The Star Of Annihilation

The Star of Annihilation

Chapter 6 – The Ruins (3)

Story written by : eleven

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“AWOOOOOOAR”

A vicious roar echoed throughout the forest as the source of the violent tremors started to make its appearance to the boys.

Roy’s eyes immediately narrowed with a cold and calculative expression, while Nate was wide-eyed for a brief moment before returning to a seemingly expressionless face. Nate’s openness about his emotions and thoughts was only for Roy to see, and even towards the monsters, he remained as stoic and closed off as possible.

Ten meters tall.

The large being painted in blue war paint, with large tusks and developed muscles was an Ogre. However, it was no normal Ogre as Roy immediately looked at the blue paint on it’s body. There were a few things that Roy could immediately tell were off about this creature.

One, Ogres should not be this close to the outskirts of the Empire no matter how lax the subjugation forces may be. It was that dangerous. And two, It’s eyes were blood red and skin was scarred all over with wounds and stitches.

‘Why would an ogre know how to stitch wounds, and why is it so aggressive?’

None of the things were adding up here for Roy. There were intense fluctuations within the mana of the forest and beyond it, an Ogre with some seriously questionable features, and loads of monsters that were seemingly in harmony with each other, since even in monster hordes, was it hard to find monsters that would group themselves together like this due to their tribal differences.

However, Roy’s thoughts ended abruptly.

“RUN!”

He shouted at Nate since the Ogre did not care to give the two of them time to think. The Ogre roared once more as it locked eyes on its targets; the ones who had started to invade his territory.

BOOM! BOOM!
The Ogre’s footsteps shook the earth every time it took a giant step forward. It first started at a walking pace and once it caught sight of Roy and Nate, it started to jog and then full-on sprint.

Roy quickly got Nate on the same wavelength as him as he quickly sent him a telepathic message.

– Nate, I need you to do something for me. We don’t have much time before that thing catches up to us.

No matter how much they had enhanced their bodies with simply auxiliary magic, the Ogre was fast and large.

– What do we do?

– First, we need to somehow find a way to penetrate it’s thick hide. It shouldn’t be able to see that well since as a physical type monster, it should be able to see us well if we can hide well.

– Easier said than done. That thing is almost on us!

– Yeah, I know. Do you remember how I taught you to use enchant attributes to your weapons?

– Of course…. But that’s impossible to do right now! It takes at least an hour to pull that off.

– Yes, yes- I need you to remember that method right now and watch what I do. I’m going to attribute a fire type spell onto my blade right now. It’s only temporary and runs on your own mana, so it’s not as effective, but it’s still the best we can do in order to wound it.

– Okay…

Roy suddenly stopped his steps and started to move his lips quickly and pulled out his saber.

Nate kept on going, and enhanced his vision while hopping up into a tree not too far away.

Turning around, Nate crouched on a branch while looking at Roy closely and saw what he was doing.

Whoosh~
Suddenly, Roy’s saber started to glow lightly and turned brighter by the second. By the time the Ogre had caught up to Roy, it was bright white.

“Alright big guy, let’s see what you can do…”

Roy muttered under his breath and then kicked the ground in a flash.

Darting forwards, Roy’s body left an afterimage as he drew the saber by his waist and quickly neared the Ogre’s right ankle.

Shwik!
Roy’s saber cut through the skin, but that was it. It didn’t go through to the tendon or muscles as he quickly backed away.

“ROOOOAR!”

The Ogre bellowed as where Roy once was, the ogre’s fist had smashed the ground as debris and dust clouds flew up.

Immediately muttering while dodging the incoming debris, Roy prepared spell after spell while maintaining his temporary enchantment.

[Wind Slice]

[Vibration]

Roy quickly determined that If he started to vibrate the saber at a high speed, it would have the effect of something close to a saw. Not only that, but fire always grew where there was oxygen.

Firing off the wind slice, Roy quickly followed the trajectory of the slice aimed right at the Ogre’s other ankle.

Immediately as he neared closer to the vicinity of the Ogre, he swung his saber with all his might, creating a storm of flames that erupted from the base of the wind slice.

Roy had to make up firepower with creative ways of using simpler magic. If a mage couldn’t improvise in battle, they had no right to be called a war mage.

Watching the Ogre constantly howling and trying to hit Roy like it was swatting at a fly, Nate observed every movement and combination of spells that Roy used. Nate didn’t have any education about the ranks of monsters ranked by the Empire’s Adventure Guild, but he was sure that normal adults would never dream of doing what Roy was pulling off right now.

Blow after blow, Roy dodged eloquently like an ice skater on the ice as he had previously enchanted his boots prior to leaving for the trip.

As he chipped away slowly at the ankles of the Ogre, Roy started to notice more things that were odd. However,  wouldn’t know anything for sure until he took it down. He wanted to let Nate get experience on this expedition, but there was no way Roy would let another 8 year-old fight against a fully grown Ogre.

As he chipped away at the Ogre’s skin, Roy started to notice that the Ogre’s blood was pitch black and not red. As if it were infected with something or as if it was filled with black paint instead of blood.

BOOM!
“WRROOOOOAAAAH!”

The Ogre let out a bloodcurdling howl as Roy’s attacks finally did their due purpose and knocked it down by getting rid of it’s mobility.

‘I think Nate can probably get some experience on this thing now that it’s knocked down.’

Roy thought to himself as he quickly backed away from the flailing arms of the enraged Ogre.

– Nate come over here, you can help with this now.

– You sure?

– Yeah, hurry up before the horde notices that the Ogre is down and decides to attack.

Nate hopped from the tree branch he was crouching on and brought out his spear. After watching Roy use the temporary enchantment process, Nate tried it on his own spear, as it glowed in a dim blue light with the attribute of ice.

Twirling the spear and getting in a ready stance, Nate enhanced his body with simple auxiliary spells and shot forwards, taking a passive approach with the spear thanks to it’s range, whereas Roy was distracting the Ogre from the front, skillfully taking the aggro and dodging each of it’s strikes from a distance.

Normally, magicians would never take the aggro, as that was what tanks were for, but Roy was trying to develop himself as a magic swordsman of sorts. The same could be said for his experiment with Nate, in trying to make him a magic spearman.

Comparatively, magic swordsmen and spearmen, were stronger than a pure mage or knight at the same star level, but had a much harder time progressing each stage higher. Hence why they were doomed cases from the start in the Empire’s eyes.

Papapak!


Nate’s spear stabbed forward multiple times in a sharp thrust. Several holes were punctured into the arms of the Ogre, targeting the joints to slow it down even further. 

Nate was by no means a careless person, nor was he someone who got overconfident. By all means, he had done everything perfectly for a person in their first life-or-death fight.

However… it was too easy, and Roy knew it.

As he was noticing something wasn’t feeling right, and was about to take action, it had happened.

“NATE GET BACK!… NOW!”

Roy shouted at the top of his lungs and kicked the ground to chase after Nate.

The fluctuations in the mana started to grow violent as Roy noticed what was about to come.

Chapter 6 – Fin

Author Note : Hey guys, I was thinking of actually releasing some of the chaps on webnovel.com to get some more audience on the novel since I really do want to see just how many people would like this novel and expand. I know webnovel’s terrible policies and controversies, but I have zero intention of signing with them.

However, for those of you that like this novel so far, and have a webnovel account, Please feel free to donate powerstones to help get it more attention per week!

I still want to write more before I start publishing there, but I’ll have a link to the novel on that site set up next chapter which will happen next saturday!

much love – B/eleven