Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 537: End of the Chase

[Greater Mimic - lvl ???]

[Greater Mimic - lvl ???]

The Mimics following us continue to match pace, even now, and they must be excellent trackers unless they’ve marked us in some undetectable way. It’s hard to estimate their level, but what’s annoying is that they seem to have a degree of control over some of the lesser mimics and mimic spawn in the area, causing them to awaken and attack us.

After a day of flying through the snowy region, unwilling to risk a prolonged fight with them in case more Mimics choose to join in, I even manage to pick up another level fighting off the weaker ones.

[Lvl 303 > Lvl 304]

Sometimes I also teleport us, but I don’t do so quite as often, worried that it might seriously hurt Leth.

At least I know no Champion grade Mimics will come our way, and I know where to head, thanks to a small compass-like device pointing the way out of the Second Front and into lumoran territory.

Speed is more important than my frustration with these two Greater Mimics following us. I’m sure I could deal with them if needed, but protecting Leth in the process might be tricky.

So we fly. I carry Leth like a princess, supporting him with a pair of extra limbs I create out of mana. Heat radiates from my body to keep us warm, and I surround us in a barrier, ready to deflect attacks and shield us from the wind. My mana is draining at a rapid pace, but it also regenerates fairly quickly. The result is that it still goes down between flying, heating, defending, and fighting off whatever Mimics I can kill quickly, but with my reserves, I’m not worried.

Once in a while, I check the Community, and even though there’s plenty of trouble, Group 4 seems to be doing as well as they can. Another member of their evacuation convoy was killed, caught trying to destroy their supplies.

It makes me wonder if, given the speed I’m traveling at—even with the five days I spent with Kyralon—I might leave the Second Front faster than they will.

It’s quite possible.

During one of our brief breaks, Leth is sitting in the snow as I expand my barrier to deflect and block the wind.

While I keep an eye on our surroundings and track the Greater Mimics, Leth sits there quietly. He’s not crying anymore.

“He was like an older brother to all of us,” he whispers. “His body was frail, and his illness weighed on him… but he never showed any weakness. He tried to hide it, he was ashamed to let us see, but we noticed. And the funny thing is, we admired him even more for his determination.”

“From what I gathered talking to him, he seemed like a good man,” I reply.

“Better than any other lumoran I knew. None of the lumoran Champions has… had such loyal people as him. But still… why, why would he…”

“All the answers should be with you.”

“I know! You said that already! I… I just want to know if it was worth it.”

“All we can do is wait and see.”

A day later, the blizzard weakens, and far fewer lesser mimics and their spawn bother to attack us.

The Greater Mimics trailing us push hard and try to catch up, with what almost feels like a deep well of desperation. But there’s no way they can manage it and there don’t seem to be any Champion grade Mimics nearby, though it’s entirely possible they simply haven’t received the message. It seems the lumoran Champion took care of that.

Actually, how many Champion grade mimics and hosts could the mimic forces possibly have? Wouldnʼt Champion Feroy’s killing of those last six be a huge loss?

One more day passes, and the snow gradually begins to disappear, and the terrain starts to shift, transitioning into a hilly tundra with short, hardy grass and stout, stunted trees. There are plenty of lakes in the area.

We’ve finally left the Second Front, yet our pursuers do not stop, continuing to trail us as we go.

Just a bit farther, and I’ll get rid of these two.

As I’m reading through the Community, I learn the others are still in the snowy region, and that’s when we receive a new notification:

Warning! The 2nd wave is now in progress.

As before, there is no immediate change where I am, but I don’t let my guard down.

Leth stands beside me as I watch two Mimics gradually creep closer—two massive lumps of tentacles, mouths, teeth, and eyes. At some point, it’s almost impressive they managed to track me for so long, but enough is enough.

I prepare for the fight and fire an [Empyrean Lance] I’d been charging, then deploy a simple web of Ley Lines over the area.

The lance reaches one of the Mimics in a fraction of a second.

