9/13 14:21 (Summer, Day; Amber & Aurora)
Amber moved, her sword burning a line in the ground, before it was swung meeting a shield made of ice.
Before said shield cound be pierced, it changed shape forming spikes that tried to impale the Phoenix's arm, tentative failed as she jumped down, flames trailing behind her as she used them to boost her speed.
Before she could even land, her wings opened wide, stopping herself in the air before launching herself back with a thrust.
Her sword pierced straight through the shield in Aurora's right hand, causing a small cut in her arm as she forcefully redirect the strike, the shield shattering into quickly melting pieces and her following swing was interrupted by another frozen blade in the Ice Dragon's left hand before Amber blocked a strike from a right hand clad in a claw made out of ice, flying back a couple of meters while releasing a couple of trails of fire.
Trails that were quickly blocked by a wall of ice.
The reason the two of them were moving and reacting faster than when they were bigger was because their power was concentrated in a humanoid form.
This however had consequences.
The two of them when in their more monstrous-looking forms were incredibly more efficient in their Energy use to the point that with the same ammount of energy Aurora would theorically use to regenerate a whole limb in her Dragon form, a form with a wingspan of 40 meters and 17 meters long, would regenerate only a little more than a forearm if she was in a humanoid form.
Additionally the change is proportional to both Vital Energy and Mana; their stamina, physical, mental and even spiritual, is much reduced while in their non-humanoid forms they had no cooldowns and all Spells are considered automatically chanted.
However, even if the scale of their power was much reduced, their intesitity was on another level entirely, their being in their entirely was boosted incredibly.
The area around Amber was starting to smoke and lit ablaze because of the temperature while the area around Aurora started to freeze and a slight mist was manifestating passively even with the power of the Spell "Rising Sun".
"Let's see what this will do. [Blazing Fang Slash]!"
Flames were released from all over her body, the area around her starting to being lit ablaze as her "Rising Sun" lowered itself from the sky, exploding into fire, as the temperature increased again and again as the flames condensed in her curved blade wielded in her left hand as it quickly lightened from red to orange to yellow to an almost transparent white, her wings opening wide as she prepared.
Aurora's eyes widened in terror as her Territory opened between the two of them causing ice to spawn between the two of them to deflect and minimize the incoming attack as much as possible towards her own left, her wings opened wide as she moved towards her own right at full speed.
The blade was swung.
A line was burned within the world rendering everything touched into ash.
Aurora fell, a scream of pain escaping her mouth.
She was luckily able to turn a blow that would have certainly split her in three, with the central part of her body remaining only as ash, into a blow that merely ended the fight, her left arm, wing and part of her tail being cut off with the cut being cauterized.
She was barely able to drag herself up panting, needing her remaining arm, to look up at the calmly walking Amber, her left hand presenting some burn marks on her hand that were slowly healing and her blade nowhere to be found.
Her own Vital Energy being barely able to heal the burns on her remaining body thanks to her armor that however melted down into a pubble under her.
"This is my victory, again. As you can see, I'm not quite used to the last attack, after all this is the first time I used it seriously. For the next time, you should really start to handle your pride seriously, yeah? See you."
A small fireball formed on the Phoenix's right hand that was held to the Dragon's face, before it exploded sending her crashing down into the ground and almost uncosciousness, her last vision being Amber flying away from her, her own eyes full of a vicious hate for the one before her.
She was younger than her by 2 decades.
She was not even bothering to use her Innate Skill!
She was stronger than her!
She was growing faster than her!
Even with all of her own training!
Even if she herself was equivalent to a 180 years old Dragon while only being 165!
She was stronger than herself!
She hated her!
Hate! Hate! Hate! HateHateHateHateHate!
An hate that quickly exploded once her enemy was outside of her vision.
An hate that was the birth of a spark.
A spark that unleashed an inferno, an inferno that functioned as a trigger.
There are only three methods to obtain one's own Unique Skill.
