Following Ifira wasn't even a choice, she immediately ran after her best friend and hopped over the living railing, passing the branches only for her feet to then be met by nothing but air.

  Green hair whipped above her head as she fell, lashing violently as gravity forced it to relentlessly fight air resistance. A green thing started getting closer to her, the direction it originated from was below, it passed Rontress harmlessly before her own cloak got shaken off her neck and disappeared into the sky.

  Down below, Rontress saw Ifira land, there was no loud splash nor was there a ripple on the water's surface, the murky depths remained still, lifeless.

  Three pairs of heads emerged then and instead of getting intimated, Ifira released her sword and began hacking at the carapace of such creatures, Flotol boasts proudly about the toughness of the armor made from aberrants yet when confronted by Ifira's blade, the chitin broke just as easily as a piece of paper.

  Rontress released her own gear soon enough: plates of armor appeared on the nape of her neck, followed by the back of her hands, and lastly, they manifested on the heel of her boots.

  Blue metal grew on top of Rontress' body like reptilian scales, covering every inch with enchanted mythril. The three different parts of her armor quickly built themselves, turning Rontress into a tiny fortress that can deal as much damage as she can take.

  From the nape of her neck sprouted wires of blue metal that pulsed with magical light, the direction of their development went up and down: one climbed up her head, stopping slightly above the brain stem while the other went over her spine, creating interlocking plates shaped like vertebrae that then released lines of ribcages that covered her entire chest.

  Circuitry drew themselves across the blue surface, the expertly carved runes looked both artistic and functioned with efficient practicality. Once every bit of mythril coursed with magical power, the chest plate upgraded once more, growing vast plates that covered Rontress' entire torso.

  Up above, her helmet began to grow, covering her head in a dome of mythril that encased her cranium in two layers of enchanted alloy, the first served as a way to enhance Rontress' thinking, slow down her thought, as well as to give her precise details about the things she's looking at. It also stabilized her head, keeping it perfectly centered within the helmet in the same way a chicken holds its head steady no matter how roughly it moves.

  The second layer protects, it is enhanced with runes that dampen impact, reduce spell damage, and absorbs curses. Enchantments that make the mythril tougher are also added on top of that.

  Gauntlets and greaves that strengthen blows, return impact, absorb energy and enhance reflexes through information fed to it by the helmet appear on her arms and legs, heavy metal that acts as the armor's offense.

  Lastly, a spear made of mythril and tipped with adamantium suddenly shows on her hand, the weapon gleams the moment it is exposed to the ambient magic, the spells trapped within eager to be released.

  Rontress possesses a lot of spells in her repertoire, she considers most of them useless. Situational. Because all she needs are four basic spells to beat anyone. People call these spells useless, beginner magic that are only good for practice, not real combat.

  Are they really?

  "[Fire Ball]."

  Flames coat her spear, a layer of fire consuming the weapon from front to back, the mythril changes color, going from ocean blue to volcanic red, runic lines manifest mana acquitted to fire and turn hot orange, colors resembling veins of lava within volcanic rock.

  "[Gust Orb]."

  Her greaves and gauntlets answered, they turn the same color as a clouded sky, their tips and edges mirrored the shade of fogs. The weight holding down her arms and legs become lesser, their hold on her limbs loosen, and air resistance nonexistent.

  "[Stone Sphere]."

  Plates of metal covering her chest and head begin to react, the mythril that makes them up change shape, earthen lines grow on the surface like mold, creating chasms and canyons that stop slashes and trap stabs, they rise by a few inches, turning blunt attacks ineffective by getting chipped off. A horn grows on the forehead of her helmet, it curves sideways. Crescent.

  Unlike Ifira, who met the water with the patience of a hawk, the fluidity of a striking mantis, and the gracefulness of a hunting owl, her movements so smooth that the water remained undisturbed even as she killed three aberrants.

  Rontress crashed into the water with the force of a wrecking ball, displacing a good part of the pool and sending murky water splashing everywhere. A good distance away, Ifira uses her sword to slash droplets that threatened to land on her priceless suit, a bubble of slashes forms around her, the silver of her glinting sword creating arcs of light from how fast she moved.

