CH321 Thera’s Perspective

Waking up in the morning, she half-heartedly fumbled around the bed before even opening her eyes and realised she was alone, Ben likely having already run off to either play with the archive or work on his magics since he’d finished every book in Viv’s library, meaning Thera would be facing the start of the day by herself.

Hopefully it would be a good one, but her stomach was in knots thinking about it. Her aunt had said that she’d explain the changes going on in Ben by lunch, and as much as she wanted to know what could have possibly taken the great life spirit so long to figure out, the fact that so much time had passed left her in doubt they’d be receiving any good news.

Relax, it will be fine. Viv is probably just absorbed in studying things without even considering the fact that we’re worried. I can’t exactly expect her to be sympathetic.

Still, for as much as she disliked her aunt, she couldn’t deny the fact that the visit had been useful. Getting guidance on such complex life spells was a huge benefit, even if she didn’t plan on using most of them ever again, and it felt like she was actively improving her magic with each day she was there. It felt good.

With that positive frame of mind, she forced herself out of bed to get whatever bit of guidance she still could before it was time to go. As much as she didn’t regret stopping there she wouldn’t stay any longer. She missed her aunt and uncle, she missed being home

Making her way through the empty halls, save for the few homunculi that scurried about, fulfilling whatever task was built into them, the first thing she noticed was just how cold it was. In their week there, the building itself had always been a safeguard against the external chill, the heating being perfect, even despite the fact that her aunt had no need for such a thing, and as she tried to ignore it to go to the room she’d been having most of her lessons she passed the front door, finding it wide open with Vividus standing at its edge.

“Viv, I’m aware you don’t have any flesh to be bothered by this, but most mortals aren’t exactly thrilled with the prospect of spending so much time in freezing weather, don’t tell me you’re having me fight out there again?”

Even if it was hands-on training, it was her least favourite of everything her aunt had made her do by far. The cold would bite at her flesh the entire time, distracting her and splitting her focus from everything else. She’d admit that a desire to go back to the warmth was an excellent motivator to push herself and finish as fast as possible, but it was an experience she wouldn’t be looking back on fondly.

“Oh, I’m well aware. There’s very few races that prefer this climate and even the ones that do don’t usually come this far north, the day-night cycle can be too hard on them. Still, it has its benefits. It lets me work on plenty without being distracted. Anyway child, you really should aim to fix this sleeping problem you have. I thought you’d have woken up a while ago and your pet must be rather cold by now.”

“What?”

She pushed her way past her aunt to see in horror the scene the great life spirit had set up. When she’d been made to fight for practice, it had been a struggle. A dozen beasts designed to do nothing but kill in a land where there was no earth to pull from and being powered by their maker to keep her dark magic from having any real effect, giving her no choice but to use her life spells for her attacks. It had been a challenge then, but it was incomparable now.

Instead of a dozen, she was seeing a hundred standing before her, as if waiting for her to make the first move. Not one of them was natural in appearance. Razor like claws and jagged teeth on all of them and snow-white fur to act as camouflage, each creature towered about her and showed the clearest sign a thing could give that it was properly ensouled instead of just being another group of homunculi, there was a shimmer of mana around them as they prepared for the moment they stopped being restrained to fire off their spells and carry out their violent impulses.

Despite the terror of the prospect of fighting them all though, it was barely a blip in the back of her mind as she focused on the giant behind them. Towering over them all, being at least four stories tall, Thera couldn’t begin to imagine where her aunt had been hiding such a creature. Bipedal like any hominid type, it was covered in a thick, almost sharp-looking fur, as if each strand was really a sabre ready to strike, and four muscular arms to go with it. She could tell it had some sort of magic to it too, even if she wasn’t sure what, but that wasn’t the biggest problem. The problem was Ben, trapped in its hand, looking like he was slowly being crushed as his hair filled with frost. His skin would have been pale and blue from the cold if not for the creature’s grip squeezing the blood to his head while he was trapped there.

“YOU PSYCHOTIC BITCH!” Thera scream. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”

In the face of her niece’s rage though, the great life spirit was as indifferent as she ever was. “Hopefully motivating you. Your progress is dreadful compared to what it should be, but you’ve shown that you can at least make some for him. I’d get to it by the way, he’s been out there for a while waiting.”

Her immediate instinct was just to murder her, but as much as she wanted to, Thera knew she couldn’t do it. Not from a lack of will or some familial bond, but the knowledge that the difference in power between them was just too great. She’d come here seeking help, but instead she was trapped playing her aunt’s game with Ben’s life on the line, and no way to use any of the magics at her disposal that might be of any use.

Knowing she wouldn’t be able to direct any of that rage to the one who deserved it, she pushed past her aunt with her staff in hand, with the creatures before her treating it like a signal to act as they charged forward, each rushing towards her at a speed her legs would never be able to move, with the ice shaking around them as it was pulled from the ground to fire at her.

Water affinitied then.

