Exiting

Just as Grey predicted, he was screwed. The element of surprise was gone, as well as his weapon.

A fist he barely saw slammed into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying.

He fell back 10 meters, tumbling onto the ground and rolling to a stop. His body lay on the floor, limp and unresponsive. He regained control of his limbs a second later, but the Beast was already upon him.

ROAR!

With a roar, it created a field of Fire around its foot, hurling Grey across the floor with it.

SMASH!

He flew into the air once more, smashing into the hard rock wall of the cavern.

His already winded self became further breathless, no longer able to even heave. His lungs had stopped working for a second due to shock. When they came back into use, he breathed deeply, scrambling to his feet.

His vision was blurry, a few ribs were cracked and he could see three of the enemy, but he was otherwise alright. The Faery before him didn't attack again, seemingly waiting for him. It paced left and right, a smirk on its face.

Grey caught his breath, calming his heart. He had to stay in control. The creature wouldn't, in fact, it couldn't get a rise out of him. His demon side existed after all.

He calmly assessed the situation, deciding on his next course of attack. He thought for a second about creating a spear from one of his Rare Elements, but it would last 10 seconds at most. It was a last resort.

He instead decided on something he had only done in practice; teleportation.

If it worked, he would win in a second. If it failed, he still had a fifth of his Mana.

For close-range teleportation, the location in mind had to either be memorized or in line of sight, and the place he wanted to go to met both conditions.

He circulated his Mana at twice the speed, filling himself with as much as he could. He gathered it all, turning most of it into Space Mana.

The creature watched in excitement, its mockery visible on its face. After all, the toy wanted to play.

Grey pushed out all of the Space Mana, focusing on the location in mind. Suddenly, he vanished. No warning, nothing. Just gone.

He reappeared in the same instant, this time behind the Faery.

He created a spear of Null, slicing it across the Faery. He limited the amount of Mana he used, to make sure he had enough, but the spear would still work for a second.

The invisible spear crafted of Null was soundless, due to its nature. Instead of cutting the air, it simply removed it.

A fountain of blood spewed out of the fresh cut, covering Grey and the floor, however, the spear stayed invisible. Grey dismissed it immediately, jumping back to get a grasp of what his handiwork accomplished.

'Is it dead?' He thought, still on high alert.

ROOOARRRR!

'No, it's not. But it will be soon.' Grey heard the roar of pain, recognizing that it was pissed. Nonetheless, just like with the Manticore, all he had to do now was wait.

ROAR!

It roared a second time, yet nothing happened.

'Illusion!' Grey recalled Fallen Star's words, covering himself in Null. He made it in time. luckily, dispelling the Illusion before it could affect him. Now, he was out of Mana, only a slither left that kept him from Depletion.

The Faery stared at him in wonder, confused as to why he was not in an Illusion. However, it didn't wait, rushing at him a second time.

Despite being split almost in half, and having its spine severed, the creature moved.

'Did it use an Illusion on its body? Is that possible?' Grey, knowing the extent of his attack, was shocked to see it move, and immediately ran away from it.

Of course, he was slower than the Beast and was caught in a second. The Beast reached for him, closing its paw around his shoulder.

ROAR!

The Beast didn't let Grey do whatever he did again, choosing instead to use Fire.

Its paw dug into his shoulder, burning it on the inside. Grey struggled to get loose, causing the Beast to let go of him.

It didn't leave empty handed though, its paw ripping off chunks of flesh.

"ARGH!" Grey cried out, trying to ignore the pain. He brute-forced through the pain, testing his arm. 'Useless.' He couldn't feel it.

He was out of Mana, and he couldn't use an arm. The only thing left was to run. So he did.

He bolted toward the opening of the cavern, running through its mouth. The Faery followed closely behind, leaving a trail of blood a meter wide.

'How much blood does it have?' Grey thought as he looked back. 'How is it still alive?!'

He took his last step in the cave, running onto the soft floor of the dead forest. It was as vibrant as usual, but he didn't have time to care.

"AURORA!" He called out. "RUN!"

Aurora, who was just 10 meters from him, heard his yell. She took a momentary look at the several Fairy corpses around her and then heeded his words. She ran away from his voice, going deeper into the forest.

Whilst the Fairies were stronger and greater in number, they were too small to do much other than use Magic. Also, their Illusions were beast-oriented, not for humans, so it was pretty easy, meaning she still had a third of her Mana, just a bit more than 200.

Grey quickly caught up, and he took a look behind him, trying to spot the Beast.

'Where is it?' He couldn't see anything, and the trees were too thin to hide the wide Beast.

Suddenly, a drop of blood fell to the ground behind him, and then another fell on his head.

