Zero Potential: Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Chapter 27

Terra made her way into the cave with her two blades drawn, the scent of iron and dried copper was pungent in the air. To her enhanced senses, the scents and colors associated with blood were heightened to her. Instinctively she felt a deep connection to the blood drops she found, for even without the curse of blood being active, she still felt a deep connection to the blood.

Pausing for a moment, Terra had to regain her focus, as deep down inside she knew that she didn’t have any direct ties to blood. She didn’t need blood, but yet all her senses couldn’t help but tell her that blood was present, that fresh blood had been spilled only hours ago.

Mentally she began calculating with this added information, she figured that with the amount of blood seen that the creature that was killed was rather large, meaning that if the creature had eaten it hours ago, there was a very good chance that the giant serpent was still in the process of digesting the meal. Meaning that if Terra moved now, she could hopefully find the beast in that sweet spot between sleep coma and groggily uncoordinated. The idea being that even if the beast did awaken, its coordination would be off and less refined.

Of course, Terra learned long ago, never base an attack plan on hope. As hope only left you dying slowly and painfully during the final battle, while you waited for a miracle that would never come.

No, after so many starts and restarts, Terra knew the hard truth, there were no such things as miracles. Even when the Gods gave you their powers, they came at a cost. The cost was effectively the Gods’ way of saying, this is your mess, now deal with it. Anything you do will be claimed as a miracle of the Gods, while every failure will be met with the fact that you clearly weren’t devout enough. That you yourself were unworthy of the blessings bestowed upon you.

Realizing that she would never feel the same self-loathing for failing again, well it was hard. Terra had used her self-hatred as a motivator to keep going for so many lifetimes now, feeling that she owed it to everyone to continue. Yet now she knew she didn’t have that drive pushing her forward. It was unnerving in a way, while simultaneously being freeing. She no longer had to be perfect. She no longer had to attend fancy balls or tend to the masses. She would never have to settle for a marriage of convenience. At that, revolting thoughts of Charleman filled her mind as she would never have to cater and kowtow to that monster again.

After all this time, she realized that if she wanted to, she could enact the revenge she so wanted to conduct for so long. Yet, she held herself back from those thoughts, for now.

Right now, she knew she needed to focus on the mission at hand. That mission was killing off a potential disaster before it even had a chance of becoming a true terror. In her past lives, she remembered how aid from the south was always delayed as they were constantly dealing with their own threats.

This time, while the aid wasn’t an immediate concern, Terra knew that the new hero would likely need help, which was why she was going out of her way to take down this monster here and now. No wait, that was the personal relations part of her talking. No, this time, if she was being completely and unapologetically honest with herself, right now, she was doing this for herself. Yes, there were causes that made it so her actions would have a positive impact on others. But right now, she was doing this for herself, to prove that she still had what it took to do the exceptional.

Obfuscation Aura.

Here aura was activated, and slowly draining away at her internal reserve of power. Over her multiple lifetimes she had gotten that internal reserve to be more of a reservoir, in terms of latent power, but there was an end to its depths.

The aura also served as a sort of cognitive warning, as she could feel when minds brushed up against her aura. For instance, she could feel the lurker spiders that hid in dark corners of the caves that she was walking past. She could feel the rats and other small creatures that hid in holes all around, content to feast upon the dropped remains of the giant slyvern.

Terra kept moving, when given multiple paths to possibly follow, the choice to take was clear. Almost too clear, as the trail of blood and ambient energy was easily identifiable to her heightened senses. In fact, at one point, the trail was so bright, that for a moment Terra almost thought the monsters had developed a trap for any would be hunters that came this far, as she had a hard time actually seeing past certain points due to its complete saturation of energy.

Only after a few more strides did she realize why there was a complete saturation of energy. Then with a shock of both fear and exhilaration, she realized why there was so much activity. The food consumption was way out of proportion, for a beast of this size. Even as a calamity class monster ready to evolve, the food consumption was too much. Of course, that was until she first felt the trickle of minds brush up against her sphere of influence around her.

As she moved forward, she felt tiny minds, just on the cusp of developing, but still noticeable to her consciousness. Then she felt the mind of a much larger creature stuck in the throes of evolution.

That was the first sign of something being off, as from all of Terra’s past lifetimes of dealing with calamity class monsters, she never heard of monsters being able to both evolve and procreate.

Of course, her thoughts were dismissed when she moved close enough to both see and finally feel the second developed mind, one that belonged to the apparent mother of the many eggs.

Hiss.

The giant mother slyvern raised her slumbering head to peer out towards the entrance, right towards where Terra herself was.

Looking at the disasters before her, Terra realized the predicament she was in. First, there were close to a dozen eggs that were all present and ready to be hatched at any time. Eggs that would grow up to be like the mother that was now protectively up and tasting the air with its long tongue.

For a moment Terra could almost feel the monster trying to fight its way through her aura. As she knew that her aura was not a form of invisibility, but rather a subtle suggestion to look away, that the object that was Terra was not interesting to look at.

Realizing that the beast was now actively looking for her, and at least on a subconscious level aware of her presence, Terra paused, daggers drawn and ready to strike.

This was not an ideal setting, for while one calamity class monster would be tough to deal with, Terra had no doubt that facing off against two would be death. At that moment, Terra’s Seer bloodline activated, once again showing her the process of being slowly devoured, only to have her Immortal curse bring her back to life, only to once again be killed slowly. The only difference being that this time she would be in the stomach of an evolving beast, whose first adaptation would be to strengthen the lining of their stomach.

