43 Better Usage

–VROOOOOOM

"Holy shit, I might actually burn my clothes off at this rate."

Yuuto jumped backward while dense mist covered his surroundings to block the raging balls of fire raining down on him.

Seeing that he placed enough cover, he pinched the edge of his shirt to stop the bits of embers from spreading and paused in place to watch the monster in front of him.

Ever since Yuuto noticed the sparks of fire around its body growing more in number, the monster's attacks began to gradually swell up in size. If he were to compare the attacks at the beginning to snowballs, then the one forming in front of him was akin to a large boulder.

One, two, three, four. Heaps of fire began to convene towards the back of this monster and large spheres flickered in the area they were in. Scorching the stone ground that was near it.

Yuuto predicted that a large barrage was about to come soon so he released more of his mist and formed half of a dome in front of him.

He kept an eye on Bronya who was a few meters away from him ready to bring her into the dome he was making. But he was reassured as she began to run towards an area that had multiple beams of bulky stone to hide behind.

–SWOOSH

Finding that the orbs reached their max size, the monster waved its free hand and a large barrage of flames began to assault Yuuto who hid behind his mist.

Faced with this fierce wave of fire, it can be considered intimidating to be on the brute end of this but Yuuto felt very confident in his way of blocking this sort of attack.

–BOOOOM

"My crystal can absorb the heat produced by a Doomsday Beast. So something like this is reasonable."

As the flames met with Yuuto's mist, shards of crystals began to form and gradually flew off. Hints of red briefly appeared within the surface of the ice but gradually faded away after absorbing the heat placed upon it.

This lasted for a few seconds before the flames died down and a moment of silence began to grow from the monster.

"It exhausted itself."

Looking at the hunched-over posture this monster showed, Yuuto parted his mist in the middle and traced his sword in the air once again. Multiple lines began to form before combining into a large cross that rapidly flew toward the monster.

–BOOOOM

"That should have done some decent damage to it."

Yuuto gathered his mist and moved from his initial position to find a good view of the monster past the heaps of dust hiding its appearance.

He continued to circle trying to find a place to look but as he took a step he noticed that a ring of fire began to flash just a few steps away.

This made Yuuto quickly change his direction and hints of ice circled him as his legs blurred and brought him towards the wall to his left side as quickly as he could.

A pillar of fire exploded just a few meters away from Yuuto and molds of rocks flew outwards showing how destructive this sudden attack was.

"That would have been bad if I didn't pay attention…"

Yuuto looked at his right hand and saw how his skin began to peel and turn bright red after getting caught within the blast radius of the pillar.

As the damage wasn't all too fatal, [Mother's Embrace] didn't activate but Yuuto felt like this was for the best as he didn't want that memory to activate to block just a few burn marks and waste a lot of his energy.

However, he didn't waste any time activating the healing portion of this memory as the heat began to rise within his hand, causing a throbbing pain to invade his injury.

Green light enveloped his burn marks and a warm feeling compared to the sharp pain he felt began to overtake it. Yuuto continued to heal the burn he got while he kept a sharp eye on the monster whose appearance began to show itself once more.

Other than the chunks of rocks missing from its body and a portion of its arms, sharp bursts of fire periodically exploded from the elbows and the back of its head.

A large ball of fire grew from above it but instead of sending it down, trails moved towards its core where it absorbed the sphere and the flames it had, exploded as if it was strengthening it.

"Hold up, isn't this what that Blaze Out of Space monster does?"

Yuuto looked closer and tried to match the monster to his memories. Other than the monster having red crystals and rocks covering its body, it hardly matched the slightly skinny version in the game.

If he were to compare the two, he felt like this one was more golem-like.

"Possibly a variant? But so far it doesn't have any other properties unique to the original Blaze Out of Space other than its appearance…"

Yuuto thought of this but still raised his guard to prepare for anything unexpected. 

"But there is still one thing I'm getting confused about…"

Throughout his fight so far with this monster, he had sent multiple attacks whether it was slashes or heaps of moonlight. But the damage was not spread out.

The majority of the attacks accumulated on one of its sides as he could see that one of its arms was diminished considerably compared to the other one.

And the only thing different he found that could have caused this was...

"Is it because of the trotter it's holding?" 

Whether it was a rain of mist or cuts from his sword, Yuuto felt like it was always leaning that side away from the attack.

His eyes glossed over the limpless trotter and felt like it had long passed away or fainted but the monster was still adamant on keeping it.

"What are you hiding…"

Yuuto felt his burnt hand return back to normal and turned his engine even more before rushing toward the monster.

