Chapter 69 - Ashes

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

A glint of red shone from the humanoid’s eyes and turned around to walk into the forest, Ken’s face scrunched up in confusion, he circulated his mana to prepare defensive spells if need be, he cannot take any chances.

“Flin, are you done with your spell?” Ken asked, Flin nodded, and summoned an orb atop his hands, as a bright white magic circle with a touch of sky blue, appeared below his feet that reached up to twice the magic circle Granarados conjured.

“Spirit Magic: Tied Fate.” He chanted, the magic circle turned bright as tendrils of white wrapped around the monsters then turned into chains that suffocated the monsters both werewolves and ogres alike slowly in its tightening grip, shrieks echoed from their desperate cries.

Ken jumped at the tangled monsters and executed one of his weapon techniques, ‘Sword Style: Dance of a Deathblade’, with a quick tug at his scythe, cuts formed at the monster’s body wounding them and bleeding profusely, eventually dying, bodies littered everywhere.

Ken looked at the forest and saw that the monsters ceased their attacks, either by hiding behind trees or quivering on their feet.

All the monsters affected by Flin’s spell suffered the same fate, Ken fully held his scythe on his right hand, the area turned quiet as the battle came to a slow, Ken turned aro-

Only to feel eminent energy blast towards them with incredible speed, Ken got caught in the blast and pushed backwards colliding with the barrier before falling down to the ground, another two dark red energies came blasting towards the formation hitting Glen and Wilbert creating smoke.

Allen and Princess Lang immediately flew down to their friends, covering them with the smoke in a rush, and the fact that they are worried.

The creature of twisted chaotic energies walked out of the forest slowly, this time looking a lot more menacing as its eyes gleamed red in the dark atmosphere, black smoke exited it’s body, and upon close inspection as if it was decaying with tears of flesh visible here and there.

It smiled eerily at the terrified warriors who in all sense felt that they’d lost hope the moment those three dark energy blasts hit the kids, with the monster slowly walking towards them and not speaking brought chills running own their spine.

Granarados and his two cousins did not fare any better as the fluctuation of dark energies froze them in place, no matter how much they wanted to move, their bodies wouldn’t comply, as if someone had taken over their control.

The monster stopped centimeters away from the smoke it created as it slowly dissipated revealing a crater, its eyes instantly widened in surprise at what he is seeing, there in the middle of the crater is Ken, holding his scythe forward as a silver shield was erected.

“Surprised?” Ken said. He dashed in-front, hit the monster and pushed it back, then did another attack winding from the bottom to the top, sending the monster flying upwards, he used blink and appeared beside the monster.

‘Sword Style: Precision Strike.’ Ken performed ten slices in the blink of an eye, rendering the humanoid monster unable to retaliate as it took all hits making wounds appear all over its body.

Ken struck him again this time sending the monster at the entrance of the forest. Ken landed and stared hard at the culprit.

“I don’t know what you are or who you are but no one, and I mean no one, hurts my friends, except for me.” said Ken seriously, except the last part. The monster growled and shrieked a guttural sound rushing towards him.

“You know, you could have defeated me if you had checked twice first and then be cocky about your achievement.” said Ken.

With a quick turn and twist of Ken’s scythe, he used his momentum to swing at the side of the rod of the scythe hitting the monster square on the face, used his other hand to switch the rod and hit again using the bottom part at the face.

The monster’s growl intensified, but Ken retaliated and abused the window of time given, he swiped his scythe at the monsters feet making it loose its footing.

“Earth Magic: Earth Pillar.” a magic circle barely the circumference of the body of the monster summoned a pillar that hit it at its back that flung it upwards and fell down with a thud.

“Oh and, one more thing, let’s play!” shouted Ken enthusiastically.

“Fire Magic: Firestorm.” another magic circle formed below the monster and summoned ascending fire glaves, it summoned twenty glaves that passed through the monster causing more wounds to form.

The monster breathed for a moment looked up and conjured a dark energy ball but wasn’t able to finish when the glaves descended upon it again, not causing any smoke but embedded themselves on the body of the monster as it shrieked.

The monster conjured again another dark energy ball, but shrieked louder as the fire glaves spun on its body, the shrieks chilled the onlookers to the bone, even Ken’s companions, they had known how savage Ken’s personality is whenever he’s pissed off, but being a witness of the massacre is never a good experience.

But there he was, seemingly enjoying and at the same time serious at what he is doing.