Okay, let’s follow up and finish…

[You have defeated Greater Mimic - lvl 375]

[Lvl 304 > Lvl 305]

Uh, what?

The other Mimic, a stadium’s length to the right of the fallen one, stops. I could almost swear it seems to take a moment to look with all its eyes at the space where its buddy once stood. That one now lies dead, unmoving, the lance having torn a hole clear through its durable body with ease.

Well, if it works, why not try again?

Before the mimic moves, I form another lance and pump more into it to strengthen it. Since I’m doing it faster, it’s not as heavily charged as the first one. It slowly spins on its axis, the golden-white core glowing from within.

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[Empyrean Lance - lvl 13 > Empyrean Lance - lvl 14]

The Mimic rushes at us, trying to evade the Ley Lines I materialize in an attempt to slice it or slow it down. Its movement tears chunks of rock and grass, and there’s weight behind that charge, like a car traveling at high speed.

I know it’ll try to dodge, so I bide my time, storing more and more kinetic energy.

“Nathaniel?”

Closer.

“Nathaniel!” Leth shouts.

Just a bit more.

The Mimic reaches the spot I want, and my domain expands. With it, [Redistribution] flares into activation, slowing the enemy. Even so, the Mimic retains most of its speed, and I can feel its monstrous strength and powerful body in the weight of its presence.

Maybe my first attack was just a fluke.

The Mimic changes direction and charges straight at us, dozens of tentacles swirling in front of its body to block any incoming attacks.

I get ready to teleport away and release the lance.

The shockwave of its lunge makes Leth stagger, but the Mimic itself staggers too. Halted by the hole, as wide as my torso, that’s inexplicably been punched through its body.

[You have defeated Greater Mimic - lvl 378]

Its body keeps moving another second from the momentum, then comes to a stop.

A level 14 skill.

I let my usual mana projectiles weave themselves together over my shoulders. Then I compress them until they’re dark blue, and launch them at the corpse with the same amount of kinetic force I used with the lance before.

Several shockwaves push Leth back while he curses, demanding to know what the hell I’m doing.

I move closer to the body and examine the damage. The projectiles I made have penetrated its hide and embedded themselves halfway into the corpse. I could probably make them pierce further with a bit more compression, which would somehow, don’t ask me how make the mana heavier. In the best case, I could probably pierce all the way through a mimic’s body.

I know how durable these creatures are from my prior observations, and that “dumb lance” just sliced them apart.

Curious, I examine the hole it tore through the beast and the field it left behind, watching the way it interacts with the Mimic. I know this field should dissipate over time, but I think it will last longer at higher levels.

It’s something I really want to experiment with and maybe replicate for training. The thing disrupted Whitey’s kinetic energy, so it fascinates me.

I spend a few minutes pulling several of the mimic’s teeth, carefully avoiding its toxic saliva. Then I store them in a square of canvas, which I bind with thread made of mana, which should last a few days even without “restoring” it.

After checking the Community, I pick up Leth and continue in the direction indicated by the compass.

POV Myrra

“Beatrice! Get your ass over here!” I shout toward the tower. Almost immediately, that pink woman rushes outside, followed by her bodyguard.

“Lady Myrra! I’m so sorry for being so slow to respond,” she apologizes right away.

“Sure, sure. My master said-”

“-Didn’t she explicitly say that she wasn’t your master-” Beatrice tries to interrupt.

I ignore her and continue, “My master said to tell your father to stop messing around. Apparently, his attempts to regain control of the Framework are annoying, mostly because they’re so unrefined and he’s not very sneaky. Yada yada, noble ladies’ pets, a toddler could do better, you know the drill.”

“I… I apologize. There must be some sort of misunderstanding, but I’ll speak to my father right away, I promise.”

“Good! Because I don’t think there’ll be a second warning.”

Under different circumstances, I’d probably feel bad bullying someone like this, but these silly mind mages surely deserve it. Even now, I feel her trying to manipulate me.

