Chapter 79: It ain’t much but it’s honest work

With a thrust Elizabeth Jr. sent her steel sword through the furry muzzle of a {Kobalt} before he could ram his own spear inside her - unable to deal with her speed - though not a single drop of blood from the monster fell to the floor.

Suddenly from the side a green scaled {Kobolt} attempted to leap upon her yet before it could succeed the large blade held in the hands of Promicarus’ giant cloaked puppet cleaved the bipedal lizard in half. Knowing the scaled bastards would be dealt with by Promicarus’ puppet she decided to deal with the bipedal mutts. The grin on her face showed that the heroic dragox was indeed more than willing to accept this arrangement.

“Looks like this is going to be somewhat fun~!” <Eel>

“*Snort* As if these savage monsters will offer anything of intrigue.” <Promicarus>

While those two continued to charge into the swarm of monsters Emily and Promicarus were behind the armoured Fuka who moved in the way to casually block any of the spells from the {Kobolts} while arrows from the {Kobalts}. It was obvious the two sides didn’t want Emily around yet she  used the time given to her to quickly work on preparing a barrier to ensure their enemies couldn’t escape from their two attackers. She held her hands up to draw magic runes in the air then a few seconds later when a large circular script was in front of her she flicked her hands apart to enlarge it before slamming it down onto the ground as a giant magical dome entrapped everyone inside.

“Barrier down…” <Emily>

Currently the advanced group was taking a mission for the last village before reaching {Moolesh Mountain Town} where they would likely split up; after dealing with the golem outbreak. This mission was to deal with the ever present conflict between the dog {Kobalt} & scaled {Kobolt} that had spread out from their territory and had been slowly encroaching on the hunting grounds of the nearby village making things more dangerous for them. These two races looked essentially the same over one having scales and the other furr which led to many considering them the same or related in the past.

Of course, that wasn’t the case yet the System decided to give the two races a similar name in its infinite wisdom resulting in the two becoming mortal enemies. Probably didn’t help that they were both quite savage though the {Kobalt} tend to be quite good crafters. In reality they were just the monster side of Beast-kin; having descended from varieties of monstrous sub-dragons or hounds breeding a humanoid resulting in a hybrid being born.

Although they are constantly compared to goblins it could be said that a goblin is the purest of the monster species while these were more the children of devolved beasts. Still both were more likely to team up with goblins than against them due to goblins also being some of the simplest species who are easy to deal with. There has never been peace between these two races thus Eel’s job was simply to push them back hence why she was here.

They were currently located a few clicks south of the endangered village where they were easily able to locate a group of both due to the sounds of metal against scale. The two monster tribes didn’t seem to care about attracting any attention despite likely spreading their forces out into human territory in order to find more resources to gain an advantage over the other. They were smart enough to realise they would be wiped out if they attempted to travel into {Evergreen} or {Moonlesh} where the monsters are stronger yet not smart enough to keep quiet. Still Eel wasn’t going to complain about the stupidity of the monsters.

“ROA~R~!” <Kobalt Chief>

The largest and toughest of the furry friends roared while charging towards Eel with a large steel cleaver raised in the air. Then again most of them were three feet with their ‘giant chief’ being an outstanding four foot so even the ‘tall for her age’ Eel was even larger. As it attempted to hack into her Eel merely side stepped the mutt before raising a knee to meet it’s gut; blood flowing out from it’s mouth as he was forced to stumble back.

Still it seemed the beasts had some teamwork skills along with their ability to use tools as an arrow flew towards her head which Eel obviously simply jump away - after that though a volley attempted to shoot her down however to this she just grinned her toothy grin. She didn’t even hesitate for a second before charging towards the small army of furries without any worry about the impending rain of arrows.

“{Wind Wall}…” <Emily>

Right on time a wave of wind formed in front of her to cause the arrows to blow back into the crowd of beasts. Before they could even call out in anger at ‘the lizard sympathisers’ in their own language Eel had already begun cutting them down. With only the sword in her hand along with her dashing good looks she lobbed the head of the nearest living {Kobalt} then continued to block the spear of the one on the left while delivering a powerful kick to the head of the left which resulted in an explosion of {Kobalt} bodies.

