[Infected Forest Part 3]

...

Meanwhile at the Tainzer planices, Raenir was running as fast as he could towards the place he saw a giant pillar of light and finally, after a long run, he reached the giant fissure Dawn created on the ground.

"*Pant Pant* How.. the hell.."

Raenir looked down, and truth was he didn't know how to get down and was impressed by how strong that small kobold was but he didn't express it as there was no time. Raenir was panting nonstop as the peopel of the wolf tribe couldn't actually sweat Raenir had to take a long break to regain his stamina and cool down his body, then he started to enhance his body with pure aura.

Each element has it's on weakness, but pure aura isn't an element. It's an energy that only enhancers can use, it has no weakness besides the possibility of the body breaking down later on.

Raeni took a deep breath as the pure aura covered his body, enhancing it to the extreme and jumped down. As he landed there were no pain on his legs only a faint numbness, but not long after arriving down, his face contorced in disgust, the smell of this place was horrible! Especially so for those from the Wolf Tribe with their sharp noses.

"Blergh-"

Just like Emilia he also barfed on the ground and started to breath with his mouth to avoid the smell.

"Alright, now.."

Raenir wiped his mouth and took a quick look around, sure enought there were some footprints of a dragon and a kobold leading towrads a tunnel where presumably both of them went.

...

Emilia and Dawn looked ahead.. Especially Emilia, she was darting her head everywhere as a feeling of being watched couldn't stop from bothering her.

"Let's go."

Dawn qucikly called Emilia and she followed behind Dawn with an uncomfortable feeling. They walked in the direction of the golden mushroom in the distance, it already looked big in the distance so up close it must be enormous.

Emilia kept looking around, she felt each time she turned her head the thing that was watching her wasn't there anymore but somewhere else wich made her extremely uncomfortable and even a little scared.

After a few more minutes looking around, Emilia gave up. No matter how fast she turned her head, she couldn't catch up to the speed of the eye. At some point she even stopped time but it still wasn't there anymore, perhaps it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

"Chrono?"

"Uh- Ah, i was just feeling a little comfortable."

Dawn gave a quick look around to see if there was anything.

"Maybe it's because this place is quite unsettling, i also have been feeling watched since i got down here but i can't find anything.

"Same.."

Dawn quickly began to focus on the objective once again while Emilia was a little distracted, while she had given up to search for the stalker it still made her danger sense spike.

'The sooner we find that magic antidote the sooner we leave..'

Emilia thought to herself while walking behind Dawn.

As they walked, eventually Dawn saw something strange, there was some liquid that was starting to leak out of the decaying trees and moving around like a living being, Dawn was already with her sword on her hand and was ready to launch an attack towards that liquid.

The liquid suddenly went inside the tree and a few seconds later, huge veins started to appear on the ground, Dawn was about to launch her attack but the veins disbalanced her instance for a second, and that was all that was needed for that thing. The small wood trunk where the liquid hid exploded, and all the veins that were on the ground connected to the thing that caused the rotten tree to explode.. A rat, a 2 meter tall rat that was still explosively growing, it's skin was tearing and organs began to fall from the stomach, the muscles were rotting and the bones have overgrown to the point that it was piercing it's own skin and bursting out of the body..

Dawn was about to send her attack while the rat was still growing but..

*Cought cought-*

Blood rushed out of her mouth, her throat started to burn and her hearth felt like it was going to burst, she fell down to her knees as the pain was too great.

"D-Dawn?!"

Dawn couldn't speak as blood just kept on rushing out of her mouth. At this time, the rat had stopped growing and it was 7 meters tall, completely dwarfing both Emilia and Dawn.

Exceeding one's limit is great, but not in every situation. An aura vessel isn't supposed to release more than 10% of all aura stored, but Dawn had used over 70% of her energy and even drank an aura gathering potion, her aura vessel was incredibly damaged.

The rat roared in fury, it saw an oportunity and rushed forward, but luckily Emilia was there and she was a powerhouse, without delay she stopped time.

And once again a strange energy circulates through Emilia's body and strenghtened it to the upmost limit, but something wasn't right.. The rat eyes kept on following her as she walked.

"!"

And Emilia didn't quite expected that, she knew her time stop ability wasn't actually a full on time stop since that was impossible for the current her.

"That gave me a good scare! It's only the eyes, the body cant move at all."

Emilia sighed in relief and regained her confidence, she slashed forward with her front paw and knowing that there will be a shockwave after all of this, she stood infront of Dawn to protect her from the possible shockwave.

Boom!

The rat was launched through the air at mach 9, crushing all the tree's behind it and completely decimating the rat to nothing but a gosmy blood puddle.

Emilia after seeing the rat getting absolutely destroyed quickly turned around to check on Dawn.

"A-are you going to be ok?"

"Wh-what should i do-"

And once again, Emilia was having a panick attack but this time it was a short one. An aura vessel, diffrent from a real organ can be repaired easily if one is experienced enought.

"Cought- Agh-"

Dawn quickly stabilized herself and holded her throat as it still felt like it was burning.

"This hurts-"

"..."

Dawn looked ahead to see an worried dragon looking at her with tears in her eyes.

"Chrono?"

Emilia wished she could hug Dawn right now, but she got no arms so she did the closest thing to show that she cares about Dawn, wich was to scold her.

"Dawn are you okay?! Whatever you did to make that happen to you don't do it again or i will-"

*Chuckles*

For Dawn, looking at a dragon blaberring about her health was the funniest thing that she could ever experience afterall kobolds worship dragons like omnipotent gods, seeing one infront of her doing that just seems incredibly funny to her.

"Stop laughing! I was so worried.."

Emilia was seriously worried about Dawn but it doesn't seem that she cares much about it.

"Pfhaha- Okay, dont need to worry so much im fine Chrono. We're you crying because of me?"

"N-no!"

Dawn smiled at Emilia and slowly got up.

Both of them kept on talking as they walked. It was more Emilia telling Dawn how much she was worried than an actual conversation. After a 15 minute walk with no other parasite they reached the golden mushroom, while they were talking it was only now that Emilia realised how she felt towards Dawn, diffrent from other humans from earth that were her friends, she felt that Dawn was closer to her than a friend or best friend together with the feeling of comfort that she felt around her.. Of course she was also thinking of how weird it was that the eye of the rat could move when she 'time stopped'.

But right now she decided to think about it late, right now they had something important to do.

"Chrono, we're here.."

Dawn stopped walking, they were right infront the giant golden mushroom, there were gravestones with glowing words, the ground had some strange markings and a drawing engraved in one of the gravestone showing the same lapids but without the letters and a moon in the sky..