Drake readied herself for the group of trolls that sped up the stairs. The smell of their

  dead brethren seemed to throw the monsters into a frenzy; the rotting corpses like a roiling

  bonfire sending smoke into the air from what Drake could gather.

  Since they’d found what Drake assumed was a map, Drakes mind had consistently

  drifted away from her current circumstances, and toward her past. Though she had gotten to

  use much of what she’d learned physically in her past life, breath control, parkour, and even

  minor martial arts, she hadn’t truly pushed herself in any of those categories since traveling to

  Imperial. Nor had she used any of what she’d studied.

  Why she hadn’t used any of her gathered medical knowledge eluded her, but Drake felt

  that her lust for magic was more than likely the sole reason behind her lack of discipline.

  Drake had a wealth of knowledge that she had yet to tap for its usefulness. Could the

  use of anatomy help against her powerfully regenerative foes currently? The unanswered

  questions began to build and bother her, nagging at her mentally.

  The monsters had a far higher potential to have drastically di?erent body makeups from

  humans, or exiled gods as Drake now knew earthlings to be. Yet Drake could tell that the

  similarities were high.

  So high in fact that she’d naturally gone for assumed weaknesses and lucked out. Only

  Drake began to wonder about finer details of magic and monster skeletal designs. Were they

  connected? If they were connected, could Drake sever a spinal cored in a specific location and

  stop their regeneration?

  Maybe I can rip out a core like a heart, make these fuckers as fragile as a human

  without magic?

  “Cortez, let me ask you something?”

  The boy’s voice came from a far corner of the roof, his invisibility skill now high enough

  that Drake couldn’t place him at all without him using his voice, or making a truly obvious

  sound.

  “What,” hissed Cortez, reticent to make noise with the sound of thundering feet rushing

  toward them.

  “You said the losing council members have their cores ripped out if they lose in the

  battle for their ascensions during the replacement ritual, does that take something special to be

  done, or do we all have physical cores that can be found and removed like a useless organ

  during surgery?”

  “Is now really the time for this?”

  “Yes, we are barely able to keep up with the amount of monsters that keep raiding this

  bloody building, I need to know any and everything that can give us an edge.”

  “Maiden damn it, okay, cores are in deed physical, most commonly found in four

  locations, in the heart, the brain, the normally empty space beside the heart, and the intestines,

  or if you are lucky in a multitude of those locations like some dungeon bosses, or even morerarely like some legends of old it is held in a spatial pocket behind the solar plexus, which

  some Cultivators have learned to move, now shut up, I need to concentrate.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Drake smiled, and turned toward her Giant skeleton.

  “Okay buddy, next troll you fight, I want you to aim, here, here, here, here, and here, all

  at the same time with that crazy cool spear strike of yours, got it?” Said Drake, pointing at her

  fore head, her heart, her belly button, her right pectoral and her solar plexus. She was given a

  nod and a mental nudge, a single word answer that forced a punch to her nervous systems like

  adrenaline given to her through a syringe directly thrusted into her heart.

  “Yeah yeah, push I got it,” said Drake, turning back to the roof’s entryway, placing

  Havoc into the hand of Zen as she mentally summoned fourth her metallic minion, feeling it

  transform into a sword once it lay within her grip.

  No time like the present to learn, might as well assume we are never going to have use

  of our right arm again and become a deadly southpaw…

  Drake’s other magical minion rose into the air, hovering in its spear form. The weapon

  further distanced itself, as what Drake wanted to try, may not work in the slightest because of

  how quickly the trolls could regenerate, but she knew that they needed to grow more powerful

  and quickly if they were going to be able to fight ogres and mountain trolls.

  “Here goes nothing…,” murmured Drake, and the first Troll rushed onto the rooftop.

  Even before Cortez could fire his first arrow, Drake knew something was di?erent with

  her lightning spear. She had a di?erent expectation of the minion, and with that expectation

  came a truly wicked outcome.

  Everything slowed and Drake glanced above and behind herself to see a semi focused

  storm cloud wrapping itself around her spear. The dense crimson lightning froze her in that

  instant, moving in an alluring spiral around the shaft of the weapon, only for five bolts of

  lightning to surge outward at once.