'It's above, isn't it?' Just as he said, the Faery was indeed above him, using its mangled wings to fly, although it occasionally fell a meter or two.

"It's above us, don't stop!" He informed Aurora, who nodded in response. "Do you have Mana?"

"Yeah, a little." She replied.

"Good! Shoot at it!" Grey replied. Any distraction was great, after all, it was going to die soon.

"Okay!" Aurora raised her hand above her, looking at the Beast. "Glacies Hastam!"

A spear of Ice formed, and she commanded it to move toward the Faery.

It flew through the air, however, both Aurora and Grey didn't pay attention to it. All their attention was on running, although a portion of Aurora's was on keeping the Spell active.

THUD! THUD!

A thud sounded out, followed by a much louder one a few seconds later. They stopped running, turning around. There on the floor lay the twitching corpse of the Faery, a spear in its side.

"Ah! It's finally dead!" Grey breathed a sigh of relief, panting. "High five!"

Aurora outstretched her hand, meeting Grey's in the middle. They high-fived, staring at the corpse. It twitched a final time and then stopped.

A portal appeared out of the blue, its neon blue glow radiating.

FWOOSH, FWOOSH!

It pulsed, exuding a profound power, yet neither of them cared. Grey was badly wounded in the shoulder and tired, whilst Aurora was covered in cuts and similarly tired.

"Princesses first," Grey spoke up, a smile on his face.

Aurora gave him a face, clearly not finding his joke funny, however, she let him be, giving him a laugh. "Happily."

She strode through the portal, disappearing in a flash of light. Grey followed close behind, taking a long, good look at the forest he was leaving behind.

"I won't miss you." He said as he hopped through.

---

[In the throne room, where the portal sat, 33 hours after its appearance]

FWOOSH!

The portal suddenly pulsed, turning on again. The sound attracted the attention of all those in the room and an elf called for stretchers.

They expected that when the two came out, they would be very, very badly wounded. The King and Queen sat on their thrones, worried. They had been sat there the entire time, refusing to move whilst their child was trapped and they were powerless to do anything.

However, what they had done, was call for Grey's parents.

Next to them stood Lucas and Samantha, although neither shared the sentiment of the Royals.

Lucas was bored, only wanting to hear of his son's adventure, and Samantha was too distracted by what Lucas told her a day and a bit a go to worry.

'A girlfriend? How? I need to make sure she's nice, at the very least.' Were her thoughts.

FWOOM!

The portal pulsed a second time, revealing a figure.

Aurora stepped out of the portal, tired, but holding her head high. She was covered in cuts, and tired, but no one could see anything truly wrong with her.

The King and Queen breathed a sigh of relief, moving out of their chairs and hugging their daughter.

They shooed away a medic, telling them to come back in a second.

Whilst they rejoiced, Lucas and Samantha moved to the portal.

FWOOM!

A third time it pulsed, bringing with it a second person.

Grey moved out of the portal, not caring about it anymore.

Samantha gasped seeing his wound, and Lucas smiled seeing how Grey dealt with it.

There were no signs of pain on the grey-haired boy's face, but there were signs of tiredness.

A medic rushed to him, and Grey let them check out his wound. They showed signs of shock, their mouth agape, but they didn't hesitate to treat him, asking several times if he felt pain.

He told them the truth, of course, saying it hurt, but he didn't show it on his face. One thing both his father and grandfather told him was that a warrior ought to be solemn on the field, and may only be themselves in private.

That only referred to after a fight, but Grey still adhered to it when fighting. He would only let himself stop acting when in private.

Once the medic was done, Grey was brought by his parents to the stairs by the thrones and was then sat down.

"Grey, tell us what happened," Lucas spoke, a smile on his face.

Grey recounted to them the entirety of the tale, excluding parts about Fallen Star, of course, and the bit where they both fell asleep.

Once he was done, his father had a proud expression on his face after hearing his son's exploits.

Samantha was similarly proud, but she was too worried about him to show it. Several times, she asked how he was, interrupting the flow of the story, but he never minded it. She was his mother after all.

The medics and scientists were shooed away, and they exited without a fuss. Finally, the two families were alone.

Not long after he finished explaining, the King, the Queen, and Aurora came to them. Both Matteo and Tyana bowed, speaking to Grey.

"Grey, we can't thank you enough for protecting our daughter. Truly, thank you. We would like to reward you of course, but we also have a question for you. Are you sure that you want to annul the engagement?"

"Thank you for the reward, but you don't have to worry. Aurora and I are staying engaged."

'''!''' His words shocked those present, except for Aurora, who was flustered, but unsurprised.

"R... Really?"