Pushing herself off of me, she landed in a crouch, confusion etched on her face. While I knew what she was confused about, I wish I did not. She must have been thinking why hadn't her attack worked. With my fighting fantasy going out the window I took a casual stance and started to walk toward her, making sure to watch her movements.
Regaining her composure, she hefted her sword again, readying for another attack. Only she did not expect me to just walk towards her arms swinging by my sides. Seeing a shift in her shoulders, I knew that I had caught her off guard, what I was going for. Continuing to walk towards her, I blocked her first attack, which came from the left. As I was closer to her, her attacks did not have as much of an impact as she had in her first strike.
It was like an adult sword fighting with a child. As Beth tired, I barely had to put any strength behind my blocks, as I covered my blades with Draconic Spores to add a layer of protection. I also layered them with Undead Spores, just because I wanted to be careful of the light glow on the edge of her blade, which seemed to glow even brighter with every attack she performs.
After I reached a couple of feet away from her, the next attack she made, I did not block. Instead, I ducked and sliced right through her wrists, which were needed to wield such a large weapon. With a *Squelch*, two pieces of flesh flopped onto the ground, leaking blood across the moldy leaves of the silent forest.
"AHHHHH!" Beth screamed in agony. Blood gushing like a fountain out of her nubs of what used to be hand, she crumpled to her knees, barely holding upright, clenching her teeth through the pain. Raising her head, she had just enough time to look into my pitch-black eyes before I reached down and picked her up by her hair, wrenching her a couple of feet off the ground, directly at eye level.
"Humans are so weak," I said, opening my grotesque mouth, and letting a liquid stream of spores flow out, spraying the ground. Opening my mouth even wider, I formed a row of serrated daggers, slowly dragging Beth to it. With many screams from Beth, I saw some rustling from the tents. They had not gotten out of the tents to help Beth because this whole excursion lasted less than a minute.
Not wanting to get caught off guard, I messily ripped off the face of the screaming woman, silencing her forever. "Hey, Beth, what the hell are you doing? Did you find the person who attacked us? I heard some screaming, so I thought it must have been another competing par-BETH!!!" Greg screamed, as well as a surprised gasp from Foster.
"What the fuck are you?! How could you kill her so easily? Not important, I must avenge her, as this is what she would want." Greg said through ground teeth. Although his sentences are not the best, I could understand that, if someone saw their friend, or even lover, get mutilated by a monster, they would have an emotionally unstable mindset.
Charging at me with a roar, I did a clean roundhouse kick before his gauntlets could even get within a foot of my chest. Another bad thing with emotions. They can interrupt your flow in combat. That is another reason why I don't get very attached to anyone, as they can be used to hurt me. The only relationships I would get in would be ones with someone as equally as strong as me, if not stronger, hence why I have Andromeda and Shen.
Unnoticed by me, while I was deep in thought, an arrow surrounded by a green aura was sailing straight for my head. Finishing that thought, I looked up and an arrow pointed right in front of my face. *thunk*! The arrow struck straight through my face and stuck in the center of my head. Although I looked like a clay figure without any defining features besides my pitch-black eyes, you could still tell that an arrow pierced right in the forehead.
"I'll admit, you have quite the aim, human. Alas, it won't save you." I said, reaching up to pull out the arrow, which began an unsettling hum. Feeling the vibration through the shaft, I looked at Foster, who, instead of quivering in fear, had a smirk on his face. "Oh, fuc-*BOOM*" I tried to say, but my head exploded. Not what I expected to happen, but was not something I couldn't fix.
Good thing I had the Undead spores circulating through my body when I fought them. Through this circulation, it not only coats every surface but also replaces the damaged ones, like a never-ending cycle of Magic Resistance. With the arrow weakened by the spores, it did not permanently damage them, and only took half of a second for my head to grow back together.
Now, Foster had the quivering I like to see. Walking over to him, mouth open, I grew a couple of feet by just adding spores to the bone structure of my legs. This terrified Foster enough to relieve himself where he stood, and then, promptly, fell to the ground, knocked out cold.
Reverting to my normal guise, which was the body of Gallen, I grabbed the feet of the poor bow and dragged him over to his tent, where I found a bag of straw, wrapped in the same leather I had when I first Memorized Gallen, and plopped the Adventure on it, accidentally breaking his hand. Eh, it won't matter that much. Bringing a clawed hand over his neck, I gently squeezed.
Hearing a satisfying snap and a limp head lolling off the edge of the cot, I deformed out of Gallen's body and covered the body of Foster, which I detested. From being a Beastkin for so long, I will have a handicap in almost every sense, literally.
'Welp, nothing I can do about it now. I should start Memorizing before anyone looks for this group, which I am sure will happen.' I thought to myself as I slowly began invading the body of Foster, who was now lying dead on a bed of hay. Now that I've gotten stronger, I can stay conscious during the Memorizing process, and it is much less complicated, as it is a human body.
After about thirty minutes or so, I finished with all the minor details, such as the nervous system, vascular system, brain, Nero system, and other details that help a body function. It was much easier a second time, and I also learned a lot about how the skill works as well.