Master of Myths

In the bloody ruins of the village YuJu had been sitting for four whole hours, his face wasn't bored at all though as he entertained himself with various thoughts, most of which revolved around the previous battle

'Ellis is truly a monster, unconsciously learning how to convert aura into energy, shes a real prodigy'

The battle against the beetles, or better described as a one-sided massacre, took a very long time, more than what humans at their level with low vitality could handle

Humans have a tendency to push themselves beyond their limits but having a steady battle strength throughout the entire massacre proves it wasn't pure will

'Leveling up does give her some of her strength back but she must have realized the art of converting aura into energy to a rather satisfying degree, her improvements are beyond what I had initially planned for her'

As he thought about this an uncomfortable expression surfaced on his face, while he was happy that his follower was getting stronger at great speed he was very dissatisfied that this speed came from their inborn talent and not his intervention

To begin with, he didn't like geniuses, for if he did then he wouldn't have chosen Ellis as his first slave, there were a variety of geniuses up for grab if he really wanted a fast-growing collection of slaves, plus their character was better than this justice fool that he took in

The only reason he chose her was the fact that fate had abandoned her after giving her an early spike in power, that power saved humanity time and time again but it proved to be useless once humanity climbed its way into the middle levels of the world, at that point all her good deeds and valiant efforts couldn't save her from death, nor did the ones she saved put their life on the life for her, she died alone and forgotten, betrayed by her own race and the ones she fought to guard

"Watch me make what you had discarded into a marvellous being out of this world"

He spoke to the sky with great certainty

....

Inside the half-collapsed thatched house Ellis was watching her Master look up at the sky as he mumbled with determination, the scene would have been inspiring if not for it being the fifth time he made such a notion in the past four hours

"Is her rehearsing lines?"

That was what she honestly thought, after all one couldn't form so many convictions one mere four hours, he must be rehearsing lines to say when certain situations came up

"Maybe that's how he keeps his mysterious appearance up"

She thought uselessly to her self, it as the only way to keep her self busy since she couldn't practice her aura currently since she didn't know if the thing they were baiting would sense her or not

"Will any creature actually fall for this trap? These beasts don't seem to lack intelligence, and the stronger they get the more sentient they seem"

She had already caught on to this fact after fighting the abomination near the hospital, that rat was as cunning as a human and it seemed to be at the beginning of its evolution

'Can our human race really keep up with these beasts? And what of the beasts outside? What will happen when the borders go down...'

While these problems were beyond her she couldn't help but worry of humanities fate, for her sense of justice and responsibility made her feel a heavy burden

"Caw caw!"

The sudden noise interrupted her lamination period, reminding her that they were here to lay a trap

Turning to the direction the sound came from she saw a crow through the gaps in the broken roof, the crow was circling the edge of the village while looking at her master's direction

She also cast her gaze at him but found him none responsive as if he didn't hear it

'Not the target?'

She thought and turned back to the crow

"Caw Caw!"

Its calls got louder and more aggressive, while its eyes seemed glued to her master

'No, it seemed to be looking at the treasure'

After following its gaze carefully she noticed its eyes never left the few treasures on the ground, it had an intoxicated expression that said it would not leave without these treasures

Still, Ellis didn't know if this was what they were baiting or not for she knew the treasures were valuable and it could be that this beast was attracted by them coincidently, so she made no move to attack the crow, not to mention she couldn't even reach it when it was so high up in the sky

The beast didn't seem to be very patient as it drew closer to the treasure, greed flashing through its eyes, obviously craving these spoils

Ellis took off her shirt and readied herself to jump out at a seconds notice, just in case this thing was their target

"CAW!"

Only seconds later the crow didn't seem like it could wait any longer as it made a quick dive toward the various treasures, its speed barely noticeable to Ellis, appearing to be a blur if observed by normal humans

"Lord! What is this speed"

She cried out loudly, and the crow was right above YuJu before her words were even finished

It was at this point that the silent master of hers finally turned his head toward the diving crow, eyes showing a calm and ridiculing look

Next, his body sprang from its sitting position like an arrow, aiming a kick into the diving path with great precision

Woosh!

The kick carried great but not lethal momentum, hitting the air....

"?"

