Chapter 10: Arc 2: Princess of White (3)

Ciel and Xia continued their trek in the dense green foliage. The air was damp. The heat was irritating. It was, in all senses, an unbearable experience. Flora and greenery shielded their sight in the most irritating way possible. The sweet smell of nectar and rot floated in the air like a stench of impending doom.

The image of the slime they met along the way was actively haunting Ciel’s mental landscape. Xia already moved back to her hunting spree. She stabbed what likely to be the fifth gigantic praying mantises they met with her rapier, spilling blood everywhere and nearly recolored Ciel waistcoat into a gross green mess.

As he gazed at the insect goo with the urge to hurl, but it was then he caught something in the corner of his vision. It was a taint of oozing green slimes on the brown rough bark of the tree. It was the color which evoked a horrible memory. It must be the tenth traces of slime he came across.

Inside the Residence, Amy observed this transpiring event with Caislean and shivered. Her ability, [Instinct], was overloading with warnings.

Amy: Ciel… I don’t like this.

Unperturbed and uncaring about the consequence, Xia marched deeper into the forest.

It took a moment later for Ciel to confirm his fear.

Xia impaled a green blob monster that died in a steaming acidic glue.

“What is this? Acid slime in this forest?” Xia swiped her blade to remove the acid. “Where does it come from?”

Ciel could answer that, and his answer terrified him. Everything assembled in his head like jigsaw pieces fitting together — the disappearance, the fractured ecosystem, the territory and the slime.

Inside the Residence, Caislean also put the pieces together.

Caislean: Master! We need to get out of here!

Ciel couldn’t agree more, “Xia,” he grabbed the young woman's hand, “we need to leave now! You can’t handle this!”

“What you are talking about?” Xia protested. Without Ciel’s understanding, she didn’t realize the danger incubating in this execution ground. “Ciel, you aren’t making sense.”

“Shut up, we are in danger. Trust me, this guy is bad news. To make it worse, he already knows we are here,” Ciel heard the rustling. “Oh crap. He is surrounding us. Amy, I need your [Instinct] for the best path to escape.”

Xia barely caught where the conversation was going. She was too surprised at Ciel’s sudden surge of adrenaline.

Amy: Go right! Full speed right!

“Ciel, what got into you?” Xia was still slow on the uptake and kept asking question as the two barrel past woods, logs and mud. “What does Amy got to do is this? What exactly is going on?” Then Xia realized something as both of them ducked past a low-hanging branch of a mishappened apple tree. “Wait, you know something about this? You look at those slime like they are dragons.”

“Xia, forget everything they taught you about slimes,” Ciel shouted. “Those commonsense don’t work against that guy. He isn’t your average joke.”

“What do you mean?”

It was then which Ciel and Xia exploded into a clearing.

“Oh my god,” Xia’s eyes widened in fear

“Shit,” Ciel muttered.

Inside the Residence, Caislean sighed in despair, while Amy ran toward the nearest sink to empty the content of her stomach.

What stood at the clearing was raw misery incarnate. Animals and humans were frozen inside a hardened green gelatin. They were all in different pose. Some were shielding their face. Many looked like they were crawling away. Few were kneeling in prayers. Every living being trapped inside the solid mucus was mummified. Their wrinkled skin was wrapped tightly against their skeleton like bones as if they were dead.

“Is that why you are so afraid?” Xia’s confidence quaked. “How do you know there will be a mass grave here?”

“They aren’t dead.”

“What? Are you telling me they are still alive?” Xia glanced at the statues of people and animal once more in renewed horror.

“Yes, he wouldn’t waste them,” Ciel trembled. “I know it will be bad, but even I don’t expect this.”

It was then the master of the territory emerged from the forest from the opposite end of the clearing.

It was a green blob of slime over eight meters tall. Fizzy gas bubbled inside its body. The pink pearly core ominously glowed inside the translucent blob like a bulb from doomsday. The ground and grasses of the clearing bubbled as the slime made its way across the clearing.

Ciel could hear the rustling from behind him.

They were surrounded.

“It has been three years, Unity Lord,” The glowing pink orbs inside the giant slime blinked with every word. Its voice sounded like an underwater echo. “Greeting.”

“Slomrath,” Ciel greeted the Lords. “Greeting, o Lord of Devouring Slime.”

…

Xia glanced between the gigantic slime and Ciel as she struggled to take in the development.

Ciel, still holding Xia’s hand, edged toward the direction of the clearing he aimed at. Meanwhile, Slomrath moved close. Both Lords were trying their hardest to reach their objectives before the chaos broke out.

