Chaos Cycle: The Eye of Genesis - Chapter 148

Karma points stored in her body, trying to break apart the wall to the next order. The system helped the humans store their excessive karma points if they have restrictions in their path of advancement. Usually, humans always have restrictions, they need to collect items of their path, and go through the ritual, while Devarians had to do none of that, at least none before order five.

Then again, order five is the line between an Elite and the rest. The problem here was that she was currently in a battle, while the surge of energy kept on overflowing, rushing her towards the next level.

It would have no problem if it was any normal time, but she has to wait, about thirty minutes for now.

Her body beamed in golden light as the bite marks from her leg closed up, though it had damaged her suit. She should have stored that suit for the battle at least. That was a silly mistake.

Wait, perhaps she could go through her advancement with the help from the Orb, Elior had given her. In the specs, it mentioned it could restrict most attacks below 500 degrees of force. While these best does not have much mastery over mana, all they could do was use their physical force against her. That wouldn’t be much of a problem for her would it? absolutely now.

She kind of felt it was a big cheat item. Elior shouldn’t have been allowed to bring something like that into the trial in the first place, then again, he has some mysterious means, and who could tell if all the danger in the trial will be the same as this sea monster who has a brain the same size of a peanut.

Without bothering with the monsters that were lunging at her, she dived into the water. The chat was not available for some reason, but she could feel Elior’s presence in the water. The water was dark and murky, she could not even see a could metre away from her, and even with embedding the light orb there, she could barely see a dozen metres away. That too with a lot of trouble, as the water was negating her mana abilities.

Unfortunately, the sea monster did not let her go that easily. The sea was their domain, even though they had a little brain–the size of a peanut, they knew how to hunt, it was the only primal instinct that they got and kept them alive in this nightmarish, maddening sea.

These monsters mostly evolved through corruption. Well, all chaos fiend advanced through after being corrupted, but these lives in with the very core of the corruption or at least that was the idea. Their brain did not develop before they hunt each other to stay alive. Moreover, nine-tenth of the number died within a few days of their birth, notwithstanding the corruption.

Even though these monsters were born through battling, they were not very good at it. At least, not on their standard. They were savage, but they barely had any mana abilities.

Inari twisted into a sharp turn as a horrifying maw missed her head just by a fraction of time. She groaned inwardly, as her body shot towards the monster. In the water, her speed certainly was slower, but it was not so that she would not be able to use her flash step, nor was she helpless like the last time she was underwater.

The water negated the mana outside of her body and troubled her mana manipulation even in the body, but it was not that huge that she would be at a disadvantage against these brainless sea monsters. Sure their number was huge, but that’s it.

She could finish them all. All she needed was time. Ignoring the imminent advance she was having trouble with, she felt no rush of danger. In her battle she was so focused on the killing she forgot she dived into the water, derailing from the advantage in the first place. She wanted to find Elior first and tell him that she was on the verge of advancement, but she was not sure how long she could keep up.

Her mana score was swelling and surging and it would break the more she battled. Breaking was not a problem. With each advancement, she was supposed to break her core and reform one with purer and bigger mana. So shattering her mana core was inevitable, but the problem was that she was not sure if she could perform it soundly after breaking it on its own.

Then again it was a trial, she should have had another chance on that, but that would take another couple of weeks to months. The trial could last for the next half of the year according to Elior,  but one month was enough to get her to the bottom as if she was not already was.

It was less than a week she was into the trial, and there was no list as of yet, but she could tell she may not be at near the end, she would not be at the top too. She is likely in the middle feeder, which might have been alright for others, but not for others. If she became complacent with that kind of result, she would be failing her sister, and she would have those elders another chance to poke at her sister because of her failure.

Moreover, she wanted to repay the ones that helped her here. Leroy, Elior – she could not do that if she remained in the middle or goes down even lower. She was very sure, Elior and Leroy were on the top of the trial, but there were other factions, the real ones from the mother world, the ones they needed to compete against. It sure wouldn’t be easy with their strength.

As she continued to fight, she felt Elior rushing towards her, feeling her dive down. Unlike always, his eyes were focused as he blasted off two monsters on the way with a jerk of his fist. Without wasting time, he gestured with his finger to tell her to get up. Saying that he got up first, seemed like he was not just telling her to get up.

Inari sucked in a deep breath the moment she got up from the water and so did Elior. Certainly, the mana could help them in their respiratory abilities, it was still not an alternate for them.

Inari was about to tell Elior about her condition when he opened his mouth first.

“A sea king is coming.”

“What?!” Inari was flabbergasted. “How strong is it?”

“Not much, but it wants to flee I wouldn’t be able to stop it,” Elior answered though he is panting and finally notice the surge in her. “You are restricting your advancement.”

“It came really at a bad time, didn’t it?”

“It did,” Elior nodded and looked on the sides where the waves swelled, heaving up then breaking into a huge snakelike monster.

“That is the thing?” Inari asked, sucking in a deep breath. “That looked close to fourth-order.”

“It is,” Elior nodded, “but no need to be worried, it’s only a king in name. It could barely use mana in some ability to manipulate the water. Other than that it was just a huge fish with fangs.”

“But it’s still a monster close to fourth order,” Inari tried to remind him of the danger, but Elior was already calculating the profit.

“Yes,” he said, “I wonder what those mystery boxes give us.” He paused looking at the sea king which had not found them as off yet. “If I can kill it, I think it will be something related to my advancement.”

“Elior,” Inari reminded him again, nudging him. “Are you sure your mind is alright?” She was having trouble believing he was alright even on the sixth day without the suit. Moreover, there was that torment and inhuman training.

“I am fine,” Elior said and stopped, “Well, I do have some headache, but it should be fine.”

Inari rubbed her forehead. This kind of talk troubled her the most. “Seriously,” she said, “Look at the scale and the size of that monster. Even though it did not have much skill in mana manipulation, it still had the defence one got after advancing to the third order.”

“You are only saying that because you didn’t see me fight,” Elior said and Inari shook her head and grunted. “I really need to advance fast,” he said slowly, eyeing her. “And I can kill it, but I can’t do it without you. It will flee into the sea if I press it a little hard.”

Inari looked carefully into those eyes and only saw the sincerity in them. She sighed and nodded, “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing for now,” Elior said with a smile. “I will keep this busy for some time, in that time you will advance using the orb of protection.. Then seal its way to escape.”