Charisma 100: My Academy Life As A Heartbreaking Commoner-Chapter 220: Monster Hunting 6

Aegis waited for a moment.

She risked a glance back at the village. At most, she figured their guards were alerting others to the ongoing fight. No way they’d send people to come and interrupt.

[... Right?]

The griffin made the first move.

It leaped forward, talons extended, and Aegis responded with Aether Pulse. A burst of energy rippled out from her body, hitting the griffin mid-lunge and sending it stumbling sideways.

[Good. That bought me a second or two.]

She closed the distance while it was off-balance, sword raised for an overhead strike. The blade came down toward the griffin’s neck.

The griffin’s wing snapped up.

Aegis’s sword bounced off the limb like she’d hit a steel beam. The impact rattled through her arms.

[Ow, ow, ow, OW!]

Before she could recover, the griffin’s beak darted forward and clamped down on her sword.

[What the—]

It wrenched its head to the side.

The sword flew out of Aegis’s grip, spinning through the air, and landed somewhere in the tall grass twenty feet away.

[Oh, come on!]

She didn’t have time to retrieve it. The griffin was already pressing the attack, snapping at her face, her arms, anywhere it could reach. Aegis ducked and weaved, the Haste potion turning her movements into blurs. Without it, that last snap would’ve taken her nose off.

[Thank you, Rosalie. Seriously.]

She used Aether Step to blink backward, putting distance between them.

[Okay. New plan.]

She held out her hand and called up Aether Whip.

A tendril of pure energy materialized in her grip, crackling and humming with power. She lashed it forward, aiming for the griffin’s eyes.

The griffin did something she didn’t expect.

It breathed fire.

A gout of orange flame erupted from its beak, engulfing the Aether Whip and washing over Aegis in a wave of heat. She braced herself, expecting agony.

It never came.

The fire licked at her skin, hot but bearable, like standing too close to a bonfire instead of being inside one. Her shirt singed at the edges. Her hair felt warm. But she wasn’t burning.

[Fire Resistance. Hell yes.]

The griffin looked confused for a moment, like it couldn’t understand why its prey wasn’t screaming. Aegis used that hesitation to lash the Aether Whip across its face.

The griffin shrieked and recoiled, a fresh wound opening across its beak.

[That’s what you get for trying to roast me, asshole.]

But the beast recovered fast. Its wings beat once, twice, and suddenly it was fifteen feet above her, circling. It screeched down at her, a sound full of rage.

[Shit. If it stays airborne, I can’t reach it.]

Aegis launched Aether Pulse upward. The burst of energy caught the griffin’s wing, disrupting its flight for a moment, but it recovered almost instantly. It dove at her, talons first.

She Aether Stepped out of the way, barely, and felt one talon graze her arm as it passed.

The scratch burned. Not like fire, but deeper. A creeping numbness started spreading from the wound.

[Venom. Right. Rosanna mentioned that.]

She grabbed the antidote from her belt and bit the cork off, downing the contents in one gulp. The numbness halted, then slowly began to recede.

[Crisis averted. Barely.]

The griffin landed again, maybe ten feet away, and fixed her with those yellow eyes. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

It was bleeding from multiple wounds now. But it wasn’t slowing down. If anything, it looked angrier.

Aegis was breathing hard. Her mana reserves were getting low, that familiar hollowing sensation in her chest. The Haste was still active, keeping her fast, and the Fire Resistance had saved her life, but potions couldn’t make up for raw power.

[I’m not winning this with Aether magic alone.]

She thought about Rosanna’s advice. About how shadow magic disrupted magical creatures. Weakened them. Made them slower and clumsier.

[I could end this fight in thirty seconds if I used it.]

The griffin screeched and charged again.

[... Do I risk it?]

Aegis narrowed her eyes.

[Fuck it. If anyone sees this, I’ll deal with the consequences later.]

Aegis reached inside herself, past the familiar warmth of Aether, and grabbed hold of something darker.

Shadow magic flooded through her veins.

It was cold at first, like ice water in her blood, but then it shifted. Warmer. Hotter. Her heart pounded in her chest and her skin prickled with energy and she felt alive in a way that Aether magic never quite managed.

[God, this feels amazing.]

The griffin charged.

Aegis raised her hand and cast Shadow Bolt.

A lance of pure darkness shot from her palm and slammed into the griffin’s chest. The beast staggered, screeching in confusion, its movements suddenly sluggish and uncoordinated. Just like Rosanna had said. Shadow magic disrupted the connection to ambient aether. It was like someone had cut the strings on a puppet.

[More.]

Shadow Tendril erupted from her hand, wrapping around the griffin’s neck. She pulled. The beast’s head jerked down, exposing the back of its skull.

The beast screamed.

She cast another Shadow Bolt, point-blank, right into the wound she’d just made. The griffin convulsed, its wings beating weakly, its legs buckling beneath it.

Aegis’s blood was singing. Every nerve in her body felt electric. She could feel the corruption Nazraya had warned her about, that dark residue building up in her system as a result of spamming shadow magic, but she didn’t care. Not right now.

Right now, all she cared about was ending this.

She retrieved the blacksmith’s sword from where it had landed in the grass. The griffin was still struggling to rise, still fighting, but it was slow now. Weak. Dying.

Aegis walked up to it.

The griffin looked at her with one remaining eye. There was something in that gaze. Fear, maybe. Or just animal confusion at how the hunt had gone so wrong.

"Nothing personal," Aegis said.

She drove the sword through its skull.

The griffin shuddered once and went still.

Aegis stood over the corpse, breathing hard, her whole body thrumming with residual shadow magic. The high was fading now, leaving behind a strange hollowness. And something else. A faint headache building behind her eyes.

[I’ll need to purge this later. But for now—]

"Impressive."

Aegis spun around.

Three figures stood at the edge of the tall grass, maybe twenty feet away. They wore dark robes, hoods pulled up to hide their faces, and they hadn’t been there a second ago.

She hadn’t heard them approach. Hadn’t sensed them at all.

[What the fuck...?]

One of them stepped forward. Even in the darkness, Aegis could see the faint purple glow emanating from beneath his hood.

[Shadow mages?]

"We’ve been looking for you."