  When Ifira stopped, the world went still, as if it too was wondering what just happened, then her actions quickly catch up to reality and everything resumes.

  All the droplets that were around Ifira disappeared, dissipating into mist because of how finely she cut them.

  Countless crayfish carapaces creak, the sound a low groan, something that would normally be impossible. A spiderweb of cracks ran through them as though they were struck by a mighty blow, but in truth, Ifira slashed them so many times that the areas of the shell holding it together gave in. And with a lack of support, the shell couldn't handle the aberrant's weight and cracks like porcelain.

  Rontress, in her own little part of the swamp, barely bothered to care as she did her own assault on the group of aberrants. A stab comes forward and her spear connects, it goes through the shell without resistance and crawls through flesh with voracity, once it stops, the head glows and an explosion gets released from the inside.

  Gore erupts as the giant crustacean becomes mincemeat. Her spear does not get stuck, it removes everything it stabs into, leaving her free to pull it back.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  With the water crashing down on her, Rontress chooses to do one last move, she slashes sideways and shoots an arch of energy that burns as hot as the surface of the sun. [Corona] goes through the water unimpeded, every inch it passes begins to boil, soon, the swamp bubbles with heat.

  Crusteceans, when boiled alive, would begin to panic. Actually, any living organism would.

  Aberrants do not do this, they can survive high amounts of heat while alive, the magic in their body regulates their temperature and even uses it to fuel the crayfish's attacks.

  Rontress boiling the swamp was intentional, she wanted these things to resist her and Ifira's onslaught, to put up some kind of fight. To say that she was disappointed would be wrong, she knew that very few things in this world can actually beat her, Aberrant Crayfish, even when boosted, do not belong in that group.

  Killing these things wouldn't even make her sweat, and it really didn't.

  She waited for the water she displaced upon landing to rain down on her all at once, the boiling pool barely phased through her armor and inside, Rontress didn't even feel warm.

  Now submerged, she began her massacre in earnest, slashing and stabbing at all the aberrants unfortunate enough to come her way. Every hit of her spear caused physical reactions across the lifeless pool, the explosions from her stabs repeatedly sent the water flying while her slashes threw out energy waves that didn't just boil, but turned the pool into steam.

  The once still surface was bubbling soon enough, and expectedly, Ifira's complaints entered her ears after a while. "Rontress! Rain! Now!"

  "[Thunder Storm]."

  Temperature drops, the sky darkens, and large droplets begin to fall, the rising steam only goes up for a few feet before condensation forces them back into being liquid and they fill the lifeless pool once more.

  Flashes of light illuminate the sky, removing the darkness for just a second before it swallows the world again. Then the roar of thunder follows, a scream so loud that it drowns out even the explosions from Rontress' stabs.

  Occasionally, lightning colors the sky, a single trunk growing hundreds of branches that consume the storm itself. The bolts urge Rontress to use them, to strike at targets, to kill her enemies, to crash into the ground with such a powerful force that even the mightiest dragon falls from their wrath.

  She did not listen, there's no need for them right now, and as much as she'd like to hit the lifeless pool with a single bolt and kill all the aberrants within, the currents wouldn't just stay here, it would crawl across the entire swamp and cause unwanted casualties.

  That and Ifira would get mad at her for killing everything.

  Rontress paused when an aberrant she was about to kill suddenly loses its head, she stared at the lifeless corpse in a daze until Ifira's taunt came from above her. "Oh? Were you gonna kill that one?"

  The villainess stood above the boiling water, unphased by the heat as well as the laws of physics, she circled the edge of the air cavity Rontress formed when her spear released another explosion, looking down on Rontress from above with an insufferable smirk on her lips.

  "Too bad!"

  Then the water descended and Rontress was plunged into the depths of the pool once more. 'So that's how she's gonna play this huh?'

  Since Ifira decided to so kindly taunt her, Rontress stopped playing around and actually took the culling more seriously. She didn't use buffing magic, she wouldn't give Ifira the satisfaction of something like that, nor did she use AoE spells to take out a large number of aberrants.

