Master of Myths

Looking at the deep pit formed by the explosion Ellis gulped hard, the black hole just now would have obliterated her as well if not for YuJu's timely response

She felt her body fall out of nowhere, landing on her buttocks, but when she looked at her master blamingly for dropping her she saw his stern eyes and swallowed her words back down

"Why did you do that"

He asked coldly

"I was just trying to show you, show you that I can also control it, I just didn't know-"

"Exactly, you didn't know, you merely assumed it was easy because you saw me do it with ease"

His interrupting words caused her to purse her lips, of course she thought it was easy, they both just started this journey how could they be so far apart in experience? No matter how much he'd shown her of miracles she couldn't help but default him to a struggling survived like herself, yet he kept proving her wrong all the time, as if he wasn't even from this planet, like hed lived with the new system his whole life

Seeing her pursuing her lips ins dissatisfaction he narrowed his eyes

"Do you know what you just broke?"

"..A spatial feather"

"Not just any spatial feather, its the spatial feather that housed this crows treasures"

"?"

Her eyes showed confusion, what treasure, is the look she gave

"These are Trove Crows, other than the space characteristics that allowed them to accelerate and store items they are known for their insatiable greed, seeking whatever valuables they could get their hands on and storing them in their bodies, whether they can use them or not it doesn't matter, that's why every Trove Crow is a natural treasure trove"

He watched her face change from confusion into understanding, then into guilt

"Furthermore the scarcity of these creatures, and spatial items in general, is not simply a matter of resources and effort, it doesn't matter if you have the money to buy them or put in work to find them, unless we are lucky we won't be getting one anytime soon"

This further plunged her into guilt, forming a hard frown on her face

After giving her a solid reprimand he turned around and walked toward the hole to inspect, but no matter where he looked he couldn't find anything other than ruins

'I was curious what that crow had stored from the remnants of that dude's massacre, it would have been a good harvest'

He sighed in disappointment, then erased his sour mood, sulking was never one of his traits

"Let's get a move on, were tight on time"

Ellis nodded with her head down, then followed him into the nearby first, they were going to fetch Anput first before leaving

'This feature of feeling where your slaves are approximately is very handy'

Through their connected soul, he could easily sense the whereabouts of his slaves, if he really concentrated hard enough he could even sense their current actions

Thinking of this he tried to sense Anput's actions

Supposedly it was hard but with his previous experiences with extreme sense he could barely capture a few blurred images through their connection

What he received was the distressed face of Anput, her legs were moving haphazardly

This confused YuJu but not for long as a faraway noise made it to his ears

This broke his concentrated state, promoting him to look toward the front with slight surprise

"Just now Master was that a caw?"

Ellis asked by the side, but he didn't respond, instead, he picked up his pace, rather than worry there was expectation on his face

""Caw Caw Caw""

As they drew closer they heard more and more cawing, the noise came from many crows at the same time indicating their large number

'Could it be that there are more Trove Crows?'

YuJu couldn't help but excited thinking so, for he knew there would be more than one Trove Crow around here but he thought he only had enough time to bait one

Soon the trees blocked their sight no more and the situation came to sight

Anput was the first to come into sight with her distressed face, weaving through the trees left and right as she dodged the black shadows that descended upon her from the sky like arrows

Seeing these shadows YuJu and Ellis traced them back to the sky only for their face to morph into horror

"Run!!"

He hurriedly issued the command and ran back with everything he had

Above them the huge murder of crows noticed their figures, giving chase as they rained down upon them with their own bodies, intending to plow right through them with their beaks

YuJu effortlessly dodged their attacks while Ellis activated her aura with no care for her shirt, shredding it into pieces as the purple hue enveloped her body

"Don't attack! You'll be slowed down enough for them to hit you"

He reminded her from the side, causing her to halt her swing and continue to dodge with dissatisfaction, she could easily hack them in two but with the force they are coming down with it would cause her to stagnate, and that would allow too many opportunities

YuJu glanced back at the distressed Anput and saw her use the trees to manoeuvre around the crow's vision, that rendered their numbers less effective against her allowing her to barely dodge all their attacks

This wasn't a solution though for he knew how persistent these beasts would be, furthermore the forest wouldn't last forever, they had to deal with them before they got to a clearing

'These two cant launch aerial attacks'

The crows would only come down when attacking, meaning a counter-attack would put them in a dangerous position, and if they didn't attack then Ellis and Anput had no opportunity to hit them

'Must I lure them away?'

