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Harvest Dungeon

A flash of a pretty smile and then I woke up on the strangest farm I have ever heard of. What is a dungeon core and how can it be repurposed? My only option to survive is to grow crops, why? Because I have no idea how to leave yet. I do not own the image, if I need to I will change it at a later date.

Ashra · 奇幻
分數不夠
54 Chs

Chapter 16 - Serpent Battle

I felt invincible. Everything seemed to be in the palm of my hand waiting for me to toy with them. It was a very addicting feeling. All I wanted to do was draw in more power, enough that I could do anything and everything that I had ever wanted.

"Snap out of it!" Zephirah yelled at me ramming herself into my cheek and pinching me as hard as she could. "Fucking mana high." she grumbled as I snapped out of the euphoria.

I shook my head as the euphoria cleared, I had no idea what had come over me. I wanted to ask Zephirah but the situation didn't seem to allow for it.

Another loud thud came as the cobra struck the barrier again. I could see intelligence in the serpent's gaze, so I didn't think it would continue to attack when it was obvious that despite its size and strength it couldn't get through the barrier. It had to be the wisp that was encouraging it to attack us.

I searched through my mind for a rune spell I could use to catch the wisp. A few came to mind, but I didn't think I had the energy for most of them.

"I can feed you energy from the dungeon." Zephirah told me, reading my thoughts again. "Use the strongest one you can handle." she told me.

Easier said than done, I had no idea what I could handle. I didn't have forever to contemplate so I chose one that used a lot of energy, but the runes weren't very complicated. In fact there were only nine runes, it would be able to catch the wisp, or anything else if enough power was added. The biggest downside was it did little else. In Runic Shift the spell was considered difficult, but only because the runes couldn't be drawn normally. It had taken me awhile to understand the secret of the spell, once I had it became an easy spell to cast.

Taking my time and ignoring everything else around me I drew the nine runes to form a circle. The trick to the runes is they had to be drawn larger with thicker strokes giving me the ability to pour more energy into the spell when it was finished.

As I finished the last rune the entire spell flashed signalling that the spell was completed successfully. The circle of runes began to glow a faint blue creating a disk in the air in front of me. Then I felt the drain on my energy as the spell started to pull on me to fuel itself. As soon as I felt the draw I also felt energy start to flood into me. Looking around I saw Zephirah watching the wisp like a hawk eyeing its prey. I had no idea what she wanted the wisp for, but I had no reason to stop either. I was certain it was the wisp that had attracted the cobra to my farm.

With the energy flooding into me from the core I channeled it into the rune spell then cast it out towards the wisp, it might sound amazing but its actual appearance looked like I was throwing a frisbee. I might not have cast spells before, but it certainly wasn't my first time with a frisbee.

I missed. I forgot the wisp wasn't a stationary target. It saw the spell coming an dodged behind the cobra to avoid my spell.

"Performance issues, a sense of superiority once you are able to get going, and bad aim! You are every woman's nightmare!" Zephirah yelled at me.

I glared at the sprite angrily effectively shutting her up when she realized she had gone too far.

The spell wasn't a one time use. As long as I could continue to feed energy into it I could control it with my mind. I had missed on the first cast, but as I summoned it back I caught the wisp from behind. It never even sensed the danger. As soon as the wisp was inside the circle of runes the runes shifted to form a sphere around the wisp, three runes to form the top, three to form the bottom, and three around the middle, all constantly circling around the wisp to keep it in the cage. With a hard mentall pull I dragged the rune cage that had captured the wisp inside the barrier before the cobra could be used to rescue it.

With the wisp trapped in the rune cage and inside the barrier I thought the snake would give up on its attack on us. Instead it redoubled its effort as it threw itself at the barrier with all of its strength making me wonder if it was trying to kill itself against my barrier.

"What the hell?!" Zephirah yelled.

"Stupid sprite, that is my soul beast. It won't stop until you are dead!" a high pitched voice yelled excitedly from inside the rune cage.

I stared at the wisp for a moment. It was nothing more than a green light floating around inside the sphere of runes that formed the rune cage. I had thought it might be something like Zephirah but smaller, but it seems I was wrong.

Another stronger strike on the barrier caused me to look up at the cobra. I could see that the cobra wasn't giving any concern to its own health, several of the scales on its head had cracked and were oozing blood. I didn't see any changes in the barrier but I was still nervous. If the cobra kept up as it was it would probably kill itself on my barrier giving us the chance to absorb its corpse afterwards. I wasn't sure how useful that would be, but I knew it would be beneficial. I just didn't know which would last longer, the cobra or the barrier.

I looked to Zephirah who was glaring at the wisp. "Zeph?" I called to her.

Zephirah looked at me then back at the wisp hesitantly. "The barrier will hold, but it will be weak afterwards. It will repair itself with time, but it will take a long time for that kind of damage to be fixed. Time we can't afford." she told me simply.

