Auren rushes down the small hill and through the forest, ignoring every branch, root, and low-hanging obstacle in his way, sidestepping anything that might slow him down.
In just seconds, he reaches Vanessa. He spots her in a nearby clearing, grinning confidently as she's surrounded by four large creatures he can't quite identify. Another one is already lying on the ground, stuck in a small crater as if it got forcefully slammed into the ground.
At the edge of the clearing is a small pond filled with muddy water, with a narrow creek passing through it and disappearing back into the trees.
The creatures stand on four legs and still reach the impressive height of a tall human, averaging a height of at least two meters, giving them a positively monstrous appearance. On top of that, they are extremely bulky, wrapped in thick fur, with thick necks and large heads, monstrous teeth, and saliva dripping onto the ground as they growl at Vanessa, agitated and hungry.
Those... what are they? Wolves... no, they are way too bulky for that. Bears? Close...
Auren forces himself to look properly, not just at their size, but at the details.
However, as he pays closer attention, he notices the huge yet flat, paddle-shaped tails on their behinds.
Water... a pond and a creek... that tail. Beavers?! With the build of colossal bears?
Auren immediately lets his Aura explode, performing his strongest Ren, draws Eternity, and rushes forward with no hesitation, charging towards the giant beaver behind Vanessa.
The beaver's reaction is slow. It isn't used to an enemy that moves this fast, and it looks utterly confused by the sudden pressure closing in.
It takes only a second before Auren lunges at it and stabs Eternity directly into its head.
The beaver blinks once, blinks twice, and then its eyes close. It loses consciousness on the spot.
With Eternity stuck in its head, Auren feels a tremendous amount of Aura enter it.
"Hey!" Vanessa yells, backing off until she's standing next to Auren.
"These are my prey. I found them first!" she argues passionately.
I see... let's see if she can back up her confidence.
"Fine... I'll back you up though. You were surrounded," Auren replies, a little taken aback by her confident, forceful attitude.
"I've got it under control!" Vanessa yells, stepping forward. Her Aura spikes, strong enough to blow away the water from a few nearby puddles and send ripples through the muddy pond.
Her Aura is strong! Is she really an Emitter? It's honestly not that much below my own in terms of sheer force. She was always impressive in Aura volume and even capacity. What she lacked was control.
Suddenly, one beaver angrily presses forward, growling loudly as it commits to the attack.
Vanessa steps forward and unleashes a strong punch, aiming straight towards the approaching foe.
She's too far away. It won't hit.
Yet despite Auren's doubt, the Aura separates from her fist and connects with her target.
A bolt of Aura, vaguely shaped into a fist, hits the beaver exactly on its lower face, with the speed resembling a bullet. The impact makes it stumble forward and crash onto the ground in confusion, as if its legs forgot what they're supposed to do.
She rattled its brain with the impact.
A ranged punch. A straight.She used Emission to propel it forward. That's pretty basic, but she didn't lose much Aura, and it did real damage—even to that colossal beaver. Pretty clean use of Emission. This answer is simpler and more conservative than I expected. There is absolutely no risk in learning this, but I wouldn't call it a Hatsu. Strictly speaking, this is just basic Emission.
It's the same as me using Eternity to create an Aura slash without Limitless Waters.
The other beavers watch their comrade struggle on the ground, suddenly wary. It tries to get up, paws digging into the earth, but it's clearly rattled.
"Should I finish it?" Auren asks.
"You haven't seen a thing yet," Vanessa says, smirking confidently.
Her Aura spikes again, gathering around her fist much like before. She punches towards the fallen beaver again, committing to the same motion.
The Aura briefly separates from her body, but it almost instantly disappears.
Huh?
"Fizzled out? You need to concentrate and not let the Aura disperse!" Auren yells, holding Eternity and ready to step in to protect Vanessa.
Despite the attack disappearing, Vanessa smiles, still appearing confident.
Suddenly, Auren notices movement above him.
He immediately looks upwards and, using Gyo, he sees a small object rapidly descending from the sky. After a second, Auren realises that it's merely Aura—more precisely, the Aura that Vanessa launched with her punch.
The Aura projectile picks up more and more speed as it descends, falling rapidly and about to hit the ground.
"Boom!" Vanessa yells, pointing her finger at the beaver she hit earlier, which finally managed to stand up, not suspecting anything.
However, to Auren's and Vanessa's astonishment, the projectile doesn't hit that beaver. Instead, it lands close by, smashing into one of the other two beavers.
A loud sound echoes through the forest as Auren feels the ground shake for a second.
The beaver in the back is crushed to death, its back caved in, containing a huge hole. Its body is mangled and butchered, as if it was pierced through by a cannonball.
"Impressive... surely you wanted to hit that target, right?" Auren asks, a little sceptical.
"Hehe," she says, rubbing her head. "It was a feint. Let me try that again."