As a survival veteran he had already come up with a plan within seconds of seeing the crow murder, but that plan was to lure the crows away from the group using treasures, then he would escape using his stealth

Naturally, he was unwilling to take that route as it meant he would have to let these flying treasure, well, fly away

He contemplated the cons and pros of the situation, sometimes even flashing a knife in his hands, in the end though he could only sigh and choose to lure them away, the spatial feathers he would get wouldn't have any short term use, and while he could sell them for a lot later on he would have to sacrifice some things money couldn't buy

"Ellis, I shall lure them away, you and Anput go toward the village and wait for me"

He paused a little then added

"And if you two get an opportunity to hunt down any of these crows that would be best, the darker their colour the better"

With that he made a nimble jump toward one of the trees as he avoided the deciding crows, then he took out the blood pearl and turned toward the crows holding it up high

"CAW!"

A loud caw was heard, promoting him to ready himself for the onslaught of the crows

That never happened

"Caw Caw"

What he saw next was a familiar scene, only on a much larger magnitude

The crows raining down on them halted they're decent with everything they got, then flapped their wings as hard as they could, trying to get as far away from him as possible, while the ones in the sky had already flown away, disappearing beyond the trees with tremendous trees

Only a few crows seemed to not have realized what the situation was, but seeing the primal fear etched on their comrades face made them panic, hurrying to fly wherever the others were off to

The trio was dumfounded seeing the situation, only YuJu quickly collected himself, issuing a command to the still stunned Ellis and Anput

"Kill as many as you can"

After that he himself jumped off the branches of the tree, delivering kicks to those who wings were damaged from the halt, sending them crashing toward each other and toward Ellis who finally snapped out of her surprise

Ellis first swung her sword toward the two thrown at her, cutting them both in half with her battered sword fully enveloped by the purple hue

She proceeded to jump up a tree then bound off of it toward the sky, aiming her sword at the darkest looking crow close to her vicinity

She sliced throw it's neck like a hot knife through butter, promoting the both of them to fall down, but in her fall trajectory she was met with two crows that were sent flying toward her by her master, she didn't slice them this time but put her power into her feet instead, using the two of them as a stepping stone to plunge back into the sky while they crashed into the ground, their fate unknown

She quickly swept her eyes through the crows close to her, then decided to go for the closest dark crow she could get, forgoing the further ones in fear they escape and she gets nothing

Thus with a horizontal swing she cut a crow from beak to tail, splattering its blood onto the ground like rain while she braced herself for the impact of the imminent fall as she had jumped a little too high

Thankfully she didn't have to suffer from it as YuJu caught her mid-air, letting go of the last crow hed wanted to hunt

With that the murder finally dispersed beyond the trio's vision, making YuJu look at the sky with a little reluctance that he washed away soon after with a sigh

Ellis felt a hot breath like summer winds passing through her mountains promoting her to withhold a sigh of her own while recalling her naked status

"Thank you, Master, but can you put me down"

He gave her a once over and put her down, turning toward the side where he saw Anput approaching with a crow in mouth

"Good job Anput, you did great"

He rubbed her head as she wagged her tail happily

'This is the second time she brought a horde of beasts toward us, though it benefited us both times I hope it doesn't happen too often'

A horde of these low-level beasts is something he could easily handle, but if she attracted hoards outside earth.....

He felt his scalp tingle at the thought of it

"Master...."

Ellis's awkward voice came from the side bringing him out of these dangerous thoughts

"Yes?"

"Didn't you say... These creatures were rare?"

She expressed her doubts with some uncertainty, after all she believed him when he said they were rare but with the size of the murder just now she started to feel as if she was fooled into being guilty

YuJu saw right through her but didn't get angry or anxious, he merely took the crow from Anput's mouth and gave it to Ellis

"Search this crow for spatial feathers"

She took the crow with a puzzled look

"Since you already have one embedded in you you should be able to easily sense one if you touch it, try looking for it in this crow"

While confused she followed his commands

Five minutes later she handed back the crow and shook her head indicating their absence

He didn't say anything and handed her another crow

When she didn't find anything he handed her another, then another, then another, only when she checked the final crow that was sliced in half did she find two spatial feathers on it

"Out of the entire murder of crows only a few would evolve into Trove Crows, the rest would either be normal crow beasts or crows with slight spatial characteristic, there might e only ten or so Trove Crows in the entire murder"

His explanation made her lower her head in embarrassment, she had jumped to conclusion and openly doubted him after ruining one of the feathers that held the treasure, she felt more ashamed than she ever did her entire life