Hikari pushed her knife deep into the alpha ghoul.
It was like skinning a bear for her.
She ripped out its heart.
It doesn't pulse.
A cold piece of stone.
Jagged and rough outer crust.
A glowing red blood crystal encased within.
Hikari held it up between her thumb and index finger like a jewel.
It was the size of an eyeball for her.
"This should sell well."
Ella slithered up to a gory structure.
It looked half like an exposed organ and half like a plant borne with a botched botany experiment.
Using her searing claws, she ripped away the outer layers.
She pulled out a blood crystal buried under the flesh.
Grabbing it with her tail and slithered back to Hikari who dropped it into her harvest sack.
"More."
Ella snuffed around for another core. Pulling out tendrils and breaking into homes.
Hikari focused on and expanded her mana sense.
She could sense the eerie presence of the mist all around her.
But she couldn't locate the centers.
She could hear Ella ripping open another core.
The half wyvern slithered back to her and tossed the core into her harvest sack with her tail. Hikari lowered her hand.
Ella sat upright and rubbed her horns against her palm.
"Good girl"
Ella wags her tail.
"But I can't seem to sense them."
"(Hikari hasn't absorbed the red mist. Ella thinks Hikari shouldn't.)"
"You're right."
Hikari raised her palm and released a steady stream of RazenHeir flame.
She strided around, dousing the demonic tissue with the RazenHeir flame.
"This should cleanse the town enough."
The flames burn away at the bloody tissue that infected the town.
As the issue melted, smaller blood crystals were dropped.
Ella popped another core into her harvest sack.
She picked up a small crystal and nimbled on it, before crunching and swallowing it.
"(Ella can eat this, we should bring some. It contains mana and minerals. Ella can grow more scales.)"
Hikari picks up a crystal. It was smaller than her nails.
With a press, she crushed the crystal.
She felt a brief string as the released mana was absorbed into her skin.
It was too weak for her to process.
"Leave it to the scavengers."
"(Yes, Hikari.)"
As the flesh melted away. The old remains of the town began to surface.
The skeletons of soldiers leaning against the walls. Their muskets still in their hands.
"Whats that?"
An old warehouse with a hole blown onto its side.
Crates of gun powder and muskets. There was one crate with a special marking on it.
"Crafted muskets for officers. They sell well too."
Hikari pulled that crate to her and tossed it into her harvest sack.
Ella landed beside her and tossed a core in.
"(Thats all the cores)"
"Good, now where are we?"
She looks around.
She sees the tower in the wyvern peaks in the distance.
The spire city in another direction.
"We have overshot. The forward post was on the RazenHeir border."
"(Yes, Hikari jumps very far.)"
Hikari touches her thighs. Her muscles were hard and firm.
"Let's head back."
She closes her harvest sack.
As she was about to leap, she heard cannonfire.
It wasn't loud. It sounded very far away in fact.
A full volley.
"That direction?"
"(Ella senses strong mist.)"
"Can you still fight?"
"(Yes, Ella hasn't fought much. Hikari still have plenty of energy."
"Let's go. The scoutmaster would like to know."
The duo flew in that direction. There was a change in the vegetation. They were nearing the Herdial border.
Before long, they stood on a short hill overlooking a battle.
Waves upon waves of ghouls charged stone fortifications manned by riflemen and cannons.
A steel musket ball hitting a ghoul did little more than tossing a pebble at a bear.
Cannon shots are enough to knock a ghoul back and tear its arm off. But they just don't reload fast enough nor are they present in sufficient numbers.
The ghouls reached the walls.
As they scaled the walls, the defenders poured jars of sticky tar down from the top, causing the ghouls to get stuck on the wall side.
Spreads appeared from slits, impaling the stuck ghouls.
Torches were thrown down, igniting the tar and creating a burning pit which the other ghouls had to crawl through.
A ghoul reached the top, a volley of musket fire greeted it.
A squad of pikemen impaled it. An officer pointed a musket at its skull and blasted it point blank before the pikemen hauled it back over the walls.
"Where are the knights? They are putting up a good defense without any."
