesis] and froze the front part of Silva’s [Air Shield]. This materialized a thick half dome of ice, blocking the garms’ attack. After Tasianna did her part, Silva also dispelled her spell to allow us outside.
With my two shadow wolves, I rushed to the right side of the ice dome and produced a [Claws of Darkness] to cleave at the garms perfectly standing in a line for me. However, thanks to their natural agility as garms, they avoided my attack by splitting their group up, dividing them. This gave my wolves and me a chance to target one of them and hunt them down.
Of course, this was risky as it would leave Silva and Tasianna to fend off the other three garms alone, but we already talked this over before the battle. According to Hestia, Tasianna was able to delay the onnikai beast for a couple of minutes by freezing it. Hestia was confident Tasianna could buy me some time to take down a garm.
As expected, once the other zombie garms saw my group attack their isolated member, they targeted Tasianna and Silva. Casting [Droplet Torrent], Tasianna shot a barrage of water bullets out of her magic circle and clashed against the [Dark Bolt]s the garms cast, nullifying each other. A garm managed to bypass the storm of [Droplet Torrent] and the giant ice dome with a [Shadow Dash], but it was quickly deterred by Silva’s light elemental, Igniculus, who shot out a [Holy Smite].
Meanwhile, on my side, I was having a bit of trouble pinning the garm down. [Identify] still considered the garm as a corpse in its inspection, preventing me from looking at its stats, so all I could say was that it probably had stats worthy of a rank C monster. Whether [Dark Tendrils] or my mana threads, the garm dodged them well.
I was a rank C too, but my stats were currently not on par with a C rank due to my humanization, while my two shadow wolves were undoubtedly weaker than these onnikai-possessed corpses purely because they were constructed using magic—spell golems, as Kushlek’zar called them. They were made using my intelligence stat, and I knew I couldn’t make them as strong as my actual form.
So, the fight itself felt like a duel between me and this zombie garm, where I had the support of two of my summoned wolves. We exchanged dark spells against each other, shooting [Dark Bolt]s and [Dark Slash]s in an attempt to create an opening to attack.
Once we realized that we both had the same idea on how to fight, we began using [Shadow Dash] more aggressively, slipping through projectiles and slashes to launch back or surprise attacks. With everybody either having their bodies covered in shadows or being made from it, this fight looked like a ferocious clash between shadows.
“Guck!”
The first to draw blood was the zombie garm. As I stared at the open wound along my left leg, I could only groan.
My mistake! The other onnikais seemed too unskilled, so why are these garms able to push me back? It was the same thing when I fought them for the first time, but I thought it was due to my berserk status.
I hadn’t given Hestia a detailed explanation of what sort of training I was given by the vice guild master of the hunter’s guild, Gael. The reason was that Gael wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. I asked him to train me, as I wasn’t used to using daggers fully yet, and he reluctantly agreed only after I bribed him with some alcoholic drink.
The only problem with the arrangement was that he wanted alcohol as payment for every training session, and he eventually got fed up with the normal stuff. He wanted something from Earth if I wanted him to continue training me.
I didn’t have any knowledge of making alcohol, nor was I a bartender with drink mixing skills. So, yeah, it should be obvious that I haven’t been able to get him to train me for a while. I didn’t want to tell Hestia something this embarrassing. Besides, none of the sessions were as intensive as the ones I had with Grazlahta and Krim-Slak, the saurians. I wish I had more time to train with them.
Until now. The little amount of daggers skills I was able to learn from Gael were effective, and my movements have improved after he pointed out my flaws. It was helpful, admittedly, but we never sparred against each other like Hestia and Farron. That meant, I still haven’t had any experience fighting with a fast rogue type like me.
Hestia was fast; the monsters we fought in Belzac forest were fast, but their fighting style didn’t rely so much on trickery and speed. Hestia could be crafty by leading you with spells and attacks to land a critical hit, but she was “honest” compared to how I fought. To fight with dark spells, you needed to be unfair.
So, I was surprised to see how well these garms were fighting. They outmaneuvered me, despite our difference in tools and skills, in our first encounter, and this one was proving itself against me again. The damage was neglectable, as it was quickly healed by Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze], but my pride was hurt once again. And with my hurt pride, that damn itch appeared again.
Calm down, calm down. Think! How can I stop its movements?
I commanded my wolves to attack the garm while I cast [Umbral Pendulum] to summon a giant double-edged scythe from the ceiling. It swung, nearly cleaving the zombie garm into two. Simultaneously, I dived into the shadow world with [Shadow Dash] and reappeared behind it, and launched an attack with one of my daggers.
