This would be the first time I tried fighting with a sword but I had no worries. While #1's swordsmanship was decent, it wasn't good enough to fit my status. But especially since I was an undead, there was no reason for me to get caught up in the common sense of humans.
Rather than stand up straight, I loosely drooped forward while slowly swinging my upper body from side to side.
Puff!
Without any signal I pushed off my feet and ran straight at the dyriadbeast. It quickly swung down its green paw but my agility and wild beast instincts, made it child's play for me to slip away from that paw and also land a sword strike on its chest region. It managed to cut a few branches but that was about it. Even so, I wasn't discouraged.
With my speed it wouldn't be hard to run away from this enemy, but I didn't.
"There's no way I'm letting go of this rude fellow."
While the scratch I made quickly healed, I backed up and used Imbue Curse on my sword before slashing at it again.
"Kii! Kii!!"
This time, the curse of decay swiftly turned its arm black and was about to encroach on the rest of its body. But this monster was no fool as it decisively ripped off the cursed arm. Although slower than normal, its arm was growing back and I let it because in those short exchanges I figured out how to kill it.
"Keep it busy!"
While I backed off, magic girl increased the ferocity of her barrage of fireballs, forcing the dyriadbeast to cower in defence. While it was stuck in a submissive position, I prepared the spell that would finish it off.
I stabbed my sword into the ground and raised my hand. A flame then appeared above my palm and I focused on increasing its heat. If I was human then an incantation could shorten this process, but unfortunately an undead like me could only rely on his own efforts. For some reason magic girl could still do it though. Strange.
'More. More!'
Shortly after, the orange flame got lighter in colour until it became a white blaze. As long as I was in control of the spell, I wouldn't have to worry about burning up without noticing and could focus on the most important part.
"Imbue Curse."
Using this was usually as simple as waving my hand, but since I was trying to add a different attribute to a spell I had to be careful so that the elements didn't disrupt each other. Since failing this would result in an explosion of random size, I never tried it with holy and curse but so far I had succeeded with every other combination I could use. Naturally I just took over magic girl's body and tried it but since I still lost my hands a couple times during the tests, I didn't want to try mixing holy and curse until I got better at magic.
In the time it took me to carefully infuse the white flame with curse of decay, magic girl was running out of mana and her barrage was weakening. The dyriadbeast immediately took this chance and stretched out one of its arms to reach for her. The swift slap broke her in one hit but I wouldn't flinch for the sake of a mere puppet.
Once magic girl was out of the way, the monster growled at me as its burnt skin was shed and replaced by clean green. It was cutting it a bit close but the grey flame in my hand was soon to reach completion.
The dyriadbeast lunged at me but by giving him most of my physical prowess #1 could hold it back until I dotted my i's.
'Finally.'
Unlike the white blaze, the grey fire in my hand had a calmer and more sinister nature. Like I was playing catch, I threw the flame at the dyriadbeast.
"Cursed White Blaze."
The white blaze burnt it black while the curse turned it to dust.
"Ki! Kii! Ki!!!"
Since it was getting smaller at a feverous pace, I used Assimilation before it became simple ash. It was a shame that I couldn't fill it with mana first but I had to get what I could.
[Assimilation successful.]
[Magic limit has increased.]
[A new skill has been obtained.]
[Strength +289
Agility +67
Dexterity +35
Defence +81]
"..."
Before I could even get upset at how much I lost out on, the memories of the dyriadbeast left me speechless. Dyriadbeasts were things that only came out when the forest was in danger but I didn't think it would be the kind of danger that affected the entire forest. Furthermore, it wasn't something natural.
After digesting these memories I could only sigh.
"Why the hell are undead attacking the forest?"
From its memories I saw scenes of groups of undead attacking from all over of the forest. And to make it even worse, based on their numbers they were likely being led by some mastermind. It would be good if they didn't attack friendlies but it didn't look like they had that much intelligence.
'Escape sounds like an ideal plan, but is it even possible?'
I wasn't sure but the invasion force seemed intent on killing everything in the forest. If it was to the extent that dyriadbeasts were forced out, there might not be any holes for me to slip through.
'Surrender? But to who?'
Due to my title 'Unique One', I was easily hated by those of my race, but I didn't know if that effect worked on undead as a whole. Depending on who was leading this undead army I might get killed without a chance to explain myself.
'I should at least check for an escape route.'
While I was stressed by morbid thoughts I looked at my status for some good news.
[Unnamed
Race: Unique Ghoul
Strength: 543
Agility: 345
Dexterity: 335
Defence: 328
Skills: Assimilation (Unique) | Curse Magic (level 2) (Rare) | Swordsmanship (level 3) (Rare) | Imbue Holy (Common) | Magic Eyes of Perception (Rare) | Fire Magic (level 4) (Rare) | Devotion (Special) | Berserk (Rare) | Hypnosis (Rare) | Forest's Blessing (Special)
Titles: Unique One | Heretic]
Looking at my increased stats and skills I felt soothed. It wasn't relief or hope, I just enjoyed looking at it like it was my favorite collection. And now it was time to check the latest addition to my skill collection.
[Forest's Blessing (Special)
The blessing of the sacred beast of the forest. Only wounds done to fatal areas or great damage to the entire body may kill you. While within a forest:
All stats +50
Immune to poison and illness
Increased affinity with forest creatures]
'Well, guess I found my silver lining.'
After getting my spirits uplifted by my status, I got back on my ride and made my way back to where I first entered the forest. Along the way, I killed a few random things. Even with my new skill they fought back once they were attacked, but they still died without even grazing me or my servants. I used Assimilation, but in addition to getting little to no Strength status values from the corpses, I also felt strangely full when I used the skill.
'Is this some sort of bottleneck? I realize that 500 is a big number but can't this wait til a thousand or something?'
It didn't seem like something that could be solved easily and I didn't have the free time to experiment so I reluctantly gave up. As much as I wanted to go at my own pace, I had bigger things to worry about.