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Chapter 649 - Power Beyond Measure
🕑 Added 2023-04-28 13:00:06 +0000 UTC"Let me go right now!" Reynara barked again, this time trying to claw Lurize, but his armor was too strong for her, and she couldn't make move wide enough to get some force behind her attacks.
'Can you hold her down?' Hera asked without looking in his direction, not because of the Royal Tutor but because of the woman he was currently holding against a tree.
'I can, without a problem. I'm just worried about you.'
'Don't be. I'm done worrying about her,' Hera replied, increasing the size of her Elemental Poison Rain. She also triggered an Elemental Strength spell on all of her Blades, including Lurize himself. More of the mantis were coming out of the nest. She could count about 50 or so already, and they showed no signs of stopping, 'Dao, light them up.'
'With pleasure,' Dao started sending his lightning towards the monsters, aiming at the biggest clusters hoping the electricity would bounce around because of the poison rain.
Hera jumped forward to start attacking the monsters, followed by most of the court that was still around. Only Lurize stayed back, still holding Reynara down. She ignored all the yelling coming from the huntress, and a small part of her hoped the monsters would change targets and aim at her since she was making so much noise. Lurize was more than sturdy enough to take all the attacks the creatures could give, and even the flame wave was only able to slow him down because it obscured his vision. Still, she focused on the task at hand.
More of the mantises started to swarm her, aiming at every opening, but her Fire Elemental Armor seemed to push them away, or at least make them wary of attacking her. With a spin, Hera gathered the blood of all the bugs she killed and sent a set of five bloody claws at the nest where the creatures were still coming out. Ooze moved along, spinning and attacking every single bug that came his way, but when a group started to do the formation that triggered the flame wave before, he used his skill to scream and warn everyone of the danger. Core jumped into action and pierced the leader of that pack, splitting it in half and stopping the pink fire trail from growing. Despite that, the bugs still were able to attack, even if this time, they couldn't create that massive wave of fire and just send a few flame blades at Hera and Daskka, who were taking care of killing the mantises that were trying to run away.
Hera triggered Armory's buff and used her boots to glide around the area. Just as one of the monsters was about to strike her from the back with two armed strikes aimed at the same point, her armor activated, and a pair of spectral wasp wings appeared behind her, blocking the blow. That wasn't enough to defend from the entire attack, but adding it to the defenses of her armor, it was as if the insect only bounced off of her. With a smirk, Hera sent her blades to go around the nest. Despite the movement and all the attacks, the mantises were still clumping together in that area, and she could try something because of it.
Another seven monsters attacked her, swinging their arms and sending blades of fire in the Empress' direction. Most blows were dodged, but a few hit only to damage her armor and not her body. Hera noticed a couple of scratches on the Yellow Wasp Carapace that covered her torso. While it was a good thing that it was withstanding the attacks so well, she also had to be careful. After all, it looked like the monsters were able to damage her armor, and if that was the case, it could eventually break under their restless assault. With Daskka's help to finish up the last details, Hera and her court managed to get into formation and trigger the Pool of Styx spell. Her conditions this time were that any Cherry Mantis inside would be affected by the debuff, and the buff would go only to her since her court wouldn't count as targets for it.
Suddenly, she felt unbelievably stronger; what happened inside the wasp dungeon seemed nothing compared to her current power. Unsure of the reason, she just decided to continue attacking. With a swing of Fang, she split the massive 100-meter-tall tree into two and broke open the nest completely. Inside, some of the Cherry Mantises were charred and burned, meaning that even if they were resistant to fire, they were not immune to it. And the reason why her strength shot up so much was that, inside the nest, there were hundreds of thousands of nymphs. Small larvae-like creatures that would eventually grow into full-blown Cherry Mantises. But right now, since they were only babies, it also meant that each of them should have extremely low attributes. Hera wouldn't be surprised if they were getting a negative 90 in all of their stats because of the difference between her own attributes and that of the monsters. And if that were the case, each of those nymphs was giving her 54 points that would be split between her attributes. To top it all off, each of those points was equal to a flat 1-point increase and not be counted as the cost to increase an attribute through a level-up. A single nymph should be giving her that much extra strength. And in a nest with thousands, it wouldn't be a surprise if, at least for this moment, Hera had just become the strongest person ever to exist.
With a smile, she took advantage of her newfound strength and put on a show. She cast spells that were numerous times stronger than she was used to. Poison needles that could instantly turn a tree into dust, fire sprays that melted the rocks, and each raindrop from the Elemental Poison Storm were almost like a small meteorite that would destroy anything in its path. Even her court became monstrous; Dao's chain lighting was like the wrath of a god covering large areas in blue light followed by a sound that made even the trees splinter. Core's sediment was like a volcano eruption, ash, and sulfur coming from the massive pool of lava; Ooze didn't dare use his skill for fear of killing Reynara, but each attack destroyed several trees at once like they were twigs. And Daskka's mist suddenly flooded not just this part of the jungle but half of the entire room. Each of Hera's attacks seemed to shake the very existence of the MAZE. But all that only lasted for a brief moment. As the creatures died, her increased strength vanished. And after that initial flurry, she was almost back at her regular power. Just as she noticed her strength starting to drop, Hera cast a delayed battle heal that was supposed to restore things to their previous state. Usually, that would only solve small problems, but after she killed the last monster and the spell triggered, the entire environment returned to its natural state. The lava was gone, the poison had vanished, and even the tree she cut in half had returned. She could only hope that the effect was still strong enough to fix the area, otherwise, the entire ecosystem would be in danger. Luckily for her, when the spell triggered, everything was back as it was supposed to be, except the Cerry Mantis, who was still dead.
