The second female lead Dual Cultivates

The clearing was silent for a whole minute when Maria landed on top of the table. Every eye snapped toward her direction without even a delay and Maria could already tell that she had committed some kind of mistake by landing where she had.

"Our sacred rite had been disturbed. Guards, seize the intruder and take her to the queen. She must pay for what she has done to us" Maria heard those words and her body sprang into action. She picked up a nearby knife and barely managed to hold off the sword aimed at her leg.

She could tell that the attack had not been made to kill her, just injure her enough to be able to take her into interrogation and Maria was thankful for this distinction. But she would prefer it more if she was not attacked at all.

The nakedness of the woman in front of her was also a distraction. The breasts were bouncing and making Maria divert her attention from the attack on her person. She had to make a conscious effort to stop herself from looking.

There were too many warriors and Maria felt hesitant to go into full combat mode. These people would be too much for her to handle if they got serious. Maria knew she would have to use her magic if she wanted to get out but she could also feel something wrong.

Or rather, something was lacking inside her. The more she tried to connect with her magic, the hollower she felt. It felt like someone had carved a hole in her chest and decided to leak the magic out. It was still there but the quantity was not enough to be able to be used actively in combat.

"Wait. It's all a misunderstanding. I'm not an enemy or hostile" Maria tried to reason as more and more warriors joined in the battle. She was getting overwhelmed and there seemed to be no end to these women.

And it was all women as well. Maria could not spot even a single male in the whole vicinity. And no one was using magic as well, even when Maria could feel that they had magic in them. They seemed to almost be the primitive form of humans that had roamed earth a long time ago.

"You must pay. Our queen would make sure you never wake up again" there were too many cheers for Maria to be captured. It would not be possible for her to be able to reason with these people.

Maybe that was what finally gave Maria the courage to pull what little magic she could from the surroundings and make a magic shield. It was a weak one but it would work nonetheless.

Their opposition had no way to counter the shield without the magic of their own. Not that they even tried since they looked too stunned to even move. The display of magic seemed to have left them in a state of awe.

"She's an m-magi. S-Someone inform the q-queen. Check on the queen and detain her now" the naked woman who had attacked Maria first shouted. She seemed to be the only one who had enough of her senses to even speak.

Not that Maria was going to allow it to happen that easily. She quickly managed to wiggle her way out of the warriors as she dashed outside. The forest would provide her with the shelter that she needed and it also felt like it had a lot more magic than the clearing.

She needed to go to a magic-rich environment if she wanted to retain her magic even a little bit more. It felt like her reserves were almost empty and filling up really slowly. She had used the surrounding magic but it seemed to have affected even her own resources.

"Man, this sucks. It's so hard to be able to breathe without magic" Maroa complained as she tried to suck air in her mouth. The air was slate and difficult to breathe as well. It was just something about this place that was hard to swallow.

Even the forest felt devoid of life as she walked past it. Ir had no presence in her senses, and neither did it have magic that she could use to cure her fatigue. It was all just nothing in her senses.

"Hurry. She could not have gone very far. I think I see her that way" the naked women were back as they followed behind Maria. Unlike her, they had no problem being able to keep up with the forest and its surroundings.

'System, a little help?' Maria asked as she finally neared the end of her endurance. Her muscles protested against her movement and walking speed but she kept ongoing.

[User is advised not to deplete their magical reserves. Magic is a scarce resource and deleting magic could lead to a user's death]

Maria cursed her fate. The warning could not have come at a worse timing for her. She had just used a huge amount of her magic for a situation that she could have gotten out of without it.

And now because of this 'rare' resource, Maria was being hunted across Jamaica. She wanted to cry out at the injustice but there was no one to hear her out.

Maria tried to crawl further away from civilization but she knew she could not do this forever. She needed to find the royal palace and move on to the next continent as soon as possible.

Jamaica's node had already lost its power and the continent has suffered as a result. It was too tough to be able to tell how the lack of magic would affect this place. The plants had already started to show signs of decay and neglect.

There was only one source of magic Maria could feel in the huge forest, right in the middle of it and Maria decided to follow along with her feelings. She knew she would find something interesting there but even she could not tell what she would find.

So Maria walked right toward the center of the forest where she felt the magic pulse. Her system helped her avoid the searching guards around her. It was a delicate process that left her more tired than she had anticipated it to be.

However, Maria did not give up even when her body protested. She had to remind herself that it was not as bad as the heat she had been experiencing beforehand. This feeling could even be called a soothing cold that emerged as a result of her lacking magic.

The center of the forest has a small lake with a single-family cottage surrounded by a small field. The scene was domestic but also out of theme for the current place and time period Jamaica seemed to be based on.

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