18

His buddies body split about that time. Legs falling to the ground limply while the upper part of his chest, and arms fell from the other side. I threw the remnants of his body out of my mouth at the man with one raised arm. The horror on his face was ever so amusing. I flicked my tail around, and ice formed around the tip.

Turning the tip of my tail into a deadly reinforced ice blade before slamming it down on the almost dead man who had been desperately trying to heal himself just enough to survive this entire time. I gripped the helm of the one with broken arms, and ripped it off his head. The armor might reinforce his body while he was wearing it, but it was most effective when the armor was between him, and the attack. With his helmet gone I could grab his head directly. My wings flared as I scanned the direction I was sure they'd come from quickly.

"Do you want to come with Sekka?" I turned my bloodied maw his direction to ask him.

To my surprise he didn't flinch away from me.

"Yeah," he was staring at one of the decapitated corpses, "This armor is nice. If this is what they put on their grunts then I'd like to see what the leader is wearing."

I crushed the head in my grip like a nut. His neck popped loose before I could crush his head completely. Sekka looked slightly nauseated by the display. He didn't lose his dinner over it though. He'd seen things like this before.

At least with the appearance of a beast it was easier for him to stomach. Not that he would have thrown up anyway. Food was a rare, and valuable commodity for a slave kid like him. Whatever you threw up you couldn't get back, and that was that much sooner you would starve to death. My tail wrapped around Sekka's mid section.

Bringing him up onto my back with ease. My scales rose with a bit of irritation at the thought of someone who wasn't mine being on my back, but this was the most trust Sekka had shown me since we'd gotten to this planet so I choked the irritation down. I'd have plenty of assholes to vent that irritation soon enough. My wing beats shook Sekka down to the core as I was taking off. He clung to to the spine in front of him desperately as I climbed through the air.

It felt way too good to spread my wings after so long with them hidden away. Fire flared from my nostrils with each breath as I headed toward the bandits hideout. It wasn't hard for me to find it with my senses focused on the task. I stayed as high as I could without making Sekka short of breath. I spotted their camp easily.

It was three hours off the main road, and hidden under a powerful illusionary barrier. My eyes could see that barrier clearly. I wasn't sure if it had something to do with my divine abilities or something like that. What mattered was I could see through the barrier, and they didn't know that. I circled the encampment from a distance twice.

My wingbeats wouldn't alert the campsite for another round. I tightened my circle around the camp. My mana now easily reached the ground, and we were still far enough away from the camp to not be considered a threat. I forced the trees to grow tightly together. Leaving no gaps as I circled.

Even the lowest gaps were fifteen feet off the ground. My mana stretching down was the first thing that alerted them to the threat that was coming their way. I circled one more time to make sure there were no easy gaps in the makeshift barrier. I then lit this entire barrier on fire. It's time for the fun to begin.

I slammed down on the edge of the camp mopping up the stragglers in the trees. Most of them were the quiet scout types. They preferred bows, and arrows. They weren't much against my scales. The confusion on their faces as the arrows bounced off of me was fun.

Sekka jumped off my back, and moved along the path in the opposite direction as me. He had managed to change into his wolf get up while we were flying. Sekka tossed me my wolf mask as he left. I didn't know when he'd gotten it out of my spatial storage or how far he'd planned ahead for this battle, but we were in a flaming bowl. There was no easy escape.

My spatial awareness allowed me to detect everyone that was trapped within my flaming fence. I kept supplying mana to the flames so that they could leap up even higher then the fence. I snarled as I prowled inward. Releasing a pulse of mana into the ground to check for any hidden tunnels beneath the ground I was walking on. I was glad to find that my worries about the runes reflecting my mana away proved to my largely unfounded.

I did find that the runes didn't work on physical attacks. It only reflected the harmful mana. Physical attacks simply hit me like normal. Magical attacks were reflected off of me for the most part. If the attack was more powerful then the ambient mana then I did feel a drain on my core.

Although I could cut off the mana that went to my scales if I wanted to. I allowed the mana to flow freely to my scales. I had the power to back them up for the time being, and since I had my fox mask I could switch to my human form if I ran low on mana. For now the mana that I used on my time affinity was enough to discourage anyone from approaching me hastily, but those that did approach me were fully aware of how powerful I was. There was no getting underestimated here.