"Really? A race?"
Artemisia raised an eyebrow, having a reaction Evan completely expected. But Beatrix, ever the playful one, had her eyes light up with literal sparkles.
"Oh, I'm so in! How fast do you think you are, Evan?"
Artemisia, watching the two of them with her usual stoic calm, simply raised an eyebrow.
"There's no need for such a thing. We need to conserve energy for the journey ahead, not waste it on pointless gas."
"Co on, Artemisia! It'll be fun! Besides, you can't be afraid of losing, can you?"
Evan tried to persuade her, but Artemisia remained unmoved. She tugged at the reins of her horse and made it trot forward as she spoke.
"I see no logical reason to participate."
But while Evan couldn't get her to agree, Beatrix who had known Artemisia for years knew what buttons to push.
With an impish grin, she sidled up to Artemisia and spoke in a teasing tone.
"Logical? Or are you just scared of losing to ?"
"I'm not afraid."
Artemisia's eyes narrowed slightly and Beatrix raised her hands in mock surrender.
"Don't worry. I know you're not scared. Yeah, you're totally not scared you can't win against ."
"…"
Evan watched the interaction in silence, and he could already see Artemisia's brows beginning to twitch, showing how much Beatrix's words got to her.
However, she controlled herself and took a deep breath before responding with folded arms.
"You would regret those words."
Beatrix fought back the laugh that threatened to spill from her lips and gave the signal for the race to begin.
Imdiately, the three bolted into the forest, shooting forward with blistering speed.
The monster horses were bred for endurance and speed, their hooves pounding against the snow-covered ground as they weaved between trees. The thick air of the dark forest gave the race a tense, exhilarating edge.
Evan led at first, laughing as his horse nimbly dodged obstacles, leaping over streams and small hills. His sword flashed out to cut down a troll that lumbered into their path.
The others weren't far behind—Beatrix manipulated ti around her horse, accelerating its speed, while Artemisia kept pace, enhancing her horse's physical strength with her evolution powers.
Now and then, they had to fend off a pack of yetis or powerful forest beasts, even though they could just blitz past these monsters, sothing they could easily do considering they were moving at nearly 1000m/s!
Around 3 tis the speed of sound.
Within eight minutes, they were already at the midway point and then, Evan, who had noticed Artemisia and Beatrix buffing their horses decided to do the sa.
"sarthim: Orange; Burned Ally."
Flas engulfed his horse and the creature neighed loudly before shooting forward at even faster speed, creating a sonic boom as it weaved through the forest.
"Oh, so we're doing that now?"
Beatrix called from behind, laughing as she manipulated ti even further, making her horse move forward faster, blurring past Artemisia.
Not to be outdone, Artemisia silently infused her horse with even more evolutionary enhancents, making its legs longer and more powerful.
Her horse surged forward, catching up to Evan in a minute. They traversed another few hundred kilotres and the final stretch ca into view as they approached the base of the Desolate Mountains.
They were neck-and-neck, dark snowflakes swirling around them as they charged toward the finish. Beatrix was laughing all through, Artemisia's eyes were focused, and Evan's horse, cloaked in flas, seed to shout at the other two as they burned through the forest.
At the last mont, Beatrix surged ahead by a bit, and Evan's eyes widened as he couldn't understand what had just happened.
As soon as she crossed the finish, she threw her hands up in victory and spoke.
"Told you I'd win!"
"You cheated."
Artemisia spoke with narrowed eyes.
"You erased the distance in front of you."
Hearing Artemisia's words, Evan imdiately appraised Beatrix and looked at her Unique Skill.
|Na-Beatrix Xagna
Race-High-goddess
Gender-Female
Age-17
Level-601
Existence Level-Epic (Interdiate)
Titles: Heir of House Xagna, Daughter of the god Queen of Space, Spatiotemporal Dominator, Loved by Space, Loved by Mana, Temporal Anomaly, Princess of Ti, [...]
Class-Astral Valkyrie
Health–SSS- (10/100)
Energy-SSS- (23/100)
Strength–SSS-(1/100)
Agility–SSS (1/100)
Durability–SSS- (9/100)
Intelligence-SSS-(5/100)
Condition- Happy.
Magic Tiers-Ti Tier 4, Space Tier 4, Fire Tier 3, Light Tier 4, Lightning Tier 2, Darkness Tier 0, Star Tier 1.
Skills-Spatial Rend, Space Warp, Spatial Crush, Spatial Lance, Everlasting Chains, Astral Barrage, Dinsional Shift, Temporal Warp, Ti Bomb, Chrono Shift, Inventory;
Unique Skills-Chrono-Space Dominion, Light of Restoration. |
Beatrix was a spatial manipulator, and she had a Unique Skill Evan found rather strange to go with. With it, she could use spatial depletion, to erase the space in front of her, reducing the distance she had to traverse to get to her destination and that's what she had just done.
She also didn't seem to care about Artemisia's allegation of cheating.
"What? We were using any powers anyway."
"Buffing was fine, that was pretty much teleportation. Kinda defeats the point of it being a competition if one person traverses a shorter distance than the others."
