"I-I didn't feel that much ohr signature on the last projectile!" Azel protested. "What just happened!?"
"That fake me seems to be inspired by the Wayward Technique that one of the four losers performed," Yroa chuckled, as he significantly increased his running speed. "It's faint, but there is a barely-detectable string of ohr on that last projectile, which was then used as an instrument for an instant transmission of ohr."
"Then, the Natural Calamity multiplied the explosion at the moment of impact!? Wait, is that even a form of spell? To multiply the explosions like that??" Something then clicked inside Azel's mind. "No, the Natural Calamity reproduced the effect of the impact through the Creation Spell!"
"Worse, it's much more efficient than that."
"H-how so?"
"It's duplicating the level of destruction by compressing the effect of the first instance of impact, amplifying it, and then dividing it into five separate chains of concentrated explosions." Yroa grinned. "There's no extra act of Creation in that sequence, only Amplification and Manipulation."
Yroa saw it right in front of his eyes, there was a slight delay between the impact and the first explosion. A subtle detail, but not hidden enough to be overlooked.
Hearing that explanation, Azel felt a cold goosebumps. "That level of control and creativity… It's very similar to-"
"Me," Yroa proudly interjected. "However, that dude is three times my Lvl."
"And that means?"
"It means that we're screwed."
Right after Yroa said that, both of them exited the dense part of the forestry and into a glade with little to no nature protection from above. In that instance, a bright greenish illumination overpowered the color of the sun to cast a shade of turquoise hue on the grasses and the soil.
Because above them, there were countless molten apparitions in the form of a volatile sphere, waiting for their prey to enter the killing zone—the glade.
"Hang on tight~!" Yroa then proceeded to cast his wind manipulation spell that blasted Azel diagonally away into his general direction.
"HIIIKH!!"
At the same time, Yroa began emerging a large draft of wind on the surroundings, shaping it into a funnel that was directly aimed at him.
One by one, the volatile sphere apparitions began pouring towards their available targets. Some of them aimed towards the faraway Azel, but the harsh drafting wind prompted them to change their target to the closest one, which was Yroa.
"Come and get some!'
Facing towards the incoming barrages of destruction, Yroa skated right above the grasses of the glade towards his original direction as he put on a fighting stance.
His hands then began to weave into motion, and then into a circle, and then many patterns. The speed ramped up drastically, until he encapsulated himself inside a ball of churning hurricane that he weaved.
Instead of exploding, the sphere was deflected back upon impacting the hurricane shield. Consequently upon the touch, that very same projectile was also invaded by Yroa's parasitic ohr which he used to rightfully control its general direction and velocity.
Unlike taking over the entirety of the influence over the sphere which took a greater amount of ohr than its creator, the parasitic ohr worked differently by acting like a concentrated crystal that punctures deep into the essential structure of energy, before inputting its own set of command.
This allowed the spell projectile to be redirected through ohr control without needing to fully conquer it, resulting in an extremely low ohr cost.
And it happened with all of the spheres until evidently, the Natural Calamity had no choice but to detonate all of them before it got hit by it, creating a violent smoke of war that covered the whole glade.
The Natural Calamity was there, scanning around for any ohr signature and the slightest of movement.
But before the Natural Calamity could perform a complete scan, something had incisively inflicted a diagonal slash on its torso, leaving an electrifying aftermath alongside a potent venom to seep and seek further destruction upon its vessel.
Annoyed, the Natural Calamity gritted as incendiary sparks visibly escaped the gap of its teeth. Its lungs were filled with air, and then it was no more, as all of those pressures were unleashed in the form of a scorching shockwave to blast away all of the smoke and anything inside it.
Then in a split second, a barrier spell , revealing a single humanoid figure with an annoying smug approaching the Natural Calamity at an extremely close vicinity.
Quick in reflex, the Natural Calamity cast the very same volatile sphere of destruction at close range, and then immediately detonated it to clear anything that wasn't as tough as him.
The blast radius was supposedly enough to engulf an entire apartment back on Earth.
But it didn't take this entity of destruction a second to realize that the explosion from the sphere only went in his direction, with not a single force and shockwave going through the dense barrier spell on the other side.
Invading the frame of vision, an uncanny wide smile was etched across Yroa's cheeks for all of the Natural Calamity to see.
"Boo~!"
In quick succession, Yroa diagonally slashed the Natural Calamity's torso on the very same angle, cutting deeper through the calamity's flesh. And as he performed this slashing attack, he also squeezed the trigger of his modified handgun, embedding three bullets of lethal killing power along the trailing of the diagonal wound at close range.
And just like what they were commanded, each of those bullets proceed to wreak absolute havoc within the Natural Calamity's bodily structure.
But, as if it weren't enough, Yroa proceeded to dump all of the remaining ammunition onto this cheap impostor of his.
A cacophony of devastation encapsulated the formerly lush glade.
"Hahaha, it hurts my arms a lot by weaving it like that, but it looks like I have successfully recreated that move," Yroa uttered as he voraciously leaped out from the brutal scene upon the other edge of the glade. And using his wind manipulation spell, he soared and caught Azel back on his arms before landing on the ground and sprinting again. "How's the flight, sweetie?"
"I want to puke…" Azel convulsively gagged, "Is the Natural Calamity dead yet?"
"Nope."
"... I only caught a glimpse, but I have severely underestimated your battle prowess, Master!" Azel said with a hint of excitement and admiration. "I think instead of escaping, we should face that weakened Natural Calamity together as a team!"
"That won't do." Yroa snickered. "I have run out of ohr, and I have also used up all of the Mutual Ohr that we have."
"... I have severely underestimated the circumstance that I'm in."
Escaping was still deemed as the best course of action as of now.
