Guild Wars

Chapter 81 - The Power Of The Mystic Arts

Roma and Qiong Qi followed Draco's tempo, their auras beginning to build. Even though Qiong Qi would not act, he still needed to provide deterrence so that no one would bother him.

Do not look at Roma's gentle and kind nature, that was only her natural state. Similar to Draco, she had different trains of thought, or a split personality of sorts.

Whenever she practiced her mystic arts, a new personality would surface, which was callous and cold. She would disdain and kill anything that stood in her way, because the mystic arts were a twisted field of magic.

For her not to become a mad witch was only because her mind was too pure to facilitate anything worse than what she currently displayed.

Draco didn't wield his swords. He first took out Pinaka as well as a variety of arrows, nocking them as he took aim. His Void of Perfection blasted out and covered everything within 10km of himself, allowing him to hone onto them.

Rain of Arrows!

Draco began to rapidly fire shots into the air, his hands a blur and his movements profound. His face was calm and his eyes were sharp. Every single shot fired seemed to have a mind of its own as it launched into the air, adding to the barrage.

Rain of Arrows was an Archery skill that allowed one to fire rapidly and non-stop for 30 seconds and had a cooldown of 1 minute. There were no extra penalties to stamina, but his accuracy was penalized heavily.

However, he had his Void of Perfection active, which heavily compensated for his sharply reduced accuracy. What should have been only 10% of arrows striking their targets became 40%.

Various damage indicators rose into the air before him, like a field of numbers ascending into heaven. A good amount of monsters were directly killed during the barrage, and Draco's experience which had remained painfully stagnant began to rise again.

Roma walked forward with a glint in her eye as she began to chant. Her usually sweet and clear voice became androgynous and echoed on itself, as if two people were speaking at the same time.

The tip of her hand glowed with an unhealthy green pallor, as if it were the opposite of life and vitality. As she thrust her hand out, a multitude to green balls shot out indiscriminately towards some targets.

Unlike Rain of Arrows which was a skill that lost accuracy, Roma was able to maintain her precision effectively, although they both used multi-target skills.

When these attacks struck some of the monsters, their movements became slower and their eyes became murky. A greenish-purple color emerged from their skin, pulsing slowly and dangerously.

Each pulse saw these infected monsters become slower and slower until they fell to the floor, their eyes glazed over in death.

What Roma used was a true Mystic Art that did not have a name. It was a combination of her own ingenuity and the power derived from Draco. Draco himself would be unable to do same, as the only skills he inherited from her were the quick-cast type that did not require chants.

There was no sidestepping it, if he wanted to totally master the Mystic Arts, he would need to learn it like Roma did.

Roma wasn't done after that first attack. She channeled her mana, even going as far as to pull some from the world. Worldly Energy roiled as it was dragged into her body, converted first into prana and then filtered into mana.

Her chant was long and intense, the words flowing from her mouth fluidly and without pause. Her voice, which sounded like it was merged with another's, seemed to become even more bizarre as a few other voices appeared on top of it.

With a loud cry, the mana is Roma's body was drained completely as she clawed at the earth. A bright green shockwave emitted from her feet and spread over the ground.

There was a lull in the battle as every living thing that felt that pulse suddenly felt fear, even Draco and Qiong Qi.

The earth began to tremble and shake, as cracks appeared on the surface in many different locations. These cracks became wider and wider, eventually displaying exactly what had all these living beings feel fear.

A dessicated and greyish arm popped out from one of the cracks, clawing at the ground to escape its confines. This event was mirrored in all the other various cracks, as these unliving and undead entities ripped themselves out from the ground.

Majority of them were gypsies, most of them being females. Their eyes glowed in a purple light and their greyish skin was heavily scarred and blemished. Their bodies had all their parts attached, and they wore the same clothes they did when they died.

When they appeared on the battlefield, the various monsters broke free of their innate fear and rushed at these new enemies, aiming to rip them apart.

These zombies smiled viciously as they screeched in a voice similar to a banshee. They each began to chant as they also rushed out at the approaching monsters.

Their claws began to glow with the same unhealthy color that spawned them, making Draco felt like something was wrong. After all, he was aware of the hidden Necromancer class, but nothing they revived could be so intelligent, as well as use the same magic that the necromancer did.

These undead witches bit and scratched into their enemies, deftly dodging any counterattacks with extreme flexibility and agility. As their claws and teeth pierced into the flesh of the monsters assailing them, one could see them begin to lose their vibrant color rapidly.

The monsters thrashed and screamed as their very life's essence was dragged out of their body, nourishing the zombies so much that their blemished and unseemly skin started to become clean and fresh.

When they finished with their absorption, they turned to the other monsters who had blanched from fear. Some of them even began to step back with the intention to retreat.

It was only the plant monsters that looked somewhat indifferent, as they did not have flesh and blood. They began to move on the zombies with malicious intentions in their eyes and twitching vines.

