The view of the forest rushing behind her figure at 60 miles per hour was monochromatic. She could only see a vast land of black, and objects burning in white light. But it was only the objects that had life in them that radiated with the white flames. The rocks were not alive, and hence appeared in a light shade of black.
Although the only colours her sight gave her were two, she could see perfectly well to be able to manoeuvre through confusing environments. In fact, because of this sight, she could peer right through objects and see what was behind them. Hence, even with no eyes, she was not visually impaired.
Running past the trees at full speed and following behind Ivan and Ikky as they flew, two white flames burnt from ahead, brighter than the others. It was a sprite and a tree-man in combat.
But unfortunately for the tree man, its foe was beyond its level, and soon it was sent flying towards the wraith.
The taciturn wraith lifted her arms to the flailing tree-man, just to grab it mid air and throw it out of her way.
Pulling her solid scythe from her back, she soon reached the sprite, the pole of her weapon receiving its huge palm as it came down on her. Feeling the pressure weighing too much on her body, she bent the scythe diagonally, letting the sprite's wide palm slide towards the blade of the weapon.
Pulling the weapon herself, and using the sprite's own force, she tore a wide gash across the sprite's palm and leapt out of its way.
The massive troll like creature roared in anger as its hands fell on the floor. But that was just the start of it.
"That sprite..." Ivan frowned.
The troll like creature was bigger than the others they'd seen so far. And while the smaller trolls had damp green skins, this one had dark blue and luminescent scales. It had sharp red hair snaking from its forehead, down its bare back. Its torso was much bigger compared to its skinny legs, so most of its weight and strength were focused on its upper body, allowing the wraith to take advantage of the deformity. It's eyes were small slits with only red shining from within them, and its lower canines were too long for them to stay even in its wide mouth.
Grunting out of its pointy nose and open mouth, it swung its palm with a lot more force than the last, daring the wraith to try and block it again. Fortunately for Ikky, the shadowy creature had good instincts and a sense for danger, so she bolted out of the way.
"It's a zone sprite. Not a retail." Ivan continued. "Are you sure you want to let your pet fight that thing on its own.
The few sprites Ikky and Ivan had encountered were retail sprites. They were called that because they were assigned to perform small tasks, like carrying those bags of food and to do so with their lives. A step above the retail sprites however, were the zone sprites. These ones performed greater tasks like guarding an entire area where the retail sprites took their food from.
And although they were much more stronger than the retail sprites, these huge creatures had as little control over the smaller sprites as any of the prophets in the haven did. All sprites were mindless creatures who could only follow one instruction and carry it out throughout their entire lives. The order given to these ones was to prevent others from taking what they were given, and they would see that mission through, or die trying.
The blue troll threatening to swat Ikky's agile partner, was clearly trying to prevent any and every moving creature from getting to the luminous lake of water behind it.
It had been doing that job well up until now, blocking and knocking back any invader with its might.
Alas, it was unfortunate for it that brute might was all it possessed. Strength would always fall to a similar level of speed or agility. This was especially more so when that agility approached with lethality. In this case, that lethality, was of course, the wraith's weapons.
She could always withdraw and attack it, while it could barely land a hit. But this was just a factor that guarantees the wraith's survival for a few minutes. Because she wasn't fast enough to render herself completely safe.
With a simple slip from her, the troll could crush her entire body with one blow. While she still needed to strike the sprite multiple times on parts of the troll that didn't have scales. Otherwise, she would just be wasting time, and will inevitably be destroyed.
Ikky had just about enough sanity to lose for one more death, since the effects from using the Night Chant's abilities earlier was still weighing on his psyche. So if she poofed now, that would be it for the next thirty-six hours.
Regardless, Ikky was not planning on interfering. The wraith was created from the virtue of the cunning and relentless Ikky after all. So she should be able to figure something out.
"I'll go look for the tree controlling this prophet." Ivan informed as he flung Ikky down into a tree before going ahead to pull the tree-man into the sky with him.
"Son of a!" Ikky ended up tumbling through the leaves and branches, before falling on the ground, butt first.
He would definitely have had more to say if he wasn't so focused on what the wraith was doing.
It seems she was using a somewhat different strategy than before. For one, she was smart enough to use her solid scythe and not attempt to tickle the troll's soul with her night mist weapon. That was good.
Yet, he could sense the familiar feeling the wraith— for some reason— harboured towards spirits.
Ikky shared a percentage of the wraith's feelings, albeit lacking complete grasp about its reasoning or physical conditions. He'd thought it would be a hassle to keep track of all those things anyway. So forming a deeper connection with her was not needed. She was his virtue after all. And while he knew she could not kill him, or even have it as a thought due to her nature, he had planned to use her like a tool when needed, and then use her like livestock.
Yet, he was beginning to rethink that decision. He was curious as to why the entity of protection sent to him by the omen was the way she was.
Throwing her scythe, the blade flew behind the troll's neck, then she pulled on the string attached to the weapon and tugged on it, pulling her body towards the troll with force.
As she placed her feet on the troll's broad back, she scratched a mark on its neck, breaking off a few scales before leaping off it as the sprite's palm came down on her.
While in the air, the scythe was launched forward again, catching the sprite's head like a grappling hook and pulling her up to its shoulder. This time, holding the weapon near its blade with a reverse grip as she landed on the creature, she hammered the shiny pointed blade into the sprite's eye.
"You better run."
The wraith tilted her head to look over at her ward, before doing as he had advised and jumping off the sprite.
The luminescent blue creature suddenly roared louder than ever, swinging its head up to the sky.
Swaying its arms around in a tantrum, it started to form craters with each slap to the ground, creating a radius of destruction around itself. Its body also began to glow brighter than before as it summoned more power from its essence crystal.
"What a crybaby." Ikky chuckled at the sight as he folded his legs on the floor.
This is the scenario that he didn't want to happen. Nonetheless, it was an inevitable one.
The sprite had changed its strategy from fighting its enemy to bashing the environment instead, creating a zone where anything that wanted to cross would get destroyed. Now there was practically no way for the wraith to get close enough to deal damage to it. This was even more so with it drawing more strength from its essence crystal.
"Well, I guess we should retreat for now."
However, just as Ikky thought to give the order to the wraith to fall back, she suddenly swung her night mist scythe at a red tree.
From a flicker till the crimson light eventually died down, Ikky's dilated eyes watched attentively as the dust of its life flowed from inside the tree, into the wraith's stomach.
The amount was very miniscule to the others he'd felt the wraith absorb, but it was unmistakable.
The wraith could absorb the souls of the comatose Sins shaped like trees.