The first wolf closest to me bolted in my direction. As it approached, it ignited a trap I had set as I was on the ground. The land glowed yellow before caving outwards and rocketing the body up with it. The body ragdolled skyward into the sharp looming branches, that were caught, and snapped by the suddenly airborne body mass, making similar work of the branches as it fell back down. The body ended it's arc, making a sickening crunching sound upon contact with the ground. As it's friends run past the injured wolf, ignoring it, as ot shakily stands again, it's limbs bent at unusual angles, and sticks and branches impaling it's body. It still tried to continue following, however it was now greatly hindered.
"Damn, what the hell kills these things. maybe fire? that typically works. But the mine before didn't seem to scorch it." I mutter incoherently. " Stupid zombie's, why do you have to be so difficult to kill."
" Zombies? Alice you know what these things are?" Ravi asked.
I paused, did zombies exist in this world? I mean I know that there are monsters and the such, and I couldn't imagine magic that could animate the dead didn't exist, but perhaps there wasn't anything like in in this world. That makes these creatures that much more terrifying. " Well that's ... I just called it what I thought they were called am I wrong?"
"No, I've just never heard anyone else talk about undead before." Ravi said "Are these really zombies?"
" I'm pretty sure. I've never seen a real one before ..." I replied as I was being helped along by Ravi, keeping an eye out on the approaching Wolves. they seemed a bit more cautious now that they saw what I did to their friend. There intelligence unnerved me for some reason. " ... but I'm pretty sure if they don't die after dying than they qualify as zombies. How do you know what they are? Are these things common?"
"... I think I heard my father talk about them. He mentioned something about undead creatures like zombies and mummies when he was telling me about the Dead zone. Other than that I haven't heard much about them, and I certainly have never seen them." Ravi said as we wove trough tree's. She was making sure I could keep up, and it honestly touched me.
"Anything we could use? Like a weakness or vulnerability. Fire maybe? I feel like that may work." I asked, keeping an eye on our pursuers, ensuring they weren't close enough to attack from behind.
" He mentioned something like a core or something, similar to a magic beast, that should supply mana to the creature, while also letting it move after it has died. It was a while ago, so I may have remembered wrong. but that's all I can remember. Sorry." Ravi replied " And as far as fire specifically I have no clue."
The wolves had gotten close enough to attack again, so I let go of Ravi, and couched down, using my hands and one good foot, I spun to face towards the oncoming wolves swiping my palm across the ground leaving strips of blackness along the grounds. Rising to stand a wall of spikes to emerge from the void with me, erupting up and lifting one of the wolves up.
The wall skewered the wolf in various places locking it in the air so it couldn't move. I willed the wall of spikes to spread back in a attempt to trap the second wolf as well, but ultimately I missed. Never the less, the sudden appearance of a mass of spikes, did cause the trailing wolf to crash into it, delaying their pursuit and injuring it. Not that the scratches would do much to a zombie.
" So all we have to do is crush these cores?" I asked for clarification, looking back at her.
" I think, but I don't know where those would be." Ravi said downcast.
" ~Tsk~ That's a bummer." I grumbled, scrambling to stand up. With what I've already done, I could tell I didn't have an effective way to find these cores. I obviously couldn't crush them, otherwise the wolf falling from the sky would have done the trick, probably anyways. And if the wolf I have mounted on my wall of spikes is any indication these cores are small.
" Alice who said we have to kill them? Why couldn't we just immobilize them so they can't move too well? Then we could just run without worrying about anything tailing us."
" That's actually a great idea!" I said ecstatically. Lost in thought, and accidently putting too much pressure on my injured ankle, my leg suddenly seizes, and I drop to the floor crushing my leg underneath me.
Letting out a howl of pain I grab my ankle, as the open wound scraped across the rocky ground, expanding and reopening the wound I had already sealed.
" Alice!" I hear Ravi yell from afar, once she finally realized I hadn't started running with her. The remaining wolf that hadn't been decommissioned by me had made it around the blockade, was incoming fast.
" I'm fine." I call out and more carefully stand, preparing to stop the wolf.
Taking a deep breath I push myself up and pull a sword out of my inventory, attempting to lob the wolves head off. Successfully decapitating it, the head detached from the body, and few forward as the body crumpled to the ground.
A sudden pain surged in my shoulder as the wolf's head hung clamped onto my shoulder as it passed over. After being severed the head was still able to move and bit me.
Prying the jaw off, I snap the mouth in half before I am knocked back onto my butt. Ravi stood where I was sitting with a wolf's jaw clamped onto the arm of her thick armor.