For that matter, the zombie gypsies simply smirked arrogantly and began to chant while waving their hands. The green light that illuminated them turned into a blackish color, surrounding their palms and forearms.

This miasmic entity slowly boiled, converging into a form that resembled fire, only that it was unholy and pitch black. The zombies threw out their fire as they laughed manically, indiscriminately aiming for any living enemy.

Before any of these monsters could even scream, they were engulfed by this black flame. Their bodies began to dissolve like sugar in water, their flesh falling off their forms like rotten meat.

The screams were heart stopping and the sight was horrifying. Even Draco and Qiong Qi were left astounded by the sheer prowess of Roma and her Mystic Arts.

The Mystic Arts was an esoteric application of Worldly Energy, prana and mana. It was a sort of perversion that went against the orthodox path, and even those on the unorthodox path could not help but feel like the Mystic Arts were… bizarre.

It was like, one could not know or expect what new horror a Mystic Arts user would conjure next. Even their healing and supportive skills had negative effects attached, although they were much more potent than normal skills of the same category.

Roma and her zombies dominated the battlefield, and she didn't even stop casting. As long as her mana reached useful levels, she would cast a variety of spells that Draco probably could not fathom or ever hope to cast.

Her form glowed golden no less than five times, meaning in this fight alone, she had gained five levels. Compared to Draco who only gained 1 level to become level 15, 4%, his harvests were poor.

Still, he had no qualms since Roma was his person. Any strength she acquired was the same as him acquiring that power, so it evened out.

Draco earned 3 stat points per level in Rank 1, which was a sharp drop from the previous 5 per level at Rank 1. He allocated it to his luck stat immediately, bringing it from 5 to 8.

Luck affected the quality of drops as well as critical chance. One could literally be Rank 7, level 400 with 1 point in each field and all into luck and still dominate. That was because one's chance of getting an instant kill crit was as high as 30% regardless of enemy Rank or race!

Wow!

That was to say, if Draco could theoretically find a piece of equipment or consumable that boosted his luck even higher, he would be able to abuse this absurd mechanic.

So what was he waiting for?

Haha, what foolish naivety!

Where was one supposed to get such items from? The sky?

Even the ability potion that only gave one point required a roundabout method that only a few could use.

Draco raised his bow again and switched to single fire shots. He co-ordinated his True Sight with his Void of Perfection, utilizing his Body of Godliness to re-direct applicable force.

One should note, Draco's body was no longer human. Or it was best to say that it was no longer sub-human. He was a half-human, infinitely close to a true human like Lucifer and the other Gods.

The amount of force his muscles could move and create was nothing close to what the world's strongest man could claim to do. That wasn't even factoring the 10x boost from the Dragon Soul, rendering Draco no different from a Rank 1 Field Boss.

His arrows tore through space like bullets, penetrating his targets with almost perfect accuracy.

What was Archery?

Was it about pulling a string back and firing an arrow at a target?

To someone who viewed Archery as an art form and a graceful activity, they would disagree vehemently. These fellows were looking more into the theory and aesthetics of Archery, how good it looked and how well one could perform in a controlled environment.

To someone who used Archery practically, whether to hunt or to kill, he would nod and say, 'yes, Archery is about pulling a string back and firing an arrow at a target while trying your hardest to be god damn accurate'.

There were a wealth of mechanics and processes that went into mastering Archery, but the main requirements were sharp eyes, steady hands, strong muscles and good posture.

Once one had all of these, they could certainly use Archery to kill and hunt, though they would not have that so called 'air of a professional'. Anyone who watched it felt like it was amateurish and unrefined, but their tongues would be tied as they saw the practicality and effectiveness.

This was apt to describe Draco.

His shots had a 0% chance of missing, and the force behind it was more than these average Rank 1 monsters could handle. Majority of their levels ranged between 10 to 20, well within Draco and Roma's range.

In fact, if Draco took out his swords, he could probably clear all these monsters in a few minutes with his speed and power. However, he did not, obviously so he could rack up experience in Archery.

The more he fired, the more he felt in sync with his weapon. His unsynchronized breathing fell into harmony with his movements. His distracted mind focused and selected targets based on the ease of assailment rather than his random choosing.

He began to notice more things as he fired, things that normal Archers learned to account for, like wind direction, arrow drop and elevation advantage. Of course, he only understood the barebones of these because the ground was flat and his arrows were so powerful that they experienced no drop or wind shift.

However, his shots towards the agile Tentacle Wolves and the Vine Monsters showed him his flaws.

With the Omnipotent Archer skill which granted him infinite Archery Mastery, as well as the Insight skill he got from Roma, which boosted his learning speed by two times when doing it himself and three times when learning from others, this made it so that every shot he fired became more and more effective than the last, no longer wasting stamina or creating unnecessary movements as he fired.

Draco was refining his own Archery technique as he went, basing it on his ability to use Control, with very little influence from the True Sight ability.

