I jumped from where I was sitting, gravity taking hold and pulling me to the ground. For a moment I just stood there, my muscles aching a tiny bit from the impact.
Beside me Ellaine had done the same, she had jumped and landed right beside me. A nod was all that was needed before we both set out.
There was no need to even think about defense we had already come to the same answer. We would kill… no, we would exterminate any and all external threats to anything around this splintered land.
Within minutes we had reached it, the split in the land. It felt ominous and even the fresh air that I had come to enjoy turned stale in the presence of the land beyond us.
I pinched my nose for a moment before letting go with a sigh. I looked towards Ellaine and again nodded.
With a step we had crossed over.
Yet that was not the only thing that had happened, the moment that my foot had taken root into the ground it had retaliated. The stale air turned oppressive as it pressed me into the ground.
I had to take a knee as I adjusted, my breathing hard.
"Need some help?" Ellaine asked, her hand reaching out to me.
"Yeah, though I have to ask, why are you so ok?" I took her hand in mine, the armored glove taking a tight hold over my hand.
She pulled me upright and for a moment I just leaned over her, using her to hold me up while I adjusted.
"I just am… I can feel what you're talking about but it's just… It feels as if it could not touch me."
I nodded and stepped forward and gestured for her to follow. And she did, trailing behind me as I went further and further in.
"That's fine it's probably some unknown skill, my own fire resistance didn't pop up until something extreme happened so it could be a case of that."
I turned my head back to talk to her face to face and saw as she pondered over what I had said. She seemed to nod before catching up to me and standing at my side.
It was at that point, after we had walked for a couple moments, that it happened. A movement, somewhere in the distance.
Both of us had taken our own stances, Ellaine herself holding her sword in two hands and gazing into the distance.
Myself, I had lowered my center of gravity and held onto [En].
'There!' I thought as I dashed forward, Ellaine following behind.
I slashed the moment that I was close enough and surprisingly enough it fell to the ground. I had expected a tougher fight, one that I would have to fight tooth and nail for. Not one that fell to the ground at the first clash.
I crouched down, asking Ellaine to watch the surroundings while I inspected it.
The creature looked a bit humanoid but that was the only resemblance it had. That being its form.
Other than that it was just different. For one it was smaller and even then its limbs seemed to be half a size too small for it. It also had this dirt colored skin that was bordering on green at times, as if it…
'Wait' I thought, moving the corpse a bit.
I moved it to another patch of ground that wasn't dirt and found the color of its skin changing. It seemed like they used camouflage to lurk and ambush enemies.
Well, ambush was my assumption but it was my best guess seeing their abilities and stature.
I dug through the corpse, hoping to find any rune but there was none. The most I found was that their bones seemed to be engraved with some sort of language.
It was sort of like Chinese in a sense that I couldn't read it and that it had symbols instead of words.
Symbols that were starting to glow…
"Shit!" I yelled, jumping back as far as I could. There was a BOOM behind me and the force swept my hair behind me.
It was bright but not bright enough to blind me.
"Ellaine!" I yelled, trying to find her in the smoke but there was nothing. No sound, nothing that I could hear nor see.
I just had to wait but something was telling me that I couldn't. And so I obeyed my instincts and jumped back again, this time outside of the smoke.
It was as I came outside of the smoke that my hearing returned to me. It was like there was some kind of barrier that I passed, one that dampened the sound around me.
However I couldn't pay attention to that as I found us surrounded. There had to be hundreds, no, thousands of them.
The only reason I wasn't panicking right now was the fact that Ellaine was fighting them. No, she was slaughtering them.
But with each that she cut down ten more joined them. And even now there were light scratches on her armor. Ones that wouldn't kill or even hurt but they would accumulate.
I could already tell at a glance that they were degrading the armor. There were spots that seemed to be rusting.
There was no more time, I jumped into the fight and with that cut into the closest to me. Inching my way towards where Ellaine was fighting.
With two people to fight they seemed to be split into two groups. The larger of which were aimed at me, they seemed to want to take measure of me.
I cut and I cut some more, tens of hundreds of them jumping at me only to be cut down. Yet with each one that I cut down they seemed to be inching closer to me and pushing me further away from Ellaine.
There was no end to them. And it was because of that that I decided to do something. I had not done this since the first floor but it would be worth it.
Plus I trusted [En] I knew, instinctively, that she could take it.
A small smile lit my face as I activated the mana in my veins. [En] lighting up in blue light.