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The Disciple of Aoide - Chapter 30

Published at 20th of January 2019 07:44:25 PM


Chapter 30

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The woman disappeared and Arthur stayed fully on guard. Based on what happened earlier, he knew she would be able to show up anywhere. However, since she had not done anything aggressive, Arthur did not expect she would show up being so close to him.

Suddenly, Arthur felt immense pressure coming from behind him and the young man turned to look. Arthur felt like he was looking into a dark abyss. Its jaw was extended wide open and he realized that the monstrosity looked even more appalling up close. There was still tears on the ocular holes that barely constituted as eyes and there was a giant hole just above its left cheek, probably a result from Felicia's arrow earlier.

The Blood Mother was holding the fetus as it crawled towards Arthur's shoulder, trying to take a bite out from him. The teeth was not yet formed but the bones that protruded out from its jaws were sharp and startlingly white.

If Arthur had reacted one second later, there would be a giant part of his shoulder missing. Thankfully, he did not and the vocal materialization shoved the Blood Mother and her child away from him. Arthur screamed into the baby and the force pushed his adversaries back.

Within a one-second span of Arthur doing that, Felicia caught sight of what was happening and she fired off a series of arrows at the Blood Mother, aiming at the fetus in her arms. The Blood Mother flicked them away like she was waving away a bunch of annoying pests.

Without giving them the chance to gather themselves, the Blood Mother disappeared and this time reappeared behind Felicia. She phased to the duo's blind spots, trying to take advantage of their vulnerability.

After they were familiar with her tricks, Felicia called for Arthur to come to her. She then leaned against his back, this way, their backs would not be exposed and they would be able to cover 360 degrees of the ballroom with their combined eye sight. "Holler if you see her!" Felicia ordered but that would not have been necessary since Arthur used his voice as a weapon. Whenever Arthur attacked, Felicia would definitely have taken notice of it.

Thus, a lethal game of cat and mouse began, the prize on the line was one's life. If anyone had their attention faltered for that one second, their live would be lost.

Essentially, the battle had reverted to how it was before the Blood Mother turned offensive. She phased all around the ballroom, evading Arthur and Felicia's attacks. However, this time, she also made sure to not miss any opening to launch a counter-attack. Her baby was still crying and she was in desperate need to find fresh soul to feed her child.

After this stalemate continued for a while, Felicia whispered to Arthur behind her, "We cannot allow this to continue any further. We have to be concerned about our physical conditions but she does not have that limitation. She is just waiting for us to get tired and for our weakness to get exposed."

The expression on Arthur's face was grim. He knew Felicia was right but he had no solution to get out from this stalemate. The Blood Mother was moving too fast for any of their attacks to land.

Felicia was silent for a moment before she added, "Actually, I have a plan in mind."

Arthur was pleasantly surprised. He launched an attack at the Blood Mother which missed and he turned back to Felicia, "What is it?"

"Do you still remember what happened when she first attacked you?"

Arthur nodded. The ghost baby almost gnawed off a piece of his shoulder. However, Arthur could not understand why Felicia would bring that up at this particular moment.

Felicia continued her elaboration. "Based on my observations from what has happened so far, I came up with two conclusions.

"One, the ghost baby should be her weakness and two, she will lose the ability to phase when it was seconds before or after the ghost baby's attack.

"If you think back to when the Blood Mother blocked the arrow from harming the little girl, the arrow did not make contact with her body but she grimaced as if in pain. It was then that I suspect an injury on the baby will be reflected on its mother.

"I've been trying out this theory and I realize whenever I aimed my arrows at the baby, she will phased much faster and earlier compared to when my arrows are targeted at the Blood Mother herself. She cares more about injury coming to the baby than to herself and I believe there is more than a maternal love at work here."

Arthur was impressed by Felicia's analysis. He did not expect she would come up with such detailed analysis and even took steps to verify it while in the middle of a heated battle.

"Now, the second observation is when the baby in her arm attacked you. After you warded them off, I fired multiple arrows at them but instead of phasing away like she usually does, she used her hands to block them. That is why I suspect, there is a cooldown time to her phasing ability after the ghost baby launches an attack."

Arthur listened to Felicia's analysis and while he thought they might have a kernel of truth to them, there was one very big problem. These were merely hypotheses, they were not yet confirmed.

That would have been fine if the plan that Felicia came up with did not depend so fully on the two hypotheses being valid. If they weren't true, then their lives would definitely be in danger. The plan required someone to volunteer for a dangerous role and Arthur, as a gentleman, volunteered to do it.

Felicia denied his request. "Arthur, I was the one who ran ahead to fight to save the children, so this should be my responsibility. You have been taking the passive role, supporting me so let me do this."

"But..."

"It'll be fine, I still need you for the plan to work so don't let me down." Before Arthur could say anything, Felicia pretended to slip and she staggered away from Arthur, exposing her back. The crimson spectre materialized behind her and the baby reached out towards Felicia with its jaws gnashing.




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