Because as they bicker with one another, the Natural Calamity, albeit in a very vulnerable and weakened state, was still able to run and nearly catch up to their initial prey.
Even with its vessel crumbling and oozing bodily liquid from the severe hemorrhaging, the Natural Calamity kept on sprinting. It even used wind elemental spells to boost its own speed and balance its running form.
It did all of this while uncannily smiling, attempting to close the gap no matter what.
"Why is that thing so relentless!?" Azel complained. She was already too tired of reacting and shouting at this point.
Yroa's breath came in ragged gasps amidst the smiling that he was doing. However, nothing was ever close to an end.
Somewhere on the west, Yroa detected a rather sublime ohr signature that was purposely hidden to deter any unwarranted attention. And then judging from the path of the circulation, it was also oddly shaped like a human.
It should be unprincipled to drag any stranger to this, but Yroa wasn't really the most righteous person in the first place. And if it came to the worst, Yroa could just go with Azel's suggestion of confronting the Natural Calamity together.
After all, there was still that one aspect of Ohrmancy that Yroa hadn't explored further. So regardless of the outcome, all was fair and well in the eyes of the Living Dungeon Core.
"M-Master! I detected an ohr signature somewhere from the west!" Azel pointed with her index finger. "But it's rather faint and weak. It might be a traveling peddler or a lone vagabond, just saying it in case that you still have some plan in your sleeves."
'So even Azel is tricked by the ohr signature, huh. I wonder why I can vividly judge the ohr quality from that faraway individual,' Yroa muttered in his thought. 'Is my ohr detection prowess correlated with my occupation as a Living Dungeon Core or something? However, it only appears like this after the familiar contract and the huge Lvl boost.'
With the chase coming to a tie as none of the two sides reached any point of advancement, it wasn't long until Yroa arrived at the place where the source of this sublime ohr signature resides.
"S-so you really did want to come here after all!"
In the heart of a fantastical forest, the whispering grove emerged as a mesmerizing sanctuary.
Towering oaks dominated the landscape, their sinewy branches reaching towards the billowing sky, their trunks adorned with intricate patterns and their branches adorned with vibrant blossoms that seemed to pulse with inner light.
Their leaves seemed to shimmer with an ethereal glow, casting a soft, iridescent light upon the forest floor below. Amidst this verdant canopy, an array of natural gardens of flowers stand proud, hugging the edges of a lone river that travels to the forestry beyond.
As sunlight filters through the canopy, it creates a dappled pattern upon the liquid mirror below.
"Old pops!" Yroa shouted as he approached. "Care to help for a bit?"
Streams of glistening water wind through the grove, their crystalline surface reflecting the world above it. And from it, one could see the reflection of a cloaked someone.
Upon that water stood an old man with an aged beard and silvery unkempt hair, seamlessly threading above the bodies of water like it was a normal terrain of land.
At one moment, he appeared to be in a deep mindless stupor, only for Yroa's voice to alert him of the surroundings, casting his sharp golden gaze into the approaching parade.
The growly deep voice could be heard as the old man opened his mouth.
"Move."
Per command, Yroa immediately side-stepped with extreme agility, prompting a shrieking cry from Azel who got startled because of it.
Immediately after, the old man unsheathed a weapon that was hidden inside his black cloak. It was a peculiar one, a sizable wide dagger with an equally wide cross-guard that served as a foundation to a thick silver steel that split into two blades, leaving an empty space in between it.
Seeing such an oddity of weapon design, the Natural Calamity immediately conjured a spear-like apparition of destruction, attempting to snipe the old man before he could do anything.
"D-i-e," said the Natural Calamity, appearing as if it gained some semblance of a sapient way of speech.
But before it could launch its spear, the old man swung his peculiar dagger. The conjured apparition was gone, as if it was instantly erased from existence to the naked eye.
However, Yroa saw it. The spear-like projectile was absorbed by the dagger and kept inside the empty space in between the two opposing blades, and the inertia and energy behind it was also reserved there as well, glowing in radiant green.
After neutralizing the attack, the old man proceeded his offensive with an undoubtedly voracious flurry of attacks. It didn't appear like a mere slashing attack at all, as the skin of the Natural Calamity appeared to be shredded by a chainsaw.
And one second later, the old man returned the odd dagger back to where it originally belonged underneath his cloak—ignoring as the Natural Calamity exploded into mist and tiny pieces of its original existence, falling to the bottom of the crystalline river.
Its blood stained the formerly pristine reflection.
"Hahaha, that's crazy." Pushed by curiosity, Yroa instinctively cast a Basic Appraisal on the old man.
[Name: Zerath Carhul]
[Lvl: 652 Yesod]
[Domain: Formation]
[STR: 20.2]
[DEX: 30.5]
[CON: 12.8]
[INT: 21.4]
[WIS: 32.5]
[CHA: 15.9]
Also, with the defeat of the Natural Calamity, both Yroa and Azel acquired an appropriate amount of Essence of Actualization that was multiplied by 10, alongside a relative amount of Mutual Ohr and EXP per compensation of the familiar contract.
And per abuse of the contract, both Yroa and Azel should also gradually acquire an increase of their affiliated stats as long as there was a certain amount of Mutual Ohr. This could be seen in Azel's numbers as some of them slowly increase.
[EXP: -33,402.5]
[Name: Yroa Ingram]
[Lvl: 275 Malkuth]
[Domain: Physical]
[STR: 4.0]
[DEX: 6.5]
[CON: 8.8]
[INT: 61.4]
[WIS: 22.1]
[CHA: 45.9]
/
[Name: Azel Flegor]
[Lvl: 200 Malkuth]
[Domain: Physical]
[STR: 0.8]
[DEX: 1.3]
[CON: 1.6]
[INT: 4.7]
[WIS: 12.1]
[CHA: 6.3]