Abyssal Awakening

It has surpassed the realm of ordinary humans.

Scratching her hair, Alice let out a deep sigh as she set in the empty void.

Cayla has now returned to her slumber and there was a faint mark on her hand.

It was different to the Sigil marks as it was something to help her track down the ruins.

\'Not only that, but the guy I fought seemed to have made a whole \'new person\' since his clones had Sigils. What could he be trying to do? Would Allura have an idea?\'

But no matter how many questions she asked, Alice didn\'t get an answer and soon, she left the realm of her mind and enjoyed the silent slumber to ease her fatigued mind.

The night passed peacefully, and Alice was soon woken up by gentle nudges from Ria. It was her turn to keep the night watch and for Ria to get some sleep herself.

Sitting outside of the tent, Alice couldn\'t help but curl her lips into a grin as she pulled out her flask and opened the lip.

Taking a deep smell of the scent emanating from the flask, she shivered in anticipation.

As she was enjoying her drink while keeping an eye on her surroundings, she could see that several other Hunters were doing the same.

Even though they were travelling as a large group, they were still unfamiliar with one another and thus made their own arrangements.

Around the Raven\'s Watch camp, there was a miniature archer tower set up as Ellie could be spotted at the top, keeping an eye out on any distant threats. She would occasionally notch an arrow and fire it into the distance, warding off weak beasts that were getting too close to the camp without spilling blood.

Thinking about it for a moment, Alice decided to make her way over as it would be rather boring to spend the night drinking alone.

Approaching the archer tower, Alice gave Ellie a small wave before jumping up with ease.

"Yo! How\'s night watch going?" Alice asked with a smile while sitting down on the edge of the tower without care.

Leaning back, she lifted the flask and drank a mouthful of mead.

"Ehhh its alright. The number of beasts around the camp is more than expected but nothing too dangerous yet. If things get a little rough I\'ll wake up the others." Ellie chuckled as Alice nodded her head.

"Have you gotten some sleep yet? Keeping watch all night would be hard for you no?"

"Yes I have. Usually, it\'ll be Isabella who keeps watch all night due to her Sigil. It makes it hard for her to sleep hence why she\'s always tired. But today, she\'s been engrossed in her research with the blood orbs so I\'m taking over for this shift." Ellie chuckled.

Raising an eyebrow in interest, Alice couldn\'t help but wonder what kind of Sigil would make it hard for her to sleep but if Ellie wasn\'t going into detail, it was probably something that was only shared between the party.

"Say, do you like drinking mead?" Alice asked, offering her flask but Ellie shook her head.

"Since I\'m keeping watch right now, I don\'t want to dull my senses ahaha."

Nodding her head in agreement, Alcie understood where Ellie was coming from.

"I don\'t mind doing a small competition though if you want. I have a spare longbow here."

"Oh?" Raising an eyebrow, Alice put her flask away and grabbed the bow that Ellie had offered.

Lifting it in front of her, Alice noticed the tension of the string was far stronger than what it seemed as it required her to activate her first Sigil to fully pull it back.

Despite how small Ellie\'s arms looked, they hid a surprising amount of strength behind it.

"So what kind of competition do you want to do?" Alice grinned as her fighting spirit ignited within her eyes.

###

Even though she said it was a competition, it was in fact more of a test. Their party had discussed that if the number of beasts continued to increase, they would ask for some help.

However, without seeing how Alice fought, it was impossible to judge how well they could cooperate. Hence the competition.

"Just beyond the main road, there are some Shadow Fang Serpents. Whoever can kill the most out of the group will win. We\'ll take turns take shots regardless of hitting or missing." Ellie explained as Alice nodded her head.

\'The Shadow Fang Serpents are rather small and fast. It\'s quite difficult to hit unless you have great kinetic vision and talent or practice with the bow. Since she can take on hard hunts, she should have some experience with the bow and arrows.\' Ellie thought to herself as this was just something she thought up of in the moment.

It wasn\'t a request from the party but if they do decide to ask Alice for her help, they would have more data to base her strength off of.

"Take turns huh? Can I make the arrows out of my own blood?"

"Of course. It is part of your Sigils after all." Ellie nodded.

