Chapter 59 - Curious

Third Person’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

His Majesty took one look at the group and settled on one individual then another. “I would like the avian boy and the panther girl to fight my warriors.”

The group was surprised by his majesty’s choice, but as they were long mentally prepared, they had no qualms of the matter and accepted it.

“Icarus, Lila, do you accept the challenge?” asked Lana, of course, permission is of utmost importance in a formal setting such as this one, hence Lana’s concern of asking them.

“I accept Master Lana.” said Lila.

“Yes Master Lana.” said Icarus, as both bowed lightly in respect before standing up straight.

“Very good, now begin preparations.” said Ulysses, the group dispersed to the edges of the field, all nine of them have a role assigned as they will be in a formation to make a barrier, this was a proposition introduced by Ken -again- with the purpose of keeping all the excess energy inside, and the spells from rampaging the surrounding trees.

Except for the spells, the energies left by each spells will be converted by Ken into the world’s energies that will be expended to grow energy recycling plants, this new experiment was created by Ken after he had learned how to convert excess energy of spells to be used again, kind of like adding a new species of a plant but still related to those around it.

Regarding how to measure out the energies exuded by these plants will be a topic for another day, cause for now, the battle will start. Icarus will be the opponent of the General Lion warrior, while Lila will be the opponent of the Judiciary Lion warrior.

The barrier had already been set up by the students situated evenly at the side of the field, as the focal points for maintaining the barrier, this method was introduced to let the people inside not hesitate to go all out without damaging the surroundings.

As Ken had deducted, magical beasts are more prone to using wide area of effect spells instead of single targets, just like him, but not really like him, just that there’s a similarity.

Those who are classified as warriors do focus on single target spells and techniques, but he still wonders what it would be like if he combined both concept into one, bet it would be a disaster.

Two of the Masters namely Ulysses and Lana, are to be the arbiter for the two battles while Klein is with his Majesty. The group is allowed to bring their weapons into battle despite it being an advantage against the animal beasts for the extra safety in distance.

But having them up against adult warriors is kind of a bit hard core, so giving them the permission to use weapons is a good safety measure, they hope it would be. Both battles will be melee combat, wonder how they’ll settle it, Ken thought, as he made the final touches of separating both parties into two areas.

Icarus made the first move by charging forth and swing his sword horizontally to slice the head of the lion warrior, but was blocked by its claws making Icarus jump back creating distance, good thing he remembered to always keep distance when planning for his next move.

“Come on kid, I think you can do better than that.” said the lion warrior while feigning yawning. Icarus with a hard face gripped his sword tight and ignited it with his flames, ‘Flame Magic: Searing Flames’, one of his basic spells that coats either his fists or weapons in fire.

He went to swing again and this time the warrior dodged the swings so as not to get burned while he prepare a defensive spell, earth guard, after it finished preparing he counter attacked by parrying the boy’s swings, and the two continued trading attacks, blocking, swinging, blocking, and dodging by any means.

“Flame Magic: Soaring Torrents!” Chanted Icarus as a circular pillar of flame erupted at the location where the lion warrior was at. Fortunately, with the defensive spell still active the lion warrior suffered minimal damage.

The Lion lunged at the unsuspecting boy who thought that he had won just as the spell was still raging, pressing the boy to the ground. Using his flaming sword as shield from the claws grazing his face, Icarus pushed of the Lion warrior and rolled back to catch his footing.

The two clashed again in swords and claws, but this time, the lion warrior copied his spell by coating his claws in hardened earth for extra firepower, and did another spell that let him conjure earth spikes towards Icarus.

Icarus dodged the spell by jumping backwards, and just as he landed an earth pillar rose from the ground hitting him square on the stomach flinging him upwards.

He landed again only to be assaulted by the pillars, but this time he was quick to dodge as three pillars simultaneously popped up from the ground to impale or hit him.

He jumped to a diagonally aligned pillar thinking it was safe since the spell only targeted him on the ground, little did he know that the earth pillar was also just raised earth having strengthened constitution, and still under control of the lion warrior.

Without a second to spare the lion warrior surged up an earth spear on top of the earth pillar, wounding Icarus on his left leg.

Icarus jump up and sprung out his red hot wings, and used the fire to heal his bleeding leg, and in no time the wound was gone, but the long trace was still there on the combat pants he was wearing.

Sweat rolled down his face, his facial features contorted in pain with the fast pace of the healing.

He dived down charging at the Lion, “Flame Magic: Flaming Charge”, a single direction spell that projects him towards a direction coated by burning hot flames pushing the lion warrior, he ascended to the air before landing and scorching the earth around him.

Icarus retracted his wings but made the flames burning around him turn into a red colored armor that matched his burning sword.

The lion conjured another defensive spell that made his skin look stronger and harder as the two resumed fighting in melee combat, both disregarding spells and using their mana to maintain their buffs.

On the other battle was fairly similar to the former, only this has one side flinging spells after spells of earth magic, while the other dodged through smokes of white, and occasionally popping out on every angle just to get a hit.

Lila kept moving on her toes as she noticed that not only is this lion warrior indescribably good at using earth magic, they are also able to manipulate the earth around them with just their will and thought.

