The DHA Entrance Exam (5)
“Where did you find the bird?” Kelvin asked Carl on their way to the green beacon.
Carl then narrated his experience so far, from the plane drop, to the attack from the hell hounds, and then the beast horde attack. Ray also pitched in to give his own side of the story.
“So that is how we found the bird and yeah, you know the rest of the story.” Carl concluded.
“By the way Ken, who’s your new friend?” Ray asked
“My name is Nao Kaito, and I don’t do friends.” Nao quickly retorted.
“That’s a very unique introduction.” Carl said mockingly.
“So how did the two of you end up together?”
“Nao saved me from a demonic beast.” Kelvin replied.
“Once again, I didn’t save your life; I only did it for the point.”
“And in the process, she saved me.” Kelvin said.
They were getting closer to the green beacon; for some reason, the closer they get to the beacon, the more violent the bird became.
Carl was having a hard time keeping the demonic bird steady; it would shake violently in an attempt to throw them off.
“I thought you said you could control this stupid bird.” Nao said, while trying to hold on tight.
“I never said that; controlling the demonic bird is not as easy as you think. I don’t know why it became so violent all of a sudden.” Carl replied back. He tried to weaken the bird but that wasn’t working at all.
The stadium was now clearly visible from their height. “Just a little more and we will reach the green beacon.” Carl thought as he struggled to control the bird.
Well that would have been the case if the demonic bird didn’t suddenly dive down in a final attempt to throw off the load on its back. Carl wasn’t strong enough to pull up the demonic bird on time, thereby causing them to crash to the ground.
“Ugh, that’s a really rough landing.” Kelvin said, as he got to his feet.
“Yeah, and I’m sick and tired of falling from the sky.” Carl replied.
They all climbed down from the bird, to plan their next course of action.
“Why did it suddenly become so violent? Carl did you do something?” Ray asked.
“I didn’t do anything; it just started acting like that when we got closer to the beacon.” Carl replied.
“Is it dead?” Nao asked, looking at the immobile body of the beast.
The demonic bird suddenly got up, flapped its wings, and flew away in a hurry, a clear proof that it was still alive.
“It’s almost as if it’s scared; like the bird is running away from something.” Kelvin said.
“It doesn’t matter; fortunately, the bird dropped us closer to the beacon.” Ray added.
“Yeah, but I wonder what could have frightened…”
“Exam candidates, you have exactly one hour before the conclusion of the practical exam.”
Kelvin was suddenly cut off by the sound of the echoing voice from earlier.
“Please make haste to avoid disqualification.” The echoing voice concluded.
“Let’s get going we don’t have much time.” Carl said, picking up his chained daggers.
They continued with the exam task, proceeding to the location of the green beacon light. Although they were closer to the beacon, they haven’t been attack by any beast; in fact they haven’t seen any demonic beast so far.
“This is weird; the echoing voice said that we would encounter stronger demonic beasts the closer we get to the beacon, but we haven’t seen any beast so far. It feels too easy.” Ray said, voicing out his thought.
“Yeah, I agree with you on that.” Carl said.
“It will be best if we all stay alert and treed carefully.”
The area close to the beacon was slightly dense, with trees and vegetation in the landscape.
As they drew closer to the beacon, the area began to clear out; the trees reduced and the path wasn’t so dense anymore. They were now getting a clear image of the stadium which was just stationed on top of a hill.
“I can see the beacon - wait is that a stadium?” Kelvin asked
“Finally, we can leave this hell of an island.” Nao said, giving a sigh of relief.
The exam had taken a huge toll on their bodies; they were all tired, with fatigue bearing down on each of them. So they were all really happy to see the beacon. Unfortunately for them, their happiness was short-lived.
A loud frightening roar could be heard, coming from a few distances ahead of them. The roar was strong enough to send shills down their spine and to top it off, they could tell from the magnitude of the roar, that whatever was producing it was really huge and angry.
“I knew they had to be a catch to this no beast around the area.” Kelvin said.
“And if I was to take a wild guess, I would say that the demonic bird was really scared of whatever that was.” Ray added.
“Let’s just hope that it isn’t what I think it is.” Nao said, taking the lead.
The rest of them followed after her; they can’t possibly back down now that they were so close to success. So with courage and determination, they pressed on.
The roar got louder and louder as they got closer, until they finally saw the source of the roar.
Towering with great power and might was a humungous dragon demonic beast, with red scales and two large horns on the head. The red dragon was currently fighting against the exam candidate who had punched his way through the demonic beasts on the island; because of this, the dragon hadn’t noticed Kelvin and his party yet.
“The final boss of the exam is really frightening.” Ray said, with a troubled voice.
“Okay, it seems the dragon hasn’t noticed us yet; let’s just move around the dragon and quickly…”
“There is no point doing that; it’s a nether dragon, and if what I read about nether dragons are correct, they have a keen sense of smell. So it should be aware of our presence.” Nao said cutting Carl off.
“As much as I hate to say it, the only chance we have at beating that thing, is if we all fight it together. Scurrying away like scared rats won’t do us any good.” Nao continued, as she brought out her gun and started shooting at the nether dragon.
“Easy for you to say; you still have bullets in your gun. I ran out of arrows during the squirrel beast incident, so I’m basically useless in this fight.” Ray retorted.
“I guess we have no other choice but to fight.” Carl said, while running toward the dragon.
“Hey, arrow boy take this.” Nao said, throwing a pistol to Ray.
“We will provide them with a long range support.”
“But I don’t know how to use a gun.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out.”
Kelvin charged in after Carl. The both of them were going on the offensive.
“Carl, I don’t think we are going to be able to cut through the dragon’s scales.” Kelvin said, as they drew closer to the dragon.
“I know, that is why we are going to trap it; but for us to do that, we need the help of that dude with no weapons.” Carl replied, pointing at the exam candidate with a long hair and bare fists.
Kelvin and Carl reached the exam candidate, who had blood dripping from his knuckles due to his continuous punching on the hard scales of the dragon. Ignoring that detail, Carl offered a help proposal
“Let’s help you take down this damn dragon.”
The dragon stood on its hind legs, and using its sheer weight, it slammed its forelegs to the ground, causing a gust of wind that blew Kelvin, Carl, and the bare handed exam candidate away.
They were thrown backwards by the attack, but still managed to get back up.
“Okay, but how are we going to do that?” The exam candidate asked.
“We will try and look for a weak spot, while our friends over there will distract the dragon.” Carl replied. The friends he was talking about, was of course Nao and Ray.
The exam candidate agreed and they immediately put their plan in motion. At first, the plan was working; the dragon was clearly distracted by the gun shots from Nao and Ray. However the plan to find a weak spot proved to be a lot harder than they thought.
The red dragon had a hard and almost impenetrable scale, which covered its whole body. They had been attacking the dragon nonstop, in hope that they would be able to harm or weaken it, but it turns out that the dragon scales did a really good job in terms of defense.
The dragon became seriously annoyed with the continuous attacks; in a fit of rage, it turned its massive tail, and used it to hit both Nao and Ray.
This action sent Nao and Ray flying. The dragon then turned and faced Kelvin, Carl and the exam candidate. Smoke could be seen coming out of its nostrils, a sign that indicated it was about to shoot fire out of its mouth.
The three of them took the hint and immediately hid behind a rock for cover.