Chapter 60 Exploration

"Are you ok?!?" Aoif said hurriedly all the while rushing to me after she had dealt the killing blow to the Minotaur.

I wasn't able to see it all but I was able to get a general sense of what happened.

While the Minotaur was distracted by trying to kill me, it didn't pay attention to Aoif, who it had thought it had killed.

Using that Aoif was able to close the distance quietly and stab the Minotaur in the origin of his soul dealing the killing blow.

When Aoif reached me all I could do was groan, when the Minotaur was trying to kill me I had resisted with all my strength resulting in my current pathetic image.

My whole body was on fire, I couldn't move a muscle, every single one of them had locked up, the nutrients taken from them to fuel my healing.

That left my muscles weak and damaged so much so that every time I tried to even move them they would just spasm locking up even further.

Aoif saw this and immediately picked me up, carefully maneuvering my body so that my head was on her shoulder and my body in a princess carry.

After she had gotten me in this grip she went to the nearest living tree and placed me in her lap all the while laying her back on the tree so as to support both of our weight.

Feeling something hard press against my legs I looked down and saw armor on Aoifs legs. They looked like sculpted ice in the form of metal leg guards, with inscriptions made in some language that my mind couldn't comprehend. The very act of looking at them gave me a headache.

"Wha- what is that?" I struggled to say my voice stuttering before going back to normal.

The leg guards were something new, before coming in here neither I nor Aoif had armor but now after our fight against the Minotaur Aoif suddenly developed this ice sculpture like armor. It reached all the way up to her knees, with inscriptions that hurt my head to try and read.

"Hm" Aoif hummed before looking down, her eyes widening in surprise as she took in the unknown armor.

"I- I don't know" Aoif says. "I never even felt them nor did I feel their weight," she continued after a moment of thought.

As my thoughts drifted from the armor I started to circulate my aether. The first place that I wanted to heal was my arms, the reason being that if my arms were healed I could reach some muscle groups that weren't covered in my circulation of aether.

Slowly my healing started to work, first my arms were recovered which allowed me to then more efficiently recover the rest of my muscles. Once that was done the once all encompassing aches finally disappeared.

With that all my muscles were healed, I could move again.

However I didn't want to move at the moment. The only thing I did was flip our positions around.

With a cute "eep" Aoif was now sitting in my lap, her long hair spread over my chest and her head resting on my shoulder.

Aoif raised her head and when she did that I stole her lips, at first giving her a chaste kiss then gradually I introduced my tongue. Licking all around the inside of Aoif's mouth while her tongue submissively licked at mine.

Eventually though I did need to pull out of her mouth to take a breath but by then we were both flushed with desire, the after effects of our battle of tongues and the adrenaline from our fight combined into a dangerous concoction which just further stroked our lusts.

*AOOOO*

Unfortunately though we were interrupted before we could do anything more by the howls of a pack of wolves entering the clearing.

Getting up I pull Aoif with me while also picking up my fallen spear.

By this point the reinforcement that I had previously put on it had been dispelled by time so I reinforced it again in preparation for battle.

However that was unneeded as with unexpected speed Aoif soared towards the pack of wolves.

With several swift attacks the origins of the wolves' souls were pierced, killing both the soul and the body it inhabited.

Looking back at me, Aoif gestures for us to get going.

With a nod of my head we were off exploring the surrounding forest.

…

The armor on my legs did more than just protect them. With each passing battle that we fought I could feel myself grow faster and faster, it was like they were absorbing something with the death of every creature that we killed.

*AOOO*

The death throes of another bear echoed in my ears and I could feel the armor absorbing something. Deciding to test my theory, I start to look at the bear's soul tracking the ebb and flow of the soul as it dies.

Once the bear had died I could see the energy that constantly emanated off of souls start to flow towards my armor. Once the energy reached the armor it was absorbed by the place with the most inscriptions.

It seemed like the armor was feeding off of the energy that the souls left after dying

…

"Should we go deeper or should we stay around these parts?"

Darwin broke me out of my thoughts, the attention that I was focusing on the boots being brought back to our situation.

Looking at Darwin I respond.

"We should head further in"

After I had agreed with Darwin's decision I started to explain the findings that I had observed.

Darwin nodded at my explanation, there was nothing we could really do to accelerate the rate of growth or even know what it did.

"Are you able to retract the armor?"

"I don't know?" I responded, "I haven't tried"

Now that the idea was in my head, I closed my eyes then tried to mentally retract them.

After a moment of focusing I looked down and saw that the armor was gone. I then focus on bringing it back, and with just a thought I could see them being attached again.

…

After I had figured out how to retract and put back on the armor we moved closer to the fog wall that separated the second part of the forest from the third.

As we advanced more and more beasts of varied species attacked us.

Just like with the wolf pack their struggles were futile as our strength had long passed their own.

We were getting closer and closer to the second fog wall and as we approached we could see the fog go from the heavens down to somewhere we could see the top of.

Slowly the impenetrable wall was falling, however by the time that we had reached the border of the fog wall it was only halfway down.

…

While we were waiting we had set up a campfire roasting some wild bear that we had killed while getting here. It was hard to skin it and get the meat but we managed, though the meat that we did get was all messy.

We had no spices or anything to cook properly with so the bear meat turned out chewy, so much that it was hard to swallow down but the energy consumed during combat and afterwards healing made it so that I had to eat even if the food wasn't any good.

After swallowing this latest bite I was full, looking at the fog wall it looked like it was finally down and we could continue