Chapter 46 - The Temporary Disability

We all here as the loud screech echoes around the whole cave making it seem as if there were creatures all around us.

"Vexsus this is bad, from what we saw there were burnt piles of ashes everywhere we didn't see the queens body anywhere. If she is coming back for revenge than she is going to be sooo pissed."

I looked over at Howy and nodded because I knew all to well how pissed off I would be if somebody destroyed my family.

"Yea, I know, I messed up pretty bad but don't worry I will have her focus on me and you guys just make sure to provide support but do not try and fight her straight on. We don't know what kind of power she has."

They all nod and we get ready and prepare. Shorunt cast a green light over us and I feel a slight boost to my body as a wave of comfort circulates through my body.

It happened just in time as a slight tremor was felt, then I could feel it increasing in power as I soon started to hear multiple thuds echo off the walls. We soon saw the queen with parts of her body burned while some of her body was fine. I'm assuming that the royal guards shielded her just before the bomb went off.

She instantly sees us and screeches once again and charges at us while she seems to grab the wall and pull out a giant ball of stone and then hurls it at us.

"EVERYBODY DODGE!!" I scream Just before she throws it and I summon as much magic as possible and use lightning slash to block the giant stone.

Both the stone and my claws covered in electricity collide and the stone gets slashed apart while I am thrown back from the pure force alone. I knew the stone was more powerful than it looked and that's why I didn't dodge like the others.

The queen saw this and roared in frustration than she ran towards me as I was slamming into the cave wall. Then suddenly a wave of fog covered the cave which startled the queen for a second just long enough for Sondar to run by and grab me from the wall and dash away back into the fog.

"KITSOMA NOW" I heard Shorunt yell shortly before a giant red fireball appear and soar and explode on the ant queen.

'RAAAAARRRR' the queen roared gutturally as I saw that a part of her face was burned away as the fog was blown away at that moment. It was a bit disgusting seeing her weird ant eye dangling there with steam still coming off of it.

"Tinoa, Vinoa now do it." Shorunt said again shortly before 2 misty forms appeared above her head and I saw as their bodies were bulging with tensed muscles as they slammed their clubs down and broke through the shell of her body and forcing her down onto the ground.

The combined power through the mana drain from the stones was insane as I saw a visible line of brown mana appear from her body and drain into both of the unrefined stones, causing them to glow brown and shrink, refining and causing an even bigger drain. The line of mana eventually snaps as both of their stones glow in a bright light and become a deep brown with small specks of blue.

"Yay sister look our stones are refined lets retreat and get new ones!!" Vinoa said before they both jumped off and turned misty before completely disappearing.

'What the hell was that? did they just ninja escape?' I'll be lying if I said that it wasn't cool to watch before shaking my head and charging at the queen before she gets back up. I use up the remaining amount of mana I had and open up my mouth and charge up a bright light before shooting it out directly into her face.

'Yea you bitch eat this, I'll be sure to make good use of what you drop.' I thought as I feel extremely fatigued shortly after the beam leaves my mouth and blasts her head open. Bits of her shell and flesh scatter and paint the cave wall.

I could only sit on the floor of the cave as the blood and gore of the 'now deceased' queen ant covered me and dripped off of me.

"Hey guys look at this." Howy said before showing us an egg that he got from within one of the larger pieces of the body.

"Hell yea, I told y'all I was gonna get a queen ant as a pet and look here is a fucking ant egg." I said excitedly as I took the egg out of his hands and caressed it, not caring about the viscous and gooey juices and pieces of flesh still covering the egg. I took a look at the egg and used analyze.

[Queen ant egg] - last egg of the previous queen. Still underdeveloped [Warning!!!! Egg is very fragile and weak. Suggest User to provide adequate protection in order to hatch pet without difficulty.]

"AH fuck well guys, It's what I want but my spell just told me that its still underdeveloped and I will need to provide alot of protection for this egg to hatch my new baby pet." I said still excited but now with some anxiety mixed in.

"Well you lucky fuck great good for you now just sit there with your egg like a mother hen." Sondar said as he left me with a shake of his head visibly eye rolling as he walked away.

"HEY DON'T HATE" I yell while chuckling.

The others walked away shortly after and start going through corpse again, some bring back huge pieces of shell, while others bring back multiple crystals glowing brown. I use analyze on the drops just so it'll get some uses in.

