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Show off."

These were the first words that had come out of Ovin's mouth after he had seen what Quinn had done. The others weren't sure what had just happened as the familiar perished before even reaching Quinn.

However, there were a few who had noticed and knew what had happened. Leo, using his ability, was able to sense a short bust of Qi. It wasn't a large amount, but Quinn had shaped it into a sharp arrow, and he had formed it behind his back, similar to how he could control the shadow using the second stage.

Then finally, using the third stage of Qi, it went outward from his body, aiming directly at the familiar's head and killing it in a single blow. A short and powerful blow, an attack invisible to the naked eye.

'This place absorbs all of our Qi, which is why I don't wish to use it too much in a fight.' Leo thought. 'Yet Quinn, he was able to control it so well and easily and wasn't afraid to control the right amount. His Qi control and the amount in his body grow a lot.'

Quinn had felt the drain effect that Leo was thinking about, he knew that the best choice wasn't for them to use Qi while here, but he just wanted to test a few things. How bad it would be if they did use it and his own control over Qi. In the end, there was no telling what enemies they might face, and he could feel something else as well.

Their abilities, including that of his shadow, didn't seem to work perfectly in this place either. It wasn't that they couldn't use their abilities, but almost whatever they did use would escape from their bodies, not allowing it to restore.

'It's quite clear that we don't belong in this world, and it's almost as if the world itself is telling us this as well.' Quinn thought.

It hadn't been long since Quinn had learned the third stage of Qi, but recently he had been thinking about it more and more ever since he had learned of Qi command, as Quinn referred to it. There were many different things that one could do with it, and Quinn had no idea how he would even learn those things. Briefly talking it over with Leo, it seemed he didn't know about it either. The new stages of Qi and more were all a whole new world to him as well.

He had some theories on how they worked but had yet to test out those theories. Either way, Quinn was sure if Leo was unable to figure it out, he wouldn't be able to either.

So instead, he focused on improving what he knew best, and he realised something, his control with the second stage was his best out of the stages of Qi. The best way for him to use Qi was to shape it as he wished. He was so skilled at this because the way to do it was similar to how Quinn used his shadow powers.

The others didn't have time to idolise what Quinn had accomplished because they could tell that an army was heading towards them and would come out of the forest at any second.

"Hey, aren't you two kings as well? Can't you call in your own familiars to fight?" Abdul asked.

"My territory is far from here," Ovin replied. "Although the Horse' is nearest, he is counting on you guys. He doesn't wish to involve his people in this fight and hopes we can solve this ourselves."

Everyone readied themselves for battle, and the first thing that appeared across the forest were more snakes, All of them in different colours and patterns all over. Some heads were different from others, and their tongues were all different shapes and styles.

The sizes of them were vastly different as well. Some were as big as the first pair they had seen, as large as the trees, while others were as small as a grass snake on earth.

Just then, one of them opened its mouth, and a long tongue shot out.

Before it reached the group, Leo came in front and sliced the tongue to not hook anyone. But several snakes hissed, and even more tongues shot towards the group.

Layla had started to do the same with her sword. The familiars didn't seem strong, so there was no need for her to transform, and she thought it was a good chance to improve her sword skills as she watched Leo carefully as well.

As for Owen, he calmly placed a single hand on the ground and started an electric current along the surface. It reached far and wide and caused many of the snakes to perish. Others were frozen for a few seconds, and some were even resilient to his powers as they continued to crawl. His attack was the most effective to get rid of them all in one go because of the range.

"I see you guys will be fine without me. I'll go up ahead and stop more from coming out of the forest!" Quinn shouted as he ran and jumped over the snakes. Once in a while, he would find an open space on the ground and use that to leap again, ignoring most of the smaller snakes until he went off into the forest.

No one was really worried about Quinn, not after what he had done just shown them.

"Why did he just leave us? Is he taking it easy?" Abdul complained as he pulled his bow at the endless amount of snakes.

"No, Quinn cares about us more than anything," Layla replied. "If he left, it means he knows we can handle it."

Abdul wasn't so sure as he could see the number of familiars around them were increasing, and the cat was now back on Leo's head after killing a few snakes.

The fighting continued for a while, and Oscar remained near the horse, refusing to let Samantha fight. She felt awful because more snakes now surrounded them than the others, and she couldn't even fight.