The garm anticipated the attack and summoned [Dark Tendrils] to block my movements, but I countered it with my own tendrils. Using my skill [Shadow Armament]’s ability to control and distort my dark element spells, I turned the ends of my numerous tendrils into sharp spears and had them pierce a way through the swarm of hostile tendrils. I dashed through the open path with my dagger eyeing the back of the garm’s head.
Shadow Pierce! I shouted in my mind, coating my dagger in shadows.
Twisting its body, the garm narrowly avoided the strike to its head and returned the gesture by opening its jaws and baring its fangs at me, at which point, I slammed my leg at it to use the momentum to dodge backward.
“Catch!” I shouted and threw a few white mana threads at my wolves, who caught the ball of threads with their mouths. As we were connected through our bond as master and golems, they quickly understood what they had to do and began to execute it.
Once again, the umbral pendulum swung at the garm, causing it to back off once again. My wolves and I used this opportunity to strike a coordinate attack on the garm, using the white mana threads to constrict the garm. It tried to escape into the shadow world, but before its body completely submerged into its shadow, I caught its leg with a mana thread lasso, pulling it out.
Flustered by being caught, the garm’s reaction time was slowed, allowing my wolves to fully constrict the garm in the white threads. Letting my mana flow into the strings, a shining light began to emit, searing through the black slime on the garm’s body like fire melting butter. The garm struggled wildly, but it was all in vain.
Taking out a bottle of Hestia’s new venom from my storage, which was a viscous liquid made from her [Corrosive Fire], I drenched my frog fang andurium dagger in it and used [Shadow Pierce] as I aimed at the now captured garm with pure focus. The garm tried to defend itself by summoning [Dark Tendrils], but I avoided them by using [Just Blink].
Pouring my mana through my [Shadow Armament] armor, for a single second, I vanished from everybody’s perception. This one moment was enough to cause the garm to hesitate, directing its attention away as its sensory skills couldn’t find me. A nasty trick; all so I could reappear right in front of its head, having barely moved at all.
Before the onnikai garm could react, I grabbed its scruff by its fur and dragged it forward with my strength. I then stabbed its neck with my venom-coated dagger.
As expected of a zombie, or more specifically an onnikai controlled corpse, the garm didn’t howl in pain. It reacted to my attack by turning its head, but I held it in place by stabbing my assassin’s eoriant dagger into its head. My wolves also stopped its flailing body by biting into its limbs, giving me the chance to break its neck with the eoriant dagger. I coated this dagger with the vial of venom on my belt and inserted it deep into its chest where its heart was. As a wolf monster myself, I knew exactly where our hearts were and I was confident I hit it. Well, as long as the onnikai made sure to regenerate it.
“Noooooooooooooooo!” the onnikai from the orb screamed. “Cooooommeeeee baaaacccck! Suppoooorrrttttt!”
Opening large holes with my two daggers, one at its head and chest, I left the now motionless zombie garm drop to the ground. I didn’t harm the onnikai itself, but even if it could regenerate the garm’s body with that black slime, it would take too long. The corpse’s wounds were severe, and Hestia’s venom was probably tormenting it by now.
This wasn’t a normal paralyzing or blood-clotting venom, like you see in Earthen snakes or spiders, but a mana disturbing one. It probably wouldn’t be useful on the bodiless onnikai beast, but on a corpse? The venom will undoubtedly disturb its flow of mana and prevent the onnikai from healing the body. This was our strategy to win!
As I turned my head towards Tasianna and Silva, two cries entered my ear.
“Arrrrgh! Uragghhh! Gahhhhh!”
“Sister Tasianna! Urk! Gaha!”
____________________________________________________________
Party Leader
Name: Saori Segawa Level: 73 Job: Fighter
Health: 3431/3431 Mana: 1182/1606 Stamina: 2229/2848
Effects: [Humanize (Minor)] [Lifetaker (41 Kills)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Full Body)] [Various Spell Buffs]
____________________________________________________________
Name: Tasianna Marina Silverpond Level: 55 Job: Torrent Sorcerer
Health: 1223/2289 Mana: 2512/5703 Stamina: 1051/1724
Effects: [Elvenize (Major)] [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs]
____________________________________________________________
Name: Silva Fleurette Breezeflower Level: 55 Job: Light Elementalist
Health: 541/1921 Mana: 2051/3674 Stamina: 515/910
Effects: [Sanctified Blaze] [Shadow Armament (Minor)] [Various Spell Buffs] [Bleeding (Minor)]
____________________________________________________________
Not good!
I took too long. Tasianna’s ice dome was destroyed and shards of ice, remnants of her [Frozen Shield], were lying on the floor. Tasianna herself didn’t look anywhere close to being fine, having been flung through the air after finishing my garm opponent.
