Plague Bearer?

After explaining to Ellis he turned his head toward the remaining two crows that weren't checked, they were the ones that Ellis had blasted toward the ground

He picked them up to check for any spatial feathers only to find a very weak pulse coming out one of them

The poor fellow had one of its wings smashed under it, he felt its body up and found that the weak rib cage was broken into several pieces, barely missing the lungs as it the broken pieces punctured in between them, ironically that resulted in the heart being poked, allowing \ its life was slowly slipping away with each breath

YuJu gazed at the poor creature for several seconds, his deep empty eyes seemed to be lost in thought, seeing him so Ellis and Anput kept quite by the side and did not disturb

Finally, after almost a minute, as the crow's life seemed to be at its end YuJu decided, a blood pearl appeared in his hand, with his other hand he took out a piece of leather from the bag

Unwrapping the piece of leather he revealed a green beating heart, the ugly looking heart beat ever so slowly, only once every few seconds, its life span was close to snuffing out by the day

After taking out those two treasures he looked at the half-dead crow, took a deep breath, then dropped the blood pearl on the green heart

Ellis watched the two treasures with anticipation, but there was no reaction, the blood pearl merely stayed put on the heart with no response whatsoever, it seemed the combination failed?

As she thought that the heart beat once again, garnering an instant reaction from the blood pearl as it melted into the heart, mixing red and green together, then seeping further into the heart, as it moved within it the heartbeats got faster and faster, eventually becoming more vigorous than any heart, each beat sounding like a drum

Once it got to this point YuJu didn't hesitate to shove the bloody green heart into the mouth of the crow, then closing its beak shut, making it swallow the big heart forcefully

The dying crow suddenly felt great pain coming from its stomach as an acidic taste made its flickering consciousness suddenly recover, followed by a blood churning sensation running through its veins

It struggled to move but its broken body couldn't helo it in any way, it could only caw weakly, begging the monster in front of it to stop its torture and end its life

But its saw the terrifying existence that had scared away its leaders stand up and walk away, followed by the other two creatures that obeyed him as they all stood a distance away from itself, watching its suffering with either cold, sympathetic, or curious eyes

"CAW!"

It cawed in anger as it felt the injustice it was put in, these merciless beasts tortured it for god knows what but it could only gravel and twist in pain, it swore that if it got out of this situation it would rip that monster into shreds, even a cornered rat would bite, much less a savage beast bestowed with space characteristic

Within its struggling thoughts it suddenly recalled those space characteristic, they allowed those leaders to escape as they curved through space, but most importantly store all the treasure that their hearts desired

So perhaps, just maybe, it can actually store this mad power surging within it? If it could absorb most of it can it endure the rest and tide through this?

As soon as it thought of this its survival instincts kicked in, its black feathers were covered with dark mist, but instead of covering the body like the rest of the Trove Crows the dark mist seeped into the body, heading toward the source of its agony, the beating heart in its stomach

First, the mist covered the pour of acids that kept melting the flesh, making holes everyone inside the crow, though it easily contained it it still took plenty of time to slowly pour the liquid into the space fluctuations it made, as it slowly stored the acids some more poured out the heart, returning the body to its decomposing state

Feeling the dilemma the crow gave another angry caw, opting to leave the already secreted liquid and cover the source instead

With the heart covered the mist started to slowly devour the new liquid while it expanded itself

At the beginning it barely kept up with the new acids but with time it slowly started to not only devour the liquid but the heart itself

This brought the crow happiness within this unbearable tide of pain, it saw hope, hope that was blown away soon as it suddenly felt the heart beat within itself, a hammering feeling spread through its body, revibrating through every nook and cranny, reforming its bones and flesh, but at the same time destroying them

With fear, it tried to suck the heart into space again but another beat interrupted it, spreading unimaginable pain through its cells, it still didn't give up and tried again, and again, only to be hammered over and over, helplessly enduring the pain

Its blue painful eyes found themselves staring at the cold green eyes that overlooked its misery without a shred of emotion, as if it's suffering, its life and death, were no more than insignificant struggles

"CAW!"

Seeing them made it furious, incensed! How could this monster treat it with no semblance of sympathy, torture it for no reason, how could such grievance occur?