Just then, a sudden large black snake, bigger than the first two they had met when they first entered the forest, came around from the back and got between the two of them. Oscar was already dealing with four giant snakes while Samantha remained on the horse.

Seeing this, Oscar had summoned the bone-like whip and started to hit them, slicing their bodies in half, but these snakes seemed not to be dying no matter how many times they were sliced and cut.

For some reason, Oscar wasn't using his bone-like summoning powers and could only form the weapons in his hands. Eventually, one of the snakes constricted around the box in his arm.

He could see the large snake surrounding the horse, and out of fear of what might happen, he dropped the box allowing the snake to constrict it further. The snake crushed the box within seconds, and out from the box, something popped from the top and landed on the ground.

Oscar jumped up onto the large familiar and ran across its body. Seeing its head up ahead, he threw out its bone-like whip, wrapping it around the familiar's head. As he pulled the whip, the bones on the whip dug into the skin more and more until they went through the giant snake's head, and it burst into particles once again.

Looking at the horse, Oscar wondered if Samantha was okay, but she was nowhere to be seen. But upon looking around, he found Samantha on the surface, walking towards something.

"Thank you for saving me." She said as she walked towards the object on the floor, it was facing the other way, and all she could see was its back. "I know this thing is precious to you. I see you always carry it around, but I always wondered what was inside it…."

That's when she paused for a few seconds; she was close enough to realise it was a human head.

The fighting had mostly stopped around them. It seemed like the familiars quickly realised they were outmatched, as these newcomers hadn't suffered a single scratch. However, the humans and vampires also experienced how much quicker their energy was draining in the Familiar World.

Honestly, they weren't sure how much longer they would have been able to keep fighting the familiars. Leo noticed that even Abdul, who nobody had ever taught on how to use Qi, was using it subconsciously in his attacks, that's why his arrows had more power in them compared to a normal archer. In this case it wasn't a good thing.

The only one that was using next to no Qi at all was Owen.

'That man is certainly special, to be so powerful and have even more power inside him without even realising it.' Leo thought. 'I wonder just how much power he would have if he were to use Qi as well.'

As the fighting started to stop, the tenth family's Vampire Knight thought of something interesting as he walked over to the leader of the Graylash group. Meanwhile, towards the back of the group, Samantha had stopped in her tracks as she looked at something on the ground.

The reason she had stopped was because she could tell by the outline it was a head. During the war, she had seen people's heads get knocked off, splattered and destroyed. It wasn't a pretty sight, but it was something she had grown used to.

The reason Samantha stopped was because she saw no reason why anyone would be carrying around a head of all things. In the end, she decided to walk forward because there was something that was drawing her to the head, but she couldn't quite tell what it was.

Inching closer and closer, there was someone who could see what she was doing. The large figure wanted to scream and tell her to stop as he held out his hands, but no words could be spoken and for some reason, his powers weren't working either.

He tried to order the familiar to move instead, but by then it was too late, as Samantha had already seen what it was, and immediately she went to pick up the head. Normally she wouldn't have picked up the head, but noticing who it was, she felt compelled to. The young woman fell to her knees as she looked at the face.

"I…I…What have I done…" Samantha couldn't hold back her tears, and even then continued to look at the head that even now in this situation smiled at her. The large figure no longer moved and just stood there in place, helplessly listening to the cries of his daughter.

The others, turning around, were unsure what had happened. Leo and Owen somewhat knew, but the others had no clue. They stayed there for a bit out of respect, not saying anything, until Samantha stood up with the head in her hands.

Some would have thought her to ask the large figure why he was carrying around the head, why he had become like this, but Samantha already knew deep down as she walked towards the figure. All of it was because of the request she had made to a certain person. She held the head carefully like a baby and headed towards the armoured figure, before slowly giving him a hug, tears continuing to run down her face, as she sobbed.

Oscar, placed his hands around his daughter trying to give her some warmth, even though it was impossible in this cold body of his.

"I understand now… why you've been looking after me this whole time… I can't believe it. I really can't… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… I was too selfish… Instead of respecting your wish… to allow you to finally rest… I've allowed him to turn you into this… just because I wanted you back… I wanted to see you again… I'm so sorry, father…" She continued to cry.

there were days that went past where samantha was unable to think clearly. she was always worried about the decision she had made, wondering what had become of her father, whether he was okay and each day she had regretted her actions. now seeing him, she felt sorrow but at the same time, even though she knew it was selfish, she felt joy being able to hold him like so.

she didn't know if it was the armour, his touch felt cold, his hands that had no armour felt cold, which was only upsetting her even more and reminding her of what had been done.

those who hadn't known the situation had overheard samantha's cry and somewhat understood what was going on, but still couldn't believe what might have led to these strange circumstances.

