Polymath Redux

Chapter 10//The Hundred Eyed Devourer

Petra, dubbed the ‘Living Shadow’. Directly subordinate to the First Prince ‘Bradley Avon Leonhardt’, she along with her unit served as one of the most elite reconnaissance and removal personnel throughout the entire Xagontetian military. While her duties often curtailed direct confrontation scenarios as her talents were suited towards more covert- black- operations, she was still an exceptional combatant. As a former Assassin who had once aimed for the famed prince’s head, the bulk of her skill set rested with her exceptional ability to read the flow of enemy movement and capitalize on their mistakes and distractions.

She was an exceptional soldier.

“…” however, perhaps it was exactly due to her exceptional nature as a soldier that something about today had felt ‘off’. As though a bird that could sense an incoming storm, the wisdom she had gained from her long life as an assassin warned her of the impending dangers of carrying out this mission. Yet, it wasn’t something she could just decide not to do as it was a direct order from her superior. “This feels like…” she muttered to herself under her breath. Yes, there had been one other time she had felt this kind of foreboding before. “It’s like the time I tried to Assassinate his highness…”

The only time she had ever failed was then. Was the same thing going to happen today?

That is why, for today she had decided to break the one rule of being an Assassin: being unseen. While normally she would carry out operations out of sight, today she had offered to play decoy. Out of her entire unit she was at least confident in her own ability to survive almost any scenario. Should the mission go south then her comrades would be in easy positions to escape… or at least that’s how she had envisioned it. “…” she wasn’t quite sure, there was nothing concrete about the parameters of the mission yet. Perhaps there would not even be enemies.

Moving from shadow to shadow, tree to tree, she swiftly and soundlessly made her way into ‘ground zero’. Previously, when the border patrols had first encountered this bizarre mana phenomenon, they reported that they could not approach it due to the sheer intensity of the mana being moved around. ‘Mana’ wasn’t something so volatile, in fact, mana in its purest form was harmless unless converted into tangible phenomenon by a Mage or some other medium. Petra suspected that if they wanted to, they probably could have just rushed into it to see what was up, but they didn’t do so in fear of their own lives. It was understandable; if even a veteran like her had been feeling this daunting sensation, then perhaps for a mere border patrol they’d be crapping their pants. As such, she had no intentions to pursue any disciplinary actions against those cowar… ‘cautious’ fellows.

As she advanced closer to her target destination, she noticed a change in the environment. The ground was half charred and half frozen; it was as though a massive battle had taken place and a vast portion of the forest had been blown to smithereens. Yet, that wasn’t all. Some of the vegetation was still ablaze despite having been several days since the reported incident. Not to mention, this flame also acted strangely, in that it didn’t spread or even let out any sort of smoke like typical fires. It still let off intense heat and the greenery consumed by it were charred to black cinders, but other than that there was no real impact. That said, the fire was not the only strange happening about this place. “What’s this?” Petra wondered to herself as she reached out to a small flower that had been encased in a thick block of ice as though it were intentionally preserved. There were several other places around her like this. Ice and frostbite formed around just like the flames. “A fire that doesn’t die, and ice that never melts… exactly what is going on here?”

After short contemplation she surmised that there could be the possibility of a new type of magic spell, but quickly dismissed the theory as absurd. Because, if that were true then it meant there was a monster out there that could cause destruction on a scale never before seen by mortal eyes. As if the Empire wasn’t bad enough, she didn’t want to imagine what kind of threat this monster would bring.

“Tzzz… Mis… tress, mistress,” suddenly the small transceiver attached to her ear picked up signal from one of her subordinates. These ‘transceivers’ were short distance communication devices developed by the technology department of the Xagontetian military. They were still prototypes and thus unrefined, but even with all of its severe limitations they were good enough to be employed during non-urgent missions such as hers where the objective was merely to ‘investigate’. In other words, her unit had been field testing these apparatuses. In any case, using these drained quite a disproportional amount of mana and required good coordination among the units since the position of the receiver needed to be known as well. If that wasn’t bad enough, it had an effective range of about 150 metres, although even at that distance there was too much static and noise interference to be practical. Thus, the recommended operational range was within 100 metres. Still, for assassins like her it was a useful tool to coordinate with her subordinates since most of those operations would be within city environments, so their positions would never actually be over 100 metres apart.

“I’m here. Speak to me,” she responded into her transceiver. “What’s the problem?”

“There’s no real problem per se, but there’s something strange going on with the environment. Anyone else seeing this?” reported back one of her subordinates.

“If you mean the weird fire and ice everywhere, then yes. I’m seeing it too, but… what is it?” asked another.

“Couldn’t say; perhaps an unknown spell?” Petra hypothesized. “Anyway, we have too little information on it so stay clear it for now. Just scout out ahead with caution and report back when you see something.”

