Chapter 14: Mana beast.

Late in the night, at about nine pm, the shadowy silhouette of a person could be seen dashing through the forest.

The shadowy figure was quite hastily making his way through the forest, he seemed to be in a hurry.

'sh*t! I can't believe I wasted so much time here!' Levi thought to himself. He was currently running at top speeds back to the Swordhearth manor.

*A FEW MINUTES AGO*

Levi woke up from his confrontation with his own aether and looked up to discover the brilliant moon lighting up the night sky.

'holy sh*t! Don't tell me...' Levi thought. His thoughts were soon interrupted by the voice of his partner, Grim.

'Levi! You're back! What happened....for some reason I lost contact with you all of a sudden'. Grim asked.

'what! You tell me!...no, scratch that I need to get back home now!' Levi said to himself.

He got up from the ground and quickly recalled his position. He turned towards the direction of the mansion and began running towards it at full speed.

Even though his parents didn't care about him, his mother at least would always look for an excuse to punish him. And in the Swordhearth family, missing curfew was punishable by a subtraction in the monthly allowance, and Levi couldn't have that.

—––

Levi was moving quickly, but he still maintained some sense of caution. His senses were on high alert as he made his way through the woods.

The forest was a woodland, and as such it had no lack of trees. The trees obstructud Levi's sprint as he either ran into one, or narrowly dodged but got pricked by a stray branch. This ticked him and apparently, he had had enough as he suddenly stopped running.

'i'll be able to cover more ground quicker and less painfully if I use the trees'. Levi thought while looking up. He ran towards a relatively small tree and jumped upwards.

"Hup". He said as he landed on the lowest branch. He quickly balanced himself and turned his attention to the next tree.

'wow. It actually worked! I thought it was only possible in that anime about Shinobi!' Levi exclaimed inwardly.

'well...should have expected it, after all this IS a fantasy world and my body feels a lot more fit than this....probably all thanks to my new aether core.' Levi thought as he clenched and unclenched his fists. He had accurately deduced the cause of his power up.

It turned out that traveling on trees was a more efficient mode of travel. He was above ground and away from the reach of ground predators and the thick leaves of the trees protected him from aerial predators, it was also faster than travelling on ground.

At first, he had problems balancing on the branches, but he managed to get the hang of it in a few minutes after a few tries, most of which ended in pathetic failure.

He was now swiftly traveling on trees. If he continued this way, he would end up outside the forest in a few more minutes.

All of his concentration was focused on the task ahead but he couldn't help but notice from the corner of his eyes how a dark figure had dashed from one bush to another.

"Eh". He said out as he turned his neck towards the location of the stalker. Unfortunately for him he had just taken another jump, but the appearance of the dark figure caused his focus to wane and he screwed up the landing.

He had learnt how to move on trees, but only just recently so it wasn't yet a feat which he could achieve without focus. His leg missed the drop zone and he immediately felt himself falling.

'shit!'. He thought as he fell from the tree and straight to the ground. Unfortunately for him, the tree which he fell off of was among the taller ones, so his fall was going to be anything cute.

He fell down and in the span of a few seconds, he suddenly stopped.

He had closed his eyes and braced himself for the fall, but the impact he felt didn't quite live up to expectations.

The 'ground' he fell on was quite...soft, it was almost as comfortable as his bed at home. Almost.

"Huh? What's this..". Levi said as he turned to look at what cushioned his fall. He saw a red coloured 'grass' with streaks of white, but upon further inspection, he discovered that the 'grass' was actually fur.

'that would explain it's soft feel' Levi observed and Grim concurred with a mind-nod.

'but fur....that means.....this isn't a rock or the ground! It's a living thing!' Levi deduced and quickly attempted to get up, but alas it was too late.

The creature on top of which he stood, had been awoken. The creature slowly got up to reveal it's massive self.

Standing at a height of about eight feet, was an enormous bear like beast. The beast was the size of a small house and had menacing razor sharp teeth and claws. It's muscles were extremely thick and powerful and it's blood red eyes glowed in the darkness of the night, the figure alone could give a grown man nightmares.

The beast stood up on all fours and let out a loud roar.

"ROAAAR!!" The sound alone shook the very forest, causing a few creatures to evacuate their homes in fear of the bear creature's might.

'a mana beast'. Grim said to Levi.

'yeah, tell me something I don't know'. Levi retorted.

Mana beasts were actually just animals who had become aware of the existence of mana. They were capable of using the mana from their mana cores, they also had set mana pools and affinities and also a semblance of intelligence, according to the text books.

Humans had a tendency for these kinds of things so they divided the mana beasts into ranks, ranging from E to S who were relative in power to mages within their ranks. Mana beasts could either be found in the beast glades, or dungeons, they were also a few sightings if them in forests like this one so it wasn't much of a suprise.

They were also reported to have a deep hatred towards humans for reasons unknown.