With a simple flick she sent the weapon of the {Kobalt} away to run her sword into its skull before pulling its body up to block another volley of arrows. Throwing the body caused another lot of monsters to learn how to fly momentarily while soon a magically barrage of ice arrows flew over her to take out the backline of archers. Lifting her sword up she viewed it for a minute before grinning as it seemed less damaged than she would have otherwise been.

“Seems I’m getting better~!” <Eel>

Upon saying that she threw the sword backwards causing a pained roar as the {Kobalt Chief} gripped the sword in its chest. It had attempted to sneak up behind her Eel to snap the lizard girl's neck yet how would the proud hunter not realise something that large sneaking up on her clumsily? The monster did attempt to pull the blade out from it’s chest while Eel picked up a random blade from the foes she had already taken care of - yet it seemed it wouldn’t be so lucky as the blade detached from the handle at the monster's tug.

“Unfortunately I still can’t use normal weapons for too long without them breaking. Doubt they could stand a single art. May as well try though since I have quite a few spares - here goes nothing - [True Blood - Executioners Blow]~!” <Eel>

With that she pivoted on her right foot to swing a sword around as a crimson glow soon engulfed the blade. The intent reached out to head straight towards the {Kobalt Chief}’s head which soon came sailing through the air as his body shrivelled up. An eerie red glow momentarily flashed in Eel’s eyes as she licked her lips with a satisfied grin.

“Hm~ not a terrible meal but-” <Eel>

Lifting her sword to her eyes she saw as the blade disintegrated into a fine powder for everyone to see.

“Doesn’t seem like I’m good enough yet…*Sigh*” <Eel>

Her head tilted to give her a view of the otherside of the battlefield where the giant puppet cleaved an entire volley of magic with their giant blade. The second blade then came down from the sky like a divine decree - sending off a colossal green crescent blade Eel believed Promicarus called {Army of One Hundred} which may as well have been a death toll. A bloody scene of all the {Kobold}s in front of Promicarus’ puppet being reduced to mulch by the giant energy blade as they were attacked from all sides.

“*Tsk* What a waste of perfectly good blood; then again trust the girl obsessed with being all high and mighty to be wasteful~!” <Eel>

Despite her words about Promicarus being ‘high & mighty’ there was no doubt she was equal to the other girl in terms of pedigree while her pride certainly also wasn’t small. Hearing such comments Promicarus who was enjoying a nice cup of tea couldn’t help furrowing her brow. Still who was she if not quick to bounce back, soon offering her own arrogant smirk to Eel.

“Kekeke art thou not finished~? I could have sworn there were less on thine’s side of the battlefield little hero. Well I suppose it was uncouth of myself to expect better from a girl whomst development went to thine chest instead of thine brain muhahaha!” <Promicarus>

“Well, unlike a girl who doesn’t know anything but hiding behind her dolls I prefer to test my skills rather than going all out~!” <Eel>

After saying her piece Eel turned back to the {Kobalt} to see the survivors, who had seen their archenemies as well as their own chief brutally defeated, turning to run as fast as their little paws would take them. Of course, no matter how fast they could run they stood no chance of escaping Emily’s barrier without first taking her out. Considering their intelligence it seemed unlikely they would be able to reorganise to accomplish that however.

“No benefit in attacking like this so~ I suppose I’ll end mine too, {Bloodsplosion}~!” <Eel>

That fierce red light glowed in her left hand as she lifted it up towards the back of all those monsters before she clutched her hand into a fist. With the low magical defence of the {Kobalt} they could do nothing - feeling the blood in their body boil while shooting around their blood vessels so quickly their bodies couldn’t stand it. Becoming crimson fireworks while her right hand would lift up summoning the blood from all around the bloody battlefield in front of herself.

This was all in hopes to produce a [Blood Gem].

