Threads of the Soul

Chapter 454 - 454: Minesweeper

Although Astra might have seemed completely insane and idiotic, blasting lightning with reckless abandon and setting off explosions of Boom corn, it was not in fact the case.When Astra pulsed, she got signals back from everything with an electrical source, or other energy she could absorb, within it. Usually this would be things like street lamps, electrical generators or the literal sun, to name a few. It also included people, as they used electricity in their nervous systems.

But it also included plants. Although they did not have a nervous system, they still used an electrical current in their day to day lives of basking in sunlight. It was simply tiny compared to the other sources, so it was relegated to background noise.

However she could still feel it, even if she chose to ignore it. The entire field showed up in her pulsing senses, every stalk of corn, like tiny static. But not all static was the same. Tiny differences in their pattern, like pitches of a sound, was enough for her to differentiate between the Boom corn, and the other type of mutated corn that populated this field.

It was like she was playing mine sweeper, blasting away only the explosive corn in safe area's that wouldn't cause a chain reaction, or at least a chain reaction she didn't want to cause. Every explosion was one she desired, all for the goal of keeping her pray from escaping.

After all, what was better to stop you in your tracks than a plant exploding in your face and showering you in pop corn?

While she was playing with her food, dozens of new signals suddenly appeared on Astra's mental radar. She let out a few more pulses, allowing herself a moment of distraction from her pursuit, to focus on the new threats rapidly approaching.

They quickly surrounded Woe's group, stalking them and closing in fast. Without hesitation, and with deadly precision, Astra whipped around and made a finger gun. A bolt of lightning tore from her blackened fingertip at the drop of the guns 'hammer' and struck the lunging Georgia Raptor in the side.

It was thrown to the side, away from Xander, and hit the ground with a smoking, burned patch in its feathers. Surprisingly though, it struggled to its feet and disappeared into the cover of the cornfield once more.

It's feathers, bar from those that was scorched black, shifted colour once more to match its surroundings.

Another pulse blipped out of Astra, sweeping through her surroundings and returning the literal hundreds of thousands of pings from everything around her. Every blade of grass, every tree, every stalk of corn.

Her mind sorted through it in an instant, quickly shunting the common and useless information to the back and focusing only on the important, moving pings. The entire process took less than a millisecond, more than enough time for Astra to feel something directly underneath her.

Like a meteor, her body immediately shot downwards. Brought down not just by gravity but from her own power. Her sword leapt into her hand, the jigsaw blade clicking into position and gleaming wickedly just in time to slice clean through the neck of a Georgia Raptor.

The Beast stumbled and collapsed as its head was separated from its neck. Yet even as its head bounced across the ground, the body kept moving. It stumbled, but quickly righted itself and whirled around before lunging in Astra's general direction.

It flailed with it's claws, attacking viciously and blindly, doing everything that it could to take down the individual that had taken its head. A death thrall like no other, as it flailed around like an incredibly deadly headless chicken.

The lunge took Astra by surprise for a second, but it was only a second. Nothing more. Once she got over her brief surprise, she leaned backwards to avoid the flailing claws and skipped around the headless Raptor.

With two more slashes of her sword, she carved this oversized chicken like it was Christmas Dinner, and let the body slide apart into three different pieces. Four, if you included the head.

Once the chicken was carved, Astra tilted her head slightly as if she was listening to something, before taking a single step forwards with her right foot seemingly for no reason at all. The next moment, an invisible force carved through the dirt behind her and a deep, nasty gash erupted across the back of her left leg.

It carved across her calf, severing the area containing the Achille's tendon with deadly and practise precision.

Astra dropped to one knee with a grunt and wince of pain, having to lean on her sword to support herself. The invisible force circled around her, it's appearance shimmering as it came into view first as a blur, then as the Russian Woman as she slowed to a stop in front of Astra.

Those chilling blue eyes looked down at Astra with cold calculation and discontent, as if she was disappointed that it was so easy but thought little more of taking a human life.

Without pomp or even so much as a word of a villian monologue, the Russian woman pulled out her dagger and thrust it towards Astra's throat. The cold calculation rapidly drained from her eyes, replaced by fear, as the blade of her dagger stopped dead just before it could pierce her skin.

She pressed it forwards, yet it refused to move, as it wobbled and pressed against the surface of an invisible wall formed of pure magnetic force.

Like a striking python Astra's hand lunged forwards, clamping around the Russian's throat before she could escape again. The Storm Goddess rose to her feet, uncaring of the supposed-to-be crippling wound on the back of her leg.

This time it was her eyes, those gorgeous brown pools with pupils of raging storms, that stared at the Russian with a completely blank expression. Not discontent, not disappointment. Just nothing, as if she was squishing a bug.

"I lost that leg a year ago. My boyfriend made it for me, his work was so convincing that even you fell for it. I'll make sure to pass over your compliments."

In a last ditch effort, as sparks danced across Astra's forearm and crept towards her hand, the Russian spat out a mouthful of blood. It splattered against Astra's chest before the blood pulled itself together, wriggling into the form of a rune that flashed with power, before exploding.

The Russian was thrown from Astra's grasp, landing on a heap on the ground before coughing heavily. She rolled over, starting to crawl away, but a second later something cold and slimy latched around her leg and squeezed it tight.

Her fingers dug into the dirt as she was dragged backwards, right back towards the Storm Goddess who was completely unphased as the smoke from the explosion cleared away. The ice cold, black ooze sprouted from her golden bracer, with small spikes along its surface.

With no other option before her, the Russian held her dagger against her chest and poured mana into the back of her hand. The hand that was wearing the pretty ruby ring, and which was also wearing a strange fingerless glove with a crystal haphazardly imbedded in the back of it.

Runes lit up along the surface of the glove as the crystal started to glow.

Staring at the sky, and at the battle taking place, the Russian woman muttered under her breathe as sparks of green lightning started to fly from the runes on the glove.

"Прошу прощения"

The black liquid ensnared both of her legs now, crawling further up them, as she closed her eyes and accepted her fate. With a blinding flash of light and crackling of green lightning, the woman vanished. More specifically, the top half of her did, as her legs were still ensnared by Astra's ferroliquid while the rest teleported away.

Astra frowned deeply at the strange, yet sickeningly disturbing, energy reading she got from the glove before the woman vanished. But before she could think on it more, or even warn Corvus about it, a deafening roar shook the air around them. The roar of something much bigger than Georgia Raptors.