(16.1) Skill Points

Aki ducks behind a broken stall in the marketplace.

There are more broken stalls and overturned goods than undamaged items but that is to be expected after several hours of fighting within the city. More concerning at present is the amount of dead bodies Aki can see all around her.

It is one thing for them to be potential threats risen by excess miasma. On the other hand, should they rise again, she could use her pact magic to restore her faculties and keep healing herself.

However, even crouched down and hidden from view, she can tell they properly had their spine obliterated and head crushed.

Aki curses once more, looking at the pellucid window that displays her status.

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[66 Skill Points available]

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Not far behind her, a gigantic, crow-like monster crawls after her, leaping from the rooftops and crawling along the walls of the streets and alleys Aki ran through.

"Tricky little bastard, I'll kill you!" the crow monster screeches at her.

It bounces off the walls, shifting mid movement into a sleek, powerful panther-like creature with huge tusks and multiple tails ending in stingers.

Aki chuckles fearfully. It appears as though Fremont wasn't pulling any more punches.

She spams her illusion spells at the rapidly shifting changeling, interspersed with Witchbolts and pure mana attacks, to try and slow him down with mixed results.

Pillars of fire, devastating boulders, and geysers of hot water came as a continuous barrage against the changeling.

Aki had her distance and was planning to keep it as much as she could with her illusions.

"How dangerous!" Fremont challenges, ducking away from another spurt of flames. "But you'll run out of mana if you keep blasting away like that! Didn't those Acolytes teach you anything, eh?"

Aki grins from behind the fruit basket. He says that but illusions are far simpler than that. Real spells would be draining but illusions don't need to work the same way.

Rather than making a full manifestation, illusions require targeting a person's senses. To make it even easier, all one needs to do is take a little of the real thing, duplicate and edit it together, then throw it at a target.

What once was an ember now becomes a raging fire. For even less of a cost, creating a directional illusion is just as effective in duping the senses.

Such are Aki's attacks. While Fremont sees decently powerful spells, someone standing to the side or in front would see the original thing enveloped by a translucent mana curtain.

"How long can you hold out, poppet?" He jeers.

Aki responds by flicking her amulet up, sending a spiralling fire at him. The attack goes wide, hardly requiring the evasive manoeuvres Fremont takes to avoid the dangerous looking attack.

Fremont flaps a pair of wings to bat away the flames before shifting into a snake-like creature to get closer.

"Consider it a treat, to be devoured by the rare and unseen changeling!" Fremont announces like he's promoting a spectacle. "How many can say they've met a changeling and lived to tell the tale, eh?"

"What about all the people at the palace!" Aki retorts.

Silence.

Fremont roars, followed by the sound of wood and stone breaking apart. His assault violently renewed, stalemate be damned.

"That's not good." Aki dives to safety, only just managing to raise an illusory veil to hide her movements from him. She raises her amulet to her throat and shouts. "Why don't you cool off, creep!"

Her voice channels and is thrown from her position to the opposite side of the market. Fremont whips about and swings his serpentine tail where the sound came from, cratering the stones but doing no further harm.

"Where are you!?" He morphs once more, turning into a large, hulking creature with various holes all over its body.

Some sort of smoke starts to pour from the openings in Fremont's body.

"That doesn't look good." Aki flings her arm forward, casting a dual geyser of fire and water at the oddity.

Fremont shifts into a crocosaur again, annoyed by the spells and passing through the illusory flames of another attack.

"Illusions!!" Fremont roars deafeningly. "I knew something was off! A filthy illusionist, are you?!"

No longer paying heed to Aki's attempts to slow him down, Fremont charges through the spells.

"So that's what happened! You've been tricking my sight all this time!"

"What's the matter? Are you mad it took you that long to figure it out?" Aki taunts Fremont. "I was thinking a change in scenery would give you better luck."

"You admit so easily!" He laughs humorlessly and is still looking around in an attempt to pinpoint her location. "Is this your attempt at misdirection or are you really so witless? Opponents like you make me reconsider my profession."

Aki leans forward a bit, her amulet pressed against her neck. "Since you couldn't beat someone like me after trying so hard, I thought you'd be grateful."

"Cheeky brat, you'll regret that soon enough" Fremont jeers.

The beating of raven wings scatters dust and flames everywhere. Some of the stalls that stand away from the burning buildings catch fire from the spreading embers. Already the marketplace, left barricaded and defended, has become a field of fire and dust.

He shifts back into his humanoid form. However, instead of spiked arms, they are tentacle-like and end with bony scythes. "Think yourself a battlefield genius since you pulled one over on me, huh?"

Fremont whips one of his tentacles around, completely destroying one of the larger stalls. He growls angrily when his attack meets nothing.

"Oh, I see. The little one wants to play hide-and-seek, is that it?"

Fremont whips their tentacles around rapidly, cratering the flagstones and destroying the stalls further away and exploding knocked over barrels and buckets of goods.

"You must think I'm one for games since I toyed with you, eh?"

He strikes rapidly again, crushing the stall next to Aki's hiding place.

"He's moving way faster now." Aki grits her teeth and steels her resolve. "I couldn't see his attacks before but now… I'll deal with the consequences later."