YuJu's posture stalled mid-kick, looking awkwardly at the crow flying above, silence reigning between the two as he felt craws flying above his head calling him names

The silence didn't last long though as the crow suddenly started to flap up in great haste, tremendous fear showing on its face, YuJu had seen such a look on others before, this wasn't typical fear, this was a look one gave when they saw their natural predator, their worst nightmare, a look of pure dread

The crow clearly didn't want to be anywhere near YuJu as it flew up with all its might, only its wings were slightly hard to move with the sudden break it just made, still it flapped them desperately while its eyes keep staring at YuJu with caution

It was so caught up in its fear that it barely noticed the approaching aura from the side, when it did it sharply turned its eyes toward it, only to see a purple hue as the last memory before death

....

YuJu stood silently above the crow's dead body, a frown marring his usual leisurely face, thoughts churning inside his head trying to explain what just happened

"Ellis, what did you see"

He asked the nearby Ellis who was wearing her shirt

She paused slightly, trying to recall everything, then answered

"Well, I saw the crow diving toward the treasures as it ignored you, I didn't have the time to attack since I didn't expect it to be so fast, but when you turned around the crow glanced at you and then suddenly stopped itself mid-dive with a lot of effort, after that I attacked it as it struggled to fly up, it didn't seem to sense me until I was right next to it"

Her explanation covered the whole scene, proving that she was very vigilant and observing, sadly that didn't help him at all as he still had no clue as to why the crow was so afraid of him, and being in the dark made him the most uncomfortable

No matter how he thought about it he still couldn't understand, so he could only forget the incident temporarily and focus on the task at hand

Looking at the body before him his eyes portrait an annoyed look

The head of the crow was cut in half starting from one eye to the other, Ellis had tried to cut its neck but its sudden turn made her miss and cut the eyes instead, these happened to be one of the things he wanted from the crow but he couldn't blame her as his own plan had failed

He crouched down next to the body and started to flip it left and right, his hands roaming its feathers carefully, searching for something

Soon he paused on a feather, and after making sure its what he wanted he plucked it out, then put it aside before looking through the body once again

He repeated this process twice more, then after checking all over the body and not finding a similar feather he casually threw it away

Picking up one of the feathers he moved it over the bade of his right palm, then naturally allowed the feather to mend into his skin, becoming a tattoo of similar proportions and shape

He didn't stop there and lifted his right hand over the treasures by the side, with a single touch he absorbed every one of them into his palm

Ellis watched by the side with wide eyes, amazed at the miracle before her

"What is this thing? Where did those items go?"

YuJu looked at this woman who seemed to have never watched science fiction and explained

"This is a spatial feather, much like other items that have an inner cubic space this feather can store inanimate objects within, unlike the typical spatial items this one can become part of the user's body"

Hearing its features she looked at the remaining two feathers in disbelief, these things can do so much?!

She grabbed one herself and looked it over but didn't notice anything weird about it other than the fact that it gave off a slightly dark vibe

While she was absorbed in this strange feather she suddenly felt an offending hand insert itself between her twin mountains, followed by a light sting in her valley before those hands retreated from within

Slowly her head turned toward YuJu with a frozen expression on her face, only to see his indifferent eyes not even looking at her but at the feather in her hands

"WHY!"

Screaming, she demanded a valid reason for his aggression

"This feather is important, unlike other spatial items it can stick to the body so it would cause great trouble if found since even normal spatial items are precious, and since you tend to get injured quite a lot I thought the only place that is never going to be exposed would be there"

He rattled on but she wasn't convinced at all

"Then let me do it Myself!!"

She retorted with vigour, her chest heaving up and down in pent up rage

To her outburst he merely gave a glance and replayed indefinitely

"You need delicate control over energy if you want to embed this feather, you lack such control so I had to do it myself"

"Delict control? You're just embedding it into the skin"

She wasn't having any of his explanations

'He must be making excuses! Clearly he just wanted to feel...'

She didn't continue down that line of thought as it made her feel embarrassed and angrier

'Il just run him out of excuses'

She was determined to never let him take this kind of advantage of her even if she was his slave, thus she sought to prove him wrong

"I can do it too, like this"

"Don't do-"

Before he finished speaking he saw her place the feather over her wrist then it burst apart into a plume of smoke

"!!?"

While she was lost in bewilderment YuJu already grabbed her wrist away, pulling her to his side and then jumping away in haste

Before she could ask she saw the plume of black smoke float in its place, then explode into a black hole, sucking up everything in its way before disappearing with whatever was in the vicinity