Chapter 165: Primal Charm

Thanks for helping me reach the 500 G.T. milestone: Bonus Chapter 1 / 3 (^_^)

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"See? They always want to protect you, but in the end, they only make things more troublesome."

"Shut up..."

Erik gritted his teeth. He had used up Contract Resonance, his injuries were piling up, and he no longer had the strength to throw another punch. But when he saw Elowen lying motionless among the rubble, fear greater than the pain forced his mind clear again.

He still had one ability left.

Something he had always avoided using because he did not want to interfere with the feelings and will of others.

Primal Charm.

Erik raised his head at the red cross approaching him and silently gave his final command.

’Activate Primal Charm.’

At that moment, the black woman suddenly stopped walking. In her eyes, the ruined walls abruptly became distant. The space around her seemed to stretch, while the streams of Dark Mist lost their familiar shapes and slowly transformed into an endless darkness.

"Ah...?"

She raised both hands to clutch her head. A piercing pain, as if countless hammers were smashing into her consciousness, made her glossy black body curl up. The red cross on her face flickered, trying to hold on to the images before her.

Within that darkness, she felt something watching her.

A pair of enormous eyes appeared beyond layers of mist, so cold that every strand of Dark Mist within her body trembled. Those eyes did not belong to Erik.

They resembled a presence that had existed for a very long time, silently observing her every movement through a door that had just opened.

Do not... look at me...

The woman wanted to retreat, but the space beneath her feet had vanished. Her consciousness seemed to be dragged toward those eyes. Fear immediately strangled every mocking word she had spoken before.

Then another energy suddenly appeared. It was warm, powerful, and so strange that the woman forgot to resist for a moment.

Fine threads of light poured into the darkness, wrapping around the space surrounding her and pushing the image of those eyes farther away.

The invisible door closed, leaving behind a hollow feeling in her consciousness and the frantic pulse of an emotion she had never felt before.

The woman’s eyes flew open.

The ruined guard station returned before her. Erik was still kneeling on the stone floor, his face pale and his broken right arm hanging limply.

She should have captured him immediately, yet when she saw the blood on that man’s face, her chest tightened with an unreasonable ache.

Within Erik’s mind, a familiar chime rang out.

Ting!

[Primal Charm: Activated.]

[Independent target encountered for direct contact for the first time.]

[Affection increasing...]

[Current Affection: 80]

[Resonance Level: 77%]

Erik looked at the notifications, almost unable to believe he was still conscious. The black woman before him trembled, the tentacles she had raised now retracting chaotically. She wanted to move closer, yet hurriedly stepped back instead, the red cross flashing over and over.

"You..." Her voice had become hoarse. "What did you just do to me?"

Erik did not answer. He did not have enough breath left to explain, nor did he understand the strange eyes that had appeared in his opponent’s consciousness. All he wanted was for her not to attack Elowen again.

"Do not look at me like that!" the woman suddenly shouted, but her voice had lost its confidence. "I have not lost yet! Next time... next time I will find you!"

The tentacles behind her dissolved into liquid all at once, pulling her body through the gaps between the stones. Within a few breaths, the woman vanished into the Dark Mist outside.

Erik remained still for a long time. Only after he was certain the tentacles would not return did he let out a breath, his chest aching so badly that he could barely draw in air.

He wanted to collapse right there.

But Elowen was still lying beside the wall.

"Wait for me..."

Erik used his scraped left hand to drag himself across the stones. His broken right arm hung close to his body, and every time it touched the ground, a wave of excruciating pain shot through him.

Blood soaked through his clothes, leaving dark streaks across the stone floor. He had to stop many times just to catch his breath, but in the end, he still crawled to Elowen’s side.

He placed two fingers from his left hand against her neck. Her pulse was still there, weak but steady. Erik lowered his head, gently resting his forehead against her silver hair.

"Thank goodness..."

He used the intact part of his cloak to cover Elowen, then slipped his left arm beneath her shoulder and tried to pull her away from the stones that could collapse further.

His body shook violently, darkness sweeping across his vision in waves. Outside the doorway, the sounds of monsters still echoed through the mist.

Erik only had enough strength left to move Elowen beside a wall that had not fallen, using his own body to shield her from the outside. He knew that if he let go and lay down now, it would probably be much easier.

But he could not leave her behind.

...

At the same time, in the outpost’s central plaza, the white skeletal serpent was still coiled around the base of the protective dome.

The skulls growing along its neck continuously spewed Dark Mist, while hundreds of bone fragments that had just been destroyed were dragged back by black roots beneath the ground and reassembled into their original shape.

Meira stood in the cracked plaza, green eyes fixed on the endlessly moving roots. She had burned, frozen, and crushed the serpent’s body many times.

But as long as a single root remained connected to the Dark Mist, the bones would always find a way to reunite.

Behind Meira, the female soldiers had retreated to the defensive line around the treatment area. A brown-haired female captain was issuing orders while trying to stop smaller monsters from slipping through gaps in the barricade.

"Lady Meira! If that skeletal serpent keeps regenerating, we will not be able to hold the plaza much longer!"

"I know."

