11 >Chapter 10<

The boys continued trailing the birds' path slowly. They weren't really in a hurry to follow after it. After all, they only know in what direction it left in. The group hoped to see the bird once again going to its home and then back for more fruit.

Unfortunately they didn't see the bird coming back for another 20 minutes. They gave up on finding it and just continued walking forward, occasionally looking upwards, looking for any traces of the bird. They soon found a feather on the ground nearby.

"Oh look, isn't that its feather?" Patrick asked as he went closer to the feather and picked it up.

Phillip looked at the feather and voiced out his opinion.

"It doesn't really look like the feather of the bird that we saw. Look it's noticeably bigger and has a different color, way darker than the one we saw before."

"Hmm, now that you said that, it kind of is different." Patrick said as he looked at the feather with narrowed eyes.

"Well if it was a different bird, then we have nothing to do with it." Tim said as he continued walking.

"I concur." David said.

"Same." Jacob agreed as well.

The others didn't really have any other choice so they just followed after them, walking lazily. They walked for around 30 minutes before finding a small opening in the dense forest. The boys looked at each other and quickly found some cover to hide behind. They looked at the clearing and found about a dozen of those birds circling above what looked like a lion… with the difference that it was three times bigger than a normal lion. They were fighting next to what looked like lake with a small island in the middle of it.

When the group looked at the giant, six meter long a three meter high lion, they almost fainted then and there. The lion wasn't even focusing on them and they already felt pressure more terrifying that the man from before had released. The weirdest thing about the lion was its mane. It resembled a normal mane but the difference was that it was all made from fire! The boys first though that it had caught fire but when they saw the releasing fire from its claws, they knew it wasn't just them imagining this.

They watched the confrontation between the lion and the birds with their hands on their mouths trying not to make a sound. They were afraid to even move a finger at this moment.

They saw the birds swooning down from great heights down towards the giant lion. Their claws then started emitting a black smoke that covered their entire body. The now black raven-like birds started accelerating and were soon right above the lion aiming their black claws right at him. The lion sprung up into the air to avoid the claws but was unfortunately, for him at least, scratched by one of the bird's claws. This wouldn't have been any problem had it been any other bird that scratched him, but it just had to be this kind of bird that injured him.

The boys could see the lion start to thrash around in pain and wondered what was happening until they saw black smoke start to come out of the scratch. Cracks started to appear around the crack that were slowly spreading to the rest of the lion's body.

The lion was fuming in anger and agony. It was going to just hunt some food and found some that smelled really good, but now it was going to die. As it thought about this it started to look at the birds with a hateful gaze. Then a thunderous roar resounded throughout what seemed like the entire forest and the boys who were hiding behind the trees were covering their ears in pain.

*Roar*

The fire mane of the lion intensified and unbearable temperature covered the entire surroundings. It was so hot that even the trees stared to catch on fire and grass beneath the lion just disintegrated into ash as if it never existed in the first place.

The lion looked at the birds, which were now looking back at the lion with wary gazes. Their wariness didn't last long, as the lion jumped and suddenly appeared in front of the bird with extreme speed comparable to teleportation and its flaming red claws sliced through the body of the bird like butter. The looks the birds were now giving the lion were ones full of dread. Their instincts were screaming at them to get as far away as they could and wait for the lion to die from their corrosion poison. Three of the birds flapped their black-feathered wings and started to fly away but before they could even travel one meter from their original position, they were ripped to shreds by fiery paws of the giant lion. The friends of the birds who were now killed just watched on in horror.

The lion licked its bloody paw and looked at the rest of the birds, around eight of them, with clear killing intent radiating from its entire being. The boys nearby were sweating not just from the ever-rising temperature but now event the bone-cracking pressure pressing down upon their shoulders.

*Caw*

The birds just made a bird noise and finally decided that if they couldn't get out there alive, they were going to take down the lion with them.

The got into a V formation right above the lion and the first birds swopped down at unimaginable speed that caused strong winds, even uprooting some small trees and flinging them into oblivion. As it got close the lion got tired of waiting and appeared next to the bird and sliced right through it. Before it even finished slicing, a trio of birds appeared next to it and clawed away at the lion skin. The lion roared again and its open mouth caught one of the three birds. Before the bird realized what had happened, it was already sliding down the throat of the bloody creature, dead.

The lion then spun around and the two other birds attacking it from its side were sliced in half by its tail, which looked like a sword covered in fire.

The other five birds knew they didn't have a chance so they decided to all fly away in different direction. That, however, turned out to be a huge a mistake as the lion flashed right behind one of the birds and caught it in its maw. The lion then wanted to move on to another one of the birds but then, a searing pain shot throughout its while body and it released a grunt.

The birds which were now flying away looked back and found their chance to finish the lion once and for all. The approached it carefully and attacked at the same time. The lion looked around and found the birds all coming for it to kill it. It showed something that looked like a grin and when the birds were close enough, its whole body exploded in flames that burned even the ground to ashes.

The group of boys just looked at this spectacle playing out in front of them while sweating heavily. The dust slowly blown away by the gentle wind and what appeared in front of them made a chill crawl up their spine.