[Queen ant shell piece] - piece of the queen ant shell that is very resistant to physical damage but weak to fire. Great component for armor.

[Earth magic core] - magic core of a creature that had an earth affinity, will enhance earth magic or for use as a material in multiple crafting projects.

"Well we got potential armor material and a earth magic core. From what the spell said its used to enhance earth magic or we can save it to use it in crafting." I said while thinking up the possibilities.

"I think we should save it and maybe we can find someone to craft some armor out of the core and the shell, it should make a piece of armor that is very strong." Kitsoma said while she stared at me, almost knowing what was going through my mind.

The rest agreed and we stashed it along with all the other shell pieces and other drops we didn't distribute. I was still so tired from using that one attack. I shouldn't have used so much mana to overcharge it, even my mana isn't regenerating as I feel a burning sensation across my whole body that intensifies whenever I try to use Mana Absorption. I don't want the others to worry more than they already have over me so I just grin and bear it and play it off.

[User has caused extreme damage to Mana Veins within body. User will experience a drastic decrease to Mana capacity and will be unable to generate any more mana until repaired.]

Unknowingly to Vexsus, the others can feel that he is not emitting any magical power. They can feel that he has lost alot of power after that last attack. But they did not say anything for the same reason that Vexsus didn't, They knew that he still felt bad and didn't want to make him feel anymore guilt.

"Hey guys ummm I'll be honest that last attack although very effective, I did do some damage to my body and I can't use magic anymore. I will need to fix whatever is going on in my body but I don't know what will help." I said bringing everybody's attention immediately at me.

"Master are you sure? That is a very big deal." Shorunt runs over and begins to cast healing spells but on his face was the look of somebody who knew the truth but was doing all he could to fight against the truth.

"Shorunt buddy yes its true I can't use mana right now but this isn't helping me your basically forcing mana into my body and with the way it is now your basically setting the inside of my body on fire and Its starting to hurt alot." Thank god for Pain resistance am I right.

Shorunt stops immediately and starts profusely apologizing. He looked at me with a face of agony because his master is in pain and his whole existence right now is to heal somebody in pain.... But when he heals his master all he does is cause him pain.

"So Shorunt before you have a existential crisis, I'm gonna need you to snap out of it. I know your whole gig is to help people when they are in pain but I promise I will be fine. This is just another bump in the road for me. This is going to force me to figure out other methods to live besides just using magic, well until I can fix the Mana veins in my body."

"Hey didn't you learn the Regen skill? Can't you just use that to fix your Mana veins or whatever you just called them?" Howy said as he looked like a lightbulb just went off in his head.

"Yes Howy I did however that damn skill needs Mana to activate and I have a very limited amount already so I haven't been using it incase anything else happens and I need to help out."

They all look at me then eachother and back at me before finally just shaking their head in annoyance. Sylvania comes up to me and slaps my head.

'Blam'

"You idiot do you think your the only one here who can protect others? I'm pretty sure the rest of us combined can equal to one of you oh powerful dragon." She says very sarcastically.

"Well.... Well yea but I already put you guys through to much in such a short time. I don't want to be more of a burden on you guys." I mutter embarrassingly while I look down at my feet.

"Just rely on us you idiot we need you to get better as fast as possible, if you need protection than your friends can do it, just leave it to us and you do whatever you need to do."

She smiles at me and walks sits down next to me as I smile back before nodding and closing my eyes to focus. I use up the last of my MP to activate Regen and I feel like a forest fire gets set within my body as my Mana circulates trying to repair my body. I try and focus on the Mana veins that up until now I didn't know about but hey not anything I needed to know..... Anywho back to the forest fire.....

It slowly starts to die down as my MP runs out shortly after it starts but even those short few seconds I could feel that it healed up a small portion of the damage. However its shitty because its only 1 MP per minute. My Absorption skill can't be used because its so painful as even the tiniest amount that enters my body is like being stabbed by a buster sword sideways.

"Guys its working I healed a small amount with what I had left but bad news is that the amount I healed is only enough for mana to enter my body but not enough to not stop the pain so from now on I will be in constant pain until I'm fully healed.... This is going to get completely masochistic but I need a favor from you 3 who know MP Share." I say as the idea in my head already scared me even with my Fear and Pain resistance.

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[Lightning Slash] 3 -> 4

[Breath of Light] 2 -> 3

[Analyze] 5 -> 8

[Regen] 0 -> 1