With so much happening at once, a part of her wished she had one of Ben’s ridiculous mind skills to make things easier on her. Her telekinesis was nowhere near good enough to stop the attacks in mid-air, but she strained her mana to fire off a pushing effect in front of her, slowing some of them down and knocking others slightly off her path as she followed it up with her life magic, trying to move it in the same way her aunt had to put down any of the creatures she’d been made to experiment with, overstimulating their brains to make them fry.

The closest ones went down as a few farther back seemed to feel an effect and she rushed closer. It wasn’t a smart choice, as a mage she wasn’t meant to be working up close, instead acting from a distance, but life magic was one that saw its true worth in hands-on situations. Otherwise, its effects would weaken and disperse. Her control was too bad to do it from afar, so instead she forced herself closer into the fray, firing the same spell again and again at anything that got too close, watching groups of them fall each time until she heard her aunt’s voice.

“Just doing the same thing over and over again is rather boring, don’t you think? You’ll never improve like that, so since I’m here let’s increase the challenge.”

She heard the words as she was standing right in front of one of them, trying to fire the spell and failing, Vividus’s overwhelming skill and magic working from a distance that Thera thought she’d never be able to manage herself, perfectly countering the magic she tried to cast and leaving no effect on the creature as it swiped at her, tossing her through the sky as a deep gash formed along her abdomen from its claws.

In a flash she was on her feet, pouring all the mana she could into closing the wound as she tried to figure out what she could do in the seconds she had. She had no idea if her aunt was going to block that single way of attacking or just any attack that focused on disrupting the creature’s natural function, but that didn’t leave her with many options, and the ones she could think of would take too long to cast, with none of that even considering that she’d made almost no progress getting closer to the beast that held Ben, shaking him in the air and seeming to taunt her. More than anything she wanted to close that distance.

But how? My speed’s not bad, but getting past all of these would be…

That line of thought trailed off as she had an idea. A terrible idea, one she’d have never entertained before for the damage it was sure to do to anyone that she used it on. Buffing. Her mana was so great that there was a far too real fear that doing so would destroy the body of the person she used it on, but having the ninth level of the skill she was more equipped to do it now than any time in the past, and more importantly, it wouldn’t be happening to a Ben or friend or any innocent person, she was going to do it to herself.

That quick choice made her muscles and bones flood with her own mana, her body erupting in pain in an instant from the flood as her heart rate felt like it tripled. Through the pain though she felt the effect in an instant, the world slowing down around her as she kicked off the ground and began to move.

A single step tossed her through the air as she flew past the closest group, the buff giving her enough leeway to think on just what to do as she stepped away from swiping teeth and lunging claws. She was sure she could apply the same buff to them with significantly less care and control than she had to herself, but there was always the fear that the monsters could handle it, or worse, her aunt would help them handle it, so with that in mind she quickly adjusted her strategy. All of her mana went towards strengthening herself and healing all of the damage the buff did to her body, while the staff she was using became more like a club in her hand than anything else as she smashed it against the faces of the creatures she ran by, feeling the strain on her limbs as she struck with more force than her body wanted to give.

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It wasn’t her first time fighting like that, she’d gained the staff wielder skill back when she adventured alone, fighting off anything that got too close before she could use her spell and even if she’d never specifically trained it, it gave her just enough edge in the form of instinct, striking where her gut told her too and continuing past, trusting she’d done enough to make them fall.

There was plenty she hadn’t hurt that hadn’t been close enough for her to attack in melee combat, but she’d decided she’d go back for them later once Ben was safe, her priority was the giant standing in front of her.

The creature bared its teeth as she got close, seeming to grin and squeeze Ben even tighter as she rushed at it, knowing that she wouldn’t simply be able to beat it with her staff as she’d done for the others and she rushed forward trying to squeeze out a quick victory in the only way she could think to.

She had to assume that her aunt would continue to keep her from trying to overstimulate it with her magic, so she took another option. As much as it was a monster designed to fight and kill, it was still alive. It had bodily functions she could take advantage of in other ways, and seeing a thick vein pulsing in its neck, knew instantly how she wanted to try it.

Wielding her life magic, she directed it at the giant with all of the control and focus she could muster, all for one small, simple goal. Stimulating cell growth within the creature, forcing the vein to seal and keep blood from flowing to the beast’s brain, all to kill it in the end.

It was more than doable with the skill she currently had, she knew it was, but she still felt it fail as she fired off the spell, the monster using one of its giant arms to take a swipe at her as it did, throwing her through the air and breaking her ribs, the only thing keeping her alive being her high vitality.

“Poor luck,” She heard her aunt say from behind her, as if she was watching Thera lose at a game instead of fighting for her life. “But really Thera, it wasn’t a bad idea but did you think it would be so easy? I created this creature for the purpose of fighting demons, of course it can shrug off that level of life mana. If you want to save him you actually need to try to push beyond that.”

She wanted to scream at her aunt but did her best not to let herself be distracted as she started to heal her wounds while she moved through the pain, instead doing her best to keep buffing herself and fixing any damage it did to her body, all the while dodging attacks from both the creature that had Ben and the smaller ones behind her. All of them were firing spells now, seeming to want to keep a distance after facing her in action while she could only dodge, lamenting her own weakness.