Xia picked that moment to point her rapier toward the gigantic slime only for Ciel to bat it down in panic and looked at her like she was an inch from setting herself on fire.

Slomrath was impressed.

“You, of all people, exerting your control over a minion? Perhaps there is a hope for you, Ciel.”

“She is more like a friend,” Ciel replied with steady calm. “You know I don’t do minions.”

The slime audibly groaned, despite having no mouth.

“It appears something never change. For a second there, I believe you might finally become more like us. I don’t get it. You are like me, older than time, with the promised destiny and birthright, and here you are treating an ant like your equal. Your Authority is a travesty of such audacity, and I have to admit it couldn’t find a more fitting master.”

Upon hearing that, and realizing the inhuman relation between the two, Xia wrenched her hand from Ciel’s grasp and backed away from him.

Ciel didn’t stop her.

“For old time’s sake, I have a question,” Ciel swallowed his hurt feeling to face the threat. “What are you doing here?”

Slomrath snorted.

“Of course you ask that. It appears your inability to sense faith power has come back to bite you. You probably never realized the vast faith power coming from south.”

Xia gripped her sword.

The south was the direction of the capital.

“You landed here three years ago and ran?” Ciel asked in surprise.

“Obviously,” Slomrath confirmed. “Even back then, the faith power gathered in the huge human city is absurd. In fact, the growth increases exponentially these past two years.”

Xia froze. The words ‘two years’ weighed a huge amount on her.

“You ran into this forest, and started a farm to catch-up,” Ciel assembled the picture together. “You probably started with the animals first, then increased your territory to get the human. But I don’t get it, why the museum show?”

Slomrath was proud.

“You obviously won’t get it given how incompatible you are with faith power, but worship came in many forms—adoration, admiration, love, longing and much more. Thanks to a little experiment, I figure out the most efficient aspect—terror—I don’t need their gratitude if I can simply trap them in undying torment.”

Xia trembled. She could follow this conversation just fine. She looked around her. All these people were being trapped as an energy farm, kept alive in a living death to maximize this monster gain. How could Ciel take this so calmly? She could barely hold herself from retaliating, and he was talking to this inhumane monster like an old friend?

“Well, you are an idiot,” Ciel gave his opinion on Slomrath’s method. “The folks in the capital are noticing you, buddy. They will be coming after us.”

Slomrath wasn’t worried about them at all.

You are reading story United(?) We Stand at novel35.com

“That can be a bother. Well, it is about time I start expansion anyway. It is not a loss to go on offensive. I believe there is a city near here, isn’t there, Ciel?”

It was then that Xia drew her sword in a rage.

“You think you can walk over us easily!” Xia’s Aura surged. “You are going down right here!”

“Xia! Don’t!” Ciel’s mind ground to halt at the thought of escalating a doomed battle. “Run. You don’t have a chance.”

“Shut up, traitor,” Xia pointed her sword at Ciel. “I will deal with you later when I am done with your friend here!”

It was a beginning of a long fall.

…

Ciel couldn’t watch what would happen. He already knew how the battle would turn out. Anyone who had an idea what a Lord could do when supported by faith power would declare the result when anyone less than a walking god picked a fight with them.

Countless showers of acid came at Xia from three-hundred-sixty degree. Ciel automatically ducked down to the ground to avoid the bone-melting spurt.

Xia, registering the attacks, performed an acrobatic flipped in midair to evade countless acid bullets and rolled across the ground. Despite her excellent maneuver and speed, she didn’t emerge unscathed, audibly flinching from the ankle that was steaming from an acid burn. She swallowed her pain and rose, only to find herself surrounded by creatures and animals made of green goo.

Xia gathered White Mana around her burns.

White Magic Rank 1: Heal

The white light shone for a few seconds, fixing Xia’s injury. It further spread across her body, rejuvenating and amplifying her strength, vitality and stamina.

White Magic Rank 2: Strengthen

“Okay,” Xia said while positively glowing with power. “Let do this again.”

The young woman grabbed her sword and rushed toward a slime-like bear, decapitating it in a blink in her enhanced state, and swung her sword toward another slime like a giant Komodo dragon… only to realize her repair had melted to its hilt. Xia’s surprise was cut short when the lizard-shape slime lunged, nearly taking out her head if not for her quick reflex.

Xia jumped back and finally noticed the vast army of slime animals approaching her. Finally, she got why Ciel was so insistent on running away. These monsters were acidic, taking them down meant sacrificing her weapons. Weapons that they didn’t have to spare.

Xia glared at the gigantic blob of Slomrath. If It was impossible to make a dent in the minion, then the big boss was the obvious target.

Xia tossed the useless hilt of her sword and gathered the White Mana in her palm to perform the most powerful White spell she could use.

