Chapter 11 - In my Palm

''Hey! You bunch of stupid lizards!'' I screamed at the group of monsters, who looked at me with curiosity and hunger, not even an ounce of worry getting into their miniscule brains.

''I, the great Ignis Ketzer, will transform you into ash, with ashes! Mouahaha!''

…

Short moment of silence passed, with the leader looking at me with interest.

''Sho.''

''''GHOGHOGHO!!!'''' The silence was soon broken by the cacophony that all of the baby monsters made while they were running toward me with saliva in their mouths, ready to devour me whole.

''I see that you're all hungry. Well then, feast on this!''

From behind a hill, a giant ash ball appeared. I had taken a lot of them to make this, so much that I had regained my infant size, but the investment was good. With all of these preys, I will quickly regain my previous power! The ball was quite massive, and when I would drop it on all of the baby lizards, they would quickly carbonize!

But as I was throwing my magic at the horde, the teenager quickly reacted and prepared a fireball to stop it, the kid doing the same, but with a smaller one. I needed to stop them. Or else I would be outnumbered… or maybe I can let them hit it…

The oldest finally finished charging his fire and immediately spat on the ash, the junior immediately following, which immediately made the ball explode. The explosion made the baby lizards scream with excitement, and some of them were looking at me with a devious grin. But bad luck for them, I was grinning too.

The junior immediately started to run toward me again, with way more excitement than before, but they suddenly stopped, crying out of pain. It was a normal reaction; after all, my ashes just fell on them. My ash doesn't disappear when you make them explode, they will simply rain on the unfortunate fool that is coming toward me. Such an honor to be burned by me, but what can I say, I'm awesome.

Still don't understand the point of these exercises, what complimenting myself is supposed to do? This is not the time to think about this.

The teenage lizard reacted when he sensed that something was wrong with his subordinate. He looked at me with a pensive expression before jumping straight at me. His jaw was wide open, but I could see some fire being formed inside his mouth, just waiting for the opportunity to spit it at me. But I immediately formed my whips and slashed it at the direction of his eye.

The monster evaded the attack at the last second by deviating his head to the side, while I didn't manage to cut his only eye, I did manage to throw him off course.

Bam

The monster crashed just at the side of me, and I wanted to take this opportunity to slash him even more on his belly.

Whoosh

But sadly, his subordinate has taken his defense and was throwing their own fireball at me. I was obliged to dodge them, so I jumped laterally to my left and was forming another ash ball to counterattack them. I threw it at the junior closest to me, but he evaded it by jumping up. However, I controlled my ball to go up with him, striking him directly on his belly, making him scream out of pain. Sadly, he was still alive.

''SHO!''

Ah! I totally forgot about him.

The adolescent was already up and was preparing to hit me with his tail. I barely managed to avoid it by throwing myself to the ground. I tried to stand up as fast as I could, but it wasn't fast enough because fire saliva was already being thrown at me by the child. One of them was even advancing rapidly toward me. I wouldn't be able to move in time to dodge the attack, then take my breath attack!

I directed my magic right in front of me, but they all escaped from the attack, except for the one that was running toward me, who got completely covered by the ashes. Seeing that he was the only one that got touched, I decided to control my cloud of ash and reassemble it to make a ball that would contain the body of the victim.

The lizard tried to unleash himself while screaming, but he was soon shut down by ashes entering his respiratory system.

''One down, just five more to go.''

The leader didn't take kindly to the death of his subordinate and tried to avenge him by gulping me down in one shot while I was distracted. But too bad for him, I wasn't, which made me able to jump over him, but I still gave him something to gobble up, my ash ball.

I manipulated it to go directly into his mouth that was wide open, but he reacted quickly enough by closing his mouth, but it still badly burned him on his mouth. So he retreated once again with his subordinate. Now all of them were looking at me warily.

But instead of fleeing, they all widely opened their mouths and were charging their flame.

Oh, I better prepare something too, I know, let's take the ashes from the baby monster first.

I used my magic where the numerous monsters died from my first attack, then I took all the ashes that were there to prepare my own magic. But instead of making a ball or a breath like usual, I made something special, something that my little sister Oceana taught me existed a lot in her kingdom, they call it… A wave.

An immense wave made entirely of ash was formed in front of me. I let it take a lot of volume and then, I threw it at them.

Good timing because the monster also finished their preparation, and an immense fireball was spat out by the oldest, and the kid launched their own flame at it, making it gain a lot of volume. The attack was aiming at my wave of ash, trying to make it explode, and then, they finally hit.

BOOM

The wave was completely destroyed, the fireball was able to destroy it with an explosion, but the fire was also extinguished. So neither side was able to touch each other. That's why the monsters were already preparing another attack until they suddenly stopped.

Because, nobody was on the other side, it seemed to them that I simply vanished.

''Sho?''

''Gro.''

They were looking around them, looking for me, but found nothing.

''SHO!''

The leader was looking quite angry, probably thinking that I ran away or something.

''Do you have difficulty finding me?'' I asked them.

The monsters immediately formed a combat position, ready to attack me… but they still found no one. They started to get confused, where could I possibly be?

''You poor fools, I am not hidden.'' I started grinning. ''I am in front of you.''

Immediately after I finished my word, the ash that was scattered by the fireball reassembled together once more, but instead of forming a wave, it formed an imp, a giant imp made completely out of ash. I measured at least 3 meters in this form, which was gigantic for the 1-meter lizard.

''What? Why aren't you attacking, I'm right there after all.'' I mocked the lizards that were all looking at me with a serious expression. But I looked at them with glee.

I didn't waste my breath more on them and formed one gigantic whip that I immediately held with my left arm and swung it at them. They tried to form their own attack, but my whip was faster and immediately cut a lizard in two with one hit.

The leader decided to rush into me, trying to make me fall, but I simply kicked him which made him fly until he crashed on a rock. I followed this kick with a slash from my whip, then another, then another. I continued to make him scream until I received a light flame in my eye making it explode.

Tch, I'm going to regenerate that it seems.

I regenerated it and started to look at who attacked me.

It was simply one of his subordinates, and it seemed that the other already did some damage to me when I was distracted tormenting their leader.

These sneaky cowards, they dare to use the fact that I can't feel anything to attack me in silence. I will show them what happens to fools!

I brandished my whip and assaulted them with hits, slashing one in two, pulverizing the other one, and mutilating the third. I was ready to kill the last one, but a roar made me stop and look in the other direction where the leader seemed to be rushing toward me again, preparing yet another fireball.

''Sho!''

''Pff, your fire is ugly, I don't want it!''

I slashed at him, but he did a vertical step to avoid it, then launched his fire at me. I blocked the hit with my arm, but it made it completely explode. The monster utilized this occasion to jump toward me, but I surprised him by catching him with the hand that just exploded. He seemed surprised by that and couldn't escape from my palm.

He tried to liberate himself, but I calmly utilized my other arm to totally engulf him, making him slowly suffocate in the heat of my ashes.

''Sho…oo…o…''

After one minute, I reopened my hand, just to see the ash of the leader, which was expected, and a strange jewel, which was not expected.