The glaves detached themselves of the body and disappeared, leaving the monster weak, and almost dying, almost. It tried to crawl forward but wasn’t able to as the pain of many open wounds and damaged insides prevented it.

“Wow, you’re a fighter? Hmm, that should be a given. I don’t know why but when I look at you I feel like I want to castrate you on the spot.” said Ken malevolently, but the creature only looked at him in anger.

“Let’s end this. Lightning Magic: Plasma Gun.” a ten meter radius magic circle the color of yellow appeared on mid-air directly above the monster passing the max height of the trees, and summoned a condensed lightning with the same width as the magic circle, blasting the area the monster is at, once.

It happened in the blink of an eye, the flash momentarily blinding the crowd, but Ken just closed his eyes. He opened his eyes before the crowd recovered, and saw the lifeless corpse of the monster, he activated glow and saw…

Swirling dark energies clumping together at the monster, indicating that it was still alive. He deactivated glow and jumped backwards two times just as a dark spike thrust itself upwards at his previous location, he jumped twice just to be sure.

The monster with renewed powers but still a weak body, gazed at him angrily, it shrieked -again- and dozens of dark red spikes burst forth around him, successfully grazing or hitting some of the group, but luckily with quick reactions, Ken’s group jumped upwards, avoiding the onslaught.

The warriors didn’t fair much except for the three deer leader/guardians, Ken used glow again to look into their vitality, and found many slipping away. Upon landing he executed ‘Dance of a Deathblade’ again aiming at the embedded spikes on the warriors.

“Grand Healing Magic: Restoration.” chanted Ken, magic circle the color of green appeared below the warriors and healed them for twenty percent of their missing health instantly, but were still unconscious.

“Arcane Magic: Mass Teleportation.” the green magic circle was replaced by a violet one and teleported the injured warriors inside the barrier.

“Enchant Magic: Strength!” chanted Ken holding out his left hand at the barrier, doubling its durability. He executed the spells in quick succession and finished casting just as his companions landed.

“What are we going to do?” asked Allen.

“Find out its weakness.” said Ken and blinked forward with his scythe swinging downwards. “Earth Magic: Mountain Toss!” a magic circle formed at the scythe as it plunged to the earth, making the land burst forward sending with it, the monster, backwards.

“Use all types of magic, but execute one spell, I’ll keep him busy!” shouted Ken, he rushed forward using ‘flight’ and ‘strength’ to glide along the falling debris and use his scythe for a game of baseball.

He hit the monster upwards. ”Royal Magic: Draconic Flame.” making it collide with Princess Lang’s spells of golden fire ball. ‘Arcane Magic: Blink Zone.’ chanted Ken, and appeared beside the monster, hitting it to the left.

“Water Magic: Water Rush.” chanted Allen as water rushed from below unto the monster flinging it upwards.

“Shadow Magic: Shadow Prison.” chanted Saber as a dark cage trapped the monster and struck it with shadow spears, it shrieked but got cut short as Ken appeared beside it and executed his ‘Sound Alteration Spell’ and disappeared just as fast along with the cage.

“Nature Magic: Poisoned Thorns.” chanted Glen as vines appeared below and caught the falling monster entangling it, and with a rush of energy caused the poison on the thorns to explode and cause further damage, the thorns loosened its grip letting the monster fall.

But in mid-air, Ken appeared again and striked the monster upwards, sending it flying.

“Spirit Magic: Spirit Blast.” chanted Flin, hitting the monster in mid-air, the monster shouted as loud as it could, but the spell casted on him by Ken prevented it from ever being heard by the others, it fell down with a thud, this time, with no more renewed energy, lay lump on the ground.

“Why are you still not dead? We’ve dished out spell after spell and you’re still alive?!” asked Ken, to no one, but everybody knows that he’s directing those questions to this humanoid monster, the swirling dark red energies ceased its rampage on the humanoid body.

Leaving what could have been a human male, but with dark and wounded skin. Ken poked the corpse.

“… hate… re-venge… hu-mans…” it spoke, the group stopped in their place, as the voice shook them.

“Flin, what is it saying.” said Ken, Flin immediately opened his connection to his magic in a special way that allowed him to perceive the words spoken and find the meaning behind it’s sentence, a special ability only the nine-tailed foxes possess.

“It’s, a collective energy of negative thoughts.” said Flin, the connection still visible as his eyes glowed in wispy blue.

“What?” said Ken with as much impatience as he can muster, in his tone of voice.

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