This was what was so terrifying about Draco in the previous timeline that one could only helplessly watch as this useless harveey became a Divine Guild leader. His ability to learn and create combat techniques was unparalleled under heaven.

What even baffled one, was that if they factored in his bloodline, it still didn't make sense.

At the core, the Serpent God bloodline emphasized using Serpentine Familiars to perform extremely esoteric skills, like limb regeneration as well as poisonmancing.

The Horned Demon bloodline emphasized dominating aura, powerful magic and affinity with hellfire.

The Dark Angel bloodline emphasized physical beauty and devilish seduction, as well as minor psychic abilities.

None of these had anything to do with increasing combat effectiveness.

This could only mean one thing…

The fellow's prowess for combat was high due to his own innate talent and had nothing to do with external help!

Qiong Qi saw Draco increase his technical proficiency with Archery and was floored. This fellow was literally transforming from an average archer to the bastard child of Houyi and Artemis.

Draco only stopped when he noticed that there were no longer any living beings on the plains, the only things left were corpses and dropped loot.

Boundless was a game at the end of the day, and rules still applied. Since the variant monsters were stronger than their counterparts, their loot was stronger too.

Normally, killing Rank 1 monsters of this level would only give a gracious amount of copper and maybe some uncommon loot. Yet, one could only see silver - and some gold - as far as the eye could perceive.

Draco was about to collect it all when he saw Roma's undead witches move out and fish through the loot, taking everything that had some use for the two.

They categorized everything they acquired and knelt down before the duo with respect, their actions synchronized and flawless. Their once pallid skin had regained a healthy color, and they looked like they had died a few months ago, instead of years ago.

"Mystic Master, we have collected your and the Supreme Master's bounty on your behalf. Here is our report."

"There was 2,487 silver, fifteen Rare materials, three Rare weapons, two different pieces of Rare armor and 25 potions of various rarities not surpassing Rare and one Rare ornamental item."

Since these undead had no need to breathe, the words were spoken without pause, although their voices were slightly raspy.

Draco and Qiong Qi shared a look. This too could happen? One could just summon undead that could wreck a battlefield of same level enemies, while just sitting back whilst they did everything?

Once they realized that, their eyes glinted with evil and malice.

"Kekeke! Truly, the heavens are on our side!" Qiong Qi laughed with glee.

"Jejeje, we will truly become Lords, Brother Qiong." Draco stated while licking his lips.

Their filthy laughter made even the undead shiver with fear, especially the way the Supreme Master and his companion stared at them.

Qiong Qi flashed to Roma's side and had a gentle expression on his face. "Haha, Little Lass Roma, you truly are a heavenly beauty. To be able to clear a battlefield so quickly, you are truly broadening this Cat Daddy's horizons!"

His pandering was effective on a girl as gentle and pure like Roma, who had reverted to her true self. She tilted her head and blushed slightly, feeling pleasure from the praise.

She smiled at Qiong Qi and felt a positive impression of this Lion build up in her. Roma turned to Draco and looked to see if he felt same. His gentle nod and his approving smile made her swoon with happiness.

Qiong Qi noticed all this from the corner of his eye, and his expression became calm and inscrutable as his mind whirred. He approached Roma while Draco was inspecting the undead with curiosity.

"Little Lass Roma, do you want to display your best prowess to Brother Draco? Do you want him to feel that he cannot move without you by his side? Do you want him to reciprocate your feverish feelings to the point where the two of you cannot be without contact for even a second?"

Roma was an extremely simple girl, who had very little wants in life. Her innocence made it such that her world revolved around the one that she loved, who was Draco.

In other words, Qiong Qi's questions were like heavenly thunder striking in her ears. All of the things he had asked were the things she craved deep down, but feared to bring them out lest she put off Draco.

But now that Qiong Qi had mentioned them, she was forced to acknowledge them.

"Yes…"

Her voice was low and a bit worried.

Qiong Qi chuckled and patted her on the back gently. His expression was benevolent and caring as he said: "Then, allow me to teach you how to achieve that. I can say that if I claimed to understand Brother Draco second most in the world, no one would dare to say that they were first."

Roma's eyes widened as she heard his lies. After all, when she had met Draco, Qiong Qi was already there. Besides, the two acted so close that she found his words to be reasonable.

"R-Really…?"

The hope and excitement in her voice couldn't be hidden. With Qiong Qi's help, she had a 100% chance to achieve her dreams!

"Haha, of course. The only thing is that I'll need something in return. Nothing serious, just a small favor."

Qiong Qi smiled gently, but any bystander would be screaming 'No!! Roma, don't!!'

"… I don't think it should be a problem. If Uncle Qiong can teach me what I want to know, the cost is irrelevant."

Roma started out unsure, but eventually firmed her resolve.

"Good! Good! Come with me so that we may discuss the terms…"

Qiong Qi pulled Roma away to plant evil ideas into her impressionable mind, hoping to turn her into his own tool for evil and chaos.

One's heart could not help but break knowing that this demonic lion had captured such a sweet girl…