"Ah Min, Kong Tian." Veronica Ning's mask dimmed down as the stars on them faded.
"What now?" Ning Min, her cousin, was not very happy since they had been afloat on a bloody red sea since they arrived here.
"I just want to confirm something since it's been so long."
"You're making me nervous for beating around the beat. Just speak up will you?"
"Ayyy don't be so impatient, I just have a headache from trying to connect with the astral realm."
"Speaking like an old lady again?"
"Habit habit. Anyway, our masks. A part of our soul is inside right?"
"Come on, be serious." Ning Min's shoulders slacked at the silly question.
"Let's say there's a crack on it, what does that mean?"
Her little cousin couldn't answer immediately and Kong Tian spoke up from his silence.
"Our masks reflect our condition. Cracked mask equals a cracked soul."
"Does that mean dead?"
"Perhaps."
"No straight answer huh?"
"Well, if our masks get damaged so do our souls and vice versa. To destroy it physically requires a power far beyond the mask's wielder's strength since it grows with us." Ning Min stated the obvious for them.
Veronica knew destroying their mask physically was nearly impossible unless they were trying to break a fresh mask that was just made and had not been worn for long. Kong Tian's relative Kong Jing was a genius amongst crafters for being able to even mess with the mask at her low level. Too bad her own family was jealous of her talent.
"Any leads?" Veronica changed the subject.
"What leads can we find when you only left for a few seconds?" Ning Min was irritated. She must have known that Veronica asked just to tease her.
"Go left, keep your mind open. There should be a creature that knows where the closest piece of land is. 8 minutes 3 seconds away from us at this speed."
"How deep?" Ning Min poured more mana into her mask.
"Bird. Emperor, speed type. Don't let it slip."
Ning Min clicked her tongue at the belittlement.
"Kong Tian, try to bring ah Min as high as you can while still keeping us hidden."
"Consider it done." Kong Tian has always been a man of few words but he spoke more often when Veronica told him he had to take initiative to communicate or he would never gain her little cousin's favour and attention.
"Boy. I'm getting old. Forgive little old me." Veronica often talked to herself out loud but it was rare for her to get a headache.
❅❅❅
"Can I ask you something?" Ebony probed now that Ning Xin wasn't avoiding him as much.
"N--no!" They finally found a tunnel wide enough to walk side by side and was elevated upwards by almost 40 degrees when she leapt away from him the moment he asked.
"Why?" The rejection for conversation was stronger than he expected.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"But I haven't asked my question."
"I said no!"
"Okay okay, no need to get agitated."
He saw her sigh with relief when he decided to get off the subject that he didn't even manage to bring up. They hastened their step whenever they had an open path like they have now. At this depth, there didn't appear to be anything that dared to go near them. Some vibrations came close but they didn't get another ambusher. Those monsters that came close might have poor senses.
"It connected." They didn't slow down.
"Roya, can you hear me?" He hoped the connection was strong enough.
"Yes. Are the two of you still underground?" Roya's voice could be heard loud and clear.
"Yes." Ning Xin answered for them.
"Sasa! Haha, sorry about that, Kiva must be excited to hear your voice." They were pretty sure Kiva could speak a few words now but she stuck with the names she called them. Roya should be taking care of her as the baby girl overheard the call.
They were not able to have a conversation as Kiva screamed for attention and Ebony was actually glad since he can follow the link this way. The vibrations were amplified greatly when sound travels to the callstone and the link itself is mostly silent to the normal human ear. Some monsters might be able to catch the connection but it ultimately didn't matter too much. Ebony wasn't capable of mind magic but there might be monsters that are. The callstone link would be very obvious to any user of mind magic or so he heard.
Ning Xin's mask made her practically immune or extremely resistant to mind magic. The Grandmaster back at Vermin Paradise that held the Earthfly Queen was the only mind magic user he had seen if he excluded Hector.
The call ended abruptly and it surely wasn't due to the lack of mana when he was personally supplying it.
"Let's hurry, faint sounds of battle." Ebony picked up his pace only for them to reach a crack where the link of mana was slipping through.
"They might have put up their barrier and the connection cut." Ning Xin replied, she didn't appear too worried.
Ebony lashed out with his flames, then stabbed Icicle through the crack. Some mana was condensed within Icicle before being released and propelled by the Chaotic Repulsive Membrane and blowing up the frozen earth when Sonic Intrusion reverberated.
