Danila quickly placed a kinetic shield in front of her but the force of the attack was so strong it sent her flying back.
Rune markings appeared where she was falling and vains popped out to slow her fall. Eryth pulled out his sword and launched himself forward. The moment his sword reached close to the beast, it morphed into two, letting his weapon fly past.
The dark brown-haired man quickly ducked while still backing the beast, letting its claws fly over his lowered head. He turned and slashed his sword through its middle but to his horror, the Shadow beast split into two again.
Danila controlled the branches of a tree with her telekinesis and hurled it at one of the monsters and it too split into two, leaving them with multiple enemies.
"This is bad, it is way stronger than what we fought yesterday."
Eryth grinned and made his battle pose. "On my count, run behind me."
[Got it]
"Now!"
The Shadow beasts chased after Danila as she raced towards her partner. The many monsters lined up behind her just as Eryth wanted. He waited immediately she was behind him before putting his hands in front. A huge gust of flame burst out of his hand, it burnt the beast and most of the trees behind, leaving ashes and branches of trees.
Danila looked at Eryth who sheathed his sword.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"I'm fine." She looked at the effect of the flames and exclaimed. "That's a really large damage you did to the trees."
Eryth rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "Yeah, it's shocking to me too. I meant how much of my act I can suddenly do, and I feel so much energy in me."
"You mean you weren't this good?"
Eryth found an elevated root and sat on it. "The last thing I remembered before I came here was fighting a slime. I could only use the enchantment act to increase the damage and turning speed of my weapon and now I can do it all and easily."
She inched closer. "Maybe Monk Zumma will know what happened."
"Meh, it doesn't matter. I am not going to complain about this gift that Opochuna gave me, I would be a fool if I did."
Danila laughed. "Totally unrelated, but I hate Opochuna."
Eryth's eyes widened. "Really, Opochuna? The goddess of fortune?"
The pink-haired woman hissed. "She's no goddess of fortune. She makes people in dire need and then have them sign some stupid contract before helping them. There's a reason she's still a 1st OR-DER goddess."
Okay, here it is: there are seven tiers of the OR-DER gods ranked by their strength purity, and the amount of light they possess with the strongest being on the 7th seat.
As for the Chaos gods, they have an infinite number of tiers with the 1st being the strongest, ranked by the amount of chaos they possess.
And in between these two, the Adiaphori gods. Gods with neutrality, they have both pure and chaos energy in equal proportion.
"You better hope she doesn't hear you, cause she might be called the goddess of fortune but can also cause a little misfortune here and there."
They both laughed.
As they laughed, Eryth's eyes wandered over Danila's shoulder and he caught sight of the figure he saw earlier.
"Rapulnu," he mumbled.
A noticed a thin black thread that exuded smoke appeared, sticking to his chest and hers. The mysterious being moved her hand to fiddle with the thread while a mischievous grin lingered on her lips.
Danila noticed the look on her partner's face and quickly veered around but she saw nothing. She turned back to her partner to see him looking at her. "Are you okay?" She asked.
"I'm… I'm fine," he replied.
"You know I can hear your thoughts right?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Fine, what do you know about Rapulnu."
"The goddess of the dead?"
He nodded.
"I know she's an evil and terrible being, probably the one who possessed Hex."
"Right, okay…" he paused. "You think she'll have any interest in coming after me?"
Danila pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't know. Never heard of a scenario where she appears to a mortal being if not summoned through a ritual."
"I see… let's get going then."
"Are you sure you are okay?"
He nodded. "Yeah… I've just been reading so many books from the library and I think it's getting to my head."
"You like books?"
"So very much…"
"I said books, not boobs," Danila chipped. "You are a weirdo… I can't believe you're Azkaal."
He shrugged. "Told you I'm not."
Their conversation was interrupted by an explosion that caused the ground to shake and a huge smoke appear in the sky.
The two quickly took off in the direction the sound came from and in a few minutes, they arrived at an opening a few feet in front of them. It was a military camp, and though Eryth could not, Danila recognized their flag vividly. "Hex," she turned bitter.
She attempted to advance but Eryth held her back and shook his head no. A male and a female in entirely black armor that left only their head open were the only two in the camp. The female sat on a cut-down tree sharpening her sword while the male continued to shoot fireballs from his hand. He had light blue faux hawk hair and the female had blue skin with what looked like scale all over her body and brown hair. Both their eyes were completely dark, like that of a demon.
"Check this out," the male said while shooting a tiny fireball onto a tree. The moment the fire touched the tree, it turned into ashes.
The lady chuckled. "Let's just hope that calms Lord Lancelot, Ash," she said.
"Come on, Maya, you worry too much."
"Who are those?" The dark brown-haired man asked.
"High Knights of Hex, no doubt they follow one of his generals."
Just then, two other men, dressing similarly to the other two arrived at the encampment, dragging two individuals Eryth and Danila had seen before.
"That's Uobleza and Blutox," Danila whispered. She attempted to move again but Eryth shook his head no.
The two were completely battered and had injuries all over their bodies, while the men who brought them looked fine without a scratch. One of them had a bald head while the other had a formless head.
They hurled the two onto the ground and moved to join the female high Knight named Maya.
"Oohh, what have we here?" Ash, the fire elemental act user said while walking up to the two. "What a great hunting session." He grabbed Blutox's hair and raised his head.
"It is," the formless figure said.
"Found them wondering about the woods." The other added.
His eyes widened as he looked at Maya, his partner, and then back at Blutox. He used his index finger and rubbed over his face, trying to clean the blue color but it didn't come off. "Maya, are you seeing this? He's like you… are you siblings?" He laughed.
The blue-skinned lady got up from her seat and walked up to Blutox. She towered over his body and laughed softly, gently kicking Blutox. "You know what this means guys?" She asked.
"Your husband is still out there?" The blue-haired man laughed. Maya turned to him and spat but he dodged, letting the spit fly past his face. It landed on a tree and burned through it, leaving a hole where it touched.
"It means there's a village out there, waiting for us…"
The other two got up and walked up to their partners. Ash let go of Blutox and rose to his feet. "That's true, there has to be a village or something out in this woods."
"And if we kill them…"
"We'll not only please Lord Lancelot…"
"But even Hex himself," the female among them completed.
Ash laughed and formed a fireball in his hand. "And hopefully Lord Lancelot will not take killing his captives to heart."
"We have to save them," Danila whispered.
Eryth nod. "I need to distract them…" he said while putting his hands on the ground. A rune marking appeared in front of him and two shadow beasts emerged from it and started towards the group.
"Illusion?" Danila asked.
"I don't know, Necromancy? Or Summoning."
The beast roared as they approached the High knights of Hex.
"Are those yours?" Ash asked while slowly inching backward.
Maya and the others shook their head no, following the blue-haired man. "I haven't used mine."
"A stray." He shot a fireball at the beast but it split continuously as it burnt until its number overwhelmed the four, causing them to retreat into the forest.
Danila and Eryth quickly jumped down and picked up their friends before running back into the forest. As they ran, Eryth could feel something burning into his back and when he turned, he locked eyes with the blue-skinned woman, Maya.
.…
ns 15.158.61.7da2
