Living Life As A Game: Through And Through
/ Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 109 Frightening Battle
She ignored any King Stage Beasts that could have been a target had her Enchantments not filled up. But to any other King Stage Beast that attacked her of their own volition, their end came quickly after a single move. As Elizabeth approached the source of the towering Death energy, she started tensing up as an ominous sense of foreboding lightly shook her soul.
[Choice Quest 4: Adventurer's Dilemma (Incomplete)
Difficulty: B-SSS+
Choice 1) Ignore the danger you sense and take the risk
Choice 2) Turn back now
Description: Strange at it took this long for you to manifest this Choice Quest, but better late than never, right? Anyway, you'll be coming across this situation who knows how many times as a cultivator seeking opportunities to grow your strength. Decide for the first time how you wish to tackle the ominous unknown~
Rewards:
Choice 1) It's a secret~
Choice 2) You'll never know the secret~]
Elizabeth felt her eyebrows twitch as she read how the deity in charge of her functions playfully wrote out her "rewards." 'Is now really the time to be playing games with me?' As she shook her head, Elizabeth withdrew her Dawnbringer pistol to improve her level of defense even higher than before as she picked Choice 1.
Cautiously, she continued approaching the source of the unending death energy, though a large majority of her speed was stored as potential energy in case she needed to quickly dodge a threat. Gradually, her senses started picking up less and less signs of beasts around her, until she came close enough the source of death that the spiritual air around would have alert even non-practitioners of Death of the inhospitable environment. As she approached the source, the air became turbid and frigid as if under a deathly fog. Withered and broken trees along with greyish grassless soil replaced the vibrant forest she had previously occupied as the unsettling ominous looming continued to challenge her soul.
Soon Elizabeth had to actively shut off her Lifespan Watch ability as she reached deep enough into the death-filled environment that her immediate surroundings became invisible with all the darkness mixing into the fog. Yet the tension she experienced only rose the closer she got to the source as her spatial ripples began showing less and less movement the further she progressed.
Without her knowing, the Mark of the Godslayer slowly started pulling in some of the nearby deathly fog into her body. As she made it deeper into the fog, the quantity it pulled increased. A quarter of an hour passed before Elizabeth could start to sense some movement again; this time coming directly before her…
Though the movement she picked up through her spatial ripples was sluggish and slow, detecting anything moving after such a long period of total stillness left her heart rate increasing. Even slower than before, she inched closer and closer to the movement, her gun already pointed in its direction.
Suddenly, she picked up that something started to dash in her direction; dash being an extreme over exaggeration when compared to her speed. Elizabeth almost pulled the trigger out of anxiety, but her rational calmed her as it picked up that whatever began sprinting in her direction was moving too slow to be of any real threat. A second later, through the fog, Elizabeth could see a little moose calf stop its movement and whimper before her.
Squinting her eyes at the oddity before her eyes, Elizabeth's senses stayed at the peak of their tension in case anything else came up. With her cultivation at the peak of the Soldier Stage, Elizabeth succeeded in probing the calf's strength to be around the upper phases of the Pawn Stage. Yet, the discovery only led to more questions, like 'Why is there such a low-level beast in what is arguably the most dangerous area of the forest? How can it even persist amidst all this death energy?'
Danger! Instinctively, Elizabeth activated her [Spatial Contraction] and seemed to have teleported a couple meters to her right as she felt a familiar sense of danger scream at her to move. An instant later, the area where she stood was blown away by wind energies corrupted by death.
Shortly after the attack landed, Elizabeth's spatial ripples detected a much larger creature move at speeds comparable to hers. She could hear heavy breathing and even with her Trash-tier Affinity for Death, she could sense that the source of that horrifying beacon of death moved in conjunction with the movement captured by her spatial ripples.
Clenching her teeth, Elizabeth ran towards the source of the movement. Contrary to her expectations, whatever hid away in the fog didn't move to face her directly. Elizabeth understood that her unseen enemy ought to be stronger than any other beast she had fought until now. Within her Dantian the [Target Homing] Spell Seed began glowing in anticipation of its activation as Elizabeth ran to catch up with the fleeing hostile.
Seconds after her pursuit began, another wave of corrupted wind blasted through the fog towards her direction. Upon activating her [Spatial Contraction] again, Elizabeth dodged after once burst, and after another, she closed the gap to the unseen beast to the point where she could see part of its form. Before her eyes, she saw yet another moose, this time fully grown, hatefully glaring in her direction.
Chance! Registering the beast in her sight, Elizabeth activated her [Target Homing] ability. At that moment, where the two stared each other down, a "harmless" and undetectable neutral spell circle shot out of Elizabeth's eyes with the speed of a bullet. After landing squarely on the moose, center mass, the magic circle flared to life to signal where it landed, leaving Elizabeth confidently smiling as she resumed her dashing to eliminate this threat.
