PreCursive

  This wasn’t as stupid as it might immediately appear.

  During one of our breaks on the climb, we discussed just this possibility as a group. We had always known it ossibility that we could run face-first into a battle such as this. The possibility of immediately turning bad fleeing from it had been raised, but not seriously eained. After all, not only had most of my panions joihe expedition for the Statusial gains they might accumute, but there was no point to running. As Venix told us, in violen-violetles, an Oni wasn’t going tet a regur mortal more than they would anyone else.

  Anyone and everything was free game out here. We didn’t rank higher on any imagined chart than a fellow Oni, to these battle-mad beasts.

  That didn’t mean we weren’t on the menu, however. It just meant we could wade into the melee to achieve our objective without being dogpiled by every single hungry monster on the mountain.

  We would fight our way to an advantageous point, and if a ce to advahrough the range preseself, we would take it. To do this, our pn was to skirt our way along the edges of the battlefield, sying any and all that would oppose us along the way. Once we found a viable exit point that saw us forward, we would defend that point for as long as we possibly could before retreating out along it. This way, we could both advan strength and make sure we were keeping time torenzan.

  Even if it was likely already flooded.

  Things were even going well. All of us, even Kazuma to a degree, were a cut above the rest when it came to cssers in our weight css. It was a good thing, too, sidering the sheer amount of Oni out here. All of us had our hands full, and o engage individual monsters one-on-one, with the exception of Renauld. Kazuma was keeping to his self-imposed duty of proteg the Healer, while said Healer did his best to support us from behind. There was no room, time, or will to be relying on the small unit tactics we’d learned from the Oni Hunters ba Karoper.

  There were just too many of them.

  Venix was in a css all to himself, hardly appearing as if he had lost any strength at all from his extended a. In faow that I was much strohan I had bee time I’d seen him really cut loose, I would say the Antium samurai was beyond fully recovered.

  He was strohan he had been.

  Azarus was full on fighting with each of his bdes extended, using them to hassle any Oni that dared step up to him. I saw each of those spears, as well as his hammer, grow white hot as he eled some form of Skill to enhance his blows. It certainly had a pronounced effect, sidering how his knives were cutting through Oni flesh like a hot khrough bricks of butter.

  Liora, oher hand, was demonstrating abilities I’d never seen from the former assassin. I’d always been aware that she had simir abilities to our now passed ander, Hook. They both teo favor razor-sharp, cutting winds, him on his old daggers, and her on her cws. But I’d never seen her coat her entire furry body with those bed winds, until it was hard to see her through the howling sheathe. In a glimpse, I saw her straight-up plht through one particur Oni, pulping his torso and barreling right towards another.

  But it was Bel who surprised me the most. Where all of us were demonstrating all new abilities we’d likely either been workshopping, or had gaihrough Statusial growth, it was my lover who showed airely new fighting style. The pirate Captain had always teo fight with a form of storm element that buoyed her strength, agility, and more importantly her cutss. But she’d abahat altogether.

  Now, she fought like a ductor.

  In some bizarre bination of what seemed both Skill and Spell, her cutss was born aloft by a furious, bed, electrified cloud. Instead of her holding the bde itself, it seemed to dart all across the battlefield directed by her will, to ssh and cut at any Oni she so wished. More importantly, however, the bde of the cutss itself seemed to have been surrounded with so much dense lightning that it appeared as if a bolt from heaven itself. The result was that the zooming bde left scorg rents in the flesh of all that it touched, charred bck by the psma-sheathed bde of the instrument. Still, for all of her newfound ability to direct her usual bde, she kept a new one ready. There was a dagger I’d never seen her draw before, a long, curved, wicked dagger akin to a serpent's tooth that she kept in a baded grip to ward off those that strayed too close. Waving one hand about to direct the bde, Bel wi my momentarily startled expression, befetting back to work.

