Kapitel 23: If you wish not to see my end, a crocodile to me give, my friend 2
Sunny had been observing the crocodiles for long enough to understand that these are actually cowardly creatures. If not for that these are his enemies he would like that. He himself was very cowardly. He lived by being a coward, and survived by being a coward.
Strong legs of explosive power were meant to make a quick escape back to the swamp where the crocodiles have their advantage. That means that the crocodile would probably try that, if assaulted by three panthers falling from the sky. Normally it would be trouble, and one would first look for a way to prevent the tanky enemy from jumping. The strategy was quite tricky. There was nowhere to lure out the enemy on the ground or in the water, so he lured it into the air.
Taught the principles of swordsmanship by Nephis he learned there's actually something he can exploit here. Having the ground as the foundation to apply strength is the key principle of many fighting styles. Attacking or defending while in the air is rather worse, but the most important thing was that the jumping enemy is unable to evade.
Also there's a fourth enemy. The crow didn't turn itself into a panther. It was missing in the picture, and preparing for the moment the crocodile jumped.
Suddenly the crocodile met with him striking from above. It landed on its face and pushed something into its eye, using the power of the jump against the croc, and the power he could apply with [Feather of Truth]. It was a golden rapier, very thin, but also very large, another weapon of unusual beauty. Or something like a long, narrow needle with a strange cup hilt. Work of the Bastion craftsmen. The last thing that eye saw was a gigantic version of Shadowspawn piercing it with something yellow.
The crocodile instead of falling into the swamp soared into the sky as if it was a balloon, refusing to fall down despite its considerable mass.
On a visit in the Bastion Sunny delivered the material, and made a request to turn it into a fine weapon. He could try crafting it himself. He had no doubts he could succeed in that very well, but he still wasn't convinced if it's a decent idea to experiment with transcendent gold. He could pay some shards just to have a better weapon. His golden heart cracked a little, but in such a case he could consider it rather as an investment, and an opportunity to flex his own wealth a little.
So… the rapier was made of transcendent gold to be able accommodate an enchantment from [Heavenly Burden], and hence [Unburdened]. It was rather a tool, a needle that could serve as a tool of acupuncture. Sunny could insert the needle into his body, and surge up, giving him a limited ability to fly. Despite being such a unique enchantment he used it only a few times.
One time was really memorable, because instead of using the needle on himself he stabbed with it a rude Master, Sir Pierce. That bastard's fate pretty much matched his name. He was pierced with Heavenly Burden, and following the lost contact with the ground unalived by him. Another revelation that Sunny in his mindset is a murderer.
'Good times.'
After all this time he could start to believe he outgrew the usefulness of the enchantment. He didn't need it to fly. What use could he have of such a cheap gadget anyway? But then he considered he should rethink his cold judgment. Yeah, it takes a really twisted mind to keep a pound of nostalgia for a needle inside your flesh. What if he used it for a weapon?
Again it took a lot of work for him to actually recreate the enchantment, and then improve it so it could play in the current league of abominations, but he had time, and avatars to think about such problems. But the result itself was very captivating. He called it [Unwelcome Ascent].
The crocodile didn't have limbs or any other ways to reach the rapier, and because it was stuck it was ascending. And because it was ascending it couldn't use ground as a leverage to apply its strength effectively. Because it was a Beast, it didn't have any other powers that could serve that purpose. It was rearing, flapping, springing, but in the end it was useless.
Unfortunately its siblings were already here so the avatars couldn't afford to remain on the ground. Otherwise they would face the wrath of the pack. Before that could happen two of the three avatars on the ground deactivated, and wrapped around the third while the third used Shadow Step with Shadow Manifestation to turn himself into a different form of Shadow Shell, bird of prey. Then he flew in the air just in time before the crocodiles could reach him. And it was very close…
He copied that form from Saint Tyris as one of some forms he considered safe to steal, free of the risk of losing humanity in the work of acting. He couldn't copy much. The ability to control the winds, and lightning belonged strictly to Tyris' aspect, but he still could apply some moves. Especially the way to defend himself from ten crocs while soaring. On some occasions they still managed to hit him with tall jumps, batter him with their tails, and one even managed to gnaw off his talon inflicting a lot of suffering.
Shrugging off the pain the avatar rose to the height, picking the last falling one from the air. It came with another heavy hit, but as soon as the picked avatar touched the bird, it could be deactivated, and turn into another shadow helper to wrap itself around the bird.
After consolidating the power the bird started to make circles around the crocodile in the air. At this point no crocodile could jump high enough to make to them. So for now he was safe for… as long as Sunny was able to maintain the air as they place he fought. With the advantage of the field he could take his time to finish the target.
The crocodile wasn't totally helpless in this situation. Its spiked tail still could deliver a terrible wound if not just kill him. He had to cautiously deliver every next hit, flying around, and gaining momentum every time he wanted to attack with either claws, wings, or beak. Eventually he took the second eye. Then he could more aggressively attack the neck. He used steel-like talons, and the beak of his form to break through the skin, flesh, arterie, and pecked the croc to death.
He fell the drops of shadow fragments flowing into his soul, and the shadow of the creature had become lifeless, serving as the proof that the animal is ultimately dead.
Sunny rested a bit on the back of his prey, gasping from the intensity of what happened, especially the damage that was inflicted on his soul, and he ignored it for a while. The lost talons weren't that important. They will regenerate eventually. However the pain of losing it was still there, and would last for some time, even after deactivating the avatar.
The battle felt… undramatic. He took a lot of risk, got wounded, tested two Shadow Shells, tricked a Great Beast, killed a Great Beast, fought in air, used many avatars at once in a fight, applied a new Memory… Basically every part of this hunt was showing how much progress he's made since becoming a Saint, and yet… He didn't feel it mattered at all! As if he could as well sit, and do nothing.
