Souls Of The Drowned (2)

Ahuizotls. One of the numerous beasts I chose from various mythologies around the world. 

They were weird creatures always found near water sources. I wasn't surprised that they were present around a swimming pool. 

Ahuizotls weren't that hard to kill but one thing worried me.

They should have appeared later on in the novel. Ahuizotls were Tier 7 beasts which should appear after the third scenario. Till then, humans would have updated their stats a lot.

Upgraded stats allow humans to get used to their new environment and skills. Skills took a huge toll on the human body which was not used to magic power.

Unlike my magic power which seemed to be infinite, humans had finite mana sources. A small source meant that the body had to get used to the constant increase and decrease in mana.

For example, imagine you somehow went after your bully's girlfriend and ended up doing the deed with her. When the bully gets to know about it, he will beat you to death. Now this beating could play in two ways.

In the first case, he would keep hitting you with the same force, allowing you to get used to it after a few hits. Similarly, using mana at a fixed or constant level allowed you to manipulate it easily.

Now imagine the bully hitting you softly once and then hitting you with a gut-wrenching punch. Getting used to the random hitting patterns would take a long time. It was the same thing for other humans.

Their bodies would adapt to small uses of mana but bigger uses would have consequences. Upgrading their physical stats helped them to prevent this.

That was the reason Tier 7 beasts like Ahuizotls appeared later on. Their early appearance could mean some trouble for me, especially considering the fact that my weapon was fire.

"I could just leave…"

I paused for a second, my one foot inside the building. I glanced at Vin disappearing with the zombies. 

Ahuizotls summoned their prey by enchanting them to travel to their water source and killed them by drowning them inside the water.

It was a rather painful death because the moment you started drowning, your trance would break. By then, the Ahuizotl would surround you and make sure you died.

"Ahh fuck it. Might as well do it for the plot."

To be honest, I used this line often even though it felt cringe at times. Writing novels somehow led to me developing attachment issues.

None of you readers would understand the attachment an author felt with its audience. The hate comments ruin our mood every day yet we still think whether the comment is true or not.

As for the readers who left cute comments and gift, those entered our heart. Every author is thankful of the reader who makes his day better.

That was simply one of the reason I could not leave Vin behind. Some might consider this stupid, but hey, this was my story and I was the author.

You can share your opinion but I am going to do my own thing.

Closely following Vin, I made sure to keep an eye on the interior of the building. Due to the cracks in the infrastructure, water leaked inside the building, drenching the floor.

'This is a heaven for Ahuizotls. Their is so much water for them here.'

After two minutes, I finally ended up at the entrance of the pool. I let Vin and the zombies walk inside as I took a quick glance inside the pool room

'Why do we have an Olympic sized pool in our city? I am sure that we don't have any talented swimmer who can make use of this.'

In the middle of the room was a 50m long and 3 m deep swimming pool. Seated at the edge of the swimming pool were 5 Ahuizotls.

Ahuizotls had a grey or brown body and were the size of two dogs combined. Their eyes, a pale shade of yellow often glowed during nighttime, similar to how it was glowing right now.

Now you might ask how was I able to clearly see in the dark without any source of light. It was quite simple. I was using fire.

Moving on, I could see that the biggest Ahuizotl had spikes on its back, marking it as the leader. Those born with the spikes were naturally cut out to be the leaders of the Ahuizotl pack.

Furthermore, each Ahuizotl had a long tale extending backwards. Their most distinguishing feature was the fact that a fifth hand was attached at the end of their tale.

I immediately checked the stats of the leader of the Ahuizotl group.

===

Only relevant information will be shown.

*

Spiked Ahuizotl [Tier 7]

[Image] (Check this paragraph for their image)

Race: Ahuizotl 

Skill: Drowned Manipulation, Enchanted Call, Drown Canon, …( '…' means additional skills)

- Born as a spiked Ahuizotl, this creature was naturally born to be a leader.

