Chapter 31: Biding Time

The group was awoken by Alex the next morning. He, had last watch.

Alex really didn't mind having last watch, as he only needed a few hours of rest anyway.

The only downside was that he couldn't cultivate while keeping watch. It took too much concentration.

The rest awoke and Alex climbed down to make breakfast.

By the time that the rest made it down, he had finished roasting some vegetables he had packed for breakfast.

After eating the light meal, they checked the map and made a plan for the day. They left shorty after.

Only a few hours later, they found their prey.

Sun bathing on a large rock outcropping was a twelve foot long reptile.

They almost missed it!

Its, gray and brown hide looked almost identical to the rock it laid on.

This beast of a creature would easily weigh close to half a ton. It's thick, stone like, hide was very intimidating.

After spotting the creature, the group cautiously made their way back away from the slumbering beast.

"How? In the ever loving hell! Are we, supposed to even hurt that? Let alone, kill it!" Tom hissed through clenched teeth when they were far enough away.

Alex looked at each of them, including the companions, and then turned to Red. "Can you do it?"

Seeming to understand his intent, "That would depend on Just how hard these baby's hit." He said as he brushed his bandoleer of throwing knives. Each knife had runes carved into its surface.

"Trust me, they hit plenty hard." As he said this he turned back to the others and began discussing his plan.

Thirty minutes later they approached the rocky outcropping again.

Alex confidently stepped out of the trees and approached the beast. The others were spread out among the trees. Encircling the beast, and waiting for their turn.

Sensing a disturbance, the lumbering beast raised his massive head and looked at Alex.

Seeing a large man with an gigantic axe, the salamander began to growl as it stood.

The beast closely eyed Alex. It felt the aura coming off the man. It was pitifully weak. Nearly a normal creature.

The beast seemed to huff in mirth, before putting its head back down to sleep.

"Oh no. You wont be sleeping just yet." After saying so, Alex quickly took three powerful strides and jumped.

The beast saw him jump, but it was very confident in its hide. It knew, even as simple as it was, that it would take more than a man swinging an axe to break its defense.

Alex's jump placed him in front of the beast, he was already above the beasts head, but it didn't seem to care.

It was simply too lazy to deal with this insect.

Qi thrummed through Alex's arms as he brought his axe down on the beasts head. It carried his full weight behind it.

The sound of rocks cracking, followed by a crazed roar rang out through the woods.

The siege breaker axe had lived up to its name. As it laid siege to the salamanders tough hide and thick skull.

Alex had severely injured the beast. But his axe had become lodged in its skull.

Alex quickly tried to jump back off of the outcropping, but he underestimated the speed of this salamander.

Before he could make some distance, a large rocky tail careened towards his chest. If it hit unimpeded it could crush his chest.

At the last second Alex crossed his arms before his chest. Then he was launched from the outcropping and into the soft ground at the base of the trees near where the companion animals were hiding.

Alex was not sure what having his arms ripped off would feel like, but he thought it might be preferable. The bones in his arms felt like they were vibrating, they should have broken.

If he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have wondered why they were still in one piece.

The beast, roared loudly once more before spitting a large glob of molten stone at Alex.

An icicle shot through the air above the trees. It hit the glob and froze it solid. But it still continued on.

Before it could kill Alex, Eluril rolled out of the forest and sprung up with her back to the now frozen glob.

I loud metallic ping sounded as it shattered across her scales.

Irritated, the salamander launched a second glob at Alex. Determined to keep this strangely strong man at a distance.

This time, the glob exploded in its face as a quill intercepted it and exploded.

Penny, was no more than ten feet to Alex's left.

For the next four globs, Sylph and Penny took turns intercepting them. Any remnants would harmlessly bounce off of Eluril's scales before they could endanger Alex's, still prone, figure.

Alex was getting tired of helping this creature with target practice. "Any time now, Eveline!"

No sooner than he said this, a bolt of lighting stuck the wounded area on the creatures head, small flecks of stone like skin scattered with the blast. The wound on it's head was widening.

This attack, did less damage than Alex's initial full powered swing, but it did irritate it enough to make it focus on someone other than Alex.

Not to mention the fact that bolt after bolt were striking the same spot. The salamander was being beaten into passivity by these attacks that came every other second.

So far, with the exception of Alex's injury, things were going to plan. Eveline was attacking from the cover of the trees, and Tom was guarding her.

Penny, Eluril and Sylph were backing them up and protecting Alex. Now all that was left, was for Red to make his appearance.

Red finally made his move. He had been sneaking up from the right side, in the salamanders blind spot.

Once he had a clear shot at the beasts wounded head his, newly gloved, hands pulled two throwing knives from his bandoleer. As they slid free they began to glow with a faint blue light. Just like his gloves.

As Red threw the blades, the runes on the knives were already glowing brilliantly.

Two loud clangs resounded. The sound was very odd for the small size and weight of the knives. It sounded like two pick axes striking stone. Rather than two light throwing knives.

