Chapter 7 - Intruders

The next day…

Over the last two years, Greem completed inspection tasks every single week, not missing a single one.

As a result of this repeated tango with death and his rapidly growing strength at the time, the deadly nature of the jobs no longer rattled or posed a threat to him. 

This saw his speed of completing them also increase. Ten minutes if he was in a hurry, 15 minutes if he wanted to take things slow.

Thus, it should have taken him 10 minutes today since he wanted to have another training session with his new subordinate/partner.

Despite her impressive racial abilities, Mary was quite weak. Hilariously so. There were many ways she could improve herself without directly advancing, and Greem was eager to show her.

Alas, things went exactly as they did in his memory and for the first time in forever, the magical swamp had some intruders. Powerful ones.

Upon exiting the tower and detecting the potent stench of blood being propagated by the eternal fog, he went back in and called for Mary to follow him. If they succeeded today, she'd benefit greatly. 

With his powerful and ultra-precise olfactory sense, it didn't take him long to filter through the multiple streams of blood and follow the most potent one back to its source.

Knowing the kind of people he was dealing with, his pores were sealed, Spirit and aura fully retracted, and steps inaudible to the sharpest of ears.

This level of caution and stealth is what allowed him to find and spy on the culprits for more than fifteen minutes without them none the wiser.

It was a trio of two young men and a little girl.

The one with disheveled gold hair and a physique matching his own was obviously a body-refiner, while the one with the head of a humanoid snake was evidently a bloodline apprentice.

As for the blonde little girl in the yellow summer dress with a birdcage in hand, she followed the path of elementium, if the ripples around her were to be believed.

All three emitted the unrestrained Spirit radiation of Advanced Apprentices, rendering the danger of their current locale toothless.

They stood in the Garden of Whispers, a place Greem was intimately familiar with. 

This "garden" was located along the section of the ring he needed to inspect every week. On most days, it was as silent as a cemetery, except the times he, or any living thing for that matter, passed by. 

The Demon Babies and Wandering Souls which called the cursed field their home would grow lively when they sensed the presence of living flesh.

Befitting their names as Demon Babies, the monstrous creatures would begin to let out shrill cries reminiscent of infants as they crawled on their bellies and dragged their umbilical cords towards the source of fresh meat and blood.

When they got close enough, they'd start shooting curses that blinded, confused, or drove their target to insanity.

If a large enough number of them gathered and attacked an Intermediate apprentice, they would be able to take him or her down and feast.

As someone who'd reached Pseudo Adept though, Greem could lay in the field and let the rotten creatures scream at him for however long they wanted and even let them take bites out of him.

They'd still fail to pierce his skin or make him blind or confused for even a millisecond.

This could not be said for the men currently being feasted on by the creatures.

Why the three let this happen, Greem would never know. But the mercenaries they had escorting them had all fallen prey to the monsters. Not one of the 17 survived.

While the men fought for their lives, the advanced trio just stood there and watched, unbothered by the carnage unfolding.

Other than pure sadism or complete nonchalance about "ordinary humans," Greem could not for the life of him deduce why the three didn't simply flare their auras and scare the demons off.

They instead waited until the last man's anguished screams died down before taking action.

He would not feel bad about the pain and loss he would subject them to today. He wanted to try and save the men, but Alice, that girl in the summer dress, had a space elementium affinity.

If he had interfered, he would have had to face all three of them at the same time. 

And while the bloodline and body-refining apprentices posed little danger to him, the little girl could render any all defenses he currently possessed naught.

With her space manipulation powers and that birdcage, all she had to do was wave the latter in his direction to capture him or make a light gesture with her hand, and his heart, or worse, brain, would end up in her dainty, childlike palm.

No matter which of these took place, Greem would be totally and irrevocably fucked. 

He could regenerate endlessly, sure, but he couldn't regrow limbs or organs. He had to cross the near insurmountable chasm to Adept first.

After more than twenty minutes of watching the unnecessary bloodbath, subsequent monster feast, and finally, monster bloodbath by the apprentices who finally decided to get off their assess, Greem sent instructions over to the nearby Mary through spiritual whisper. 

