Coppelia felt her back growing harder and harder, accompanied by a large, cold sensation.
She surfaced from the water, crawled onto the bank, and broke off a piece of the hard object from her back. It was a block of pale blue ice, emitting a cold mist.
There was no time to think about the origin or cause of the ice. She heard the rustling of tearing vegetation and the thud of something hard hitting the trees. The second attack was coming!
She submerged herself again, hoping the water current would block some of the projectiles. A few attacks landed in the water with a muffled thud.
Fortunately, her mechanical body didn't need to breathe air. If she had enough energy, she could stay in the water indefinitely.
When the commotion outside finally subsided, she poked her head out again to observe her surroundings.
Based on where she had been standing and where she was hit, she determined the attack likely came from deeper in the valley.
In that direction, through the gaps in the leaves, she could vaguely make out the shape of a giant blue creature.
"Teyvat, blue, Cryo..." She recalled the blue Cryo creatures she had seen in Teyvat, thinking of Cryo Slimes, Cryo Lawachurls, and the Cryo Hypostasis...
But thinking about it now seemed pointless. After all, she hadn't mastered any elemental power, hadn't acquired any "skills," and had no weapon. Her mechanical body seemed quite strong, but relying on physical attacks alone, she probably couldn't defeat any of the creatures mentioned above, except for the slimes.
Seeing the giant blue shadow make no move, Coppelia gently swam away from it, not forgetting to take the few fish that had been killed or stunned by the impacts.
Once she reached the shore and relaxed her focus, she again felt a freezing sensation on her lower back and hips. She tried to pry off the ice, but this couldn't remove the Cryo element attached to her. New ice formed again.
It seemed she had to master elemental power as soon as possible to react away the Cryo element. She didn't know how resistant her mechanical body was to Cryo; it could be damaged by the freezing at any moment. She couldn't afford to delay for a second.
She gathered the fish, holding them in the fold of her skirt, and was about to get up and leave.
She then saw that the trees by the pond had also been hit by the high-speed ice projectiles. A piece of bark the size of two palms had been blown off, and the trunk was gouged with a trough deep enough to fit her wrist, the break still emitting an icy mist. A rock on the ground beside the pool had also been struck, leaving an indent that likewise gave off a cold fog.
The power was considerable. Although her mechanical body wouldn't get a hole punched through it, it wouldn't look good if it got dented.
She quickly pried off the newly frozen ice on her back and carefully inspected her clothes and body, only to find that they were completely—unharmed!
Unexpectedly, her clothes and skin, so soft to the touch, were incredibly durable. Combined with her body's strength, her combat potential couldn't be weak. Maybe she could try challenging that blue monster.
Never mind. She'd wait until after she fed Columbina and mastered elemental power.
On the way back, Coppelia continuously tried to sense the mechanical workings inside her, attempting to evoke a flow of energy to remove the Cryo application on her back, but her body didn't respond at all.
Refusing to give up, she kept trying until she walked back to the beach. By then, the Cryo application had faded on its own, but she still hadn't succeeded.
She went to the stream to clean the fish and returned to the campsite on the beach where the firewood was piled.
Columbina was already awake, sitting curled up on the ground with her head down, one hand pressing her abdomen and the other arm wrapped around her legs.
"I found you something to eat," Coppelia said, taking out the largest fish. "Something a hundred times more delicious than mushrooms." With that, she placed the fish on a clean stone, intending to start a fire.
Columbina raised her head slightly and said to her:
"Your eyes... are so red..."
"Red?" She froze for a moment. Weren't her eyes orange-yellow? Had she misremembered, or was the girl mistaken?
She paid it no mind and walked toward the firewood pile. But the image in her eyes gradually blurred, her steps became difficult to move, and her thoughts grew sluggish. Her sluggish thinking made it even harder to notice that something was wrong with her body.
A bright red light did indeed shine from her eyes, but it grew weaker and weaker until it faded to a dead gray, and her body suddenly collapsed in front of Columbina!
Coppelia stopped thinking.
"..."
Her consciousness returned. She opened her eyes, but what she saw wasn't the world, but a dark void. In the void, there was only her own body.
This body didn't seem real either, like a transparent gel. At the center of the gel was an orange-gold core, from which orange-gold blood flowed, spreading to the limbs of the gelatinous body. The blood then transformed into other things, turning red, blue, purple, green...
