[You have defeated the Giant Earth Eater level 6.]
As the roars died down and the system finally confirmed that their efforts weren't in vain, Aurora finally let out the breath she had held in until now.
'It's over.' Relief washed over her body, and both her body and mind relaxed in response.
However, before she could even enjoy the comfortable feeling, she suddenly felt a bad premotion looming over her. Something was wrong; she could feel it.
And she wasn't wrong, as almost right in the next moment, the floating rock she stood upon began to shake.
'Wait, if it was the worm's skill that was holding these rocks in the air, now that the worm is dead, they'll-' Yes, they will fall. Just as Aurora thought in such a way, the faint glow around the rocks dimished and all the floating objects began to plummet towards the ground.
This time though, Aurora expected it, so she quickly tried to grab onto the rock she was on. Much to her horror, however, she realized that she could control her body at all.
It wasn't about not being able to move in the air; she couldn't move at all. Her body just didn't listen to her, no matter what she did. Only then did she realize what happened.
'Shit, there's no way, right!?' As the realization hit her, Aurora quickly opened up her status window and checked her current mana.
[MP: 0/0—Your mana vessels have been damaged too severely for the system to fix.]
'What!? Are you kidding me!? What are you too damaged for the system to fix!? You literally brought me back to life, but you can't repair my mana vessels!?' She panicked. She panicked a lot.
She hadn't panicked like this in a long time, not even when she was on the verge of death against the Iron Wood Berkserker. Back then, she just refused to give up; she didn't panic. This time, however, she did.
She killed that damn worm! She even leveled up and not once, so how come she's about to die now?
Aurora was angry, unwilling, and also in an extreme state of panic. She couldn't do anything. With her mana vessels severed like this, her soul was basically just trapped in her body without being able to do anything.
She was going to fall to her death, and there was nothing she could do! All that just because the damned system suddenly decided not to completely heal her body.
'No, no, no, NO!' The ground seemed to become bigger and bigger as Aurora approached it by the second.
Actually, she wasn't even that high when the rocks began to fall back down, meaning that she wouldn't die from just the fall thanks to her ring. This was also why she wasn't so afraid of this happening.
The problem wasn't the fall; it was all the other objects that were falling above. She would survive the fall, but since she couldn't move, she would end up getting squashed to death by the mass that would fall on top of her.
Yet, it seems like it wasn't her time to die today either. With a sudden and strong pull, her small body got flung to the side like a ball. Then she felt herself being carried by something. It was Rejoke.
Originally, the wolf planned to use the falling rocks and chuncks of ground to cushion his fall by continuously jumping from one to the other to slow down his momentum.
However, once he saw the situation Aurora found herself in, he quickly gave up on that idea and dove down to the ground. Thanks to his superior momentum and higher weight, she was able to quickly catch up to the falling fox and quickly catch her.
Despite saving her from an imminent danger, the two of them weren't out of the water yet, as they were now falling at much higher speed than before.
They approached the ground at high speeds and would soon hit a sudden stop. This time, there was truly nothing they could do, so Rejoke quickly did his best to get Aurora on top of him and protect her from the fall.
*Crash!*
As waves upon waves of dust and force shook the entire forest, contless rocks and objects fell from the sky one by one. And there was one object that landed further away from the others.
As the black-furred meteor approached the ground, it soon hit the forest's trees, breaking off their branches and almost tearing some of them off the ground.
*Thud*
Finally, the two of them landed back on the ground. The trees served nicely to lighten their fall; however, that was still far from enough.
Thanks to Rejoke's timely help and protection, Aurora was mostly fine, if we forget about her completely damaged mana vessels.
Rejoke, on the other hand, wasn't doing so well. The fall instantly cracked his spine and broke his ribs into pieces. The only reason he was alive at the moment was thanks to his skill that he had activated prior to the final confrontation with the worm.
Slowly, Rejoke moved his limbs to the side, freeing Aurora from his grasp. While that may be the case, the little white fox still didn't move away from him.
And no, it wasn't because she was afraid or was still in shock or anything. No, it was because she literally couldn't move at the moment.
As she did not move away even after about five minutes, Rejoke seemed to realize that something was wrong, so he gently picked her up into his mouth and placed her down on the ground.
Then he slowly turned himself around and slowly stood up onto his feet. During the entire time, the light sound of bones cracking came out of his spine.
Each and every one of those cracks caused him to wince in pain, but he stubbornly did his best to ignore the pain and stand up. He would not allow himself to just wallow in pain while his alpha's condition was unknown to him.
As he finally managed to stand up, he completely ignored everything else and swiftly observed Aurora's condition with a worried gaze.
Meanwhile, the fox in question couldn't help but feel slightly guilty as she saw those pityful eyes that were so full of worry.
Rejoke saved her, twice actually. Today, she had pushed him around all the way to his limits on multiple occasions, whether it was the fight against the Great Wind Bird or just now when they fought against the worm.
Yet here he was, worrying about her and making sure she was fine while ignoring his clearly severe injuries.
'What a fool.' Aurora thought to herself as she smiled lightly in her heart.
Honestly, she really wanted to show him that she was fine thanks to his help; however, she simply had no way to do so.
That last attack she had used completely exhausted her mana pool, yet even that much mana wouldn't be enough. Aurora was very well aware of that, and so she pushed herself even further and used up any energy she could find.
This subsequently resulted in her consuming the mana that connected her body and soul together, effectively severing her mana vessels. And apparently, not even the system could heal such damage easily.
There was not a single doubt in Aurora's mind that the system COULD repair the severed connection between her body and soul. However, for some reason, it just didn't do so even after she leveled up like five times.
