I must say, that kid is good at following orders. as soon as I said him to go to that house, he ran as if his life depended on it.
at the same time, some of my blood armor turned into whips. ( the blood armour stays on me permanently now)
I will take one shot at whatever that is attacking us, if it fails I have a backup plan. that is to run into the building.
fighting a flying being in a plain like place is nearly impossible, most of your attacks won't even touch it. it decides the tempo of the battle.
so the best way to deal with a flying enemy is to force it into a closed place and push it to fight in close combat.
while all this, the screeching sound continued. I can finally see the figure that is the cause of this sound. it is a humanoid shape.
if it is those birdmen again, I will really lose all control. those guys are plain cruel. wait a second, whatever that was, it did not seem to be in the mood to slow down.
it just kept accelerating downwards as if it had no control over its motion. I have thank god that I am not fighting a birdman. those guys are not only hard to fight, but it is also so irritating to fight them.
(a few seconds later)
the flying object ended up falling. crashing into the ground with such a loud noise that phantom snow came out and looked at the crash site.
falling from such a height meant that whatever it is, it is dead or very strong. the former meant that it is safe to approach the crash site and the latter means that there is no point in escaping so might as well check out the crash site.
signing the kid to follow me, I go quietly towards the crash site. finally, the dust begins to settle and I stop in pure shock.
I was expecting many things at the crash site but a pretty young man sitting was not what I was expecting.
he seemed like a sage, the tranquility with which he is sitting.
me - who are you and what is your purpose of falling from the sky. speak or we shall fight you.
pretty boy - kids nowadays, don't try to intimidate me. I am already tired enough as is. you know me as immortal and I helped you to disrupt the voice of a god, specifically a god of the forest.
me - you are immortal, but I remember him being older. now that I think about it there are some similarities between your looks immortal - now kid, it would be very helpful if you could pull me up. it seems that my body has been paralyzed.
me - sure
both me and phantom snow pull immortal upwards.
( after a couple of hours. )
the kid went get some rations for us. normally I would be the one to go, ( one, that kid doesn't have a lot of fighting experience and two, I don't trust people who I have just met for my food.)
but I have to stay back. these were orders from the big boss himself.
me - so what do you want me here for?
immortal - what do you think about that kid, phantom snow. trustable or not. I personally think that kid is untrustworthy.
me - why do you think that, and second thing compared to him, I should be more untrustworthy.
immortal - I can tell that there is someone very powerful behind the kids and I can't find out who he is, it is clear that he is not an ally.
right now for all I could care he is the bastard son of the emperor of the phantom world empire. you on the other hand have lived in this world for not even a year. if my enemies managed to recruit you in their rank. especially if you spent it in the mindless forests, then I would know.
me - wait a second, what are you saying, I have been in this world for seventeen years. the reason I called myself nameless is because I forgot my name. I am suffering from amnesia.
immortal - the book of bloody mage is unique among it's kind. it does not like to give its power to any person belonging to this world.
to be honest it doesn't like to give power to anybody that already has it. that condition is not satisfied by any man in this world, and most of the world out there.
your world is one of the few that satisfy it and also has a group of people that could travel to this world. by the you have to work on your lying, it sucks.
me - so wait a second, so I am not the first one to come to this place.
immortal - nope, we have an entire list of you guys. we keep a pretty close eye on all otherworldly beings.
me - anybody else like me?
immortal - nope, though I would need to check the records to be sure.
me -what is happening in our surroundings, with all those snakes and all those weird things we saw.
immortal - well, it is a kind of mana like yours. it is called god mana. I don't have the patience to explain what it is. just think of it as a disease that infects everything.
me - everything?
immortal - well, if what I theorized is right, it will infect living beings at first. make them have random mutations and becoming something else. next, we will have the mana affect the nonliving things. you could suddenly have arms pop out of the rock you are sitting on. the last stage is when it begins to infect the mana around itself. at that time even your specialized mana won't help.
me - so we could also be infected.?
immortal - god mana is kind of like your mana, it is mana with something extra added in. while we are not sure what that extra is, it does not affect other specialized mana, at least until you spent quite some time in it.