Her every dash and step has a follow up to move at every other direction in order to avoid those earth spikes.

She could not believe how stupidly absurd these lions are with earth magic, not to mention their seemingly impregnable defense, for every time she takes the offensive, the judiciary lion is able to defend well, even his blind spots.

Lila grit her teeth as she’s beginning to sustain damage from trying to fight back, ‘Shadow Magic: Cloud Zone’ an area of effect spell that covers a certain zone in dense fog which enhances her abilities making her move faster.

She began to hit hard at her opponent at every given chance, and she’s beginning to see the result as every earth shield seems to chunk away from her barrage of daggers, coupled with the fog’s cover, making her attacks even more unpredictable.

Suddenly she felt something ominous coming, and right before she had lunged at an earth shield she backed away just in time as the shield exploded into sharp needles unto its surroundings but not hitting the caster.

“Impressive child, I didn’t think that I would be cornered like this, now it’s my turn.” said the Judiciary Lion warrior, as he pounded on the ground creating large spikes around it and a line of spikes rushing towards Lila.

Lila jumped back but as she looked at her opponent, two earth spears had already readied themselves to hit her, and that they did, Lila got hit by both flying spears square on the shoulders pushing her back as the spears impaled themselves on her shoulders to the ground.

She cried in pain as it coursed through her, she did not waste any time and turned to white smoke as they dispersed from her location to converge at a relative location behind the lion.

“Shadow Magic: Darkened Thrust.” she thrusted towards the lion with both daggers brandished by shadow magic hitting the lion square on the back then flipping forwards and facing the lion warrior.

The lion roared in pain and checked his wound before looking back at the girl, he was surprised to see that the wounds he inflicted were nowhere to be seen.

Lila’s spell Darkened thrust saps out a huge amount of mana from her in exchange of dealing tons of damage that heals her in the process and leaves a poison that chips away slowly at the health of her opponent for some time -blame the concept on Ken-.

Lila kneeled as she felt the brunt of burning away such a huge amount of magic. The lion noticed the girls labored breath and smirked to himself before pouncing to finish the battle, but was surprised as the girl dodged with ease downwards and inflicted a wound on his right leg.

He looked at the girl furiously as to why she was still able to move after using such a relatively strong spell, the girl smirked at him and stood tall as if nothing of what she did made her weakened.

The lion thought to himself that he has to finish the fight for if he dragged this for long he’s afraid that something in his system will kill him, seems like he noticed the poison. The lion warrior conjured one of his deadliest spells, and Lila prepared one of her execution strikes.

“STOP!” a shout reverberated right before both parties could deal a finishing blow against one another, the group looked at who had spoken and saw the King with Klein, standing at the raised stone, and walked towards the field.

“I think we’ve had enough of the duels, Klein please tell your students to release the barrier.” said the King, Klein nodded at the students and almost simultaneously, the barrier was lifted, the King walked towards his two warriors who joined one another to meet the King.

The King conjuring a healing spell to recover the strength of both his warriors and curing the one inflicted with poison.

“What have we talked about not going all out on the kids?” he said.

“But they were using dangerous spells and attacks sire.” rebutted the General Lion Warrior, still on his hardened skin spell.

“I agree your highness, if we did not prepare dangerous attacks of our own, I’m afraid we would be the ones in grave peril.” said the Judiciary Lion Warrior.

“True, but we still have to remember that they’re still young, and have not that much control over their powers, do you understand?” the King said, as the two lions nodded.

They understood the implication behind the King’s statement so they did not bear ill feelings, the two turned to look at their opponents and apologized who just looked at them dumbfounded still covered in bruises and tattered clothing.

The King turned to look at Klein with look that says ‘Explain’, Klein understood and hurriedly bowed to the King.

“I’m curious, were you the one who taught them such spells Klein?” asked the King, Klein felt nervous as he didn’t know what to say, he did not want to expose Ken.

“It’s okay if you cannot tell me now, but I expect you to tell me soon.” said the King calmly, but his aura was murderous, sweeping on everyone making them sweat cold, Klein looked everywhere but not on Ken as to not give away the truth.

‘It’s okay Master you can tell them.’ spoke by someone into Klein’s mind, he looked at Ken as Ken smiled at him and nodded.

‘Are you sure?’ Klein asked.

‘I’m sure Master.’ replied Ken respectfully.

Klein looked at the pissed of King who looked afar, swallowed the saliva on his throat and cleared his mouth, coughing to get the King’s attention. I don’t want to piss off the King any more than this, Klein thought.

“Your Majesty, please do not be offended by what I’m about to say.” The King nodded for Klein to continue. “But the person behind the spells of our students, is also our human student, Ken.”

Klein waited for the laugh to come as he looked at the King intensely, but they were surprised by what the King said next.

“Oh, now that makes sense.” Everyone was dumbfounded, including the King’s warriors as they all hang their mouth on their faces, or they just imagine to.

Ken walked to Lila snapping her out of her trance and collaborated with her to cure the poison coursing through the Judiciary Lion’s wound, all the while the rest were still frozen. With the initial spell of the King, it made their task a lot easier.

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