Sheina bent down and picked up an arrow she once failed to shoot and loaded it back up to her bow.
And as she pulled on the string and aimed for the Mocking Jay, she felt something completely different fill her body.
She felt cool.
She felt relaxed.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t have to worry about calculating every single factor in hitting towards a target.
This time, her siblings did all the work for her.
All she had to do was pull the string back and let go.
She naturally sat her body upright, her feet shoulder-width apart, and with her shoulders as relaxed as it could be.
The bow was no longer shaking. She wasn’t gripping on it as hard as she could. She wasn’t pulling the string back with the most amount of force possible.
She was only holding on to it with just enough force for a solid grip.
She was surrendering control. She was letting her own mind, her own instincts do all the work.
No longer was she plagued by thoughts of insecurity, of doubts. She wasn’t thinking about the past, the present, or the future. Her mind was just a blank slate, a void that only had her target in mind.
And unbeknownst to her, the GodForge pieces in her heart started to unfurl.
Threads of Aubility Power started to unravel at her heart and start to worm their way through her body and onto her hands, where she had full control of the bow.
It was starting to empower her very being, her very soul. By letting go of the pressure of wanting to become stronger, she was able to tap on to a strength that she never even thought she could have.
A light green aura started to emanate off her skin.
Her bow, connected to her through mind and body, glowed alongside her.
...
...
...
Meanwhile, the Elves had already reached the other side of the chasm.
Their arrows were imbued with Aubility Power thanks to their Dao Hearts, and they used it as a gateway teleportation skill to travel from one end of the room to the other, without having to battle the guardian at all.
They took with them the trapped adventurers who asked for help. And when they offered to help the Dragonborns, they were just ignored as they were too busy fighting the guardian.
"That white one seemed distressed about not hitting any of her shots," one of the Elves commented.
"And her bow looks weird. Can one even shoot with that thing?" another asked curiously.
"She shouldn’t be disappointed. Those that are not from our lands always have difficulty learning the ways of the arrow," said one of the male Elves.
The Dragonborns were demi-humans, which meant that they had no Dao Heart to increase their power. And without the training and mastery that each Elf had to go through in their life, anyone would find it hard to become proficient with the bow enough to defeat a guardian of this caliber.
The Elves, of course, were secluded by nature so they were not the type to interfere in other people’s business.
If the Dragonborns wanted to waste their time trying to defeat the Mocking Jay, then they wouldn’t say anything else.
They simply turned their backs and faced the tunnel doors, about to leave.
All they had to do was step forwards and they would leave the Red Ravine for good.
But it was at that moment that they felt a gust of wind behind them.
They looked back, only to see something that shocked them to their core.
The female demi-human, who was having trouble even shooting an arrow with her bow, was now standing completely relaxed, with the perfect stance and posture.
If it weren’t for her white scales, then they would have thought that she was an Elf!
"She’s... she’s glowing!" exclaimed one of the Elves, pointing at the light green glow surrounding Sheina.
The force they felt from her felt extremely similar to the power they felt from their own Dao Hearts.
"That’s impossible!"
As a demi-human, she shouldn’t have the capacity to command such a power at all!
But that wasn’t the only thing that Farren noticed.
She squinted her eyes and stared at the bow in Sheina’s hand.
When she first glanced at the bow when they arrived, she thought that it was a weird, experimental weapon not meant for fighting. She couldn’t understand how it would even be able to perform compared to traditional bows like theirs.
And the fact that Sheina kept missing her shots only attributed to that impression they had of the compound bow in her hands.
But then, as Sheina experienced a great burst of Aubility Power, Farren and the Elves saw that very same ’weird’ bow now glowing with the same power as hers!
This could only mean one thing.
It was a Mithril Relic!
However, in all of the records, books, and scrolls in the Elven Kingdom, there was no such documentation of such a weird bow.
Farren noticed that its quality was extremely good, even compared to the well-preserved Mithril Relic bows in their arsenal. That would mean that the bow should have at least been recorded in their history books at least once!
Sheina then pulled at her bowstring with a relaxed grip.
"That’s not going to be enough," Farren muttered. "This guardian is extremely fast. She’ll need to pull her arrow twice as far in order to gather enough speed to hit its target."
As experts of the bow, they knew how to properly estimate a bow’s power just by looking at it. And in her opinion, Sheina’s arrow would fall short of the guardian by a large margin.
All Elves had the same prediction.
Just then, finally, Sheina let go of the arrow.
It shot through the air at incredibly fast speeds, surprising the Elves.
This wasn’t powered from Aubility Power. This was purely physical, brought about by nothing more than the mechanical advantage of the modern compound bow.
"What is that bow?!"
"It’s even stronger than my heavy bow!"
"But it looks so light! See how the bow falls over her hand so easily! How does it shoot an arrow so fast?!"
The arrow shot through the air and headed straight towards its head, surprising the Mocking Jay.
It buzzed its wings and used its innate Aubility Power to change reality upon its own conditions.
It started to control the very memory of the arrow.
It would normally follow a curve that perfectly coincided with the Mocking Jay’s current flight path.
However, its memory seemed to have been tampered with, letting it forget which way was up, and which way was down.
It suddenly curved upwards and veered off up towards the ceiling.
It seemed as though Sheina fell short once again of reaching her goals. It looked like she could not overcome the difference that lie between a normal person versus one that controlled Aubility Power.
But when all hope seemed lost, a huge power suddenly burst forth from Sheina’s body.
Above her, a giant egg suddenly manifested. Carved onto its shell was an eye, which had lines spreading all around its surface, as if symbolizing its omniscience.