Emily’s adopted/blood mother had showed up shortly after their whole ‘Void Beast’ fiasco where the adorable little girl opened up about not being able to help. When Bucucuss asked about it she was told about Emily being knocked out due to the heavy concentration of ‘lust’ spirit in the air leading to the cow being drunk. After laughing a bit she told her about a technique demons used to concentrate large amounts of ‘sin’ to avoid waste; apparently quite similar to the natural development of something called [Spirit Stones].

In short it was simply a way to prevent wasted resources while also making things easier to move around without giant energy tanks. Also makes it easier to trade in since demons primary currency was actually these Sins or more specifically [Sin Gems] just like cultivator used [Spirit Stones] to pay for everything. One may wonder how a technique used to consolidate spirit into a physical object could be used on blood?

Well simply split it into raw blood essences then concentrate its variant into [Blood Gems] often called [Bloodline Gem] since they can actually help grant or improve bloodlines. Meanwhile since Vampires were the only race able to develop these they held an absolute monopoly allowing them to gain many benefits hence why the popular phrase “there is never a poor vampire” around the world… Though to humans it seems more to say rich people are blood suckers without taking it literally.

This [Blood Gem Creation} skill can only be used by the [Noble Vampires] while the purity (thus wealth possessed) depended on the vampire's rank. With that in mind Eel was excited to see what rank vampire she could be - she wasn’t exactly born under regular circumstances considering she had no clue even how she was a vampire. Wasn’t he father Shanta and mother a [High-Elf] afterall?

“Remember to split them up into bloodlines, concentrate each bloodline as small as you can then place a film of your own spirit around the essences…” <Emily>

The little cow walked up behind the dragon vampire fox elf girl who really needed a family tree in front of her to work all this out. Somehow Emily’s voice was even softer than usual as she attempted to not break Eel’s focus, although Eel was trying her best to make it look easy it was still her first time. Still Emily showed her support by wrapping her hands around Eel’s waist while lowering her head into the crook of Eel’s neck taking in the sweet scent of her girlfriends hair.

<With Milly watching me how could I fail something this simple~!>

Since her {Bloodsplosion} had already happened she moved her left hand to help her in splitting up the blood essences into their appropriate bloodlines. With how merky the bloodlines of these monsters were (one with inspection could tell from their history anyway) it was complicated to do yet at the same time those bloodlines weren’t too impressive. As such it was more time consuming than difficult though Eel just supposed it was good practice while enjoying the sweet company attached to her back.

A good few minutes passed with a few dozen crimson gems appearing in front of herself though only one of them was really useful. While it was no Long or Venus Bloodline she still managed to generate a single [Dragon Bloodline Gem] which certainly could be useful. Other than that there were a bunch of different dog bloodlines as well as bloodlines from elves, dwarves, humans, beast-kins, goblins and shockingly even demons to name a few.

“These little guys sure know how to sleep around even if these gems are tiny~!” <Eel>

Still she was curious about the purity so she grabbed the dragon one to hold in front of herself.

<{Appraisal Control}!>

<| Showing {Appraisal Control} Result;

Name: [Bloodline Gem]Bloodline: [Dragon]Rank: {Absolute}Size: {Tiny}Creator: {Elizabeth Jr. Bloodleaf}

Description: The raw bloodline essence of a [Dragon] without holding any pre-existing elemental affinities this will instead enhance affinities of the user thus has zero chance of rejection. |>

“Huh~ still can’t tell the purity so guess I’ll just need to ask… Alexis about it *Yawn*~.” <Eel>

With that in mind she shook her head with a soft sigh.

“Are we good ta go?” <Fuka>

“Even if we are, we will still need to wipe out a few more groups before the tribes get the conclusion that this side is just as bad as the haunts…” <Emily>

“How insipid… Can we not just wipe out their feral tribe?” <Promicarus>

“That could create more trouble since rogue groups with no territory are likely to just wander, which is far more dangerous than having two small tribes fighting. If we wanted to ensure that didn’t happen it would also take far more time… Plus we wouldn’t get paid enough~!” <Eel>

“*Sigh* Let’s just be on with it!” <Promicarus>