9 His Perilous Battle

Cynthy groaned as she opened her eyes to see her bed in a complete mess, complicated feelings surfaced from her heart as she gazed at the empty bed to her left.

"Hai…"

She released a sigh, before she lightly slapped herself to sober up.

Click!

She stood up and opened the door, allowing the soothing music playing from downstairs to enter her ears.

~Instead of wings to soar through the sky…~

~We chose hands to hold one another…~

A thought crawled its way into her mind as she gazed at her own star-link, 'Leo woke up earlier than usual'.

After washing her face, she went downstairs and saw the back of a red-haired youth. He was preparing some sort of hot chocolate drink for himself.

Music continued to play in the background as she pondered what felt different about her child.

~We'll spread these sails together… filled with all of our dreams…~

'He doesn't seem to have grown much taller, but his skin seems to be lighter than before… hmm… aha! He must have fallen for someone, but who could it be?'

While she was deep in her thoughts, Leo turned around as he stirred his drink with a teaspoon. Leo heard her walking down the stairs, so he already knew she was behind him.

He warmly greeted, "Good morning Mom".

However, what greeted him was her tears. As if she misunderstood something, she swiftly walked towards him and hugged. 

Leo hurriedly placed the cup down and asked, "What's wrong Mom?"

Cynthy didn't answer him and only pat his head. She spoke in a comforting tone, "Leo, I'm sorry".

~~~~~

Tchik!

Beneath the shadows of the thick forest, a twig snapped in two under the force of a mysterious figure's steps. The figure donned a black metallic armor which only partially covered its head, chest, arms, and legs. Under this black armor was a black skin-tight suit that covered its body from its chin till its toes.

Behind the armored figure were four others who uniformly wore the same things as it. The only differences between them were the weapons they had. The one leading them had a spear, on his left was a person holding a sword and on his right was someone wearing gauntlets. One of them at the back had something similar to a pistol, while the other one simply wielded a sword.

They silently surveyed the area as they walked around the forest, keeping their pentagon formation at all times.

Someone among them asked, "Why don't we just give up on this mission?"

The man with the gauntlets tapped on his star-link and said, "I agree with Cain, we've already searched the whole forest yet there's no sight of a single beast".

A panel silently appeared in front of him.

[Survey Mission: Find out why elemental beasts are rushing out of Redwind forest.

Danger rating: C

Information:

Recently, elemental beasts of all shapes and sizes have been running away from Redwind forest. They might not pose a threat to the city, the forest is still the only beast zone nearby that's suitable for training the young.

Objective/s:

*Find out why the elemental beasts are migrating from the Redwind Forest.

*Locate the Redwind Forest's Child and check its condition.

Mission Completion Reward:

100,000DC                                                                    ]

To reduce the casualties of survey missions, the BHA or rather Beast Hunting Association took it upon themselves to make the mission a single grade higher than the beast zone. This in turn, made the mission more lucrative and stopped weaker teams from accepting the mission.

Their leader—the spear wielder bitterly agreed, "Fine…"

Awooo!

A mighty howl reverberated throughout the forest, followed by countless weaker howls. The noise easily boosted the already eerie atmosphere.

The squad hastily scanned their surroundings to look for the source. Cain who unsheathed his sword shouted, "The elemental beasts are coming to our right!"

Gerard with the gauntlets turned around and saw the beasts' hazy silhouettes through the dark of the night. The one at the back pointed his silver gun towards the closest beast to them, but changed targets the moment she realized what it was.

The light of the moon revealed a slender and small figure covered in beautiful green fur. The light spots around its body and silver antlers accentuated the divine aura it gave off. It tried its best to gallop towards the squad but its bloodied hindleg slowed it down.

Before most of them could react, a shadow lunged at the green deer. The moonlight shone on its streamlined body with white fur, revealing its bloodshot eyes and its wide open mouth that was about to bite the deer. However, before the wolf could bite down, a blazing hot spear pierced through its head pinning it to the ground.

More and more wolves started pouring out of the forest and started encircling them. With nowhere to run to, the deer moved behind them. The deer was not known for its battle prowess, since it had none to begin with. Its true value lay in its ability to turn deserts into forests, or be used as an ingredient for a magical potion that is said to be able to revive someone from the state of near-death.

The Forest's Child was an elemental beast crucial to the survival of a forest, their death would lead to a loss in life energy in the forest. This would cause the wild life to go extinct in a few years time.

As if it was the calm before the storm, the whole forest went silent and only the sound of their breathing could be heard. Gerard and his party started going into formation, while the wolves started encircling them to both intimidate and size them up.

