Drake readied herself for the group of trolls that sped up the stairs. The smell of their
dead brethren seemed to throw the monsters into a frenzy; the rotting corpses like a roiling
bonfire sending smoke into the air from what Drake could gather.
Since they’d found what Drake assumed was a map, Drakes mind had consistently
drifted away from her current circumstances, and toward her past. Though she had gotten to
use much of what she’d learned physically in her past life, breath control, parkour, and even
minor martial arts, she hadn’t truly pushed herself in any of those categories since traveling to
Imperial. Nor had she used any of what she’d studied.
Why she hadn’t used any of her gathered medical knowledge eluded her, but Drake felt
that her lust for magic was more than likely the sole reason behind her lack of discipline.
Drake had a wealth of knowledge that she had yet to tap for its usefulness. Could the
use of anatomy help against her powerfully regenerative foes currently? The unanswered
questions began to build and bother her, nagging at her mentally.
The monsters had a far higher potential to have drastically di?erent body makeups from
humans, or exiled gods as Drake now knew earthlings to be. Yet Drake could tell that the
similarities were high.
So high in fact that she’d naturally gone for assumed weaknesses and lucked out. Only
Drake began to wonder about finer details of magic and monster skeletal designs. Were they
connected? If they were connected, could Drake sever a spinal cored in a specific location and
stop their regeneration?
Maybe I can rip out a core like a heart, make these fuckers as fragile as a human
without magic?
“Cortez, let me ask you something?”
The boy’s voice came from a far corner of the roof, his invisibility skill now high enough
that Drake couldn’t place him at all without him using his voice, or making a truly obvious
sound.
“What,” hissed Cortez, reticent to make noise with the sound of thundering feet rushing
toward them.
“You said the losing council members have their cores ripped out if they lose in the
battle for their ascensions during the replacement ritual, does that take something special to be
done, or do we all have physical cores that can be found and removed like a useless organ
during surgery?”
“Is now really the time for this?”
“Yes, we are barely able to keep up with the amount of monsters that keep raiding this
bloody building, I need to know any and everything that can give us an edge.”
“Maiden damn it, okay, cores are in deed physical, most commonly found in four
locations, in the heart, the brain, the normally empty space beside the heart, and the intestines,
or if you are lucky in a multitude of those locations like some dungeon bosses, or even morerarely like some legends of old it is held in a spatial pocket behind the solar plexus, which
some Cultivators have learned to move, now shut up, I need to concentrate.”The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Drake smiled, and turned toward her Giant skeleton.
“Okay buddy, next troll you fight, I want you to aim, here, here, here, here, and here, all
at the same time with that crazy cool spear strike of yours, got it?” Said Drake, pointing at her
fore head, her heart, her belly button, her right pectoral and her solar plexus. She was given a
nod and a mental nudge, a single word answer that forced a punch to her nervous systems like
adrenaline given to her through a syringe directly thrusted into her heart.
“Yeah yeah, push I got it,” said Drake, turning back to the roof’s entryway, placing
Havoc into the hand of Zen as she mentally summoned fourth her metallic minion, feeling it
transform into a sword once it lay within her grip.
No time like the present to learn, might as well assume we are never going to have use
of our right arm again and become a deadly southpaw…
Drake’s other magical minion rose into the air, hovering in its spear form. The weapon
further distanced itself, as what Drake wanted to try, may not work in the slightest because of
how quickly the trolls could regenerate, but she knew that they needed to grow more powerful
and quickly if they were going to be able to fight ogres and mountain trolls.
“Here goes nothing…,” murmured Drake, and the first Troll rushed onto the rooftop.
Even before Cortez could fire his first arrow, Drake knew something was di?erent with
her lightning spear. She had a di?erent expectation of the minion, and with that expectation
came a truly wicked outcome.
Everything slowed and Drake glanced above and behind herself to see a semi focused
storm cloud wrapping itself around her spear. The dense crimson lightning froze her in that
instant, moving in an alluring spiral around the shaft of the weapon, only for five bolts of
lightning to surge outward at once.
