Chapter Forty-two

The Changed didn’t make them wait long as only a few minutes later three teams came rushing toward the flare, which was still burning bright high in the sky.

Fortunately for her and unfortunately for them, none of the three teams had a line of sight with each other. They acted looking like a silvery purple blur to the Changed eyes as Elysia rode Ione to each team, only stopping for a moment to touch the leader’s watch before moving on.

Within seconds, three more flares joined the first one as over a dozen Changed stood stunned and confused.

A quick message to Ione told her almost a hundred Changed were rapidly approaching, causing Elysia to order them back into the trees. With her bond’s help, they targeted a half a dozen more teams before the Changed became too grouped up to risk more blitzes.

Instead, they shot off through the trees away from the massive gathering, looking for less dense prey. Eventually she would have to target larger groups, but she’d rather take out the easy targets until they adapted. They had to move quick though. She knew it wouldn’t take them long to realize what she was doing if they hadn’t already.

She itched to swoop down on several small groups as they moved, but knowing that would only leave a trail, she resisted. Instead, they moved as fast as they could across the island nearly to the opposite shore, which had to be over a dozen kilometers wide. Once satisfied with their distance from the still burning flares, barely visible to the east despite their high vantage point, they stopped.

It only took them a few seconds to locate several smaller groups, which they wasted no time to strike upon. Less than a minute later, another five flares joined the others in the sky.

As the groups scrambled to figure out what happened, they perched themselves high up in the trees waiting for more to arrive and the Changed didn’t disappoint in providing targets. Unlike on the east side, no massive groups came for them. Instead, groups of five to ten scrambled through the jungle trying to save their presumably in trouble allies only to suffer the same fate of adding flares to the sky.

Not wanting to overstay their welcome, they took off northward as Elysia appraised her collection of almost twenty flares.

On the north side they did the same again, adding a dozen flares before heading south, almost thankful the Changed purged every monster outside of dungeons. It made it effortless to travel, especially with how fast Ione was.

Before striking the southern teams, they peeked through the jungle out to the southeast ocean beyond to find even more ships anchored just offshore. With her enhanced eyes, she spotted several groups gathering in an organized but rushed manner.

Well, that explained things. They sent the cannon fodder first. Was it because of her attack on the watches, or was this planned all along? She knew they couldn’t see the flares outside the dungeon island, but she had no doubt some signal reached them. Did they think something slaughtered their teams? Better that than realizing her actions.

Still, did this mean more watches? As easy as her ploy was, what was the point if they kept sending more Changed? From the looks of things, there was probably at least another thousand Changed ready to mobilize.

Soon she would have nowhere to hide. She wasn’t removing any combatants, just sowing confusion. Should she take a deadlier path? Her elemental instincts sung at the thought, but it just didn’t feel right to slaughter the Changed. Most of them were probably in the same shoes as she was, except they didn’t have the gifts and luck to escape.

Now, these elites were a different story. To raise through the ranks, they had to have been good little soldiers. She hated the excuse ‘I was just following orders’. It didn’t work in the past, and it wouldn’t work now. If she had to, she would strike back. She had a feeling the time would come sooner rather than later.

One thing was for sure, she doubted there were any Chrotile left on the island. She would have seen one by now unless they were hiding in dungeons, but even then there would be stragglers. Urus must have triggered the end of their dungeon island adventure early. That meant she was on her own, at least until she left.

She doubted Urus would simply abandon her. If she had stayed with her team, she’d probably be on Urus’s shell right now, or maybe not. Her instincts were confusing, and she doubted Ione would let her leave without some hunting.

Even now, despite not killing anything, Ione radiated excitement through their bond. Apparently, the hunt was more important to her than killing. The issue was if the hunt was worth it. She could leave right now and she doubted anyone would notice until she was too far away to matter.

However, something about the dungeon island challenge enticed her.

A mental query to the system brought up her score, causing her to freeze.

Current Score: 4074

Current Ranking: 1st

How did that happen? Did Ione somehow kill over three thousand monsters? No. There was no way. Did her ambushes count toward her score? Maybe it was worth it to continue her tactics. Would she keep her ranking if she left? Something told her no. There might be another reason why her score skyrocketed. It was possible that the Chrotile’s combined score went to her, as she was technically the last one left from their side. Before the reinforcements arrived, it was worth testing.

Elysia turned her gaze away from the ships and down to several teams lazing about, probably waiting for the reinforcements.

Just as fast as her previous ambushes, she struck, sending a twenty flares into the sky as she triggered far more because of their lack of readiness.

Before they could surround them they took off toward the center of the island, not wanting to return to the coast just yet with the density of Changed. Still, just in case as they moved, Elysia scanned for the best route of escape in case of an emergency and found the west side was probably their best bet.

Unlike most of the island’s coastline, the jungle dropped off into a hundred meter cliff to the ocean. It would hurt if they fell, but she had confidence Ione could scale down to the ocean leaving the Changed behind. Though an earth Changed might give them problems.