This proved one thing to her: leveling up didn't recover her completely. If it did, she wouldn't be in this state currently.
Actually, she already previously had such a thought in the past. About a week ago, she leveled up when she had almost no mana. Back then, she didn't care much about consuming her mana, as she knew that she was close to leveling up.
However, to her surprise, that one level up recovered only about 75% mana. This caused a slight doubt to appear in her mind, but she didn't dwell on it much.
But now it was different. Her current state proved to her that there was a limit to how much a single level-up did for her.
'Does that mean that were it not for me leveling up four times back then, would I have really died?' Inadvertently, her thoughts drifted back to her fight against the Iron Wood Berserker.
Who knows how much a single level-up actually heals her, so it was definitely possible that she would have died back then if she did not level up so much.
'Urgh, whatever.' Aurora shook her head internally, getting rid of the complicating thoughts. Right now, she definitely wasn't in the mood to think so hard.
'Thank god I didn't push it too hard; otherwise, I probably wouldn't even be able to keep my senses.' She sighed in relief internally.
If she damaged her mana vessels so much that it would even cut the connection with her brain, it would be a serious problem.
Still, just because her soul was still connected to her brain, it didn't mean that she could do much. At best, she could still control her eyes and eyelids. Other than that, she could do basically nothing.
Nevertheless, she decided to think about her problem later. For now, she needed to quickly focus on the more pending issues.
Aurora looked at Rejoke with quite the soft gaze and somehow tried to communicate. However, no matter how intelligent the black wolf was, he could not understand her from just her eyes.
'Tsk, how can I communicate with just my soul? The only thing I can do without my body is control mana, and—wait, control mana?' As an idea arose in her mind, she briefly closed her eyes and focused everything on her soul.
Feeling her sense over her soul deepening, she somehow tried to move the mana in the air. However, this was a task that proved to be very difficult to pull off because even after several attempts, she could not get the mana around her to move.
'Tsk, it's no use. Without mixing my own mana with the surrounding one, I can't move no matter how I try it.' After several failed attempts, Aurora grew more and more frustrated over her own inability.
Meanwhile, Rejoke watched all of this with confused and curious eyes. It was quite obvious that he had no idea what was going on with Aurora, and although she seemed to be fine physically, he still couldn't help but be worried that something was wrong.
Suddenly, he felt the mana around him shift strangely, which caused him to quickly look around, trying to spot a nearby enemy. But no matter how he looked, he couldn't find anything.
At that moment, the mana shifted again; this time, however, he sensed where the movement came from.
Looking down, his eyes met with the eyes of his alpha, and as if he completely understood Aurora's intent behind her gaze, he gently picked her limp body up and placed her on his back.
'Hell yeah! I did it!' On the other hand, Aurora was jumping around in joy in her mind. She felt proud of herself for being able to move the mana in the air without her own mana, as well as excited that Rejoke understood her.
'Alright, calm down.' But she quickly realized that she shouldn't get carried away, so she moved the mana again and looked in a certain direction.
Rejoke briefly looked up at her, and once he saw where she was looking, he began to walk in that direction. Thankfully, Aurora's body was very light, so it didn't really hurt to carry her on his back.
As the two slowly made their way over to the massive corpse of the dead worm, Aurora's eyes moved from one place to the other, clearly looking for something.
And thanks to the 'high ground' she currently had, it didn't take her long to spot what she was looking for.
Quickly moving the mana around her, she told Rejoke to move in that exact direction using her eyes.
The black wolf naturally complied and walked over to a small ring that lay on the ground.
The ring looked to be made out of some strange rocks with some parts that gave out a faint orange glow.
Instinctively, Rejoke reached out for the unfamiliar object, picked it up, and handed it over to Aurora.
As he placed the ring on the small paw of the white fox, she quickly wished to equip the ring, and right after, the ring disappeared and appeared on one of her little fingers.
Aurora didn't even bother to check what the ring did at the moment and just looked for another item. Just like before, it didn't take long for her to find it, so she signaled Rejoke to more over to it.
'My second basic-grade attribute crystal, and my first earth-type one.' Aurora's eyes fell on the small, brownish, four-sided crystal.
Rejoke also picked it up, and even if he had no idea what the crystal was, he handed it to Aurora. The problem was that she obviously couldn't use the crystal at the moment.
Rejoke seemed to realize this as nothing happened with the crystal even after he waited for a bit, so he just placed the crystal under one of Aurora's paws and waited for the next order.
There was one more item Aurora wanted to look for, but no matter where she looked, she couldn't find it.
'Tsk, damn it. I should have picked it up right after we killed that bird.' She grumbled internally, annoyed that she lost the last item.
She wanted to look for it, but she knew that they should quickly find a place where they could rest. She would need a lot of time for her mana vessels to get all fixed up, and in that time, she would have to rely on Rejoke for protection.
So, giving up on looking for the item, she bitterly moved the mana around her again in order to gain Rejoke's attention.
The wolf reacted immediately, looking back at the small fox on his back. And once he saw how she moved her eyes all around the place randomly, he understood that he should just wander around until they found whatever they were looking for.
At this moment, his skill has also run out, so he returned to his normal size. This mattered little, however, so without waiting around anymore, he set out in a random direction with Aurora on his back.
'Whatever. It was just a simple-grade crystal, nothing huge.' Aurora sighed internally, still a bit down due to the loss of the attribute crystal.
But be that as it may, she had no time to worry about such a trivial matter right now. For now, she should focus on recovering from her injury, as well as checking all the new things that she had received after defeating the worm.