Ding—
A notification sound chimed, and the colors of the real world filled the void.
Coppelia saw the real sky once more, but it had already dimmed, with a few scattered stars twinkling.
She pushed herself up and found Columbina lying on top of her, having passed out again.
She carefully carried the girl to the spot where she had been resting earlier.
Columbina had saved her again.
Night had fallen. The most important thing now was to start a fire and roast the fish.
She wanted to try using elemental power again. Recalling the strange sight she saw before waking up, her body seemed to have emitted light of seven colors. Could it correspond to the seven elements?
She immediately began to try, imagining her body becoming transparent, imagining the orange-gold core, imagining the seven colors.
She succeeded on her first try. The orange-gold core and vein-like bands overlaid her vision, and she could clearly see the flow of energy.
She imagined the energy flowing to her right hand, and it did. Then she imagined the orange-gold turning a fiery crimson.
With a "boom," a small fireball appeared in the palm of her right hand.
The campfire was soon lit. Coppelia skewered the fish, roasting one in each hand. As the aroma of cooked fish reached her nose, she realized this body actually had a sense of smell.
She picked up a small piece of fish and put it in her mouth. She had a sense of taste, too, and could even secrete saliva and swallow!
However, the swallowed food was sent to a sealed container. The mechanism would inject energy into the container to break down the object inside. After decomposition, it wasn't about absorbing nutrients but further annihilation, making it disappear completely. This process not only failed to gain energy from the food but actually consumed her own.
"What a strange design." She understood this body less and less.
Coppelia set down the cooked fish, peeled off the hard scales and burnt skin, tore off the flesh and placed it on a leaf that served as a plate, then removed the bones one by one.
She moved slowly to Columbina's side and brought the prepared fish close to the girl's nose. The girl sniffed, opened her mouth, and Coppelia took the opportunity to place a small piece of meat in her mouth.
Columbina's jaw moved slightly. Suddenly, like a spring bent at a right angle snapping back into place, she sat bolt upright, nearly knocking over the fish Coppelia was holding, and stared intently at the platter of fish.
Although the girl's eyes were closed, Coppelia could still imagine her "gaze" of surprise and longing.
Like a ravenous wolf, Columbina rapidly devoured eighty percent of the fish, showing no signs of slowing down.
Coppelia had no choice but to take out sixteen mushrooms and wash them by the stream in the faint moonlight. The light was too dim, so to ensure they were clean, she washed them a second time.
The stream reflected her eyes. This time they weren't red or orange, but a vivid green. Combining this color pattern with the day's events, she roughly understood that the color of her eyes corresponded to her body's "charge"—the redder, the lower the charge, and the greener, the higher.
The energy in her body could be converted into elemental power, but a portion of it was reserved for maintaining bodily functions and couldn't be converted. That's why she couldn't use elemental power when her energy was low, and why her attempts during the day had failed.
After finishing the fish, Columbina didn't seem to want to eat the mushrooms. But when she realized they were different from the raw mushrooms she'd eaten before, she started eating them with big mouthfuls again.
Coppelia roasted all sixteen mushrooms, but it still wasn't enough. She had no choice but to make another trip.
A second trip, a third... until she lost count of how many trips she'd made, the girl finally swallowed the last mushroom and didn't ask for more. She even suspected the girl had eaten every mushroom in this part of the forest.
Coppelia didn't forget to apologize to the girl for what happened during the day. The girl just grunted with an "mm," not taking it to heart.
Her anxious heart finally settled. Fatigue washed over her like a tide. She was about to sit down and rest for a while when she saw the girl about to get up and leave.
Columbina stood up without using her hands to support herself. An invisible force lifted her like a balloon, and she started walking toward the sea.
Her steps were still floaty, but this time, it wasn't the weakness of hunger and exhaustion, but an ethereal, dreamlike grace.
Coppelia followed her. The two walked onto the beach, found an empty spot to sit, and looked up at the sky together, toward the moon.
After a long time, the girl in white finally averted her gaze and asked Coppelia a question she had never expected:
"'Columbina'... What is that?"
___
🔥 New releases are live! 🔥
✅ Get immediate access to 40 early chapters for all stories.
✅ Enjoy exclusive material and special announcements!
Help us unlock these community rewards:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter for everyone
🚀 80 MEMBERS = +5 extra chapters across ALL STORIES!
👻 P - Walnutchan