| 10 | Styling on Some Elementals

She shook her head, "I'm aware of it, but I've never done it before."

There was a multitude of sports throughout Aquerima, and new ones were constantly popping up every couple of years. However, the vast majority of the sports that stuck with the populace were water-based for obvious reasons.

Wakeboarding was one of these sports.

Krom handed her the makeshift handle, saying, "Don't worry, it's pretty easy to learn. It's not like you have to do any tricks."

"Hmm, if you say so. What about the board?" Asked Lenna.

Krom tossed a lightweight wooden board to her, "Here, use this."

The board was closer to a snowboard than an actual wakeboard in shape. One end was like a surfboard while the other was curved like that of a snowboard, but the bindings were sandal style with just a strap over the top of the foot.

Lenna put it on after adjusting the bindings a little and hobbled over to the back of the shell.

Lenna rolled up her pant legs before taking off her sweater and tossing it to Krom, asking, "Can you hold onto my sweater?"

Krom caught it, "Did you not bring a swimsuit?"

Lenna shrugged nonchalantly, "I don't have one."

"Why?" Krom asked while securing the rope.

Lenna grinned, "Because I can't swim."

She jumped off, back first, while giving Krom a quick salute.

Krom facepalmed in exasperation, "I swear, this girl..."

As he looked back, he saw Lenna gliding across the water's surface and trying to avoid the wakes as she got used to it.

She was temporarily going in a straight line to try and get her bearings, but she was already performing small tricks in no time flat.

She shouted, "Krom, Watch this!"

Her hair swayed, and she got sprayed with water vapor as she leaned to the side.

Making a sharp turn into one of the wakes, she launched herself upwards and clutched the board's edge before flipping through the air.

She landed slightly clumsily but quickly restabilized herself.

Krom gave her a thumbs up accompanied by a smile.

Lenna continued to have fun wakeboarding as Krom watched her.

Truth be told, Krom was mildly confused on how someone could be so good at wakeboarding yet not know how to swim. It was like she was walking before crawling.

While Krom was watching Lenna, he suddenly sensed movement beneath the water.

He thought to himself, 'I was wondering when these guys would show up.'

Several blurs broke the water's surface as they shot out from the deep before standing on the water.

Water elementals.

The water elementals looked nearly identical to the other elementals, except they were held together by water.

All elementals were humanoid in shape and were composed of dark stone segments held together by their respective element. It was what made them so identifiable.

After a quick headcount, Krom tallied thirty D-rank and four C-rank water elementals!

He became concerned.

The amount was abnormal.

If elemental activity was actually increasing, then it could be an early warning sign of a widespread disaster known as a decay influx.

Decay influxes would occur every few decades, but they would kill hundreds of millions overall. Not only would there be more than triple the usual amount of elementals, but they would also be of higher quality overall.

It would happen gradually and progressively get worse. The worst part was it could take years to pass.

"Oi, why is there so many?! what the hell!" Cursed Cray.

Apart from having a large number, the elementals also had the terrain advantage. Falling into the water would mean certain death!

Krom reassured Cray, "Lenna can handle it. Just guide Ruro around the elementals and leave the rest to her."

"Isn't she still wakeboarding?! How is she going to fight them?!" Exclaimed Cray.

Krom waved his hand, dismissing it in response.

She wouldn't always be in favorable combat conditions. If she learned to be flexible early on, it would help her survive when they fought stronger existences.

Krom glanced back at Lenna and saw she had already summoned her relic.

She wanted to test how fun it would be to combine wakeboarding and fighting, two of her, now recently, favorite things.

Lenna leaned to the side and traced her hand along the water, "This should be fun."

She swung her hand from the water, "Hailstorm!"

A scattershot of small ice crystals shot forward at a frightening speed towards the nearest elemental.

The elemental tried to make a water shield, but the hail pierced it easily and turned the elemental into essence.

In response, a little more than a dozen nearby elementals began to skate along the water's surface, rapidly closing the distance.

Lenna created four snow orbs, each being the size of a marble, and threw them at the approaching elementals, "Snap Freeze!"

The snow orbs glowed a bright blue before exploding into bursts of wind and ice shrapnel.

As the elementals tried to avoid it by swerving out of the way, a smoke screen of frozen vapor shot up.

Five elementals emerged from the plume—the others perished.

Lenna smiled as her body absorbed the essence.

