Shades of the New World

Chapter 277: The aftermath

Amos sat in the alleyway behind a pile of refined sorbothium, as she grunted painfully while directing the Mist towards her left side in an effort to reconnect her badly mutilated arm to her shoulder. The arm, or what was left of it, was left dangling from a string of flesh and as if it was half bitten off by a rabid bear of some sorts. And that wasn't all, the dangling excuse of an arm was bending in all the wrong directions, and overall looked like a stick that was broken in two spots.

'I'll fucking kill that brat the next time I see him,' she thought with fury.

All this was due to a very unfortunate series of events that transpired three minutes prior. When the enemy Dark Mage jumped out of the darkness to attack her, naturally, she counterattacked with her Blooming Needles and managed to have 7 of it hit her target, despite the target's small body. But, the Dark Mage managed to turn her weightless through some unknown means and sent her flying towards a wall. 

Since she held her shield on the right, her left arm was forced to be squashed between her and the wall. A movement, which had most definitely fractured the poor thing, and left Amos herself dizzy beyond the normal amount. But, all was well. Elites being elites, she had experienced a similar thing countless times at this point of her time and she required only a couple seconds to get her bearings together.

And besides, she knew that victory was imminent, as she had managed to stick her needles into the enemy. In only a few seconds, they should've bloomed into a set of beautiful flowers, freezing her enemy's body into a popsicle in a matter of seconds. Even if the enemy tries to fight back the process with their own methods, her partner, Lam, should've sent a spell or two to keep the enemy in place once and for all. Amos wasn't worried about Lam failing to do so, as it was basically his specialty at this point locking down  and immobilizing enemies.

After the enemy was captured, well, the two could do really anything to him. An exposed Dark Mage was quite the sad thing, after all. They were sharp, swift and deadly and they really warranted the fear they instilled in enemies, but the moment they lose their ability to hide in the shadows, they suddenly start looking a lot less imposing than a second ago.

'I'll finally be able to get that World of Water Core for myself,' Amos even remembered herself falling into delusion like that at the time.

But just as Amos was thinking of exchanging the captured elite for the grand prize back home, she felt the Mist around her protecting her from a spell. A spell which removed the air around her, to be exact. The Mist was already knowledgeable with this simple yet deadly World of Storms method so it easily dispelled its effects. 

But it wasn't familiar with the method that came next, one that was proven to work on her from the previous clash with the enemy. Almost instantly, she felt her body switch from being weightless as a feather to feeling like it was made completely out of lead, as she swiftly started falling towards the ground. 

Once again, she fell with her left arm sandwiched between herself and the ground, as her body had become heavier than the shield she was carrying. This impact left her arm completely broken in the forearm but Amos wasn't really unhappy about this fact in particular. She was more angry that Lam managed to completely fail at containing the enemy Dark Mage, considering the fact that the latter was freely throwing spells at Amos herself.

She hatefully glanced at Lam and found him covered in a defensive spell, clutching at the stump of his missing left leg. In the corner of her vision, she also saw a giant beast diving back into the shadows. 

'I understand that he was taken by a surprise attack, probably in the moment he was focusing to cast a spell on the Dark Mage that appeared out of his shadows, but he's still so useless,' Amos thought annoyedly.

After that, Amos knew that she was left to fight against the Dark Mage and the extra Mana Beast that he kept in his shadow. She eyed the enemy and saw him in a much better state than she expected him to. The Blooming Needles did its job of applying frostbite to his body, but they hadn't bloomed for whatever reason. 

Amos guessed that the armor he was wearing to have some magical properties, which meant that she was fighting someone loaded with money. This fact was proven true the following moment, with the giant pile of refined sorbothium he pulled out to block Amos' next wave of needles.

The Mana Beast also made a dramatic reappearance, roaring and baring its fangs at Amos. She managed to block the Beast's maw with her shield, but couldn't quite block the ensuing claw swipe, which of course, landed on her left side upper arm. The impact which left her flying almost ripped her arm off, but that wasn't all. To add insult to injury, Amos somehow crashed into the wall with her left side once again, adding another bend to her poor, poor left arm.

'I'll really kill that brat, I swear I will,' grunting so, Amos focused on fixing her arm once more.

A minute later, another presence filled the alleyway. A wave of darkness filled Amos' surroundings, promptly picked up the two, and brought the two far away from the battlefield. Some unknown time passed in complete darkness, before Amos reappeared in the middle of the forest, the brightness of the sky blinding her momentarily.

"Well, you two certainly took a beating. I rushed over the moment you called, but I couldn't even see the culprits who did this to you both. Come over, I'll fix you up." a drowsy voice sounded in her head.

Amos looked over and saw her captain, Tsoma, casually standing in a puddle of darkness, curiously observing the wounds that the two-person pair obtained. A short man with a plump belly, wearing a tightfitting suit that the nobles of the west liked to don. He then chanted a random word and started to heal his two subordinates.

"Not culprits. Just one kid. It was a half-core boy of about 8, a human by the looks of it, used the Dark World, the World of Storms, the World of Fire, and the Heavy World. Another thing to note is that he's filthy rich by the fact that he owned an artifact armor, owned a tamed Mana Beast, and decided to block my needles with a fucking wall of sorbothium."

"And he didn't call anyone to help him?" Tsoma asked. 

Amos looked over at Lam, who was growing his feet back with the help of captain.

"I was looking out for that, but no, he didn't send any message away. He tried running away after he realized he was found, but obviously, he soon realized he was bound to the area due to my binding Luminous spell. The next time he appeared, he attacked Amos and while I was trying to bind him down once and for all, I found myself being attacked by a black wolf of some sorts. It was trying to swallow me whole, but I managed to protect everything aside from my leg," Lam explained.

"Anything else to note?"