Chapter 18: Blood Crawlers

"Shut up..."

I activate [Commanders Presence] which makes everybody start to sweat bullets, which of course included my own subordinates and servants. My voice resonated throughout the entire cave causing all of the humanoid figures in front of me to freeze up including their so-called "chief" who had just woken up. I slowly walk over to the chief that was propped up against the wall. The humanoid figures clear a path for me, scared to look me in the eyes. I haven't seen what they look like yet but I assume they look creepy to outsiders.

"Hey... "Chief"... you should be thanking us... right..." I say menacingly.

I slowly close into his face until I'm right in front of him. The expression on his face is full of just terror.

I reach out my hand grabbing the top of his head like I was about to lift him up. I squeeze down on his bald head making him flinch in pain but nobody tries to stop me. In my anger, I activate [Forbidden Magic: Medusa]. From the center of the chiefs head it slowly turns to stone, he screams in pain as it spreads down to his face all the way to his toes. As I keep squeezing his now stone head I crush it in my hand crumbling the rest of his body with it.

I turn around to see horrified expressions on all of the faces of the humanoid figures. They either fell down on their butt, covering their mouth with their hands while having trembling knees, or they fainted.

"Answer me... Does he have any relatives?" I ask the crowd.

Silence

"Let me rephrase this, does he have any relatives? If nobody says anything I'll kill ALL OF YOU!"

Nobody still talks so I dash over to one of the males in the group that fell on their butt and grab their head just like his chief. I start to squeeze his head and get the reaction that satisfied me.

"I'll SAY! I'll SAY! I'll SAY!" he says.

The guy whose head I was about to crush, points towards a girl who was trembling on the ground looking towards me. She had light brown skin with dark green eyes. Her hair was not much darker than her skin. The only noticeable feature would be the black tattoo that weaves in a DNA type pattern from her cheeks all the way down to her ankles. Once he pointed at the girl his comrade's heads all darted towards him and started to glare into his soul.

I turned towards the girl and inspected her.

『Status』

[Name: Sophia]

[Race: Amazonian]

[Status: Scared]

I've never tried inspecting something that's not my subordinate and has great intelligence but I kind of expected this to happen. Her race is Amazonian huh, that's why she looks so much like a human. They're not much different from how they're portrayed in movies besides the excessive amount of tattoos covering their bodies.

I walk towards her and every time I took a step she looked closer to fainting. I saw liquid leak out from under her short skirt that looks like it's made out of an animal hide. Once I'm right above her I kneel down putting my hand under her chin pushing it up a bit towards me.

"You were supposed to thank us... right," I ask Sophia.

She starts to nod her head up and down profusely while tears start to well up in the corner of her eyes.

"Good girl... now what is that outside?" I ask in a condescending tone.

"T-they're c-coming, THE BLOOD CRAWLERS!" She shouts before passing out

I back up a bit and walk towards my servants and subordinates after turning off [Commanders Presence].

"Don't worry you don't have to thank me anymore. If you do I might end up killing all of you in anger," I said in a stern but jokingly tone.

I exit the cave to check up on the situation outside and I hear Kumo and Aika whispering to each other.

...

"It's been a while since I've seen master like that," whispers Kumo.

"What? You've seen master like this before? She's so... scary," Aika whispers while shivering.

"Yes, the only time I've seen her like this was when I was on the receiving end... I don't really want to talk about it,"

"Alright, I won't question you on why you were on the receiving end, that must have been frightening," whispers Aika.

...

As I stood out in front of the cave I hear a bunch of clicking noises and lots of footsteps. I call over the leaders and half of the spirit elves that could fight so the other half, guards the Amazonians. We all dash over to our positions from before and see dark red crawlers scattered on the ground and some are in the trees. Their eyes glowed in the dimmed forest like they were starved animals looking for any type of prey. As soon as they noticed us they darted and stumbled over each other to get to us. Some of the elves stepped back in fear but the rest of the leaders gave them some moral support.

The blood crawlers were finally right in front of us and it seemed like a mini-war broke out. I stayed back while letting everybody used their abilities to their advantage so they can level up. Kumo used [Shadow Control] and her [Moonlight Control] with her tattoo to blades that cut the crawlers in half or just injure them severely.

Homura was using 3/4 of her entire skillset to absolutely tear through the foes in front of her. I'm surprised she didn't have a berserk skill since it looked exactly like that was happening.

This was my first time seeing Akito fight and all I could call it was graceful. He spun his spear while using [Slash] and [Gust] to increase the speed of his spear and making blades of wind whenever he swung it cutting other crawlers in half.

Aimi was using [Thread Manipulation] to create threads that were as hard as steel and as thin as hair. She weaved these threads to create nets that turned the blood crawlers into minced meat, I felt kind of bad for the crawlers.

Aiso was using [Body Enhancement] with 2 giant hammers that he made out of stone and wood which smashed his enemies into pieces. He was using [Wind Control], pushing the back of his hammers whenever he swang in order to create more impact.

Akio used his [Earth Control] in a unique way which he used rocks to cover his sledgehammer. His sledgehammer was just made out of wood and stone but when he condensed rock over it, it became much heavier which made a small crater whenever he swung down on the crawlers. This weapon fit his build perfectly.

Aito and Aika both stood back next to me. Aika just felt the need to protect me which wasn't necessary but Aito just wasn't the type to go into battle.

The battle felt like 3 hours but in reality, it only lasted 45 minutes. After observing the battle I had some things I wanted to teach my subordinates and when they get a humanoid body, my servants. The thing I wanted to teach them was some martial arts since it looked like they relied on their weapons too much. I learned martial arts after swearing to become stronger. I could only learn it after highschool though so I had to withstand the bullying of being an orphan for the time being.

The mini-war had finally come to a close and I wouldn't call it a one-sided massacre since we lost some spirit elves but, the number of dead blood crawlers sprawled out onto the floor made it look like they just dropped from the sky. I looked up to see those dreaded blood-red clouds slowly retreating back to where they came from and made way for dark grey clouds.

*plip*

*drip*

*plop*

It suddenly started pouring hard out of nowhere but this time it was normal rain. We all immediately ran for cover in the cave while the rain washed away the blood and bloody mist that had started to form on the battlefield. When we got back inside the cave none of the Amazonians had moved but just had their jaw dropped from what had just happened outside of the cave. All of them were just scattered around Sophia which I assume were trying to comfort her. They probably never thought that somebody could easily win against a wave of those ugly things because of their enormous pride. Before they witnessed that battle they would have thought that they were the best because of their intelligence and physical/combat prowess.

Sophia stood up with the help of some other Amazonians and I could see a hint of resolution in her eyes. She slowly walks up towards me which Aika blocks her way but I give her a scary,

"Move,"

She retreats back beside me while looking down with a depressed face disappointed in her actions.

"Forgive me master," Aika pleads.

"Forgiven,"

Sophia resumes her advance towards me and stops right before me and does something unexpected... she kowtows towards me.

"Thank you for saving us! Also on behalf of my tribe, I humbly ask for your apology. Our arrogant behavior from before has angered you so please forgive us!"