Seeing Yuuto running its way, faster and hotter heaps of flames began to flash towards him and enveloped the entire floor where he was.

Silver hues and mist surrounded Yuuto and he jumped up while tracing multiple lines at the same time. He sent these lines towards the monster once more and as he expected the monster turned its body.

In his other hand, Yuuto conjured a spear and threw it on the other side where its wrist was located.

The monster felt a large collision on his wrist and saw bits of ashen rock fall off its arm. Anger began to surge inside it and it raised its head while balls of fire began to form near its mouth.

–BANG BANG BANG

–GRAHHHHH

The balls of fire faded as projectiles pierced its sockets and destroyed more of the rocky exterior it had.

"She has really good aim."

A smile grew on Yuuto's face as he saw Bronya raise her rifle and shoot a few more shots before moving her location.

Still, in the air, he took this brief moment to attack and throw more projectiles at the arm where the monster held the trotter.

More and more rocks began to fall off. But the flames appearing behind the monster didn't fade away despite all this. 

The monster waved its free hand and large flames exploded at its center forcing Yuuto to stop his onslaught and retreat backward while covering himself in his mist.

"Sorry, I took too long. It always moved back to where my gun was so I had to wait."

"It's alright, you shot at the perfect time."

Bronya ran towards Yuuto who landed and saw how loads of spears were embedded in the monster's arm. Yuuto waved his hand and these spears faded and turned into a large block of ice that held the monster's hand to the floor.

"It won't hold it for long so try and shoot at the crevice where the arm meets the torso."

Leaving Bronya with some instructions, Yuuto's legs blurred and rushed towards the trapped monster. 

Bronya took in a deep breath, widened her stance, and aimed at the area Yuuto instructed.

–BANG! BANG! BANG! 

Precise shots exploded from her rifle and chips of rock slowly fell off with each bullet she released.

While Bronya shot, Yuuto raised his sword, and hues of silver began to fade into the edge of his sword.

Yuuto willed the engine within him to exchange the energy it had to manifest more of the pale silver aura. Flickers of light on the tip of his sword grew before it completely covered it

Getting closer, he saw cracks forming within the encase ice he made indicating that the monster was about to be free. But this was enough time for him to use.

–BOOOOM

The formless moonlight that flowed gently within Yuuto's sword suddenly erupted and flashed with a sharp light.

The light met with the space between the shoulder and torso where it completely severed it. Separating the arm that held the trotter.

"Haah.. with my current mastery, forcing my formation of moonlight with energy from the Stellaron took more than I expected."

Similar to how he did something similar in his spar with Jingliu, Yuuto forcibly used the Stellaron's energy to supplement his current lack of mastery of the element.

Although his mastery had grown heaps compared to before he was able to be more flexible in how he used moonlight than just using it as an enhancement. It was still far from how Jingliu blasts explosive energy at a constant rate.

Feeling a bit fatigued, he grabbed the totter within the severed arm of the monster and jumped backward.

–VROOOOOOM

The monster let out a heavy scream seeing Yuuto run away and the space around it trembled. The speed it showed grew to its peak as the fire behind it burst out to its max. 

"Just how valuable is this thing to you!?"

Yuuto yelled out and poured more energy into his footwork where he avoided the pressure gradually appearing behind him. Craters from the fist the monster created caused the cavern to tremble. 

Bronya who was near a pillar shot more of her bullets at the center of the monster as she saw how energy gathered within that area and hoped that this would help slow this monster down.

But she didn't need to do it for long as the intense flames that monster had gradually lessened before it stopped completely. 

Yuuto stopped running and looked at the mountain of rock behind him and watched as it crumbled and fell to the ground. He gave out a relieved sigh and sat down.

"I guess it used up all of its energy and ran out…"

Laying on the ground he felt Bronya's presence appear beside him but took no notice of it as he concentrated on circulating the Stellaron's energy around his body. 

Feeling that he was back up to 80%, Yuuto sat up and saw how Bronya was seated next to him.

"Are you feeling alright?"

"No problem so far. I'm still as healthy as ever." Yuuto patted his arm as he said this and Bronya exhaled as she was a bit worried considering he didn't open his eyes after she approached him.

Finding that he was alright, Bronya moved her eyes to the body next to him as it aroused her curiosity.

"Why did that monster look so mad when you grabbed this thing?"

"That's something I'm also curious about."

Yuuto moved his hand over the trotter's body to find any semblance of a pulse or heartbeat. Unfortunately, he found nothing and predicted that the trotter died from the time the monster held it in its palm.

