Finally taking my fist out of my mouth, I realised where the odd taste had come from. When stabbing the Shattered, I had gotten blood on my hand and thus, when biting down on my hand to keep from screaming, in my mouth. Spitting in an attempt to get rid of the taste didn’t help and I realised that I wouldn’t be able to conjure up Liquid Moonlight, my favourite drink on Mundus. But even if I could, I doubted I would be able to drink it, not without increasing my Ice Magic, or maybe my Ice Affinity, one would be easy, the other not so much.

But it made me realise that while I had grabbed clothes and documents, I had missed something even more important, namely food, drink and similar supplies. A bigger backpack, maybe a sleeping bag, all those things would be important and incredibly valuable in the future and I doubted that supply would increase.

No, I had to act, and I had to act now, or it might be too late. Acting during the day would only make me suffer from the Curse of the Sun, so it was now or never.

Pushing myself up, I began to carefully make my way out of the shrub I had used to hide, remembering all the lessons Sigmir, Adra and even Rai had taught me about stealth and remaining unheard. It wasn’t enough to get me the skill, but nothing attacked me while leaving the shrub and with the bit of Darkness Magic I had been able to regain, I was somewhat confident that I wasn’t seen as I began to make my way through the streets.

The situation hadn’t improved during my brief stint in the shrub, things were still royally messed up, maybe even worse than before. The blue fires had mostly faded, but instead, there were now normal fires everywhere, houses, cars and even a few bushes burning, making the night much brighter than I would have liked.

While moving, I noticed that there were a lot of Shattered, the former humans that had now burning pits instead of eyes, going around but after considering for a moment, I started to wonder. Sure, there were a lot of them, but compared to the number of people who should have been in the area, there were too few. I doubted that anyone living would stay in a burning building, whether the flames were blue or red, so where were the people? The Shattered I saw made up maybe a tenth of the people that had lived in the area, adding maybe the same number of Shattered out of sight, which left some eighty per cent of the populace missing.

Swallowing, I realised where some of them might have gone. They might have been sleeping, right next to their beloved spouse, or maybe down the hall from their child, when the change had hit. And their spouse, or child, might have been unable to withstand the infusion of Astral Power and everything else. They might have Shattered, their eyes burning out and their minds, or maybe their souls, being replaced with something else, something that only knew hunger. Given the strength the Shattered I had seen had displayed, I had no doubt that a human, stunned by the pain and confused by the events, would be easy prey, especially if the attacker wore the face of their loved ones.

What a horrible way to go.

Shaking off the horror, I continued moving forward when I noticed another Shattered moving around the alley I was planning to head into. For a moment, I considered moving around, before realising that power was what I needed. I had no idea what the future would bring but I knew that having power was infinitely better than having none.

Letting out a breath, I considered my approach for a moment. My blades were excellent weapons and with a sneak attack, I would likely be able to kill the Shattered. But at the end of the day, I was a Sorceress, not a rogue, assassin or fighter of any kind. Magic was what I had been good at in Mundus, and magic was what would bring back my Sigmir.

So, Magic would be what I had to train, even if it would be difficult in the beginning. I would have to craft myself a new set of shuttles, or some sort of blade I could wield with my Ice Magic, but that would take time, something I didn’t have right now.

Glancing around, I made sure that nothing seemed to be nearby, before carefully drawing a five-rune formation, composed of Ice and Hail. It was the strongest direct attack-spell I could use at the moment and I channelled as much power into it as I could until the formation almost unravelled. The result was both excellent and utterly underwhelming, the mental dissonance between the two emotions quite amusing to me.

When I compared it to the power I had casually thrown around as Morgana, it was less than a fart compared to a hurricane, but when considering the way the Shattered was bodily tossed to the ground when hit by the fist-sized hail corn, I was quite happy, especially when I realised that the corn was still there, allowing me to seize it with my Ice Magic and batter the Shattered, not letting it get back up.

It only took two more strikes to shatter the Shattered’s skull, the flames in their eyes going out, leaving me with some EXP and, much more importantly, a notification that I had gained my Ice-Magic Skill and that my Ice Rune Mastery had levelled to two, both making me quite happy.

Keeping my head on a swivel, I kept sneaking forward, my breathing calm and even, trying to regain as much of the Astral Power I had just spent as possible, until I noticed another Shattered.

Again, I wove together the same runes, conjuring up another Hail Corn and smashing it into the Shattered’s head, before using my Ice Magic to bludgeon it, until it stopped moving. Sadly, the second Shattered I had attacked had made a lot of noise thrashing around on the ground and I could hear movement.

Unwilling to bet that it would be a fellow survivor, I immediately began weaving together another Hail Corn, the initial strike important to stop an attacker’s momentum, only to let out a quiet curse when I saw that it wasn’t one Shattered that came out between the houses but a pair of them.

Regardless, I needed EXP and power, so they had to die.

They noticed me, just as my spell was ready and the first one had their movement toward me broken, when the Corn smacked into their face, sending them tumbling to the ground. As the Hail was travelling through the air, I quickly drew my blades, trying to split my attention between bludgeoning the one I had sent to the ground and engaging the other one but I quickly noticed that I wasn’t there yet.

Trying to focus on my Ice Magic only really worked if I stopped, something I couldn’t do while fighting. Thus, I only managed to smash the hail corn into the first Shattered once, before their partner was on me.

Brutal strength, excellent endurance and a near immunity to pain, those were the biggest advantages of the Shattered, as far as I could see. It made them a pain in the rear to fight but it also made them predictable. Letting them lunge, before evading and striking them would be my best bet, only possible thanks to countless hours of training with Mrs Wu. If I could evade the strike of a trained agent cum assassin, I could evade the mindless lunge of a Shattered, even if their strength gave them inhuman speed.

I had yet to learn all of their vital spots, but the spine seemed to be one of them, maybe they used the human nervous system in some way. Either way, as I ducked under the swiping arms of the Shattered, I managed to step forward and into it, allowing me to pierce one of my blades into their spine, roughly in the middle of their back. It wouldn’t completely paralyse a person, but it would take out their legs, which was good enough for me.

Leaving the blade in, just in case there was some sort of regeneration going on, I made myself ready for the other one, stepping clear of the one that had just gone down.

It didn’t disappoint me, coming at me with the same, brutal lunge, only this time, it was already damaged. Curious how my blades would compare to the impact of my magic, I didn’t go for the spine, instead, I simply started slashing it, testing its reactions and to see how long it would take to kill it.

The answer was, far too long for my tastes. By the time it went down, there were dozens of deep cuts on its arms, all of them leaking far too little blood for their size, with a few more across its torso, adding to the mess. Looking at the cuts, trying to estimate which I had made first and which later, I concluded that the Shattered were regenerating, and not even slowly at that. So, I had to add regeneration to their advantages, making me curious about what would happen if I used Blood Magic on them.

The idea brought a grin to my face, when I looked at the other Shattered, still alive, dragging its body towards me with its arms as if it wanted to volunteer for the advancement of Magic in this new world of ours.