Master of Myths

Eleven hours later Ellis finally made it to the edge of the burnt forest, it had been a couple of hours since she saw the last wave of those large beasts, other than them no other beast, or living being for that matter, was spotted

Arriving at the edge she took a second to survey the view before her

A large blackened grassland stretched across the horizon, fumes of black and purple seeped out the few rocks that dotted the land, at the far end of this large outstretch of poisonous land she could barely spot a tall cliff, since she could see it from this distance she guessed it was of great height

'Am I supposed to climb it or stop next to its edge'

She questioned in her mind, there was no Master to answer her this time though and so she could only follow his order, go north, go north till he woke up, and if that took a long time then she could only keep going north until she could no longer

'Before that I should wear something first'

She laid Anpu on the large branch, then put YuJu next to her, leaning on the tree

Reaching between into her large bosom she pulled out piece after piece of a copy of the set he had given her, it was a spare set shed picked up on her way to get the bras along with one set of his own outfit

'I never got to know what I got the bra for...'

She thought curiously before throwing it to the back of her mind

Once she was fully dressed she tried moving in the cloths only to find it very tight on her chest

'I got a smaller size'

She got her own size wrong but he got it right without her help, this made her wonder whether he had keen eyes or too much time to stare at her twin peaks

The thought made her blush slightly as she thought back on the week she'd spent pretty much naked, she couldn't help it though since it gave her a lot of freedom when fighting as well as being very comfortable

Putting Yuju back on her back and picking up Anput she tried to focus on the current task instead of random thoughts

Jumping down she landed on an exposed root to break her fall and jump again, a piece of this root broke off as she did so and landed on the grass, producing a sizzling sound and disappearing within seconds

This didn't escape her heightened mind's notice, so she took off her boots and stored them, covered her exposed feet with her aura and jumped off

Ssisss "Hum"

A stinging pain came as her feet touched the poisoned grass, even with her aura she could feel the corrosion pass through into her skin making her grunt a little

This wasn't enough to dissuade her normally, much less now with her newfound will

Pushing through the pain she walked the plains while taking care not to get near the rocks, the grass was already deadly enough she didn't need her one hundred intelligence stat to know that how dangerous the fumes would be

Another two hours passed by peacefully, at least for the two sleeping it was, as for Ellis, it was a walk through hell

Her aura kept generating itself over and over but it wasn't enough to ward off the entire corrosion effect, little by little her feet got scarred, each step was so painful anyone else would probably be screaming

If that wasn't enough the toxicity in the air started to irritate her eyes and nose, the further she went into the plains the thicker it was in the air

She also had to make sure her master's legs were securely wrapped around her hips, his hands over her shoulders, if she was suddenly attacked in this godforsaken place and he fell and touched the grass she couldn't even begin to imagine what would happen to his body

Thankfully her speed in the plains was faster than in the forest, supported by the fact that she also didn't need to hide every now and then, that made the originally far away cliff close enough for its cloud reaching height to be visible, it was more of a mountain's height than a cliff but when compared to those dreaded red walls she didn't feel much awe

Boom...Boom.....Boom

Heavy steps came slowly from the not so distant cliff, they had a rhythm to them, as if being done by a machine, every step came at several second intervals, each one made the ground slightly shake, it wasn't of the same intensity of the Gardelos but the steps seemed to echo in the earth

Looking left and right Ellis spotted nothing but rocks to hide behind, this would put them in danger of being poisoned to death but without any knowledge of the enemies power she couldn't wait in the open until she could assess it, if it turned out to be as strong as the Gardelos then she could only surrender to death faithfully along her master and Anput

Walking toward a rock that had fewer fumes seeping out of it she crouched down and waited for whatever was coming, but no more than ten seconds passed and she already felt the corrosion seeping deeper into her flesh, standing this close to a heavy source of poison along with her staying in one place overwhelmed her aura's protection from the poison, it would be a matter of minutes before her feet became useless

'Why is it moving so slowly!'

She got irritated at its speed, those several second intervals between its steps were enough for the corrosion to seep deeper and deeper into her flesh, her purple covered toes started to turn purple themselves

But no matter how impatient she was she couldn't take the risk of facing whatever this was directly, going around it would have been a good option but she could spot a dark cloud moving at high speed in the east and west and her gut told her that was no ordinary cloud, her best bet here would be to wait out this lone beast whoever it was

Her patience was finally rewarded two minutes later as a shadow loomed over her region, she didn't peek her head out and waited for it to get passed her before taking a look

BOOM....BOOM....

Its steps shook the ground beneath her feet heavily, rocking her body left and right, fumes came out the nearby rocks from the newly formed cracks caused by this walking disaster, the echoes of its steps resounded across the plain to reach bringing to Ellis's notice the reason this thing took so long to arrive

'It's not that slow, it as just too far away'

She was now more afraid than curious about this beast, to cause this much destruction by just walking she felt it was much more dangerous than the beasts from the Gardelos

She wouldn't have to wait long before she got a peak of its figure since it would pass by her soon

....

At least that's what she thought until the beast stopped all of a sudden, this made her hold her breath nervously, did he discover her? was she about to be stomped to death? should she make a run for it-

RUMBLE~

Ear blowing sound of rocks tumbling could be heard next to her, almost making her clasp her ears if not for Anput in her hand, next a dark stone entered her vision, it moved slowly downwards, falling toward an area not that far from her

The stone moved ever so slowly, fueling her agitation, then... another stone appeared within her vision, and another, the three large stones collided with one of the rocks in the plains, then lifted the rock up

At this point she was just confused more than anything, these rocks were floating? She wondered, but she'd rather live in ignorance than die to curiosity, thus she didn't peek yet

CRACK. CRACKLE, CRACK!

Sounds of rocks grinding rock came from above resulting in a more ear-piercing noise followed by a few seconds of silence, then the heavy steps came again, finally heading away from Ellis

Once the sound was at some distance she took a breath and gathered her courage, then moved carefully away from the rock, taking in the back view of a mountain

"..."

Mouth slightly opened and wide-eyed she stared at this moving chunk of black stone, it was a few story building of hight with an irregular shape that didn't look like any living being she could think of, the only normal thing about it was its pillar-like legs that had spikes all over them, other than that it had one branch like extension ending with three huge solid stones, it barely qualified as appendage since there seemed to be an elbow joint and a shoulder joint somewhere in this mess, its other extension was a half-broken pillar that continued to spew out gases of many colours much like whats it's flat headless top body was doing

The weirdest thing of this all was the body that connected these parts, it seemed much like a collection of rocks glues together loosely together, loosely since many pieces kept falling off this miraculously put together creature

Watching it go toward the direction of earth she felt agitated, the rocks in these lands were much more durable than the one's on earth for some reason, meaning if this beast caused so much destruction here then god knows what would happen when it stepped into the cities

'That is if they weren't raised to the earth by those beasts first'

All she could do was worry though, every beast was way out of her level, literally, she should be concerned of how to climb the cliff she was about to reach first, or well, worried about reaching it

"Ugh"

She groaned while moving her numb feet and walking away from the rocks, the poison ran deep to the point she barely felt her feet anymore, the corrosion had climbed up and was halfway to her knees, a very bad sign she could tell, as much as she wanted to rest there was no place to do so, moving toward the cliff would be her only option

Thus the silent struggle of a journey began once again