He rinsed and repeated, Ning Xin would stop him when she felt that he shouldn't poke that hard. Although they didn't face any cave-ins, it was hard to confirm if it was because they followed her sixth sense.
By putting safety out of the way, they were ascending much faster. When they reached the 4 km mark, he managed to route them to the large tunnel that linked all the way to the entrance they entered through. From there, it was simply speeding through. The tunnels here were left untouched and wide enough to fit carriages.
Both of them stopped right before the earthen wall that camouflaged the entrance.
"Something large is outside right?" Ning Xin double-checked. She must be sensing through the thin earth wall with her heat perception. She took this time to put her mantle back on.
"Mmm. I don't know if they are trolls but it's pretty big."
"How big? A general gauge of a Troll is their size. They gain significant size after every evolution. I heard the notable ones have different physical traits but grandma never talked much about them other than being savage brutes." The gravity signature he was getting was quite a distance away so her heat perception must have been iffy.
"Almost a gir tall, bulky and heavier than me by a little." He was focussing on his senses to get a better grasp through the thin wall. He was imagining a 4.5 metre figure packed with muscles.
"Please don't compare your weight with other creatures. A gir tall, if it's a normal Troll it would only be Master."
Ebony should've studied a little more about Trolls.
"I'll go first, hit as hard and fast as you can. Fire should greatly weaken their regenerative capabilities. Don't give it any rest, they are hard to kill."
"Conversing is out of the question?"
"They are soldiers who invaded this land to eat everyone. Apparently disliking Dwarves tough meat and bones. Disliking skinny and bony Elves. Humans and beastmen are their favourites. Their Intelligence is pitiful so making a conversation might be hard if they never learnt our language."
"...mmm." Ebony was going to try to strike a conversation anyway. Trolls weren't monsters, they were another race of people.
She pretended that there was no wall blocking her and rammed through it before turning a tight corner to face the Troll. His body looked as if it glided as he followed after her. She wasn't one for ambushes so she appeared in front of a massive chunk of muscles that shook the ground with every step.
"Human! Hungry, meaty human delivered!" The Troll was indeed 4.5 metres tall and easily just as wide. His arms were easily as thick as a tree trunk. This one had pale green skin tone. He had a pair of sharp fangs facing upwards with another pair in the opposite direction that were jutting out of his mouth and the rest were canine and incisors but there were a lot of missing teeth. He was shirtless, showing off its mass of ripped abdomen and chest but Ebony was intrigued by the pants that looked decent.
"Uh oh" He muttered.
Just like her, Trolls utilised Vitality-based body enhancement and not mana based. The massive lug did a beautiful lunge forward and swept its giant rock that was fashioned as a jagged greatsword horizontally.
"ARE YOU CALLING ME FAT!" She dipped forward, under the giant swing.
'Trolls are monsters. And also very stupid.' Ebony already gave up talking to the Troll. The Troll didn't even take 1 second to change his mind. Everlasting Tranquillity got ticked when the Troll called Ning Xin meaty. If the Troll managed to tick him, nothing had to be said about the hot-tempered lady.
Ebony wouldn't have been able to move forward if he was in her spot as the Troll executed the sweep with a certain speed and ferocity but that was not a problem for her.
He saw two streams of blood splattering from both shoulders, since it didn't flow smoothly he could only assume that the blood mage wasn't able to manipulate the blood. It was a relatively shallow cut when taking the size of the target into consideration.
[Master ??? Warrior Lvl 277]
'Odd, I must know too little about trolls. I should take a walk in Xienor or Tidal and watch people, Appraise or any other tier 2 Identify would be great.' Ebony had slowly been noticing different traits of people he saw before Identifying them and the results he got were slightly changing. It was about conscious observation if he wanted to improve Identify.
The Troll's scream or whatever noise he was making was quite jarring on the ears. Ebony only got distracted for a moment but hundreds of cuts could be found over the Troll's body, each one deeper than the last.
Then the Troll started laughing in glee and apologised, "Not meal, warrior! Kill eat stronger!"
Ebony remained where he stood and watched the battle, a single one of these soldiers was tearing the earth apart. It was hard to imagine the damage a war with a massive number of them would inflict on nature. The Troll appeared to speak the same language with a heavy accent possibly due to the fangs.
The Troll couldn't keep up with the accelerating strikes and his response was to hunker down behind the giant rock greatsword that was holding up shockingly well and not melting. He waited for a good change when Ning Xin's attack landed on his rock blade and flexed with precise timing. It broke her combo and freed the Troll up for an attack.