I could probably tell Lissandra and let her handle it quickly, but what am I, a baby lynthari who can’t deal with this weird pink human?

To push it further, I turn to Beatrice’s bodyguard, the man who once had a crown over his head, rumored to contain enough energy to destroy this city ten times over if Beatrice died.

The crown that Lissandra snatched, leaving all these people floundering like fish out of water.

Surely one of my favorite memories.

“Little fishy,” I call, turning to the bodyguard, “my master Lissandra is asking how long you spent filling your crown. A year?”

“I… a few decades.”

I shake my head. “Tsk tsk. So lacking. How were you guys even planning to break the spatial locks with such lackluster skills?”

Before Beatrice can speak, I interrupt her. “I have to go, you know. I have more important matters just waiting for my attention. Later then, little fishy—and pink bitch.”

I wave them off, and no words follow. I could really get used to this. I almost feel a weight dropping off my shoulders after the months I’ve spent with that silver haired monster.

Continuing to juggle the multitude of orbs I’m training with, I hop onto a rooftop and then leap to another, sometimes even hopping across the towers, before reaching our own, temporary, home, somewhere around the exact center of the city. I think it used to belong to someone important, but Lady Lissandra took it for us.

There are no guards. Not even defensive arrays. She just has no need for them.

As before, I find her at the top of the tower, doing all kinds of things I can’t comprehend, with dozens of mana stones around her, and the tower’s surface carved and inscribed. The [Impact Crown] that once belonged to the bodyguard now floats nearby. It’s almost amusing, considering what it’s capable of, to see it tossed aside like a discarded toy.

“They should stop now,” I tell her before taking my usual seat, resting my back against the wall.

“Little kitten,” she says, “if they were at least doing something interesting like using their cheap ploy to hide their real plan. But no, these people have no idea what theyʼre doing. They probably didn’t even come up with this themselves—the prisoner trapped within the Spatial Locks probably had to feed it to them.”

“Is it some kind of inscription master?”

“I wasn’t curious enough to check. Let’s test something: repeat what I said. 7th floor, 2nd tournament.”

“7th floor, 2nd tournament.”

“Good. The progress on status transfer is going well, and we should be done soon.”

“There are so many things I want to ask.”

”Take your time, little kitten. Iʼll tell you everything I know.”

“As always,” I growl, my tail twitching in frustration, “these brutes don’t even have proper shampoo for me to use.”

“I believe you’ll survive.”

“Lady Lissandra.”

“What.” She pauses and looks at me, somehow managing to appear vaguely threatening and I know I only have time for one question.

“What were your two starting skills?”

”Such a question would be considered extremely rude in any civilized nation, little kitten,” she says before turning back to her work.

“I’m curious. Plus, all these Rulers watching us probably already know, how cold I be any worse than them!”

“That’s a terrible leap of logic you’ve made. [Mana Manipulation] and [Control].”

“I’ve never heard of anyone with [Control]. Wouldn’t that be an insanely strong skill?”

”I thought you would have learned by now that itʼs rarely about the skill itself. Iʼve met many people with powerful skills, little kitten, but most couldnʼt fully control them. They seemed destined for greatness, envied for their potential, yet they hit a limit they couldnʼt surpass. Like children wielding swords too heavy to swing.”

“I see. Aren’t you going to ask me about my starting skills, Lady Lissandra?”

With a sigh, she turns to me again. “What were your starting skills, little kitten?”

I pretend to be shocked, covering my open mouth with my hand and widening my eyes. “H-how could you? Do you know how rud-”

Before I can finish, a pulse from the crown floating nearby pushes me right over the tower’s edge.

And as I fall through the air, I twist, reorienting myself, and landing on my feet.

Then I notice that in that one instant, the silver haired monster managed to modify the orbs I’m training with, increasing their difficulty immensely.

I plop down on my butt, unable to concentrate on standing while trying to keep them from bursting.