  At least not beyond the two spells she's been spamming since the start of the massacre.

  No, Rontress used her own strength and speed to begin killing the crustaceans enmasse, like a whirlwind of death, everything she passed lost their life. Every stab of her spear made the pool lose its shape and for Ifira to take a detour due to parts of the surface disappearing.

  Heavy rain continued to shower the swamp, thunder roiled, Rontress didn't know which were her own explosions and which ones were thunder, every eruption of sound was the same to her right now.

  With her speed, she's able to clear a lot of aberrants but unlike Ifira who was probably still searching the pool, her helmet told her when she ran out of targets so she was able to reach the shores first.

  Once there, Rontress began stabbing the ground, every thrust took a life and sent mud flying everywhere. She had killed 10 aberrants before a blur killed everything in less than a second.

  "Well, that's all of them." Rontress stopped, the front of her helmet went up and her face got exposed. "I counted 84. Yours?"

  "... 77."

  "Hah!" Rontress grinned, she pointed her spear at Ifira. "I win! You taunted me first and you're the one who lost?! Put your money where your mouth is!"

  "No, this wasn't your victory." Ifira raised a hand and slowly pushed the head of Rontress' spear away from her face. The blades barely made a scratch on the skin of her palm. "I was delayed because I didn't use a spell to scan the swamp, if I got here first I would have killed everything, leaving you with 74 aberrants in the end."

  "Uhuh, that really doesn't change the fact that I won now does it? You're still the loser and it will remain that way until we do this again!" Rontress' grin couldn't be contained, she was excitedly pointing fingers at her best friend. "How's that for competing against me huh?!"

  "Whatever, I would have won if I did things differently, which means this isn't a victory for you."

  "Say whatever you want." Rontress reared back her excitement and let out a relieved exhale. Her armor and weapons disappeared and the storm ravaging the sky followed soon after. "Okay, that was fun, what do you wanna do next?"

  "Can you make it rain again? Just a drizzle?" The way Ifira looked away made Rontress suspicious but she did as requested. "Wanna go to a cafe and drink hot chocolate together? You've always liked it when you drink a hot drink while it's raining outside right?"

  "Hm, okay." That was it? Rontress expected Ifira to set up a trap because of her loss. "Let's go?"

  "Yes."

  On the way out of the lifeless pool, the two of them passed by the guards keeping watch of the pool's entrance. The two men bowed when they spotted Rontress, then they went lower when Ifira spoke.

  "What are they doing here?"

  "To watch over the swamp I guess, you know it is with village children, sometimes they think they're stronger than they are and go here to try their luck against aberrants." Now that she thought about it, Rontress did this exact same thing in the past didn't she?

  "Hello mistresses." One of them said, "Did you come because of the disturbance that happened in the lifeless pool?"

  "Yes, hello, and nope, we're the ones responsible for that." Why did these two idiots let out a sigh of relief? Didn't they know that it was still a bad thing? "Tell the people working in the nursery to throw all the juveniles into the lifeless pool. All of them. And don't clean up."

  "Yes, Mistress." The two men said at the same time before rushing away with haste.

  "They were scared of us."

  "Like usual." Rontress looked away from the backs of the two guards and turned her focus on the surrounding swamp outside of the wall's entrance.

  Leaves the size of an adult's leg populate most of the swamp, alongside them are lily pads that cover the swamp's surface. Rontress uses the latter to walk safely across the murky depths, right next to her is Ifira, who is smoothly moving like she wasn't standing on top of water.

  Aberrants still roam these parts, but they're smaller and much easier to deal with compared to when Rontress first started coming out here, there is also a bridge now. An actual, functional bridge.

  The whole thing allows her to go out of Flotol and into Misery Swamp in less than two seconds, less if you factor in buffs. On top of that, the pier has been fixed so instead of being greeted by criminals she's instead welcomed warmly into a hygienic pier with countless people making sure that everyone is safe on a daily basis.

  "Hello." The wave she gave everyone somehow made them all smile. "Ifira and I are just passing through, it's not a big deal, continue on."

  "Where are we going now?" Her best friend asked once they left the pier.

  "Home, we need new cloaks."