She punches a couple more times forward, each time using up a large amount of Aura, similar to her earlier punch.
Instantly, three more Aura projectiles shoot out from her and disappear. However, this time they appear above her again, but at a much lower starting height than the last punch.
They only take two seconds to reach the ground, descending at a slower pace with much less impact.
Even so, two of the projectiles hit the beaver in front of her—the one she aimed at this time—while the third one narrowly misses.
Despite the far lower force and the weaker impact, the strikes are enough to cause grievous wounds, knocking the beaver out.
Auren steps forward and pierces it with Eternity, ending it and harvesting its Aura.
"One more!" Vanessa says, staring at the lone beaver, which now, confused and frightened, turns around and leaves.
Vanessa stands still and gathers even more Aura on her fist. With every second, more and more Aura gathers on her fist while Auren notices her Aura on the rest of her body quickly weakening.
Finally, after five seconds, she punches forward.
The Aura projectile disappears, and Auren immediately looks towards the sky, but doesn't see anything.
Five seconds later, however, he finally notices the projectile far above him, like a shooting star.
Despite only just seeing it, it rushes down with such force that Auren can barely follow its path as it crashes down three meters next to the fleeing beaver.
Despite the distance, the impact—and the following Aura explosion—is so strong that the beaver gets caught in it and is blown backwards, spinning in the air before landing on its head, one side of its body completely bloody as if hit by an explosion.
Auren once again dashes forward and ends its life, piercing Eternity into its head, gathering more Aura.
Breathing hard, Vanessa rests her hands on her legs in a tripod stance.
Auren walks up to her and nods appreciatively. "Interesting ability... it's not quite what I thought you would end up choosing, but it's impressive. You emit Aura, then use Manipulation and Emission to teleport it into the sky, changing its angle and trajectory to mimic an arriving meteor. The meteor picks up more and more speed and crashes onto the ground." He keeps his eyes on her, continuing to speak. "It looks like the higher the distance, the more Aura you use up, but the more powerful the impact and impact speed become. Though that comes with the downside of a longer delay and a loss of accuracy. You need to work on that. What do you call it? Meteor Fist or something like that?"
"You... no...! This is unfair, how do you know?!" Vanessa yells, confusion and extreme disappointment all over her face. "I wanted to explain... I even had my name... Meteor Fist! You ruined the fun of explaining my Hatsu. How could you?!"
"Calm down..." Auren says, smirking. "The Hatsu itself matters, not who explains it. Anyway, explain it to me in detail."
She slumps forward, reluctantly explaining herself. "As you said, it's mostly Emission-based, but it requires some Manipulation, and I've also included an Enhancement element. I can slowly gather more and more Aura on my fist to make it even more costly and powerful, but the wind-up takes even more time." She takes a breath, still clearly drained, but pushes through the explanation anyway. "The Hatsu depends on several factors, as you guessed—the height I'll make it appear from, and the amount of Aura I use for the punch itself. Its upside is its extreme range, which I can freely manipulate up to a certain limit, and its power. Its downside is its charging time, delay, inaccuracy, and extreme Aura cost."
"Your ability is incredible, but also quite... simple, yet extreme," Auren states, trying his best to remain calm so as to avoid demotivating her. "It's not hard to figure out how it works after seeing it once or twice. I must say this ability fits you perfectly, and I'm not saying this in a mocking way." He looks her over, smiling a little. "It's beautiful in its simplicity and potential. Though I'm not quite sure why you would pick such a Hatsu. It's weak in a one-on-one fight... its power lies in its destructive capability. If you push this ability to its limits, it's not impossible to blow up buildings."
"I want to blow up cities with it, like a huge meteor!" Vanessa says proudly, raising both of her hands, pointing to the sky.
"Dream on... but why would you want to blow up cities anyway?" Auren asks. "Your ability is incredibly potent in its destructive potential, but it lacks control and speed. It also costs a huge amount of Aura, judging by how exhausted you look. So why did you create this Hatsu?"
"Because... it's kinda cool, isn't it? I wanted something flashy with impact!" Vanessa says, lifting her face proudly.
... It fits her. It fits her so well that I'm getting a headache. Well, this is an answer as well. I can't argue against the results, even if the actual usefulness of the Hatsu is... debatable. She can also use weapons and basic Emission attacks, so it's not like she is a one-trick pony.
Though I wish she would use her mind a little more. She didn't even take her weapons with her. They are still on the airship.
"It's... flashy indeed," Auren states. "Good job, I'm honestly impressed and proud of you... let's return. We can maybe report this so the corpses get collected."
Upon hearing Auren's praise, Vanessa smiles widely, looking genuinely pleased, beaming with happiness.
Exactly as Auren finishes speaking, a troupe of a dozen heavily armed soldiers arrives, each carrying a rifle and combat gear that suspiciously reminds him of the armour Neffi and her company produces.
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