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1185 Words
Matt rushed forward and sidestepped a jet of water but was almost knocked off his feet as a wave crashed over the bridge. He used [Water Manipulation] to create a small bubble around himself.
To his surprise, it actually worked. But as he reached out to do the same with the next wave, he felt a greater power keeping a firm grip on the water.
Not willing to be swept under the wave, Matt used the rings and teleported past the wave, while striking out at the scaly hide of the serpent. It was like smashing his sword on a wall for all the good it did him. He actually felt the repair enchantments on his longsword struggle for the first time in the rift.
Turning back, he saw Liz and Aster struggling to contend against the jet of water that was being sent their way.
Liz was using her Blood Iron, but he could see it being cut through, and Aster was struggling to freeze the tidal waves of water that the serpent could summon from the bay around them.
They were losing their foothold.
Matt made the call.
“Pull back!”
Neither of them said anything, but Matt had to deal with the full attention of the boss as they moved back. It started to turn the jet of water toward him, but Matt used [Air Manipulation] to punch the serpent in the face with as much air as he could control.
It wasn’t a strong blow, but it was unexpected, and disoriented the monster long enough for him to safely reach the end of the bridge and join his team.
The four of them had a stare-off until the snake decided that they weren’t going to come back, and it unwrapped from the bridge and slithered into the ocean.
They walked back to the entrance once again.
While they had succeeded in progressing deeper into the rift, they had failed in their task of conquering it once and for all.
The worst part was that the exit portal was fairly close to the other side of the bridge.
As Matt walked past the dark forest, he started planning their next attempt.
If the bridge proved too much of an obstacle, they would just have to go around it.
10
April moved through the world with as much speed as her Intent would allow.
Luna had her running around like a chicken with its head cut off. At first, she had just been tasked with finding some of the better combatants in the Empire, near the Tier 30 mark.
That should have been easy. It had been one of her last assignments as a liaison.
This time, the people Luna wanted located did not want to be found.
April wasn’t sure if it was because Luna’s information was at least three decades old, or because the news of Luna coming out of retirement had sent the people she was looking for into hiding.
The fact that she had apparently missed the Tier 32 Madam Ultra by mere hours indicated that it was likely the latter.
Still, the woman would be waiting on the next teleport swap, and that wasn’t for another five minutes.
Ignoring the city’s anti-flying restrictions, April landed at the front door of the transport hub and raced inside. She would be heavily fined for that stunt, but she intended to present the bill to Luna. If the woman wanted people chased down, she could pay for the fines that she incurred while doing so.
The tall woman with purple hair was visibly cursing as April walked over to her.
April pretended she didn’t see or hear anything. “Good afternoon. I am representing an Old Friend who is requesting your assistance. You are the potion master, Ultra, correct?”
The woman sighed. “I’m going by Regina now.” There was a pause before she said, “Didn’t think you’d risk the fine to catch up with me.”
April shrugged as if it didn’t bother her. “I’ll be writing it to my boss as an expense.”
That earned her a fleeting grin.
“Can I offer you something to…not have caught up with me?”
April let her professional smile turn hard. “I’m afraid not. We all have our jobs, after all. You can always refuse.”
Regina spat to the side. “And have the thrice-damned cat chase me down herself? No thank you. When and where? Just tell me so I know how long to hide for.”
April passed on the information and watched as Regina carried several spatial bags onto the teleporter pad.
April just ripped her way into chaotic space and summoned her vessel. After ensuring that she had enough mana stones to power the ship, she set the course for a nearby, but unconnected region of chaotic space.
Running the vast emptiness wasn’t ideal, but she had a limited amount of time, and too many places to be.
April’s next target was one she didn’t expect to have issues with. He wasn’t an old contact of Luna’s; he was an old associate of her own who she believed would be a better fit than the random person that Luna had chosen.
When she had been given leeway to change the roster as she saw fit, she hadn’t thought the woman meant it initially. But as she researched some of the names, she discovered that more than a few were of distinctly lesser quality than the rest. Most were still masters of their crafts, but some were considered to be in the top one hundred at this point, rather than the top ten like the rest of the people Luna selected.
April didn’t have to be a genius to realize that it was a test from the older woman.
The simple answer was that the woman wanted to see if she was paying attention to the selection of trainers she was lining, but her gut told her that it wasn’t that simple.
The children might not see it, but Luna was testing them a million ways with every interaction and assignment.
She suspected that the policy carried over to her own assignments.
That was why she was going to see Achlys. They had met when she was on her first assignment, and her manager had wanted to find a wolf evolved beast to help train their Pather. It was then that April had found Achlys.
He had refused to help them, as he disdained combat, but she talked with him long enough to learn about him.
He was a Briarwolf, a subspecies of World Wolves, with a peak lupine bloodline with an odd second form. Normally, Briarwolves could control nature itself to a limited degree. The wood-aspected monsters were usually found in the forest. She had even fought a few of them before the species had been domesticated a few thousand years ago. After the rage had been bred out of the species they had learned they were naturally sapient instead of beasts who needed to Tier up for intelligence.
- Writer
