EU: Chapter 034 | Pinaka To The Power of Pinaka

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The carriage spanned a length of twenty metres, a breadth of six metres, and a height of three metres. Currently, diagonally lodged between two sides was a wooden log with a sharp tip, like an arrow.

Exactly two seconds later, a second arrow fell inside and began to expand, too.

‘Wood?’ Pronto created a tiny flame on his palm and illuminated the insides of the carriage, ‘That’s impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!’

He became flustered for a moment, quickly calming down upon seeing a third arrow fall in. ‘There is no Level 2 Elf here. And the Elves of the past have all been killed, even in the whole of T’Hara Forest, not to mention in the Elven Prison.’

The Humans held the World Tree hostage. Therefore, every Elf of the past that was alive tried to barge into the Elven Prison and reclaim the region, only to be put to death by the Warden.

After the Era change, Humans from Earth were reincarnated onto Gangnea in the Elven Prison. To date, no one had escaped from it successfully. That meant T’Hara Forest didn’t have any Elven survivors in it.

No matter how Pronto thought about it, he could not figure out how not one, not two, but probably hundreds of Elves had entered the lava moat.

‘I need to survive! I can’t die here!’ Met with the unexpected situation, Pronto eyed the sealed compartment in the carriage that contained the Relic of the Ogre Race. He hesitated for a moment before giving up on it, ‘Shit!’

His team consisted of himself, the old man with weak Level 2 strength, and five Level 1 soldiers. Of them, one had been skewered in the head. He analysed the situation and eyed the old man, “Make fire, as much as you can. We’re burning our way out!”

He carried the corpse of the soldier like a shield, unleashed a thrust through his legs and flew out in a flash, “Urgh!”

“Follow His Highness!” The old man shouted and rushed out, immediately covering the carriage with a shield of fire. He cranked its heat up to the limit, hoping to burn all the incoming arrows with it.

But then, a log of wood slammed into his leg and loped off the limb, “AARGH!”

“Cough!”

“Argh!”

The four soldiers were stuck in the carriage, unable to climb out as another wood log slammed into the entrance, expanded in size, and closed the gap. The old man’s fire set it aflame, releasing toxic fumes in the interior, suffocating them.

“Keep shooting!”

A calm voice resounded, followed by an endless whistling flurry.

“W-What is this?” Pronto had reached an altitude of ten metres from the ground, his face twisting in pain as multiple semi-burnt arrows had lodged themselves in his legs. Before he could twist open the Healing Potion—given by Rachad—and consume it, his eyes fell upon the carriage, watching an endless stream of arrows fly in until the fire burning there was snuffed out for a couple of seconds.

The old man lay there, riddled with arrows like a porcupine, already dead. The arrows covering him were red hot, reigniting a second later. The screams of the four soldiers, amidst raspy coughing resounded from within the metal carriage, trapped to their deaths.

His face paled in terror as Pronto observed his surroundings. On the ground, on the branches, amongst the foliage, were Elves.

Arms ripped, legs lean, body lithe, holding heavy bows and a quill of arrows meant to kill. Tough but flexible armour, resembling tree bark protected them, allowing them to withstand one or two rounds of intense waves of fire.

In a radius of two hundred metres from Pronto stood about two whopping thousand Elves. He had barely registered the crowd when the Elves raised their bows and, in unison, released the arrows.

[Spell: Solar Hero]

In a radius of four metres around him, flames circulated like a storm, in every which way, forming a sphere resembling the sun. Flares burst out from below, generating the thrust to keep him afloat.

The Spell of Solar Hero was the most balanced in terms of defence and offence for a Level 2 Human. Its biggest advantage was the heat it could generate, making it extremely potent in terms of killing power.

Arrows rained down on the sphere surrounding Pronto, releasing fumes as they vaporised within a depth of a metre in the Solar Hero. But the Solar Hero shrunk in size a little in response, as the flames were consumed to vaporise the arrows.

As the heat within it reduced, the arrows penetrated deeper. A grunt later, Pronto spiked the flames he released, keeping up with the barrage.

The thrust under Pronto stabilised and began to slowly increase his altitude. Once he moves high enough, he’d be able to focus more on offence. Of course, Pinaka had no intentions to provide such an opening.

[Spell: Pinaka Arrow]

Pinaka aimed his bow into the sky and released the arrow.

[Spell: Pinaka]

Upon reaching an altitude of approximately eighty metres, the arrow created a clone of Pinaka beside it and transferred Control Authority to the clone.

The clone began to create a large wooden sphere as it fell towards Pronto. And then, it kicked the sphere dead onto the target.

“What?” There was a gasp from Pronto as he was unable to burn through the wooden sphere fast enough. He hurriedly focused on evasion and harnessed more of his power on his legs to thrust to the side.

However, the moment he did that, he managed to avoid the wood sphere, but the arrows reached him, stabbing him all over.

[Spell: Pinaka Arrow]

The clone returned it Control Authority as Pinaka fired another arrow, which increased in size as it moved towards Pronto.

“Argh!” Pronto evaded in a hurry, blasting off streams of fire as he blazed through the place. He intended to set the forest on fire. However, the moment he did that, an arrow would pierce the tree, causing its wood to curl up like water, and wrap around the flames to cut off its oxygen supply.

This snuffed out the flames enough until the heat was no longer sufficient to burn through the wet trees.

“Who are you?” Pronto screamed, his tone turning shrill as a bunch of semi-burnt arrows stabbed into his body. In one swing, he downed the Healing Potion and then flew into the sky, hoping to fly away.

