The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 326 - Intermediate Void-AI, Meet Advanced Ogre-Main

Chapter 326: Chapter 326 - Intermediate Void-AI, Meet Advanced Ogre-Main

The woman’s gaze flickered between Elua and the structure, suspicion evident in her expression. In the first place, she had started scouting further out because she was following the trail of Qat and this very girl. But at some point she’d gotten lost... and some unusual, familiar fluctuations made her seek out the source.

With a few steps closer, the fox over her shoulders began to stir. Its body tensed and a faint whine escaped its throat as its eyes opened, focusing immediately on the ruins with evident distress.

"It clearly doesn’t like whatever is in there."

Kefa observed, still a little weirded out that the creature was just... fine sitting there over her neck. Hands returned to her sheathed blades. She had been too scared to go look alone, knowing what it might be.

’But I also couldn’t just bring myself to run and go tell someone without knowing for sure...’

"So, what is it? Have you been sitting here watching that this whole time?"

With each throb and shiver of essence, the air seemed to thin and ’pale’. Like the membrane between worlds was steadily, incrementally growing weaker. Because it was... as this spot was the very sort of thing a leader usually made when the war dragged on.

Secondary incursion points - breaches that brought reinforcements into the invasion after some initial struggles proved the mettle of the inhabitants of the region they’d landed in. However, it definitely was... anomalous.

"This shouldn’t be here."

The little cultivator’s voice had lost the ’innocent’ quality - firm and sure, a change so sudden that Kefa glanced at her in surprise. It was a tone to believe in and a tone to follow without question. Experience and confidence.

Not something that should be leaving the mouth of this ’cute’, untested heiress.

"I know. That’s why... I stayed to observe. I’ve never seen a breach forming like this. Not this early in a cycle."

’No, you wouldn’t have.’

Elua stood and took several careful steps down the worn away path leading into the ancient site. In her mind, she’d already fully imagined what it was like in its prime. The pillars were not merely decorative, as each completely weathered post would bear markings of sigils. Links that once connected in a large-scale ritual circle.

The sort of place that the people she once stole plenty of knowledge from - the spiritualists of secretive Guilds multi-millenia ago - would build for their own purpose from time to time. But of course, they always had a ’purpose’ for Voidlings as well.

"This was a convergence site. A place where essence naturally flows more abundantly. And the ruins..."

She paused as her spirit gathered and lanced through the earth below. Sensing the flow of various energies beneath them like currents in a river. Magma, magnetism, and buried river currents that roiled with potent essence.

The disturbed earth made sense now... someone or something had intentionally exposed what had been deliberately buried. So that during the Descent-

"Do you know what this place was for?"

"Rituals, obviously. Old ones. Likely forbidden ones."

Quicker steps moved her toward the depression in the ground and the fox suddenly jerked with a violent spasm. Its claws dug ineffectually into Elua’s silver dress as it stared at the distortion in the center with unblinking eyes. Its fur stood on end, and a low, continuous growl rumbled from its chest.

Of course, Elua could have just knocked it out again or made it not notice the breach at all. But it was a valuable experiment to see how it reacted to every little thing. In the back of her mind she was still planning its training! freēnovelkiss.com

Just as agitated, Kefa who had followed behind without knowing why reached for her blades again.

"We should report this. Get a proper squad to create a perimeter out here to-"

Her words died in her throat as something began to emerge from the wavering air. Just like before, a point of vantablack turned into a dark, writhing mass that pulled itself through the thinning barrier. Manifesting first as a single claw of pure Void that forcefully expanded the opening.

It unfolded itself out of that single push through... like origami in reverse. Amorphous body extending and folded out into a central mass. Far more humanoid than the largest or smallest variety.

But even further deadly looking than the lessers, despite only having two upper limbs. Solid looking ’arms’, articulated in three places but not quite an elbow and wrist. The hands held six splayed knife like claws that could Rend at least as well as other Voidlings.

"Intermediate class. Shouldn’t be here yet either."

Elua responded calmly as the Voidling fully unfurled. Its form rippled with more coherent, violent purpose than the smaller drones... a warrior meant to go toe-to-toe with something close to as strong as them. Rather than a horde meant to overwhelm the weakest.

