The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'
Chapter 43 - Train Hoppity, Void Boppity

Chapter 43: Chapter 43 - Train Hoppity, Void Boppity

When the train grew nearer to the station, the young heiress excitedly spread her spiritual sense. Her ’fortress’ had written to her that they would try to be there waiting for the passenger vehicle’s scheduled arrival. When she didn’t find her with it immediately, the spiritual Breacher pulsed more ’pressingly’ in all directions.

If she hadn’t, the young bodied cultivator might have missed something of a ’threat’.

The brunette stood up and walked calmly to the rear of the car before she opened the door ’without’ being seen by any other passenger. Convincing everyone she wasn’t even there was a common tactic in her past life. Then she repeated this method in the next car, and the next until eventually at the end of the linked containers of the train.

Her illusions also successfully hid her when she jumped from the moving vehicle.

The essence Primalist ’floated’ with some pushing of her Element without killing too much of the momentum then began running in the required direction at the moment her feet touched earth. The destination was a wooded hill - far enough outside of the city that visitors would be unlikely. Quite a good place for reconnaissance, she thought.

However, the being ’specialized’ in that sort of craft also never sensed her approach.

The creature was a writhing mass of darkness, the essence it controlled barely seeming to hold it into a recognizable shape. Six razor sharp tendrils of absolute blackness ended with a scythe-like hook shape underneath its torso, above which a single multifaceted eye pointed toward the city. The sole organ burned with a white flame of unsettling hive intelligence.

As it was *intently* watching the *very* area where she would have been going if she’d stayed on the train, she of course felt some suspicion. Her spiritual sense tore in that direction once again at roughly the same time the ’sphere’ she carefully set to fully contain the pair of them and their conflict... caught its attempt to ’message’ its kindred.

/ High potential. Synchronized Trinity. Priority target. /

Elua cackled out loud from a few dozen meters away. She didn’t know whether her luck was good or this thing’s was bad!

"Now, now. That’s not playing by your own Divinity’s *inviolate* rules. Did a Demi give you this kind of nudge? How audacious."

/ Anomalous entity. Requesting- /

The ground where the brunette had stood rained up into the sky from the explosive force behind her leg’s stomp - the new ’action’ from her Physique after she had reached physical Primalist. She locked its form in place with her superior spirit just before moving so she wouldn’t miss. The voidling scout’s ’head’ burst into vantablack ichor as the Goltbred teenager forcefully ’gripped’ it before it could finish ’speaking’.

She’d also employed her Element, but-

’Lowering my air resistance is effective for movement, yet harder to manage properly... while my entire spirit is being utilized elsewhere. Not to be used in a fair fight.’

As for the ’unfair’ ones where *she* was at a disadvantage... Elua firmly believes that to plan to fail is to fail to plan. At least when it comes to combat. A disadvantageous ’fight’ should never happen in the first place. The way to do that was usually by getting ahead of the situation and talking to the right people.

Which is why the vital fluid of her enemy was already engaged in painting sigils around her for a certain ritual. To ’kill’ any chance of something she couldn’t handle making its way to this backwater.

The ’wrong’ appearing substance slithered out into the necessary shapes and geometry for her task under the command of her essence field. Elua doubted that the method of contact had been used many times throughout the eons, even though it was pretty simple compared to some others. It was basically no different than the communication rituals her Guild mentor had been struggling with.

’I suppose you have to be just a little insane to feel ’safe’ bugging the being that belongs to the realm of most powerful existences.’

As soon as the last line was arranged a thrum of ’void silence’ simply existed, which the girl liked to poetically think was *really* an unheard eldritch scream so loud and unfathomable that it quieted the very piece of universe it occupied. At least, that’s what the sigils implied...

\\ Haa... you again. \\

A tired raspy voice penetrated the abominable hush.

"Yes, me again. Funny that."

She hadn’t entirely expected such an initial response, but also was not at all surprised. It was a being above her last life’s heights after all. Vast knowledge and power. Which made things simple!

"As you’ve already calculated what I want and what your solution is, we’ll save both our time and I’ll let *you* get to fixing the problem of *whoever* is putting their hands all over *your* Voidling Descent trials. You can cut the connection now."

The Divinity... paused before gladly severing the ritual. The last three times the ’young’ cultivator had bothered him for many hours! He had *hardly* been looking forward to it just moments before, but now the ancient being felt somehow *unsettled* by the ’difference’. Still, there were better things to do than pay too much attention to yet another failed Final Ascension reincarnator.

\\ ...Since you brought this to my attention, as a favor I’ll wish you better luck on your next attempt to reach past the apex.