Faefolk do not bleed, so there weren’t any patches of red on her body, but two large holes and multiple large scratch marks littered her body, while her dress was ripped and messy. She had a pained expression as she gulped down a mana potion to heal herself.
Silva still had Igniculus to support her, but she was coughing up blood as the light elemental slowly healed her wounds. However, compared to Tasianna, her situation was dire—two of the three garms were ganging up against her as she had her back against a broken piece of the ice dome.
“Haaa—No! Tsk, Wind Blast!” As she was about to empty her mana potion, Tasianna was ambushed by the third garm, who knocked the glass vial to the ground, spilling the contents but the bottle didn’t break.
No, no! Dammit, leave them alone!
“Go! Go! Help Tasianna!” I ordered my wolves, before delving into my shadows and reappearing before Silva to block the attacks of the garms with my spells and daggers.
“Miss Saori!” she yelled out with an elated face, her elven beauty still shining despite the wounds and blood on her face.
Humanize!
Storing everything not made from mana threads into my storage, which included my party bracelet, I activated [Humanize] and transformed back into a cadejo. Without wasting any time, I picked up Silva on my back, who already retrieved Igniculus after I communicated with her telepathically, and dashed towards Tasianna.
The two garms gave chase through [Shadow Dash], but with my stats having returned back to that of an upper rank C wolf, I easily jumped over them and then used [Air Walk] to escape through the air. Simultaneously, I cast [Umbral Pendulum] and [Claws of Darkness] to delay the two garms.
During this run, my shadow wolves were valiantly protecting Tasianna, helping her regenerate a good chunk of her lost mana by letting her drink two additional mana potions. She then took one of Hestia’s holy flame bombs from her belt and threw it at the remaining garm while it was preoccupied with my golems. It was a direct hit, burning through the black slime on its body.
I pounced at the burning garm and bit its neck with my fangs. I managed to pierce through the fur and muscles of the garm but, seeing as I was a “young” cadejo, I was far smaller than my adult counterparts. I punctured its defenses, but my fangs couldn’t reach its neck like my daggers.
Tch, just a bit deeper, dammit!
Although I probably wasn’t taking as much damage, being this close to the garm while the bomb’s flames were still alive was damaging me little despite my shadow armor. They were Hestia’s flames, after all. The garm quickly shook me off, able to ignore my bite due to its complete pain resistance as a corpse. Using [Air Walk], I reunited with Tasianna, our party back together.
[“Tasianna, are you alright?”] I asked as I let Silva off me.
Now drinking Hestia’s dragorade, Tasianna answered with a distorted face, “Y-yes, but I apologize for not being able to hold on for longer. I’m sorry, I am always being saved …”
[“No! Do not say that, Tasianna. You were exemplary!”] I praised her, noticing her morale dropping. [“You held on long enough for me to take down the first garm. You and Silva did amazingly. 100%! I give you 100% for your efforts! So, stand up straight and continue fighting with me, Tasianna! I cannot win without your help!”]
Still showing some doubt in her abilities, Tasianna nodded after taking a deep breath. She began casting a spell, but it didn’t look like she was very confident right now. However, our party had no time to mull over it as the garms continued their assault recklessly.
“Whyyyyyyyy?! Wheeereeeeeee?! Suppoooorrrtttt!” the onnikai from the orb screamed. The zombies were probably attacking the baron’s castle right now and the beast was fighting Hestia. No reinforcement would come.
We too won’t get any help, and I have a feeling that the same trick won’t work again with these garms. Especially when Tasianna and Silva were now wounded.
Covering for Tasianna and Silva to heal themselves with potions and dragorade, my wolves and I engaged the garms. Pouncing at each other, each garm became preoccupied with one of us. “Use those threads!” I told them as the fight intensified.
There was the option of summoning more [Shadow Clone], but the problem was that I had to control my clones while fighting and casting spells. More than one clone was impossible for me to handle, especially when I was so focused on spell casting. [Shadow Pack] had the advantage that I didn’t have to control their actions, as they could operate independently from me, but the downside was that I could only summon one of them.
I wanted my wolves to have more support, as they were clearly getting overwhelmed by the garms, but my priority was to take this garm before it took me down. We needed to thin their numbers, and I could resummon any of my shadow wolves afterwards.
As I was thinking about it, the first shadow clone dispersed. I resummoned it and sent it back to the same garm that killed it, but I wasn’t hoping for it to buy me a lot of time. I had to save some mana for my own attacks.
Just Blink!
