If Ava’s snake avatar had hands and a forehead, she would facepalmed. These three mortals actually followed up with their stupid plan! At this rate, all of them will be killed, starting from the old man alchemist himself! It was like watching a slow-moving train wreck, one that was entirely avoidable.
However, rice had turned to porridge and brooding over it was fruitless. In response of that, her vast consciousness began to churn, birthing and ending countless plans in fraction of a second. All of them had one thing in common; the Najaj guard accompanying them must die. It was the best compromise.
Zheng, thump. Zheng, zheng, thump, thump!
Ava glanced backwards. The culprit was a hundred-strong Javalan Flies swarm knocking at one of the crates brought by Farhan. The crate’s stank brought them here. Flies being flies sought foul matter by instinct regardless type of the world. She ignored the insects and peered over sand dunes on her left.
Bwosh, bwosh, bwosh!
Multiple purple clouds clouded her line of sight to Salazar. It turned out the alchemist was no slouch! Ava’s current state prevented her from analyzing said clouds but the results were obvious as a portion of vicious flies chasing Salazar suddenly died. The old man chucked more vials as he sprinted away.
Shrak, shrak, shrak!
Her next observation target was the Najaj militiaman. He was furiously swinging his dao weapon as he ran, leaving chopped Javalan Flies in his wake. Jasur must’ve taken Salazar’s request seriously as he gave the militiaman here a wind scimitar and some Agrippan tools. However, how long could he last?
In contrast, there were little combat noises coming from Farhan, save tussling of hot sands as the vicious insects continued to hound him. Ava gave him a second look; all he did was dodge, dodge and dodge. Javalan Flies weren’t the clever sort and thus she was puzzled at his apparent passiveness.
The Post Human reset her glance to Javalan Flies that still buzzing the crate. Even if she didn’t save the Najaj militiaman, the flies were still obstacles if not a minor one. She needed to eliminate all of them at once before other creatures rush here. As she was about to slip away, she heard a crackling sound.
Pzzzt, pzzt, pzzt!
“Cursed desert!” The male Najaj militiaman had his hand burnt as his wind scimitar blew up from overuse. At that moment it was over as the flies swarmed him to his death! However, that wasn’t the end of it; his corpse bloated up before exploding in shower of gore, revealing even more Javalan Flies!
The only saving grace was the man had one last Agrippan tool on his person, wiping out half of newly emerged flies as his body detonated. Now, the situation became grave as Ava caught a glimpse of her actual adversary, a mutated strain of Javalan Flies that she previously encountered in Alkharm Wadi.
Zheng, zheng, zheng!
As if on cue, the flies surrounding the crate in front of her and ones chasing Farhan and Salazar split off to clash with said mutated swarm. It was an unexpected behaviour but nevertheless a welcome change. Ava took this chance to move her avatar to a different vantage point for better observation.
Salazar was the second to notice the anomaly. “Farhan! What should we do now?!” Desperation was clear in his voice. “Where’s Master Nour?!!”
“I am disappointed in you two.” Ava interrupted Farhan’s reply as she slithered her way to them.
Farhan vaguely sensed the Post Human was quite unhappy at him and Salazar despite her flat tone in his mind. The middle-aged man disregarded his tiredness and forcibly kowtowed to her snake avatar. “Forgive me for my insolence of not consulting you, Master. Pu-pu-punish me as you see fit.”
“….” There was a slight pause as Ava assessed the situation once more. She spoke to Salazar’s mind afterwards. “Alchemist. Does your vials work on them?”
“Err….” This time it was Salazar’s turn to pause as he struggled to catch his breath. He looked at the same direction as Ava and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Master Nour. Those…...are beyond my capabilities. We should retreat while they’re fighting each other.”
Ava placed her stare on the still panting Farhan and guessed. “You want to fight them in order to atone for your mistake?” She flicked her snake’s avatar tail in disapproval. “A foolish endeavor. Stand, down.”
The Post Human hit a sore mark as Farhan kowtowed again. “I’m ashamed of my incapability, Master.”