  All these new abilities…all these rategems…

  They were a stark, albeit relieving remihat my friends and panions weren’t the only ones tinuously growing in strength. They trained, and they pondered, and they grew just as much as I did, never sitting still, never growing pt. For every victory that we had, the System doled out more strength, more levels, more new abilities for them to unleash on our foes. I wasn’t the only oo have trump cards hidden up my sleeves for emergencies.

  However…

  Not t, but I think mine was the most effective. As simple as it might seem, a single bde of stilnt fire was absolutely nothing to uimate.

  I don’t think even Venix’s four bdes parted Oni flesh as well as my sword-staff did. In the mere minutes of battle we’d engaged in, as we circled the battlefield, I had lost t of the number of Oni I’d cleaved in twain. Oroke of the burning bde was enough to end the life of even an elder Oni who thought to try their luck. It didn’t matter what defehe more y Oni tried to raise. The bde suhrough them all, fulfilling the prophecy of the Skill’s description.

  It struck the root of all things.

  But, there roblem with using The Stilnt Bde in this way. It had an immediate dowhat I’d discovered just after finding out I could do this, those months ago in a private Hinaga practi.

  This was the first instance I had found of a Skill draining Mana to keep active. And the drain was not small. Every sed I had the fiery bde active huge ks of the Mana I’d accumuted from every point I’d ied into Wisdom were being buro keep it alive. Perhaps the most frustrating thing, though, was that I could just tell that roblem with how I was using that Mana. It all came bay problems in eling the refined Aether. If I was more effit, if I had an actual elihod, then I don’t think it would be a problem. But I didn’t.

  It was deadly, yes, as evidenced by the dozens of Oni I’d cut down. However…

  I just couldn’t keep it going forever. If only because I o keep some strength in reserve for after this.

  After all, I didn’t know if I was going to be fighting a Camity ter or not.

  That was the reason I didn’t dare to try and el both Vis Maledicta Exactoris and Might of the Wyrdwood as well. Using both of those Skills at the same time pced tremendous physical stress on me. Even if those abilities didn’t tax my Mana to keep active, it would wipe me out for aended period of time to try and utilize the multiplicative effect of the Skills together with this bde.

  Still, it was fihe purpose of using the enhanced version of my most powerful racial in the first pce was so we could establish ourselves on the field of battle. We had successfully navigated to the edge of the mountaintop and located a ridgelihat seemed to stretch further into the range. Noere just holding our position here until, I believe, we were satisfied with the sughter.

  Relutly I stepped back behind my allies briefly, and when I felt my internal reserves of Mana reach the half-way mark, I cut the Skill. Instantly, the corusg fire wavered and vanished from the topaz cem. Strangely, the stoeamed iill-falling rain.

  I slung the staff back over my back, and instead drew both of my daggers in their ueate, activating the less taxing form of The Stilnt Bde upon them as I did so. Stepping past Kazuma and exging a curt, aowledging nod with him, I got back to work, engaging with a blue adolest.

  As I fought, I felt like I was ag on auto-pilot and instinct. I no longer had the ability to fall into what I’d termed as a ‘battle trance’ like I’d discovered ba Elderwyck. I didn’t have the emotional numbing effect that my lost middle ring could grant. But I could almost equate it, these days. It was almost like…I had growo battle, and could direct my full attention towards it.

  Turns out, that wasn’t a good thing.

  I don’t know if it was my focused state, if I just ended up being surprised, or if I just pin got cocky.

  But when a green elder wandered into the path I’d carved through the battlefield, I didn’t think of the most evident ability I’d seen from them. Stupidly, I caught its attention with a Poisonthorn Shot, si seemed like it had caught sight of Kazuma and Renauld itself. I had thought I was doing them a favor by taking the focus away from our Healer, even if he had a guard. After all, I’d killed more than one elder here in this battle, one-on-one, and I was fident in myself.

  Instead, I came the closest to death I’d entered sihe close of the Elderwyck campaign.

