77 Spar With Kretea

Making the first move, Kretea quickly moves to close the gap while Astur uses her new skill, Alchemical Release, causing an illusory barrier of shifting colours to follow Astur in a 50-metre radius. But Kretea, already in front of Astur, shifts her hair in the form of a first and punches Astur.

Astur, however, is undeterred and decides to use her strong body to her advantage. Purposefully taking the hit from Kretea to draw her in closer as Astur sets off a dozen Big Blast Balls from under her feet, creating a loud bang with a large cloud of smoke.

Unfortunately, the damage isn't much even with all of Astur's bonuses. This is primarily due to the Big Blast Balls being old items that haven't been updated since the first days of Astur's arrival on Vopal as well as Kretea's defensive bonuses reducing the damage too. Before Kretea's defensive bonuses kick in, Astur's suicidal bombing attack would have done 2,131 damage, but with Kretea's high reaction speed, she was able to block the brunt of the damage with her shield, bringing it down to 1,492 and then further being reduced by her innate defensive talent, bringing it to 1,342. Not to mention another large portion of the damage was absorbed by Kretea's armour, eating up 60% of the damage. Thus the total health loss for Kretea was a meagre 536.

"Thankfully she can't rely on her armour to save her again. A shame her shield is far more durable than the armour," Astur thinks, jumping back to create some space as Kretea dashes out from the smoke, her armour heavily damaged.

Astur uses Focus and Analyse, followed by casting Resistance Break on Kretea causing her to take 360 damage. As this damage is mental based magic damage, Kretea's unable to defend against it, causing her to flinch slightly as it slows her movement. Taking advantage of this, Astur targets Ether Blast at the ground several steps ahead of Kretea. Just as predicted, Kretea keeps rushing forward, unaware of the trap Astur laid a few steps ahead of her. Unlike Asterion who is large enough to wield a tower shield with a single arm, Kretea require both to use it and keeping it in a ready state will reduce her field of view. Astur uses this to her advantage as Kretea steps right over the area Astur had targeted with Ether Blast just as it finishes its cast time.

An explosion bursts from the ground directly underneath Kretea's feet. Being directly on top of the epicentre means she isn't able to defend herself with her shield. With her armour already damaged, the only thing defending Kretea is her passive damage reduction, causing her to take 90% of Ether Blast's 1,602 damage.

However, with Kretea's quick reaction speed, she was able to move into a position so that she could use the explosion to send herself flying towards Astur. Although she had to drop her shield to do so, Kretea uses her body as a missile using the explosion to propel her. Kretea moves her hair in front of her, forming a drill-like structure. Piercing Astur's left arm, Kretea begins to drain some of Astur's blood.

Kretea's a Demon known as a Kahafatir. The most distinguishing feature is their long hair which they can manipulate as they please. They also use their hair to drain the blood of others to nourish themselves. Draining blood through their hair will give a strong but temporary increase in a Kahafatir's power, normally that is. Unfortunately, her target is Astur.

The blood of an Infinity Wolf is an incredibly wondrous substance with a variety of uses. But the raw unfiltered blood of an Infinity Wolf is a horribly toxic substance to anything and anyone that isn't also an Infinity Wolf, even High Gods would be hard-pressed to deal with it.

Immediately feeling something wrong, Kretea steps back and withdraws her hair. But it's too late as the deed has been done. Not even a second later, Kretea falls to her knees as the poison seeps through her bloodstream.

Slowly walking up to her, the wound on Astur arm is visibly healing and her HP will be back to full in a matter of minutes.

Seeing her condition, Astur gives a knowing look to Asterion who says, "Kretea is unable to continue, thus Lady Astur is the winner."

Their fight lasted just long enough for it to count towards Astur's Advancement Quest, she was awarded 10 points.

"We can talk about the battle later. Let's get Kretea treated first," Astur says, while also using one of the skills that normally go unused, Illness Discernment. Normally this skill would only be able to discern treatment methods for common afflictions, but since the poison comes directly from Astur, she is able to use the skill to create a recipe for an antidote.

"Bring her to my workshop. I've recently made a new batch of healing items, I'll go on ahead and get things ready and prepare an antidote."

Returning to her workshop, Astur sets aside the many healing potions she made earlier on a table before starting work on synthesising an antidote. Before long, Elizabeth and Ystur come in carrying Kretea, while asterion waiting outside since his body is too large to fit into Astur's workshop.

"Give her one those potions by the table to start with, and if she looks like she's getting worse then give her another," Astur says, never taking her eyes off the cauldron.

After a few hours, of Kretea drinking health potions to keep her alive, Astur eventually finishes making the antidote, and thanks to her Improved Synthesis Skill, she was able to get a couple of extra vials.

Immediately after giving the antidote to Kretea, Astur uses her Scholar's Eye of Insight on her and see the poisoned status on Kretea instantly vanish. To Astur's surprise, healing Kretea also counted towards treating a patient for her Apothecary Class Advancement.

"Does this mean I can intentionally poison people to complete this Quest?" But Astur quickly disregarded this thought, or at least part of it, "No, I shouldn't try to poison the people around me. I should find some military outpost of the Kingdom at some point and discretely poison them before offering my services," Astur thinks as she, Elizabeth, Kretea, and Ystur head outside where Asterion is waiting.

Seeing his daughter healthy again, Asterion smiles slightly, although no one can see from underneath his helmet.

"It is good that thou hast recovered. Doth thou understand what thou didst wrong 'i thy broil?" Asterion asks.

"I still think it's difficult to understand what he says," Ystur comments.

Kretea nods, "Lady Astur used my reduced field of view against me and laid out a trap. I also failed to completely understand my opponent which allowed her to use my own ability against me. This resulted in me being unable to continue. I'll be sure to train and study more."

"I look forward to thy future prospects," Asterion says.

"Kretea can't really be faulted for being unknowledgeable about the properties of Infinity Wolves, there are likely zero records about us on Vopal. If anything, perhaps oral tales were handed down through the ages. But this should serve as a good lesson as be more careful about whose blood you drink," Astur says as she silently thinks, "I didn't even know about the toxic blood until the first time Liz drank it."