“I will personally deal with them.” Ava said after some deliberation. She explained more as the two men reflexively raised their eyebrows at her words. “The Javalan Flies are no match for their mutated kin. This disaster should be stopped before it reaches Najaj.”
“Does Master want me to…” Farhan rose and gestured with his hands.
“No. Stand off to the side.” The Post Human cut his words short. “In fact, go hide behind a couple of sand dunes for your own safety.” She also spoke to Salazar. “You follow him, old man. You are of no use here.”
“As…as you command, Master Nour.” The robed alchemist accepted her order in an awkward tone. He asked one last time before departing with Farhan. “Does Master Nour have further instructions?”
“If you encounter other Najaj men, tell them to return.” Ava peered at the horizon. “It is now noon. A beast wave might be currently in progress.”
Salazar barked at Farhan’s ear upon hearing that. Evidently any news of a beast wave shouldn’t be taken lightly. “Farhan! Forget about my request, rush to Najaj now!”
“Got it!” The middle-aged man didn’t argue further and picked up Salazar as he ran. He wasn’t fully convinced but knew better to not doubt Ava at this juncture. Crossing an eccentric never ends well.
Ava gave the two male mortals some parting words as they hastily retreated. “Whatever you hear or sense, never look back.” She spoke one last time before they moved beyond the range of her mental transmission. “Or you will lose more than your eyes.”
“Okay Master Nour! Take care!”
“Please return, this old man has many more things to discuss!”
As she saw the men vanish from her sight, she readied herself of what to come. This day couldn’t be any worse; Farhan of all people agreed to the dumb guard’s plans. Salazar wasn’t any better, failing to see the bigger perspective. She convinced herself that it was simply a mortal’s folly. A miscalculation.
Zheng zheng zheng!
The fly swarms some zhang away inadvertently swept toward the Post Human as their battle came to a climax. It was like witnessing a ravenous fire feasting on dry leaves as the mutated Javalan Flies began to have the upper hand in their conflict. Ava largely avoided them by slipping her way through.
Unfortunately for her, she happened to hit some of the vicious flies as she moved. This attracted unrequited attention from the two opposing swarms, causing both of them to target her. They began to repeatedly hit her avatar, wishing to devour its flesh and gain advantage against the other party.
Thwack, thwack, thwack!
She braved through the onslaught since there were simply too many of them! Her vision became dark as the revolving swarms snuffed out the daylight. Even if she flicked some of them away, hundreds more will come to fill the void. In short, using physical force was practically useless against these flies.
Ava had enough and slapped the sandy dune below her avatar, sending clouds of sand between the two competing swarms. While they were still blinded by said clouds, she backed away with a soft whoosh sound. Then, the opposing swarms’ frozen conflict reignited as they lost sight of her presence.
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The Post Human flipped her avatar’s tail on reflex and caught something. It was an opportunistic Gale Sparrow that also attempted to devour her avatar. She threw the interloper to said Javalan Flies and the result was obvious. The bird only managed to shriek one last time before being ripped to shreds!
Despite her action, more Gale Sparrows attacked her and summarily met their grisly end. These creatures obviously didn’t know the immensity between heaven and earth. She stopped counting when it reached double digits. Why was this happening? Gale Sparrows were supposed to be smart!
Eventually it came to a tenuous balance; while the flies spotted Ava again, they achieved an unspoken agreement to ignore her and each other. They instead gleefully dealt with any Gale Sparrows that Ava flung to them. However, if the birds were to run out, she knew she could be next on the flies’ menu.
That moment couldn’t come any sooner as the fiftieth Gale Sparrow she flung managed to right itself in time and escaped from waiting Javalan Flies. The cheeky bird flew back, bringing the entire flies swarm with it! She tried to grab it but only to be met with failure and ridicule from the damned bird.
The Post Human was left with little choice than to run away as the flies were hot on her figurative heels. There was also the matter of other Gale Sparrows she saw in the corner of her eyes. Although she wasn’t sure what the birds were up to, they were flying in some sort of ambiguous formation.
She leaped from one sand dune to another in her attempt to open some distance. The flies were more direct; as they flew, anything that stood in their path either gave way or was destroyed. It was surreal to see horde of insects pulverizing sandstone outcrops but Ava had long shed her old preconceptions.