Right after that, the trio had a short discussion after which they split up, moving in different directions, the little girl unknowingly going in the direction Greem came from.

Being intruders in the Magical Swamp, the trails that Greem and other apprentices used were completely invisible to these outsiders.

They did not have the magical talismans that served as a token of their identity, hence they were completely blind to these safe zones. Not that they needed it anyway.

Making sure to maintain his stealthy state, Greem took off in the direction of the bloodline apprentice, the snake boy's scent and aura leaving a trail for him to follow.

He shadowed the oblivious apprentice for a few minutes, only making his move when they finally reached far enough that the effects of their battle would not be detected by the others.

Quickly chanting the advanced level Levitate spell, Greem felt his weight reduce by half. 

The reduced mass allowed him to channel the full might of his leg muscles, thus allowing his Agility to match his other attributes.

Still keeping himself hidden, he inched closer and closer to the sightseeing apprentice, the 40m distance between them shrinking bit by bit.

38 meters…

35 meters… 

32 meters…

29 meters…

Right as he crossed the 30 meter mark, the snake apprentice stopped and tilted his head to the side, his long, crimson tongue flicking in and out of his narrow and wide mouth exactly like an actual snake's would.

Greem knew he'd more than likely been detected, probably through his body heat or some other innate ability the snake apprentice's bloodline gave him.

Nevertheless, the distance between them was short enough. With his currently elevated speed, Greem could run a 100 meter race in a little over 2 seconds.

So that's exactly what he did. He engaged every muscle in his body, stomped down on the ground, and shot toward the not-so oblivious apprentice.

In the short, less-than-a second time he took to arrive near the snake boy, the latter had transformed and grown into a large, green, ten meter long, you guessed it, snake.

Greem watched this occur in slow motion, yet maintained his short flight, quickly adjusting the angle of his punch upon arrival. 

The drastic physical shift had displaced some of the boy's organs and outright enlarged some of them, such as his heart.

Perfectly cognizant of the enhanced organ's new position courtesy of Meat Vision, Greem firmly planted his feet upon arrival, twisted his body, reeled back his fist, and struck at an upward angle.

His blow found its target and delivered its payload, the 20 Strength behind it sending the over 300 kg snake flying, the latter's heart bearing the full brunt of the energy that slipped through his tough scales. 

The apprentice sailed through the air for a few good seconds before falling and tumbling across the ground, his massive, serpentine body sending dirt and shrubbery flying.

He left large dents in the soil wherever he struck, sending critters deeper into their burrows and ruining many small plants in his wake.

Despite the agony assaulting his senses and making it difficult to hold onto the transformation, snake boy managed to catch himself and stop moving uncontrollably.

He'd just tasted the blood on his long tongue and turned his large, serpentine head in the direction Greem struck him from when the latter appeared right before him.

Too fast for him to react, the massive body-refining apprentice grabbed the sides of his head with both hands and yanked him low, his whole weight supporting this action.

Snake boy wondered what purpose that could possibly serve when a wicked knee strike impacted the underside of his head and sent a deluge of hostile life force into his brain.

Severely concussed, his head flew back and pulled his massive body along.

Struggling to determine left from right and up from down, snake boy failed to notice Greem jump into the air toward him with his right fist reeled back.

Executing a perfect Superman punch, Greem struck snake boy in the side of his confused and swaying head, and sent his massive form down into the shrubbery with a loud crash.

Finally down for the count, snake boy reverted to his somewhat human form, unable to sustain the taxing transformation without conscious effort.

With urgency in his steps, Greem quickly neared the defeated apprentice and relieved him of his valuables. Magic crystals, a storage item, some potions, and even magical tools.

He made sure to leave him with one crystal and a healing potion though, the reason being the tiny form flapping its wings urgently in approach.

Grabbing the defeated apprentice by the scruff of his neck, Greem turned toward the tiny bat and tossed him towards it.

"He's all yours."

In a puff of red mist, the bat grew in size and morphed into Mary, who landed, caught the unresponsive apprentice by his shoulders and sunk her thirsty fangs into his scaly neck.