Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 188: Results Of Thane's Training

Dusting his hands, Thane looked down at Alice now that their training session had finished. She lay on the floor hugging her knees as though she had just been traumatized.

"Stop being a kid, it wasn't even that difficult." Thane shrugged since he felt like Alice was overreacting a little.

Hearing this, Alice felt like a vein on her head was about to burst open.

What he classified as not difficult was having her run from the beast until her legs gave out, hit the beast until her arms became numb, get hit until she could no longer move and when all of that is done, be healed and repeat the process all over again.

Not only that, but he would also manually control the floating pieces of shadow metal to hit her mid dodge, ruining her balance and causing her to take another hit from the beast.

But that wasn't everything.

The cherry on top of everything was that every time she fought back, the beast would only get stronger and shrug off her attacks!

However, she wasn't even sure what the training did for her. All she did was get beat up for a few hours!

"Well it's about time we go back now. The city lord will already have a headache wondering why the landscape has changed so much." Thane massaged his neck while looking at the damage that his summon caused.

Flicking his finger, shadows wrapped around Alice's body and started to puppeteer her.

"Can't you just teleport me back? Why are you forcing me to walk like this." Alice groaned in annoyance while glaring at Thane.

"It's no fun then. Why would I go out of my way with that training if I'm just going to let you rest well later?"

". . . But you let Ria go back?!" Alice protested, causing Thane to laugh.

"Pft ahahaha! Bold of you to assume I teleported her back. Nope, I made her walk the entire way using the same method. If anything, it would be unfair of me not to make you walk." Snapping his fingers, the shadows started to pilot Alice's body while Thane looked at her from behind.

'Her body is a lot sturdier than I expected. Even after injecting that much power into the beast she was still able to protest. Not to mention that recovery of hers. I don't think that's a normal recovery.

The closer she is to passing out the fiercer she becomes and to accommodate this, her body patches itself up to allow her to keep fighting.' Thane frowned since he had learned a lot regarding Alice during this training session.

The way she fights, how she strategises and most importantly, the quirks surrounding her body.

On top of the clearly abnormal regeneration, she was actually able to cancel out the Sigil powers to a certain extent.

In order to maintain the manifestations of his power, he had to put in twice the amount of effort. Had it been a normal Hunter with 3 Sigils, the summon would've been dismissed.

'I don't think I've heard of a beast with the power to cancel out Sigil power. If people had known, the lengths they would've gone to obtain this information would have been unthinkable. All of the Anti Hunter users would become far more dangerous and this would be a mandatory Sigil for anyone wanting to become an assassin.

This abnormality… Does it come from her or does it come from the synergy between her two Sigils?'

Narrowing his eyes, he contemplated in silence before closing one of his eyes. He wanted to see what kind of information he could get regarding this regeneration of her's along with the strange flames.

There was one man that he knew of who might have the information he wanted. And if not, he would know where to look.

'I'll send a message to Nalem and see what he knows.' Thane smiled inwardly as Nalem of all people should know. After all, he is who people used to hail as the all knowing librarian, The Observer of Life.

But that was a time long ago and the only ones that know of him could be counted on one hand.

"So how confident do you feel about hunting this beast now?" Thane asked while speeding up a little so he was next to Alice.

"Maybe 70% if I can get the first hit in. less than 50% if it fails." Alice groaned while trying to suppress the pain she was feeling.

"Hou? And what makes you think that? With the way you were getting beat up by the copy, you made it look like you weren't going to kill this beast at all." Thane laughed causing Alice to pout in annoyance.

She wanted to hit him right now but two reasons held her back.

First he is an Abyss Lord. One flick and she may as well be a stain on the ground.

Second, she couldn't control her body right now.

"I'll figure it out once I get there. Honestly speaking I've already prepared as much as I can in the time I'm given. Take too long and someone else will take it." She sighed.

She had the blood, the weapon and now the strategy. All that's left was to actually hunt the beast.

"Oh right, speaking of that, I did see a group of people approaching the area. They seem pretty well geared so I can only assume they're there for the beast as well." Thane muttered as he had been monitoring the area using his ravens.

"You only tell me that now?!?!" Alice widened her eyes.

Gritting her teeth, she mustered as much power as she could and started to run back to the city.

She needed to get Ria and hire a carriage as soon as possible before they kill her target!

"Seem's like I didn't train you enough if you can still run." Thane chuckled, catching up easily.

"This is no time for a joke! My third Sigil is about to get stolen!" Alice shouted while holding back the pain.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?!"

"It wouldn't be fun otherwise." Thane shrugged. Whether or not she could get this Sigil didn't matter to him. He's already fulfilled his responsibilities and even more with the training he gave to Ria.

Running back to the city as fast as she could, Alice ignored the burning sensation coursing through her lungs. She could feel the pain in her muscles and each movement felt like it was tearing her flesh from bone.

However, she couldn't help but notice that by running in a way that reduces the pain, she was increasing her top speed while conserving more stamina.

All of the hits she took from Thane throwing metal was actually to correct her posture albeit in a roundabout and painful way.

Glancing over to Thane, she could see that he was playing dumb as though he was unaware of the affects of his training.

Gritting her teeth, Alice took a deep breath and adjusted her posture. It wasn't perfect but it was far better than what she was doing before.

Once they arrived at the city, Alice immediately made her way to the Guild and woke Ria up.

In her confusion, Ria wasn't even able to ask Alice what was going on.

To assist Alice some more, Thane flicked his finger an a tendril of shadow grabbed Ria by her waist and held her like a sack of potatoes.

". . ." Ria was unable to comprehend the situation and eventually came to one conclusion.

She was going to continue to sleep.

With Ria sleeping while being held by a tendril of shadow, Alice ran to the stables with Thane behind her.

*BANG!!!

Bursting through the doors of the one handling the different carriages, Alice slammed her hand on the table while taking deep breaths to refill her lungs.

"How can I he-"

"Carriage! Ironforge! South side! Round trip! Right now! Fast as possible!" Alice listed between her breaths.

Seeing her bloodshot eyes, the man nodded his head and figured it must be an emergency.

"15 Gold for the fastest route and carriage carrying three people. Round trip, can depart immediately."

Hearing the price, Alice paused as she was still waiting on the payment from the Guild but Thane stepped in and placed 15 gold pieces on the table.

"You owe me twice." He grinned.

"Twice???"

"Training and gold. My time is important you know? Even just talking to you now is an honor for you. If anything, you should be paying me to be standing next to you." Thane smirked as Alice's smile twitched.

However, since he was the one covering for her fee's right now she couldn't say anything back.

"You can ask Allura for the repayment then. She's my guardian right now I'm sure she can pay you back while I work for the coins." Alice huffed.

Her reply caused Thane to wipe the smirk off his face as that was the last thing he wanted right now. Contacting Allura for something as meager as 15 gold was asking her to punch him in the face with all her might.

"I'm benevolent so I shall grant this 15 gold to you out of pity." He replied while waving his hand lazily.

Meanwhile, the man led them to a carriage being pulled by two horses. He explained the request to the driver while Alice sat down on the seat and immediately collapsed from exhaustion.

She could feel the sweat sticking to her skin as she made an expression of disgust.

The sooner she kills this beast the faster she can take a post training shower that she had to skip due to potentially losing her third Sigil to some random Hunters.

As for Ria… She was still sleeping and Thane sat down comfortably in his own seat.

Once the driver understood the assignment, he drove the carriage out of the city and made his way to Ironforge using the shortest route.

Their estimated time of arrival was 2 hours and Thane continued to keep an eye on the situation using his familiar.

Once they arrive at Ironforge, the hunt for the beast will begin.