"Oh, it's beautiful! I wonder if it'll work outside the Royale grounds," Darwel said to herself while admiring the shape and colour of something she held in her hand. It was a thick, five point star with a particularly bright centre that gleamed of burgundy. Aside from that glow, it somehow managed to look and feel like it was made of both wood and hard plastic.
The bits of mana around it didn't tell Darwel much, except for the fact that she was most definitely keeping this object. Because of how much the burgundy glow at its centre seemed so desperate to spew out, the El Sif was sure that breaking the star would prompt its function.
That wasn't a spontaneous suspicion.
She had found a lot of items on her way through the different flavoured environment in the past several hours, that worked the same way.
"Oh, you found something else? Thank you dear," Darwel said sweetly to a long, light green vine that slithered to her feet like a serpent, in what would have been its mouth had it been an actual snake, a transparent, spherical object that looked much like a bubble.
"It looks like these are the most common items here," Darwel said with a bit of a frown and a sigh. "Thanks for the hardwork."
As she said so, the vine at her feet turned limp, and fell to the ground.
A loud creak sounded behind Darwel, and she found the large, two meter tall humanoid tree behind her lowering itself for her to sit on its shoulder.
"It's alright. Not now," she said gently, and the tree took a few steps back and stood up straight.
Above Darwel's head was a vibrant figure over a rotating, illusory pane, reading '8,100'.
The El Sif had been using a lot of plants that she awakened with her powers to roam around the areas as far from her as possible so that she could find anything that seemed out of place. Thus, she had managed to quickly find a lot of items, some she was urged by the mana around her to steer away from, and others she found very useful.
Darwel had also barely gotten into a real fight since emerging here.
With some of the more dangerous objects she had found, she had paralysed or neutralised her opponents' attacks after pulling them in with a Draw Bubble – items she had in abundance.
Another object she had found, called a Frozen Bean, which was about as common as a Draw Bubble, was perfect for incapacitating contenders and beasts alike. Dispatching them with the humanoid tree behind her when they were literally shrouded by an icy coat featuring thick flakes of snow, was too easy, and Darwel had earned quite a lot of Units because of it.
While this was good, she became concerned when her trip towards the GOAL seemed to take forever. She hadn't found anything that made it quicker, as even if she rode the humanoid tree brimming with a large amount of pure mana, it was still stalled by the clouds.
After a while, she had thought perhaps heading towards the many flashes of light and sound – where a series of scattered battles were occurring – would help her find answers, or at least kill time by earning the rest of the Units she needed, like everyone else, but decided against it.
She had doing alright without joining in.
As for her snail's pace situation, it was actually a stretch to call it a nagging problem since... she had found a kind of solution for it.
Darwel expelled a half-moon shaped object with a gleaming steel colour to it from her storage. It was heavy, so heavy in fact, that when Darwel had been handed it by a large shrub that scuttled on its roots, she had almost fallen over.
She heaved the object, and blew out a deep breath.
This was one of two items she had found that helped with shortening the distance between her and the goal. How it worked inspired the gut to spill out its contents though.
As far as Darwel had guessed from having used muscle memory to try and decipher what exactly it had done, following the activation – rubbing its side with the palm – the heavy object turned one step turn the user took in any direction, into perhaps millions of steps within an instant.
After rubbing it, Darwel had gotten the urge to walk forward, and as she did, she found a moment later, her thighs burning so badly, and her body aching so fiercely that she had hurled up her breakfast. Even for a Master like her, suddenly having the sensation that she had sped around Pelian in full sprint in just a day, was unbearable.
The reward, was Darwel finding that she had covered roughly a third of the distance to the mountain, something she had only remarked as great after the colour in her face returned.
Now, as she contemplated using another of these, she couldn't help but think on it carefully.
She only had one of these left.
Besides the consequences of using the item, Darwel thought of whether or not she would be able to find Skullius if she drew closer to the GOAL. Maybe he was already there. Or maybe he was still behind. Or maybe he was dead.
She had sent out a lot of creatures to look for him, and most of them had returned without a relevant answer.
Darwel was still thinking over this when she saw a large, black furred bear, about three meters in height waddle heavily over the ground. It had comically large ears, and its large fangs didn't seem like the kind only reserved for little golden-haired girls.
It stomped away without turning to her, though it was headed in the same direction she was.
This was the third bear Darwel had seen, but after closer inspection, she found that it wasn't alone.
A smaller, long-headed, long-faced creature was sprinting in front of it, as if leading the way, its speed perhaps three times Darwel's own as it rushed toward the mountain.
The El Sif was greatly surprised.
She hadn't seen that monkey-like creature before.
