Chapter 340 - 8-Directional Palm

Chapter 340

8-Directional Palm

Ellie hid on the 3rd floor, moving slowly to avoid detection. She waited all day until nightfall, knowing that light magic weakened during the night. She remembered even the smallest details from reading novels that briefly mentioned the hero, Lucien. Meanwhile...her plant powers weren’t affected by this, and the little Nocturnal Rabbit’s power even increased. If anything happened at night, she could call on the little one for help.

Using the darkness for cover, her first action was to disrupt the nocturnal hunting of beasts, directing them towards the camp. The movement of these beasts concealed the expansion of the little Black Fairy’s domain. Eventually, the Black Fairy successfully spread her black grass field around the camp.

Ellie didn’t make any immediate moves. She let the little frog sneak into the camp cautiously. Even though the camp noticed a tiny, thumb-sized beast entering, they didn’t pay much attention. With the situation of the camp being disturbed, the light magic users had to deal with the hunting beasts outside first.

The little Apple’s target was still their powerful weapon. Of course, this task wasn’t easy. The orb filled with dense magic was guarded by high-level light magic users. Ellie couldn’t expect the little Apple to steal it, but its mission was to confirm the orb’s location.

She didn’t intend to take the orb out. For Ellie, no matter how valuable that orb was, it was merely food for the little Black Fairy!

Little Apple did its job well. It looked just like a small frog. Although its magic power was detectable by the high-level light magic users, they didn’t pay much attention to it.

"I don’t understand why we have to do this ourselves. It’s a waste of time for our light magic studies. My research is just one step away from completion. If it succeeds, we could even revive humans."

"Heh, heh, heh, haven’t you been saying you’re just one step away for years now? That one step of yours has taken a decade. It seems like you’re not making any progress at all. That’s probably why you were chosen for this trivial mission."

"Hmm? Are you trying to pick a fight with me? You’re one of the four sent here too. So, does that mean your work is also considered trivial?"

"Yes, I admit it. My research hasn’t made much progress either. The association leader gave me a slave collar that the Setter family auctioned off last time, telling me to study its mechanism. I tried investigating it, but I couldn’t make any headway. It’s as if there’s a higher-level magic power preventing me from examining the magic circle inside. Without the leader’s help, I wouldn’t have been able to investigate it at all."

"Really? Your work is quite tough too. I’m not far off. The task of analyzing the newly famous demon-slaying weapon has now fallen on me. I’m supposed to use light magic to investigate the connections leading to the magical runes inside. It’s really difficult."

"Same for me. Sending us on these tasks might be better. We are light magicians, but lately, there have been so many investigation assignments. It’s known that light magic penetrates magical devices more easily, but the Setter family has been giving us more work recently."

"Tch! Those people act so high and mighty. I don’t understand how they managed to win the challenge, considering they should be weaker than the Central Association."

"There are rumors that the Central Association might follow the Setter family’s lead after their mysterious man awoke. This aligns with the former association leader’s prophecy. Before he died, he said that if the eldest son of the Setter family recovered, the Central Association would be disregarded."

"That’s right. At that time, no one thought the eldest son of the Setter family would recover. If they had known he would get better so easily, maybe they would have taken care of him earlier."

The four members of the Central Association, who were supervising the actions of the newly invited light magic users, discussed this casually. They didn’t think anyone in the kingdom, except for the Setter family themselves, could thwart their plans. Even if those people were the high-ranking hunters of the Hunter’s Association. Because of this...they remained calm and let the new recruits handle the hard work of patrolling and dealing with the low-level beasts that were disturbing the camp.

Once Ellie had successfully pinpointed the orb’s location, she called the little Apple back. Attacking them and reaching the magic-infused orb needed to be executed in one swift strike. Ellie feared that if the enemy fought back fiercely, the little Apple might get caught in the chaos. By now, the surrounding spores had been dealt with since they were too small. The first barrier, designed to filter out small particles or creatures to prevent poison or other attacks, resulting in the need to enlarge the little Apple.

The Central Association had impressive defenses. At the very least, they effectively blocked the spores from gathering intelligence. If not for the many areas that spores couldn’t reach, particularly this one, Ellie might have lost the trail.

Ellie made some final preparations, letting the little Apple perch on her shoulder. She was now riding on the back of the little Nocturnal Rabbit. In case of a fight, she needed to be ready to escape quickly.

"Do it!" When she was ready, Ellie didn’t hesitate any longer. The moonlight illuminated the area; the previous night had been a full moon, so there was still plenty of moonlight tonight. Therefore, she didn’t need any other surveillance equipment.

The black grass field, infused with magic power from Ellie and the magical crystals, exploded with power...upon her command. The branches of the Black Fairy grass shot out swiftly. The beasts were attacking from one side, while Ellie had scattered a powder on the other side to deter them from coming her way. Seeing the enemies converging in one direction, the camp’s defenders rushed there as well.

The opposite side was not well-guarded, and they never expected such a severe ambush.

“What’s this?” While the patrols couldn’t detect, one of the Central Association members, noticing something amiss from his skill, stood up. His brows furrowed in shock. This was definitely an ambush, and the magic power involved was quite high.

“A level 3 beast?”