He gave a gloomy grin, just for himself, there's no other spectator that could appreciate his expressions. Despite being forgotten he had to remind himself it actually matters a lot, that his actions left the mark on the world, and are going to impact it even more.
Putting his depression aside he summoned his tools, mainly a big knife meant for skinning.
'Now let's do something nice with that. I hoped that by returning to Brilliant Emporium I would avoid working in extreme circumstances. Shit… I did that again, didn't I?'
The plan was just to kill the crocodile, and not to worry about what to do with it later, but once he killed it, he couldn't really resist it. The temptation was too strong. He had to dismantle the beast, and take whatever he could extract, remove the scales... In the past era things from the hide of such animals were respected, a sumptuous show of affluence. If he removed the scales, tanned it properly, did a few different things about it, the products would be marvelous.
Unfortunately, the hunter has still little experience with his skinning, the material still belongs to a Great Beast, and the hide is flying high above the pack of crazy mad reptiles, which translates into a lot of hard work, and an irritating amount of acrobatics. He couldn't blow up the corpse with air, because air is too mundane thing to work on high-ranked Nightmare Creatures. Sunny also had to make a rough judgment, which parts are worth extracting. Many weren't
The funny thing about cutting the reptile was that even in death it was still moving! The cuts somehow activated its nervous system resulting in wiggling. At first, Sunny thought it might be still alive or it's some after-death effect. Only after some time he came to realization there's no such a thing, and started cutting with more confidence against the terrible might of the creature, not going to give up at all.
The hide, like the creature itself, was enormous, a colossus the size of a big house, or rather many of them. Without using big hands from the Shadow Manifestation he couldn't hope to do much against the creatures that were hundreds of meters long if not for that he could create comparably big constructs of shadows. However even them could be proclaimed a distasteful kind of joke. Skinning such a huge thing is a comedy worryingly similar to killing it.
Looking for comparison he could only think about a home cat killing an adult human. Very possible, but also very comical. Sunny felt like such a cat. Not long ago he turned himself into three cats after all so it wasn't that far from what actually had happened. He only lacked a big fire pit, where he could cook it. And a big apple so he could put it between the jaws…
'The meat should be very delicious…'
He continued on cutting, trying to make it as beautiful piece as possible. One meter, two meters, three, tens... The length of the cut soon reached a hundred meters. By that time Sunny decided it's time to stop, and went to the next step, separating that red skin from flesh. It's not that he can't choose to extract more skin. However, just the fact it was very tempting to extract a supreme material doesn't mean there should be no limit to that notion. Just one crocodile is enough to make full sets of leather armor for countless battalions.
He released another avatar to make an attempt to dig through the flesh, and find the soul shard. With it inevitably he had to extract some meat, then make it to the bloodstream or go directly after the heart. Soul shards tend to manifest somewhere near the heart.
The whole task was time-consuming. From time to time he was pulling out, and inserting back his golden rapier into the eye socket of the corpse. He didn't want to fly too high. It wouldn't cause any problems, or so he thought, but he wasn't eager to test that idea. The rest of avatars quickly got involved trying to hasten the whole process at least by some hours. All of them used some Shadow Shells to keep up with the size.
In these circumstances Sunny let all Avatars run autonomously. When he stopped paying attention his personas felt a bit more relaxed, and something strange occurred. Each of them summoned a sample of Extraordinary Rock.
"Are we going to just wallow in these riches?"
It was Crazy talking. The question was addressed to himself, but considering what 'self' everyone present was mean to hear it.
"Yeah, our master is stupid."
Naughty answered, then paused.
"And we are our master. What a cruel fate for us to be such an idiot..."
Haughty openly disagreed with that. He tried to play being indifferent, but simply answering showed that it's not gonna happen.
"Do you remember the first time I… him… whatever put his hands on the shard of supreme soul shards?"
Naughty smiled at that remark.
"Oh that time he had to bravely run away before..."
"You know well I mean the spoils. He turned an ascended Memory into a supreme one. That's a serious accomplishment. What could he achieve in better circumstances?"
Suddenly it was Creepy who broke in the conversation, shutting whatever Haughty had to say. His shell was thoroughly covered with blood. It was very unsightly, but he didn't seem to care that much about that. Creepy said following thing
"If that was a better option, I would rather not experience those things. But it isn't."
The rest wondered if Creepy wanted to say that about the dive inside the Black Turtle or the Red Crocodile. Naughty looked at him, and smiled widely.
"You have it. Sweet…"
Crazy had a need to uphold… whatever was happening.
"Sweet like ice cream. That was a lot of swimming for you. I still don't understand why Aiko thinks blood can make something really sweet. I really have to solve that mystery. Anyway… I would like to work on all these scales myself…"
Creepy looked at him with amusement.
"You should have go after that soul shard yourself. Well… maybe next time."
Haughty almost chuckled.
…
Sunny at that time was completing another request for the Brilliant Emporium. A leather set of armor. Those were very common among Awakened who wanted to upgrade them. Leather wasn't so hard so it was inferior to metal, but people were still coming to Sunny hoping he could somehow change that.
His multiple hands were reweaving the Memory with confidence, and mysterious grace, adding in an enchantment. This time he decided to pass on something easier. He just applied [Enduring] from Ananke's Mantle. Finally he finished, and called for Aiko to claim the armor.
When she came in, and let her claim the armor he stopped her for a moment to ask for something.
"We need to buy a lot of salt. Probably."
"Does that have something to do with your clones?"
"Yes."
"What are they doing now?"
"... They're having a debate about me, they're skinning a Godzilla, and wondering about ice cream. That's how it is. By the way, while ordering two tons of salt can you also order some ice cream?"
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein