A Sculpture of Ice

68

Feliciana found herself surrounded by enemies all of them armed while she had only her staff to protect herself. Why the hell did she have to be left alone? In this situation, with her life in danger, she had no choice but to use her Authority.

She took a deep breath. Her Authority was a pain in the neck, and she hated using it because it affected her every time she did.

Her body glowed faintly, and an aura formed around her an invisible aura, barely perceptible. She closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for what would come next.

When she opened them again, all the masked criminals were lying unconscious on the ground. Two of them were dead, their bodies pierced by swords the weapons of their own comrades.

"It worked this time," Feliciana murmured, relieved.

When she tried to walk, clutching her staff to her chest, she tripped over a criminal lying on the floor. She fell, and a sharp pain struck her. When she got up, she saw blood dripping from a wound in her abdomen.

Feliciana sat against a wall and pressed her hand to the bleeding wound. She didn't have a healing potion with her, and the pain twisted her face as she took deep breaths.

"I knew I shouldn't have used that damn Authority… why do I get hurt every time I use it?"

When the bleeding finally stopped, she cast a minor healing spell, and the wound nearly closed. At least the pain had faded, though the injury still remained faintly, but there.

She stood up with the help of her staff and kept walking. She had taken down several one-star hunters like herself; thank the gods the price her Authority demanded was only a light wound this time. Feliciana had been quite lucky.

However, she celebrated too soon.

Her shadow moved and attacked, striking with a dagger.

Because her Authority was still active, she stumbled and fell, causing her shadow's strike to miss its mark.

"What a surprise… someone with just one star managed to dodge my attack? It seems it wasn't mere luck that you survived the hunters sent after you."

Feliciana watched as her shadow detached from her body and revealed itself as a girl.

"Luck or not, you won't escape again. Better say your last words."

Feliciana saw the woman who had just appeared licking her dagger though, on closer look, it wasn't truly a dagger. It was a short blade, dripping with a green liquid that mixed with the woman's saliva.

An assassin. Feliciana despised this kind of hunter. As a mage, assassins were simply the worst kind of opponent to deal with not to mention that the one before her was of a higher star rank.

Feliciana conjured a wind-element barrier and prepared for the incoming attack. Then she fired three fireballs, one after another, faster than ever before.

The assassin turned into a shadow that slid across the walls at a speed far beyond Feliciana's reaction time. Before she could even realize it, her wind barrier was shattered with a single strike.

Feliciana raised her staff to defend herself, but the shadow dodged and coiled around her body. She felt herself being crushed, as though caught in the embrace of a serpent.

As the pressure increased, her bones began to crack starting with her ribs. Feliciana struggled desperately to break free, but it was useless. Her arm snapped, and she dropped her staff.

Without a mage's staff, she couldn't use magic. Though she bore the mage class, she was far below average; without an external focus, she couldn't cast any of the spells she had spent sleepless nights learning.

She couldn't believe anyone had worked harder than she had. Yet, despite all her efforts to prove herself as a hunter, there she was being crushed to death. It wasn't fair.

Where was John? Why wasn't her leader here to save her?

Feliciana's face grew pale; she could no longer draw air into her lungs.

She closed her eyes again. She would have to use her Authority to escape her fate. Even if she still had her staff, she couldn't possibly face a level-two star hunter.

Even if using her Authority meant paying the ultimate price, she had to try.

Then she remembered something. Gathering the last of her strength, she accessed the system and opened her hunter's inventory. Amid the pile of books she read every night before bed, a spear shone glowing purple.

Feliciana extended the hand she used to hold her staff and a spear materialized, and as it did the shadow that had wrapped around her body slithered out of her at that very moment.

Feliciana coughed violently, her chest rising and falling as she gulped a large amount of air, she wiped the snot that had run from her nostrils, straightened her glasses which showed a small crack.

She would have to return to the optician again.

Feliciana looked at the spear that was not in her hands, a man, or rather a knight, stood before her.

Feliciana blinked at the purple figure that had just appeared, her heart pounded hard, very beautiful, she was genuinely impressed by the transcendental beauty of the knight before her, she could not take her eyes off him.

Eyes deep blue like the vastness of the oceans, hair as lovely as the spring sky, smooth purple skin contrasting with the black armor that covered his entire body.

Feliciana's face turned red as a tomato when she imagined what she would do all night if she could have such a beautiful summon.

She envied her leader who had the Summoner class and could call forth a handsome man.

The assassin shifted from shadow into her normal appearance, she frowned and thought to herself that the sense of danger that made her leap must have come from a one-star summon.

That notion made no sense at all; how could it be true? Perhaps she was mistaken as far as she knew, summoning something above your level was extremely difficult and only three-star hunters qualified to attempt such a feat.

Thinking this way, the assassin decided to attack and steal the artifact the girl had used to bring this figure forth for her master, hoping she might be praised, which cheered the assassin a little.

She was an experienced assassin; in this situation she knew fighting the summon would not be viable the best course was to eliminate the summoner and the summon would be undone eventually.

But something still bothered the assassin: she was certain the girl before her was a mage, not a summoner, but that did not matter much since the girl would be dead anyway.

The assassin split into several humanoid shadow figures that crawled across every surface in multiple directions, she sought an opening to kill the mage with a single strike.

Being a two-star assassin, the task of killing a one-star was as simple as taking candy from a child.

Her copies surrounded the summon, creating a distraction while her true body slipped behind the mage.

Smiling faintly at the success of her plan, the assassin extended her poisoned dagger the venom she used would be enough to kill a two-star easily.

The dagger struck the mage's neck before she even noticed, and before her summon could do anything to stop it that was the advantage assassins had over other classes: the ability to kill with a single blow.

The assassin's face twisted into a grimace, because the dagger had not pierced the mage's neck as it should have. It was as if she had tried to stab a rough, solid surface.

Her body shivered as cold overtook her; she saw her dagger freeze right before her eyes. The ice spread, freezing her hands in the process. She shifted into her shadow form and tried to escape.

To her horror, her body was forcibly materialized, making her ability fail. She watched her clones crystallize one after another and her own body was no different.

Feliciana covered her body with her hands, retrieved her staff, and looked around at the many ice sculptures surrounding her. She hadn't even seen the movements made by her leader's summon.

She reached out to touch the ice statue of the assassin, but jumped back when the statue shattered into countless icy fragments right before her feet.

Feliciana swallowed hard and wondered how strong and skilled someone had to be to freeze a person to that extent. That was no ordinary foe that had been a two-star assassin.

More importantly, Feliciana wondered how powerful one had to be to summon someone capable of freezing a two-star hunter without her even realizing it.

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