Several ghouls made it atop the wall in one section. The musket volley and pikemen rushed to meet it.
A ghoul slid past the pikes and sent two pikemen flying with its brute strength.
It bit into a third pikeman's shoulder and ripped his arm out.
The line was crumbling as the remaining ghouls pushed the pikes back despite the steel stabbing into its flesh.
The second wave of ghouls appeared over the top before the first was dispatched.
A volley of bombs struck them, tearing away their flesh. Musket fire from posts on either side fired on them. More pikemen reinforced from the flanks.
"Better do something."
"(Ella is ready to fight.)"
Hikari continued observing the battlefield.
"Let's go."
She moved in the opposite direction of the advancing ghouls.
"There." Colonies of giant ghouls several times the size of the common grunts.
Ghoul mothers.
Blood crystals stabbed into their back. They bellies constantly molding flesh into endless waves of ghouls.
A searing steel sword ripped into a ghoul mother's side. The mass of muscle behind it drives it through and rips out its core.
The ghouls around her stopped and all lunged at her but were knocked aside by her momentum.
Crunch! Crunch! The giantess knight charged the next ghoul mother while paying little heed to the lesser ghouls being stomped beneath her boot.
The ghoul mother gathers its spit. A steel ball crashed into its mouth, spilling the acid.
The searing blade drives through its chest and rips out its heart in an upwards swing.
Hikari stops to catch the core.
The sound of her wyvern companion's claws ripping through flesh behind her.
"Next"
They dashed full speed towards the next colony.
Ghouls were emerging from the ground, but the ghoul mothers were nowhere to be seen.
Hikari lands. She places her palm on the ground.
"There" It was not as crisp as in the hearthstone chambers, but it's more than good enough to sense massive battlement sized monsters buried beneath the ground.
Stab. She drove her sword into the ground. She felt it pierce flesh.
The ghoul mother's arms emerged from the soil and grabbed her arms.
Incinerate.
She channeled flames through her sword.
The ghoul mother below screamed and sizzled before loosening its grip.
A ghoul mother emerged from the soil behind her and aimed her mouth full of acid at her.
Swish. A slashing wave of flame cuts through the back of its throat, bursting its acid bubbles.
"Next"
They soon cleared the ghoul mothers. The ghoul horde does not scatter. But their remaining numbers were thinning.
Hikari leapt onto the Herdial walls.
It was a mess. Bodies parts of soldiers ripped apart. Ghouls feasting away at corpses.
The line had been broken. The bunkers still remain, taking pot shots at ghouls.
If it weren't for Hikari, the ghoul horde would be advancing unhindered into Herdial.
Slash. Slash. Controlling a single throwing knife, she picks off the ghouls one by one.
There were few survivors aside from those who managed to fall back behind prepared barricades.
Then she noticed something.
A mechanical suit. It had an arm and leg ripped out.
Its core was missing.
She looked around for it.
Judging from the skid marking on the ground, the core might have landed somewhere….
There.
She pulled it out below a pile of collapsed wood and stone.
It feels oddly familiar.
The pot opened. A young Herdial officer pointed his revolver at Hikari.
"Rey?"
"Oh, Hikari! Herda's blessings. I thought I was a dead man."
He was pleasantly surprised to see her.
"What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like? I'm fighting on the frontlines against the ghouls that had been appearing out of the Carla shaft. I'm sure glad you are too."
Hikari looked at the tiny general shivering in his pod. He was about the same size as Ria.
He looked so small. So fragile.
"Now, if you don't mind. Could you close the pod and clear the surrounding ghouls? I'll find a way to arrange payment-"
The giantess looming over him did not respond. Instead, she seemed to be studying him intently. It was actually making him feel rather uncomfortable.
"Umm… what are-"
"I just remembered something."
A pair of giant fingers pinched the back of the tiny general, lifting him up level to Hikari's chest.
Seams appeared in the wyvern skin suit.
The drenched cotton of the knight's inner shirt.
The overwhelming stench of her sweat.
"Wait hold up- mmmm….!"
He was plunged into the warm darkness.