All the voidling ichor, and the rest of the creature’s remains, turned to white flame and ash that started to float away on the breeze. Elua wasn’t having any of that! She manipulated the gasses to float the stupid tracks of this event ever happening into a single spot.

Then she ate it.

’Residual physical matter is as good to cultivate with as anything else.’

She had only advanced in that energy’s realm recently and the use of the new trigger action was making her something akin to starving. She walked back from the hill slower than she arrived, snagging anything edible off of plants along the way.

She also eyed a large herbivore for a few stretched moments before shaking her head. There would be ’ready made’ food in town! Thinking of that, she aimed her spiritual sense that way again to find her ’fortress’ - bristling with tendrils.

The train had arrived, but El was not on it.

The one being worried over was also worried herself. While the Goltbred always wrote to her Yecine a lot, there were still certain things that neither of them ever penned. Passing through three different Peaks of cultivation fell into that category.

’I wonder if she’ll be impressed if I tell her... or sad that my strength is further away from her reach than before.’

It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered that consequence this time, but that the tedium of being ’stuck’ all these years was so great. Knowing through the safely worded letters she was getting that her gift was being used and that her Qat was training seriously had only aggravated things. She also wanted to ’get stronger’ so that the variety of things to *do* increased!

That’s why, when she had the idea to ’make use’ of the husband researcher’s work - with heavy modifications - she went through with it. The tool had been designed for momentarily taking a sample of spiritual interference and, as her issue was *hiding* the mass of spiritual fluctuation that becoming a Breacher could let out, ’all’ she needed was to vastly increase the scale of this ’sample’ acquisition.

Then it could function as containment.

Along with taking a sojourn into an uninhabited locale on a pair of days off from the Guild it all went quite well. Except it did cost her a lot of her savings and left a giant hunk of garbled, spirit infested material she had to bury out in the wilderness. The other sigilists would be too interested in where she found it...

’I hope that thing doesn’t become sentient before I can deal with it.’

Her thought was meant to be a joke, but her features became taut. She was pretty sure it couldn’t!

---

Qatrand stood rigidly at the station with her hair in its natural state. She had lost track of time and had to rush over only to not find the person she wanted to see. Her posture had not relaxed since her eyes began scanning the crowd and her fingers twitched, which betrayed her nervousness despite the calm on her face.

"You’re looking around so much, did you miss me?"

The swordswoman whirled around to find the brunette standing there with a mischievous glint in her mint eyes. Confusion finally clouded the Yecine’s face at seeing her. She’d decided that staying calm was for when the smaller of them was the one panicking. Besides, she knew her *spirit* had probably been honest under the senses of El.

"I was a little late... but not that much. Did you sneak past me or... use your ability?"

"Yes, I snuck past some people - and used my illusions to do it. But that was when I was still on the train, and I did neither of them to you. Not exactly. Did I surprise you?"

The tall girl’s brow furrowed. She was torn between genuine joy at seeing Elua in the flesh and not as a recording... and concern over her unexpected way of arrival. If she *hadn’t* been sneaking around, then it must have meant she just entered the building. The older teenager sighed and shook her head - it didn’t matter!

"Yes. You frequently do."

When El moved with a soft smile to come embrace her, the blonde hesitated for a split second to let her wrap her arms around her waist. Memories of her thoughts the first day she was taken to the Goltbred estate weeks ago had surfaced - and she felt like the teasing girl would somehow sense that her fiance was thinking about something indecent!

"Well, if you’re not going to admit to it, then I will. I missed you every day, Qat."

Ultimately, her reservations melted when the flesh and blood girl buried her head into her chest to speak those words... and she returned the hug firmly. The gateway to remembering the entirety of that day had been opened.

"I missed you, too."

She responded to the heiress in a murmur, her spirit tinged with more emotion than usual - and not all of them good. Elua pulled back slightly and made a show of studying the face of the young woman even as her keen senses picked apart the subtle shifts in that energy.

’The tendrils have wrapped like usual, but they are almost lethargic.’

"Is everything alright? You seem... different. Was there something you couldn’t write to me about?"

Hearing the tone of ’worry’, the Yecine took a deep breath and considered her words. She had known she was going to talk to her fiancee about things, but she should have known how quickly she might make it an ’issue’.

"I had... an eventful day a while back. I promise that I’ll tell you about it later, in private. For now, I’m just glad you’re here. Let’s get you all the way home."

Elua nodded, her demeanor showing ’understanding’ for the other’s desire for privacy mixed with ’curiosity’ in her eyes. They turned serious after a moment - or seven - of just staring into the pigeon blue set looking down at her. She could no doubt idle the day away doing it!

"I too have some stories to share... when we can be alone."

’Sharing kisses alone would also be good~’

For now, the reborn cultivator settled with holding hands in public on their way to the carriage waiting outside!