Chapter 674 - Elemental Activation (1) (1/2)

The water elementals moved the entire surface of the lake to the middle of the air and threw it at Brendel and Maynild, who was still on the sh.o.r.e. The translucent wall of water poured down from mid-air and turned into a waterfall. When the body of water slammed against the ground, it fractured into white gaseous clouds and countless sharp arrows shot out from the cloud.

Brendel leaped onto the sh.o.r.es of the lake with a single step and turned around to flee alongside Maynild. A wave, taller than a human, dogged their footsteps and then flooded the cedar forest. With cras.h.i.+ng sounds, the ice trees were uprooted and swirled into the whirlpool.

The white tidal wave rapidly pushed forward along with the driftwood, but it was always just a step behind Brendel and Maynild. Instead, many of the frost demons who couldn’t escape were pulled into it. The wall of water pushed forward several hundreds of meters before calming down. It started to retreat but was instead absorbed into the ground.

Brendel and Maynild ran until they reached a small hill. They breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to see that the landscape of the forest had completely changed. There was a pool of receding muddy water, upon which floated countless shards of ice. They were gobsmacked at the sight. These ice fairies really were merciless towards their own brethren.

“Just how many ice fairies were there in the forest?” Maynild looked at the lake, which had turned shallow again. Gloating water elementals hovered over the surface of the lake.

Brendel was a tad bit speechless. Summoning water elementals is a six ring spell and every summoned water elemental was a level 37 top-rank platinum elemental being. Its powers would be roughly on par with Maynild’s and because it was an elemental being, its fighting ability might even be stronger than Maynild’s.

As mid-level platinum beings, ice fairies should not be able to use this spell by themselves. The only way they accomplished this would have been to use a ring formation to finish the spell. Summoning a water elemental would take the powers of about ten ice fairies. Add in the mirror image spell and the number of ice fairies in the Foggy Ice Bloom Forest would probably be in the hundreds, if not the thousands.

“Should we force our way through?” Maynild turned around to look at him.

“No need.” They could force their way across, but at a great cost. They were facing hundreds of ice fairies. Between him and Maynild, they had someone who needed to undergo elemental activation and another person who had just stepped foot inside the golden realm; more importantly, they were both swordmasters. They didn’t have a teammate capable of casting spells.

Brendel was starting to regret not bringing Ciel or Pahimila with him.

At the same time as he answered Maynild, he took out a little pot from his Dimension s.p.a.ce.

“Honey?” Maynild asked when she spotted the clay jar. She immediately recognized it as the honey that Brendel had asked the innkeeper to buy before.

“Fairies especially love pollen and honey. This has been recorded in many works.” Brendel answered as he pulled out the stopper of the jar and placed the jar onto the ground.

Maynild looked at him dubiously, “You think doing this will solve the problem?”

“Of course not,” Brendel answered, “we’re still here. They’re not that stupid.”

“And yet you’re still doing this meaningless task…”

“I said it won’t work if we’re here. We just have to go hide behind a tree.” Brendel smiled at her.

Maynild turned around and gave him a silent stare. “Mr. Brendel, now is not the time for jokes.”

“You really forgot all about this?” Brendel stopped and asked with a slight surprise.

“What?”

“Follow me –” Brendel turned around and found a cedar tree not far behind them. He gestured at Maynild and ducked behind the cedar.

The female knight watched this all happening with some confusion, but still followed him after a moment’s hesitation.

The two stared out from behind the cedar tree. Maynild frowned and refused to believe that Brendel’s crude trick would work — anything with a bit of intelligence could tell that it was a trap. But they didn’t have to wait too long before a small dot of light appeared on the surface of the lake. It was a bit like the light sprites she’d seen in Trenthem, but smaller and with two thinly translucent fairy wings on its back.

She slowly flew over and landed next to the jar of honey. With both hands on the rim of the jar, she lifted her head and sniffed with her tiny nose. Her face quickly showed her surprise.

Next, Maynild watched as a light ball floated up from her palm. The fairy spread out her palm and moved forward so she could toss the ball of light into the jar.

“What is she doing?” Maynild asked with a frown.

“That’s fairy magic. She’s testing for poison,” Brendel answered quietly. Then he turned around to look at Maynild. “You really did forget a lot of things.”

“… My dreams were already fractured. I can only remember the main points and sometimes I can’t even tell the sequence of events. Some of the details get lost before I even wake up,” The female knight answered calmly. “Sometimes I have to use my waking moments to read up on things in order to fill in the gaps from my dreams –”

She continued after a moment of silence, “But really, I don’t like it when you ask me questions like this… because this is not what I want to do. They make me feel like a puppet controlled by unseen forces, someone that can only live according to my dreams.”

Brendel’s gaze paused on her. The female knight was conflicted and so was he. On one hand, he hoped the person in front of him was Bai Jia, but on the other hand, he knew that this a.s.sumption caused Maynild pain.