Chapter 87 Ease And Hardship

I slashed upwards cutting the hand of one of the veiled guards off then using the momentum generated I pivot my foot letting the momentum transfer to my hand where it then allowed me to imbue more strength into my piercing strike which allowed me to plunge my hand over the heart of the veiled guard.

Once my hand was over its heart I closed my hand into a fist, crushing its heart. The veiled guards around me all started to scatter, however I did not chase after them. I could have killed them all, not allowing any to escape but then I wouldn't have the free show of Gabriel and Naomi fighting for their lives.

It seemed that they had finally noticed that I was not attacking them as long as they attacked Gabriel and Naomi. It took them a while to determine that it was attacking them that got me off their backs and not fleeing.

If they fled then I would just generate ice and stab them in the back with it but if they attacked the duo then I would leave them alone, not bothering to kill them.

After the final veiled guard had fled over to the help of its brethren I finally sat down and checked my notifications.

[You have killed a remnant of the veiled guard.]

[You have gained comprehension and a fragment of the veil(481/1000)]

Sitting upon the mountain of corpses that I had created I contemplated the gains that I had achieved from this slaughter. While they were no challenge to kill, the veiled guards still offered me a unique opportunity. Their numbers, their skill in battle, and most importantly their cooperation had helped me to come up with numerous tactics to take down large hordes of enemies.

I had tried out the ideas as they came to mind and most of them did not work, the blemishes on my skin a testament to that, however there were a rare few that did work and that was worth all the cuts and bruises that I had gained from the failures.

While there were a few tactics that worked, the one that yielded the greatest result was the crushing of the enemies heart.

For some reason whenever I crushed an enemy's heart or their blood spilled upon me I could feel my lost stamina replenishing, my aether reserves that had sat at half full the entire time going back to full.

I didn't know why that had happened but it was a great discovery anyways.

…

Looking over it seemed like Aoif was done with her side of the battle but it seemed she had no intention of helping us. She just sat there with that self satisfied smile of hers.

My attention was soon drawn back to the battle as a dagger flew over my shield and into my shoulder blade. The momentary lapse in focus allowed the attack to overcome my defenses.

I grit my teeth and quickly pull the dagger out of my arm applying a generous amount of aether to heal the skin to stop the bleeding. With my control over my own aether the amount that had been wasted, instead of healing as it was supposed to do it just flew off into the distance, useless.

The sword in my hand was starting to wear down. The edge that I had cared for with utmost dedication was worn down, now barely able to pierce the skin of the veiled guards. It was useless, which was why I had sheathed it and had put all my focus into defense.

Gabriel had seen this too and instead of creating opportunities for me like we always did on a hunt, instead started to create larger and larger ice fragments that she then threw at the veiled guards.

The larger size aided in the piercing power of the fragments, allowing them to actually do damage. Looking at the strained appearance of Gabriel though showed me that we could not keep this up for long. Even with her impeccable control over aether, her reserves were limited.

For how long we had been fighting it was a miracle that we could even muster the strength to defend. Even with the tens of corpses that we had put down, more and more kept coming.

I would have to do something drastic or we would both be dead. At this point Aoif's presence was not in mind anymore, even if it was I would not have counted on her to save us. It seemed as though she had this apathy towards us, whether or not we died was of no consequence to her.

With the thought of Aoif well out of mind I did something drastic, something I never knew I could do.

Gathering all the aether I could muster, I grew it into a tether connecting myself to Gabriel and pushed. All of the strength I had left, all the aether in the tether, everything was transferred to Gabriel. I knew that with more strength that Gabriel would be able to get us out of this situation.

I trusted her to save me, to pull us out of this dark situation.

It was with those last thoughts that I blacked out. The shield I held fell to the ground and soon after my body.

…

I felt a rush of power flowing into my body. Suddenly the tide of guards no longer felt insurmountable, the once hopeless situation taking a turn as I finally had the power to fight back.

However it came at a price, looking to the ground near me I see the fallen body of Naomi, my friend, my treasure.

I felt more power flow into me and with a mighty sweep of my tail a hailstorm of ice was thrown at the veiled guards. There was no way for them to resist it. The usual storms that I summoned were regular ice, they were sharpened but they were still regular ice, the storm that I had summoned now was different. The ice that I summoned was no longer regular, they were imbued with aether. The durability and sharpness had been enhanced enough to pierce the iron that made up the guards armor.

I looked at my tail then Naomi, had she done this. Was this the power of her buffs?

I didn't know it at the time but my dragon nature had shown its fangs there, my first treasure having been identified had added onto the strength that had been given to me. At the time I had attributed it to the desperate buff that had been given to me by Naomi.