“Maria, we finally caught up to you!”
Maria was surprised by the voices of Emeraldine and Partner, as she quickly turned back to them, feeling that the Domain of Miasma could be detrimental to both of them who were living beings, she immediately expanded her swarm of flies and covered the two with them, fusing her own body with her Abyssal Barrier Skill and forming a spherical black bubble to protect them from the corruption of miasma spreading out, which she seemed to be quite resistant to.
“You two shouldn’t had rushed here so recklessly! Shit’s gotten even worse now!” Maria desperately said.
As she never expected Agatha to pull out such a move out of her ass, she was really confused about what to even do, especially because the Larva by itself was definitely bad news. It emanated a powerful presence, and although she was incapable of discerning its true stats, she was sure as hell it was going to easily overpower her whenever it grew out into a full-fledged young adult… In just a few minutes!
“What? What’s going on now? We saw that you destroyed her into pieces, what’s this thing?” Wondered Emeraldine, feeling both upset and frightened. She looked into the larva from the distance and felt it’s enormous and overflowing energies covering the sky with black clouds, without even allowing the brightness of the moon illuminate the surface.
“I appraised it through my abilities, that thing is… the same thing that the twins had. Remember? It is some sort of Demonite Crystal thingy, but even more upgraded! It was made to give this bitch a second chance. Just when I thought I had her! If we let her completely transform, she’ll become a gigantic demon or something. I don’t really want to find out to be honest!” Maria said while feeling rather desperate.
“However, that crystal emanates a Miasma Domain, it consumes all sort of life and weakens it severely. I am sure that you two are strong enough to withstand it to an extent, but I don’t think you can do it through the time we take to get there and kill that thing before it grows up!” Maria added, looking at the two girl’s eyes.
“Then I can shot it from afar with my arrows!” Emeraldine said with hopes of that being enough, while Maria facepalmed.
“I’m sure your arrows are powerful but that surely won’t do it, Emeraldine.” She sighed. “We gotta find something better to do than that, we have to take down that damn thing in time before things become even worse for all of us. But due to the Miasma…”
“Then isn’t it possible for you to cover us in your own soul somehow? Or maybe turn us into Undead?” Wondered Partner. “I used to be one so I don’t really mind it!”
“With Fake Life, you can turn willing living beings into Undead, right?” Asked Emeraldine.
“No… I cannot do that. I won’t take away your lives just for a strategy purpose.” I sighed.
Although Maria seemed in the blue about what to do, her System was already calculating a solution. She had recently accumulated a sizable amount of System Points after conquering the Dungeon and devouring the Dungeon Core’s soul after all.
[Maria, I have calculated and reassessed a possible way to enhance your allies. Through the Grimoire, you can enhance allies’ stats through special Abilities, right? Well, by spending most of your current System Points, it should be possible to create a new Undead to aid them in joining the fight and also in enhancing their strength. This Undead is special as it mixes both Necromancy and your Enhancement capabilities]
“(Oh?! Really? You did that pretty quickly…”
[I am here to aid you in anything I can after all. As your Unique Skill, it is my duty. Now, what do you think?]
“(Sure, I doubt we can do anything else. Lucifer is a Death Dragon, so he probably can bear with the Miasma, but these two girls even now aren’t enough… Let’s do it, System.)”
[You have exchanged 132058 System Points]
[A New Undead has been made available within the Necromancy Pages of the Soul Grimoire]
[The High Ranking Undead [Abyssal Phantom Living Armor] has been unlocked]
[The System Points exchanged will be used for the replacement of the required materials to create two [Abyssal Phantom Living Armors]!]
Suddenly, from Maria’s very hands, two masses of phantasmal shadows emerged, shrouding both Emeraldine and Partner! Their bodies were suddenly wrapped up in this darkness, as it quickly materialized into pure black armor, molding to their body shape perfectly. Even their weapons themselves were covered in this black metallic material, being enhanced in strength!
“W-What is going on?! Armor?” Asked Partner. “Master! Is this something you created?”
“T-This armor is a bit tight… Ugh!” Emeraldine cried, suddenly finding herself completely clad in a tight black armor.
“These are Undead specialized in the ability to resist all sorts of elements within the Dark Spectrum named [Abyssal Phantom Living Armor]! They also have the special ability of [Miasmic Assimilation] where they can absorb and purify Miasma in the environment and use it to enhance their endurance and power.” Maria said, after having learned the purpose of such wonderful Undead through reading their entry in her Soul Grimoire.
The two beauties, now clad in black armor emanating a powerful phantasmal presence, felt slightly surprised and tired of Maria always coming out with stuff out of nowhere. It wasn’t that different from what happened with Agatha in their perspective. Of course, Maria had yet to even reveal them about the System, that was something she preferred not to talk about if possible because she assumed that people of this world wouldn’t be able to understand what a System could truly be. …Or maybe she was too lazy to explain it.
“Incredible… Your Necromancy has truly achieved completely new levels, huh? But to think you can come out with a new Undead out of nowhere… Well, we can ask more questions later!” Emeraldine said. She was indeed quite suspicious of Maria but decided to trust her for now and not waste any more time.
“Yeah, we’ll ask explanations later, let’s begin, we can’t let that horrid thing grow any bigger!” Partner valiantly said, pointing her spear at the Miasmic Larva.
“Right… Let’s go!” Maria commanded her friends, as the trio flew outside of her Shadow Barrier, delving into the storm of Miasma!