"Come at me...My Daughter."
"BASTARD! DON’T ACT LIKE MY FATHER!" Barla raged even further upon hearing Virala’s words, "You’re Virala!"
"Are you...sure?" Virala flew into the walls once again after taking a punch. The armour covering his face shattered as he stared at the woman who lunged at him, "Look at my face while you hit me."
"Now," He uttered as a fist landed on his face and cracked the skull, caving into him, "Who am I?"
...
"I’LL KILL YOUU!" With a 10-Life Stage cultivation, Barla charged at the Celestial Boar Brangara, having just witnessed the latter kill her three brothers.
...
State of Unity—Unlimited Predator!
Barla watched as Unlimited Predator struck her as a pillar of light and destroyed her. ’You...damn murderer!’
...
Present time, bursting out of a sack from the Transcendent Eater was the figure of Barla, completely used to the process by now, as she lithely landed on a protruding root. "Why..."
She stopped speaking, as suddenly, all of her past memories flashed through her mind space, reminding her of the tragedy she had endured. Without a second’s hesitation, she understood what was happening and glared at the closest carnivorous mouth, "Why are you making me remember this now?"
Revived by the Transcendent Eater, Barla was fully subjected to the latter’s control, whether by body, mind, and soul. She remembered her past now because Blola had triggered it.
"Go on, feel it yourself." Came a response from the carnivorous mouth.
"Bring them out!" Her hand grabbed the carnivorous mouth the moment Barla stared at the sky and felt a familiar presence. "All one hundred of them!"
"I don’t understand how he returned, but I’ll murder that bastard!"
"No," Blola responded in a hurry, "He’s too tricky. You’ll gas out from a single misfire and allow him to defeat you. He has already evaded my attacks a few times until now."
"Then," Barla crouched upon the root as her facial muscles elongated towards the ears, as if a fierce wind was pressing back upon her. The muscles in her body convulsed, generating sounds as if high-tension steel ropes were being snapped apart. Her nails dug into the root as her figure blasted forth, "Revive me Natures as I seek."
"Play as my support!" Her voice was cold as Barla rushed towards Brangara, uttering upon inspecting the stream of data that poured into her mindspace, which had a recount of Blola’s fight against Brangara until now, "Don’t do anything else."
Along the way, as Barla paced along the surface of the Dralh Sea, a carnivorous mouth popped out of the water farther along the route. It then sprouted a sack that rapidly grew to reach full size and ripened.
Just in time, right as it was about to fall, Barla plucked it with her mouth. A gulp and she consumed the sack, watching a Nature appear in her Astral Chart, ’That’s one.’
In such a fashion, fruit sacks appeared along her route, containing a basic set of Natures according to her preferences.
100 kilometres of distance wasn’t nothing as Barla reached the speed of sound, her feet remaining above the water surface through sheer speed. She leapt once and grabbed a mouthful of Parute King Fruits hanging off a vine.
That was the remainder of the energy she needed as she entered the 2-Life Stage. And then, her figure landed twenty metres before Brangara, generating a gentle ripple along the surface.
Originally, she intended to unleash an attack the moment she was in range. However, the moment she laid her eyes upon the latter, she refrained from firing off an attack prematurely. Instead, her feet skid to a stop before the individual who seemed to be calmly waiting for her approach.
It was a small raft, made from broken splinters of the Transcendent Eater’s roots. It wobbled weakly, as the strings used to tie the splinters seemed to have been damaged. It was barely holding things together.
Every time the raft wobbled, the feet perched upon it wriggled erratically, like they belonged to an individual who didn’t have a good balance, like an untrained human who had never once in his life danced, done sports, or even walked much for the matter.
The legs were trembling as they struggled to stay afloat on the raft that barely seemed capable of bearing the figure’s weight. It was then that Barla took in the figure’s appearance.
It was a rag, seemed to have been made using jute. Judging by the traces of bite and burn marks on it, this piece of jute was a layer of epidermis on the Transcendent Eater’s vine.
There was no trace of a human’s action on it. The rag wasn’t even large enough to fully cover the body. It was as if the individual had made do with whatever he could get his hands on.
The jute rag covered the lower body, barely touching the knees in some parts. It had scorch marks alongside traces of acidic activity. The rag, dull brown in colour with a murky shade of green reached his belly button.