Meira raised both hands before her chest. Behind her, two pairs of elemental wings unfurled, four in total. Wind, Fire, Water, and Ice Elements moved around her in streams of mana so precise that not a single particle of light moved unnecessarily.

She had no time left to play with this monster.

"Fall back a little farther," Meira said. "I will sever all of its roots."

The female captain immediately shouted for the soldiers to withdraw behind the defensive shields. Meira waited until everyone had left the spell’s range before raising her hand.

A powerful gust swept close to the ground, blowing away dust to reveal the roots moving beneath the stone floor. Water gathered from the cracks and formed countless tiny ice spikes, plunging into the exact points where the roots intersected.

The skeletal serpent opened dozens of mouths wide, preparing to spew Dark Mist at her.

Meira brought both hands together. Fire Element raced along the ice spikes embedded in the ground, burning the roots from within.

The bones throughout the serpent’s body convulsed at once. It roared and tried to pull its entire skeleton back into the network sustaining it, but those pathways had already been sealed.

A point of blue light gathered between Meira’s palms. Rings of water and ice kept the energy from dispersing too soon, while wind compressed it into a line so fine it was nearly invisible.

"Stay down this time."

She opened her hands.

An incredibly thin beam passed through the skeletal serpent’s neck, spiraled down its body, then returned to cut through the largest bone joints.

For the first instant, the monster remained in the same position. Then every section of bone cracked and shattered at once, falling across the plaza like a hailstorm.

The roots tried to drag them back together, but Fire Element had already burned them apart. The Dark Mist trapped within the bones dispersed, no longer strong enough to connect the fragments.

Boom!

The skeletal serpent collapsed. The ground shook as white dust billowed high, then was gradually swept away from the treatment area by Meira’s Wind Element.

The female soldiers held their breath and waited for a long moment. This time, the bones no longer moved.

"We won!"

A cheer rang out. The brown-haired female captain immediately raised a hand, signaling for the squads to keep formation in case any monsters remained.

The protective dome overhead had stabilized, but outside the plaza, Dark Mist still covered most of the roads leading to the abandoned guard stations.

Meira lowered her hands, and her four elemental wings folded away. She did not bother looking at the pile of bones. Instead, she turned toward another direction.

Within her Contract with Erik, a familiar ripple had just surged before abruptly disappearing. She had felt a part of her own power reflected through the link, strong enough to make her heart tremble. But immediately afterward, the only remaining signs were a terrifying weakness.

"Master..."

Meira raised a hand to touch the collar around her neck, her lips pressed tight. The collar usually made her look even more like a little dog that loved clinging to her Master, but now it trembled faintly with her ragged breaths.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head slightly. The tip of her small nose twitched several times, as though trying to find a familiar scent amid dust, blood, and Dark Mist.

"Master’s scent... is this way!"

The brown-haired female captain beside her looked at Meira, then at the collar around her neck. A drop of sweat slowly slid down her temple.

(?•_•)

"Lady Meira... did you just... smell him?"

"Mhm!" Meira nodded very seriously, completely unaware of the strange expression on the woman beside her. "I cannot mistake Master’s scent!"

The female captain decided to pretend she had heard nothing.

But Meira had only rushed forward a few steps when a pack of monsters pouring from the eastern road blocked her.

They crawled out of layers of black mist that had not yet cleared, crowding between ruined houses and collapsed hallways.

Farther away, one roar after another answered, proving that there were more monsters than she had expected.

Meira gritted her teeth.

She could flatten a vast stretch of land with magic. But Erik was somewhere in this area, and the surviving female soldiers were still retreating through the guard stations. If she carelessly unleashed all her power, it would be no different from placing them in danger.

"What a pain!"

Meira swung her hand, and a massive strip of flame swept across the road. The monsters ahead were incinerated, while the Dark Mist clinging to the walls also burned away.

She immediately used Wind Element to push the flames toward areas without allied troops, then raised an earth wall to stop another group of monsters from flooding into the treatment zone.

As soon as one wave of magic ended, Meira unleashed another. Ice surged up from the road, pinning the legs of creatures charging toward her.

A whirlwind ground apart the tentacles hanging overhead, while flames continuously lit the alleyways. The Dark Mist thinned out in patches, revealing ruined rooftops, pathways, and half-collapsed walls.

The brown-haired female captain had to keep adjusting the formation according to the openings Meira created. She had never seen the famously gentle Healer cast magic with such obvious impatience.

"Lady Meira! This area is too vast! We do not know exactly where Lord Erik is!"

"I know!"

Meira answered without turning back. Every time she thought she had found a path toward Erik, another layer of Dark Mist poured down and covered the opening she had just created.

The scents of blood and monsters mixed together, making even her Master’s familiar trail difficult to distinguish.

She raised a hand to her collar, forcing herself to steady her breathing.

Master, please wait for me just a little longer.

At that moment, a new siren sounded from the sky.

The female captain looked up. Above the layer of mist, hundreds of silver lights were racing toward them at astonishing speed.

They split into two lines, revealing a long black-and-silver airship protected at the center. A banner embroidered with a star and a comet’s tail flew at the front of the formation.

"Comet?!"

A female soldier beside her cried out. "That is the Comet escort squad! Why are they here?!"