The ashes before Strife

Episode 7 : Stone and Bugs ; 3

He gave me a nod to do it and handed a glowing rainbow crystal to me secretly "use this to regain your mana quickly don't tell the others about it."

What he handed me was a synthetic scintilla very rare and only capable of holding mana.

I could hold loads with my own scintilla the only problem was the speed of recovery but now with this, I could be done in three minutes instead of an hour.

Placing my hand on the stone wall I created a series of black blades down the circular cave and started spinning them as we quickly advanced tearing apart all the crell that swarmed us until we reached the end and entered into an open underground cavern 20 minutes after I started the grinder heavily out of breath absorbing mana from the two scintillas

"that was impressive Incursik, can you tell me how to do that?"

Many of the adventurers thanked me, asking for tips while a few kept watch, I observed the area to see the Fuden twins plotting something in a dark corner that I couldn't hear but I could tell it wasn't good by Rory's dispersant face.

We set up flame-lit torches to brighten the area and searched the cave following the sound of heavy breathing from deep inside the stone cavern estranged from the lack of ice

"they said it was an ice dragon right? How come there's no, ya know... ice?"

We all increased our guard expecting the worst. My mana sense went crazy saying there was something behind us but whenever I looked I saw nothing tensing me.

"Hey over here!"

A mace wielding man in the party had found paw prints to something other than the dragon making us confused, they were about the size of a book and much larger than my hand

"I think there's a lot more down here than just a dragon" dread had set in now that our problems had grown

"I think we should leave and report to the guild. I've never seen a print like that."

Eloy looked at me asking for my opinion

"I think it's some sort of chimera maybe. If it is big the wyrm would have eaten it recently as well unless it's some sort of poison type. I think we will maybe be fine so long as we're not in its territory for long."

My analysis seemed to calm people down but then I felt my integrated chimera soul shiver and looked behind me to see a grotesque mass of flesh disgustingly shaped like a purple praying mantis mixed with a snake covered in ice charging the group behind eating half a man and spraying poison everywhere until a flashy robe wearing woman dispersed the poison with wind magic.

Several riflemen including Maarten shot at it with magic shots pushing it back, I chucked a large icicle into its chest piercing it, killing the wounded mantis.

"I thought you said we'd be okay if we weren't here for too long?" Rory's fearful remark made everyone mad at me as I walked through them pulling out the heart from the mantis seeing that it has a soul

feeding it to mine strengthening it in front of them I said "I did say maybe. But I was right about it being a chimera, if you want to lead go for I'll have no objections. Just know that I'm willing to put up with your crap brat."

The group then remained silent as I shattered the crystal heart in front of them. Maarten clicked his tongue in annoyance as I looked at him daring him to try and challenge my authority.

"Enough distractions let's go!" Eloy quickly reorganized the party and we continued our journey now a man less than we started.

We were all relieved when we found ice covering the walls with several statues of frozen red mantis' "these are fire mantis. But...why are so many down here?"