Using one of my unarmed abilities, I vanished from my opponent’s sight and reappeared right in its face. Our eyes locked onto each other for a split second, before I lunged forward and bit at its throat.
“Graaaa!” It gasped.
It tried to attack me with its claws, but I held it back with [Dark Tendrils] before having two [Shadow Snakes] emerge from my shadow armor to take up strands of holy element mana threads and wrap them around the garms body.
I was crushing the garm’s windpipe, but as it was a zombie, it didn’t need oxygen. So, my only choice was to get a good hit with the venom, and I needed some time to apply them on my claws and fangs. Due to my venom immunity, I didn’t have to fear Hestia’s toxic creations anymore.
However, while I was taking the vial out of my storage, another garm tackled me off from my garm opponent and gouged out a piece of my flesh.
Urgh!
The wound was healed up with [Sanctified Blaze] but it, unfortunately, disrupted my venom application. Noticing it was my [Shadow Pack] that died, I resummoned it and shot a [Claws of Darkness] at the interfering garm. My shadow snakes managed to wrap some of the white mana threads around the first garm, so I activated them to unleash some holy damage on it in order to prevent it from breaking out from the threads and my tendrils.
However, while trying to pull it closer to me, the third garm attempted a surprise attack. This time, my attention wasn’t drawn away, so my [Foresight]’s and [Danger Perception]’s came in time for me to dodge it. Spending some mana, I activated [Foresight]’s secondary effect to have it predict the future movements of the garms.
Using this knowledge, I decided to not resummon the [Shadow Clone] wolf, and instead growled. “Kriiigraaaaaaaaaa!” I let out from the top of my lungs, activating my [Bloodlust] skill. This immediately attracted the attention of all the garms—they glared at me as if I just insulted and challenged them to a duel. Maybe it was garm-ish for something, but I had no idea.
The second garm bodychecked my shadow wolf away to run directly at me, while the third quickly began the assault by shadow dashing to me to launch an attack with close-range [Dark Slash]es. The first garm was, of course, still struggling to free itself.
Using my smaller size, I slipped past the garm’s attacks and summoned another [Umbral Pendulum] before diving into a shadow. Once I came out of the shadow world, I saw that the pendulum dropped down from the ceiling while the third garm easily dodged it, however, once I reappeared from the pendulum, as the whole thing was a shadow, the garm was too surprised to react.
Similar to the first garm, I bit its throat, and then pushed it down onto the floor. Meanwhile, the first garm managed to break out of the dark tendrils, ignoring the white mana threads as they weren’t active right now. In a synchronized attack, the first and second garm pounced at me and bit my legs.
Damnit, [Foresight] didn’t show this!
[Foresight] only showed information a few seconds into the future depending on the level of the skill, and while it helped me take down the third garm, I reacted too slowly to the remaining agile garm. I groaned mentally as they pulled me off their companion. [Sanctified Blaze] was aggressively defending me by attacking the two garms, but they ignored the flames and bit even deeper into my hind legs.
Urrraaagh! I need to control the pendulum to attack these two!
I panicked once the third garm stood back up and was about to take advantage of the fact that I was immobilized. However, that was when something fortunate happened.
“Miss Saori!”
With a noise that sounded like a grenade being released, something flew through the air before crashing onto the garms attacking my hind legs and covering them up in white flames. They abruptly let go of me as they attempted to kill the flames attacking the black slimes covering their body.
Thank you! I thanked the owner of the voice, realizing that two of Hestia’s holy bombs just saved me. I endured through the flames and narrowly dodged a lethal bite to my throat. Extending the claws on my front legs, I slashed at the third garm’s face and blinded its eyes and let go of it.
It flinched backward, giving me enough time to pull out a vial of venom with my mouth, break the wooden bootle, and then coat my claws and fangs with the spilled content. The garm escaped through a shadow, which made me direct my attack on the garm closest to me—the second one.
Using [Just Blink] to make sure none of them could anticipate my attack, I escaped their vision and senses for a split-second before drilling my claws right into the garm’s head. Like a frenzy beast, I ravaged its heads into a gory mess with my claws, inflicting as much venom damage as possible before leaving its motionless body on the ground to react to the third garm’s attack.
However, I didn’t have to. A torrential rain suddenly fell down from the sky, pushing the garm back with sharp, bullet-like water droplets. The rain then stopped and the water began turning into white ice, freezing the garm in place for me to sink my claws into it. Similar to the second garm, I didn’t give the garm a chance to recover itself at all, destroying its head and chest with my venom-coated claws.
As I turned my eyes to the last remaining garm, something surprising came into my view. My [Shadow Pack] wolf, who I thought perished from the second garm’s attack, was on the first garm’s back. It was pulling the remaining white mana threads with its mouth, choking the last garm, and then decapitating its head with the threads.
