“The evolution of predatory creatures often depended heavily on not only the environment they called home, but also the sort of prey they hunted for food. Over time, these creatures would slowly become more specialized, more suitable for their chosen environment and prey. The changes might be subtle, taking place over generations, but families of researchers who spent generations to watch over such changes had confirmed these.” - Lomis Ednoia Kveisy, 17th Generation researcher of monsters and their evolution, from the Kingdom Down Under.

“What in the deities’ name are those!?” Celia yelled in surprise when she saw the grotesque visage of the monsters. There were dozens of the beasts around them, and the guards hired by the caravans already formed a protective circle to support each other. Despite the numbers involved, the guards were quickly put on the back foot by the ferocious beasts, which had sturdy carapace that deflected most sword and spear strikes.

Similarly, arrows and bolts launched from the many bows and crossbows used by the guards bounced off harmlessly while only leaving scuff marks on the carapace of the monsters. A lucky few sliced off an eyestalk or two, but that only seemed to inconvenience and anger the creatures rather than make them wary and back off.

“Curse our luck!” said the merchant who drove the carriage the two unliving women were on. The somewhat portly, middle aged merchant visibly paled when he saw the beasts that had encircled them, doubly so when he saw how the guards struggled against the beasts. “Those are Stone-shelled Mawcrabs. Some of the nastiest critters in this region. They were never spotted near this road before, so why in Tohrmut’s bony ass are these things even here!?”

“The guards seem to be having issues dealing with them,” said Aideen all too calmly, which seemed to exasperate the merchant even more.

“Of course they would have issues! Those things have carapaces as tough as stone and rocks! That’s where they got their name from!” said the merchant while wildly gesturing with his hands. “Our guards equipped themselves to drive off wolves or predatory fowl like Gale Rippers, not for dealing with armored beasts like these!”

“Well, guess we should pitch in a bit as well. What do you think, Celia?” said Aideen, still all too nonchalantly.

“Sure, Miss,” replied Celia.

“You take the west side and go south. I’ll take the east and go north from there,” said Aideen as she vaulted over the wagon’s side to the merchant’s surprise. Before Aideen even landed on the ground, her black staff was already held in her hand, and she took off toward the east side at a run. Celia did the same and landed on the wagon’s other side, her eyes looking towards the battle on the west side.

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“Miss! It’s dangerous out there! We’d need your healing after this mess is done, please don’t risk yourselves needlessly!” yelled the merchant from his seat after he gathered his wits. Aideen was too far away to reply to him by then, though.

“No need to worry,” assured Celia in Aideen’s stead. As the merchant’s eyes turned to her with a questioning look, Celia pulled out her weapon from the storage ring Aideen had lent her all those decades ago. The sight of the large polearm made the merchant shut his mouth in surprise as Celia hefted it over one shoulder with practiced ease despite the weight. “We’re not unused to having to deal with things… like these.”

With those words said, Celia herself took off towards the west side, reaching the fighting in less than a minute. She arrived just as one of the Mawcrabs scythed at one of the guards with its left scythe-arm and landed a bleeding, jagged wound on the man’s chest. The guard fell on his back from the force of the hit, and watched with despair as the creature lifted the same bloody arm high as it prepared to land a finishing blow to him.

Except the blow never came.

Instead, he saw Celia basically leap past his prone body as she brought down her weapon – which to the guard looked like a long, rather thick blade mounted on a polearm-like handle – in a vicious downwards swing. The edges of Celia’s blade were rather dull, but they still ended at a narrow point and were built sturdy to handle greater forces than normal.

As such, the full-powered swing she did smashed right into the top of the Mawcrab’s shell, shattered the stone-like carapace, and went in to crush the creature’s squishy innards below. The monster twitched and cavorted its limbs erratically for a brief moment before it fell to the ground and lay still, as dead as it could be.

While the hard shells of the Mawcrab proved to be too much for the swords and spears that most of the guards carried, Celia’s weapon was far heavier and sturdier, the brute force of her swing more than enough to break through the creature’s carapace. While the guards lacked maces or warhammers to do the same, some of them got an idea when they saw what she did.

Those guards flipped their swords around, holding it by the blade with their gloved hands, and smashed the guard or pommel at the beast as hard as they could. Some only succeeded in bending or breaking their own weapons, but a few found success and created cracks at the shells of the beasts they fought. More hits were immediately aimed at those cracks, and within a few minutes a couple more of the beasts had been downed.

By then Celia had taken out a good half dozen more of the creatures as she circled around towards the south along the perimeter. Her heavy blade had simply hewn through the beasts’ limbs, and even lighter blows left cracks on their carapace. Celia’s decades in the prairie had not been ones where she neglected her training, as she kept up with her practice over those years as well.

As a result, she definitely felt herself growing stronger. The blade that used to be so heavy she could barely swing it for long now felt like an extension to her body, as she used it with expertise and allowed the momentum of her swings to flow into and feed more power into the next strike. Such a fighting style would have been unwise for most, as it meant leaving openings in between her strikes, but it was less of an issue for Celia.

She was unliving after all.

A couple times, the beasts managed to land the sharp end of its pincers or its scythe-arm and gouged open bleeding wounds on her body, but Celia simply ignored it. Unless the beasts damaged her body enough to prevent her from fighting, there was nothing they could do to stop her.