The first being born with one already active, either because of an Irregular Reincarnation like Evan of the Iriblades or because of the otherness of the person like Scarlet was; the rarest method.
The second was limited to specific races that automatically obtained them at a certain Racial Rank, like Dragons and Phoenixes at C-Rank for example; the most common method even with the relatively low quantities of such races.
The third was caused by an overwhelming amount of emotion, often negative ones, that forced the activation of an Unique Skill.
An example of such was Azure of the Iriblades whose despair at the loss of the only person she ever had and ever mattered to her caused the Awakening of her Unique Skill, "Blood Hunt".
However, Awakening a Skill in this way has as a conseguence the amplification of the emotions that caused the said Awakening in the first place, the less power of the owner, the more the emotions are amplified in response and the more specific and intense emotion is needed to awaken it in the first place.
Azure's obsession with her sister, Scarlet, become even more twisted as she was just a 12 years old girl being trained by her sister at the time.
Aurora finally lost consciousness, barely able to hear the messagge from the World.
9/13 14:22 (Summer, Day; Luna; Dungeon)
As the 7 Zombies moved slowly towards her, Luna pointed towards them.
Instantly True Spears appeared around Luna before being launched to her targets.
Said targets were pierced through their hearts as they groaned.
However they didn't react further than that, their eyes locked on her without any hesitation.
"I see… "Undying Body", is it? How strange, you all are too weak to naturally have that Innate Skill, especially considerating how all of you are normal Zombies at E-Rank. This is a Dungeon of undeads, after all. I suppose this is to be expected from such a place."
The Zombies casually ripped the Spears out of their bodies, starting to walk towards the only being there alive.
Luna measured the way the Zombies handled the damage.
"Normally wounding someone or something would constantly consume Vital Energy to keep them functional until the wound is healed. However, "Undying Body" negates this drain while keeping the owner fully functional, so long as the owner has Vital Energy."
She watched as the wound regenerated extremely slowly without the use of any Vital Energy or Mana.
""Undying Body" at D-Rank judging by the fact it automatically heals and the slowness of such healing. Oh well, at least it is not C-Rank."
This judgement was calmly and positively uttered as she was quite well aware of the effect it gains at this Rank, which would render fighting them so boring she may have been tempted to just blow everything up and leave right then and there.
Before they could reach her, she simply stepped forward and punched the one nearest to her, releasing a Mana Burst in tandem with her punch, sending it flying back with its chest caved in.
The other six tried to grab her, but she casually stepped back, out of their own and their Auras range, before thrusting with a True Spear through another one, spear whose head quickly changed into a scythe that she used to forcefully separate said Zombies into two while the scythe continued on to impale another one.
Without any hesitation, her weapon transformed again, separating the blade from the shaft that became another spear.
Meanwhile the impaled zombie was immobilized as a True Viper was manifested from the blade and started to constrict it.
While Zombies had no need for breathing, if a Zombie cannot move it is easy to ignore.
As the upper part of the bisected Zombie tried to regenerate the missing parts passively, she grabbed it with a True Tail, a very recent Shape inspired like her True Viper by, well snakes.
Said scaled tail used it as a weapon to smash it against another one, sending it crashing towards a third one, before clenching hard around the one she grabbed, crushing it.
As a result of the first part of the combat, one Zombie had its chest caved in, another was cut in two with its upper half reduced to bloody chunks and two were sent to the ground.
The remaining two moved in to strike at her, their Auras surrounding them ready to suck the life out of her, and nails ready to rake her body.
This tentative assault was casually dodged before a True Greatsword two meters long and 40 centimeters large, misuring only the blade was swung by Luna's hands, severing the Zombies legs at the knees before with the same movement, slamming the Greatsword down into one of them, smashing it in two.
The Greatsword was Mana Forged not with "Mana Burst", but with "Release", that proceeded to convert it into its entirely into pure destructive power released to the sides, leaving behind only the end of its limbs.
