Chapter 537 - End of the Chase

[Greater Mimic - lvl ???]

[Greater Mimic - lvl ???]

The Mimics following us do so even now, and they seem to be excellent trackers or have marked us in some undetectable way. It’s hard to estimate their level, but what’s annoying is that they can order some lesser mimics and mimic spawns in the area to wake up and attack us.

After a day of flying through the snowy region, unwilling to risk a prolonged fight with them in case more Mimics joined, I level up once while fighting the weaker ones.

[Lvl 303 > Lvl 304]

Sometimes I also teleport us, but I do it less 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 us 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 two more mana limbs I create. Heat radiates from my body to keep us warm, and a barrier surrounds us, ready to deflect attacks and shield us from the wind. My mana gets drained at a rapid pace, but it also regenerates fairly quickly. The result is that it still goes down between flying, heating, defending, and fighting weaker 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 while trying to destroy their supplies.

I also wonder if, at the speed I’m traveling—even after 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 of a few minutes, Leth sits in the snow as I expand my barrier to deflect it and block the wind.

While I keep an eye on our surroundings and track the Greater Mimics, Leth sits there quietly. He no longer cries.

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

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

“Better than any other lumoran I knew. None of the lumoran Champions has… had such loyal people as he did. But 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.”

“You can only wait and see.”

***

After another day, the blizzard weakens, and far fewer mimic spawns and lesser mimics attack us.

The Greater Mimics trailing us push hard and try to catch up, with what feels like deep desperation. But there’s no way for them to do so, and there doesn’t seem to be any Champion Mimic nearby—or maybe it hasn’t received the message. It seems the lumoran Champion took care of that.

Actually, how many Champion grade mimics and hosts can mimic forces have? Wouldn't Champion Feroy killing six be considered a huge loss?

***

One more day passes, and the snow gradually disappears. The terrain shifts into hilly, cold land with short, hardy grass and similar trees. There are plenty of lakes in the area.

We have exited the Second Front, yet our pursuers do not stop and continue trailing us.

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

Through the Community, I learn the others are still in the snowy region, and 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 come 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 split 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 swear it looks with all its eyes at where its buddy was. 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.

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

The Mimic rushes at us, trying to evade a few 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 incredible 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] activates to slow the enemy. Even so, the Mimic barely slows, and I can feel its monstrous strength and powerful body.

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 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. A hole as wide as my torso is pierced through its body.

[You have defeated Greater Mimic - lvl 378]

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

A level 14 skill.

I let my usual mana projectiles weave around my shoulders. I compress them until they’re dark blue, then launch them at the corpse with a similar amount of kinetic force as 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 penetrated its hide and embedded halfway into the corpse. I could probably make them pierce further with 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.

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

Curious, I examine the residual hole and the field it creates, watching how it interacts with the Mimic. I know this field should gradually dissipate, but I think the higher level it is, the longer it will last.

It’s something I really want to experiment with and maybe train under. 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 that I tie up with mana thread, 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 she’s not 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 sneak the Framework back are annoying, mostly because they’re so unskilled. Yada yada, noble ladies’ pets, little kids could do better, you know the drill.”

“I… I apologize. There must be some 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 used to have that crown over his head, rumored to be able to destroy this city ten times over if Beatrice died.

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

Surely one of my favorite memories.

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

“I… a few decades.”

I shake my head. “Tsk tsk. So lacking. How did you guys even plan to break spatial locks with skills like these?”

Before Beatrice can speak, I interrupt her. “I have to go, you know. The important stuff is waiting for me. 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 months with that silver haired monster.

Continuing to juggle multiple orbs I’m training with under my control, I hop onto one rooftop and then another, sometimes even onto a tower, before reaching ours, near 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 toy a child no longer wants to play with.

“They should stop now,” I tell her before sitting at my usual spot, resting my back against the wall.

“Little kitten,” she says, “if they were at least doing something interesting or using that cheap plan to take back the Framework just to hide a real ploy… But no. These people have no idea what they're doing. They probably didn’t come up with this themselves—the prisoner inside the Spatial Locks must have shared it with them.”

“Some 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. I'll tell you everything I know."

“As always,” I growl, my tail twitching in frustration, “these brutes don’t even have proper shampoo I could 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 is considered extremely rude in every civilized nation, little kitten," she says before turning back to her work.

“I’m curious. Plus, all these Rulers watching us probably already know, so I can’t be worse than them!”

“That’s a terrible jump in logic. [Mana Manipulation] and [Control].”

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

"I thought you would have learned by now that it's rarely about the skill itself. I've met people with powerful skills, little kitten, but many couldn't fully control them. They seemed destined for greatness, envied for their potential, yet they hit a limit they couldn't surpass—like children given a sword 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.

Still in midair, I twist, reorient myself, and land on my feet.

Then I notice that in that split second, 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.

***

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