  By the time Drake was able to look back, the second troll was racing onto the roof,

  plowing through an ash cloud, coating itself in the remains of its former ally.

  Holy fuck!

  “Holy fuck,” cursed Cortez. Drake didn’t know if he was having the same realization as

  she was, but it would be hard to miss that her minion had just managed to kill a single troll in a

  blink of an eye.

  Drake felt instinctually that the weapon had to recharge and may take a moment to be

  able to conjure a discharge of the same magnitude, but even knowing that anyone of her

  minions were capable of doing what she’d only been able to do with a perfectly timed attack

  filled Drake with hope. They were getting better at killing the much stronger foes, as the

  hobgoblins were no longer sent to fight them, and not a single regular goblin had been seen

  since entering the space beneath the instance. However, the numbers were only increasing,

  leaving Drake to only guess how many trolls would now rush onto the roof.

  Ten might even be possible for them to handle at this point, but Drake knew that was a

  stretch, suspecting that even more than that number were more than likely already rushing

  toward them.Lets do this!”

  Drake charged, flanked by her giant skeletal minion. The second troll slowed in the

  entryway after catching a face full of ash, trying to wipe vigorously at the remains that had

  momentarily blinded it. Only for Drake to take advantage before it could move.

  Drake moved into range, not having to be close enough for the troll to strike her, as Zen

  and Havoc’s combined lengths gave her a reach that from what she could tell only the ogres

  and larger monsters would be able to beat.

  Drake slid, widening her stance as she drifted by the entryway, bracing herself for what

  she knew was to come. Zen thrusted Havoc toward the monster’s head, wrapping its mighty

  grip both around the troll’s face, and the hand it used to clear away the ash.

  the sound of the monster’s skull cracking was like that of stone being broken by a

  sledgehammer, made that much worse by Zen pulling its fraternal twin downward, allowing for

  Havoc to yank the troll o? its feet, and slam the monster’s head into the ground.

  Havoc pinned the now flailing troll to the surface of the roof, and Drake drew back the

  sword in her hand unsure about the precision the sword would be wielded in, especially while

  still sliding. Though she was getting comfortable in her new body Drake could tell Aurora had

  been amidst a growth spurt, and though she hadn’t been in her new vessel long, she’d

  definitely grown, and hadn’t realized her momentum would take her as far as it had.

  She stabbed once toward the heart, remembering that the first troll she’d killed in a

  single blow had died by having its heart ripped out, and hope that this just may be a quality

  common to trolls, but the blade slid in and nothing happened until she removed the blade a

  second later. Drake forced to watch the creature flail even more violently.

  “Nope,.”

  Drake stabbed again, aiming for the stomach, her blade easily slicing into the belly

  button of the monster, and back out. The troll began to start and swing at her, nearly clipping

  her in the side of her torso nearest to her broken arm, but Havoc lifted the monster’s skull, and

  slammed it back down again as Drake stabbed out again.

  Nope, and nope.”

  The only place Drake hadn’t tried, was the brain,, but luckily for her, Havoc moved

  quickly. After another slam, it grabbed the troll by its throat, and Drake stabbed again without

  hesitation.

  The blade slid into the monsters skull with ease, and in an instant the troll’s entire being

  was turned to dust. Nothing left but Drake’s glowing blade.

  “Ah ha,” said Drake, looking toward more piles of ash in the entryway.

  the next Troll, noting that there were already two

  What the…?

  It was then that Drake realized, she wasn’t the only one using this new tactic. Her giant

  minion had been directed to do so, but the five arrows that plunged into the next troll, turning it

  into dust surprised her.“Nice Cortez!”

  “Thanks!”

  Drake’s giant skeletal minion took out the next foe in an instant. A massive tower shield

  smashing into the chest of the troll, knocking it slightly airborne, before seven spear strikes

  came out all at once.

  Every vital point was struck, and the troll was turned to ash even before its feet could

  touch the ground. Drake wanted to move in for the next troll, but was beaten by her recharged

  lightning spear.

  Another surge of crimson lightning came from above and seemingly smited another

  troll. Followed by another volley of arrows, and Phalanx Strike from her giant minion; and from

  one instant to another and one realization, Drake had become the slowest entity of her raid

  group.

  Well that isn’t what I expected to happen, but it works I guess…