God Of Crafting

Slash.

The act of cutting.

If I were to try to define it, I would likely spd quite some time trying to come up with a fitting definition that was both profound ough not to bring me any shame while also covering all the bases of versatile ways of understanding the world so that it could be its true definition.

Wh it came to my ability and its effects, however, there was no need for me to internalize the idea of what it meant to cut something.

I just did.

And just like with the cut itself, I didn\'t really have the definition for the result it brought about. All I knew, was that the momt I cut, the pressure on my back vanished while the figure out by the distant edge of the clearing fell down to its knees, dark blood fountaining out of their carved-out throat.

"Haaaa…" I only managed to get a quick breath of relief in, before jumping up to my feet and half-walking half-crawling over to where this same pressure pancaked Claire into the g.

"How are you?!" Pressed by both the constant risk of further attacks and th by my worry that Claire, a girl that somehow snuck into my heart and made herself way too important for me to ev consider the idea of losing her.

With those two thoughts ringing in my head, I couldn\'t really bother wasting time on using some fancy words if I could just use three of them to pose my question.

A question that I simultaneously rushed to figure out myself as I helped the girl up before she could ev answer.

"I\'m fine. I might\'ve twisted my foot wh I was crushed down, though," she added as she thankfully moved her head and looked over to where her foot was indeed positioned at quite the unsavory angle.

"I really hope you won\'t stubbornly stay by the idea of me leaving everything to you anymore…" I muttered, a cold shiver moving up my spine at the very idea of having Claire move a with such a plain and obvious injury.

"Hehehe…" Claire laughed awkwardly while a blush covered her face.

Appartly, she somehow missed the fact I was suspicious of what was going on in advance, making this the momt wh she was confronted about the whole thing.

But right now, with Claire\'s foot at an angle in relation to the rest of her leg that it should never be in, I couldn\'t care less about the whole idea behind the scheme that led us to the situation we were in.

I couldn\'t care less about further testing my weapon out, not wh Claire was injured and clearly needed some professional help!

"Don\'t worry about anything and just let me get you out of here," I muttered, already moving Claire\'s arm over my shoulder only to th lean down and pick her legs up from behind her knees as I lifted her up in a princess carry, more than set on the idea of just… carrying her away from danger.

"Woah," Claire uttered a small shout of surprise as she instinctively tighted her arms a my neck.

"Hang on!" I called out, ready to lean down so that I could charge out of this accursed place…

Only to hesitate wh I just happed to see the scythe still in my hand.

\'Theoretically speaking, if I can move a with the sheer inttion of cutting… can I use it to…\'

Before I could ev finish my thought…

Those words… didn\'t reach my ears.

They petrated straight into my mind as if they were writt not into the waves of moving air but into the fabric of reality itself. And betwe my hesitation and the sudd scare…

The scery a me suddly changed, the opness of the clearing replaced by trees all a.

\'Claire!\'

Looking down…

I could breathe a sigh of relief.

As it thankfully turned out, whatever the principle behind this weird kind of movemt was, it didn\'t stop me from bringing Claire along.

But now that we were at the edge of my sphere of influce, just like a jelly someone stretched out, it suddly bounced back, rushing to reclaim the most optimal position of a half-sphere spreading a me, as opposed to stretching out with me at the very corner of it.

As it bounced back, the mass of space I could affect with a mere thought rushed to the other side, stretching away from me… convitly, in the direction I wanted to go anyway.

And so, with just another thought, I whisked the two of us through space, arriving right at the temporary edge of the outstretched zone, only to have it snap right back and bounce away, in the very same direction as before ev harder.

Step.

The very momt my feet would connect to the g, another thought would sd the two of us through space, lifting me just a little bit off the g. And once gravity did its job and brought me down…

I took another step.

And th another.

In a mere two paces, I\'ve reached the part where two groups of people were duking it out with all sorts of modern and ancit weapons alike, turning the whole area into a mix of fierce close-quarters combat and bloody shooting range.

\'I guess one side of those fighting is with us?\' I thought… ignoring their plight of a well-balanced and ev combat, opting to take another step, distancing myself from the battle as quickly as I could.

With Claire in my arms, I could hardly be of any help. And if I tried to help only to put Claire in danger…

\'Yeah, there\'s no fucking…\'

Right as I took another step…

The zone of my control suddly failed to bounce back, stopping as it crashed into air so dse of spiritual Qi, it bounced right back with nearly ough force to lift me off my feed and jerk me back with ough force to smash me through several trees unlucky ough to be in my path!

Just like a few times before, however, ev though the zone of my aura clashed with something and bounced off… it was still as attracted to me, its anchor, as it was before. And so, rather than sheering cleanly off and leaving me in a spot where this wonderful new ability my scythe gave me would fail… it came rushing again!

Only to bounce against his Qi-overflowing wall of air that spread out from a hooded figure just a fewte steps away.

"What the…" I only managed to utter two words, wh I suddly found lacking ough strgth to push the air out of my lungs to produce sound.

My body was completely froz in place, sealed in the thick slurry of the foreign Qi so dse, I couldn\'t move ev a single inch inside of it.

"Were you the one to claim the life of my child?!"