Ciel didn't flinch. As her brethren roamed around the pit's edge, she bit into the crystal with a sound crunch.
[ MP: 8/165 - > 58/165; Your next spell will be enhanced with 50% proficiency. ]
The refreshing taste smoothed down her throat. She summoned her staff, and right as the packs crossed till the end of the cliff-
She fired. The cliff's edge shattered at the blue ray. Debris of rocks fell, bringing along several shadehounds with it.
The blonde's feet gave out, too. Yet a shadebeast's fang pierced through his shoulder, ending his fall as an anchor.
Ciel gave a weird look before rushing in to not spare this opportunity.
Other shadehounds, emerging from the pit just now, lunged at Ciel with furious snarls, determined to protect the mimic.
Yet before the remaining hounds could close in, Quia's chant cut through the chaos.
"Stellar.
Ciel's eyes shook, then quickly lunged aside and grasped a large stone, its rough surface grazing the skin.
But not before the pressure punctured her ears as Ciel squinted through her flailing hair, the result of an abrupt, uncaring gust.
The gust was so strong that it flew all the hounds away. Some struggled with their paws screeching against the floor before eventually joining the others to plummet down the pit.
A faint metallic clang resounded as a resilient sword stubbornly stabbed into the coarse earth, propped by the desperate weight of its wielder.
It ended as Ciel's grip almost slackened. She shot a tired glance at the elf, whose smile might as well beg for correction.
The momentary peace lasted short when footsteps broke the silence. Quia, blinking, rushed towards Ciel. With her ankle bent, she threw a straight punch.
Ciel ducked down narrowly. The punch crossed through the threads of her fluttering hair, landing square in the blonde's face, whose sword was stopped mid-swing.
Without batting an eye, the blonde gripped onto the elf's wrist and pulled. His attempt to throw her off balance ended with the elf's chortle, whose stance remained unbudging.
Ciel, having stumbled out of the way, watched as Quia returned the favour and grabbed the blonde's wrist.
With a yank, she hurled him up towards the night sky and smacked him back onto the floor with the momentum, the body bouncing a few times with the impact.
The Queen gave a soft hum. The elf trained her body well, or perhaps armed herself with enough mana to outmatch his strength.
Well, it didn't help that the mimic's strength was halved, though.
Contrary to her belief, the mimic was more resilient than Ciel thought.
The mimic didn't hesitate. He lifted his sword and slashed apart the other wrist.
Blood splashed as he left the clutch from the elf, before he tumbled away and raised himself with an unmoved expression.
Quia winced, then hurried to toss the detached arm away. "Yuck…"
Ciel sprinted in to fill the spot. Behind the Knight was the forest, leaves and trees with their shadows unflinched.
And for a split second, the shades moved. The blonde realised his brethren awaited behind him.
He turned and ran, sprinting away for a chance of escape, yet the steps remained too unhurried and non-urgent in Ciel's eyes.
'It's a bait.'
Knowing Quia's 'breeze' trick won't work with the awkward angle, Ciel quickly shot a moonblast that targeted his leg.
The first one missed and grazed his leg. Frowning, she shot another as the mimic bent his arm with the sword, then thrusted it downward.
The blade sank into a pocket of shadow, just outside of the moonlight's gaze. In the process, his body fell with a severed leg, a trace of blue ray lingering where he stumbled.
Ciel leapt away on instinct. As she recovered from the roll, her eyes caught the glint of the blade's edge, piercing through the shadow where she was just at.
The blonde, just now, hoped to draw Ciel into a 'shadow' with his escape, then teleported his thrusting sword with a well-timed attack.
Is the teleport trick shadow mastery? Inherited within the race of mimic? Ciel rejected all convenient possibilities, as her tongue tasted a faint bitterness.
"The boy seemed to have a talent for shadow magic." She stared at the mimic lying in the distance. "Quite a fitting steal for a mimic."
A magic that would not have been reduced to a cheap trick, if not for the mimic's weakened possession.
Her staff stretched as their gazes met. The black eyes of a Queen, to a subject that dared to defy her freedom.
The mimic then snapped his gaze above Ciel's shoulders, his yell 'desperate' and full of 'hurt'.