As he was thinking of this, bits of fragments floated out of the trotter's body and circled Yuuto. He noticed the specks of light from the corner of his eye and raised his hand to take these memories. 

As he scanned through some of these memories, two, in particular, made Yuuto freeze in shock at ones he didn't expect to see.

"This one is surely some sort of cheat, isn't it? [Spatial Body], a space within the trotter's body that can store objects of various sizes and quantities. A pocket dimension if you will."

Yuuto felt undoubtedly excited as this sort of skill was something very versatile in its uses. However, a brush of cold water washed over him when he looked more into this memory.

"The capacity this space holds entirely depends on the body this memory is in. For trotters, they have a special body that allows them to hold almost an unlimited quantity but for a human, at most, they can hold a few small objects…"

Digesting this information, Yuuto clicked his tongue in annoyance, feeling like this was too big of a barrier to have. 

"I wished I had more space within my body to hold stuff—!!!"

Subconsciously saying a few things before he would move on to the other memories. A sudden idea flashed in his head when he thought of additional spaces within his body.

Yuuto closed his eyes and appeared within the library inside the [Memory of the World] and looked for the neet book always inside him.

Reaching the center, he saw the book on the desk and it floated upwards when it noticed Yuuto.

It disappeared from its position and teleported to the top of his head where it stayed there as if it found its rightful place.

"Hey, can you thread this memory to the [Memory of the World]?"

Compared to [Core Memories] and regular ones he was accustomed to seeing, one memory in particular was one he had never seen in its entirety before.

[Memory of the World]

The [Core Memories] that formed his Stellaron and Antimatter Engine, he saw how they had different colors and emotions radiating off them in fragment form.

But for this entire library within him, he had never seen any semblance of a fragment that may have given him this power. So his thoughts always revolved around what he suspected was the root of this whole library. 

This book within him.

The book didn't move after hearing Yuuto's question but after a while, it moved and floated towards the fragment Yuuto held in his hand.

The pages flicked and the [Spatial Body] flew into the abundant pages within the book causing a deep embedded pain to attack Yuuto's mind. 

This pain caused him to fall to one of his knees and lasted for a few seconds. However, those seconds felt like a long time.

Beads of sweat appeared on Yuuto's face and he looked at the book floating in front of him.

"You could have at least warned me."

–FLOOOF~

"What do you mean 'I also didn't know~'..."

Yuuto pushed his fist outwards to punch the book but it immediately retreated leaving his sight and floating towards the endless bookshelves around him.

Leaving the confines of the library within him, Yuuto returned to the cavern where Bronya was looking at the trotter and patted its body sadly.

As he watched this a small smile grew on his face.

Yuuto got up from where he was and walked towards the heaps of rocks and red crystals that the monster was previously made from and grabbed a palm-sized crystal.

Fragments also floated above the heaps of rocks but Yuuto absorbed them without looking.

Feeling its texture, Yuuto grasped it tightly and thought of one thing.

[Archive]

The crystal flashed in white light and it faded into a small fragment. Within this fragment was the clear image of the crystal he had in his hand just moments prior.

"I was honestly feeling a bit sad I never used this skill all that much but I guess I have more uses now."

Yuuto absorbed the fragment and stored this object in his library. 

[Archive] was a skill that made a memory of any physical object he touched. Making something akin to a blueprint and storing it within his library.

But now with the addition of [Spatial Body], [Archive] was now able to do the opposite.

Make a physical object he touched into a memory. 

However, he can't just immedietly turn any large object into a memory such as turning the Engine of Creation into a fragment as this 'memory' holds a colossal amount of information for him to absorb.

"I can probably absorb objects around the size of Svarog for now but I still need to check the extent of what can be stored."

A list of things began to formulate within Yuuto's mind but he decided that he should check those things later.

"Let's see this other memory that I'm highly curious about…."

***

[The vault of Alexandra… who would have thought it would be here?]

[Haha! I also thought she would place it in Qilpoth's Fort but I was greatly mistaken.]

[I agree. Thankfully you were 'given' the authority of being a proxy so it all ends well~]

[Finding information about the ********* was a huge pain but finding this place was a stroke of luck.]

The deep chuckles of two men rang around the room as their footsteps echoed through the quiet room they were in.

[Go and do whatever you want in here.]

Darkness continued to appear and the slight shivering was barely audible for any creature to hear.

–SWISH

[...An.. animal..?]

The darkness eventually disappeared and was replaced by a small tinge of light. Beyond this light was the face of a woman who had short soft hair and eyes that held a hue of gray.

[Did you find anything?]

[Uhh– N-no…]

[Is that so.]