However, just like before, Pinaka shot an arrow into the sky, which created a clone with his Control Authority. The clone brought down a large sphere on Pronto.

Even if Pronto evaded the attack, Pinaka would have launched another volley of the same Spell combo.

After shooting an arrow, he mingled among the clones and took up a new spot. In a sea of clones, he couldn’t be told apart.

“There!” Pronto lashed out with a Flame Whip and grabbed the neck of an Elf that shot a growing arrow at him. The whip tightened, and the Elf was severed at the neck. Unfortunately, that was merely a clone.

“If you surrender, I’ll at least spare your life.” The Elves stated in unison, their tone, their voice, and most of all, their unison was extremely creepy.

“I surrender!” Pronto said as he landed on the ground and raised his hands, “Please, spare me. You can treat me as a prisoner.”

“Whatever your objective is, I’ll cooperate.” Pronto could no longer put up a fight. In terms of stats, he had enough to destroy the arms of Elves, flee the place, and even return to hunt Pinaka. That was in terms of power.

Physically, his body had sustained grave injuries, but he had consumed a Healing Potion. So, he was rapidly recovering as he pleaded. However, mentally, he lost the will to fight.

The situation was creepy, puzzling, and most of all, beyond his realm of understanding, ‘What is happening? How are there so many of the same Elf? How can an Elf be here? What the heck is this power? Nothing makes sense anymore!’

He had never encountered such an opponent that was miles beyond his understanding. That overwhelmingly flustered his mental faculties, quickly making him lose the will to fight.

“You made a good choice.” Pinaka said as he slowly walked towards Pronto and stood an arm’s length before the latter, “You will be granted rights as a prisoner.”

“W-Who are you, actually?” Pronto asked, “And why did you attack me?”

“Who am I, you ask?” Pinaka tilted his head, looking like he was pondering something when suddenly, Pronto burst with a sea of flames, drowning everything in a radius of two hundred metres, perfectly enveloping every Elf in the area.

He was waiting for the right moment, to use one attack to take out all his enemies. Well, that was his plan. Reality, though, played otherwise.

The sea of flames he had unleashed, intending to burn everything, was casually sucked into the mouth of a nearby Elf.

“What?” It was as if he had seen the worst of his nightmares. Pronto couldn’t believe his eyes and stared blankly at the Elf who had just consumed all his flames whole.

Once the flames vanished, it closed its mouth and patted its stomach. A second later, it burped. What Ronto didn’t know was the fact that in this Elf’s stomach was a Sun Stone. And attached to the Sun Stone was the nervous system of a Level 1 Human.

The Human’s nervous system had been tapped into by the Elf’s using its Control Authority over Lifeform. Thereby, the Elf was able to tap into the Human’s Authority.

This was a temporary process though, as the Human’s nervous system rejected this external influence. And in resistance, it was gradually destroying itself alongside the Elf’s nervous system.

But temporarily, it worked, for its only use was to activate the Sun Stone. Unlike the Humans who could freely store or draw out fire from the Sun Stone like it was artwork, Pinak’s current control only allowed him to use the Sun Stone like a source and sink of fire.

The Sun Stone was half full one it absorbed the sheer amount of fire Pronto had released. The Level 1 Human’s nervous system had mostly destabilised and withered by now. ‘I can harness at most one proper Sun Stone activation per nervous system.’

There was a Sun Stone in every prison. In the Prison Pianka was from, the soldier who brought dinner possessed the Sun Stone. Pinaka had simply borrowed it, alongside the latter’s spike. He then left behind a clone of the latter, which would probably die on accident anytime now.

If Pinaka’s third clone were to successfully bring in a Sun Stone, then he would return this to the owner’s corpse. He had zero intentions of revealing his hand in anything. Everything would only be a series of ‘accidents.’

“Are you done?” Pinaka asked as he stood before Pronto without a change in expression.

“I…I…” Pronto’s face morphed between humour and terror. He was gradually losing his hold over his emotions, feeling like he was going mad.

Thud!

He collapsed to the ground, no longer having the strength left to stand. Pinaka slowly crouched before him, eyes on the same level as he whispered, “You wanted to know who I was, right?”

“Lay witness to it,” Pinaka whispered, “Status.”

[Spell: Status Epidermis]

And then, he conjured up the most ridiculous Status Window ever on Gangnea, one that upon a glance, Pronto became overwhelmed with a chaotic mix of emotions until he went insane.

[Name: -]

[Race: World Tree]

[Authority: Wood]

[Control Factor: ∞]

[Weight Factor: ∞]

[Volume Factor: ∞]

[Range Factor: ∞]

[Speed Factor: ∞]

[Creation Factor: ∞]

[Relic Factor: ∞]

[Divine Factor: ∞]

[Spell: #$%##, %$%^&&*, #$%%%, @!!#@%...]

“Ahahahahahahahaha!” Pronto laughed like a disillusioned idiot, having lost all semblance of his royal grace. He flailed his limbs, spilled ash on himself, and grabbed his eyelids, intending to pull them out.

Pinaka extended his hand and pressed Pronto’s neck to suffocate the latter until he was unconscious, muttering a few seconds later, “Damn! That worked like a nuke.”

“It seems Gangnea doesn’t have internet trolls.” Pinaka said with a hint of pity as he gently closed Pronto’s eyes, “He literally took it at face value.”

Authors Notes: Gangnea Daily Article 34: A Race can never, ever, ever dare think or even conceive the notion of insulting their Race Authority. A Race Authority (such as the World Tree) is considered Sacred.

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