Operation Hollow Forest [4]

Alexia swung her sword, killing another aberrant. It felt like there was an endless hoard of them.

"Why are there so many? Maybe Shivan attracted too many." Alexia complained to no one in particular. "But still..."

With every swing, the skills she lost over time were slowly coming back to her. Her control of her mana became more precise and her swordsmanship became more refined.

A grade 4 Lycorix suddenly lunged at her, jaws wide open. She used her sword to block the bit of the aberrant.

Two other aberrants, being grade 5 attacked Alexia from behind while her sword was stuck inside the Lycorix's mouth.

Shivan, with a single punch to the head, killed the Lycorix. When the jaw slackened, Alexia pulled the sword out of the Lycorix's mouth and killed the two aberrants behind her.

'I've grown stronger since the start of the year.' Shivan mused inwardly. Compared to the start of the year where he was struggling kill four Grade 6s and a Grade 5.

But with his experiences throughout the year, he was able to massively improve his control and output.

As Alexia and Shivan were culling the numbers, Alexia's intuition warned of her of attack coming from behind. She turned around to dodge, but her arm got slashed slashed mid-evasion.

Turning around, she sees a giant, yelloww centipede with large serated legs. The legs were black, while also glowing red hot.

The slash didn't go deep, but the around the cut was burned. The dark mana also seeped into Alexia's skin.

"Grr.." Alexia suppressed her pain by biting her lip. Her lip starting bleeding but she ignored it.

The aberrant was a Grade 4 Mantipede. With sharp legs and ability to heat them up to greater than 750°C, making easy to slice through most objects.

The Mantipede rushed forward, going to bite her. Alexia countered with her katana. However, with her right arm being injured, the power of the swing was weak. Therefore katana was deflected. 

Just as the mandibles were about to close around Alexia's arm, a stream of a blood blocked its attack.

Using her gift, hemokenesis, she created strings of blood, which forced the mandibles open. 

"KEEEE!"

The Mandipede screeched as it was unable to move its mandibles. It tried to swing around the rest of his body to attack Alexia.

Before it could, Alexia jammed her sword down the mouth of the Mantipede. She moved the sword inside the Mantipede's mouth until she was able to cut it open, killing it instantly.

After killing it, Alexia reformed the blood strings into spears. She spears were launched all around her, killing several aberrants.

***

After an arduous 15 minutes of killing, there were no more living aberrants in surrounding area. There were bodies strewn everywhere everyone was covering aberrant blood.

Mentally, the four of them where completely exhausted. The concentration of dark mana had grown to an uncomfortable high amount and they could barely maintain layer of mana.

Despite facing mostly weaklings, when the weaklings came in such large hoards, it became a challenge to deal with.

"Ha... ha...Shivan, are there any more around?" Chloe questioned, completely out of breathe.

"Nope." He responded tiredly. "I can't hear anything."

"Alexia?"

"Same." Alexia's response was the same as Shivan's. "Nothing on my radar."

"Okay..." Chloe removed her bag. The bag was torn in many places, but the contents were mostly undamaged.

Inside the bag was a large metal box. It was corrode in some places, however it hadn't penetrated the inside. Chloe struggled to open it, but it eventually came for with a large pop.

The metal box contained all of the equipment required for the Mana Fusion Generator and a Mana Extractor.

The dark mana started seeping inside the box, and was beginning to corrode the parts. However, before it could do any meanful damage to sensitive equipment, Alexia opened the container of the Radiant Blossom.

Suddenly a wave of pure mana was unleashed into the surrounding area. The concentration of the fog dropped drastically and was replaced with mana.

This occurred in a over 50m radius. A small pocket of mana existed in the middle of the fog. An impossible occurrence, yet it was happening right in front of them.

The four of them dropped their mana layer as they feeling of mana washed of over them. The feeling was akin to getting in the shower after getting extremely dirty. 

Close to the mana flower, the mana concentration exceeded the naturally occurring atmospheric mana outside the Hollow Forest.

As they relaxed, they noted their mana regeneration had increased severalfold. The reason for this was unknown to four of them. 

Though the basic principle was simple. Though the body created mana, the pura mana in the surrounding could also be converted into usable mana for the person.

This only occurred if the mana concentration exceeded a certain level, which it currently did. Even though it was possible for pure mana to be converted into usable mana, the body did it subconsciously and it wasn't possible to do it consciously.

"This is a lot more mana than I was expecting..." Shivan commented when looking at the bright red flower. It was glowing and floating couple centimetres off the ground.

"Of course. How do you think they power the barriers around the Hollow Forest? Chloe replied. "Or even the barriers around the entirety of human territory?

You can say that the only reason humanity still exists and not killed by the fog is because of these mana."

"Wait... did you say that is a mana flower?" Arlo asked, extremely confused.

"Oh... right. We didn't tell you," Alexia acknowledged. Chloe caught Arlo up to speed.

What surprised them was Arlo's lack of a reaction. "I knew it was something like this..." was he said.

Arlo was mostly just exasperated. He gotten used their carefree personalities. To them, laws could be broken as long as they don't get caught. They only acted as if they were mere suggestions to them.

'They would thrive in an anarchy. Especially Alexia.' Those were Arlo's true feelings.