'the dullahan, the legendary creature, is a human's father?' sunny thought, observing the situation. 'i wonder how this came to be…and i wonder if quinn knew anything about this.'

while sunny was thinking about her king, large noises seemed to be coming from the forest. everyone turned to look in the direction, and they hadn't noticed, but the noises had been going off quite frequently since they had been fighting.

now the fighting had stopped, they could hear it even clearer. they watched for a few seconds and wondered if they should head inside. it was the direction that they would be going in after all. a few seconds later, they saw a gigantic dark scaled snake with giant horns on the top of its head, and several eyes down its side, lifting its head.

it looked like it was chasing after something in the sky, and it was. the small figure that could be seen was quinn. the snake was enormous, it was by far the biggest familiar they had seen since getting here, something that could be called a titan.

it was hard to tell if it was hurt, for familiars didn't seem to get wounds on their body. their energy would just continue to weaken before they eventually disappeared, but it didn't matter, as the familiar missed quinn and he landed on the top of its head. then, with his hand, he slammed it down as hard as he could.

it was almost a repeat of what they had seen ovin do, only this was a snake that was twenty times the size and looked twenty times as fierce.

"i guess while we were busy here, our king was busy fighting that." sunny commented.

when the snake hit the ground, the whole place shook for a few seconds, and then particles started to spread out just like it would do when any of the other familiars had been killed.

"we should go see quinn." samantha said, wiping away her tears. "me and you can catch up, after this, okay?"

the group was ready to move to where quinn was, even before that, he had already returned to the other's position.

"that was a little harder than i thought. for a second, i thought he was the fourth king."

"hang on, you mean that wasn't one of the four kings?" abdul was shocked. seeing how many snakes there were, he was sure that the leader of this place would have to be here. if it wasn't that giant snake, didn't that mean there was an even bigger one nearby?

"i know what you're thinking, but no, that fatso isn't a snake." ovin commented. "anyway, good job, young kid, with that it looks like you've got the attention of that guy."

it was then that the entire ground started to shake once more, but it wasn't small like it would be when something struck the ground. instead, this was constant and was going on for a long time.

"what is happening?" layla questioned, a bit panicked, as she rushed over to grab onto quinn.

"i wasn't joking when i called him fat." ovin clarified.

off in the distance, they could see that pieces of the mountain were falling, breaking off slowly. suddenly, a large hand broke through, far bigger than any they had ever seen.

"i think he might have gotten fatter." ovin said.

The mountain was huge. It wasn't small by any means, and due to the distance, it was making it even harder for them to comprehend just how big it was, but without a doubt, it was no smaller than those on earth.

Yet they had seen a colossal hand rupture through the mountain. It was moving at an incredibly slow pace for its size. Still, loads of rocks started to roll down the mountain top as the shaking continued underneath everyone's feet.

"That damn fatty, does he not care about the world!" Ovin shouted. "He sleeps in those damn mountains, breaks out of them, and the whole world suffers because of the energy it takes for restoration. It's like he doesn't even care about the energy that is all around us."

Although a lot of them had negative opinions of Ovin, and always found it strange how a fat cat could call others fat, there was one thing they were all sure about. He cared about this place.

"Maybe that's the reason the familiar never contracted anyone because he only cares about himself?" Sunny speculated.

The others were trying to figure out just what was coming out from the mountains, but with only a large strange dark scaled arm to go by, it was nearly impossible. The arm looked human, yet at the same time, it was unlike one.

"Let's not stand around here and head towards the familiar then," Quinn suggested. "We are going to meet him anyway, and it looks like it's going to take him a while to get out of the mountains."

With Quinn making the first move, the rest followed as well. However, Quinn paused for a second as he stared ahead. He noticed that a box that he would usually see with them was no longer there. Oscar was holding onto his head with the creepy smile by his side. He no longer had it in the box that he usually would carry it in.

This meant that Samantha knew who the large figure was without a doubt. As they were making their way through, now Samantha and Oscar were both riding on top of the horse, and they decided to approach Quinn's side.