Shew! Crack!
Ava was a bit stunned when something invisible clashed with her avatar’s scales. She initially dismissed it but when it was repeated for the third time, it wasn’t a fluke. At her side, she caught sight of a Gale Sparrow opening its tiny beak toward her. She didn’t know what was it but assumed it was trouble!
With a pshew sound, the Post Human braked herself and swiped a fist of sand directly into the opened beak of said bird. Her sudden counterattack caused it to choke and fell prey to the fly swarms behind her. She took this chance to open a nontrivial gap in order to climb on some of tallest sand dunes here.
From her observation point, she saw few thousands Javalan Flies and fives of Gale Sparrows at tens of zhangs in the far distance. There were no larger beasts in sight, which was a good omen. She stopped thinking too deep into it and gave the skies above a look. It was time to use her transcendent ability!
Slash!
The first test subject, an unwitting Gale Sparrow was cut into two perfect halves. Its companion chirped in response albeit halfway as they too, fell at Ava’s metaphorical hands. This sent some pause to surviving Gale Sparrows; they were utterly terrified of her now. There was no warning of her attack!
No, there was a minuscule warning namely a thin ray that emanated from her location. It was simply too fast for them to react to. A flash, and whatever targeted by her was dead! The Javalan Flies had no such qualms and charged straight at her regardless, in their renewed attempt to consume her flesh.
Sssst, ssst, ssst!
Multiple branch-like light rays flashed into existence from various hazy spots orbiting the Post Human. It was over in blink of an eye; each condensed beam of light vapourised multiple targets with unerring accuracy. With each flash, hundreds were annihilated. No amount of dodging was enough to avoid it!
The flies truly bitten more than they can chew this time as close to half were killed when they were less than three zhangs from Ava. Ones that were lucky quickly dispersed, to give chase to surviving Gale Sparrows. It immediately turned into free for all sans her as they knew she was bringer of death!
Ava thus gained free reign to act as she wished in the meantime as said competing vicious creatures steered clear of her. She observed the conflict between them and confirmed a few things; some Gale Sparrows can use invisible blades of air while Javalan Flies can mutate to a rare and aggressive variant.
Either case, she cannot let the mutated Javalan Flies go scot-free as she had first-hand experience of their nature in Alkharm Wadi. Ava used her ability again but this time to compress light as much as her [Gravity Control] allowed. She then threw multiple speck-sized light balls to her intended targets.
Such balls of light arrived almost instantaneously while leaving bluish trails in their wake. They exploded a nanosecond later to form light cones that blanketed her opponents. Javalan Flies were gone, reduced to atoms while Gale Sparrows in range left faint dark shadows on the sandy dunes.
Further out were a handful of such birds that were mostly out of reach of aforementioned light cones but they lived in borrowed time; as they flew further, their feathers fell. Their skins began to slough and their organs started to liquify. Eventually, what’s left of them were several foul-smelling puddles.
Kuhk!
Ava’s avatar too wasn’t spared as it coughed up black liquid afterwards. It turned out that she misjudged the backscatter from her assault and took some damage as well. The Post Human proceeded to rip portions of her avatar and applied a few herbs she collected in her earlier adventures.
Most of her avatar’s scales had been singed and became brittle. The flesh underneath slowly putrefied and the sub-dermis in the middle didn’t fare well either. It was indeed a dangerous gamble as she could lose control of her avatar here for good. However, there was no breakthrough without adversity!
She had verified phased light and its brethren, short-lived kugelblitz were exceedingly effective against biological creatures. Whenever and wherever there was light, she could use them to attack her enemies. They were also completely unavoidable unless one had precognition or some type of oracle.
Nevertheless, this answer opened the door to more questions. What if she used them against say, someone like Farhan? Or mythical immortals that she was yet to find? She heard that such kind of beings tend to harness the so-called dao energy to mitigate damage that otherwise fatal to mortals.
After a time taken to brew a pot of coffee, Ava shook her snake avatar and dislodged its former scales, skin and everything bad. Multiple blood red tendrils that glistened under high noon followed next, dragging and reclaiming whatever of value. She estimated her avatar had lost 10% of its original mass.