"Alice are you alright?" She asked worried, as she swung her sword and decapitated the wolf. Shaking the wolf's head off her arm, teeth imprints were left in the metal, but it didn't penetrate.
Quickly pulling me up. Ravi threw me over her shoulder, and started quickly moving further into the forest. " There were more than we thought following us. We can't stay, and you aren't in any position to fight. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe." She reassured.
" Alright, I'll cover your back." I agreed, and Ravi began to speed up.
As Ravi started to make progress away from our current position, our unfriendly pursuer's were quite insistent on accompanying us further as they made frequent attempts to join me on my ride. Since Ravi had me and her armor keeping her weighed down, the wolves by far outpaced her, so I had to stave them off. I tried a myriad of things. Moonlight knives took the least Mana, but they didn't really keep the Wolves away. light beams made nice holes in the wolves, but again ineffective. Void spikes worked ok, because I could hold the wolves off the groundand prevent them from following, but that was too costly, and they eventually disipated. Oreo's bullets faced the same problem. Too expensive, not worthwhile returns to. In the end I found explosions to be the most effective method of preventing these things from attacking. The downside was they didn't do crap towards debilitating the wolves, so they kept coming back so no matter how many times I blew up the face of a wolf. So they just kept pouncing at us.
My eyes hung heavy as I could feel the Adrenaline begin to drain from me. The consistent, rhythmic, rocking had lulled me to sleep slightly. I needed to stay awake and keep a eye on Ravi's back, but my vision was blurring and it was getting harder to keep the wolves off her. I could still trace the position of the wolves pursuing us, but despite my best to keep them at bay, it wasn't enough. I was running out of Mana and my HP wasn't looking too hot. The injuries from before had taken a sizable chunk of my health, and the open injuries continued to drop it. Suddenly, I noticed us slowing.
" Ravi what's up?" I asked looking back. The ground suddenly ended and that's when I noticed we are currently standing at the edge of a cliff side. Our moment of pause gave the wolves time enough to surround us and prepare to strike. They had multiplied in number somehow and by my best estimate there were a good twenty surrounding us currently, but those were only the ones that were obvious to me.
" Ravi let me down." I asked, to which she hesitantly complied. We were going to have to fight to get out of this one.
Once off her shoulder I retouched the ground and the pain that had nulled in my ankle returned snapping me out of my dazed sleepiness momentarily.
Looking at how the wolves were spread out I could tell that it was going to be difficult to stand our ground, and we were already worn enough that we wouldn't be able to push through, and if we managed to pass it wouldn't take long before they caught us. Taking a deep breath I steeled myself, I was ready for a world of pain, because if we were going to win, I was going to have to pull some real MC always wins shit, and unfortunately, that isn't a skill I currently had on my skill list.
Laughing slightly to try and expell any negative thoughts about dying, my voice rose above the snarls of the wolves. " Ravi you ready for this?"
" As ready as I'll ever be." She replied.
" Heh, Good enough." I move to grab my swords but an unfamiliar feeling pulses through my injured arm, and instead of moving as I had wanted to my arm began to tremble. The feeling started out as mild, something negligible compared to the pain my leg was in, however the more I tried to move my arm the worse it got.
Tearing the cloth around the bite mark on my shoulder, the surrounding skin had become black and veiny as the blood seemed to be tinted green, a scent eminating from it I hadn't realized before causing me to feel queasy and smelt of rot. I forgot, but one of these things bit me.
Quickly pulling open my system I looked to see what was wrong with my shoulder
____________________________________________
[NAME: Alice ✳️
[RACE: Eclipse Black Cat (Unique)
[CLASS: [ Intermediate Void Mage Lv:30/30]
[GENDER: Female
[TITLES: [Child of Nature][Child of the Eclipse][Champion of Clover]
[Lv: 11/20 Exp: 0/2
HP: 190/1140 MP: 2980/11300{1000} SP: 230/1010 Status: Exhausted, Weakened, Poisoned, ???
