23

My blade sung with the same joy I felt. Darkness coated me as I drew a new weapon from my spatial storage. Oblivion continued to fight even though it had left my hand. Soul blades could be willful that way. I drew the black bow in my grip with strength that was far beyond my peak to the point of damaging my muscles. The arrow that sprung from the bow was so dark it competed with my soul blade for what little light it could absorb from the surroundings.

I wondered briefly how I'd been able to summon the bow at all since I wasn't wearing my spatial storage device. Not that I cared at the moment. That arrow struck it's mark. Tearing the main body of the spell beast in half, and exposing the wand thingy to my line of sight. Instead of blinking over to the wand I blinked the wand into my hand.

In my oversensitive mana state I could feel the pain of the spell beast. Now that I had it's blackened core in my hand I realized that this core had shattered long ago. I had no idea what was holding the poor thing together. I shattered the wand itself, and held the bare core in my hand. The spell beast froze, and so it all of it's echoes.

Shattering the wand told the beast I didn't want to control it. I tossed the frail broken core into my mouth. It wasn't very big so it was pretty easy for me to fit the whole thing in my mouth. I got the same sensation I used to get from absorbing dragon cores. Memories flooded my pain addled mind as the blobs of darkness that made the spell beasts turned into nothing but a substance that looked similar to oil.

My body was in so much pain that I wasn't able to process the message the system gave me. Let alone the memories that were flooding my mind. I flopped down on the ground. Unable to move anymore just as I thought. Fuck.

This isn't what I want right now. I could feel my mind slipping away. I wouldn't remain conscious for much longer. I could feel someone's arms wrapping around my midsection. My senses were completely addled at this point.

I was surprised that my sense of touch was still intact. I was laid out on the ground some distance away from where I fell, but it was hard to tell how far with my spatial senses failing. My mind collapsed in on itself completely. Plunging me into complete, and utter darkness. An unknown amount of time passed while I was out like a light.

When I did finally wake up I felt like someone had stomped on my guts a few times. I was starving. It felt like I hadn't eaten in months as I stood up slowly. My limbs had long since healed. My clothes had also repaired themselves as well.

I was a little disoriented by the sudden reawakening of my spatial senses. I sat up stiffly, and looked around me cautiously. I was in a cavern. A very large one from the feel of it. Sekka walked over to me from somewhere further back in the cavern.

He looked me in the eye curiously.

"You feel better now," Sekka raised a brow at me.

"How long was I out?" I rubbed the back of my neck stiffly.

"Two weeks," Sekka shrugged in a non comital way, "We stumbled on something pretty nice here."

"What do you mean by that?" I focused my full attention on Sekka.

"These guys have dug these tunnels down deep," He smirked, "There are over a dozen different large caverns down here. All of them packed to the brim with stolen booty. Including nearly five hundred stolen slaves. They were pretty skeptical of me at first, but they were pretty happy that we gave them food. Some of them are in pretty bad shape. You think you can take a look at them."

"First things first," I clapped my hands together, "Food."

"Right," Sekka chuckled, "You can eat their birds. We won't need them."

I scanned the world around me before heading up to the upper cavern where the birds were being kept. My core still wasn't full, but it was in much better shape then it had been. Something was different. I opened, and closed my hands curiously. Whatever had changed wasn't physical.

I debated on looking through my notifications, but the pain in my gut told me I needed to eat before worrying about anything else. The birds moved away from me in terror. They could sense my hunger. They didn't have anywhere to run though so it didn't matter.

I switched to my dragon form, and downed all the birds in that room in just a few scant moments. Twelve birds slid down my gullet so fast that I really didn't remember swallowing them all. The pleasing fullness that followed was more then enough to make me relax back into a nice calm chill mood. I returned to my human form when I was done, and went down to the lower rooms where the slaves were being kept. It was obvious that some of them were being prepped for sale while the vast majority of the woman were being used in another way.

They were in the worst shape out of everyone here. I went to them first. Healing them with my light affinity. I felt weak. Pain, and weakness was the backlash from my soul being damaged.

Pain was the backlash for my Reset spell. Three whole days of pain. I felt it all, but thankfully I didn't remember it all. Damaging my soul had some hidden benefits. The combined backlash had allowed me to remain mostly out of it while I was in pain.

Some of the slaves were beyond saving. I knew at a glance that there was nothing that could be done. There were already dying. Healing their bodies would only prolong their pain. Skipping over some slaves allowed me to better conserve my mana, but it also hit the remaining slaves pretty hard.