"I saw the look you gave and the face you pulled back then Quinn," Samantha said. "Your face really shows all your feelings; you're bad at hiding your thoughts."

This was the first time Quinn had heard something like this, but maybe others were too nice to tell him. Was it always obvious what he was feeling on his face? Now he was starting to become somewhat self-conscious.

"I know you know something; what happened to my father and maybe even about the person who took him away at that time. I won't question you about it now, but it would be best if you tell me all about it when we get back."

Quinn nodded because he also knew it wasn't the right time, but Oscar's actions were strange. From what he could remember, Oscar should have had no memories of what had happened, at least when he asked him that was the case, so why did he remember Samantha and protect her?

Perhaps they would find out the answers to these questions later on. Going through the forest, it looked like there were still many familiars, and not all were snakes, but they were all making way for the group, or maybe they were heading back to the mountain area.

"If that familiar always sleeps in this condition, how is he starting wars from up there?" Abdul asked.

"They pray to the mountain, and he answers them, I guess," Ovin said. "Honestly, I try not to mess with the other's business, but maybe he gets familiars to just sacrifice themselves to him by jumping into the top like a volcano."

It was clear that Ovin didn't like this man, but it still didn't stop Abdul from asking his next question.

"So, I was just wondering, out of all the familiars, which one of you is the strongest? I don't mean with your followers, etcetera... but on an individual basis."

Everyone glanced at Abdul for a moment as they continued to run forward. They couldn't believe that he was asking such a question at a time like this. Of course, they all had the same thought on their mind, but it just felt like asking such a thing was, well, rude.

"Do you think we had a big tournament and fought each other to determine that type of stuff?" Ovin complained. "We aren't as stupid as you humans... although, he could be."

The mountain rocks continued to fall, and finally, a second hand came out. The group was about halfway through when they realised that whatever it was, it was really slow but made up for it in size.

"Ovinick, Dunluck! I see you have personally come here!" A loud voice boomed, making the whole ground tremble.

It was unclear if the voice came from the mountain, under the ground, or was directly transmitted into their heads.

"Genbu! Look what you are doing, how many familiars have you taken out? Are you doing this just because you are jealous?!" Ovin yelled back.

They soon reached the foot of the mountain and now could just see how huge it was. However, the familiar still hadn't come out from the mountain top.

"Jealous of you who abandoned this place? I am the one who cares about this place the most, which is why I always remain here; I even sleep in this world!" Genbu, the familiar king, shouted.

"Step back!" Leo shouted. He could sense a rise in energy coming from the mountain through his vision. So far, he had felt only energy in the arms that he could see, but now he sensed the whole figure gathering energy inside.

With Leo moving away, the others did too, and they ran back through the trees to the mountain on the other side.

Although Leo could feel the energy and was frightened, it still looked like the familiar hadn't broken out yet, even after ten minutes as they arrived at the base of the other mountain.

"What the hell? You got me scared and panicked for no reason!" Abdul's complexion scrunched. He wasn't like the others; it was incredibly tiring for him every time he ran. He didn't have any special attributes like lighting foot technique. He did have the power of the wind that allowed him to somewhat keep up with the others, but it was very tiring for him.

"Ah, screw this, just come out!" Abdul shouted as he drew his bow and fired it towards the mountain. The others didn't see any arrow leave but knew he had launched the attack, and the next second, the whole mountain top crumbled as the familiar broke through it all. He appeared like a devastating massive monster.

The rocks fell from the creature, and that's when it fell on its stomach. The familiar could not stand upright on its back legs, and now with the destroyed mountain, it could no longer keep itself upright as it started to fall.

The others were a little afraid that it might flatten them, but Ovin looked calm, as he knew they were in the right spot not to get hurt. The familiar crashed into the ground, destroying all the trees and forest below him.

And now its head, almost the size of a blip, was staring at the group in front of him.

"This is the familiar!" Abdul said, looking at its eyes. From a little further back, one could see its whole body. It had large back scales on its arms and legs, its small tail sticking out of the back, and its long neck with a head-on top was in their direction. But, the most standout feature of the creature was the purple shell it had on its entire body.

'It's a turtle!' Everyone.

"You have made the wrong choice coming here. Now all of you must leave this world. I will continue to protect and be the guardian of the familiar world as its only king!" Genbu clamoured.