[VIT: 31 (+1)(÷2)
[STR: 51 (+1)(÷2)
[END: 41 (+2)(÷2)
[INT: 1130 (+500)
[Wis: 675 (300)
[SPEED: 185 (+103)(÷2)
[LUCK: 67 (+0)
[UNUSED STAT POINTS: 1450 (+500)
[SKILLS:
- PASSIVE:
[Catlike Reflexes (lvMAX)]
[Basic Claw Mastery(lv4)]
[Intermediate Short Sword Mastery(lv5)]
[Intermediate Great Sword Mastery(lv2)]
[Intermediate Dagger Mastery(lv9)]
[Intermediate Bow Mastery(lv2)]
[Intermediate Spear Mastery(lv7)]
[Accelerated Regeneration(lv7)]
[Intermediate Exhaustion Resistance (lv9)]
[Intermediate Poison Resistance (lv3)]
[Basic Fear Resistance(lv3)]
[Accelerated Thinking (Lv6)]{New}
[Eye For Treasure]
[Night Vision]
[Lucky Strike]
[Intuition]
[Mark of Madness]
[Basic Eclipse Attunement]{New}
[Void Walker]{New}
- ACTIVE:
[Intermediate Mana Manipulation (lv5)]
[Intermediate Moonlight Magic (lv4)]
[Intermediate Sunfire Magic (lv9)]
[Intermediate Void Magic(lv3)]
[Intermediate Telekinesis(lv1)]
[Stealth(lv7)]
[Claws(lv6)]
[Basic Claw Arts(lv2)]
[Intermediate Short Sword Arts(lv2)]
[Basic Great Sword Arts(lv9)]
[Intermediate Dagger Arts(lv6)]
[Basic Bow Arts(lv8)]
[Intermediate Spear Arts(lv3)]
[Intermediate Throwing Arts(lv4)]
[Mimicry(lv7)]
[Unstable Mana Shot(lv4)]{New}
[Self Destruct (lv1)]{New}
[Universal language]
[Control]
[UNUSED SKILL POINTS: 39
[BLESSING/CURSES:
[Blessing of the Cat God Clover]
[Innate luck]
____________________________________________
Looking at my stats, I lost all confidence in my ability to get out of this. I hadn't realized it before, but I was way more hurt than I thought I was. There was no way I was going to make it out of this. hesitating I speak out once more to Ravi. I decided this was going to be the last factor I put into my plan before I was going to make my move.
" How you doin on health?" I asked Ravi. The wolves had made their way to us and now we were within their striking range. We had not time.
" I'm fine why?" She asked lowering herself and preparing to counterattack the wolves when they attack.
" Then whatever you do. Don't die. Please." I sniffle with tears in my eyes, Turning to Ravi I push her off the cliff down into the forest expanding below her. I wanted to jump with, but the landing would more likely than not kill me. I couldn't find a way out for me. I knew Ravi was strong. She made it this far with me burdening her so I put my faith in her. Between the two of us, she was the one most likely to live, but I knew she wouldn't leave me behind, so I forced her.
Time seemed to slow as her eyes widened, realizing what I had done. As her body plummeted down I felt the last bits of fleeting hope leave me replaced with a bitter Nostalgia. This exact thing happened once before, not quite the same but still identical.
As I awaited the wolves to feast upon my body and to die once again, alone here, a small voice echoed in my mind.
' Idiot, Cat's don't actually have nine lives, stop trying to get yourself killed!' The pain of the front most wolf biting me didn't come, instead A small doll black and white in form fell to the floor. Riddled in holes and tears from which white stuffing fleeted from it's compact, Oreo moved in the way his plush body protecting me from the fangs of the wolf.
The wolf spit the fluffy object out in frustration after the thing got in the way of it's next meal, and again tried to attack. Seeing Oreo snapped me out of my helplessness. This life wasn't something I could throw away. It was a gift, one I've already taken for granted once, what the hell was I thinking. I refuse to let this life be anything like my last. If you want to kill me I'll make it hell for you every step of the way.
Turning my hands into claws I Caught the wolf coming towards me, and started to squeeze. The wolf was already decaying, and because of the already brittleness of it's weathered body, the skull caved under my grasp and I glared at the others who gave pause from the sudden transformation. Picking Oreo up and cradling him with my disabled arm, I resumed a provocative stare.
~ Howl~ A rough raspy howl emminated from one of the wolves, and on que they all poured forth to try and kill me. With a small smirk, I prepared to evade and imagined all the wolves falling to their death. Then I remembered they can't die like that and Ravi was at the bottom, because I pushed her to get her out of danger. I was too hasty.
With nothing else coming to mind I could only hope that my final resort works.
[INT - 1130 -> 2680]
Raising my hand a blue radiance began to emit before it faded to white. Mana from the surrounding poured into me and I began to rethink my decisions as the density of the mana continued to grow. The wolves closed in. The white aura shifted and filled my field of vision. It was bright, warm and ironically the light made me feel safe.
~BOOM!!!~
' Hehe, suck it wolves'
I think as my body falls back onto the floor, unable to support itself.
[Hp: 0/1140]
[User Has Died]