With wide eyes staring at the monster in front of it it gave up devouring the liquid in it, gave up slowly devouring the heart, it enveloped the whole thing with the mist, throwing caution to the wind and sucking the heart as it beat into the mist!

Bebum!

The beat didn't revibrate through its body, its didn't ravage its cells, instead, it could feel it in its mind, echoing in the empty space as it ruffled its feathers, making them shake like hard wind blowing through them

Beat after beat turned the originally dark feather into a deep shade of green, slowly dripping with a poisonous liquid that sizzled the ground beneath, the crow's twisting body stopped struggling and slowly relaxed, one of the eyes fixed ahead turned from the original sky blue into the same shade of green as the feathers, looking dangerously toxic, as if a near glance could bore a hole through the receiver

The feeling of power echoed through its feathers while its body started to adapt very quickly to the toxicity, rebuilding itself with a slow but steady speed, it wouldn't take long for its fatal injures to be healed, then it could use this tremendous new power for its own purposes

Recalling the reason it became like this its pair of blue and green eyes turned toward the monster that played with it, a fierce glint flashed through its eyes as it thought of how to fill that beasts body with the same poison he filled it with, watch him scream and struggle futilely as he was melted from the inside out, before finally turning him into a mere blood puddle

Two pairs of eyes locked together, one cold, and the other gradually turning into horror

Yes, horror, the only thing remaining on its mind as soon as it peered into his deep and empty pupils, whatever thoughts of revenge and anger flew away as primal fear crept in their place

Maybe it didn't sense them before because it didn't have such mastery over space, it only felt a little afraid and followed those strong leaders voice of retreat, but now that it gained a perhaps deeper understanding over space it realized that whatever was standing in front of it was merely a vessel housing an entity beyond its comprehension

Its originally demeaning attitude disappeared and it shrunk itself into a ball, afraid of moving an inch, if it could fly it might have even escaped with all its strength, sadly its wing was still broken and it couldn't go anywhere for a while, in the end, it could only stay put and wish this thing whatever it was would let it go

YuJu kept staring eye to eye with the green crow, at first he readied himself for a small scuffle but after seeing the fear he believed everything should be easy

On the side Ellis who prepared for a fight as well put her blade away, looking at the magnificent crow with amazement, she couldn't be blamed for that as the creature really looked too extraordinary, well extraordinarily dangerous but still amazing

Anput by the side also gave the crow a look of curiosity, she recalled the root that's her master had tamed and thought that maybe this fellow was also about to join the family, she was more than eager to have a comrade that would be helpful to her master, though she didn't feel the same connection the root had with her master before it transformed with the crow in front of her

While the two contemplated YuJu's voice sounded from the side

"Kill it"

"Huh?"

Ellis gave a baffled sound and turned to him with shock, didn't he just make it stronger to enslave it?

But before she could open her mouth to ask Anput pounced from the side, her master's orders are absolute, and to kill she shall

Seeing her go toward the dangerous creature alone Ellis panicked and followed hastily, her sword in hand

The shivering crow clearly didn't expect the two followers to attack, and while it didn't feel much danger from the hound it still felt a lethal intent from the being that looked like that monster, and while it didn't want to even move within his sight it still had to defend

Its other wing opened up and swung towards the hound, shooting a wave of toxic venom toward her that forced her to move aside while Ellis jumped over it and struck down with her sword that was covered in a purple hue

Seeing her coming down with a swing the crow panicked and wanted to run but its broken bones barely supported it standing, thus with zero mobility it could only swing another wave of poison toward the airborne enemy

Ellis didn't try to dodge seeing the incoming wave and greeted it with her own sword, easily slashing through it and cleaving the defenceless crow in half, bringing the dangerous looking creature down without much effort

"Haah"

She let out a disappointed breath as she looked at the dead creature, sad that it hadn't joined them as she hoped for it would have eased her burden in future fights

"Though looking at it, there wasn't much fighting capability?"

She murmured under her breath

Thud!

She heard the sound of a small object falling and looked down, to her horror she saw the sword that was covered with her aura fall down to the ground, melted from the midsection, just where she had sliced the poison