It didn’t seem to have enough length to fully cover the stomach, even though the stomach resembled a cave, belonging to a person who hadn’t eaten a morsel for weeks now.
The muscles were frail, too weak and damaged from extended exposure to water with dissolved heavy metals. Holding a piece of bark and gnawing upon it like it was precious was the person in question.
The messy hair was Brangara’s. However, the face belonged to that of Virala, as with sunken eyes, he huffed and grunted, flinching in shock upon seeing Barla that he hurriedly hid the piece of bark in his clothes.
Paranoid, with dodgy eyes and trembling fingers, the man tried to act like he hadn’t noticed her. Suddenly, he seemed really into the faint waves moving across the Dralh Sea.
But as it turned too hard, the piece of bark hidden under his dress fell out and landed on the raft, bouncing once before plunging into the water. Immediately in response, a mournful bleat echoed out of the man’s mouth, the voice cracking, haven’t been used in a civilised manner for years now.
"What..." Her eyes widened until they seemed like they would pop out of her sockets. Veins burst across them and dyed the eyes red as Barla bellowed, "What...what...what the...FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"
"Are You Mocking ME?" She roared and punched the air, the shockwave of which hit the figure and turned him into blood mist. ’What?’
Barla gasped in shock, wondering what had just happened, for she was unable to sense Brangara’s traces anymore. ’No, that doesn’t make any sense! It was just the shockwave from a punch. How did that kill him?’
’No, it must have been a puppet...’ She stopped speaking upon seeing two pillars of light burst out of the blood mist. The splinters from the destroyed raft floated towards her as Barla’s eyes fell upon the two Minor Treasures hovering before her, propped up by thin pillars of light.
One was in the shape of a gun, crimson in colour, while the other, seemingly made out of gold...was a lotus.
Minor Treasure—Spirit Puppet Slip!
Minor Treasure—Mystic Human Stamp!
They were the two Minor Treasures that Brangara had been using in the fight against Blola all along. It didn’t make sense that he would let them go so casually. So, that shouldn’t have been a puppet.
’No,’ She felt a headache, as Barla wasn’t unable to understand Brangara’s ploy here. ’Even if he just wants to fool me, there’s no reason to let go of his Minor Treasures.’
Her senses extended to her surroundings, but she wasn’t able to sense Brangara in the slightest, ’It isn’t easy sensing his Mystic Ewworm form.’
But as she kept up her Prana detection means, doubt began to sprout in her mind, ’Was...was the one I killed the real one? And not a puppet?’
’No, that’s impossible. His body was weaker than a Free Human at the Spirit Stage. And his presence...’ She felt her head hurt, ’It was...his presence, a full-powered one. That’s why I thought he was playing an act.’
’Then, was it really him?’ She clutched her head and crouched over the water, "Urgh! This makes no sense!"
’Maybe something was happening in him, as his arrival doesn’t make complete sense. And I...attacked him while he was probably plagued internally.’ The enemy was someone she detested the most, whether it be Virala or Brangara. It was merely a question of being her most and second-most-hated individual.
She wanted to slaughter the opponent, but strangely, the latter died to an attack that ought to have amounted to next to nothing. And that puzzled her nervous system too much, almost making her feel like she was about to faint.
All her pent-up rage had no outlet now, and it felt like it would explode out of her being.
’Wait, that bark!’ She remembered how the figure was desperately holding onto a piece of bark. Without hesitation, Barla plunged into the water and expanded her Prana detection means, ’I can’t sense anything. There’s too much lingering presence here!’
She gathered Prana to her eyes and relied on her natural sight to look around. As she scoured the place, she eventually found the floating piece of bark. Without wasting even a second, she rushed to it and grabbed it, feeling her fingers press upon the indentations on the bark, ’Something’s written here.’
[They’re all alive!]
And then, the bark crumpled, leaving her puzzled even more now as she surfaced. She looked around in futility and then at the carnivorous mouth in the distance to shake her head, "What’s happening?"
"I can’t sense him either," Blola responded as his roots carefully scooped the seabed, hoping to see where Brangara was hiding in his Mystic Ewworm form, "It’s like..."
He had vanished, as if he wasn’t there in the first place.