A soldier races up to Hikari.
"Hikari! The general requests immediate reinforcements."
Hikari hoisters her sword and assembles her arsenal.
"He also requests that you deliver his supply pack." Hikari pinched the bag with her fingers and placed it in her pouch.
The RazenHeir scouts got up from their resting positions, stretching themselves, and swinging their swords as a warm up.
Hikari grabbed a half eaten ration pack and munched down the remainder in one mouthful.
With a boom, she dashed off towards the direction of the wyvern peaks.
Along the way, she met with a steam tank racing in slow motion in the opposite direction.
The inside was packed with soldiers, one having his arm crushed.
The soldier popped his head out of the hatch.
"Hurry! The slayers had gone berserk."
Hikari's foot smashed against the road, leaving cracks and a foot print as she thrust herself through the sandstorm.
The entrance to the ravine came into view.
A slayer picked up his mace, raising it in the air over an infantry man lying on the ground.
Just as the mace barreled down towards him, a pair of soles slammed into his side as Hikari gave him the drop kick.
The slayer was smashed into the mountain wall. Hikari's foot print indented into his front steel plate armour.
The mutated man dropped onto the ground, blood flowing from behind his mask as it laid flat on the ground.
"Guess I'm not getting paid for this one."
She examined the dead slayer. The shafts of ballista bolts sticking out of his back.
"Dark energy? The same one I found in the mana veins."
The slayer core suddenly flared up, Hikari could sense a surge of dark energy emanating from its core.
Crack! Spikes of strange bone ripped open its flesh. His dead body flinched left and right as something was eating his insides.
Stomp! Hikari stomps down on the slayer's back with her foot. A splatter of blood in all directions. A wave of flame incinerates the body.
A flicker of dark energy rose from the charred mass, flowing into Hikari's foot.
"Whats this? It restored a bit of my mana."
There was no time to ponder. Three slayers emerged from beyond the path.
They advanced towards Hikari in a line.
The one at the front held up a shield, the second one wielded a billhook, the third wielded a cannon.
Boom! The slayer lobbed a bomb in a high arc and fired his cannon at the same time. Hikari blocked the shot with her sword.
Using her telekinesis, she redirected the bomb into the slayers.
A blast of greenish cloud was released as the bomb exploded, stunning the slayers.
Dong! A deafening sound as Hikari kicked the shield, knocking the slayer back.
Before he could recover, Hikari's palm with a scroll was shoved into his mask. The slayer lost his strength, collapsing onto the ground.
Hikari shuffled her leg as the second slayer thrust his bill hook. The slayer turned his bill book, the steel blades facing the back of Hikari's thigh.
He pulled but his hook got stuck on Hikari's calves.
"Hmm.. so my muscles are harder than steel now."
The second slayer was downed as Hikari smothers his mask with a scroll.
Boom! A cannon ball bounced off her chest. Hikari lunged at him as he attempted to reload.
"Four down."
A strange sensation came over her.
She placed her hand over the unconscious slayer. Something in the slayer's chest resonated with her.
A crystal emerged out of the slayer's back, ripping out some flesh as it rose.
Hikari grabbed the crystal in her hand. Its energy flowed into her. The crystal crumbled into dust as its energy was exhausted.
"I don't know what I'm doing but the mana is good. Oh well, I'll think about it later."
Hikari continued down the path. Having brief duels with single slayers.
Bodies of soldiers littered the path. Steam tanks with the hull ripped open. The smell of blood and burnt gun powder.
She reached the mine shaft entrance.
"Whao. Now that is ugly."
A monstrosity stood at the clearing. Body parts covered in black robes strewn across the ground around it.
Tentacles appeared from the beast, dragging the body parts into it piece by piece.
It appeared like several slayers had merged into one bloated lump of flesh.
As Hikari approached, an array of slayer weapons held by grotesque arms poked out of its body.
Hikari parried a thrust by a spear, dodging to one side as the lump of flesh slammed into the ground where she stood.
The arms on the creature's back extended, a dozen slayer swords barreled towards her.
Hikari released her flying daggers, parrying the barrage with her own.
She ran her hand along her sword, igniting it with her flames. It was not as efficient nor fluid as having a set of RazenHeir runes, but it will have to do.