Just those short series of exchanges were enough to leave Petra a little exhausted though not to the extent that it would hinder the mission objective. “They really need to do something about the mana consumption on these things,” she commented to herself.

After running along the devastation of the forest, Petra finally chanced upon something. With a quick sharp turn she hid behind one of the still standing trees. It appeared to be some sort of a monster though unlike anything she’s seen before. A large monster that stood at about five metres in height and covered with fur so dark that not a single ray of light could bounce off it. It shoulders were almost broader than it was tall, and at the end of its log, trunk-like arms were sharp ivory claws. Yet, the most distinguishing part about it was its lack of a head, instead there was a giant gaping mouth lined up with rows of razor-sharp teeth at the top of its body.

For some reason it stood still doing nothing. At first, she thought it might have been dead, but on closer inspection she noticed that it was subtly breathing. “This is Petra,” she called out to her unit through the transceiver. “Anyone else see that thing?”

“If you mean that giant headless monster, then yes, Mistress.”

“Should we attack it?” a subordinate suggested.

“Yeah,” Petra conceded after a moment of contemplation. It was unlikely that this thing could talk or had any semblance of intelligence. Of course, checking to see if it was sentient may have been the more diplomatic approach, but she was an Assassin, not a diplomat. If the First Prince wanted to handle this with less violent means, then he would’ve sent someone else. As it was, it had been up to her discretion on how to handle this situation, and she decided for now it was better to attack it then let it be. “You guys wait on standby. I’ll engage first.”

Petra withdrew a pair of black and white daggers that were sheathed at her waist and readied them for combat. ‘Sharpen Blade’, was an augmentation Assassin class skill that increased penetration and wounding potential when applied to edged weapons. ‘Swift Step’, another Assassin class skill that increased her movement speed by 50% while making her footsteps silent. With those buffs applied to her she rushed silently past the trees and aimed straight for the monster’s unguarded back.

Within a second, she entered striking range from about a dozen metres away and she raised her black blade to make the first and last hit. ‘Assassinate’; her weapon glimmered with a beautiful and almost serene shade of yellow-orange. This was a legendary skill that very few Assassins even knew existed, and amongst those who had obtained the skill, no one had perfected it. Supposedly, it would glow with an ominous shade of blood red when it was activated to its fullest potential, but either way, this incomplete skill was still enough to take down this unknown monster.

… Or that’s what she believed until the monster’s large red eye abruptly opened from the centre of its body and reacted almost instantly. It quickly moved to block her attack with its right hand, successfully shunting her attack. The only thing her attack succeeded at was trimming a bit of fur from its arm. “What the,” she let out before retreating a few metres. The monster swung down as she tried to run away, but her movements were too fast for it. When she looked at her blade, there was a bit of a chip on the edge.

The one-eyed monster suddenly let out a bestial roar that shook the heavens so much that the clouds had dissipated from the sheer pressure of its voice. The ground beneath her feet trembled when the monster rushed towards her. A single hit from those massive ivory claws would mean instant death, she could tell it was that powerful.

“Mistress!” one of her subordinates jumped in toting along a large kite shield. While the shield managed to deflect the attack, it had also snapped in half at the utter power of its attack. “Holy crap, my shield!” he shouted as he stepped back.

The monster raised its arm to smash the target standing in front of him into paste, but Petra stepped in and delivered a swift slash with both her daggers at full power. Unfortunately, even her strongest attack had not been enough to so much as scratch the thick hide of this thing. At that moment, several arrows flew towards the monster’s back, but with ungodly- almost cheating- reactionary time it twisted its body and smacked the projectiles out of the air as easily as one might hit a stationary target.

“What the hell is this thing?!” shouted the subordinate who just tried to shoot it down with arrows.

The monster picked up its pace and rushed towards Petra once more. Of course, with its speed it could never hope to catch up to the ‘Living Shadow’, but it suddenly activated a skill. The monster temporarily disappeared, not even its smell could be picked up.

“…!!” the ghastly form reappeared just behind her and raised its arm for an attack.

“Huh? Watch out!” her subordinate called out and pushed Petra out of the way, taking its attack in her stead.

“Lian! No!” Petra shouted. The monster’s thick claws pierced through the man’s body in several places.

“Ugh… C- crap… Don’t… underestimate me!” he shouted as he unsheathed a short sword from his waist and struck the monster’s single eye. “Kuh… hah… kwah! S- sorry, Mistres… I could only… take out… its eye…” with a final apology the man’s body fell limp and was tossed aside like a rag-doll.

Petra rushed over to him, but by that time it was already too late.

“… Thank you for your service, Lian. We’ll take it from here,” she gently placed him down and renewed her resolve. Her sharp green eyes almost appeared to glimmer from the anger. Yet, her expression paled at the next moment when something happened to the monster. Its only eye had been damaged, but in its place, eyes opened all over its body- hundreds of shimmering red eyes. “Just what is that thing?!”