  The green elder wheeled in my dire, dragging its broad hands through the air in a wide arc as it did so, almost as if it ping at me.

  From those palms issued a fierce, directed wind. A gale strong enough I thought it might have been able to knock down a tree.

  Much less a person.

  I went flying, s over the edge of the mountaintop I’d been fighting on top of, only moments ago.

  My transformed eyes widened, and it felt like my heart stopped briefly in my chest. The world seemed to slow around me, as a great abyss yawned underh my floating form.

  In the split sed before I desded over the edge, I was able to see the fight on the mountain in a freeze frame. Venix had dashed over to take care of the green elder that had dealt with me so effortlessly, and had, just as effortlessly, rent him limb from limb. A few of my panions seemed to have noticed my plight, and with a desperate expression on his normally stoic face, Azarus had directed his h spears to dart toward me. Presumably, he meant to catch my falling form with them. As, he wasn’t close enough to the edge, and didn’t seem to have the ability to grow enough that they would reach me. They stopped just before I could grab hold of them.

  The only other person that seemed to have noticed my plight was…

  Bel.

  My lover stopped cold in the middle of the battlefield to track my s form. Her lips parted in horror as I somehow, across the distance, met her stormy blue eyes. I only had moments to look into them.

  Hopefully, she could read the message in my own.

  Before I fell over the edge.

  ………………………….

  As I plunged down the mountainside, I was strangely calm. After all, if any one of us had to be throwhe edge like this, I was gd it was me.

  I was the only oh wings, after all.

  Even as surprised as I was by the gust of wind, I had never lost my grip on Vis Maledicta Exactoris.

  Problem was, I had never actually learned how to fly with them. Sure, I’d done some enhanced jumps by fpping my wings down hard, but that was different. There was more to flight, true proper flight, than just mindlessly beating my batlike appendages. Flying was super plicated, and humanoid forms weren’t really meant for it.

  Still, I k ossible.

  I just wish I’d had the ce to learn how to fly in a less perilous situation.

  As the world roared around me, I oriented myself in midair until I was fag downward, plunging headfirst towards the raging mountain river I could see far below me, illuminated by fshes of lightning. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought my falling speed picked up.

  Still, I didn’t open my wings. Not just yet.

  I probably only had one ce to get this right. If I messed this up, I was going to end up as a red smear on the side of the mountain, before finding a watery grave in a muddy stream bed.

  I held my breath as I felt the wind around me rush past, waiting for the right moment.

  I must have only bee away from the stone when I felt it. A shift in the air, as the currents ged around me.

  Now!

  I snapped my wings open, and the speeding air caught underh them.

  Instantly, I sailed up on them, zooming over the surface of the raging river below so closely I swore my feet skimmed it.

  But I wasn’t paying any attention to that. Instead, I was marveling at my own as. A massive, manic smile stole ay fanged mouth.

  I was truly flying now.

  Experimentally, I fpped my wings, sending me flying higher into the air. I was momentarily startled by how easy that was. But irospect, my used, that made sense. Even if I had stolen this Skill from a mostly dead Camity, it made sehat the System would imbue it with at least a few instincts about how to properly fly.

  Relieved, I fpped more and more and more, until I was s ever higher. In moments, I had winged my ast the edge of the mountain I had just fallen past, until I had flown to hover far above it. Below me, I could see the whole of the battlefield. The sight of the small war stole the smile from my face.

  Because it didn’t seem to be going well, holy. In the moments since I’d fallen, the board had ged.

  It looked to me like another violence had been drawn by the fighting, and fallen upon the remnants with glee. This time, they looked to be browns. My uanding of the Oni species told me they were earth-aligned, which meant I had to get down there now.

  My panions were surrounded by earth. The browns might be even deadlier than the greens were, on that stony mountain top.

  But something caught my eye before I could swoop down and joitle. Something in the sky.

  It looked…

  Well, it almost looked like there was someone h up here other than me.