As it struggled to regenerate from its left leg, she Casted another True Viper that attacked the limbs that started to regenerate.
A True Viper was a semiautomatic drone she made with the express purpose to fight without any need of being directly controlled once it had its orders and rules.
In this case, Viper 2 had the order to attack the limb that started to regenerate until it stopped and a new one started to.
The reason is that "Undying Body" started to heal by the most important piece, whether by size or organs amount, independently from its Rank.
The Lunarian moved towards the other Zombie on the ground, True Arrows rained down upon it.
As the first Zombie hit and the other two sent away rose from the ground, Luna was thinking about how to render her Vipers more effective.
She Casted another one around herself before breathing in and out, concentrating on her own Familiars, more specifically Vision and trying to Summon it in a particular way.
The Innate Skill "Familiar Summoning" allowed someone to Summon Familiars using Mana or other things, in her case her own Black Blood and her True Shapes were made mixing together the Skills of "Mana Shaping" using Vital Mana and "Black Blood Manipulation" and so the next step was simple, but complex.
She Summoned her first Familiar using the third Viper as its body to a simple result.
The Viper gained a third eye on its front while all its eyes started to glow slightly and its tail and eyes become sharper.
She nodded to herself before doing the same with the other two, the first Summoned, the one that was holding a Zombie stationary, now held Warden, becoming slightly bigger and whose scale become even more sturdy.
Meanwhile the second Viper was now holding Ash, her newest Familiar, obtaining red flaming eyes and a red glow from its mouth from which flames leaked every now and then.
This Viper watched the remaining pieces that it broke apart into 9 pieces before opening its mouth, releasing a wave of flames to start to burn the pieces of flesh to ash.
This forced the Zombie being burned to spend its Vital Energy to quickly heal as much as it could before it died completely.
The Viper ceased to release the fire after a total of around seven seconds, entering a fourteen seconds cooldown for the version of the Ability Skill "Fire Magecraft" it had, before biting down on the healing Zombies and trying to bind its regenerating limbs in place.
Neither of the Vipers had any problem with the "Miasmic Aura" as they had no life to suck in the first place and so, while the first Viper was stopping a Zombie with great ease thanks to "Physical Resistance", she used "Imperial Scale" to create a barrier, that was effected by the previous Skill thanks to its effects, to slow down the incoming Zombies, entering a two seconds cooldown for this Skill because of the size of the Cast barrier.
Luna didn't hesitate, Casting various True Knife in the air around her, Mana Forged with Release, ready to fire a couple of moments before the barrier broke.
She turned back to the Zombie impaled by Arrows forming an Hammer and smashing heavily down on its chest, triggering the Mana Burst within the arrows and making numerous holes within the body while transforming her own Tail to a great Viper's head that opened wide before closing violently around the Zombie, crushing it into paste before spitting the resulting paste in the ground as the legs that were starting to regenerate instead were crushed against the ground by said tail.
The paste quickly regenerated using most of its Vital Energy and as the barrier broke, it and all the free Zombies were rained down upon by the knifes that exploded on contact with them, reducing all of them to small chunks.
Before they could regenerate fully, the cooldown of Ash finally ended and so they prepared.
The Zombies held by her two Vipers were thrown were the others' chunks were before Luna and Warden made a barrier around them before Ash released a stream of fire within it, turning the inside of the barrier in a lake of fire while leaving the barrier intact.
The Zombies finally died before she sucked in the blood that was on the ground by using "Black Blood Manipulation" as the way to move them.
*Luna Gained 100 + 5 Magicules. X7
Unfortunately, Monsters owned by a Dungeon had no Soul for her to absorb, being more similar to her own True Vipers than actual Monsters or living beings in general.
She nodded to herself before moving to the next room, her Vipers returning to her, reducing in size until all three of them could be underneath her clothes.
She found no problem with that, considering how she they were a part of her and that she liked snakes.
It was now time to proceed.
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