CH153

Minutes after the mildly concerning exchange with his god, their target finally started to appear and Ben moved back to watch how the fight would go. He knew Sachel had life, water, and earth magic since her goal was to eventually awaken them to plant magic, which meant that she and Thera had a fair bit of overlap in skills at the moment so how they’d work together wasn’t clear, while Ralia’s role in the party was still a mystery to him. She didn’t have a weapon so perhaps she was also a mage?

He would learn soon enough. Eight frost bats came out of the woods, far larger than he’d expected with a wingspan of almost two meters, and both mages pulled out their staves to face them. Thera was their target after becoming victims of her charm, but she was well aware of that. Unfortunately, unlike what she’d usually do, fighting them with her earth magic wasn’t an option for fear of damaging not only any of the trees behind the bats but also the dense root system beneath them.

Dark also failed as an option. Since using it meant actively removing the charm from her mana before she could cast a spell it would take too long, and even then the ones she knew for it were limited. The chances of shadow fog or more intuitive ones like fear being able to defeat them being unlikely. The bats were already nocturnal, and fear would only counter the draw of charm, driving them back to the forest.

That left her with a single means of attack, the same one she’d used to deal with the bugs that filled the forest; overwhelming life mana. She didn’t just release it all around her as she’d done before though, instead directing it with her staff, sending a powerful wave of it towards the monsters that were flying towards her.

They visibly reacted to the assault, their momentum slowing for a moment and one briefly falling from the air before collecting itself, but it mostly served as a stun. While the biological systems that kept an organism alive within it were undoubtedly going haywire and the microbes that lived within them would be reaping the benefits of being flooded with life mana, none of the bats were killed.

It was more than possible that if left long enough they would expire from the effects of Thera’s mana, but when they’d tested it as a form of attack in their past hunts they never let it get that far, instead using that period of disorientation to strike, something Sachel took advantage of herself.

Before her appeared a floating ball of water, and if Ben didn’t know better he would have assumed she’d materialized it, creating it from pure mana, but there was no way she could achieve something like such a high-level spell. Instead, she had used a different, though still demanding technique, pulling water from the air itself. While it couldn’t be done if the climate were too dry, in a living forest where plants were in a constant state of taking in or releasing their water it was more than possible if someone had the necessary control and skill, both of which she continued to show with her attack.

That ball of water, about the size of a fist, changed its shape to match something he’d seen Thera use herself at a much larger scale in the past. The water thinned out into a round flat disk, akin to the blade of a circular saw, and began to rotate at dangerously high speeds before flying through the nearest enemy, cleanly bisecting it.

That wasn’t the end though as she continued to demonstrate the extent of her control, immediately changing the direction of the attack to slice through the next one, and the one following that, not ending until five of the eight were dead.

The three that remained had enough presence of mind to change their target after that. While they could tell that whatever Thera had done had been harmful to them, it wasn’t the instant death that Sachel inflicted and they rocketed towards her, a fog forming around them as the air began to freeze and they prepared their attack.

An attack that didn’t get through. Ralia threw herself between them, and in a move Ben would never have expected she began to change, as her more human-like top half shifted to match the snake-like tail she possessed in place of legs, turning her into a giant snake-creature almost seven meters in length.

Striking fast, she bit one out of the air with her powerful reptilian jaws before hitting the other two to the ground with her tail, finishing the fight.

Ralia turned back to her normal form, shivering and wrapping around Sachel for warmth. It was clear the combination of her reptilian nature clashing with the frost bats could prove to be a challenge if there were plenty more to deal with and Thera put her cloak back on to hopefully reduce the chances of any more being drawn in while the other woman recovered.

Ben though had a different priority as he ran up to Ralia, grabbing her hand as she tried to warm up.

“Please tell me everything about how you just did that!”

He knew it had to be a skill of some kind, he just didn’t know what one, nor why he hadn’t seen anything like it in the numerous skills Zandale possessed. He immediately wanted his hands on it to see just how it could be enchanted with.

Ralia seemed taken aback, but answered easily enough. “It’s a skill called beast form- blood snake I have because of my paternal heritage. I know it’s not exactly common, but I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

Meaning she isn’t a pure naga like I thought, interesting. “There’s a lot in the world I don’t know about unfortunately, but that was super cool and I want to learn.”

He had meant he wanted to learn more about it, but was misinterpreted as Ralia shook her head.

“Sorry, but you need to be directly related to a nagual to be able to use it, it’s something we have from birth. Well, unless you can somehow talk a soul mage into helping you.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

So it’s a racially linked skill huh? Doesn’t mean I won’t be able to enchant with it if I get it from her, but it raises more questions.

“Why would a soul mage be able to help?”

“It has to do with how my father’s race came to be. Long before they were invaded, his people faced a different threat, the existence of an evil god that suppressed the one the nagual worshiped and oppressed the people of the world. After centuries of suffering, eventually a life mage gained enough skill and power to ascend to the level of a soul mage, and using that strength gathered the souls of five of the most dangerous beasts the world had available to strengthen the five greatest warriors they could find. They succeeded in freeing their world, but as an unexpected side effect all descendants of those heroes continued to be born with two souls, the nagual soul always being able to make use of the animal soul to one extent or the other.”

“So if anyone wanted the skill, they’d have to ask a soul mage to merge a specific animal soul with their own?”