She was happy with her new technique; "Snap Freeze" was the improved version of "Cryo-maim." It had better mana efficiency, but it couldn't destroy its targets like "Cryo-maim" could. It could still heavily damage them with the shrapnel, though.

Suddenly, the five remaining elementals planted their feet simultaneously, causing a wave twice her height to rapidly advance.

"A combo attack?! That's not fair!" Complained Lenna.

She had no way to avoid it.

As the wave was looming above her, she got an on the spur of the moment idea.

Lenna let go of the handle, "It's a good day for surfing, isn't it?"

Riding the wave, she slipped her feet out from the bindings and stretched out her arms to stabilize herself.

Seeing this from Ruro, Krom laughed loudly.

Ignoring Krom's laughing, Cray took a vial with a yellow sparking substance from his sash.

Urging Ruro to go faster, the turtle suddenly sped up and turned at an angle so their path would intersect with Lenna's.

Another dozen elementals began to move towards Ruro, flinging spheres of water towards them in the process.

Cray scoffed in annoyance and tossed the vial in into the air.

He held up his free hand and said, "Inferno Blast!"

A small fireball appeared over his palm, and his expression became slightly pale.

Right before the vial hit the water, Cray tossed it behind him towards the elementals.

The elementals easily avoided it, but that wasn't his true intention.

The moment the small fireball touched the water, at the same time as the vial, a wave of fire, electricity, and intense heat vaporized the water withing a 20 meter radius and caused an explosion, annihilating the chasing elementals.

"Impressive," commented Krom.

Cray caught his breath, "Sure, but it also took more than half my mana."

Lenna glanced at the explosion before returning her attention behind her.

She also had pursuers of her own.

The five elementals who had caused the wave were currently swimming inside the same wave!

The nearest one reached out, trying to snag her relic, but Lenna was not one to let that happen.

Right as it was about to snag the hem of her cloak, she tossed three snow orbs behind her.

She smiled like a devil, "Have fun!"

"Snap Freeze!"

The snow orbs exploded and sprayed the elementals with icy shrapnel and frost.

Gray wisps from the five elementals rushed towards her.

Looking ahead, she saw Ruro and company preparing to intercept her.

Suddenly, alarm bells rang in her head.

Without a second thought, she trusted her instincts and sharply changed direction before climbing up the wave and flipping off to the side.

A pressurized beam of water sliced across where she was just moments before, causing an explosion and splitting the wave in two!

Water vapor sprayed into the air and rained down.

Lenna looked to the source and saw one of the C-rank elementals with a gaping mouth, dripping water and giving off steam.

She narrowed her eyes at it.

The C-ranks would be her next target.

The wave dissipated as she approached the interception point. Her momentum began to decrease.

She needed to keep moving.

The distance quickly closed, but right before Ruro reached her, five pillars of water appeared in her path.

On each pillar was an elemental, each of whom immediately began to slash their arms, sending water blades through the air down at her.

Lenna cursed. She had forgotten about them.

Using what little momentum she had left, she nimbly weaved between the water blades, tracing her hand along the water's surface each time she turned.

"Hailstorm!"

Passing each pillar, she swung her hand from the water and sent a barrage of ice at each elemental on top, swiftly eliminating them and absorbing their essence.

She looked to her side and saw that Ruro was about to pass by.

Looking around, she only saw one elemental on the water's surface. The others were swimming beneath.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked below her.

An elemental was rushing from the deep.

It swung its fist underwater, and the water beneath Lenna began to rise upwards.

Her adrenaline spiked as it rushed to her head.

She quickly estimated the distance before gritting her teeth and kicking off her bindings.

Abandoning the board, she sprung off towards Ruro.

The water exploded outwards from negative pressure and destroyed the wood board.

She stretched her arm out, but to her panic, only the tip of her finger grazed Ruro's shell.

But! She wasn't out of luck yet.

The rope abruptly whipped towards her, and she caught it right before falling into the water, getting rope burns in the process.

Krom grabbed the rope and yanked her in, saying, "Just the four are left. Do you think you can do it?"

Lenna landed squarely before responding, "Is that even a question?"

Krom nodded in response, "How is your mana level?"

Lenna frowned, "I only have about a fourth left."

She had used more mana than she had liked, but it wasn't a problem. Thanks to the essence she absorbed, her mana pool had increased, so she could still execute a few more techniques.

"I can still kill at least one C-rank with my remaining mana, but how do I get near them?" Lenna muttered to herself.