Two white-flame eyes arranged in an asymmetrical alignment focusing immediately on each of the cultivators. Lacking the bolder aggression of its lesser kin, it seemed to assess them with colder calculation. An intelligence that came in handy when it was commanding squads of lessers into more tactical formations.

A force composed of a leader managing only its direct subordinates and its intermediate ’captains’ managing thousands of smaller Voidlings was when things *really* turned it into a ’war’. Which is why its solitary appearance was so unusual. Standing guard over the forming breach like a sentinel.

"Take this."

Without warning, Elua lifted the agitated fox from her shoulders and thrust it into Kefa’s arms. The woman fumbled to hold the creature as it writhed and hissed, its behavior growing increasingly frantic outside of direct contact with the Goltbred. A little bit under the incitement of the illusionist, of course.

"Wait, what are you-"

"I’m going to handle this. Stay here."

The ’plain clothed’ girl was already dozens of feet away as she answered without looking at her.

"You? But you’re not even a fighter."

With a dramatic pirouette, a smile spread across the young face that sent a chill down Kefa’s spine. It held none of the sweetness of her usual expression, instead displaying something ancient and predatory in the subtly glowing mint eyes.

"If you ever run off with my things, I’ll never forgive you~"

The words were suddenly childish again, the tone ’sing-song’ and ’honeyed’. It didn’t stop something in them from making Kefa freeze in place with a fear she didn’t fully understand. The Voidling sensed something too and surged forward with plenty of speed.

And Elua? Didn’t move to look at it until the last possible moment. When she did, the ground beneath her feet cracked. Her small frame shot backward with such force that the displaced air created a visible ripple of billowing sand.

She met the charging Voidling literally head-on, its form changing too slow to shift away from her upside-down torpedo dive into its core. The impact sent a second thunderous crack through the air as the momentum was transferred efficiently... and the Voidling was sent striking a distant pillar.

A creature capable of withstanding multiple cultivator attacks, it dug itself out quickly from the stone now fractured and crumbling. Before it could recover, Elua was already there beside it. Invading its mind and speaking aloud with cold fury in the Old Tongue at the same time.

\~"I don’t like constructs that break their valued rules."~\

Her Ogre Physique activated fully for the first time where anyone but Qatrand could witness it. Kefa watched he petite girl seize one of the largest nearby chunks of broken pillar - easily weighing several hundred pounds - and hurling it with terrifying precision. Even still, the Voidling twisted away from the projectile while scraping its claws against a surface to parry it further.

Only for Elua’s foot to slam into one of its three legs from its blind spot, popping and sending ichor spraying everywhere before continuing through to the ground. The earth rippled outward from the impact point, rumbling even from so far away like the explosives used in mine work.

Kefa watched in stunned disbelief as the sweet, ’delicate’ girl who’d hung adoringly on Qatrand’s arm... systematically demolished both the ancient structure around them and the powerful Voidling she would not have chosen to face alone. Each movement displayed not just an overwhelming strength but meticulous precision.

The forms the heiress displayed were part dance, part tight and vicious martial art like the veteran had never seen.

Hands held flat and solid severed one arm in two different swipes as it tried to reach its claws for her - a set of blades without even needing to carry one.

A hop and a dodge from the other arm turned into an aerial maneuver... that rotated and slammed her heel onto the lunging eldritch entity’s back. Slamming it to the earth like struck with a hammer.

The Voidling attempted to call for reinforcements, but found its spiritual power rebounding. Both from outside the ruins and from the breach. Elua’s eyes narrowed as it tried harder. The obsidian mirror she’d slung towards the secondary incursion point doing its job appropriately.

"None of that. This is my game now, cheater."

The point of the next half of the ’fight’ was lost on Kefa, originally. All she knew was that Elua seemed to flicker between positions as she systematically tore the enemy piece by piece. Always avoiding the core and removing the last appendage, even as the other struggled to regrow.

’...Playing with it like she is having fun...’

The fox in Kefa’s arms had gone completely still, its eyes fixed on the battle with an almost reverent attention.

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