World Awakening: The Legendary Player-Chapter 100: Serious Mela

Lola stood in the middle of the quiet clearing, the air thick with the smell of blood. She ignored the bodies around her. She pulled the small, dark orb from her pouch and looked at it again. It was still dead, no light, no warmth. Just a cold, empty rock. Every time she looked at it, the knot of ice in her chest got tighter.

’Leila, you idiot,’ she thought. ’You were supposed to be careful.’

She had followed the faint trail for two days, a broken branch here, a scuff mark there. The tracks of a Sun Elf and a human whelp. They were sloppy, easy to follow. They were in this forest somewhere, and she was going to find them. This was not about Gorok’s contract anymore, this was about the cold rock in her hand.

A rustle of leaves from above was a dead giveaway.

Three dark shapes dropped from the high branches, landing in a perfect triangle around her. They moved with a silence that was really impressive. One had a blowgun, another had a bow, and the third, a hot-headed looking one with twin swords, was already grinning.

"You have trespassed in our woods, stranger," the one with the blowgun said. She looked like she was in charge. "And you have killed our kin. State your purpose before we end you."

Lola didn’t even look at the bodies. "They were in my way," she said, her voice flat and cold.

She tucked the orb back into her pouch. "I’m looking for two people. A Sun Elf princess and the human boy she’s with. Have you seen them?"

Liesa, let out a harsh laugh. "Why would we tell you anything? We should just kill you for what you did."

"Liesa, be quiet," Mela, commanded. Her eyes were fixed on Lola. "We have seen them. But they are guests of the Elder. They are under our protection."

Lola’s expression didn’t change, but her grip on her daggers tightened. So, they were here. And they were being protected. This just made things a little more annoying. "Then you can tell your Elder that her guests have a debt to pay," she said. "And I’m here to collect."

Liesa had heard enough. "I’m done with this talk!" she yelled, and charged.

Mela cursed under her breath. "Liesa, wait!"

But Liesa was already a blur, her twin swords aimed in a scissor-like strike at Lola’s neck. The attack was super fast, but Lola was on another level. She didn’t even seem to move much, just shifted her weight and brought her own daggers up.

CLANG!

The sound of metal on metal was deafening. Lola blocked both swords with a simple, crossed-arm parry. She used Liesa’s own momentum to spin her around and sent her stumbling. It was so fast Liesa didn’t even know what happened.

An arrow hissed through the air.

She ducked without looking, the arrow zipping right over her head and burying itself in a tree. She was already moving again, a low, deadly shape gliding across the clearing. Valeria was already nocking another arrow, but she was too slow.

Lola threw a small metal pellet onto the ground. It exploded in a thick cloud of black smoke, and the clearing was instantly a mess of confusion.

"She’s gone!" Mela yelled, trying to see through the smoke.

A yelp of pain came from inside the cloud. The smoke cleared a second later, and Liesa was on the ground, clutching her leg. There was a deep, clean cut right above her knee, bleeding freely. Lola was standing over her, one of her daggers dripping red.

"Stay down," she said, her voice calm. She looked up at Mela and Valeria. "You’re out of your league. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you keep getting in my way."

Mela stared at her wounded sister, then at the intruder. The woman was a professional, her movements were efficient and brutal. This wasn’t a fight they could win, not like this.

"Valeria, get her," Mela said, nodding at Liesa.

Valeria slung her bow over her shoulder and moved to help her sister to her feet. Mela kept her eyes on Lola, her own weapon held ready.

"Who are you?"

"I’m the person who is going to find that boy and that princess," she replied. "And I’m going to rip them apart for what they did to my sister."

Mela’s eyes widened a little. ’Her sister? Is that why she is here?’ But she didn’t care about Lola’s reasons, she just saw her sister on the ground, bleeding. That was all that mattered.

"Valeria, get her out of here," she said. Her voice was completely different now, it was cold and hard. "Go. Now."

Valeria didn’t argue, she just nodded, her face grim. She helped a protesting Liesa to her feet and half-carried her sister away from the clearing. They knew that tone in Mela’s voice, and they knew what it meant. They had only seen her like this once before, and it was not something you stuck around for.

The vibe in the clearing totally changed. It got super heavy, like the air itself was getting thick and hard to breathe. A dark purple energy started bleeding from Mela’s skin, a creepy aura that was seriously scary. She lifted her hands, and the small pouch at her belt glowed.

Dozens of thin, silver needles slid out of it, not falling to the ground, but floating in the air all around her. They hummed with a quiet, nasty power, their tips coated in a poison that glowed with a faint, sick-looking green light.

Lola’s professional calm vanished, replaced by a cold knot of dread in her stomach.

’Shit,’ she thought, her eyes widening. ’This kid is a monster.’

She could feel the power coming off Mela, and it was on a whole other level. This wasn’t the level 40 scout from before, this was something else entirely. She had faced some serious opponents in her time, and her instincts were screaming at her. This girl, in this state, was at least a level 90 killer.

Mela’s eyes were locked on her, and they weren’t the eyes of the worried older sister anymore. They were cold, empty, and full of a quiet promise of death.

"You hurt my family," she said, her voice a low, chilling whisper that carried across the clearing. "You shouldn’t have done that."

Lola stood her ground, her own daggers held ready, but she knew this wasn’t going to be an easy fight anymore. The cocky mercenary who had played with the three sisters was gone.

This was real, and it was going to be a battle for her life. The floating needles around Mela shifted, all of their poison tips pointing right at her.

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