A second kill got Christina to level two and with it she could start her training with power strike so we went back to base. I had her beating up a tree while I sat off to the side and focused my efforts on compress earth with my sphere as well as magic sense and a minor amount of feedback resistance. Occasionally I would have her switch attacking angles but overall it felt like power strike was part of the second tier style and thus she was learning how to use to better without much help. There was one area I still needed to intervene with, leveling, I had to constantly apply pressure to make her then apply pressure to the skill so it would gain levels. She only finally understood that what I was making her do was helping after roughly four levels, I could tell because the area of her arm covered by strike would get slightly larger.

She still didn't understand the concept of skill levels but she could connect cause and effect, the cause of training my way resulted in the effect of being stronger. That was good enough for me, I didn't care why she was gaining levels as long as she was willing to do what it took to get them. After she started skilling on her own we started talking about the upcoming battle I am planning for her against her sisters and how she felt about it. She was actually confident she could beat them as she was now in spite of only being level two while they were all level four, and she felt it was a natural course that one already strong becomes stronger. I clarified that I meant how she felt about it emotionally, she had to think about it for second but decided "love sisters, but stronger protect more."

To translate, she cared but also knew that if she got stronger from beating them up she could then protect them from being killed. It was an odd balance of pragmatism and love that I had never thought about before, mostly because "I'm only hurting you because I love you" is usually a hallmark of an abusive relationship. Among the soldiers, though, it makes sense because being hurt makes them stronger so they see being beaten up in a fair fight as a chance to grow and thus protect the rest of the hive better. While thinking about that another soldier came running out of the forest and turned as soon as she saw me so she would stop in front of me. She saluted quickly and then sent me a worrying image, a man walking through the forest heading in our direction.

I told both of them to grab any other soldiers they could and meet me in front of the entrance, one soldier will be left on guard duty but the rest would be with me. It took several minutes but eventually they gathered up a modest group of four regular soldiers and Christina, the other soldiers were out hunting so getting them back here would take too long. The soldier that spotted the man gave me a few images of the path to the man before all of them fell back far enough that they could just keep track of me so when I saw the other guy he shouldn't be able to see them. We all then moved carefully, trying to not make a sound, the soldiers were adept at avoiding sticks and such while I just had dirt control form clear spaces under me as I walked so I didn't have to worry too hard.

Several tense minutes of hiking passed before both of us saw eachother near simultaneously and we yelled "halt!" at the same time.

We stared at eachother for a couple seconds before he broke the silence "I did not expect to see another human out here, I am a scout sent by Merriat to find the source of the ant swarm."

Hmmm, those were interesting feelings, when he said 'not' and 'Merriat' I had a slight tingle, if I wasn't so used to trusting my various weird skill sensations I would of dismissed it, but I think that was my Cha acting as a lie detector, he tried to convince me those words were true but it failed and I knew about it. I think i'll play along for now "so you tracked them all the way up here? Perhaps you can tell me what signs to check for?"

He smiled at me, appearing to think I bought it "Well, it was easy see I just followed the tracks back to their hole, which had already collapsed at the time, I then searched the area and found boot prints heading in this direction with two sets of ant tracks, after a while one set doubled back but the others continued. Now you wouldn't happen to know why there would be both ant and boot tracks heading this direction, would you?"

I kept my face impassive as well as I could while also ramping dirt control to full power, sending it downward to excavate a pit trap almost under me, my heels are the only part on solid ground. "No idea, could one ant have decided to wear boots it found?" I had to keep him talking as the hollow space under me formed.

He laughed "Ha, one of those barely intelligent savages wearing clothes? Don't get me wrong, they can be clever sometimes, but they have no idea how to be civilized"

I could feel my self actually becoming pissed off but he just felt way too confident to attack head on. "Well, I am talking about imitation, it saw someone put on boots so simply copied them and just liked the feel so left them on"

His smile curled into a sneer "oh, that's a good one, certainly a clever beast could attempt to copy an action, but we both know their clawed feet would never fit in a human sized boot. Sigh, this back and forth was fun, but it is time to end this game and for you to tell me where you are hiding them!" He yelled before shooting towards me.