White Magic Rank 4: Smite

Xia held her palm out and fired a beam of light toward Slomrath. White Mana churned through the air as a column of brightness a size of a canon punched the slime gigantic body. The membrane holding the slime bubble as the internal content of the devouring Lord boil from the intensity of the attack.

After a second, the light fade, and Xia fell to her knee, huffing from channeling such a huge amount of Mana. Her platinum blood hair was dampened with sweat. She looked up to register the damage she had done.

Only despair greeted her.

Slomrath’s gelatinous body didn’t have a single scratch on it. It was as if he reversed time and undo Xia’s effort to injure him.

It was then Xia finally comprehended the unreachable gap between her and Slomrath. At that moment, Ciel’s effort to be diplomatic against the blob of evil made perfect sense. Her companion knew the attempt to fight him would end like this.

“You should have to sit down with Ciel before trying to fight me, human,” Slomrath jeered. “Given you have an audacity to attack me directly, Unity Lord must tell you next to nothing about us. Well, I think I am done playing.”

The army of slimes edged closer.

Xia regathered the surrounding Mana.

“White Magic Rank 5: Wra-” Xia coughed up blood. She could barely cast that at her peak, much less in this diminished state. Instead, Xia downgraded her attacks.

White Magic Rank 3: Bind.

She impaled the slime Komodo dragon with a white pillar. Her Bind also caught a slime monkey and another bear. But that was just a drop of water in an army of drakes, wasps, birds, gorillas, elephant and jaguar all made of slime. A single target spell would not do a thing against Animal Planet horde.

Then things got much worse.

Xia saw a spark of red.

“No way,” Xia said.

“So, how I do this?” Slomrath mused. “Oh right, Red Magic Rank 1: Haste.”

The army of slime quickened. Xia tried to evade them, but they simply came at too many numbers at too fast of a rate. An icicle from a slime-bird impaled her legs. A flame from a slime-tiger roasted her shoulder before she could scream, and several tentacles from a creepy-looking mollusk wrapped around her leg, burning her limb with acid.

She tore the tentacles apart with her bare hands, biting back tears while using Heal to fix her various injuries.

Then all the animal cast Bolt. Xia had a moment to see the barrages of Red Magic filled her vision like a volley of arrows. The only thing she could do is putting every ounce of her power into her Aura.

It was the finisher.

The barrages hit the ground like a shower of missiles. Xia flew across the floor. Her clothing reduced to rag. Her forehead bled, and her unhealthy pale skin bruise. She got to her knees and see the massive army of creatures surrounding her. Her gaze caught a sight of the horrifying statue of a desiccated woman trapped in a slime.

The thought of ending like that statue broke Xia.

“No! Don’t!” she begged, crawling away in tears and all four. “I will do anything! Please. Betty. Father. Save me. I give up. I don’t want to fight anymore! Anyone! Help!” she curled up on the forest floor. “Please! Help me!”

“Ahh, human, always break in the end,” Slomrath spoke.

A streak of tears rolled down Xia face as the army of slime approached.

Suddenly, a crystal orb flew between her and the hoard before exploding.

Boom!

Xia barely reacted, with her savior grabbed by the arm and dragged her out of a certain horrific fate at his top speed. Her heart did a little somersault upon grasping that familiar hand.

“It won’t slow them down for long,” Ciel yelled. “Run!”

…

Ciel dragged the recently humbled fallen princess by the hand. In another hand was the grenade Betty gave to him. Both of them ran as fast as they could. The slimes quickly tried to close their path of escape and at that critical junction, Ciel, using [Calculative], timed the exacted moment to toss his grenade.

Boom!

The coupled rushed the gaping hole in the hoard before it closed and finally found themselves at their destination ordained by Amy’s [Instinct]

A cliff towering cliff with rushing water below it. The cliff was so high the river beneath them look like an earthworm.

“It is a dead end, Ciel,” Slomrath said. “Just surrender. I always want to run some test with another Lord.”

Ciel shielded the trembling Xia behind him. In his hand, was another grenade.

“Do you trust me?” Ciel asked.

“No,” the shaken, shell-shocked Xia were utterly terrified of the slime, refusing to look at the monster in fear of death. Instead, she buried her head in Ciel’s shoulder and hug him for dear life.

“That is reassuring,” Ciel tossed the grenade.

The explosion blasted the cliff to smithereens, sending the couple into the water.

You can find story with these keywords: United(?) We Stand, Read United(?) We Stand, United(?) We Stand novel, United(?) We Stand book, United(?) We Stand story, United(?) We Stand full, United(?) We Stand Latest Chapter