Chapter 84 - Whisps

"Took you long enough," Cleo said through her avatar's form as soon as the two emerged from the gate. "Gosh, just what happened to your clothes?" she then shouted when she noticed the state of Tom and Claudia.

Her avatar was nothing like what Tom remembered from the few times he played with the girl. Or rather, it was nothing like any human at all. 

'So that's how it works,' Tom thought, observing yet another small detail of how the Online Hub worked. 'So our outfits and other visuals are just that, an illusion created by the system.' Tom rubbed his chin before shaking his head. 

"Well, a lot has happened," he finally responded, marching towards the genderless shape that only vaguely looked human. The general shape was there, but nothing beyond that. 

This flesh and metal mannequin had no face. After a closer look, Tom realized it didn't have fingers or feet either. Instead, a scimitar, Cleo's grotesque yet trademark weapon, simply fused with the hand of her avatar. In place of her avatar's feet, there were some weird, triangular objects. 

'I guess they had to optimize the structure a bit to make it able to perform the skills and all,' Tom thought, concluding his observations. 

"Sure," Cleo said, shaking her head. "We wasted enough time on small talk," she quickly added, her avatar turning towards the entrance to the corridor. "I hope you won't be a dead weight," she added.

'I bet she grinned,' Tom rolled his eyes, following after the avatar and nodding to Claudia to do it as well. 

"Seriously now," Cleo was quick to turn serious. "How strong you are?" she asked, keeping her eyes at the path ahead. 

"Relatively strong," Tom instantly reported. If not for his inherited position, he would be way lower in the ranks of his family than Cleo. For him, the times when he was the brains of the real operation was over. "I fight while mobile on a hit-and-run attack basis," he explained the general path of his current development. 

"So the strenght is real?" Claudia stopped and turned her head around before asking Tom. "One can really turn more powerful in the dungeon? Or is your strenght nowhere near the scale of what avatars can do?" Cleo elaborated on her question, looking intently into Tom's eyes. 

"I would say I'm even more powerful than I was while using my avatar," Tom replied without hesitation. There was no point humblebragging here, not when the tactician of the group was gathering the information. 

"I see," Claudia muttered, moving her eyes back at the corridor. "What about the girl?" she asked, back in her vigilant form. 

"I strike fast and hard. While I can take on several monsters at once, I will only be able to dish out the damage when soloing them," Claudia didn't bother hiding her information. 

'So she can understand the situation,' Tom thought, relieved. Since their trip so far was pretty relaxed and, at times, intimate, he didn't know whether Claudia was aware of how important this mission was. 

And now that they had the backing of a warrior that didn't need to fear death at all, they had to hurry up.

There would be no more time for slacking, fucking, or leisurely sucking the energy of the stones. 

Right now, they were entering the rush phase.

"Right, there are some news from back home," Cleo suddenly announced, turning her head around once again. 

The spear materialized in Tom's hand while he was already in midair. Using the rush ability, he lunged forward. Once his weapon fully appeared, he threw it right at Cleo's face. 

The girl didn't move even an inch. Her eyes dilated, proving that she could read Tom's movement. But still, she didn't even twitch. 

"SHRIEK!" A pained scream of a monster filled everyone's ears even before Tom's spear reached its body. But no matter how much Tom strained his eyes, he couldn't see the enemy. 

'What the hell is this?' he thought, freaked out. Nevertheless, he swapped places with his spear before calling it back to his hand. Yet, not even changing his position allowed Tom to notice any enemy. 

"What the hell was that?" Claudia jumped forward, covering the back of Cleo's avatar. 

"To the right!" Cleo shouted, pointing her hand at empty air. 

'It screamed out before my spear touched it... So that's what it is,' Tom thought. His body jerked into action the moment he heard Cleo's order. 

Just like she didn't flinch when he threw his spear seemingly at her, he also had absolute trust in her judgment. Only this line of trust allowed the two of them to be so daring. 

Once again, the air filled with a sharp scream. This time, it ate into everyone's brain as if trying to turn their most vital organ into a mesh with its sharp sound. 

A clump of air suddenly lit afire, only to burn out like a sizzle in a literal second. 

"Can you see them?" Tom asked, remaining as vigilant as he could. Even if the enemy was invisible, it didn't mean other senses would be fooled by it as well. 

If they could see it with their eyes, they had to smell it with their noses or sense the changes in temperature. Whatever would allow them to find out where those enemies are would make for a good tactic to fight them off. 

"Only when they are close and when I look directly at them," Cleo replied, not hesitating before divulging her abilities. Even though she automatically assumed the lead over the operation, she had enough trust in Tom's judgment to let him make independent calls. 

Before Tom could learn what Cleo meant with the news from home, the fight started. But as soon as the element of surprise was gone, all the danger also started to recede. 

'Now that I think about it,' Tom swung his spear forward, following the awful stench coming from his right, 'I can't believe I didn't feel this odor earlier!' he lashed on his own carelessness, turning yet another whisp into a small firework. 

The reason why they all shrieked even before an actual hit turned out to be pretty simple. With all his training required for developing the derivative skill before, all his attacks were now imbued with the strenght of his energymancer skill. 

This subconscious drive to keep repeating this ability, the innate wish to bring its proficiency as high as possible, now started paying off. 

Because it wasn't the spear itself that damaged the monsters, but the energy that Tom infused in it instead!

"How are you faring?" Tom threw his question to the back, where the two girls fought glued to each other. 

Claudia lacked the training necessary to follow other senses than sight into the battle. On the other hand, Cleo's avatar was completely deprived of any attacks of magical nature. Due to her strictly physical build, she was unable to deal with those monsters at all. 

This wasn't the case with Claudia. While Cleo's ability to notice the monsters as they appeared went unused. 

Those two girls clearly didn't like each other. It could be felt in the gazes that one would throw to the other, confusing the hell out of Tom. 

Because despite all this enmity hanging in the air between them,  they cooperated better than Tom could expect in his most daring dreams. 

Cleo was hugging Claudia from the front while the former hung herself on Cleo's back. While one girl was turning around and whispering the directions and timing, the other would serve her ranged punches without as much as lifting a finger. 

'So she uses her entire body as the source of the punch?' Tom thought, opening his eyes in awe. 'I knew this was the possibility in her skill, but I didn't expect her to actually master it so quickly!' he praised the girl in his thoughts, amazed by her rapid progress. 

Her ability allowed her to forward her punches roughly a meter ahead. But that begged the question, what was a punch in the first place? Was it an attack preceded by a swing of one's hand? Or was it just the impact?

Claudia apparently found the answer to that question. And whenever a monster would appear within the range of her skill, her fist would tremble slightly. 

And the full force of the punch would burn another whisp down. 

"That was tiring," Tom said after a few moments, wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead. This was one of the small details that set the avatar's experience and the real thing apart. While using an avatar to explore the dungeon, one could never immerse him or herself in the fight as one could in reality. 

It was all in the details. 

'Details, huh?' Tom thought, suddenly shaken by an idea. His mind spurred into action, translating all the memories he couldn't understand through this new perspective he figured out. 

And something seemingly clicked.