—- Gauntlet of Silora —-
[gained physique : 135]
[gained mana : 135]
[gained defense : 135]
The horde closes in.
Hikari channels her gauntlet.
The golems pounded against her wyvern skin.
Release.
A burst of brilliant holy power.
The ghouls in an area around her disintegrate.
She keeps her sword and holds up her sword hand.
The crystals were attracted into a pile.
She raises her gauntlet and smashes the pile.
The power flowed into the gauntlet, causing it to glow with power.
The power the gauntlet absorbed slowly flowed into her.
Hikari swings her sword back and forth.
She feels stronger.
The accumulated mana of a few waves made a noticeable difference.
She picks up the rune stone dropped from the floating eye.
It had an extra inscription compared to the earlier ones.
She squeezed the rune stone in her hand, crushing it.
It's energy surged into her.
A sharp pain.
She could feel its runes being burned into her mind.
She blacks out for a moment.
[Eye of ??? : 0 -> 150 (unsuppressed) ]
When she opened her eyes, she could see clearly through the mist.
The jagged terrain.
Grey salt formations.
Wandering hordes.
Floating eyes.
Large crystal formations.
In the distance, she sees a city.
Nothing remains of it but the stone in its walls and hollow buildings.
A black flame engulfs it.
She could feel the chill of its dark aura from here.
"That's not how a city burns…"
She continues towards the city.
Her mission is to place the satchel charges under trees.
Not the kind of trees she finds around the RazenHeir estate she'd imagine.
A sting of hunger hits her belly.
It signals to her that she was behind time.
"Better hurry."
She had gotten a little carried away with farming.
Another eye floating within a dagger's throw range.
"Ignore it. Ignore it."
She tells herself.
Despite the size of the floating eye's eyeball, she had discovered that it was actually really blind.
It won't call for its friends until she is directly under it.
It's just that its presence is very weak and it moves without a sound.
She got caught by it once or twice when she was busy harvesting crystals.
But they're easy to avoid if she tries.
She reaches a grey salt formation.
It's the same as the ones near the elevator shaft.
It still weakens the mist around it but no longer blocks out the mist completely to create a safe zone.
"I don't need to rest now."
Despite fighting horde after horde of ghouls, she feels like she can still fight.
The gauntlet seemed to restore her stamina passively especially after smashing a crystal pile.
She reaches a new area.
The terrain around her changes.
Flat ground.
Roads.
A charred farmhouse.
No longer the rocky outcrop that she had been marching through.
She moves through the abandoned farmstead.
The farm fields were filled with charred, thorny weeds.
Her senses tingled.
She draws her sword and channels her gauntlet.
A farmer appeared out from behind a barn house.
He walks lifelessly towards a field.
He makes his way onto the farm field, his legs disappear into the thorny weeds below.
A plow materializes in his hand.
He swings silently.
Not a sound as his plow hits the thorny bramble below.
Pulse.
Hikari releases the mana stored in the gauntlet.
The farmer dissipates.
A tiny crystal drops into the bramble.
Hikari moves on.
"The tree should be somewhere around here."
The farmlands on the outskirts of the city.
A foul aura emanating from the city walls.
Her gauntlet glowed passively, maintaining a barrier to block out its influence.
"There."
A charred tree.
She could feel a strong mist emitting from it.
All of its leaves were gone.
A group of villages gather around it.
Silence.
Hanging from the branches of the tree, bright glowing fruits.
Brighter than the golem cores she had obtained so far.
She remembers what Rey says,
Black trees.
Don't pluck any fruits from them.
Don't try to harvest any mana crystals.
Drop the satchel charge and run.
"Right"
Hikari looks at the fruits.
They actually look normal.
Filled with mana just like the ones she found in the mana veins of the wyvern peaks.
She pulses the ground.
No roaming ghoul hordes nearby.
No floating eyes nearby either.
A sting of hunger in her belly.
"No."
She unslings a satchel charge and tosses it at the tree.
The heavy bag hits the trunk of the tree.
Hikari activates the mana mechanism inside.
A surge of mana, a torrent of RazenHeir flames engulfs the charred tree.
The ground shook.
Cracks on the ground.
Roots emerged.
Hikari hops back.
An ent emerged from its underground burrow.
The RazenHeir flame spread from its head to its body.
It shrieks in pain.
"Knew it."
Its roots thrashes around, smashing the barn houses and crushing the thorny bramble on the farm fields.
Hikari draws her bow.
Her gauntlet holds the bow, her other hand pulls the string.
Heart of wyvern frost.
The bolt tip freezes.
Blessing of Silora.
The gauntlet's energy envelopes the arrow.
She releases.
The bolt hits the Ent dead center.
It lets out another shrek.
The bolt pierces into its heart.
Its body hardens.
It stops moving.
It's core drops.
Brighter than a golem core.
"Nice"
She smashes it.
A surge of mana rushes into her gauntlet.
Enough to make her recoil.
She felt a power growth equal to clearing a whole horde of ghouls.
"Good."
She notices something else.
A tiny crystal.
Not the ones that ghouls or the mist wraiths drop.
It responds to her.
It floats towards her fingers.
A string of energy.
Words flash across her mind.
Deeper into the mist we go.
The crystals we got from the area around the elevator shaft are pathetic.
It's not nearly going to be enough to power the titan.
It's slightly better out here.
Small formations everywhere.
But it's not enough.
The big formations only appear way out past that ruined city.
More ghouls to watch out for though.
The occasional big lumbering golem is a scare but nothing we can't run from.
Just be sure not to lure it back to the camp.
And there's those floating eyes too.
Got a huge scare when I stared into one of them.
But it just moved on.
Maybe it decided that I was not worth eating.
I did give up my edibility in service of Eon long ago.
Now, let me just harvest my crystals in peace.
Oh, and there's actually some secrets around here.
Cache hidden under the bramble.
Nasty stuff.
Choked so full of mana that normal flames wouldn't char it more than it already is.
But the cache hidden underneath is great once the bramble is cleared.
Real spire silver.
Good thing Eon blessed us with flames that would burn through to it.
Don't know who hid them there, but those will buy more mana crystals than what we could harvest down here.
Heard that one of the other parties dug one up. Got some praise from the boss and got sent back up the elevator shaft.
I wanna go back up too.
The mist or that's what they call it is really starting to get under my skin.
I prefer the blood extraction chambers to this.
"Something happened. The mist wasn't supposed to be so strong."
The tiny crystal doesn't improve her mana anymore.
She shrugs and moves on.
She still has several satchel charges on her back.
Her next meal was probably waiting for her back at the raiding town now.