Chapter 72

When Vanessa and the others left the cell, they first saw the brute's body lying on the stairs with an arrow sticking out of its neck, Ron pulled the arrow out of his neck and placed it in the arrow pack he was carrying on the back.

"Can't waste them," he said looking at her since she was staring at the arrow.

"I am just sad, I didn't get to kill him myself," she said. Then when they reached the top deck there were more bodies, some clawed badly, some with more arrows sticking out of their heads. Vanessa slowed down looking around for Raymond's body, Ron had also stayed behind collecting the rest of the arrows. She found him lying behind a table with an arrow in his left eye. 

"Another one you wanted to take care of?" he asked pulling the arrow out.

"No, I just wanted to make sure it had died, thank you for that," she said.

"He tried to fight, better than the others, he and that one too, I think he was a mage, but there were too many people here and they had no idea where the arrows were coming from," said Ron.

Isanna was still trapped in her head, reliving all the bad memories of her life, the worst of all was breaking Ron's trust, she needed to see him, needed to tell him how sorry she was. His face appeared in her head, the expression he had had when they had met in the morning, now she knew why he looked so upset. Her heart ached to find him once again, and she had to, she couldn't run away from him as she had from her other problems, she would face him, she would face her shame, and would not let Marty ruin her relationship with Ron, and when she will find Marty she will cut his face into half. Marty's face floated in front of her, she burst into anger and picked up her sword by instinct and swiped it at the image, releasing a laser beam of energy to cut it into half and suddenly the illusions stopped, the city came back into the frame and she looked at the robed figure floating in the air.

"Stupid woman, you almost cut my arm off," the figure hissed rubbing the side of his robes where smoke was coming out of, but then the figure jerked and looked at her.

"No! go back into the," he shouted but Isanna didn't let him finish the sentence, she jumped towards him, shortening the distance between them in an instant, and this time she wasn't going to miss, using all the energy she could muster into her sword in an instant, she landed a great vertical swipe and cut the man in half completely. She landed back on the ground panting, her head still hurt and she remembered all she had seen in her head, she took some time to regain her focus and stood up. She would talk to Ron, but after this was over. She ran back to the others to see how they were doing. Another dead-robed figure was lying on the ground, and Derek and others were still fighting the last one left. 

He seemed pretty fast and hoping to get some help from his friend who had gone after Isanna. But when he saw Isanna come back alive, he cried a chilling scream, but Derek at that moment landed a nice kick to the back of his head and smashed into the ground with great speed. 

"This should be over now," said Forin.

"Not yet," said Derek looking at the place the last mage had smashed into. From the rocks a hand appeared and the man stood back up, his hood fell off, and his bloody face appeared, he looked pretty average but he looked at them with so much hate that they stepped back. 

"I am going to kill you all," he opened his mouth and shouted in that weird guttural voice, he raised his arms and floated back into the sky and started muttering something in a very animalistic voice, they wouldn't have thought was possible to come out of a human. Isanna felt something pulling at her, it was as if something was sucking the mana out of her, she pulled back against the invisible force and saw that the others were having the same experience, then they saw as the dead barbarian bodies suddenly started shaking.

"He is sucking in their mana!" Derek shouted and launched himself to attack, but before he could reach the man, a big third hand appeared from the back of the man, it was red as if it was made of blood, and swatted Derek away. Isanna clutched her sword and took off too, but the man sprouted great red wings next and flew up high in the sky still sucking mana from every dead body in the city.

"He will be too powerful for any of us soon," said Derek coming back.

"He is not attacking, just borrowing time to collect all the mana, we need to finish him in one go," said Isanna.

"Can't you do the laser thing?" asked Derek.

"To make one powerful enough it will take too much time," she said.

"Me too, and something not powerful enough will not land enough damage," he said.

But just then a black shadowy figure appeared out of nowhere and jumped at the mage, Isanna saw with surprise that it was none other than the cat Rin. She reached the blood mage and opened her mouth, only it kept opening until it was as big as the man himself and swallowed him whole and then closed back into her normal hand. The invisible force was gone instantly, Rin landed in front of them, rubbing her stomach as if she had just had a very tasty meal, she burped and smiled at them. 

"Yummy," she said.

"What?" muttered Derek.

"Where were you?" asked Isanna.

"Oh I was just too shaken after getting wet and was drowning myself in the sun in a nice spot when I fell asleep accidentally, sorry I missed all the fun," she said.

Isanna and Derek both were too tired to ask anything else. Then they saw Ron and Fiona coming with some other girls one of whom looked like a lioness. 

"Father!" Emily hugged her dead, a woman came out of the back and hugged James too, and then Emily. 

"This must be the princess," said Derek approaching Ron and Vanessa.

"Yes," said Ron, but before Derek could extend a hand, Rin threw herself at Vanessa hugging her tightly.

"Big sis? What are you doing here?" asked Vanessa and everyone looked at Rin with wide eyes. Then Rin grabbed Fiona and started rubbing on her almost turning into a cat, who patted her and picked her up. 

"Is she really your sister?" asked Ron to Vanessa.

"I mean not really, my mother appointed her to be my bodyguard when I was younger, but last year she was sent away on some task," said Vanessa.