3 Chapter 3: Manticores
"Under attack? By who?"
Finnea lifted Langris who could understand everything they were saying.
"We are attacked by a Legendary grade creature, a Manticore!" He exclaimed.
Nalia and Finnea's expressions turned to the worrisome face the guard currently had.
"Nalia, get the baby's books and blankets, we must get going now!"
Manticores are high-grade monsters that feed mostly on animal flesh, however, they also have an appetite for human flesh too.
"We must get-!
A sudden trumpet-like roar interrupted the guard. It was the Manticore, whose roar could be heard miles away. This is a signal which shows that the Manticore is hunting, and is in search of food. It can smell blood from kilometers, meaning that anywhere there is life, the Manticore will know.
The two ladies carried the baby and the given materials and followed the guard who escorted them out of the building.
"We must be quick Lady Finnea, Manticores are smart, they know that we live in these houses because they find most of their human prey hidden in their residence!"
As they were escorted out of the building, they went through an empty hall and the ground started shaking. Dust started to fall from the ceiling, and cracks appeared on the walls.
"Where is father, and sister?"
Finnea asked the guard as they were rushing through the halls.
"All the family members of the central house have left for an important royal auction with their children, in the building, there are only us and the Maidens!"
They had reached the outside, and they saw no more than 100 guards posted on the top of the Northern defense wall, and there were two other guards acting as watchmen inspecting everything passing by in the sky.
"It must be a false alert..." One of the guards said looking harder to find the Manticore.
"It can't be, I swear that even I heard the noise, and it sounded just like a... Oh no,"
The guard just for a second turned his head to the western walls to his horror.
"What's going..."
As soon as the other guard spotted the same thing his comrade was looking at, he rang the bell of the tower, and yelled,
"They're coming from the western walls, they fooled us, the Manticores are attacking from the western walls!!!" The other guard shouted as loud as he could.
"They're coming from the western walls? what do they mean by they?"
"I don't understand, the roar was coming from the Northern Walls,"
They all looked in the direction of the Western gate and were struck in shock and dread when they saw two adult Manticores flying toward them from the Western walls.
Nalia overheard what the watchmen had said, and looked in the west in the sky. She saw the Manticores, and her heartbeats got faster and faster
"Lady Finnea, look, no one is protecting the Western Walls!"
Finnea and Langris looked at the Western walls, and Langris had a puzzled and scared expression.
"Where is the world have I ended up, and why the fuck does this world have Manticores, weren't they just myths?"
He was in such a state of shock that all the noise and panic didn't make him cry at all.
They were a few meters away from the Defense tower before Large piles of sharp spikes came flying through the building piercing through it causing large bricks to fall to the ground.
The falling building parts blocked the entrance to the tower preventing them from entering
The guard and the two ladies lowered their heads when building parts fell to the ground.
"My lady, it isn't safe to enter the place anymore, we must find shelter els-"
The guard tried to escort the two ladies and the baby before three spikes as large as a grown man"s leg came piercing through his head, chest and left part of the waist.
Langris was speechless, despite the fact he has already died, seeing someone die in front of him for the first time in such a brutal way was still something shocking to him.
"Lady Finnea, we must find shelter, please follow me to the Ceremony building!"
As they were rushing to the Maiden house, they could hear large explosions and assumed that the battle between the guards and the two Manticores had already started.
Langris, who was held by Finnea could see what was happening behind and above them.
"Are they using superpowers, and d-did I just see a man die in front of my eyes by large knives," Langris thought as he was still trying to assimilate the situation.
He could see the Manticore flying around the sky dodging attacks, and the guards attempting to hit it using fire blasts, or slashes. Some of the guards knew how to fly thanks to their powers, and transformed into large elemental eagles or elemental phoenixes, but they all ended up falling to their demise when they would clash with the Manticore.
In order to fight back, the Manticore would occasionally fly down a few meters above the swarm of guards, and use its imposing strength and sharp claws to instantly kill a pile of guards at a time.
"Everyone assemble, we will use one Ultimate attack to kill it!"
One of the guards shouted as the pile approached to each other in a row. They each lifted their arms and aimed at the Manticore who was still busy fighting the guards with the flying ability.
They concentrated deeply, and each of them had synchronized breathing. Suddenly, a few meters away from the about 40 soldiers, a small blue mass slowly started to grow.
The blue mass started to grow, and Langris was also a spectator.
"Their movements are synchronized and they seem quite concentrated, so that means they're surely creating this big ball,"
Langris thought to himself as he saw them making synchronized gestures.
A few seconds passed by, and the blue mass became as big as an elephant.
"Now, attack!"
One of the guards exclaimed as they launched the blue mass at the manticore.
The other guards who were fighting the Manticore in the sky had succumbed, however, their sacrifice bought the other guards time to concentrate on an ultimate attack on the Manticore.
Before the creature could move or dodge the attack, the blue mass hit it creating a massive explosion that was heard miles away.
The explosion was so intense that even the birds in the trees of the Red Benettry forest flew away.
The guards held their breath as they waited for the large smoke to dissipate or for the Manticore to fall to the ground. However, they saw an object emerge out of the black smoke at a large speed.
Before they could realize it, spikes rained down on them like water droplets.
The spikes wiped nearly all of the 40 soldiers leaving only a few left with severe injuries.
The Manticore used a distant attack which consisted of whipping his tail, to launch a volley of spikes in the direction the tail pointed.
The creature with Dragon Wings and a Scorpion tail just seemed too powerful for the guards to handle, but there was another problem that Langris came to realize.
"Hold on, didn't they say there were two Manticores?"
*BANG*
At that moment Langris thought that the second Manticore landed in front of the two ladies and the baby.
"My oh my... I knew I smelt a baby nearby," The Manticore growled in an imposing female voice.
It slowly approached the humans who were trembling from top to bottom.
"It looks way bigger from close..." Langris thought with wide eyes.
"Babies are the tastiest of all human flesh, because of their purity and innocence, let's make a deal, if you let me eat the baby and beg for your life, I will give each of you little humans a quick death,"
For a quick second, no one answered out of fear and shock, however, Finnea's maternal instincts took over her fear and she confronted the creature despite her weak physique.
"I would never let my son die, and I would never let myself or Nalia die, if we were to die, my son would grow without mother, and that, even in the afterlife, I would never forgive myself, so for this reason, today, we are not dying!!"
Her words shook Nalia, and Langris who were amazed by her bravery in such a situation despite knowing she was no match.
*BANG*
The second Manticore landed behind them giving them no way to escape.
"I was moved by your words mother, but that won't change the fact we are going to die..."
Langris thought with a pale expression on his face, he had already died once before the age, but was he going to die a second time without even learning to talk?
"As you wish!!!!" The Manticore exclaimed as it widened its jaw and pounced on its prey.
Midway, the Manticore stopped moving, and his jaw stayed wide open while his eyes started rolling up. A second later the Manticore fell to the ground in front of Langris presenting a silver-haired being with a large and thick sword in his hands, and a grey long leather line coat behind it.
The Manticore behind Langris and his mother took a defensive stance as it gazed intensely at the person.
"You'll regret what you did human!!" The Manticore roared.
Finnea and Nalia's expression turned to relief when they saw the man, and Finnea smiled at Langris and she pointed at the man.
"You see this man, he's your father..."
With an impressed gaze, he looked at the man with dazzling eyes.
"So he's my father... Alucard Heldove,"