Evan responded as he spurred his horse forward, moving with a steady trot. He glanced at Artemisia and saw that she didn't seem upset. Rather, she seed to have put the whole matter behind her as her gaze was focused on the map in her hands.
They needed to find a cave near the base of the mountains to bypass the range and travel straight through, rather than going around it.
When Artemisia and Beatrix ca here earlier, they used one of such caves and Beatrix had marked it with her magic earlier.
She held up her hand, summoning a shimring three-dinsional map into her palm. A faint glow illuminated the intricate model of the Desolate Mountains, their current position marked by a bright point.
"I marked it with my magic earlier—here."
She pointed at a small glowing mark near the base of the mountains and continued.
"Shouldn't be too far off."
Artemisia glanced at the 3D map, then looked back at the paper map in her hands. She then wrote so things on the map as they began heading toward the marked spot, the soft crunch of snow beneath their horses the only sound accompanying their progress.
After a few monts of silence, Beatrix suddenly piped up.
"Oh yeah, that's right, Evan, there's sothing I wanted to ask—"
Before she could finish, a deafening roar echoed across the snowy landscape. From behind a large boulder, a massive snowy leopard leapt toward them, its fur bristling in the cold air, muscles rippling as it charged.
Without even turning fully, Artemisia raised her palm, her expression calm as a four-ringed magic circle ford in front of her.
"Fire Magic: Dragon Fla."
A jet of fierce fla burst forth, instantly engulfing the leopard. The creature let out one final howl before collapsing into a pile of blackened ash, charred beyond recognition.
The teenage goddess, having eliminated the nuisance who was making noise, turned back to the map and continued writing things in shorthand.
Her display made Beatrix's eyes flash and she turned towards Evan.
"You're a dragonkin, right?"
"Well, yeah?"
"So, would the spell Arty just used— 'Dragon Fla'–show more power in your hands than in Arty's?"
Evan paused, a flicker of curiosity crossing his eyes. He knew about the Dragon Fla spell—he even had the skill after defeating Faldo—but he had never really used it.
It was just sitting there, occupying space in his status screen, overshadowed by his sarthim skill. Removing it wasn't an option since it wasn't a mimicked skill, just a standard one.
"Hmm…you can't use to calculate. My main attribute is fla, so naturally, fla spells are stronger in my hands by default."
He explained this but Beatrix only waved her hand dismissively.
"Yeah, yeah. We'll remove the attribute bonus from the calculation."
Still, Evan shook his head.
"Even then, it wouldn't be enough. The spell would still be more powerful in my hands."
Beatrix furrowed her brow, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.
"Why would it still show more power if we're ignoring your attribute bonus?"
A smug grin tugged at Evan's lips, though it was concealed by his mask.
"Because I'm that much stronger than you two, plain and simple. Even without my bonuses, I'd output more power."
His words caused even Artemisia who was initially ignoring the whole conversation to turn towards him with narrowed eyes, clearly unimpressed.
Beatrix also gave him a similar look as she spoke.
"Evan, we're higher level than you by, like, thirty levels."
"Sure. But I can fight people higher than my level—and win."
Evan agreed with a shrug and Beatrix didn't seem particularly impressed by this, after all, she was a nonstandard existence as well.
"We can do that too, you know."
Artemisia could temporarily evolve herself mid-fight, so if the power gap wasn't too much, the girl could close it and fight higher opponents on equal footing.
"Yeah, but not like I can."
Evan's tone was casual, but his words carried an undeniable confidence. He had fought enemies stronger than himself before, and though Artemisia and Beatrix were strong, he knew he could take them on—at least one-on-one.
Arthur had also given that sa evaluation after seeing him use Blessing of Destruction and Evan could accurately gauge their strengths as well.
'If it were both of them, I might need to use Blessing of Destruction. But just one? I could manage without it.'
"Cocky much?"
Beatrix rolled her eyes at Evan as she asked, but Evan only gave a small chuckle.
"Just being honest."
Beatrix opened her mouth, ready to refute Evan's boastful words, but before she could get anything out, a low growl rumbled through the air.
They all turned, and from the shadows of the surrounding rocks erged three more snowy leopards, their eyes gleaming with vengeful intent.
The one Artemisia had incinerated was not alone; it had been part of a pack, and now the rest had co for revenge.
Evan glanced at the approaching beasts, and he decided to use them to test.
"Oh, would you look at that? Perfect—target dummies just volunteered themselves."
Before the leopards could even think of leaping, Evan raised his hand, a four-ringed magic circle springing to life in half a second.
He didn't even need to say the na out as he activated the Dragon Fla spell, intentionally lowering the energy to about half his full power.
Despite the reduction, the swirling flas that burst from his palm ford a beam of fire twice the size of Artemisia's previous attack. The inferno roared toward the pack with terrifying force, engulfing them in an instant.
The flas consud the leopards before they could close the distance, their forms disintegrating as the intense heat split the nearest one into pieces, leaving little more than smouldering ash scattered across the snow.
Evan lowered his hand, looking back at Beatrix with a raised brow.
"Well, was that enough of a demonstration?"
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