'unfortunately I can't. I am only knowledgeable about mana, aether and shadow magic. Mostly the last two.' Grim replied

"Dude..I didn't mean it literally....just...don't worry about it". Levi said as he diverted his attention back to what was going on.

The platform he was on had suddenly become elevated, he didn't need someone to tell him just what kind of trouble he was in. He was in some really deep sh*t.

*Crunch*

A crunching sound was heard as the beast's neck somehow made a 360° turn. The beast's face was now directly facing Levi who was frozen in place, shocked to the core. The beast roared loudly.

"Roooooar!!" The roar echoed through the forest.

As a result of the roar's loudness, Levi snapped out of his stupor and refocused himself, he needed to somehow get away.

Hejumped backwards from on top of the creature a few times, and by the third, he was perched on top of a branch a few meters away from the menacing monster.

The creature turned it's entire self to face Levi who was by now sweating buckets and roared at him before advancing towards him.

Levi turned backwards and jumped a few more times in a nigh useless attempt to get some distance away from the bear like monster, but the beast just continued advancing slowly towards Levi..

Levi tried to jump back again but unfortunately for him, he tripped on his feet and fell....again. He fell from the tree and his back hit the ground kicking up quite some dust.

"Ugh..." Levi groaned as he was hurt. His mouth was bleeding a bit and his entire body was in pain. The pain would have been too much for a normal twelve year old, but Levi was not so normal.

Due to the sheer number of times he had experienced serious amounts of pain in the last few days, his resistance to such had increased by quite alot. He could now endure things like this quite easily, only letting a stray groan escape his bleeding mouth.

He dragged himself to sit up and lifted his head, only to see that the beast was now directly in front of him. Levi started thinking, there was no time for fear, he needed an escape plan and quickly.

Levi recalled his battle with the giant ball of aether, a particular technique which the ball spammed continuously that time. Aether burst.

Levi recalled that it involved passing the aether to the tip of the exterior, allowing it to hover around the caster for some time before forcefully pushing it out to create a powerful Omnidirectional wave of pure power.

'i am not sure I can use it yet....oh f*ck that! It's either this or death.' Levi concluded. He was very quick and mature in decision making.

Levi concentrated and passed aether into his mana veins. He knew that the pain was going to be hellish but he grit his teeth and endured it. The bear like mana beast tilted it's head as it wondered what Levi was up to.

The thing could easily sense that Levi posed no threat whatsoever to it's existence, so it just watched on almost amusedly. To it, Levi looked like he was holding in a shit.

Levi noticed the condescending look on the bear's face and for even more pissed off.

'no way in hell am I letting even an animal look down on me, I don't give a damn if you can use mana!'. He thought as he charged up his attack, forcing much more aether through his mana veins.

The pain resulting from this could possibly kill a normal twelve year old, but Levi was anything but one. The dude was slowly turning into a masochist.

The aether gathered to his mana pores, some of which even managing to leak out from him.

'this should do....chew on this, bastard!' he thought.

"Aether burst!!" Levi shouted out. The aether forcibly left his body forming a powerful wave of energy that shook a few tree and even uprooted a few shrubs.

Upon contact with the aether wave, the mana beast was pushed back a little. The sudden burst of power had definitely shocked it, but the force of the attack was only so irrelevant the thing literally shrugged it off with a grunt.

Levi looked at the mana beast that was currently completely unharmed with a stupified expression.

'couldn't you at least pretend to be hurt?' Levi asked inwardly.

The beast looked at Levi with a raised brow, as if it was asking him, "is that it?"

Apparently, the thing was expecting so much more out of the unusual twelve year old.

'.....guess not. Grim!' Levi called out to his partner.

'i have no information on the species, and you haven't yet learnt any self defense spells yet. I also can't affect the physical world yet so the only option is to either run or pray for a miracle. Both are highly impractical options though'. Grim reasoned.

'you know...I kinda get the feel that you aren't taking all of this seriously. Don't you wonder what would happen to you if I died?' Levi asked.

'oh it's nothing much. If you did, then I'll probably still be alive since the book is indestructible. But I really don't fancy the idea of having to wait another thousand years for the emergence of a new successor, using my own life force and reducing myself to such a pitiful state......' Grim's voice trailed off as he suddenly realized the gravity of the situation. Both his and Levi's lives were in mortal danger.

'for someone that's so knowledgeable about aether, you are quite slow on the uptake'. Levi said.

'hey don't judge me!!' Grim complained.

"Roooar!!" A powerful roar brought Levi back to reality. It was a conversation using their thoughts, so it actually lasted only a few short seconds.

Levi looked sideways to determine his escape routes, but the bear's overly large body threatened to put an immediate stop to any of Levi's escape plans. The enormous beast raised it's left arm and death loomed over Levi's figure.

It was it's turn to attack.

AN:

Special thanks once again to the following people;

1) Halis_eren_balaban.

2)spirit_king

3)Aerios

Thanks you guys, appreciate ur power stones and reviews, especially you Halis_eren_balaban as you've been supporting me from d beginning. Once again, thank y'all for your contributions!!