(after some time, until phantom snow returned with some rations. )
cooked food after so long is so tasty. I had almost forgotten how real food tastes like eating my own food. I am good at many things, but cooking is not one of them.
me - what is the plan then, immortal.
immortal did not say anything, removing a piece that he had carved with a piece of wood that he got from somewhere.
me - this is a contract, while it is not the best of my work, it will do its work. all you need to do release a drop of blood over it.
phantom kid - first reveal it to me, your part of the contract.
to be honest, I have no idea what is going on here, after all, contracts are a new thing to me. while I have a basic idea, how it works, I will leave the details to the professional.
immortal definitely does not want to kill me, after all, if he needed to kill, all he needed to do was not take action when I was on the verge of death.
anyway, Phantom snow took the block of wood and pored over it, over which glowing text could be seen very clearly.
after studying it for a while, the kid seemed to be satisfied. he made a small cut in his hand and bled over the block. he then gave it to me.
I did the same as he did as the block seemed to catch fire as my blood touched it. the flames did not burn me. they actually felt cool immortal - with this, we are contracted. we cannot in any way harm each other. if you do your life force will be burned by the flames of purgatory.
me - so what is our plan to deal with the enemy, according to you we have to get out of this place, pretty soon at that.
immortal - we have too many enemies to face, so first we have to whittle them down, we have two major enemies to fight with.
first is the mutated snakes, they will pretty easy to deal. most of their mutations are harmful to them and these mutations are actually making them dumber, so they should be very easy to deal with.
he said making a rudimentary map on the ground depicting the gate.
immortal - we can divide our enemies into two types. the mutated snakes and the undead.
the mutated snakes will be easy to get rid of, they can be baited into separating from the main horde and then killed.
the second enemy is the undead, who are under the control of a necromancer. so divide and conquer won't work here. to make more advanced plans I need all of you to trust me and tell me what are all your abilities. first I will tell about my abilities.
first of all, my immortality Is nonfunctional. I have recently shifted my soul into this new body, so I have an additional ability to give life to my puppets. other than that I know a lot of magic, which mostly don't have any combat significance.
phantom snow - my abilities are related to the mind. my abilities that have a combat significance are mind prison, where I can trap a person in illusion. my second ability is a possession ability that lets me possess my enemies. the third is a mental attack that can stun my enemy for a few seconds.
immortal ( to Phantom snow) - before we go to nameless, I would like you to tell me, do you have a book or not.
phantom snow ( he had shocked expression as he pondered on what to say. )- yes, I do have a book of the eldest. it is called ' the book of mind demon '. how did you even know about it?
immortal- right now, there is a specialized kind of mana like yours in this region. only other specialized mana prevents you from producing mutations like the one happening to the snakes right now.
( he then goes on to explain everything he told me about God mana that he told me once. getting through it once must have been hard already)
immortal - what about your abilities.
me- my abilities, I don't have many abilities to speak of. I have yet to produce my own mana, so that means that I can't perform any of my blood spells, but I am good at close combat fighting and am capable of healing myself using life force.
immortal ( looking at us ) - first I need to understand what your limits are. for now, rest since it is already night rest, for now, .we will be doing the needful the next day.
he had that commanding feel about him, like if we did not follow his orders now, something terrible would happen.
( after a while )
everybody was sleeping peacefully around me. the stone bed is actually pretty comfortable.
I still could not sleep, but that was to be expected. this is going to be a very long time.
it does not help that the little kid is snoring. according to immortal, tomorrow, we will be testing our ability and quantifying our power and weakness.
miss mist had told me about this. all military leaders are skilled at assessing the strength and weaknesses of their allies. it kind of makes sense once you think of it.
each person has varying degrees of power and different strengths and weakness.
it is something the soldiers are not capable of doing on their own. because regardless of how much you can record your weaknesses in combat and review them, an outside view is more helpful.
suddenly I hear sharp screaming from immortal. the kid next me has also woken up.
me - kid, do something.
phantom snow - I already am, a powerful mind is pulling his mind deeper into the mind castle, I can barely even keep him stable. whatever this method is forcing his mind on the overdrive.