The first one had just been a thought, while this one, this had been a full-on vision of the future, of her future.

Realizing that this was not the setting she wanted to be in, Terra quickly worked a few different strategies in her mind. Ideally this was the perfect time to take out the eggs and the evolving parent before they became a true threat. Yet, the mother was the one that posed the greatest threat, as she could easily rouse the evolving giant.

Once again, Terra thought about getting help, but by then the threat posed by these creatures would be immeasurable. Of course, she could also just walk away. This wasn’t her country, and any plans she had dealing with the people of this country could be dealt with in a matter of weeks, plenty of time before these eggs hatch and an evolved calamity class monster were set loose on the countryside.

Just as easily as the thought of leaving came, it was also just as quickly dismissed. Terra had gifts, talent, and training, everything one would need to conquer almost any obstacle. Also, slyvern hides were nearly perfect for creating armor from, as they are both tough and durable.

Taking a slight step back, Terra felt the mind of the slyvern subtly relax. Almost as if the creature could tell on some instinctual level that the threat was further away. With that Terra took a second step back.

With the second step, the mother slyvern slowly lowered its head to rest upon its long-coiled body. The beast was massive, and honestly Terra had a hard time trying to separate the two bodies of the intertwined serpents from one another, especially as they were both wrapped possessively around the eggs of their offspring.

Even now, from here Terra could feel the mother slyvern just waiting for Terra to drop her hiding spot and reveal herself. There was an intense coiled malice that seemed to permeate the air. Then just as she had the thought, the great system told her that her hunch was correct.

New Skill Gained.

Sense Killing Intent: Tier I: You have a 10% easier time of identifying a source of a threat that is directed directly at you.

With that, Terra knew that the creature was just pretending to sleep, as it knew that Terra had not fully left the cave. Also, Terra knew that the moment she moved, or did anything to betray her situation, the mother slyvern would strike. Again, just that thought alone, caused images of a giant mouth coming down swiftly and devouring her body in one fell swoop, where she would then die repeatedly, as she slowly dissolved inside the lining of a great beast.

This was when Terra got a second idea, a much better idea for dealing with all the problems in one perfect strike.

Slowly and silently, Terra moved to the side tunnel that she used to enter the cave. The more she moved, the less imminent threat she felt from the mother slyvern. With her new skill, Terra felt that she could almost tell the moment the snake flicked its long tongue in her direction, and given the rate at which her mana reserves were depleting, Terra knew that just standing in one place would ultimately lead to her death.

This was why with close to three fourths of her mana reserves left, she sheathed her two daggers in her belt. Then she pulled her Arcane Staff of the Elements from her back and very carefully began channeling the power of Earth Magic through the staff.

There was a slight resistance at first, as the staff seemed to have a hard time recognizing Terra’s magic at first, but then seemed to accept the new form of her energy. Once her energy was accepted, she felt an even deeper connection to the staff, almost as if the limitations that had been in place moments before were now gone. Letting Terra open her mind to the staff, her magic, and what she wanted her staff to do with the magic.

Subtle.

That was the trick to this casting. While she wanted to cast a long-drawn-out spell, she didn’t want the already aware slyvern mother to be aware of a change.

Terra focused on the stones that were within the mountain. On her way in, Terra noted the high iron and copper smells, while the copper mostly came from the blood of slain enemies, the iron, that was all from the mountain itself.

While iron wasn’t the strongest of metals, it was strong enough for what Terra had in mind. Focusing on two parts of the cave, Terra wove her energy into the walls of the cavern. Overhead, above the serpents, that is where she directed most of her energy, with a slight focus on slowly shrinking in the sides of the openings of the cavern that led the giant open nesting area that the slyverns had dug out.

Then, just when the mother finally stopped oozing out killing intent. Right at the same time as Terra found herself down to a quarter of her reserves of energy, she struck.

In an instant she switched from Obfuscation Aura, to her Magic Aura. Then with the added benefit of having an easier time casting, she activated two spells through her staff nearly simultaneously.

Earthquake.

Earth Spike Prison.

Spells erupted from her as the ceiling that had been slowly wedged apart fell with a deafening crash. Then the entrance that Terra had been slowly sealing away, suddenly sprung to life with sharp jagged spikes of iron erupting from the already shortened exit. The idea wasn’t to impale the giant beast, but rather have the beast tear its own skin with its own power once it escaped.

And Terra had no doubt that the beast would eventually escape.

With her Magic Aura present, she could feel the life force of the monsters she was attacking. A few of the tiny minds died instantly, a sign that they had been crushed by the falling stone ceiling almost instantly. Then with her aura active she could feel the slow strain and eventual collapse of the other minds slowly fade away, until there were just two.

Then she felt it, the all consuming killing intent that radiated from the cavern before her. The mother was not only alive, but now furious, as waves of killing intent permeated the collapsed cave before her.

At this point Terra realized the position she was in, and how the serpent, with its large frame would basically be call mouth when trying to fight the beast. Once again Terra had the dream of being devoured by the giant serpent.

Rumble.

Before Terra could come up with a plan of action, she felt the movement of not one but two giant serpents moving under what was tons of dirt and debris.

Focusing her mind, Terra calmed herself, as she prepared for what she needed to do next. At this point she did the only thing she could do, she ran.