Chapter 37: The Peacock

"Hey, did you hear that?" Jessica inquired before quickly getting up on her feet.

She heard the sound from the impact on the other side but because of the tall trees, she wasn't able to see what happened.

"Who cares?" Kyle responded with his gaze on the trees. "That beast has probably come their way."

That response ticked Jessica off but the only thing she could do was grumble before she proceeded to start making her way down the hill.

"Hey, remember what that cunning teacher said, we're not allowed to help them and besides, it's not like they need our help."

Getting reminded of that, she had no choice but to stop.

"Please be safe, Claudia." She muttered.

Back on the other side, that attack from nowhere seemed to have cut a huge chunk of the hill and sent Arsha and Claudia crashing down.

Arsha grabbed her before whatever that was hit the hit hill and he still had a hold on her as both of them crashed to the floor.

Apparently, she ended up breaking her fall with his body but she was still shaken by how fast everything happened.

"Uh….what was that?" She groaned as she slowly sat up.

That was the moment she found out that she was on Arsha's body.

"Ar…."

She wasn't able to finish that as he quickly covered her mouth with his hand before pushing her to the side against the debris from the broken hill.

A strong gush of wind blew past them at the moment kicking up the dust once again.

It took a little while but the wind was finally able to calm down but despite that, Arsha still had his on her mouth. Their bodies were quite close at that moment and she could feel his warm breath against her face.

"Okay, it looks like it's gone now." He said before slowly allowing his hand to fall off his mouth. "That was close." He sighed.

Claudia wasn't quick to ask any questions, instead, she took a clear look at what their surrounding had become.

The hill wasn't looking much like a hill anymore now that most of it was gone and the both of them were covered in dust from head to toe.

After she was done observing all of that, she turned to him.

"So…."

"Hey, use this." He said before throwing something at her.

She caught it and turned her gaze to her hand to see that it was a black bandana.

"Huh?"

"Use that to clean your body, it's just dust so most of it will come off easily." He remarked.

"Oh, but this is yours, shouldn't you use it first?" She asked as she opened the bandana fully.

"I'll be okay." He assured her before getting up on his feet.

He bent his head and used his hand to knock out all the dust and sand and at that moment, his body got covered by a faint blue glow.

Claudia watched with amazement as the dust on his body slowly disappeared along with the faint blue glow.

"Oh, so that's what you meant, but can't you just do the same thing for me?" She asked.

"You're going to get wet, do you want that?"

"Uh….never mind, I'll just use this, I promise to wash and return it to you tomorrow." She said before she began to clean her body with the bandana.

There was a sudden moment of silence between the two as Arsha slowly looked up at the sky.

"Hey, so what was that?" She inquired. "Judging from your reaction you seem to know what it was."

"Falcon of the wind." He responded.

"Falcon of the wind?"

"It also has another name and I'm sure you must have heard of it." He paused at that moment as he lowered his gaze to look at her. "A thousand bees."

"Seriously?" She gasped. "I heard that was one of strongest Lord tier beasts in this forest."

"Yeah, it is," Arsha responded. "No one knows the full aspects of its ability but it's clear that it's very dangerous, if my sister was just a wind mage, she would struggle against it."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, it's a good thing that it didn't see us, I don't know how to deal with aerial beasts let alone stupidly fast ones like that."

"It didn't see us? But it clearly attacked us." She retorted with a confused expression on her face.

"No." He shook his head. "That attack wasn't intentional, it seemed to be after something and hit us by accident, it flew past us after that." He revealed.

"Oh, that's why you covered my mouth just now." She uttered before giving her lips a little poke. "But hey…."

She wanted to ask him something at that moment but the words got stuck in her mouth as she spotted something that left her gaping.

"Arsha." She managed to mutter.

"I know, it's right behind me."

A blast of fire was quickly shot toward them at that moment and once it made contact with solid matter, it kicked up a lot of dust.

It didn't take long for the dust cloud to clear up and when it did, the two were no longer standing there.

They were standing on the weed-free path now with their gaze on the beast that just attacked them.

It was the peacock and it seemed to be quite upset with the way it was looking at them now.

This peacock was the size of a buffalo and its steps carried quite the weight.

Other than the size, the beast looked like just a normal peacock and it was clicking as it slowly approached them, it was clearly telling them to stay away.

With another step forward, spikes of cryo appeared around the beast and were quickly launched toward both of them.

"Yes, that's definitely the beast," Claudia said as she quickly shifted to the side to avoid the attack.

Arsha was also able to easily avoid them by shifting to the other side.

"So, do you have a plan?" She inquired with her gaze fixated on the beast.

"I can't have a plan for fighting a beast I just heard about today, let's just attack it for now and see." He responded.

"Alright, that's fine by me." She said before slowly raising her sword.

'Huh? That wasn't in her hand a few seconds ago.'

Lightning sparks suddenly began to flicker around her body as she quickly charged toward the beast avoiding the ice spikes it sent flying her way to stop her.

She got to the beast in no time and without hesitation, she began to slash it with her sword reinforced with her lightning ability.

It didn't really look like that was doing anything but it sure was affecting the beast.

With a clean hit on its right wing, the beast let out a screech before launching numerous ice spikes at her from below.

With the help of her ability, Claudia quickly sprang up to avoid the attacks and that was the moment she saw it.

The peacock opened its train to reveal what made it truly deadly, its secret weapon.

A whirlpool of fire and ice divided separately on both sides.

'That's beautiful.'

That was her first thought but she was aware that that was dangerous.

While she was still in the air, the beast launched a fireball straight at her from the fire part of the train.

She was fast enough to raise her sword to block it but the fireball went right through the blade melting it in the process.

"No." She gasped.

Out of desperation to keep herself from dying, she quickly increased the electrical output of her body hoping that she would be able to make the fireball explode just like Ariel did and while that did work, the explosion sent her flying back in a vulnerable state.

"This isn't good." She mumbled.

Aware that she wasn't dead yet, the beast sent a long spear flying straight toward her.

Because of the smoke that was yet to clear up, she wasn't able to see it until it was very close to her face, and because of what she just did, blocking it was not an option.

She closed her eyes at that and folded her lips, she was trying to smile but it just wouldn't happen.

"So this is it."