Abyssal Awakening

"What the hell is this…" A man muttered while looking at the forest of crystals that now stood where a mountain used to be.

"The collision site of the attack." Torgeir replied as though it was nothing weird.

However, for the cartographer, this was the first time he'd seen such a drastic change of landscape outside of battles conducted by Abyss Lords.

The most shocking thing was that no one died to this!

"And you say the threat has been dealt with?" He asked, feeling rather doubtful.

If someone could unleash this kind of destructive power despite not being a Lord, how were they even able to take care of the enemy? How were they able to survive the surprise attack?

"Indeed. Alice isn't one to lie about something like this. And I've seen personally how strong she is when she protected everyone from this attack." Torgeir chuckled, expressing his trust in Alice.

Even though they didn't see the battle, he believed her words.

Furrowing his brows, the cartographer was doubtful.

From what he's gathered, this Alice Agnelia only has five Spirits attuned to her. For her to fend off this kind of danger sounded impossible. Especially considering the fact that she's an offensive warrior rather than defensive.

Unless he sees it with his own eyes, he didn't believe that she could do this kind of thing.

However, his job was not to question the legitimacy of this five Spirit warrior being able to stop this attack but rather to redraw the map.

Shaking his head, he pulled out a device and landed near the crystals.

Pouring in a vial of blood, he watched as the numbers began to change.

"Doesn't seem like there's any major contamination or corruption so we can leave this place be. Earthen beasts may flock to this place more often and smaller fissures will open to the Abyss, populating this zone. For the short time, I'd advise civilians to avoid this route or find a long way around.

"We still need to determine the level of beasts that appear here so we can judge the danger of this zone." The cartographer muttered while writing down notes into a notepad.

"For now, there doesn't seem to be any major threats." He closed his notes and pulled out a map of the area.

"Just protect me if anything pops up, I'll focus on adjusting the map now." He sighed while glancing back at Torgeir who nodded his head.

While this may be a little boring just escorting the cartographer, it was a much desired break from going through paper work.

###

*BANG!!!

The sudden sound of something crashing into a fence caused people to look over at the cloud of dust. From this cloud, they could see Alice clawing herself from the rubble while coughing and waving away the dust.

"As you can see, the skill is not exactly easy to stop once you start." Alice rubbed her butt in pain while looking at the broken fence.

Thankfully, she had already gotten permission from Torgeir so she didn't need to worry too much about the damages.

As long as its not destroying literal buildings or tearing a chunk out of the outpost, she was given the green light.

"So any clues on how to stop?" Alice asked.

She figured that if she was struggling, she might as well see if Selen or Egil had any ideas on how she could master this skill.

Alyss tried to brute force it and well… it didn't go well.

"Hmm… I mean I don't have much knowledge on how the Void works so I don't even know where to begin." Selen scratched her hair as it was beyond her.

"You said you were slipping right?" Egil asked.

"Yeah. The moment I step down to activate the skill, my posture just breaks apart. But when Feris did it, she's doing it effortlessly. It doesn't even look like she's straining." Alice nodded.

Granted, Feris is the owner of the Void so it's only natural that she finds this easy. Not to mention the fact that she's probably the one who made this skill.

"Have you tried to keep your centre of gravity low?" Egil suggested.

"Been there done that. Still fell over in the end and imprinted myself into a rock." Alice sighed.

"Are you able to carry people with you? Maybe it's easier to understand if we tried it ourselves."

Thinking about it for a moment, Alice decided to give it a go as she hadn't tried this method before.

*BANG!!!

*BANG!!!

After two more collisions, the three of them sat on the ground while folding their arms.

"Yeah it's tough. I couldn't keep my balance either." Egil sighed.

Even with his physicality, the force of the skill was akin to someone just grabbing his ankles and throwing him over. Practically impossible to keep himself upright.

On top of everything, there's still the issue of Alice trying to stop herself at the right point as well.

Right now, she's akin to a bullet. Not stopping unless she hits something.

"You think if you grabbed a spear or something, you can just throw yourself at them with this skill?" Selen joked as Alice rolled her eyes.

If she wanted to do that, she might as well use her Void Flux or the new skill she's trying to develop.

One that even scared off Feris from helping out.

With neither Selen nor Egil being able to help out, they decided to leave it for later.

With the caravan arriving from the Capital, there were new supplies and merchants that tagged along. Selen and Egil decided to check out the caravan while Alice figured she might as well take this time to write the letter to Ria.

She'll write a letter, have the Void Hawk send it to the Abyss and find an Underground branch. Either that or have it sent towards the Silver Wind valley branch and have the branch manager there take care of it.

As for the fee… Ria can pay for it.

Agreeing to meet up in about an hour or so, the group separated for now.

###

"Alice is getting monstrously strong now." Selen sighed as the two of them looked around the temporary market set up by the merchants.

"She is. That new skill of hers… If she can master it, I don't think anyone would be able to hit her unless they take her by surprise." Egil agreed with a nod.

"IF they take her by surprise. I fought her before. That instinct of hers is practically cheating. Any sign of hostility and she'll react instinctively and fight back. Her survival sense is out of this world too. To take her by surprise while she's focused, you have to hide everything without a single bit of intent leaking out." Selen shrugged.

"So pretty much impossible then."

"I wouldn't say that. There's been times when Alice drops her guard even though she doesn't know it. I don't know what triggers it but safe to say it's difficult for most to capitalize on it. Plus, even if you surprise her, she might still be able to react on time." Selen shook her head.

"The meteor surprise attack proves it. She lacked sleep, was exhausted and even dropped her guard because we were close to safety. Yet despite all of that, she was still the first one to react to danger and give out orders. Then, if it wasn't for her teleporting us, we would've all died in that attack." She sighed.

"How am I supposed to keep up with her?"

Hearing this, Egil was silent. He thought about the powers that Alice could control and realised how tough she truly was as an opponent.

But that didn't mean there was nothing they could do.

Granted, there were easy ways of countering her and hard ways. For Egil, Alice was probably the worst opponent he could ask for. Not only could she keep up with his speed and power thanks to her instincts, but her attack power was off the charts.

Trying to defend against her attacks would be suicide for him.

But Selen? Her control over time gives her an edge that other people don't have.

In his life, he has only seen or heard of one person who can control time and that's Selen.

"Maybe… You can change your approach with your time powers. So far, you've just been using it to slow down attacks right? Are you able to use it to slow down your opponent? If Alice can react quickly, can't you just slow down her body?" Egil suggested.

"I mean… I can but it's a bit more difficult than just targeting her. The easiest way is for me to speed up my own time or slow down my surroundings. Focusing on someone requires them to stand still while I lock onto them. And even when that happens, the skill can be broken apart pretty easily with brute force." Selen explained.

Had she inherited the full powers of Miralith then perhaps she could pull this off with ease. But her body couldn't handle that kind of transplant.

"Then what about the area around them?"

"If the time slow isn't centered around me, it's harder to pull off and takes more time. It's not impossible just difficult to execute during a fight." Selen shook her head once more.

Just as she finished this sentence, Selen paused in her steps as an idea appeared in her mind.

An idea that seems ridiculous but if she could pull it off then…

"Egil look over here for a moment." Selen called out.

"What is it?"

.

.

.

"Egil? Egil? Hello~" Selen waved her hand.

"Huh? Sorry did you say something, I didn't quite catch that." Egil blinked in confusion.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." Selen grinned, patting him on the back as she went on ahead with a skip in her steps.

Scratching his cheek in confusion, Egil followed behind her, unsure as to what had just happened. He felt like she had said something but couldn't quite remember.