The Goddess' Champion

With a mind filled with incomprehension, Constantine kept going onwards trying to find Zamira and Nia, not having a lot of progress.

The forest was gargantuan yet he failed to make contact with anything of interest. What he found whatever were those annoying fellows.

*BAANG!*

He landed heavily on one of them, three destroyed corpses lay nearby.

Constantine's claws clutched this man's neck relentlessly.

"In what direction do I find the town of loup." Those were his mere cold words.

All he received from this member of the Scarred cult was a spit of saliva on his cheek and a maniacal laugh.

"Our God won't let you off, we know who you are, punk... our strongest members are already hunting you down."

*CRUNCH!!*

His maw sought the man's neck, biting it harshly, he pulled the cartilage and it came loose like the pulp of a watermelon, washing blood all over his body.

He spat that man's neck away and stood up in disappointment, not having gotten the answer that he desired.

There were no longer leads, he didn't know... thanks to the sun's position he could know where the north and south were, reading the books given to him by the librarian there was geographic information and maps but he still couldn't tel with accuracy where the town was, it might even be that Zamira and Nia are not there.

'How troublesome...'

It had been days since he had a proper shower or a decent sleep either.

Not too long after he reached a mountain of sorts or better said; a small stoned hill.

Finding a cave, Constantine rested there for a while, contemplating his next movements what would Zamira do... she probably went back to the hole where he fell, that clearing yet she found it desolated, there would be a trace of corpses and she'd likely not follow it.

She didn't know about his transformation and hence, seeing a trail of corpses, the direction of a deranged beast... tailing it was not something Zamira and Nia would do.

'But they would still come to the North to look for the tree's branch, they know that's what we're looking for and Nia mentioned the trees were found to the North. Perhaps if I seek the branches, I will be able to find them.' Constantine contemplated, that was his only lead.

As the night fell upon and his senses turned sharper he noticed that the cave went deeper than anticipated.

Crawling in he investigated it further.

"Is that the tree, but... what is that?"

It was certainly the tree, but sleeping beside it there was a creature.

'Nia didn't say anything about a creature guarding the tree...'

It was a gorilla, at least four times Constantine's size.

He gulped audibly, this is by no means a weak creature, its appearance was already frightening enough.

'Should I try to fight it? that would be a mental thought to have.' In no corner of his mind that was a good idea, if push came to shove he'd fight this creature, otherwise... deception it is.

An idea portrayed itself in his mind, a way to get this gorilla out of this place enough time for him to get some of the branches without begin caught, he could take advantage of the fact that it was the night, but sure enough this gorilla must also have a sensitive gaze.

'I can only hope.'

Using light magic like before wouldn't work, that time he simply covered himself in the shower of light by creating his own, but producing like in this darkness was ridiculous.

Crawling forward me tried to make the least noise possible, a rather easy thing to do given his new earned balance and furtiveness.

'I need to make more bombs.' He thought, taking out the last bomb he had created from that moment in the cave of Sandork, throwing it would produce a huge explosion that could cause two possible effects, one of them would be to seal the entrance of the cave, a catastrophe.

'I can crawl my way out, the walls are made out of the soil, but sealing myself here with this creature is not a good idea, it won't allow me to breathe.'

'If I start a fire there is a chance the gorilla will take the tree and go, it is more than capable of doing that.' He considered all of his options, and what he could do with his magic.

'Seal the entrance and erase the oxygen to kill the Gorilla... it could kill the tree, rendering the branches useless.' He didn't know if that could happen, a plant could survive for a long time even if it didn't breathe, but by then the fire would have extended, killing the plant.

He needed to make noise, but the bomb was too overkill, hence, he did something simpler, take a rock.

'Lure the gorilla away, take the branches... then I'll have to meet him in the entrance.'

'Create a fake tree with flora magic to deceive it, that won't work either, I don't know what tree is that, I can't recreate it.'

He sighed, everything indicated that at the end of the night, he'd still need to fight this gorilla to death.

It was then that a bell rang in his head, the last idea.

His smile broadened wickedly.

'That could work, but... are my cores good enough to do it? I just broke through perhaps... it could be a nice way to test my current limitations.

Constantine stopped crawling through, not at least twenty metres away from this white ape that was still shamelessly dozing off, unaware of his or her fate.

Constantine's claw touched the soil and rotated his cores, he needed to do a few tests.

The roots extended from his palm and sank into the soil, crawling through, when he found out that he could have his roots effectively crawl through the soil as it was still not dense enough, the first phase had been cleared.

'Now, the second phase, seal the entrance.'

It wasn't only to seal the entrance, he needed to close it in a way that not even a gust of air could pass through, this was going to be a difficult endeavour but one that would pay lots!

'I wonder how much this ape's corpse is worth~'

He calculated that he'd not need to waste his time for money in Sandoria anymore, and he wasn't wrong.

Vines of roots started to form a web in the entrance, crawling through the soil into a resistant matt, he made sure to produce several layers of it, and then it was time for earth magic.

[2nd Magic Core (Earth): 82%]

'It is doing great...' His greatest worry was that his cores wouldn't be capable enough to do what he had in mind.

'I need a LOT of water...'

Several soil layers were added later, the entrance was almost completely sealed, he made it strong enough for the ape to not be able to break through, or at least, that's what he thought.

...

'Second phase is completed. Good, the entrance is completely closed and now the clock is tickling, if this ape is sensitive to air currents, it should notice soon.' His gaze moved left and right, it was time for the third phase.

An escape route or in this case a concealment area. It was easy, he merely dug a hole in the Ape's blind spot.

By the time preparations were finished, one of his cores, the only one he used was merely fifty per cent capacity while the others were full.

'It's time...'

Constantine crawled into the hideout and exhaled deeply, there was darkness all around and aside from some grumpy noises, this ape hadn't done anything else too extraordinary.

With his core at fifty per cent capacity on stand-by and regenerating, he extended his hands forward and rotated all of his three other cores with a simple purpose.

To create water.

'Slow it down, Conqueror... slow at first.' He exhaled, regulating the output, afraid that he'd shot a bucket of water on top of the Ape's head, waking it up and everything would be messed up from then on.

Instead, a steady flow of water came out of his hands, staining the soil and sinking initially moistening it until it eventually turned into a small lake.

A few minutes later his cores were barely scratched yet there was already a barely noticeable pool of water that was starting to converge in the area where the ape was.

It harrumphed slightly at the sudden coldness but didn't have that much of a reaction once the water touched its body, this same conduct continued at least a few minutes forward, and the water pooled around the area, barely scratching the ape's bottom.

Constantine hoped by the time the ape noticed, he'd have already sunk deep in the water with no visibility whatsoever, and such was the case, he started using his remaining core to get some air straight in his lungs and waited.

Soon enough, the Ape's eyes opened.

And it wasn't very happy.