Not in this marsh she had been stuck for the past few hours.
***
Aurolio had steadily, and freely journeyed towards the GOAL with minimal effort. Perhaps the most minimal effort out of all the contenders. That said, he was also probably the only contender to have barely come across any of the items Guissepo had promised during his travels.
He had racked up many Units early on to reach the 10,000 Unit requirement by the fifth hour, and after finding a group of Fleeting Pioneers, and discovering that following after them accelerated his travel speed, he had captured a bunch of them, tied them to make-shift leashes made of roots, and begun his smooth sailing towards the GOAL.
Aurolio easily killed anything that got in his way, and after several more hours, urging the long-faced creatures to move faster as he went, he saw with his advanced sight, the mountain drawing nearer and nearer.
Only about thirty miles remained, and soon, even such a distance would be void if he continued at this speed.
'This was hardly a challenge,' Aurolio thought, bored out of his mind, and with the cold being his only, true opponent.
He whipped the root leashes he had made, making the Pioneers, who were somehow still oblivious to the fact that were being abused, run a bit faster.
The pale man had encountered the obscure ability that drove the Fleeting Pioneers out of danger. It had caused a problem even for him, but he soon worked around it. He hadn't needed to use violence to capture these clueless beasts.
Enlightening indeed.
"Hmm?" Aurolio hummed as the plain he was racing through, was welcomed at its end by yet another deep forest of large, very tall, crooked trees that shut away what was ahead along with the clouds they sank into. Within the dense, dark forest, Aurolio could make out, very vaguely, an enormous shape floating within the line of trees.
No. It wasn't floating.
It simply hung, linked to another shape similar to its own, and another and another.
Chains.
The massive chains seemed to lead out of the dense forest if one followed them, but outside the darkness created by the canopies and packed wooden bodies, the chains seemed to disappear.
'Are they invisible?' Aurolio asked himself.
The closer he got, the more chains he saw, racing and twisting around the large trees within the forest, but their forms unseen outside it.
The pale man pulled the Pioneers to a stop.
While still positioned a few meters from the forest, he had discovered something else.
A voracious, mighty presence was being suppressed by the chains. It could be better felt as one drew closer to the forest, and it was only reasonable to assume that once one set foot within the darkness ahead, they would be assaulted by the full brunt of the creature's pressure.
"Well..." Aurolio said, and his voice shot into the forest with an unexpectedly clear pitch, becoming louder and louder as it went.
He didn't continue what he had been about to say.
A loud, world-shaking rumble, like that one would feel if a whale buried a kilometre deep into the ground suddenly made the effort to push itself out, emerged, almost making Aurolio topple over.
The chains rattled and the trees shook wildly.
Then a fierce storm of mana exploded violently from the forest like several hurricanes moulded into one, and pushed in all directions.
The visibility disappeared for three whole minutes, which was about as long as it took for the bellowing mana to finally simmer down. Aurolio had to let go of the Fleeting Pioneers which were swept away, unable to handle the storm of power!
Such a vast amount of mana...
'And that's the Cluster General...' Aurolio thought as a veil of purple kept him firmly planted on the ground. He took casual steps into the forest as the violent showcase swept everything away, making the strong trees lean, and pulling the weaker ones right out of the ground.
The chains which clanged made a devastating noise that travelled far and wide, and to someone so close to them, it wouldn't have been strange if their brains were fleshed up even if they were a Master, but Aurolio was perfectly fine.
A tall, large figure bound by the chains showed itself the deeper he went into the forest.
It wasn't nearly as deserving of such massive chains binding it at a glance, but the shrieking mana roaring from it told otherwise.
Surprisingly, Aurolio didn't give the beast much attention. It didn't seem to entertain him either, as it kept its eyes closed. Perhaps its body was just that sensitive to movement or sound around it even if it was 'asleep.'
What interested the pale man more, was a smaller individual sitting down on the ground while leaning against the large beast's leg.
He had his big, glowing honey coloured eyes wide open as he stared at Aurolio's approach.
"I thought you were restricted to the foot of the mountain and beyond. Didn't figure the inhibiting Angel would ignore the rules," the pale man said with a smile, enhancing his speech with mana so that Rias could hear over the loud noise.
The young man hung his head expressionlessly, and kicked away something close to his feet.
"This IS the foot of the mountain. It's larger than you think," he replied. "I imagined you'd be the first to get here. Father said it would hardly be an inconvenience for someone like you. You aren't all brawn as I thought."
Aurolio chuckled.
"Well, why don't you get to Inhibiting then, Angel?" he said as his presence flared, as if to dwarf that of the Cluster General.
"Might as well," Rias said as he stood up, a chilling power rising from his body as well.
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