Depths Of The Lake
Depths Of The Lake
Evelyn still recalled what her teacher had told her about the people in the lake, as well as its special properties.
The 'Siren's Call' wasn't a place where one would immediately perish if they entered, as long as they made sufficient preparations. However, over the countless years, no matter how many preparations someone made, no one was able to truly explore its depths or come out with anything of value.
According to Aurora, this was mainly due to two reasons. The first reason was that one couldn't control their spirit power to use any techniques once they entered the lake physically, and the second reason was that their spirit power would be continuously corroded once they were inside.
The only way that people had found to explore the lake was to use a technique that would coat the surface of their skin in spirit power, one that could automatically keep consuming it without the need for the user's control, and then explore the lake as much as they could before it ran out.
In theory, this would make it possible for those with vast amounts of spirit power to explore the depths of the lake, but that was not what ended up happening.
After all… the lake wasn't empty, even though it appeared to be so.
Evelyn used the [Lethal Leap] right at the surface of the lake this time, shooting a few feet over the surface with the intent to completely cross the body of water while leading the chaos bone beast into its depths.
The rampaging beast chasing her furiously obviously didn't care whether it was going through earth, air, or water. Whether it was due to its lack of thinking ability or a deep belief in its own capabilities, Evelyn didn't know.
The pink-haired girl safely landed on the other side of the lake and breathed a sigh of relief as she turned around, her expression turning grim as she saw the bone beast swimming through the 'Siren's Call' at a rapid pace.
Even if it was only a quarter of the speed it had on the land, it still couldn't be considered slow, and she knew it would catch up to her in seconds.
The corrosive nature of the lake didn't seem to affect it as much, but Evelyn could clearly see the thin layer of chaos energy that was coating the bone beast sizzling and dissipating, even if it wasn't fast enough to get rid of it before it would have already crossed the lake.
The residents of the lake didn't show up. Perhaps they were waiting for their prey to lose its protection before enjoying a leisurely meal, or maybe they just weren't interested in this bony little thing, the pink-haired girl didn't know.
Although her strategy hadn't worked exactly as she planned, Evelyn knew that she couldn't let it get out. Once it did, there was no guarantee that it would follow her into the lake again, having experience it once already, it might become aware of its threat.
Gritting her teeth, the pink-haired girl immediately coated herself with [Draconic Scales] and leapt into the lake, much to the excitement of the bone beast, which started paddling through the water even faster.
Evelyn would obviously not swim towards it and deliver herself to its jaws, that would be suicide. Instead, she directly started diving into the lake's depths after making sure that the bone beast could clearly see her dip inside.
The bone beast seemed to freeze for a moment as its prey seemingly disappeared from its senses, but it quickly dove in and regained its vision of the enemy. Even though it could no longer sense the girl, it didn't matter as long as it could catch her and tear her to shreds before its power ran out.
The will of the master would never allow anyone who dared go against him to live. No matter the cost.
Immediately after diving in, Evelyn could clearly feel her spirit power declining slowly but surely, losing one point every ten seconds, and her system prompts soon confirmed the same.
Since Draconic Scaled didn't have the function of being able to siphon her spirit power by itself, she had decided to simply put almost all of her spirit power reserve into the ability first.
After all, it would be a certain death if she really ran out, since there was no way for her to use any ability inside the lake, presumably.
Plus, while [Draconic Scales] didn't have the ability to passively siphon her spirit power to strengthen itself if corroded, it did have the extremely handy function of allowing her to take back any spirit power she had already used for that ability once she withdrew it.
In case an unexpected situation occurred inside and she was able to use her spirit power again, and there was no need to keep the Draconic Scales up, Evelyn felt like she should be fine.
Looking at the ravenous little bone beast still chasing behind her furiously as she dove deeper and deeper into the 'Siren's Call' lake, Evelyn couldn't help but grin. Either that thing didn't realize that over half of the chaos energy coating its surface was already gone, or it was too stupid to care.
Meanwhile, her reserves had barely dipped at all.
"It's a good thing I remembered to get Cecilia's buff when I went back to my room, after all."
Thinking about it this way, the fact that Bree hadn't been with her at that time actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Otherwise, while she was usually quite cautious, it was possible that she could have neglected getting Cecilia's buff.
Had that happened, her spirit power reserves definitely wouldn't be in such a good condition as they were now, and she could have already been at half or even less of her total power by the time she entered the lake, thanks to the frequent usage of [Lethal Leap].
But thanks to the increased natural recovery rate as well as decreased consumption of spirit power thanks to the buffs, Evelyn was able to maintain over a thousand points of spirit power by the time she decided to dive into the lake.
Even after the chaos bone beast chasing after her had lost almost half of its protective coating, she still had over 800 points left, and the natural recovery buff hadn't yet expired either!
Feeling much more confident, the anxiety she had been feeling in her heart finally dissipated a little. As long as she could continue leading this beast until it lost its protection and became food for the people of the 'Siren's Call', it wouldn't be too late for her to swim back up and get out alive!
A few minutes later, she clearly felt a change around her as strange ripples started spreading through the water.
Clearly… something other than the two of them was moving!
The chaos bone beast also seemed to sense the threat as its movements turned jerky, but that was only for a moment before it continued chasing after Evelyn, looking even more desperate to tear her apart than before.
She had to admit that whatever camouflage ability the people here had, it was definitely top notch! Even though she knew they were nearby, the only way she could feel their presence was through the movement of the water, and she didn't know if that was intentional or not.
Aurora had definitely not been joking when she said they could only be seen while feeding.
Evelyn didn't have to wait long before they revealed themselves. Perhaps they were also able to see that the protection of one of their prey had almost run out, and there was no way for it to escape back to the surface.
Immediately, translucent figures of humanoid creatures surrounded the chaos bone beast, and before it could continue chasing after Evelyn, latched onto all four of its limbs, its spine, and even its jaw.
Their elongated limbs and deathly maws were clearly visible even in this translucent form, and Evelyn didn't waste any time waiting to see the show before she started swimming back up.
Anyway, she believed that now that the beast had lost its protection, these things should be able to take care of it.
Not long after she started rising back up, however, Evelyn heard strange sounds of struggle behind her, and she couldn't help but look back.
Immediately, her pupils shrank as she saw the translucent creatures being torn to shreds one by one by the chaos bone beast's deadly claws and maw.
Clearly, even though it had lost its protective coating, it was not a soft persimmon!
Its physical fighting capability was still terrifying, and while the translucent creatures weren't weak by any means, they had clearly been expecting an easy feast, only to hit an iron plate instead.
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