"How dare you betray us?!" His vision then readjustedly focused on Ciel, yet the pupils gleamed behind her back instead, as if she were not his source of enmity. "You were supposed to be our Queen! Our leader!"
The voice that used to defend his childhood friend with fierce now scolded his kind's betrayer.
A sigh escaped Ciel's lips. Casual steps echoed amidst the mimic's painful cries, completely unbothered.
"Oi." Quia stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ciel, the elf's low breath tickling her ear. "Just finish that bastard."
A pleased smile invited itself to Ciel's lips, for Quia didn't fall into such an obvious trick.
Yet they quickly frowned as the elf's blue eyes flickered. Quia smirked, but Ciel didn't respond. Refused to respond.
"Well," Ciel sighed as the yell ceased, the mimic falling into a humble silence as she aimed her staff. "Any last word?"
The mimic froze. His hand then pressed upon the earth before pushing himself up, and he faced Ciel's cold stare head-on.
Just as Ciel thought this was some grandiose, last literal 'act' of a resolve, the mimic merely uttered with a quiet hush.
"May we meet again in the Black Sea."
A cold shiver crept up Ciel's ears.
For the first time, she could hear anger in the mimic's voice.
Her fingers found her chin, pondering. Then shook her head with a resigned disappointment.
A blue ray soon followed. The merciless moonblast took the mimic's head, ending its life as the corpse dropped with a dull plop.
A chain of notifications soon congratulate her feats.
[ You have slain a Shadehound. ]
[ You have slain a Shadehound. ]
[ … ]
[ You have slain a mimic. ]
All dull formalities, only for the last panels to strike her anew.
[ WARNING: The shadebeasts now feel 'mixed' about your betrayal. ]
[ Deviations from Queens observed by the stars. Perilous unpredictability ahead. ]
[ For this feat, 'Tarot Shuffle' feature unlocked. ]
Mixed? The mere word plunged Ciel into deep thought, yet her thousand years of bias refused to acknowledge its implications.
To accept their now 'mixed' attitude towards her would be admitting their loyalty amongst themselves had wavered, and the nature of shadows was always one, not fractured.
As Ciel was processing this wave of information, an arm clasped at her neck, the small shoulders accommodating the new weight.
"Good aim," Quia poked Ciel's cheek with playful and shameless taps. "Miss a few more, and it's a bye-bye-one-point for us. At least I don't have to chase down that mimic in the forest."
Ciel, failing to shrug off the elf, merely placed her grumbling cheek against her firm arm, feeling the well-toned muscle.
The comfort reeled back in another doubt within her mind, as she allowed it to resurface in her voice.
"Too few…"
"Hm? What's too few?" The elf's fast retort was strangely offended.
"I mean, the number of mimics here was too few," Ciel murmured. "I expected at least two or three, yet I ended with one."
Ciel shot a confused glance outside the cliff. The leaderboard, still edged with fire, reordered as if aware of Ciel's desire.
'Ciel - 1'
Yet the top two names, glaringly, failed to appease the unease in her heart. If her assumption didn't fail, she would have landed at the top with two or three kills.
What was known to humanity was also known to the intelligent shadebeasts, just as cliffside was a safezone from Nightfall's invasion.
In other words, an ideal hunting spot for groups of mimics to converge at and cause chaos, so to only have one here was very much absurd.
No shadebeasts, being loyal as they were, would easily abandon one of their weakest kins alone for ascertained death.
Unless: There was a more important objective in their mind.
Just as she hoped to dwell on the shadebeasts' true goal-
A rustle, brief and fickle, broke through the silence of the duo. Armed examinees emerged from the forest.
The lanterns flickered at their greedy faces, all drawn in to take advantage of the chaos earlier.
"Come on!"
Quia, realising what their goals were, jerked Ciel's hand to pull her along.
Ciel's steps stumbled with one another, attempting to keep up with the elf's running pace. Other examinees closed in, spells fired to chase after the girls' trails.
Only then, as a sudden breeze cut through Ciel's skin, did her dazed mind register that Quia drove them towards a cliff's edge, the forest's grand view rising in her vision.
And with a yank, they jumped off without hesitation.