Ebony saw the mass of muscle jerk a little right after it knocked the swordswoman back, it was lightning mana that built up inside. She must have listened to him and was trying to utilise magic in more ways than just damage output. It hadn't been enough to stun the beefy warrior but more than enough for her to regain her footing when two blood rings were grinding and sawing the warrior's wrists while holding it back.
If Ebony had to be amazed by something, it was that the burning cuts on the giant were closing up in real-time. Essentially, the Troll was still near peak condition. He was able to protect vitals even against attacks he was not able to react to.
The 7 wind-propelled blood shots she performed with her Precise Perforation and didn't manage to pierce the Troll's skin.
Ebony wanted to step in but he rooted his feet to the ground because it wasn't every day that they found a warrior that can trade blows with them. He would let her have her fun first so he focused on spreading his senses to check if anything else was around. The Troll was strangely alone as far as he could tell.
Like the reverberation of a bass, vibrations shook the ground and seeped through the Troll's bones but didn't reach Ebony since Chaotic Repulsive Membrane was covering him. After his Gravity Manipulation evolved to Gravity Control, he attempted to make the membrane non-chaotic. He wasn't sure if that would weaken or strengthen it so he could only try and find out.
The Troll only got more excited and roared like he was the king of the hill. No one heard it other than the 3 of them since Ebony had a film of his mana surrounding them to silence the battle as much as possible. The Troll expanded in size and his skin tone got darker.
'What kind of skill is that? He got like 10% bulkier.'
It was too bad that the Troll didn't finish expanding before his rock greatsword was sliced in half but Ning Xin's charge was stopped by the Troll's neck. It dug through skin and flesh but was stuck half way through bone. Her blades didn't stop as they slid out easily and she continued her mutilation.
Ebony wasn't able to observe the Troll's regeneration speed since the poor warrior didn't last a second.
"Am…am I meaty?"
"The way I like, yes." He tried to calm her down.
"I wonder if that's an average Troll. Honestly, stronger than I imagined." She acted as if she didn't hear him.
"Mmm, I also wonder. If they are soldiers, I find it weird that he was alone." Ebony dug a hole with ease and buried the separated parts of the Troll. He wasn't interested in eating them and neither was the gluttonous swordswoman.
They needed more information. Ebony wanted to know how Trolls came over and started their apparent invasion. Well, he didn't want to know since he couldn't be bothered but he did want to fight Trolls and a desire to stop the 'people eating' activity.
Of course, he didn't have many deep thoughts about war since he was never part of one. He was simple, if someone was attacking someone or something important to him he would protect.
The two of them were very near Arcta and it didn't take them long to arrive at the village that fortunately looked no different than usual. He didn't see any barriers or any Trolls, only the blast of overflowing essence that made an effort to freeze the very space around and outside the village. It affected both of them for a second before they were relieved from that overwhelming pressure.
"Welcome back. My baby girl missed you." Milly the intimidating Guardian bear called out from within the village.
When the bear said that, it was hard for them not to make her their first visit. Ebony relaxed his mind even further when he saw that the village was unharmed. He fell into a semi-trance state without his knowledge.
They jumped over the closed gates even though it was the middle of the day. At least the villagers were still going about their day as per usual inside the village instead of holing up.
Being familiar with each other, the villagers greeted and welcomed them and they returned the greeting.
The Lasil family was hosting the Guardian Beast since they were in charge of the baby bear's health. Willow was a healthy bear as far as they could tell.
Palom and the younger generation of the Lasil family were all standing outside their own house. The 'younger' generation included her parents, aunts and uncles. They were a large family.
"Hello." He tetted each of them individually. With respect, since he had been in their care and he still saw himself as the junior. They were also familiar with Ning Xin already and she was equally polite.
"Why are you all standing outside?" She asked.
"The elders are talking and we got kicked out but they want us to be nearby." Palom's father was tall even amongst Frost Elves, Ebony had to tilt his head almost all the way back to meet his eyes. He rubbed his head shyly when talking about how his entire family got kicked out of the house and was forced to stand around.
"Are the Trolls on Elva?" Ebony got straight to the point.
"Ebony, Scarlet. Please come to the back. Palom, serve the drinks." The fishing partner of Ning Xin, Palom's grandfather called from within the building.
