Time flies and days pass by. In the blink of an eye, a whole week passes. Today is the eighth day ever since Aurora successfully came out of the dungeon in one piece.
Not only had she gotten significantly stronger thanks to their little adventure in the tomb, but she had also gotten something much more valuable than any levels or items. She had gotten someone she could talk to, a sibling, so to speak.
Yuki's existence became a huge part of Aurora's own existence. Not only did she now have someone to talk to so she wouldn't feel as lonely as she did before, Yuki was also important for her future growth.
Since the two were separated and their soul got split into two a long time ago, Aurora would need to once again fully merge with Yuki if she ever wanted to reach her full potential. Not to mention that if she gained too much power, her incomplete soul might not have been able to contain it.
However, the part about her slowly gaining more strength as she grew more powerful wasn't the most appealing part in Aurora's eyes. If anything, what she appreciated the most about Yuki's existence was, well, just her existence alone.
Yuki was a companion, and unlike Rejoke, the two could actually converse. Of course, that doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate Rejoke; it's just that finally having someone to talk to was a huge deal to the white fox.
During the last week, Aurora learned a lot of things just by talking to Yuki. For instance, Yuki told her a bit about her unique skill, Flame of Conversion. And although she didn't explain much, even the little information she did give her allowed Aurora to realize that perhaps this strange skill of hers was much more special than she originally thought.
Apparently, the Flame of Conversion was the base form of some absurdly powerful flame, and by fulfilling certain conditions, the skill could change forms. From what Yuki said, the flame could become much more powerful, or simply make Aurora more powerful, and so on.
Even then, Aurora had no idea why she had gotten such a skill. It didn't make much sense to her. Why would she, a measly first-rank fox, get such powerful skill that not only allowed her to convert things into different types of energy but could even become an incredibly powerful weapon at times?
Obviously, Aurora was curious. Unfortunately, when she asked why she had this skill, Yuki merely replied with: "Sorry, I can't tell you that". It was strange indeed. Yuki had never before refused to answer one of her questions. If she didn't know something, she would just say she didn't know. But from the way she said it, it sounded like she knew the answer but simply didn't want to or couldn't answer it.
Although this act of withholding information did seem strange and perplexed Aurora, she didn't press the matter any further. She had come to trust Yuki a lot despite them meeting not too long ago. She didn't know if Yuki was intentionally not telling her or not, but even if she was, Aurora wouldn't push her to answer.
Everyone had their secrets at the end of the day. And although being honest was the first step to a healthy relationship, be it between friends or partners, it was simply impossible to always say everything.
After that incident, Aurora didn't mention the Flame of Conversion much. There was no point in doing so, and it might even come off as rude. Actually, the two didn't talk much about Aurora's skills in general after that conversation and mostly talked about some insignificant matters.
The most notable of all was quite an interesting conversation between the two that happened two days prior. It all started when Aurora asked Yuki how exactly she was able to hear her thoughts.
It wasn't too important of a question, but it was one that popped up in Aurora's mind from time to time. She always wondered how exactly Yuki's ability to hear her thoughts worked. After all, it was quite clear that she couldn't hear all her thoughts, which brought up a question of which thoughts she could and which she couldn't hear.
Upon hearing her 'sister's' question, Yuki merely giggled and explained it in a simple way. Basically, it was all about intent. Just as Yuki had to actually speak for Aurora to hear her, Aurora also needed to think of something with the intention of Yuki hearing her.
In other words, as long as Aurora thought with the intent of speaking out loud, Yuki would be able to hear her. But as soon as she would merely think of something, Yuki wouldn't be able to hear those thoughts.
Upon listening to Yuki's explanation, Aurora couldn't help but think that such an ability was really hand. But with that thought also came a wave of embarrassment when she realized that all her internal mutterings were heard by the fox inside her soul.
'Haah, I still can't get over the fact that you can hear all those stupid things I always say subconsciously.' Aurora grumbled, slashing with her claw at a strange creature with white fur.
"Just don't think too much about it. Besides, I hardly ever listen to those babblings of yours." Yuki giggled, finding her own 'joke' funny.
Hearing her words, Aurora rolled her eyes dramatically, but a small smile had inadvertently crept up onto her face. Yuki could very much be annoying, but it was undeniable that her presence often helped to lighten Aurora's mood.
Speaking of the fox, she was locked in a fight with a bunch of strange furred creatures. The creatures were quite small, but still bigger than her tiny form. They had longish bodies, blood-red eyes, and white fur. However, unlike Aurora's beautiful snow-white fur, their fur wasn't nearly as beautiful and was much less clean.
The creatures weren't particularly strong, but they had one thing that made them very dangerous: numbers. There were so many of them, in fact, that they appeared like a moving sea of whiteness. There were easily hundreds of them, and every time one would fall, another one would take its place in just a second.