“No, impossible. There should only be level 2 beasts at most here. I’ll go check it out.”

“Mmm, even if it’s a level 3 beast, it’s no match for us,” they said confidently. Initially startled by the sudden high-level beast attack from behind, they found it impossible for an intelligent being to be on the 3rd floor of the tower. They thought it was unlikely that a beast could plan such an ambush and it must only be their imagination.

With this thought, their unease lessened. In their minds, the high-level beast must have just wandered in, drawn by the noise of the battle. They didn’t think much of it...

They walked out to investigate, but before they could get far, the protective barrier around them was destroyed. The black grass spread around, destroying any stratagems it encountered. It was unlike a mere beast attack, which couldn’t easily break the barrier. Unfortunately for them, their enemy was Ellie, who had studied numerous stratagem texts and possessed superior investigative skills!

“What exactly is this!?” After seeing the little demonic-looking flowers continuously emerging, plus that the light magicians, despite being trained in the primary skills of the association, couldn’t do anything, and fighting back only made the enemy stronger, they looked at each other in disbelief.

“Could there be an enemy ambush?”

“How is that possible? We didn’t detect any movement that...hmm?” One of the light magicians paused slightly. After a thorough check, they finally found the source!

“An enemy?”

"Yes! But why is there only one...no, that can’t be right, but..." The light magician continued to investigate the identity of the enemy. Even though they heard the screams of the lower-level light magicians, they remained unconcerned. One of them even crossed his arms behind his back as if watching an interesting show.

"Invisibility skill, perhaps? I can only detect them occasionally; sometimes they vanish as if they were never there."

"Mmm, me too. It does seem like an invisibility skill, one that, if the user stays still, even my skill can’t detect."

"So, are these grasses the work of the enemy?"

"Definitely a high-level magic user. To have skills of such level, they must be at least level 5."

"Yes, they will soon catch up to us. Most ordinary people get stuck at level 4 or 5, but this enemy seems to have a much higher limit."

"Ha...in that case, they’re looking for death. We can’t let someone with such potential escape. If they’re not one of us, they must die." Their voices were muttered as if they didn’t have any intention to hide, which made Ellie frown. So, they had detected her when she commanded the Black Fairy Field to attack?

It turned out that there were people above level 5 here. The enemies she had faced and fought with were at most level 5. She had never encountered an opponent stronger than that. Unexpectedly, helping the Hunter’s Association this time would lead her to such formidable adversaries. Of course, Ellie wasn’t afraid; she felt that this would be her true battle. Her previous fights had always been when she held an advantage. If she wanted to enter the 7th floor of the tower, she would have to defeat them first!

Ellie pursed her lips and used her magic power to communicate with the little Black Fairies, ordering them to attack the four magicians. The Black Fairies moved swiftly in response to her command. The 4 magicians, who had been standing still, had to leap out of the way as waves of Black Fairy vines surged towards them like a raging sea. Many of their group members were swallowed up by the Black Fairy grass waves, but the 4 magicians were unharmed.

Ellie wasn’t in a hurry. After giving her commands, she signaled the little rabbit to move away from her previous position immediately. Within 1 second, one of the magicians who had dodged the black grass waves stomped his foot hard, and his body floated above the black grass, landing precisely where she had been moments before!

After the golden magic, which was weakened at night, transformed into an 8-Directional Palm strike, it struck the area around them. The waves of magic power resembled the palms of the Buddha in her original memories—both powerful and warm. Of course, it felt comforting to those on their side, but it was far from pleasant for Ellie...

Ellie was on the back of the little Nocturnal Rabbit. Luckily, she had moved beforehand; otherwise, she might not have been able to evade the 8-directional attack. Each palm was about 1 meter wide and extended 2 meters from the caster, making the surrounding radius deadly if one couldn’t escape in time.

When the attack failed to cause any harm, the light particles fell like beautiful raindrops. Some of the newly recruited magic users jumped out to catch the light particles. When the light touched their bodies, all minor wounds healed completely, and even their poor conditions gradually improved as if they had received a miracle cure.

Ellie looked at this powerful opponent and smiled in satisfaction. Her gaze shifted downward, coinciding with the 8-Directional Palm user’s own glance. He frowned in displeasure. Even though it was a small matter, he was annoyed that Ellie had allowed the little Black Fairy to steal his sacred magic power!

"Come out, now!!" The 8-Directional Palm user roared in anger. Did he think Ellie was foolish? If she revealed herself, what state would she be in?

Ellie shook her head at him and had the little Nocturnal Rabbit fly in another direction. Although he was strong, he had a weakness: he couldn’t move quickly. His need to use physical force to propel himself showed that. Then, this was no longer a problem for her.

Now, she needed to assess the abilities of the remaining 3. If she couldn’t defeat them one-on-one, she might have to lure them to another location...

The remaining 3 members watched their comrade struggling to find the enemy and sighed.

"The enemy has good movement skills, like an annoying insect."

"Indeed. Should I go help him?"

"Haha, if you step in, won’t that undermine him?"

"Alright, then. I won’t intervene. Consider it a good show for tonight," the middle-aged man said, looking at one of the association members. It had been a long time since he had seen his comrades in action...today, he would take the opportunity to rest his eyes a bit.