"Well, you should get going." Palom's father ushered them to their backyard where Milly and Willow were taking as their residence.
Palom ran into the house to prepare the drinks. Probably frost plum juice, it was their staple drink. Ning Xin also enjoyed the cool drink.
They joined the gathering of the village chief, Orren and his party, the village guardian, Korben, Koawe, Grandpa Lasil, two bears and 3 unknowns wearing Imperial armour and one wore a robe. It was the first time he saw an Imperial designed robe but it was obvious with the Empire's coat of arms embroidered on them. The [Grand Ice Mage Lvl 311] was actually a beastman, to be specific a lady with 4 fluffy white-tipped orange tails waving from under her robe.
She was the first Ice mage that wasn't a Frost Elf that Ebony met and he obviously recognised that Roya made her robe, just maybe not the embroidery of the Empire's coat of arms and the slight changes done to it.
One of the armoured men was a [Aqua Sword Grandmaster Lvl ???]. In the past, the most Identify would get him was 'water' instead of 'aqua', it wasn't a big difference. The other guy was a [Grand Knight Lvl ???] like many of the soldiers in the Imperial army.
The baby bear was asleep, curled up within her mother's embrace. Korben, Koawe and Grandpa Lasil were seated along with the Aqua Sword Grandmaster who had his helmet off. Everyone else was standing.
"Why did you invite these kids? We need to discuss important matters. Kid, just because you wear a mask doesn't make you a Xeng. The adults have to talk, scram." The Knight confidently rejected their entry as if he didn't hear the host invite them.
Ebony's response was to conjure his throne which was now wide enough to fit two of them. She sat down with him before she even had time to get angry. The Grand Knight's legs sunk into the ground all the way to his hips and he was encased in ice.
The mouths of the people around him were moving but no sound registered in his ears. The Grand Knight shifted to break free from the thin layer of ice but coughed blood when shock penetrated through his armour. The layer of ice fixed itself soon after. It took a short while before Aqua Sword Grandmaster turned from speaking with the elders to facing Ebony. He was aware that the seated human was addressing him but he only saw the man's mouth moving and no words entered his ears.
'So it is possible to cast my domain remotely and not just around me. Wait, what am I doing?' He snapped out of it when he got a pat on the shoulder from the woman by his side.
He saw the Grand Knight to be out of breath for some reason so he cocked his head to the side, "What happened to him?" The whisper was meant for Ning Xin but everyone here heard it loud and clear.
"Why don't we continue where we left off?" Koawe clapped and showed everyone his bright smile.
No one had any complaints about that.
Ebony secretly sent a trickle of mana to Ning Xin's ears, "Why is that knight staring at me like that?" he made sure to silence their conversation this time, since she had her mask on, no one could tell if she was talking if they couldn't hear her and he didn't need to use his mouth to speak.
"You bullied him." She giggled a little.
"What? Now that you mention, some of my mana is on him."
"You don't remember? Well, it's okay. I like it when you bully people who disrespect us."
"Disrespect…I remember now. He looks fine, I didn't injure him too badly did I?"
"No. Just his pride, that should be why he's staring. Grandma said this kind of look usually means they will do something silly or troublesome and we should crush it so they wouldn't bother us."
"Oh. I think I heard something similar when I was younger too. I'll do it."
Ebony's overflowing essence which he was directed into the ground like how the Frost Elves taught him slowly seeped through ground below them. He was fluent enough to direct it to the ground and it was easy enough to move it towards the Grand Knight's feet and envelope him with it from beneath the armoured man. To not disrupt the ongoing conversation, Ebony didn't want the Grand Knight to panic so he let an extremely small portion leak onto him.
"Excuse me…" Palom's quiet and nervous voice came over before she showed herself with a large tray of blue juice.
"Thank you, lass leave it there." Grandpa Lasil comforted his nervous grandchild with his warm smile. A cup floated to each of them and if Ebony's senses were right, it was Grandpa Lasil who served it.
The Grand Knight was distracted by that and Ebony took the chance to increase the amount of essence he released onto the distracted knight. He lagged up and the cup he was offered dropped.
The Aqua Sword Grandmaster yelled at the Grand Knight who was 'embarrassing' themselves but he didn't react or apologise to which he was ordered to leave immediately.
Milly the Guardian Beast winked at Ebony so he stopped what he was doing. The Grand Knight took some time to get his bearings and walked out.
"Can you update me on what has been said?" Ebony nudged his seat partner.