Elevation of Mana Chapter 199 Missing Enemy

Trying to do it again was a bit of a failure, mostly because of where we found ourselves today.

“Nothing again, I'm beginning to suspect we may have a problem,” Uro said, the leader of one of our scout groups.

“They're not gone,” Neera seethed. “And not going to go on their own, just ran off somewhere.”

“We agree on that much at least,” I added. “From above it looks like the worst of the destruction is towards the Northwest.”

That was only a really general truth. I'd managed to find several places that looked like they'd been subject to the whole slaughter evolution thing we'd seen ourselves, but from there? The paths of fire headed away from us. In some ways that was very reassuring, these creatures were no longer headed towards our homes and people, in some, very disturbing, since it meant that they were going somewhere else, for some other purpose.

Over a week had passed since our fight against the evolved dinos, and in that time we'd found only one more small group of their kind. A heard of three of them, all beaten and broken almost to death were upon the ground, near to one of the sites. They'd succeeded in taking the next step, but only after nearly killing themselves, making them an easy mark.

“So why are they leaving?” Rolan asked.

“Animals return home to breed,” I finally said, grumbling a bit. “What if these are doing the same?”

I couldn't tell them about salmon from Earth, but the image flashed in my mind now. They went out from their youthful home, heading towards the ocean to grow. And grow they did, into much more powerful, much stronger forms. Only then did they return home, losing many of their number upon the way, breeding the next, stronger generation. Were these monsters like that? Did they migrate out only to return home with only the best of their kind?

“If they're leaving they may be done. Many creatures that go home to breed die there,” Rolan contemplated. “We've several species of bird like that, but there's no guarantee is there?” he mused.

“No, and if they survive and are stronger...” I let the statement drop.

In my mind I saw the eggs I'd seen so long ago, piles of them by the oddly resilient skeleton. These things didn't die easy, and their bodies stuck around. Some of them had even had parts harvested, skin and bones for weapons and armor. A few of the elders with us thought that the organs might be used in some urgent or another, though nobody had worked with them before.

Matriarch Neera had even taken a few things, and I looked at them now. Several mana stones now hung around her neck.

“Looking at them again?” she asked. “If you wanted them all you needed to do was say so.”

“Could you use them like you did the others?” Uro asked, looking at me as we spoke.

“Others?” the Ancient inquired.

“No,” I responded without elaboration.

“Now hold on, what did you do before with stones like these?” Matriarch Neera inquired, others looking on curiously.

“Killed Uro's counterpart. She'd threatened my people, and I took exception.”

It was easy to forget that compared to all the people I was dealing with in this expedition (excluding Chien) that I was still a youngling. They treated me with respect, with caution sometimes, but still listening to what I had to say. With the other elders it wasn't so, but with me they heard what I told them and heeded my advice more than I could ask for.

And now these people looked at me with a mix of interest, and slight worry. For I'd revealed something they may have suspected, but now worried about. I could use the power of mana stones, though they didn't know that it was only the ones I made. If I let that secret slip there could be real problems, like one of them figuring out how to do the same.

“That's unfortunate to hear then,” Neera said, removing her own to put them away, probably just in case. “We might have had more weapons we sorely need.”

I huffed, but she wasn't wrong. If I'd had time to prepare, plenty of it rather, then we might have had something more effective. The sad fact was though that I hadn't had years or any experience with these to know what would work.

“A shame, so, do we go after them and into what is definitely their territory?” I asked.

They all nodded agreement, for we all knew there was little else to do. We had to kill these things or we could doom our whole people. Personally I wanted to make sure those eggs were well and gone too. Why would I leave something like that behind for myself or my descendants to deal with after all? Had I known what would come of them I might have sought to destroy them years ago. Not sure how I would have gone about that as weak as I was back then, but I could have figured something out.

Weapons weren't the only thing though, we'd already proved that. While I may not have ice cannons, or some massive freezing array that could lay low these beasts I did have one or two ideas. There were other things in this world, like the mountain we'd used but so, so different. We just needed to bring them to bear if it became necessary, if all else failed, if our war-band proved not enough there were still a few things we could hope for that might manage to save us.

With those thoughts and a small smile the barest bits of a last ditch plan formed. It would take some doing, some time, and some risk, but just perhaps...