Taking a step back, Ellie observed Alice\'s actions as she fixed her grip on the bow and made a small cut on her arm.

Blood oozed from her wound and formed an arrow that notched itself to the bowstring.

Just when Ellie thought Alice would begin to aim the bow, she released the arrow and watched it cut through the sky.

\'I guess she\'s not that familiar with the bow. Maybe the alcohol is getting to her.\' Ellie thought to herself as she walked up to the railing and glanced towards the group of Shadow Fang Serpents.

To her surprise, the blood arrow had pierced through three serpents that crossed the arrow\'s path.

"Was going for four but the fourth snake was pretty sharp. Noticed the arrow at the last moment and got away." Alice shrugged.

". . . How? How did you manage to lock onto all four and fire so quickly?" Ellie asked as she leaned in towards Alice.

\'Is it a technique? Natural gift? Sigil power? If I want to perform as a archer I need this kind of power.\' Ellie thought to herself as being able to find the best shooting course in such a short amount of time was practically godly in her eyes.

If she could even learn a fraction of this power she would be twice the archer she was before.

Even now, when in a battle, it takes too long for her to find a right shooting course without hitting her allies by accident.

"Ehh… It\'s just how my vision works and I instinctively shot towards what I thought was the right direction." Alice scratched her cheek awkwardly.

Hearing this, Ellie couldn\'t help but feel a little disappointed as this was the same as saying it was just talent.

"But you can usually predict a beast\'s movement so I\'m sure what I did was nothing special. I just got a shortcut in performing the task." Alice reassured as Ellie could only sigh and nod her head.

"Okay, I have an idea. My teacher gave me a training task when I hunted the Blood Widow. While it\'s not used for archery, it should help out quite a bit."

\'A training task? From her teacher? Maybe that\'ll contain a hint.\'

"What kind of task is it?" Ellie asked curiously.

"It\'s simple. I will launch a variety of attacks using my blood. All you have to do is dodge them with your body. But since we\'re getting you to practice your bow, I\'ll change the spears to orbs for you. Your goal will be to hit multiple of them with one arrow with the least amount of prep time. You have to be on the move while you shoot as well." Alice chuckled.

\'I\'ve heard of this training before. It shouldn\'t be too difficult since it\'s just the standard training to navigate the battlefield.\'

Ellie had experienced this kind of exercise before in the Hunter\'s Academy when she was younger. It was a task that every Hunter was expected to do as it massively boosts survival rates out in the field.

"Alright. Let me get ask Isabella for a favour while we try this training out." Ellie nodded.

It was just for a quick moment anyways. A simple training like this should be over in one round.

Climbing down from the tower, she made her way to the tent while Alice prepared the training ground.

Pushing aside the tent flaps, she could see Isabella still awake while experimenting with the blood orbs. Not only that, she had gathered a variety of strange contraptions around the orb as its form would twist and stretch with each second.

"Aren\'t you supposed to be keeping watch?" Isabella asked, not turning around.

"Yeah. But Alice wanted to do a quick training session for me so can you pause for a quick moment? It shouldn\'t take too long since it\'s just the standard evasion training." Ellie shrugged as Isabella sighed.

"If its just the standard evasion training why do you still want to do it?"

"Just out of curiosity. She said her master did one for her before she hunted the Blood Widow. I want to see what kind of training she\'ll provide. Plus, she mentioned using her blood so maybe you can get some hints for your experim-"

Before Ellie could even finish her sentence, Isabella was already on her way out while carrying her notebook.

"Why are you dawdling? Let\'s go, we\'re wasting time already."

Hearing this, Ellie couldn\'t help but chuckle and nod.

Making their way to the training ground that Alice had prepared, they noticed that Alice was making cuts on her arm while allowing her blood to drip onto the ground.

"Seems like you\'re ready." Alice smiled while glancing back.

"Yes I am. I\'m ready to start whenever." Ellie nodded while Isabella took a step back so the two could have some space.

"In that case then let\'s begin." Alice grinned.

*BANG!!!!

In that moment, the oppressive aura of a malevolent beast exploded forth from Alice.

The cold hands of death grabbed hold of her limbs as Ellie realised this was no simple evasion training.