“*sigh* I’m so horny,” Feral muttered dazedly as he stood in the bathtub with his knee cupped to his chest.
He was done jerking off but for some reason Dina felt hollow, ah, she wanted to fuck so bad it was driving her insane. Should she try seducing Genad again?
However, after pondering for a while she decided against it. If their relationship got even more ambiguous than it already was, she couldn’t even imagine how to handle the consequences, not that she was being egoistic but what if the dude fell for her? That would be disastrous especially when considering the fact that she couldn’t and wouldn’t fall for him.
‘I’m not really into playing with people’s feelings so let’s avoid that for now.’
After freshening up, Feral dressed up in the dressing room whilst picking up the snoring cat that was lounging in the piles of clothes. For some reason, their little kitten found it comfier to cuddle up in a box of cloth than sleeping with them, well, it was better to prevent the poor thing from experiencing some 'certain' situations.
“Come on now assistant!” Feral said as he hauled Paws away from his box awakening him with a cold bath.
The rest of the shower was rather… eventful and in the end he ended up changing once more after being drenched with soapy water from a certain warrior. And after that they went to prepare breakfast.
In about an hour, they were done with the meal, and breakfast was served.
Just like that, their days passed by peacefully and uneventfully until eventually, Genad decided it was time for some training.
During their peaceful days, Dina found out so many astonishing features of the VR. Usually, an item was only supposed to possess about one to two functions, and maximum being three which was only ever found in a spirit-grade item.
The number of innate functions varied randomly regardless of the weapon’s grade. Weapons were differentiated by their power and not the number of functions which was why a normal grade even when possessing three functions could never best a noble grade possessing only one function.
The VR however, was a strange item. Its functions were a total of five! Shocking both Genad and Dina and its abilities were all powerful! If not for its incapability of conjuring a spirit it would have been a spirit-grade item.
Its features include, ‘reality conjuring’, ‘mind bind’, ‘illusion creation’, ‘mind manipulation’, and ‘information manipulation’.
Reality conjuring was as its name a function that allowed it to create anything at all, from a single item to an entire town filled with actual living beings! Only, no matter how real they looked or felt in the end they were but a high-level trick to the mortal mind.
Its weakness was that the second a person was able to convince their mind that it wasn’t real then all the conjuring would become transparent holograms incapable of fooling anyone.
And that was where ‘mind binding’ came in. To prevent a person from escaping from this powerful delusion, the VR would find their greatest desire, and fuel it to the utmost, making it so that person would be too lost within this desire of his to find out the truth of the fake reality before them.
Next was the ‘illusion creation’ ability with allowed the VR to make a bunch of illusions capable of deceiving someone. It was like a less powerful version of the reality conjuring skill with their only difference being that with illusion creation what the VR could create was unlimited.
Mind manipulation was a skill that allowed complete control of a person for a certain amount of time depending on their mental strength and lastly, information manipulation which was how the despicable item had managed to lure in the entire gnome race to its doom.
It was a unique yet powerful skill that had no limit but needed only a simple prompt to make it work. It gave a person the power to manipulate information with just a simple word, as long as three people were able to obtain that singular information, the VR would instantly gain access to manipulate the information into any form it wanted.
Like a rumor about a person, once the prompt was activated the VR would gain the ability to manipulate the rumor any way it wanted. It also had a sub-function that allowed a person to gain any information they wanted as long as they asked but of course, one had to be careful as if used on a person with a strong mentality they’d probably figure it out and nullify the ability.
It was an ability so strange and unique that even till their eventual defeat, the gnomes couldn’t figure out how it worked.
Even Dina, a major in robotics couldn’t conjure a theory on how the ability actually worked.
But one thing was for sure, it was an extremely useful ability.
Genad decided to give it a try, and with the help of the VR he spread an audacious rumor- ‘The angel king was back and he had ordered all the kings to pay ordinance to him on the 25th day of the month.’
This day happened to be the day the kings had planned to investigate the ruins and also when they planned to rummage the angel’s realm. If possible, Genad wanted to create as much chaos that day at the lower realm to prevent even the slightest possibility of the angel king interrupting them.
The rest of the days before the major day was filled with training of both Feral and Paws and with the help of the VR’s reality conjurer, training became a lot easier.
