Desire for Power

'That guy was a monster.' This was the succubus' general impression of Timir. 'Everybody else dropped dead the moment the blade pierced their skin but that guy lasted for more than a minute.'

The succubus had figured out the special property of the white blade yesterday when she took down the first three people. There were three people that went looking for her, she opted to hide from them but one of them saw her. Thinking she'd have to fight her way through she immediately got out the two blades which she could activate and went for the first attack which because of her decisiveness somehow landed and as she was preparing for the second attack the guy suddenly dropped dead. That surprised the succubus but she couldn't dwell on it because another guy saw her forcing her to get closer since she doesn't have any viable offensive magic. The guy seemed surprised but the succubus wasn't sure whether it was by his friend's body or her sudden shift into attacking him so she landed the attack pretty easily and the guy fell down dead in an instant. Somehow the third guy was oblivious to what was happening behind him and she didn't want to fight unless necessary so she hid behind a thick tree until the guy was far away.

Seeing that she couldn't see him anymore, she went to look at the bodies, she couldn't see anything with a glance - her medical experience was highly questionable - and she didn't have time to investigate further so she just dragged the bodies away from the scene and hid them away in a nearby bush. She was busy trying to cover up the scene when another guy who seemed pissed showed up, it didn't take much thought for her to start running and the guy followed without much hesitation and caught up with her in only a few hundred meters. She had to fight at this point but it wasn't as easy as the last two guys. There moment she stopped to face the guy with the two daggers already in hand a punch landed on her stomach sending her back while vomiting blood. Before she could get into a more fitting posture a long sword was already slashing towards her but she managed to block with the silver dagger in the right hand. The block surprised her opponent allowing her a chance to try and stab at the opponent's neck but he regained his composure in time and moved back. This forced the succubus to change mid-stab into a slash towards the trailing arm. She managed to gourge a wound on his forearm causing him to spew curses which turned into a loud roar in anger before he dropped dead.

The succubus couldn't think about this because that roar would definitely attract attention and she didn't want them to find her there. The succubus ran as fast as she could while using the healing formation to close her wounds for about a minute before her mana ran out and she had to find a bush to hide in and because of her small size and the fact that she was in a forest wasn't too hard.

She rested there while recovering her mana which she would mostly use to heal the internal injuries she got from that guy's punch. By the force of the punch that guy was probably peak squire or initial knight. The power difference was too big so a single punch caused a lot of damage. She managed to heal all her injuries sometime at night and filled back her mana to optimum.

She immediately set out to escape by traveling to the opposite direction of where the large fire was and from where some voices could be heard from where she was.

She hadn't traveled too far when she sensed a very thin magic mist surrounding the area, it seemed to be a dome shaped detection spell with the highest point of the dome probably somewhere around where the fire was. If her guess was correct she wouldn't be able to outrun a group with knight stage refiners and she won't be able to hide from any mages once their detection spell has got her especially since she's most likely weaker than they are. As she was observing she noticed that it was getting thinner, but at the rate it's going it'd probably be a couple of hours before it collapses. The mage would have reinforced by then. She could only escape after it's extremely degraded or she could escape with many other people to confuse the mage.

She quickly made a plan to cause chaos in their group. Her first plan were to skim them down with her blade but she quickly threw it away when she saw how everyone was packed in the same area. But her luck proved good when three people left the group and traveled quite far. They seemed to be relieving themselves so the succubus took this chance while one was busy with his business to kill the two sentries who were facing different directions while talking about the town they were supposed to go to before things went sideways this afternoon first and then the one on the left, leaving the guy squatting down for last. The first guy got his thigh stabbed while the other guy had a rushed stab at his abdomen, the guy squatting down got one on his exposed back. All in all it took roughly half a minute. The succubus was happy with this result. Now she's got to pick off those who come to look for them, when enough people disappear, chaos will surely spread and if enough people leave the dome at the same time the mage won't figure out who's who and the chances of getting caught would decrease.

But her plans went down in flames when she heard orders saying that they would only look for those who disappeared in the morning.

She didn't have a choice at that point but to default to her specialty, formations. She had seen some people go up trees, so she made three non-elemental propulsion formations on large pieces of bark. She armed these with mana fed stones and aimed them towards the two figures on the two trees by balancing them on rocks and some other things and made them activate a minute apart. She carried the third one with her. When the two people came crashing down everyone else came down from the trees. They grouped together on the ground and there was around 30 people now, she aimed the formation in her hands to the largest group and hit some guy there and when that guy died, chaos finally spread in the group making the succubus very happy.

But her happiness was short-lived when she saw 7 people running towards her direction forcing her to run away from them. The speed those people reached without using any movement spell made her realize they were all knight stage, she couldn't fight all of them even with the blade, she probably wouldn't win against two. She decided to use traps to try and skim them down, she was happy to see that after everything only one guy was left. She was tired but one guy should be manageable.

But that guy still gave her a lot of trouble to the point that she had broken so many bones and had so many injuries at the end of their fight she couldn't even move. Thankfully she had won in the end, but she couldn't relax too much. She wasn't sure whether all those chasing her were truly out of the game. She had to heal all those injuries that impede her movement as fast as possible and get out of here.

By the time that the succubus' bones were healed and her muscles were mostly so it was already early morning. She stood up and went to take her daggers from the man's leg.

This fight had reminded her of a few things. Even if she had some of the best seals in the world she couldn't rely on them too much especially with how weak she is, she no where near to using them at their full potential. The other problem is her constitution, her mid-level commoner constitution meant she was around the level of a 10 year old noble brat. She had to fix that.

There is also her lack of martial experience. Even if she could kill most people with a single attack with her blade, it's useless if she can't actually land the attack. She also couldn't rely on the dagger too much, the fight a couple of hours ago showed her that people who are sufficiently strong can withstand it. Maybe it depends on the difference in strength or maybe it's fixed, but with how weak she is both probabilities weren't good for her.

The task that that man gave her is probably dangerous otherwise he wouldn't give her a way to get stronger faster, it's probably passive so she has to do her part to raise her power as fast as possible.

At least now she had an idea about a town to go to after leaving the forest. But before that she decided to loot her former opponent of his cloak, if she was going to a human town she had to cover herself up a bit lest she wants them to find out she's a demon.