I poured in almost every speck of mana that I had, willing the blade to lengthen and it obeyed.
A glowing blade made of nothing more than mana appeared in the morning sky. The creatures jumped in response, their focus wholly on me and nothing else.
"Ellaine!" I yell drawing her attention, "Duck!"
With that final warning and seeing that Elliane was on the ground covering her head and ears I let loose. The mana raged and with it so did the realm that we were on.
For a moment everything was quiet then I swung [En], and with her the blade of mana that I had created.
It let loose all the energy and destruction within it, the creatures were atomized.
And when the light faded, allowing me to open my eyes to the destruction I had created I found nothing of them. There were no signs of anything left alive.
I turned around and looked to where Ellaine was crouched down, she had this awe struck expression on her face at the raw destruction that I had summoned forth with only a swing of [En]
I had found myself looking around and even with the sigh of relief I had taken from the destruction that I had caused I still found many that had hidden from the slash.
Many that had started to surround me and with all the mana extinguished from my body I could feel myself falling to the ground. And it wasn't just I that was exhausted, I could feel it, the power that I had used with [En] as the catalyst had exhausted all the energy of her own.
I looked to the side as I fell, fixing my gaze onto Ellaine's own.
"I'll leave the rest to you, Ellaine." With those words I fell, unaware of the rapidly approaching knife.
Yet before it could even reach me it was cut short. The limb that dared to attack me cut from its source, an irritated Ellaine looking down to me.
She pat my head, ruffling my hair before smiling down to me.
"Don't worry, just rest." And I did as such. Laying my head on the ground and ignoring the air and pressure of this place.
I could hear the screams and deaths of the creatures but I took no notice of them, instead staring up into the morning sky.
It seemed so distant and detached from this part of the realm. As if it only shone down to the livelier side.
For a moment I just stood there, taken in a trance at the sight of it, of the feelings I had taken from the sun.
But that was not for long as soon after a hand reached to me, the armored glove familiar in the shine of the sun.
I took it in my hand and allowed myself to be pulled from where I lay. In the time that I had lay there I had recovered to roughly forty percent of my mana.
Not enough to do what I had done again but enough for me to be effective in battle. Reinforcing myself and [En] respectively.
I did that immediately too, as soon as I had thought about it. It had been such a sudden battle that it had completely slipped my mind.
Something that I needed to do immediately upon battle, the reinforcing of my body and weapon. It was honestly quite embarrassing, to think that even in battle, even when I had the time to think in the smokescreen. That I had not done anything with that time when I easily could have reinforced myself and made the battle so much easier.
I sighed as I looked over to Ellaine, her own head tilted in curiosity. I needed to be sure to engraine the instinct into my body, to at the slightest sign of danger, reinforce myself.
"Is there… something wrong?" Ellaine finally asked, seeming to get over her sudden bout of nervousness.
I waved my hand and reassured her that it was a personal problem and not something that she needed to concern herself with.
Of course she was still curious but I couldn't just up and deny it, she would have smelled that lie from a mile away.
It was better to just make her hesitant about finding out than to deny it and have her try to figure it out.
"If that is what you wish… but then what about our extermination, what should we do as I can't seem to figure out how to find them."
I heard her mutter a curse under her breath but I ignored that in favor of actually thinking.
This ambush had been a big one, meaning that they were monitoring us. There was no way that they could have coordinated this at such a last minute.
Meaning that they had some form of command and could spy on us. But how to use that to our advantage.
Could we send them information in some way, maybe to confuse them. Or maybe we could follow the tail they had sent us and find their base.
But to do that we needed to know where said tail was. And that created the problem of finding them.
"Hah-" I sighed, drawing the focused attention of Ellaine.
"I don't know, there aren't many options so I guess we keep wandering for now?"
"Was that a question, if so I have no other suggestions."
"No… no, just frustrated that there aren't many options for us to pursue."
She sighed and muttered an agreement with my sentiment.
"I guess we could try and lure them…" She muttered under her breath after a moment of thought. She reached her hand to her chin, closing her eyes as she looked to the sky.
"That could work but how, we don't know much about them?"
"Yeah but what else is there, we can wander endlessly but that would lead us to only some not all that we wanted."
I sighed again but there was merit in that thought. I couldn't help but agree with her. But for now…
"What about this," I say, drawing Ellaine's attention, "We wander and find a group as we did before and then leave one or two alive and study their reactions to the items we have, and if we come up with something then we may be able to lure them towards us."
"Yes, that may work… Alright let us begin then."