While Feral increased his archery skills, Paws tried to increase his length of transformation whilst Genad played around with his reward from the gnome ruins.
It was the duplicate of the item his father had created- ‘an anti device’ that just like its name nullified anything including holy magic. The same device that killed his father and one that was being held by the angels in their courts.
The device although but a duplicate was so powerful that it directly nullified Genad’s sword and no matter how much he tried to undo it he couldn’t. He found out that the nullifier actually had a setback- it couldn’t be modified. As long as it was worn it would nullify even its owner’s items, ability, and magic.
Something so powerful, it was no shock the angels had instantly retrieved it.
With such a device not only would the demons be able to overpower them but even an ordinary person could do wonders with it as long as its disastrous side effects could be overcome. After all, although weakening one’s enemies was great, how was one to fight them if they themselves were also weak?
If only his dad had lived on then this issue might have been fixed but now… it was left for him to fix it as his next of kin.
As for its duplicate, it could only exert about 60% of the original’s powers which meant its nullifying ability was only about 60% but it was enough for him to carry out his plans. Genad’s eyes gleamed at these thoughts and he couldn’t help but clench his fists as his eyes quivered in excitement.
A day before the main day, Feral and Paws stood in front of the leisurely male who placed on the nullifier as he picked up an ordinary sword. He had also been training how to harness his strength while having up to 60% of his stats nullified and today would be the showcase of the results of the trio’s training.
“Feral, are you ready?” Genad asked while inspecting his unshielded sword. His hands with a quick movement slid through its blade and a clean cut was seen with light droplets of blood dropping down startling Feral. Wasn't it a wooden sword? Just how?!
Dina gulped internally, during the training she had experienced lots of things, not only did her speed, agility, and eyesight increase but her pain tolerance after being beaten up mercilessly by both Genad and Paws did too.
As the weakest of them all, she had really suffered, and if not for the hellish sports activities she had sometimes indulged in while on earth she would have dropped in defeat…. Okay, maybe she did increase her endurance with points but others were mostly her, okay?!
With a sharp breath and a slight nod at Paws, Feral immediately stood in position, his legs wide apart, his shoulders spread taut and relaxed, he held his bow directly in front of him as his hands reached out to grab an arrow from his back.
His arrow might be of an ordinary grade since it hadn’t evolved but its two functions were enough to make up for its daintiness.
Firstly, was its delightful ability to produce continuous arrows which really helped Dina, and its second ability…
“Yes, master!” Feral answered.
“Then… begin!”
With a leap, Feral agiley landed on the trees, camouflaging himself with them as he navigated deeper into the woods, his eyes never leaving their target. He had also learned how to harness his magic to control the wind element which was the only magic he could learn.
As an elf, his ability should have been linked to his spirit animal but because his blood was ‘tainted’ he didn’t possess this instead his human nature with allowed manipulation of mana greatly increased his ability to control nature.
For all elves, it was an innate ability to be in harmony with nature but that didn’t mean they could control it, but due to Feral being a half-elf and half-human, his innate ability evolved into control over nature which was a very powerful ability.
Usually, all races were blessed with only one ability, and even the humans who could control mana could only have access to one ability and every other ability they showcased was due to the uniqueness of mana and their ability to manipulate it.
But Feral possessed the ability to control nature’s two most powerful abilities, wind and plants. Due to this his agility which was originally high as a half-elf was further increased which corresponded perfectly with his weapon gaining him a huge advantage!
However, even with all the crazy abilities, all Feral could achieve was minor control of the wind to increase his agility and speed. But Dina wasn’t in a rush, they had barely stayed three weeks and even her growth was astonishing to her, and asking for more was just being greedy, all she could do now was try as much as possible to put to practice the ones she had learned.
Stretching out her bowstring, three arrows immediately approached Genad from various angles. In just a second Feral had swiftly arrived at different positions and shot precisely at his target.
His target however was merely unfazed as he simply swerved fluidly and like a graceful musician with an unfathomable might he easily dodged the shot arrows without breaking a sweat. But Paws wasn’t just some pig teammate who would lay about and let Feral have all the fun; just as their target had dodged the fourth arrow shot at him, Paws followed through, having transformed into a tiger he appeared out of thin air, slashing his mighty claws at the target.