The monstrosity readies another attack. But it lost its balance, tumbling over.
"That's why you need to watch your diet, avoid too much meat and run more often."
Hikari seized her chance. Driving her burning blade into the monstrosity.
She hacked and slashed, targeting the creature's support points, keeping it off balance.
As the creature's flesh was burned away, a bloated heart pulsating dark energy was revealed.
A wave of dark energy was released as the bloated heart pulsed.
Hikari backed off, leaping into the air and grabbing onto the side of the mountain by creating a protrusion out of the mountain side.
The dark energy turns the dead bodies in the mine shaft clearing to dust.
The pulsating heart began retrieving its energy, the flesh began healing.
A spinning bullet drilled into the heart. A gush of blood erupted from it. The burning flesh around it squirmed. Another spinning bullet ends it.
Hikari drops back down. As the monstrosity turns to dust, its blood crystalline into dark crystals. Hikari's head rings as the crystals emitted a strange resonance with her.
She absorbed the crystals as she had done before.
"Hungry"
She took out a ration pack and gobbled the whole thing down.
The warehouse at the side of the mountain was completely wrecked.
She found a box of intact dried rations for the troops that were now dead.
"It's a pain to unwrap them one by one. I guess I'll keep them for later."
She dashed through the underground tunnels.
Bodies of miners and soldiers, brutally crushed or cleaved apart. Pieces of equipment scattered across the ground.
A mutated slayer blasted her with dark energy as she emerged from the cavern entrance.
She tanked it head on with her mana barrier.
"I don't think the scroll works on you."
She drew her sword and cleaved through it, grabbing the dark crystal and continuing her way forward.
She reached a cavern illuminated by the bright blue light of mana crystals. A hail of crystals pelted her, some getting stuck on her wyvern skin.
There were two dead slayers in the middle of the cavern. Their bodies were studded with crystals like a porcupine.
The stalagmite beast unburrowed itself as Hikari walked along the opposite side.
"Sorry about your mineral cache. Don't mind me, I'm just passing through."
Hikari stuck to the opposite wall as the stalagmite beast glared at her.
The dark crystals from the two dead slayers drifted to her.
The beast growled at her angrily but made no attempts to attack her, allowing her to pass through.
Clank! With a heavy parry, Hikari knocked the slayer off balance and knocked him out with a scroll.
She raced past him before the dark crystal could catch up.
She paused. Taking deep breaths.
The mine shaft was silent. The light crystals still remaining shone over the corpses strewn across the ground.
Steel barricades torn apart. Several dead slayers with the shafts of crossbow bolts sticking out of them.
She looked around. Something caught her eye.
Rey's armoured suit. Its arms had been smashed. The cockpit had been pierced.
"Rey.."
Her voice softly echoes through the mine shaft.
Hikari hopped to the second floor where the remains of Rey's armoured suit lay.
"At least I can bring his body back to Sheela?"
She pried open the cockpit with her hands.
Empty. Not even traces of blood.
Hikari closed her eyes and expanded her mana sense. She sensed a faint heartbeat under a pile of rubble.
The chunk of stone collapsed into smaller pieces. Hikari dug up a steel pod of sorts from beneath the rubble.
The hearthstone rune on the lid glowed in response to her presence.
A pop sound followed by a flash of light. "Freeze!"
Hikari looked down and saw Rey pointing at her with a musket in both hands.
"You're alive."
"Boy am I glad to see you, Hikari." Rey lowered the muskets.
Hikari picked him up by the back of his uniform.
"Let's head back."
"Wait, can you put me back in the pod?"
Hikari gave him a confused look.
"If you brought my bag, I could survive here for more than a week. Long enough for everything to blow over and my sister to come get me. Meanwhile, you should go get the wyvern queen loot while you can."
Hikari paused and thought for a bit.
She took out a cotton sheet and began reassembling it. The stench filled Rey's nostrils.
"What are you-"
Hikari reassembled her sock and dropped him inside.
Rey's little arms visible through the thick cotton as he flailed and squirmed.
"Nope. You're coming with me."
The wyvern skin on Hikari's chest slit open. She placed the sock with Rey inside between her blossoms and closed up the wyvern skin.
Hikari hopped upwards out the mine shaft.