The first knife lodged in a crack near Alex's embedded weapon. This crack had been widened by the constant barrage of lightning bolts.

The second, bounced off the creatures neck and stabbed into the dirt underneath it's bulky frame.

Red cursed as he saw the second knife miss it's target. He didn't dwell on it long, he had better things to worry about.

"Keep that thing busy for a bit. I am going to Alex." Red yelled to the others.

In response, another lightning bolt crashed into the back of the salamander. It did no damage at all, but it kept the beast's attention.

When Red got to Alex, the latter was busy trying to use his qi to help stabilize his injured arms. Eluril had told him how do this.

Honestly, it wasn't any different than his normal training, just pouring qi into his arm bones.

"Well you look better than I had hoped." Red remarked as he took out some herbs from his pack and began spreading their juice on Alex's forearms.

These herbs were failed projects from Jarilo's green house. Jarilo had supplied Red with them right before they left yesterday.

They would not heal the wound directly, but they would help start the mending process, and speed it up.

After a few curse words, Alex thanked Red. "I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for Eluril." He said as he watched her, Penny and Sylph help keep the beast busy.

Red looked at Eluril. She was currently tanking hits from the beast's globs of molten stone. He was honestly surprised that she could simply take hits like that and be fine.

"Remind me not to piss her off." Red remarked as he watched Eluril slice a frozen glob in two with her claws.

This drew a laugh from Alex. It was followed by more curing and pain.

Currently, there was a deadlock.

Eveline's enchantments kept the beast at bay, but it could still fire globes of molten stone at them.

Luckily, Tom, Sylph and Eluril were every well equipped for this. Even though Eluril took the brunt of the impacts, Tom was always there to sub in when she was not ready in time.

"Looks like they are doing fine for now." Red was still watching the fight intently. "How long do you think they will take?"

"Don't know each knife should be slightly different." Alex responded. Right after the words left his mouth a thundering explosion rent the air.

It was the knife stuck into the beasts head.

It had been absorbing mana this whole time, until it finally couldn't contain it. Causing an explosion, so large, that it knocked the beast onto it's stomach.

The beast was stunned, blood poured down from its head, but it was still alive. Shaking it's head it made to stand again. That is until another explosion occurred.

The second explosion was felt through the ground, rather than being seen. Alex looked askance at Red.

Red thought for a moment and laughed, "Looks like luck was on our side."

The salamander simply slouched on the outcropping, it's head hung limply from the edge.

Everyone checked on Alex's condition as soon as the fight had ended.

"Damn man! You are harder to kill than a cockroach!" Tom was honestly stunned. He thought for sure that Alex had at least been maimed, if not killed, by that blow when he saw it land.

Eveline looked thoughtfully at Eluril. "Looks like you got the benefit of her great defense." Everyone quickly agreed.

It was common for spirit contractors to gain some of the attributes of their companions. Though this was a believable excuse, they hand no idea how wrong it was.

Even Alex seemed to chalk it up to a benefit from Eluril, at least in part.

They eventually maid their way to the beast body. It took all of them to roll it onto its back. Exposing a gruesome scene.

Right where it's heart should have been, there was now a gaping, bloody hole.

This was caused by the second throwing knife. The one that had bounced off of its neck.

It had been buried under the salamanders bulk. Effectively, forcing the explosion to either break through the rock, or its body.

In the end, it's body gave out first.

The knives were an ingenious invention that Alex had come up with.

The enchantment had two main parts.

The first part was on the knifes. It was composed of a proximity rune, coupled with a large mana gathering rune and a large mana storage rune.

The second part was on Reds gloves. This was a second proximity rune.

As soon as the knives were brought close enough to the gloves, the proximity runes would trigger. This would in turn activate the mana gathering rune on the knife.

This may sound like a useless enchantment. In fact, the other three had originally thought exactly that. That was until Alex reminded them of two simple laws of nature.

Simply put, no material could hold an infinite amount of mana. It would eventually fail. Catastrophically. Also, energy, including mana, was equivalent to mass.

This meant that as soon as the knives started to gather mana, they began to grow in weight. Making them impact much harder than they should normally, and making it likely that they would be stuck inside the target. Where they would eventually explode.

"Next time, can we not rely on luck?" Eveline asked, slightly annoyed.

She had been forced to cast enchantment after enchantment. This would have cost any other enchanter a fortune.

"Don't be so upset." Alex said as he waved her off.

He knew that Teresa provided most of the expensive materials she had been using so far.

"At least you are in once piece." He said, as he held out his bruised and battered forearms. He had yet to clean off the blood or wrap the wounds in bandages.

It took a couple of hours to skin the beast and pack it all away. Now they all would be carrying large packs with them.

Right as Alex and the others sat down to rest, a loud clapping sound rang out behind them. A greasy haired man walked out of the woods, with a group in tow.

"Bravo." His sarcastic tone and sleazy grin spoke of bad things to come.