I nodded then made a decision. I drew three runes quickly, once the last was finished they flashed then entered my left arm. I reached into the rune cage with my left arm and caught the wisp in my hand then began to squeeze. It wasn't the kindest way to kill the wisp, but I was still hoping I wouldn't have too. Zephirah wouldn't have told me to capture the wisp if she just wanted to kill it. So there had to be another option I wasn't aware of. I hoped the wisp would give in, but killing it was still an option. If the cobra was its soul beast it should be affected by its death.

"Going to need more strength than that." the wisp mocked me.

I smiled though I knew the wisp couldn't see me. I was still getting energy from the dungeon, energy I no longer needed to fuel the rune cage now that I had caught the wisp. Which is what the runes were for. I poured energy into the rune enhancers I put into my arm then squeezed harder.

The wisp giggled like I was tickling it so I put even more energy into my arm. Finally the wisp stopped giggling. The cobra also stopped attacking my barrier. Instead it eyed me hatefully.

Being stared at by a snake that size was disconcerting. It wasn't big enough to swallow me whole, but biting my head off still seemed to be a possibility. I squeezed the wisp a little bit tighter, hoping to get some kind of reaction from it. The cobra was freaking me out a bit, or a lot.

"What do you want?" the high pitched voice finally asked from inside my hand. It sounded pitiful and scared. I refused to be swayed though, just moments ago it had laughed at my attempts to squish it while cheering the idea that its cobra was going to kill us.

"Allegiance!" Zephirah stated smugly.

"Fuck off slut, like hell I am going to help you become a queen!" the wisp yelled angrily so I squeezed a bit tighter getting a painful yelp from the wisp.

The cobra hissed at me in response to the wisps pain. I could see the anger and hate in the serpent's gaze but I ignored it, the pair of them wanted to kill us, they had attacked us, not the other way around. Thinking of that I met the serpent's gaze and gave the wisp another squeeze, daring it to hiss at me again.

I can't say it was the best decision I have ever made, but I was tired, so very tired of being manipulated and forced against my will. The company, Vanessa, her recruiter, even Zephirah, all of them wanted something from me and all I wanted was to go home and put my life back together. Instead I was here on this world, wherever it was, facing off against a pissed of serpent and a snarky wisp.

I let all that frustration and anger show as I stared down the serpent. I gathered mana into my hand in preparation to form a rune and end the serpent, I might not be able to create complex spells, but the amount of energy Zephirah was providing to me, I was sure I could overload a simpler spell enough to kill the beast.

Meeting a serpent's gaze was fucking scary. It was an apex predator with its own intelligence and oozed confidence and might. Plus it looked at me like I was nothing more than a meal waiting to be digested. Despite all of that, I didn't flinch away from it. I held its gaze and refused to let it intimidate me. Having the barrier between us, and the confidence to kill it, helped immensely.

Finally after several minutes the serpent turned its gaze away and lowered its head down to the ground. I thought for a moment that it would slither off and abandon the wisp. Instead the snake pressed its head against the barrier. It didn't slam against it like it had before but pressed against it gently.

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Emerald Cobra offers allegiance! Will you accept Emerald Cobra's allegiance?

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I stared at the serpent for several long moments. 'Zephirah?' I thought to my sprite.

"Do it!" she replied excitedly.

I mentally accepted the Emerald Cobra's allegiance.

The green cobra began to glow with a white light then shrank into an orb that flew towards me before landing in my right hand. I looked down and was astonished to find a palm sized sphere. Its top half was red, the bottom half was white, while a silver circle sat between the two halves.

I stared at the orb completely dumbfounded. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing, was this a fusion of farming and capture games? It had to be, there was a fucking pokeball in my hand.

Zephirah started to snicker, then after a moment she burst into loud nearly hysterical belly laughs as she rolled around in the air. "Your face ...heavens…..that is ...priceless." she gasped out between bursts of laughter.

I stared at her confused then looked back down at the orb in my hand only to see that it didn't look like a pokeball anymore. Instead the orb was a clear crystal with and image of the emerald cobra resting inside coiled up tightly with only its head protruding from its coils to stare up at me. It took me a few moments to realize that my sprite had somehow pranked me.

I gave her a glare but she didn't notice as she continued to laugh her little heart out.

Even Vanessa who was still clinging to my back chuckled a little then tightened her grip on me hugging me tighter. Now that the danger had passed, I could feel the soft press of two mounds against my back. The thought of those pressed up against me distracting me from even Zephriah's laughter. I was about to turn around and finish the conversation we were having earlier and maybe even figure out exactly what kind of relationship we had, when the wisp spoke up reminding me of its presence.

"What happened?!" the wisp in my grip screeched out in a panic.

"You just became useless." Zephirah cheered happily as she flew over to my fist peering at it with a hungry look. I had no idea how she had shifted from her boundless laughter to hungry predator in the blink of an eye. Yet there it was. Zephirah eyed my hand like I had the best kind of treat hidden inside of it.