Chapter 40 Cloaked In Shadows

Instead of waking up to the sun, I woke up naturally. Usually I would have the blinds open so that the sun could wake me up with its rising.

However, today was different. I had forgotten to open the blinds in my hurry to get back to Aoif in bed.

Thinking of Aoif, I turn my head to see the still sleeping face of Aoif. I wanted to just go back to sleep with her but I couldn't. Once I had woken up I was up, so instead of struggling futilely to go back to sleep I gave Aoif a couple pecks on the forehead to wake her.

It didn't take long for Aoif's eyes to start to flicker, she was waking up. Nestled between my arms, the first thing Aoif did when she woke was to nuzzle her head into the crook of my neck then playfully nip at me.

A sly smirk was on her as she projected feelings of joy towards me.

I didn't give into the temptation though and flipped her off me then got off the bed.

"Come on, let's go take a shower."

A small pout was on her face as she realized that we couldn't just stay in bed. After a moment of deliberation where I could feel her choose between the bed and the shower with me Aoif relented and got up.

…

Nothing untoward happened while we were taking a shower, except for a bit of light teasing. Nothing else happened.

Once we were dressed again we went down to the kitchen where we found Tama waiting for us.

Tama had already made a big breakfast for us, laying down 3 separate dishes. Of course they tasted bland but we had no seasonings to cook them with so there was nothing that we could do.

It was after breakfast that I found myself and Aoif back at the summoning pool.

"This will summon a random species?" Aoif asked

"Yeah, it's how I got Tama, the nymphs, and the hinds that you saw" I responded, gesturing to the summoning pool.

"Lately it is just giving me more of the hinds, it seems that the summoning pool only summons a limited amount of things."

With a mental command I start the summoning.

'Summon'

…

What appeared before me was a surprise, I thought that the kitsunes and the Meliae were just strokes of luck. The previous few times that I had summoned I had just gotten more Ceryneian Hinds, however this time it was different. The six lights that I had expected to turn into more of hinds instead coalesced into smaller and smaller shapes until I was left with six large eagles.

[Species: Aethon]

[Name: N/A]

[Tier/Level: 6/1]

[Skills: Bloodletting]

[Bloodletting: Allows the user of the skill to create wounds that cannot be closed by anything other than natural healing]

The eagle looking animals screeched, then with a flap of their powerful wings landed in front of Aoif and I.

Looking at them I gesture for them to follow, I couldn't think of any use for them at the moment but I took them with me regardless. Their combat power could be useful if nothing else.

The fact that they were tier 6 was a testament to their strength even now while me and Aoif are at tier 7 we could break boulders with a punch unenhanced by aether. Not that I could reliably do that yet.

The constant growth in power while fast didn't allow us to develop any complex techniques. The most I could do at the moment was a reinforcement on my weapon, healing, and a slight boost in strength of a specific limb. The last one I hadn't particularly mastered yet but given time I would be able to do it unconsciously.

…

"Melia…" I started to address her but was cut off by the glares of two heavily armed individuals.

In their offhand was Melia held by the throat. Seeing us they turned to me as if I was their original target. The one holding Melia by the throat threw her off, making sure to hit squeeze the air out of her throat while doing that. I could see the life flow out of Melia's eyes when she landed.

I needed to be quick so that I could heal Melia. I couldn't let my emotions reign over me, however much I wanted to rush over there to heal her I couldn't. Rushing would do nothing to help so I started to analyze them.

I couldn't tell what they were, only that they were humanoid in build and armed to the teeth with at least three daggers, one I could see hanging from their lower back parallel to their body and two more in their hands.

The two held in the individual's hands couldn't be called daggers really; they were about as long as my forearm or about 20 centimeters long. While that wasn't too long what really tipped me off to them not being daggers was that there was no guard. Usually if someone was going to use a dagger for an offhand they would use it to hook the opponent's weapon into the guard so that they could push it down however these daggers looked more like short swords on a second look.

Done analyzing them I reach for my spear only to find it not there. Taking a quick glance at Aoif I could see that she did not have a weapon on her either. The unknown individuals took advantage of the fact that we didn't have weapons and attacked immediately.

Thinking quickly I flooded my arms and chest with aether, I would have done my legs too but the unlocked pathways I got from advancing to tier 7 only unlocked the pathways in my chest and back.

Aoif seeing that I was getting ready for combat did the same copying my usage of aether. In just a moment I could feel the power in my limbs that came from reinforcing them.

______

A/N: I am going to start scheduling my chapters the first one will be at 5pm and the next at 6:30pm pacific