By now, Farhan and Salazar should had reached Najaj or close to it. That was one less trouble but the matter regarding Husan still held some weight in her mind. She perceived this detour was somewhat inefficient and thus reformulated her plans. If she was too late, the four-armed elder was likely killed.
Kisha!!!!
Ava turned her snake avatar’s head to the far east and caught sight of four dust devils, three large and one small. Between them were multiple flying objects but they were too far to identify. The Post Human inferenced that it was best to ignore them but that small dust cloud was heading toward her.
She considered to eliminate all four of them until she heard curses from the small dust devil. “Damned desert! Najaj guards are all useless!”
“Fuck! I even sold my dao spear!” As the cloud got closer, there was a male figure in front of it. “Fuck this desert, fuck Najaj!”
Some zhangs away from the male were three Red Scorpions, zealously furious at that. They were shooting threes of shiny blobs at the running man albeit with little success. Ava felt she shouldn’t interfere with circle of life here. She was flicking the tail of her avatar, ready to dig down and to hide.
Swish, swish, swish!
She trained her eyes to the far distance and saw several sand swellings chasing said three horse-sized arachnids. One of it burst open and lo, an outhouse-sized Crescent Shark swallowed the slowest Red Scorpion whole! Another two Crescent Sharks appeared and teared the second Red Scorpion apart!
“Ah damned heavens!” The green-eyed running male cursed once again. “Fuck Jasur! Argh!”
From his voice and eye-catching flowing wave patterns on his robes, Ava figured it must’ve been the same person that barged into Salazar’s tent before. Her impression of the man became even lower; not only he interrupted her prior talk with Salazar, he even had the gall to bring this disaster to her! This was the second time Ava had the urge to slap him.
Kriek, kriek, kriek!
The last Red Scorpion abandoned its human prey in order to put up a fight against its pursuers. It swerved to the right, avoiding a leaping Crescent Shark. In that split-second time window, the arachnid clamped down its powerful left claw and teared a minor portion of said shark with force of fifty men!
A huge geyser of dark red blood erupted from the injured Crescent Shark but that wasn’t the end of it. Its companions instantly swoop to the mangled vicious beast and split it seven ways to heaven! Such cannibalism rapidly ignited further furor among the remaining Crescent Sharks to rip and tear!
Suffice to say, the last Red Scorpion suffered the same fate as the fallen Crescent Shark. Aforementioned man ran even faster than ever as death was staring at his face, or specifically a pack of Crescent Sharks. This conflict looked inevitable to Ava as they were simply too close to her now.
Ava let the helter-skelter male simply pass beside her as her focus was on the sharks. There were approximately five or seven of the vicious beasts, leaping and diving in the loose hot sand. The Post Human executed her first move by sending three streaks of concentrated sunlight to the closest target.
The targeted Crescent Shark groaned in response as its eyeballs had exploded from her attack! Her third condensed light beam punched a tiny hole straight to the creature’s brain although it didn''t penetrate deep enough. Nevertheless, the creature fell squirming to the side due to its head being punctured by Ava.
Her second wave of attack failed to achieve significant effect as the odd four or six vicious beasts were either not in her optimal cone of sight or were underground. She changed tactics by targeting their fins instead. Loud thumps were heard as she managed to immobilize two Crescent Sharks by chance.
The aforementioned male apparently noticed something strange was going on. “Wait, what? What happened to….”
“You, stay there.” Ava gave him a glance and detonated the air in front of him with calibrated light pulses. The man was immediately knocked out from the resulting concussion.
The Post Human proceeded to replicate the same thing multiple times near her current surroundings. As the result, the immobilized Crescent Sharks were completely incapacitated from the generated shockwaves while remaining two literally flee for their lives with blood trailing off from where their internal ears would be.
Pscht, pscht!
Ava still attacked them by aiming two condensed sunlight at their center mass. The first one had a portion of its back spine destroyed while the second one suffered a minor cut and thus avoided her wrath. She waited for a bit before sending a fingernail-sized light ball after the escaped Crescent Shark. A fraction of a second later, a distant sand dune was melted into a small glass crater.