By the time Drake was able to look back, the second troll was racing onto the roof,
plowing through an ash cloud, coating itself in the remains of its former ally.
Holy fuck!
“Holy fuck,” cursed Cortez. Drake didn’t know if he was having the same realization as
she was, but it would be hard to miss that her minion had just managed to kill a single troll in a
blink of an eye.
Drake felt instinctually that the weapon had to recharge and may take a moment to be
able to conjure a discharge of the same magnitude, but even knowing that anyone of her
minions were capable of doing what she’d only been able to do with a perfectly timed attack
filled Drake with hope. They were getting better at killing the much stronger foes, as the
hobgoblins were no longer sent to fight them, and not a single regular goblin had been seen
since entering the space beneath the instance. However, the numbers were only increasing,
leaving Drake to only guess how many trolls would now rush onto the roof.
Ten might even be possible for them to handle at this point, but Drake knew that was a
stretch, suspecting that even more than that number were more than likely already rushing
toward them.Lets do this!”
Drake charged, flanked by her giant skeletal minion. The second troll slowed in the
entryway after catching a face full of ash, trying to wipe vigorously at the remains that had
momentarily blinded it. Only for Drake to take advantage before it could move.
Drake moved into range, not having to be close enough for the troll to strike her, as Zen
and Havoc’s combined lengths gave her a reach that from what she could tell only the ogres
and larger monsters would be able to beat.
Drake slid, widening her stance as she drifted by the entryway, bracing herself for what
she knew was to come. Zen thrusted Havoc toward the monster’s head, wrapping its mighty
grip both around the troll’s face, and the hand it used to clear away the ash.
the sound of the monster’s skull cracking was like that of stone being broken by a
sledgehammer, made that much worse by Zen pulling its fraternal twin downward, allowing for
Havoc to yank the troll o? its feet, and slam the monster’s head into the ground.
Havoc pinned the now flailing troll to the surface of the roof, and Drake drew back the
sword in her hand unsure about the precision the sword would be wielded in, especially while
still sliding. Though she was getting comfortable in her new body Drake could tell Aurora had
been amidst a growth spurt, and though she hadn’t been in her new vessel long, she’d
definitely grown, and hadn’t realized her momentum would take her as far as it had.
She stabbed once toward the heart, remembering that the first troll she’d killed in a
single blow had died by having its heart ripped out, and hope that this just may be a quality
common to trolls, but the blade slid in and nothing happened until she removed the blade a
second later. Drake forced to watch the creature flail even more violently.
“Nope,.”
Drake stabbed again, aiming for the stomach, her blade easily slicing into the belly
button of the monster, and back out. The troll began to start and swing at her, nearly clipping
her in the side of her torso nearest to her broken arm, but Havoc lifted the monster’s skull, and
slammed it back down again as Drake stabbed out again.
Nope, and nope.”
The only place Drake hadn’t tried, was the brain,, but luckily for her, Havoc moved
quickly. After another slam, it grabbed the troll by its throat, and Drake stabbed again without
hesitation.
The blade slid into the monsters skull with ease, and in an instant the troll’s entire being
was turned to dust. Nothing left but Drake’s glowing blade.
“Ah ha,” said Drake, looking toward more piles of ash in the entryway.
the next Troll, noting that there were already two
What the…?
It was then that Drake realized, she wasn’t the only one using this new tactic. Her giant
minion had been directed to do so, but the five arrows that plunged into the next troll, turning it
into dust surprised her.“Nice Cortez!”
“Thanks!”
Drake’s giant skeletal minion took out the next foe in an instant. A massive tower shield
smashing into the chest of the troll, knocking it slightly airborne, before seven spear strikes
came out all at once.
Every vital point was struck, and the troll was turned to ash even before its feet could
touch the ground. Drake wanted to move in for the next troll, but was beaten by her recharged
lightning spear.
Another surge of crimson lightning came from above and seemingly smited another
troll. Followed by another volley of arrows, and Phalanx Strike from her giant minion; and from
one instant to another and one realization, Drake had become the slowest entity of her raid
group.
Well that isn’t what I expected to happen, but it works I guess…