Master Of None

In Su’s mind she should probably be using more of her skills to ensure the safety of those around her. She had been wondering what else she could do in situations like this to help others.

The natural idea was that she would be able to learn more from the cathedral. Or she would have to speak to the dragons about how they strengthen the dragonkin who work with them. Whether they are leading them to a task, the dragonkin naturally seem more energized.

Whether that is the mana that they radiate or the fact that they are using some sort of buffing skill didn’t matter. If Su could take on some of those skills or similar she could be making all the guards and soldiers here with her stronger and in turn, making herself more useful.

As she watched, this thought began to run through her mind and even more so when she looked at the focused faces of all those who stood with her. The shields prepared could be made stronger.

The skills to cover the area around her with a single dragon breath or a mixed dragon breath were more for when she fought alone. She couldn’t do these things all the time. So, instead of individual strength, she had to focus on her strength as a leader. She had dedicated soldiers who followed her now too. It was the right time to make a change.

Walker and Midnight did not know what Su was thinking about other than protecting the area. They trusted that the skills used to ensure the corpse fly swarm did not move ahead would be perfect. Their trust was built on constant reassurance of Su’s strength and effort.

Midnight was focused on what Walker was feeling. Through their bond she could sense that he was mixing his mana with the air mana around them. This was the goal he had achieved many times before in using his mana senses to better understand the mana around him and also how he could see without his eyes.

What she realized in this case though, was that he was making the mana in the air dense. The wind mana gathering was a deterrent to the corpse fly swarm which could sense the mana even though they had greater resistance.

This was acting like a wall of mana they did not want to tolerate and forcing them to turn back on themselves. Whether most of these corpse flies were alive and relying on their potent dark mana or they were undead and using the undead mana that made them exist didn’t matter.

The mana was uncomfortable to them and especially the singular corpse fly that was controlling them with its mana as the leader of the swarm.

The mana that it used was still very spread out causing Walker to feel he was looking at a bowl of spaghetti noodles. He couldn’t track the mana and where it came from since it mixed over and over constantly. Beyond that it was also clearly mixed together too much to be clear since it was all strands of potent dark mana on top of undead mana.

He had to make the corpse fly pull some mana back so he could more clearly see it. For that, midnight had to be in place to capture the leading corps fly so that Walker didn’t risk using a lot of mana pointlessly while also causing the corpse fly swarm to feel fear and fly away losing them.

It was better to have control of them now and for the future than to worry about them.

Midnight’s movement using dark mana to hide herself using the shadow wrapping skills as perfect. She even blended in with the trees around her so that even the corpse fly swarm did not realize she was there. It didn’t cause them to flee because the sudden potent dragon aura or mana around her would cause many monsters of smaller stature or weaker body to fear her.

Seeing that Midnight moved in to place and feeling her confidence, Walker began pulling the light mana in to the air. The dense winds this caused when light and wind became radiant winds caused the corpse fly swarm to shift even faster.

Since some were undead and the light mana was surprising the potent dark mana, all the corpse flies that made up the corpse fly swarm were agitated. This and it harder for the leading corpse fly to even attempt control making it immediately pull its mana and the entire swarm closer.

This did exactly what Walker had expected.

He had read once that some schools of fish keep certain younger fish in the center of their school to protect them from other monsters. As such, the swarm here might do the same. The leader in the center to be protected.

That was why as soon as the changes in mana happened, Walker’s sharp mana senses picked up on the changes made and the movements of the corpse flies caught his eyes. He was working as hard to slow his focus and ensure he caught it until he honed in on one.

The depth of the dark mana was greater on one singular slightly small fly. It was also moving with faster speeds along with clearly having more room for growth. It was also surrounded by more of the other living corpse flies while the undead corpse flies were mostly further away. Some even dropped entirely from its control and fell to the ground since they were not able to be kept near enough for proper control.

They could be purified later, but as soon as Walker let this knowledge go through his connection to Midnight she had already sprung from the trees below with her maw open.

Walker had thought that Midnight would use her talons to capture it or even use one of the many trees to use as a net. He even had offered her a vial to trap it in. He’d missed the fact that midnight could easily capture something like this in her mouth and be perfectly safe.

The dark dragon breath she had trained beside Mordant with her and his knowledge was extremely dangerous. She could resist that from the inside. How could the mana used to control others of its kind affect her more than that dragon breath would?

Shockingly, when the snap of her jaws and teeth coming together echoed around, the corpse fly swarm remained around her. It seemed that the manas were strong enough to keep the living corpse flies following and nearby the youngest leader that they had. This left Midnight with a seemingly small swarm following her like a queen.

She didn’t seem happy to have them though. When she rushed toward Walker he used much more condensed wind mana to deter the escape of the young corpse fly while trapping it in a jar. He had to keep them here for the time being while a few of the undead corpse flies would be handled by the healers nearby. Their usage of light and purification skills would be ideal.

When he felt a small tap on his shoulder, he was surprised to see a demon girl looking for his attention. She wasn’t bothered by the corpse fly swarm, now smaller, but still around them. ”Can I tame those?”

”Where did you come from?” The demon girl was young and she shouldn’t have managed to get through here. The small commotion Walker heard coming from a distance away was someone yelling about their daughter though. If he didn’t have such sharp senses he wouldn’t have even heard it. He was answering his own questions fairly quickly.

”My father is a rune carver. He brought me to try and find the class I am best at, but I like those and I heard people can tame monsters. They look fun.” Before Walker could even tell her this should be dangerous, his gut feeling told him to let it happen. That she wouldn’t have managed to get through all the possible blockades unless this wasn’t some form of luck.

When she tapped the glass, the dark mana increased and her skin even seemed to be drawing it in. The small strings of dark mana the youngest corpse fly had been using all anchored around her.

”Hehe, I knew they were cute. They are my friends now.” The look Midnight was giving this young girl who came out of nowhere was the same anyone would give a crazy person.

”I have to stop expecting life to be normal now. Too many races and too many new things to ever expect calm, peaceful, normal thought.” Walker’s mumbling was followed by the approach of a worried looking Su who was protecting an older demon who had a clear face of panic.

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