Chapter 62 Something Warm
While riding her horse, Teresa took a deep breath as she conditioned her mind and body.
Being a Golden Knight does not only require a powerful body, but also a flexible mind capable of making sound decisions, especially during battles.
Not only a Golden Knight"s life was at risk when he/she fights a Monster. Civilian lives are also accounted for, and a Golden Knight must do his/her best to protect them from harm.
Luckily for Teresa, there are no human settlements inside the Monster Territory that she was about to go to. That means that she can focus more on eliminating her target.
"~~~" Teresa"s body then started to glow as golden particles started to converge upon her body.
Teresa felt euphoria as she felt her power rising as the golden particles entered her body. She continued of absorbing these golden particles until she felt full.
"It"s really refres.h.i.+ng as always." Teresa commented as she flexed her lithe body. "If I can do this every time, then I could beat up my teacher…"
In the Human Faction, there are two ways that a human can gain power and fight against the members of the Monster Faction.
First is the Mage Path and second is the Knight Path.
Both Paths allow humans to manipulate the Essences around them to give them powerful combat abilities.
These Essences are quite numerous, giving the Mages and the Knights different Essences that they can access.
They can use Fire Essence, Earth Essence, Void Essence and others more, depending on their affinity.
However, the way the Mages and Knights use these Essences are vastly different from each other.
For the Mages, they rely more on controlling and guiding the Essences around them to create powerful spells.
As for the Knights, they absorb and integrate the Essences inside their bodies, making their bodies stronger, and also allowing them to perform feats that are impossible with just a normal body.
Teresa is a Knight, which meant that she had to absorb the Essence inside her body to make herself stronger.
But unlike the normal kind of Essence, the Essence that Teresa has was a fairly special one.
Her Essence, the Golden Essence, is not just one type of Essence. It was a combination of several Essences, which were mixed together to produce the Golden Essence.
The Essences that were combined were the Light Essence, Life Essence, and Divine Essence.
Each of these Essences were already damaging against Monsters, as their properties were already against the Monsters.
Combine these three Essences together, and their product that is the Golden Essence can be considered to the most powerful Essence that can be used against opposing Monsters.
"Hmph, with my Golden Essence, I can easily finish this mission!" Teresa muttered to herself confidently, as if it was already a forgone conclusion.
Teresa"s thinkings can be said to be right, as Golden Knights like her can easily fight Monsters that are of higher rank than her, due to the powerful properties of her Golden Essence.
With these confident thoughts inside her head, Teresa let out a cheerful hum as her horse continued on carrying her.
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After 4 hours of travelling, Teresa was able to reach her destination.
"...." Even though she had been trained by her father to fight, Teresa still could not help but feel nervous, as this is her first time to actually hunt a Monster inside a hostile territory.
"Don"t be nervous! You already have your Golden Core, so you do not have to worry about losing energy when you fight!" Teresa whispered to herself as she surveyed something inside her body. "Just follow the battle plan, and you will win!"
The Knight Path and the Mage Path has 10 Grades of power, witch each Grade stronger than the former one.
Naturally, Grade 1 Knight/Mage is the weakest, while the Grade 10 Knight/Mage is the strongest.
These Grades allow the distinction of strength within the Human Faction, and it also shows the people that should be given more attention.
Each Grade has distinct cla.s.sifications on them, allowing easier segregation of possible tasks.
Grade 1 Knights are the Knights that have started to slowly integrate their chosen Essence with every part of their body.
It was only when the Grade 1 Knights have fully integrated the essence with their body that they can try to reach Grade 2.
A Knight is considered to be a Grade 2 Knight when they can manifest their Essence on their weapons and attacks, allowing more flexibility on their power.
As for being a Grade 3 Knight, which was Teresa"s current state, it can only be reached when a Knight successfully creates a dense ball of their Essence inside their body, which is called the Essence Core.
This Essence Core will provide a Grade 3 Knight with an explosive power and powerful abilities, which are very useful against battle with Monsters.
Only those who become a Grade 3 Knight are allowed to exterminate Monsters for the better of the Human Faction.
"Take calm breaths Teresa, you can do this. You will not fail…" Teresa took a deep breath as she tried to calm herself down.
It seems to have worked, as she always did this whenever she was scared.
Teresa approached a nearby tree as she tied her horse near it.
The gra.s.ses around the tree will be enough to keep the horse well-fed until Teresa arrives the next day.
Well that is, if Teresa can still come back.
Teresa shook these negative thoughts out of her head as she said,
"Of course I will come back! I am just going to fight a big boar! Heck, I am going to cook that one too!"
With these powerful acknowledgements, Teresa started to enter the Monster Territory, which turns out to be a large forest.
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Teresa held her spear in a tense manner, making sure that the spear was in the right position so that she can easily use it if a monster was out there to ambush her.
"Huh?"
At this part of the forest, Teresa was sure that some Monster should have already tried attacking her.
Naturally, since she was still at the edge of the forest, the monster that will attack her are the weak ones. This is already a fact that was preached on their monster combat cla.s.ses.
But right now, Teresa was not seeing anything that resembled an attack to her.
"Puch."
Teresa suddenly felt that she stepped on something soft, prompting her to look down.
"!!!" Teresa brandished her spear, as she saw that what she stepped on was a Rabid Rabbit, a Peon-Cla.s.s Monster that were only good for being a pest.
But Teresa knew that their sharp teeth were already enough to tear a normal person in half.
There is no way that Teresa will allow this Rabid Rabbit to make its first move.
"Wuwuwu…" But to Teresa"s incredulity, the Rabid Rabbit that she stepped on did not attack her at all. Heck, the Rabid Rabbit was not interested in attacking her at all!