With a yank of energy the ceiling of my pit trap ripped off and turned into a thick dirt shield between me and him. He slammed into it but instead of falling backwards he pushed off and landed on the far side of the pit. He just smirked before he simply vanished, my eyes opened wide before I kicked magic sense on and cranked it up to ten meter range. I didn't see a thing, not even the ambient mana his body should contain. Suddenly he blinked into existence directly behind me, my magic sense once acting as eyes in the back of my head. He was already thrusting a dagger towards me when he reappeared and I didn't even have time to consciously react, but my subconscious did.

A chunk of dirt from the ground right behind me leapt into the path of the blade, it didn't stop it but it turned the blow into a medium strength punch instead of a kidney stab. I moved with the hit and flung myself a bit away to the side before a roll and turn saw me on my knees and facing towards him once more. I ripped up more dirt and turned it into a fair sized floating ring around me with a smaller belt of dirt attached to passive control as well as putting power coat over most of my torso. I stood up while he watched me warily, he dropped the dirt encrusted dagger and pulled another one from seemingly nowhere but he didn't make a move, not even doing that invisibility maneuver again.

It took me a couple seconds to think he was stalling, he needed to reset the cooldown on that move, he couldn't spam it. I charged towards him, forming hardened dirt gauntlets over my hands and power coat turning red as it covered them. I wasn't really trying to hit him, I was pulling off a massive feint as my attack kept him distracted from the soldiers I telepathically told to start sneaking towards our melee through the underbrush. There was a 'tink' every time I deflected the dagger with my dirt gauntlet, the color switching to blue right before impact. A few near misses later everyone was in position and, with a simple psychic nudge to charge as one, they did so.

With this scout character surrounded he switched tactics, taking out another dagger with his off hand so he was duel wielding he started blocking all attacks. He had been toying with me this whole time, but I was also toying with him, the swirling melee was another distraction. While we were all fighting my dirt ring fell away and instead I started having dirt gather around his legs but also move with him so he wont notice the build up. It was rather amazing how absurd this guy was, he was laughing while fighting us, I have no idea how strong he was but I think he was still playing with us, he wasn't trying to escape or anything just fight. Eventually he stopped laughing and started moving more intensely, the tipping point came when he stabbed at one of the soldiers chests, she barely used her defense skill in time to stop it but a spiderweb of cracks covered her and she fell back.

That was it, I had to do something now, when he took another step and put all his weight on a leg I had the dirt lock up and yanked downward, sucking his leg underground. "what the fuck!?" He yelled as he stopped himself from slamming his head into the ground, even while stuck in place he was deflecting the remaining soldier's strikes. He twisted his other leg into position to get leverage to pull himself out when I did a repeat performance, he put weight on it and it just sunk into the ground. He demeanor changed again, he was clearly pissed, but he was impotent now, but he still didn't stop struggling, maybe that weird invisibility skill would let him escape if he could stall long enough, I couldn't have that. I had the dirt around him start rolling inward, a mound forming in real time, even though it was weirdly hard to get any dirt near him.

Eventually he was up to his armpits in dirt and he couldn't move effectively anymore, and then I had the soldiers back off as his arms were covered, he looked at me with hatred "this isn't the end, if I don't report back they will send someone else, and they will be even worse, you wont get away with betraying the kingdom for these demons!"

"You don't even know who I am, I was never a part of the human kingdom, you just think all humans are part of it" I had heard enough, he was indoctrinated and had enough Cha that he was confident he could convince a random person so I wont be able to change his mind.

I turned dirt control back up and had the mound continue to rise until it covered him completely and then I sunk the whole thing downward. I kept control the entire time, I could feel him trying to escape from the dirt somehow, he didn't seem afraid of being buried alive so he may have had another escape skill, but I refused to let him move at all, after several minutes of struggle I started to get worried, no one should be able to just not breathe for that long while struggling. I switched from holding him still to crushing, I squeezed as hard as could over his whole body and still he struggled on, if I stopped he may actually get out. I had one idea left, I placed my hands over where his head was and focused all my energy in that spot and imagined the dirt itself was my weapon as I used power coat. There was a sudden burst as the area I put my hands shrunk and he stopped moving, I also felt dirt control gain a level.