Hera stretched her neck and then walked back to Reynara. During the effects of the Pool of Styx, Lurize also got a taste of that godlike strength and became so sturdy that the huntress struggled to breathe in his presence. All the while, she watched the destruction caused by Hera.
The Empress walked closer to Reynara and spoke, "Now, are you going to behave? Or are we going to have a problem? And to be clear, you can still make me and my friends work; just be fair, and if someone gets hurt, they become the priority unless it's an emergency."
"How did you… how did you do that?" Reynara asked.
Hera thought for a moment; she couldn't actually explain the Pool Of Styx spell since that could change the future, so instead, she came up with a ridiculous solution, "It was all an illusion."
"What? But the monsters are dead!" Reynara gasped.
"Yes, because the illusion was made so they would believe they are dead, and because of that, they die. If an illusion is well made enough, no one can see it as fake. It's easier to do that with bugs since they don't notice a few things that would show it wasn't real. Or what, did you think you would get hurt? C'mon, my spells were hitting this area, and nothing happened to you," Hera replied and glanced at Lurize, who defended against every single one of those spells with ease thanks to his Exoarmor skill that turned his defense into something absurd with all the extra attributes. She finished speaking just as a loud and panicked voice reached her ears.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?!" Sammy yelled.
Hera turned to Reynara, "Give me a moment; I have to do something. Wait here," she told Lurize the same and walked off into the jungle until she was far enough away from earshot to say, "What?"
"That thing! What the hell was all that?!" Sammy wanted to say more, but he composed himself. The power created by Hera's spell almost destroyed the memory, and if that happened, everything would end up going to waste, but it wasn't like he could just say that, and he had to make sure she would never do something like that again.
"I used the Pool of Styx, that spell I told you about that drains the strength of things weaker than me; there were thousands of babies inside the nest, so I got a ridiculous big buff. I have to say it was pretty awesome, and I think I can replicate that. All I need is a jar of bugs," Hera replied with a smile.
Sammy frowned. The weird part was that he knew that spell couldn't do something like this. In the real world, if Hera were ever to double her attributes because of the effects of the Pool of Styx, that would be the limit. It was a limitation created by the system exactly to avoid this type of result. But somehow, that limitation didn't translate to the memories. Maybe because, at this point in time, that limit didn't exist, or maybe because the memory wasn't aware of such rules. Luckily, he quickly came up with an idea to ensure she would never make something like that again, "The guides are all freaking out. Whatever you did goes against so many of the system rules that they are on red alert. Listen, avoid using that spell for a while until they figure out what the system will do. For now, it seems like it will just strip the magic of anyone trying to use something like that again."
"Wait, what? Really? But I used it before, and nothing happened. I mean, sure, the effects were a bit different, but I might be able to get a lot stronger with it," Hera pouted.
"I don't know what to tell you; this is just what I'm getting from the guides. Also, remember we are in the past; the system here behaves differently than what it does in our time. I'm pretty sure you know about a bunch of natural disasters and other dangers that happened thousands of years ago, don't you? We are in that time, and I really don't want to figure out if those were natural or just the system saying, 'nope, let's erase this and start again from scratch.'"
Hera stopped to consider that for a brief moment with wide eyes and then just nodded, "Ok. I won't do it again until you tell me to. It's a shame, but we already have the curse to worry about. I don't want to add the system's wrath to it."
"Thanks, just go back and take her to the village. I'll talk to the guides. Also, something good came out of that. Edge managed to help Adriel recover completely. He still has some scars, but that's it."
Hera smiled, "I'm glad to hear it. I wasn't even thinking about that."
"Me too. Now go back to Reynara. And I do like that you said it was just an illusion. If she asks you to show it again, say it's a skill with a very long cooldown, and you can show it to her later."
"Got it," Hera nodded. Sammy waved goodbye and vanished to tell everyone else what had just happened.
The Empress returned and, as the turtle predicted, had to say the illusion was a skill that required four months of cooldown. Reynara seemed slightly disappointed about it, but she knew she would eventually see it again. And that made Hera gain some time. If they were still here in four months, she would have to come up with a better excuse, but that was a problem for the future. With that out of the way, the two of them walked back to the village, the chief huntress seeing this newbie in a new light and Hera wishing she would have played a bit more with those powers before they were gone forever.