Worth the risk, though. They would be a sitting duck if they tried to run to the ocean off some beach. Once they reached deep ocean, they were home free, and she wasn’t confident they would if they tried to reach deep enough on a beach under the fire of Changed. Plus Umbra was too the Southwest.

Elysia had her bond stop at the tallest tree they’d seen so far, giving her a high vantage point. After she hopped off and sat on a branch large enough to allow Elysia to lay width wise Ione descended to the ground and took off into the jungle to scout for them. Without Elysia on her back, Ione blurred through the jungle covering.

As the images rolled in, a frown formed. Did they give up on tracking her? They picked the center of the island because it was a dead zone, but someone should have shown up within Ione’s range by now. Did they sow too much disorder? All she did was explode around fifty watches. She doubted she even injured the wearers, beyond maybe a few minor electrical burns.

In hindsight, how did the watches from the first two teams she encountered survive her initial attack? Maybe it had something to do with her targeting the watch directly. Who knew? As long as they left her alone, she didn’t really care.

Though she knew this wasn’t the end of them chasing her. More likely they were waiting for the reinforcements before advancing on her. She was technically surrounded right now, though with over a kilometer of space in every direction, she had plenty of room to maneuver. Even without Ione, she could probably escape to the shore. There were a ton of Changed on the island, but far from enough to cover every escape route.

Now that she saw how many were here, she understood why the Chrotile had retreated. The Changed outnumbered them by over ten to one. Even if most of them were pretty weak, it wasn’t worth the risk. If Urus lost all the Chrotile on Mezo, it would wipe an entire generation out.

That didn’t explain why Urus allowed this to happen in the first place. Wasn’t she supposed to be all-powerful? Just based on the turtle’s size, Elysia knew she could crush the entire fleet of Changed. Her supposedly weaker brother delayed an elemental fleet, so she should have had no problem here. Something else was going on.

Whatever it was, she had other things to worry about, like holding on until the end of this challenge event. If she could, she had a feeling she would get something good. They needed all the help they could get to fend off the elementals.

That thought reminded her of her experiment, prompting her to pull up the current score.

Current Score: 4824

Current Ranking: 1st

She definitely got points from destroying watches, that was for sure. Was she getting bonus points for not killing? The system must count her destroying the watches as her defeating them. To be fair, the system wasn’t wrong. She could have easily killed any of them with how close she had to get to trigger the watches.

Actually, she probably could’ve killed them all with a few full powered chain lightnings. Maybe when she defeated them she received all their points, which had to be a lot with how they exterminated everything outside of dungeons. They probably crushed a bunch of dungeons, too. If she got this much points from destroying watches, there probably wasn’t much point in putting herself in danger by clearing dungeons.

Well, aside from growing her crystal horde and maybe finding some interesting crafting material. Plus, a few levels would’ve been nice. On the crafting material front, aside from the feathers that would’ve made for a nice nest, nothing stood out to her. Definitely not comparable to the serpent scale and spikes. Though being fair, that was an infant creature that could probably give most of these dinosaurs a run for their money.

That thing was also a special hidden boss. Maybe she should hunt some more. There was probably a hidden boss or two here, too. First, she needed to find a way to keep the Changed away.

A frown formed as she noticed a sudden uptick in flares to the north. Was Ione hunting? She supposed it didn’t really matter, as long as she played it smart. If anything, it would only increase their confusion. Their watches would point here, yet flares sprouted to the north.

Still, her frown deepened as the number of flared kept rising far past the point Ione should have moved on. However, after several minutes of this, the number stalled as she sensed Ione moving southward.

She must have everything under control. If she needed help, she was sure she would call for help.

Suddenly a searing pain shot through her, causing her to double over while clutching her chest. A whimper escaped her mouth, but a moment later, she froze, realizing the pain was not hers. In a panic, she checked her bond list to find Ione’s name flashing red.

Core hammering in her chest, Elysia spammed her link trying to contact Ione but only received pain filled out-of-focus images.

Without thinking, she slid down the massive tree before taking off in a sprint to the south where her bond was, unmoving.

Halfway there her logical mind wrestled back control, prompting her to prod the bond to find exactly where she was only for a shiver to run up her spine as Ione was near the southern shore probably surrounded by over a thousand Changed.

While trying her best to block out the pain and anger welling up in her through their bond, Elysia tried to formulate a plan. There was no way she could handle that many at once, but maybe she didn’t need to. All she needed to do was provide a distraction for Ione to escape.

Trying to sneak in would be pointless, as they probably were tracking her right now with those damn watches. She had to go in hard and fast, doing as much damage as she could before retreating.

The moment they hurt Ione, they forfeited any mercy. If they died, that was on them. Just like her life was in her own hands. She had to make sure both she and Ione made it out of this. They had a wayward sister to meet up with and some elementals to spank.