As she moved through the town Vera was extremely angry with herself and how she had handled this mission. She thought she knew to never underestimate a fiend but in the end she still had. She had assumed even if the demonic cultivator had been stronger than what was originally reported he would at most be at 8 cores but not only was she blindsided by the fact that he was stronger than she anticipated he was far stronger than her prediction with him being half a step into immortality a much bigger deal than it may sound. Naturally she was being far harder on herself than she needed to because the fiend had put months of preparation and planning for one day.
Running through the town was Vera with two demon beasts chasing after her as she ran towards the third. Since the town was quite spacious she wasn't having too much difficult at least until she ran into people who were trying to escape on their own. With a sigh to herself she made a decision that nobody would have faulted her for even if she chose the opposite; she chose to go save them.
Being chased she came to this decision in seconds and immediately took action. Summoning the same golden flame she used on the shade wolves she stopped to distract the wolves.
"HIDE INSIDE!" She shouted at the family of three.
Covering the entire area in flames she was only trying to buy just enough time for the family to hide since she did not want to fight the beasts until they were all gathered together because once she started she would be on a time limit. Seeing the flames surrounding them the beasts became more aggressive and began attacking relentlessly.
Even as the arms were getting burned from the flame Vera began to be trapped by the dozen arms. She would dodge one arm attacking in front of her when another three would come both above and behind but for now dodging was still doable.
After another minute of avoiding the attacks and maintaining the flames Vera noticed the family had finally hid away and immediately began running towards the last beast. She had expended more energy than she wanted to but it was still a tolerable amount.
After running for another minute while avoiding the attacks of the two beasts behind her Vera finally came across the last beast. Surrounding it were half a dozen corpses while it was toying with a seventh person under its foot. Once it saw Vera approach it, it immediately squished the person under its foot causing blood to go flying.
Seeing this Vera could only hope their next lives would better as she immediately began her preparation for battle. She took out 2 pills both stamped with two Vs one red, one brown and immediately threw them into her mouth where they began to dissolve into her body.
The brown pill was known as the boundless vitality pill since it would contentiously fill the body with Sencia like a battery. While the red pill was known was known as the Sencia Surge pill and would increase the output of Sencia along with its drainage making the two pills a great combination. Along with that Vera put on two thing solid black gloves.
With the support of her pills Vera immediately went into action summoned two flames first the purifying flames but also her green time flame. Using the two at the same will quickly wear through her Sencia so she would need to quickly finish this battle.
The flames quickly began to spread out around her towards the beasts but this time they responded in kind. A dark miasma spread out around them keeping Vera's flames at bay.
Seeing the miasma Vera wasn't particularity surprised the flames still did their jobs at it was preventing the beasts arms from going wild as they were keeping them wrapped around their body.
A common understanding of alchemist is that they were weak in combat since they would spend their lives towards understanding flames, plants, and pills but like most things their were exceptions and today the beasts were going to see that Vera was one.
Charging towards the closest beast Vera smiled as it tried to bite her and this time instead of dodging as she had done previously she grabbed its mouth and held it wide open.
"Burn." She said gathered pure fire flames into her mouth and fired it into the beasts mouth before kicking its body sending it flying.
Vera was a core disciple for a reason although she would still be weaker than a dedicated body cultivator such as Alrin she would not be far off from him since she had spent a fortune to strengthen her body.
As for the other two beasts one charged her while the other was encircling her while gathering energy. The charging beast had seen what happened to the first one and avoided using its mouth to bite her instead it chose to use its speed to swipe at her without fully committed to avoid being grabbed.
This proved to be quite effective strategy. Even if she was stronger individually sensing the surging energy in the beast behind her she was being careful to avoid being pinned down lest she get attack from behind.
As they were doing this they were making extremely eerie noises as they were laughing at her knowing they had the upper hand.
"Are you having fun? Let me show you real fun!" She said this knowing the first beast she attacked wasn't dead yet. Because it was not dead Vera was decisive in making a move since she could not drag out time.
The next time the beast attacked Vera covered her body in flames and jumped into the attack grabbing its leg. In the process of grabbing the beast she got a fairly bad gash but it was still tolerable. Holding the leg she yanked it as hard as she could forcefully pulling the beast to ground causing it to fall over.
"Fuck my life." At that moment of the beast falling over she felt a chill run down her spine and without a moments hesitation swung the massive body of the beast around to use use it as a shield. Not even a moment after she swung the beast around the attack hit her sending her and the beast flying.
While she was sent flying she held on tightly to the beast, but unfortunately this turned out to be a mistake the force of the attack had already injured her and when they landed the beast landed on top of her crushing causing her to throw up blood as her insides were crushed from the massive size of the beast causing her to pass out.
The battlefield fell silent for a moment as two of the beasts were now incapacitated and the third was being cautious unsure of Vera's current state. Fighting three enemies that were almost as strong as her was truly a difficult task. Even if she had taken one out quickly it gave the other two a chance to adapt and find a way to deal with her forcing her to make a risky move to prevent a long battle.
After a few moments Vera woke up to complete darkness still under the beast. It took a second but she recalled what had just happened and realized she was under the beast. She tried to move but most of her bones were broken so she could only grunt in pain but her flames had been maintained even while she was unconscious. Instead she channeled her Sencia into her space ring and a green pill appeared in her mouth.
It was a costly pill to make even for her but this was the time to use it as her injuries began to quickly heal. After another minute Vera was almost fully healed when she felt her body being crushed again as the last standing beast fired an attack at its former comrade to ensure she was dead.
Fortunately this time the attack was weaker and did not do nearly as much damage but regardless after feeling the pain of the 2nd attack Vera was furious. She summoned another pill into her mouth and kicked what was left of the beasts body off of her sending it flying.
In her rage she immediately summoned the flame she had the least affinity with but was most suitable at the moment. She channeled this flame of air within her own body causing her remaining Sencia to now begin rapidly draining but with it her movements were far faster than they had previously been.
Locking eyes with the beast she immediately charged at it and for the first time one of the beasts felt fear. In its fear it unwrapped its arms from its body to attack Vera but she was able to easily dodge them and they only began to burn in the flames.
Killing its ally was its downfall as Vera was free to focus on it without distractions. Once she reached the beast the first thing she did was break the beasts front legs causing it to fall foreward. Of course it tried to resist but Vera was now too fast for it to do anything.
Once its head fell to the ground she grabbed both the top and bottoms of the beasts mouth each with one hand and began pulling apart. If she had longer limbs she would have continued to separate it from its body but she had to settle with only breaking the jaw keeping it wide open.
The beast squirmed as it tried to pull away but Vera firmly held it in place with her left hand while in her right hand she channeled two flames into it her hand light and fire flames. She create an extremely condensed sphere the size of a marble out of the two flames and tossed them into the beasts mouth before backing away.
Moments later an explosion rang out destroying the beasts entire upper body. At that moment Vera released her flames as her energy levels were bottoming out. Yet she could still not relax she noticed the first beast she had dealt with had recovered and was getting up.
Just as she was about to summon more pills to provide her with energy a spear came flying throw the air piercing throw the beasts body. A moment later a second spear came flying impaling the beast head finishing it off.
Vera looked in the direction it came from but saw nothing.