With a wave of his wooden sword, Genad easily sent Paws flying through the air and into the woods before swiftly deflecting the multiple arrows that barraged him the next instant.
Without wasting time Feral whistled at Paws who instantly transformed into a bird and jumped onto his back. They circled around the male as Feral shot while slowly drifting upwards each shot coming from afar yet precisely hitting the mark without a single miss.
Genad’s eyes flashed, just what was his little elf thinking?
During their training, Genad had found something quite interesting. Not only was his little elf a fast learner but also an intelligent strategist. His ideas weren’t all that genius or mind-blowing but they were quirky and maybe due to this they were nearly impossible to predict.
It made him a bit excited, just what next would he surprise him with?
He didn’t have to wait long to see though as the next minute, he felt a presence rapidly approaching him from above with an insane speed which didn’t give him enough time to respond. Following that, a huge blackish animal he had never seen before slammed right to the ground causing a quake through the area he was in and throwing him off his position.
Without giving him an iota of time, Feral instantly shot out a barrage of arrows from all sides harassing the male and with his coordination being thrown off, Genad could barely dodge the arrows and was hit on different sides.
But he was sharp enough to prevent them from attacking his vital points.
Deciding it was time to end this, Genad directly ignored Paws and chased after Feral who had sensed the danger and immediately retreated but as Paws was still suffering from the effects of direct collision with the floor, his motion was greatly reduced, incapacitating him, and preventing him from holding down Genad.
Feral wasn’t about to give up though and infusing a large amount of wind while running, he aimed for a blind spot and with a sharp draw, he released the arrow which briefly threw off Genad to the ground where he crashed into Paws.
And their battle instantly began.
As the two exchanged blows, Feral decided that it was time to end this training, and taking five arrows infused with a great amount of wind magic, he made a fluid curve around the duo releasing an arrow from each side.
“Paws watch out!”
The duo looked up at the menacing arrows that were about to set off quite the explosion and they immediately parted in an attempt to throw them off but it was too late for Genad as Feral had made sure to activate the item’s second option before their release.
‘Accursing’.
BOOM!!
A cursed function of the arrow marked a person so that no matter how much they ran or shifted they would always have the arrows right behind their backs.
The energy of its simultaneous collision was triggered, setting off an enormous explosion like no other. There was no fire, no sparks, or flashy scenery only the huge quiver of the forest due to the enormous force exerted by the wind which tore through the surroundings leaving it in a profuse state of awe.
There was silence for a while until a sharp gasp broke through the silence followed by an exclamation.
“I give up!” Feral said with a tremble on seeing the trickling of blood from the blade on his neck.
Of course, he would win in the end, wasn’t he the protagonist?
He wasn’t sure how but it seemed that this dude had somehow managed to throw off the trajectory of the arrows which meant that the explosion didn’t affect him in any way. Looking at Paws who had been so far away yet was still affected albeit a little, Feral suddenly felt it all unfair.
Wasn’t he just too broken? This was only at 40% of his abilities and he was only in his twenties! How annoying!
“Not bad, am impressed but it seems the guardian still needs some training,” Genad said, and scooping Feral into his hands he leaped down from the huge tree they were at.
Paws looked up at the duo pitifully, out of them all he had the most injuries, and even Feral who was weakest barely had a scratch. Feral instantly went to comfort the poor tiger with a hug.
“But putting in mind our recent goal, this should be just enough after all we’ll be mostly running and hiding rather than fighting. And, I hope you’re ready because I will not show mercy to any liability,” Genad said threateningly causing Dina to sweat.
He actually could dispose of them if they got useless…
Either way, Dina was determined to stay by his side and raise that damn meter even if it meant putting her life on the line! As for Paws, she wasn’t ready to give him up no matter what!
As the trio walked to their cottage to prepare a healthy meal to energize themselves, Paws whined pitifully as he clung to Feral while Genad followed behind with a menacing aura.
They were an odd team indeed.
***
Finally, that day arrived, and as planned, the rumors had fully circulated and with the VR’s manipulation, it somehow didn’t reach the kings until that very day.
And as the kings battled the chaos of the people gathering to pay ‘ordinance’, Genad, Feral, and Paws readied themselves for departure.
Into the angels realm!