Approaching the moose Beast, Elizabeth's eyebrows rose in surprise as she caught sight of dozens of scars and still open wounds pumping blood out of her enemy. Feeling her reserves of Inner Strength drain by the second with [Target Homing] activated, Elizabeth shot her first bullet since entering the forest.
She had gotten plenty of practice during her spars with Yrre out at sea, which was how her [Target Homing] Spell Seed rose to Level 2, and though she still wasn't very proficient as a marksman, with [Target Homing] providing support, Elizabeth felt confident in her chances to take down beings even above the King Stage; provided she uses the rest of her abilities, of course.
Shooting from approximately 20 meters away, even without the support of her Gun Art, Elizabeth's shot dealt a critical blow to the already wounded moose. Although the beasts in the forest were relatively high leveled and their intelligence rose with their cultivation, and by proxy strength, just as Elizabeth suspected, it was unlikely for wild beasts to understand the dangers of firearms. The beast barely reacted besides flinching its ears at the loud gunshot, and because this was its first time confronting a bullet — a magically refined bullet being shot from a magical weapon, at that — Elizabeth's bullet landed right at the spot her [Target Homing] Spell Seal manifested.
Shooting thrice as she dashed towards the moose, Elizabeth prepared to decapitate the beast and end this fight once and for all. However, as Elizabeth rushed towards the beast, before her, what she had previously assumed to be a rock or other piece of inorganic matter from its immobile nature through its time under the watch of her spatial ripples, turned out to be another calf.
In a split second, Elizabeth eliminated the calf to be of any threat and decided to ignore it. Instead, focusing on what she assumed to be its parent. But though her intent remained neutral with regards to what she would do to the calf, the larger fully developed moose viewed her actions as being of extreme threat to its offspring. Though it was in insufferable pain, its maternal instincts to hold and the moose appeared capable of ignoring the several wounds that drained its life as it ran at speeds above what King Stage Beasts or cultivators alike could achieve.
Pupils constricting and hands turning berserk, Elizabeth instantly changed plans as she felt danger encroach upon her with every moment the moose continued speeding towards her. Chaosbright was substituted for her Inferioria, as a torrent of bullets chased after the [Target Homing] signal. Endowing herself with the [Fast] Time Spell as she achieved a cheap version of teleportation with her [Spatial Contraction] method, Elizabeth had to swallow a mouthful of blood as she fled from the charging moose after receiving a backlash from attempting to debuff her opponent with [Slow].
For five straight seconds, Elizabeth felt her heart at her throat as the moose ignored all the damage she inflicted. Even with her million and a half units of Inner Strength at the ready, she felt she might not be able to avoid injury as the moose never stopped launching its deathly wind attacks, and the closer it got to her, the great the sacrifice she had to make with regards to energy to increase her range to contract space.
At the end of those five seconds, a madness Elizabeth had nearly forgotten possessed her as she changed Chaosbright for her Inferioria again. The moose was within striking distance, and she refused to believe that her enemy wasn't at the end of their ropes after looking through its body. With so many wounds, it was a miracle the moose was still alive even after so much death energy spilled out of its body. Taking the gamble that she could end it all with one clean strike, Elizabeth waited for the perfect moment and just when the moose was about to ram its head into her torso, an overcharged use of [Spatial Contraction] led her to appear in perfect form to strike at the moose's underbelly.
Sinking her blade more than deep enough to reach the moose's internal organs, Elizabeth carved a wound that would certainly kill off the beast, nearly bisecting it lengthwise, as her gun-wielding fired off a bullet that drilled right into the moose's brain. Still a bit worried that wasn't enough to kill that monster that survived being shot dozens of times over after already being by death's door, Elizabeth flashed over through contracted space as she waited to see how the moose would react. She didn't have to wait long, or sense anything, as a notification alerted her of completion of yet another Hidden Quest and her earlier Choice Quest.
[Hidden Quest: Combat Genius (Complete)
Degree of Completion: Mythical
Difficulty: Dependant on the user
Objective One) Fight and defeat 100 opponents more than five phases ahead of you. (✔)
Objective Two) Fight and defeat 1 opponent more than eleven phases ahead of you. (✔)
Description: What dogshit luck you have! Are you fucking kidding me? What are the chances that you find the only Spirit Realm demonic beast within this forest at one of its weakest possible states?
Deadline: Unlimited (Completed upon finishing all primary Objective)
Reward: True Strength Probing
Bonus: The first reward along with all the goodies left on the battlefield are reward enough, so… fuck off?
Choice Quest 4: Adventurer's Dilemma (Complete)
Degree of Completion: Null
Difficulty: B-SSS+
Choice 1) Ignore the danger you sense and take the risk (✔)
Choice 2) Turn back now (X)
Rewards:
Choice 1) Secret: Here's some knowledge you'll probably appreciate~]
Chapter end
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