The Rabid Rabbit just lay on the floor, sniveling and crying, as if it saw something that had spooked it greatly.
"What the h.e.l.l…" Teresa muttered as she saw the state of the Rabid Rabbit. "Did I do something to spook it?"
"..."
"This really is weird…" Teresa muttered to herself as she decided to look more at the ground around her.
"…."
And that was when she saw a very weird and disconcerting sight.
Countless Monsters of all shapes and sizes were hiding inside bushes and behind trees, with their bodies expressing fear and terror.
Some were even scratching their faces and bodies, as if they want to just rip themselves to pieces.
"What?" Teresa was extremely confused with what she saw right now.
At first, she thought that maybe it was her fault that these weak monsters were this scared.
But then she realized that it should not be the case, as her observation suggested that these monsters were already like this even before she arrived.
"Does that mean that it was something else that scared them?" At that point, Teresa started to smile, as she started to form a hypothesis.
"Aha! It must be the Giant Boar that caused these weak monsters to be this fearful!" Teresa thought with excitement as her fear and trepidation began to disappear.
It was then that Teresa saw a trail of flattened gra.s.s that went past by all the terrified monsters.
Teresa followed this trail of flattened gra.s.s with her eyes, and she saw that this trail extended all the way towards the center of the forest.
Using her impressive deductive skills, Teresa was able to reach one simple conclusion.
"This trail of flattened gra.s.s must have been caused by the Giant Boar"s body pa.s.sing through here." Teresa muttered to herself as she slowly followed the trail of flattened gra.s.s. "That just means that as long as I follow this trail, I can easily reach where my target is!"
Teresa resisted the urge to cheer as she realized that she can finish her mission much earlier than she could have antic.i.p.ated.
Now, Teresa only has to follow the trail, and she will have the chance to kill her target efficiently.
With her current state, Teresa can choose to just a.s.sa.s.sinate the Giant Boar, as she had the advantage on positioning.
Of course, Teresa can just fight the boar head-on, but why would Teresa do that?
Teresa was here for the results, and if that meant that she would have to be sneaky, then she will gladly do it.
"Calm and quiet. That is how a hunter should act." Teresa muttered to herself as she started to walk on the trail. She wore an excited smile on her face as she started to caress her spear fondly.
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Teresa was surprised to see that it only took her 30 minutes to see where the trail had ended. At that point, Tereasa realized that she had already reached the place where her target was currently in.
Now, it is Teresa"s time to fight.
But before Teresa could make her move, her eyes suddenly widened as she heard some voices talking near her target location.
She craned her neck and there Teresa saw that there are 7 more monsters talking with her target!
Luckily for Teresa, she was 20 meters away from the end of the trail, which allowed her to hide amongst the nearby trees.
Once the saw sure that she was hidden well, Teresa squinted as she used her advanced eyesight and hearing to observe her target"s actions with the 7 other monsters.
"!!!" Teresa could hardly believe it, but from what she can see, her target seems to be acting subservient to the other monsters.
No, more specifically, her target was acting respectful towards the Tentacled Monster and the extremely beautiful black-haired woman, who obviously looked like a vampire.
The other 5 monsters were all weak monsters that were huddled behind the vampire.
Teresa tried to suppress her envy of the vampire"s beauty as she tried to listen in to their conversation.
Teresa watched in horror as her target was skewered by a tentacle and a sword through its eyes.
Teresa had to stop herself from vomiting as she saw blood and some kind of organic matter gus.h.i.+ng out of her target"s eyes.
Teresa heard the vampire woman muttering these words, showing that the vampire woman was p.i.s.sed at her target.
"I must run away!" At that moment, Teresa realized that she must run away immediately. There is no way that she can fight against those two Monsters who just easily killed her target!
Teresa heard some more murmurs coming from the Tentacled Monster, but she did not care to hear it as she started to slowly back away.
Teresa tried her best to make her escape as soundless as possible as she knew that one wrong sound will spell her doom.
But before she could distance herself away, Teresa"s eyes widened as she saw the Tentacled Monster walking on the trail of the flattened gra.s.s!
That was when Teresa realized that the Monster who elicited fear from the weak monsters earlier was this Tentacled Monster.
"Why am I this unlucky!" Teresa complained inwardly as she tried to make herself as soundless as possible.
"…." Teresa kept her mouth shut and her breathing steady as she watched the Tentacled Monster and the other 6 monsters going past by her.
Only when these monsters were gone from her line of vision that she was able to sigh in relief.
But before she could compose herself, she suddenly felt something slimy wrapping around her legs.
"Kyaa!" Teresa let out a scream as she felt herself hoisted in the air.
Teresa felt a few seconds of disorientation before she found her vision back to normal.
But this did not make Teresa feel better as she realized that she was staring face to face with the Tentacled Monster!
Teresa"s left ankle was currently tied up with one of the tentacles from the Tentacled Monster, effectively hanging her upside down.
"You think you can hide from me?" The Tentacled Monster"s voice sounded wet and slimy, something that evoked sense of disgust from Teresa. "You are practically oozing with fear… there is no way that I cannot sense that."
"!!!" It was at that moment that Teresa suddenly felt intense fear, as if the monster in front her was the most fearsome thing in her life.
Teresa found herself paralyzed and speechless from fear. Her heart started to brat erratically as her mind frantically told her to escape from the monstrosity in front of her.
"Noo!!!" Teresa trembled for a second, before she felt something warm flowing down from between her legs.
"Alina, I think I made this girl p.i.s.s herself." These were the last words that Teresa heard from the Tentacled Monster before her world faded to black.