- It lures it prey to its death by attracting it to its preferred water source and drowning it. The water source serves as its home and the closer an Ahuizotl is to the water source, the stronger it is.

- Hates fire and those who wield any power related to fire.

===

The description made me sigh. This fight was not going to be an easy one.

The Ahuizotls had detected my presence when I set foot in their territory but they didn't leave their water source. As the description suggested, these creatures were at their strongest near a water body.

No matter what you did, an Ahuizotl would never leave its home until it died. They were loyal creatures.

"As usual, here goes whatever that goes." 

I slowly stepped inside the room, my fire still ignited. The Ahuizotls sensed the fire and growled in my direction.

This stopped the zombies and Vin from being thrown into the pool. After all, it required focus to use an enchantment of this level.

The leader of the pack remained at the edge of the swimming pool, its eyes glowering at me. Its tail swung forward with the hand pointing in my direction.

It was a warning sign. The leader could assess my power and knew I would be a threat to its pack. Therefore it was giving me a warning to step back or they would attack me.

Not like I cared or anything.

"Give me that one. I will leave." I said while pointing at Vin.

It didn't hurt to ask. After reaching Tier 7, beasts could understand humans. But that didn't mean they would give you what you wanted.

The leader growled at me for the second time, pointing towards the exit with its handtail. Yes, handtail was a word I created myself.

I simply shook my head and pointed towards Vin even though I knew it was useless. Once an Ahuizotl put someone under their trance, they wouldn't remove the enchantment until the person died.

They believed it was a sacred crime to lure someone to their death and not kill them. It sounded pretty weird if you asked me.

I picked up this trait from their original myth and modified certain things to make them fit the description I was looking for.

|| Ahuizotl were… ||

'Oh shut up. I remember things about them. Why did you not work when I needed you?' I shut down the AS, something I previously did not know I could.

No words echoed inside my mind, giving me temporary satisfaction. This did not last long as the Ahuizotl leader growled at me again before diving into the pool along with the other four in his pack.

With a bitter smile, I entered a fighting stance and raised both of my arms to face the Ahuizotls. I already knew the first skill they were going to use.

With perfect synchronization, all of them used the [Drown Canon] cannon skill.

Five thick beams of water shot out from their tails, rushing at me. As I had expected this, I immediately dashed towards the right.

I joined my hands together in the way one did while using kame-hame-ja. I shot out a beam of fire, the hottest I could manage and saw three of the five water beams evaporate.

The other two collided with the wall and pierced through it with ease. They surely had the power to turn me into meat paste.

The Ahuizotl were surprised by how easily I managed to avoid their attacks. This was something they had not expected. Most creatures were taken down by their quick attack.

I survived because of prior knowledge of how they would attack.

'Now you need to recharge for a minute.'

With a smile, I started dashing towards Vin. I just needed to dip a part of her body inside the swimming pool and she would temporarily be freed from the enchantment.

Although it was temporary, this was the only way the enchantment could be broken down without using a skill.

Suddenly, the Ahuizotls started humming in a low tone.

+

[ Enchanted Call has been used. ]

[ You nullify the skill completely. ]

+

A surprised expression appeared on my face as I reached Vin.

Realizing they couldn't control me, the four Ahuizotls put their handtail on the handtail of their leader. They were channeling all of their energy to their leader to allow him to use one of the strongest moves of their race.

Drowned Manipulation. For approximately two to five minutes, the leader could control every single creature they had killed by drowning as well as those who were under the effect of 'Enchanted Call'.

Looks like I have to change my plan. 

Instead of heading towards Vin, I charged towards the edge of the pool. As I mentioned earlier, Ahuizotls got their strength from water and were bound to it.

So if the source of water was completely destroyed, the Ahuizotls would die. Since I wielded the power of fire, evaporating the water was a fairly easy task.

However, the moment I reached the edge of the swimming pool, my eyes widened in horror. 

Countless lifeless bodies hung at the bottom of the pool, their eyes wide open. 

Currently, I was staring at the souls of the drowned who the Ahuizotls had killed.