Normally, these monsters would be quite troublesome due to their large numbers, even more so a huge group of them such as this one. These monsters were called Snow Snoopers, and they were surprisingly rank 1 monsters. However, despite being in the first rank, their individual strength was even lower than most peak-level null rank beings.
But as previously mentioned, the strength of these monsters didn't come from their individual power but from their numbers. Snow Snoopers are highly aggressive monsters that always move in groups. When a single one of these dudes manages to spot you, you can be sure that at least a few dozen of them will come.
Snow Snoopers form groups, with most of them having somewhere around fifty members, but some can reach even up to a hundred members. However, in rare cases, these groups can reach up to several hundred members. And the group Aurora together with Rejoke were facing was a perfect example of those rare cases.
Up against them were probably more than four hundred of these vicious swarming monsters. Even most peak-level rank 1 individuals would have troubles facing such an army of small, quick monsters.
Yet the conflict that was ongoing couldn't even be called a fight. What was happening could only be described as a one-sided masacre.
Every slash of Aurora's claws meant at least one dead Snooper, with something very similar happening on Rejoke's side of things. The black wolf had not only grown in level and also managed to raise some of his affinities in the last week; he also obtained two different equipable items, making him a much bigger threat than before.
But even with the absurdly high slaughtering speed of the two beasts, the army of the Snow Snoopers was simply too massive to zero out quickly.
'Ugh, these little bastards are really getting on my nerves.' Aurora grumbled in an annoyed tone. With the current pace of things, it would take really long to slaughter all those small monsters.
Flames began to dance around the body of the small white fox, flashing with bright red light. Soon, those flames shot out like an unstoppable wave, rushing out towards the horde of enemies.
Powered by a whopping 70 points of mana, the flames stopped before nothing, moving through the constantly moving army with ease. Yet, even after seeing so many of their kind dying under the strange attack, the closing Snoopers didn't stop at all. This only allowed the fire wave to kill even more of the small creatures.
By the time the flaming attack ran out of power, it had managed to slaughter about fifty Snow Snoopers, creating a small mound of corpses.
With about an eighth of the total number of enemies gone and with the lifeless bodies of that eighth acting as a natural barrier, it became much easier for Aurora to move, allowing her to slaughter the monster even faster than before.
Rejoke was also doing what he could, combining his dark-type energy with his slashes. With every single slash of his claws, a small arc of darkness shot out towards the crowd of enemies. And even though the arc wasn't very strong, with so many weak enemies, it increased Rejoke's total killing power by a lot.
During the last week, the black wolf made a lot of effort to improve himself. Facing enemies stronger than him, trying to combine magic together with his physical attacks, or simply training with his magic as much as possible.
The results were very obvious, as the wolf was many times more proficient at using magic than before. Still, he wasn't anywhere near Aurora's level, but he was definitely above the level of an average magical beast.
Actually, from what Aurora saw he could do, she estimated that it wouldn't take long for him to reach the level of the first boss of her mother's tomb, Aurus. The Wolf of Ice was very adept at using ice magic, definitely above what a beast of his level should be able to do.
If Rejoke could reach his level of magic by the time he reached the top of the first rank, Aurora would be more than satisfied with his magical prowess.
"Honestly, these small guys are completely useless to us. There might be many of them, but their levels are simply too insignificant to do us any good. Even if we use the Flame of Conversion to make affinity crystals out of them, it won't do much for us." Yuki sighed, feeling like this conflict was nothing more than a waste of time.
Aurora didn't reply; there was no need to. Yuki knew that she thought the same, so the fox merely focused on finishing off the remaining Snow Snoopers as quickly as possible.
Only after thirty more minutes of constant slashing and the use of another 70 points of mana did the last of the white monsters die. In the end, the total number of the Snow Snoopers was even higher than Aurora's original estimate, reaching a total of around 560 enemies.
The white snow was dyed red with blood oozing from the hundreds of dead bodies. The states of the corpses varied greatly, with some being a bloody mess while just ash was the only thing left from some others.
As Aurora stood on the small mound of corpses of about a hundred Snow Snoopers, her eyes fell upon the utter mess that had become of the once peaceful snow plains.
'Not even an hour, and this is the result. Hundreds dead. Even the soil of this land will probably be stained with blood for quite some time.' Aurora muttered internally, not feeling particularly anything as she overlooked the bloody scene.
"They were enemies, a mere obstacle in our path. The one who's stronger is the one who survives; that's the rule of this world." Yuki interjected, her voice calm and emotionless.
Aurora didn't reply. She merely got off the pile of corpses and silently activated her skill. Bright red flames soon engulfed the lifeless bodies, turning them into nothing but mere ash.