Gerard's eyes moved to make a quick scan of their surroundings, '15... 17... No! There are more than twenty of them in the Energy Condensation State, while a few of them are at the peak'.

The wolves closest to them suddenly growled and bolted towards them. It surprised them but they quickly went back to their senses, one of them even immediately counter-attacked with a fire arrow but the wolf suddenly sped up and the arrow missed. 

The wolf then pounced on Cain, the one who stood closest to Gerard. Cain expected this outcome so he immediately slashed at it with his sword the moment it jumped, but he did not expect it to shoot a blade of wind from its mouth. He dropped his first intention and instead used the momentum of his swing to dodge to the left, he could not completely avoid the attack as it clearly made a shallow cut on his cheek.

After regaining his balance, he swiftly slashed and beheaded another wolf in front of him. Gerard who was behind him frowned as he punched the wolf who attacked Cain before. The impact crushed the wolf's spine, killing it in the process. Gerard swung his fist a second time to punch it back towards the wolf pack.

Their leader suddenly shouted, "Attack!"

A battle of attrition would be bad for them since the wolves greatly outnumbered them while having nearly the same strength as them. Thankfully none of the wolves had the same strength as him. 

Awoo!

The wolves had the same idea and charged forth, attacking them from all sides. 

Gerard and his teammates successfully killed five more but just as they were getting full of themselves, a silver shadow lunged at them and bit their leader's upper half off.

It was a six-foot tall wolf covered in silver fur, with blood on its mouth. The glint in their eyes vanished once they realized what happened, Cain even stepped back.

Whoosh! And just like that, another one bites the dust.

"Aaahhh!"

A wolf suddenly pounced on the distracted Cain, biting his head off in the process. Since they presented themselves like a cake, the wolves could not help but quite literally take a huge bite out of it.

Bang!

Gerard hurriedly smashed the wolf's head with his flaming fists, burning it as it flew away. Once it landed, there was nothing left but a charred carcass. Cain's shout woke up his astonished self but he still couldn't save the rookie.

The silverwind wolf howled, telling the other wolves to simply watch.

Gerard regrouped with his last comrades, Vince and Trixy. 

With a solemn expression, their gazes landed on their biggest foe yet. Gerard turned around to give them one last look, his ink-like eyes somehow turned golden as he cracked a smile, "See you later!"

~It's not that we aren't scared, but we still won't stop~

Time came to a sudden halt as a drop of water slowly fell. As if years had passed, once the droplet touched the soil, everything else moved with greater brilliance.

The large wolf swiftly lunged at Gerard, who immediately counter-attacked. The bright red flames that covered his fists turned yellow like lightning as he poured all the energy he had left and punched.

Bang!

The large wolf was punched onto the air, a hint of intelligence flashed in its eyes as it gazed at the other two behind Gerard. To be exact, he was looking at Trixy who had the gun. 

Light green wisps of energy started to condense near its mouth and turned into a ball.

Awooo!

The wolf howled and the ball of energy blasted forward.

Bang!

~Even if perils should wait ahead, that's something we can't change…~

Gerard tried to kick the wolf down, but he wasn't fast enough. The energy ball flew like a bullet and blasted a hole through Vince and still killed Trixy, proving his sacrifice worthless.

When the wolf dropped down, a hint of mockery flickered in its eyes as it looked at the two, while Gerard already retreated to the deer's side. The fire in his eyes burned even brighter as he condensed each and every last bit of his energy, which even reduced his cultivation to ashes and damaged his energy center.

~A voice speaks to us — our love speaks to us…~

Tap-tap-tap!

A peculiar scene appeared, the yellow flames on his fist continued to rage underneath the falling rain. Gerard didn't seem to care as he literally threw his punch.

Boom!

~It says, ''Go!''~

His fist of fire was so fast that it let the originally untouchable wolf feel fear. It didn't even take half a second before it hit the big target and created a cloud of dust.

Just as he was about to relax, the wolf's figure was revealed. Although a large portion of its fur was burnt, it was still alive and kicking

Gerard could only sigh as the wolf gathered wind energy in its mouth and shot an energy beam towards him. 

Tap-tap-tap! Whoosh!

A figure rushed towards him from the forest and threw a spear bathed in searing hot flames.

Poof!

Just then, time seemed to have slowed down as a blazing spear pierced through the wolf's head and a somewhat short person suddenly flickered in between Gerard and the energy beam.

The teen had pale burning red hair and golden-red eyes, he casually cut the beam with his right hand as he mysteriously smiled at Gerard.

The teen whispered, "Good job surviving this long, now sleep!"

Gerard's vision faded almost instantly but right before the whole world went blank, flames condensed on the tip of the shortie's fingers which burst through the heads of every single wolf in the vicinity.

The wolves whimpered in the background as he fell to the ground but just as he was about to hit it, a hand caught his back and softly laid him on the grass.