It then looked at me and howled—its body dispersing in the white flames, as it had fulfilled its duty. I was honestly confused at this point. [Shadow Pack] created wolves that could act independently from me, but they weren’t sentient. They weren’t like Hestia’s parallel minds that sounded and acted like clones of Hestia.
So, why did I feel like it was trying to communicate with me? Why did I feel proud of a spell created golem? I mean, wasn’t this like feeling proud of a vacuum cleaner for doing its job well?
Forget it, just forget it. I don’t want to think about this. It’ll only confuse me …
“Arrrrrrghhhh! Noooooooo!!!” A shrill voice woke me up from my delusion. “Noooooo!!! Nooo! Staaaaaandddd! Fiiiiighhhhtttt! Fiiiighttttt! Ouuuurrrrr reveeeeegeeene!”
It was like the cry of a despairing child. Its panic-filled voice echoed through the chambers as it helplessly screamed for help, telling the garms to stand up and fight. It desperately tried to call for the onnikai beast’s support, asking where it was and why it hasn’t returned yet.
I looked at the onnikai inside the orb, motionless and still. Only the black slime covering the pedestal it was sitting on was vibrating, but, otherwise, it looked calm, completely contrasting the voice it was giving out.
… How… pitiful.
It was like a prison. The onnikai was screaming and obviously seemed like it wanted to fight us; however, it couldn’t. It was imprisoned inside the orb like a beast in a cage. It relied on its army of onnikai zombies and the mana-created beast to protect and fulfill its orders.
But now it was alone.
I turned back into my wolfkin form as it seemed we won the fight. I looked through the battlefield and at the motionless wolves. The only one still spasming about was the one my shadow wolf decapitated, so I quickly injected a dose of venom and pierced its heart with my dagger, completely silencing it.
… The itch is finally gone. My senses and common sense are really turning into that of a garm, huh? I can’t believe this itch really was related to being challenged by other wolves.
I let out a short sigh, still perturbed by my cadejo instincts. Similar to Hestia’s [Battle Frenzy] and intimidating presence whenever she was mad, I too was being changed by my monster origin. It really felt like my brain was being rewired by my new body. Was it a bad thing, though? I didn’t like it one bit … but this was just my life.
I felt even more annoyed that I couldn’t control it. That control freak inside of me, wishing to keep things as I envisioned was creating a new itch. I felt pathetic. I felt pathetic as when I couldn’t muster the courage and strength to just help Hestia out with the lizardmen rescue mission, or how I couldn’t just tell her to be less emotionally charged.
Dad. Mom. I took a risk, and we did it.
It didn’t matter. My own inner turmoil could be solved later on. Now, we had to finish the mission. This risky mission where I allowed Hestia to let loose to reduce the danger when our group dove into this ruin to finish the onnikai. Our plan worked out because I trusted Hestia to perform … I trusted Tasianna and Silva to perform.
I took another sigh. I made doubly sure the garms couldn’t move anymore—they were no threat anymore. Our only opponent left was the boss.
“Sister Silva,” Tasianna called. Looking at her belt, she only had two vials of mana potions left.
“Yes, I will now perform the Rite of the Fading Winds.” Silva’s belt was empty. It seemed she used up the health and mana potions.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to use my potions thanks to Hestia’s [Sanctified Blaze]. Too bad it ran out just now. My legs haven’t fully healed up yet, but it would be a waste to use a potion now … I really am too stingy, haaaaaaaaa.
I hesitated for a moment, but finally decided to not use the health potion. That was another annoying trait about me. Money didn’t matter if I was dead, but I couldn’t get that through my head.
The battle was over, taking it now to relieve the little bit of pain would be a waste. I could just endure it and let my regeneration do the rest until Hestia comes. The onnikai beast should be destroyed the moment the rite was finished.
Silva stood before the pedestal. Seeing as the slime looked dangerous in our eyes, I took out the holy element mana threads and used their effect to melt away the slime. Once that was done, Silva held her staff up and began the rite.
In the elven tongue, she chanted something I couldn’t understand. Tasianna offered to translate it for me, but I rejected the offer because something about Silva’s voice was mesmerizing. I had no knowledge of the elven language, but I wanted to continue listening to her voice. It wasn’t as attractive as Hestia’s singing voice, but it had a different kind of effect. Hearing a translation would probably break this … illusion?
“Senmial, Jischulla Zephira!”
And then a clear voice, so similar to a calm breeze, escaped Silva’s mouth.
AbyssRaven Saori showed who the better wolf was. Who the Alpha is!
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