Ch. 76 Why not just die?

After their short conversation, Gabriel and Acorn decided to go find Gala. Before doing that Gabriel wanted to transform back to his human body and keep his transformation ability as a trump card. It only took a few minutes for his body to revert back to his 220cm height, he then activated his Shadow Clothing again and headed back to where he had left Gala. Arriving in the area, they could hear the sound of two people fighting, following the sounds it only took them a few minutes before they found Gala. She had found another of the mercenaries and was currently fighting him. Since she had transformed into her new body, she had been hunting every afternoon training her new skills and it seemed she finally got the chance to put them to use.

The mercenary was wielding a two-handed sword with a long thin blade that had a slight curve to it. Stepping toward Gala, the mercenary brought his sword down at angle toward her neck. Gala let out creepy giggle before her nails grew to be 10cm long with the look of a galaxy shining off them. She quickly brought up her nails and tried to deflect the sword, twirling her body in the process. The sword barely missed her, taking a few hairs off her tail as it followed behind her twirl. Gala brought her nails on her left hand up toward the man's neck intending to slash it and end the fight quickly, but he managed to dodge it at the last second. Putting his sword between them, he dropped into a stance and prepared to strike.

Gala wouldn't let him attack again, she brought both hands before her and leapt at him. Making an X pattern, she swiped both claws down at the mercenary only to be met by the sword again causing her to crouch into a ball, kicking off his chest before landing on her feet again. She closed the distance and began to strike constantly. The fight became a blur, the constant ringing of the sword meeting her nails was heard over and over again until finally a pair of screams rang out. Gala had managed to skewer the man in the chest, but he had sliced into her leg very deep at the same time. Backing away from each other, the man brought his blade back up between them before crumpling into a pile on the ground. Seeing her enemy fall, Gala fell to her knees and started gasping for air.

(She's adjusted quite well. We'll have to practice together from now on.) "Gala! Well done!" Gala looked up as Gabriel and Acorn got closer. She was bleeding profusely from the sword wound and probably wouldn't be able to stand until she got some healing. Gabriel quickly inspected the gash once he reached her and started using Repair Body. Within a few uses, the wound was completely sealed and Gala was capable of walking again. "All done, you should be fine now. We eliminated 2 archers and 3 of the other mercenaries, so with this 1, the only person left should be the one on the horse. We need to find her, I feel she is more dangerous than any of these guys."

'I can walk, let's go.'

"I'll find her big brother!" With that the 3 split back up and started searching the area with the plan to meet back near the base in 2 hours if they couldn't find anything. The 3 searched every bit of these woods as they knew them by the back of their hand. Searching every cave, every abandoned den, hell they even searched the canopy of the trees, nothing. There weren't any tracks from hooves or anyone riding a horse anywhere in the woods within a kilometer of the base. After 2 hours had passed they made their way to meet up before heading home.

Gabriel arrived first as he had transformed back to his Raven form to search faster. When he landed in the area behind some trees, he quickly transformed back to his humanoid form and activated Shadow Clothing. Walking out from behind the trees Acorn and Gala arrived from opposite directions.

"Anything?"

"No, I couldn't find traces of them anywhere."

"Me either. Sorry big brother."

"Don't worry about it, we'll go home for now, but I think it's time we go find this Lord Irizan and end this. I'm sick of being attacked by these people, you'd think after we killed 100 of their men they'd leave us alone." Gabriel began walking with the others on his heels. Acorn jumped onto Gabriel's back before scrambling up to his shoulder and laying down. "Why do I get the feeling this isn't over?"

As the words left Gabriel's mouth, they saw a giant group of soldiers in front of the base. There was no battering ram this time, but there were mages preparing a large scale spell at the gates. It looked like they still needed some time to prepare as more Magic Stones were being piled around them.

"Hmmm... Look at all the free loot guys. Time to test some new skills." Gabriel condensed his wings and took off into the air, as he flew over the group of soldiers he dropped Acorn into the group of Mages casting the large scale spell. "Do some damage Acorn!"

Acorn prepared a Crystal Tail attack as he fell through the air. A few arrows were shot at him as he fell, but he managed to twist his body enough to dodge them and brought his tail down on the head of the closest mage, killing him instantly. As the body fell, Acorn dispersed into his Mist Form and moved toward another mage before condensing back into his smaller body and shooting Crystal Shards into the mage's face. He continued to attack and disperse while fighting his enemies, making it almost impossible to hurt him.

(I'm glad he integrated his skills into his fighting pattern. He'd be more formidable than me if he knew some other Magic.) Gabriel had watched the fight as he picked out his first enemies. He quickly retracted his wings and condensed his Shadow Sword as he fell toward 2 soldiers that looked to be in fancier gear than most of the others. With one slash of his sword, Gabriel had decapitated one of the officers and was in the process of attacking the next when he was suddenly blasted back. He wasn't sure where the Magic attack had came from, but it didn't matter as it caused him no damage. Jumping back to his feet, Gabriel realized he had been thrown into the group of soldiers and was completely surrounded.

He quickly retrieved the L-Shaped Blade from his Tiny Dimension and got into a low stance. Seeing him take the time to prepare himself must have angered the soldiers as they all rushed in at him at once. (Illusory Space.) A 3m invisible bubble formed around Gabriel, using him as it's center. Once the enemies crossed into the bubble, they were met with the image of the battlefield, except no one was in it. One by one, Gabriel slashed their throats and left their bodies to fall on their own. He started to walk back toward the other enemy he had chose and continually killed all those that wandered into his bubble. Watching it from the outside was terrifying, a single man was walking amidst a small army and stunning any enemy that got close to him then killing them with only a single slash to the throat. He looked like an otherworldly grim reaper, walking amongst his enemies bringing death like a silent blade in the night.

As the officer watched his army fall, he looked to his Mages in hopes they would complete the spell soon and destroy the wall. His eyes couldn't believe what he was seeing, a small squirrel was killing them like they were nothing. An attack would land then a burst of blood and red mist would spread out before another mage dropped, the officer dropped to his knees in disbelief. He felt like they had provoked demons, but his Lord had said they were only a few creatures, nothing to be afraid of. (Why? Why? Why!?) "Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!? Why!? Why would Lord Irizan send us to our death!?"

Gala had arrived at the back of the army and began her slaughter as well. Dancing through the soldiers like some sort of spinning top, heads flew wherever her nails met flesh. After killing over 2 dozen soldiers, a large man holding a two-handed hammer managed to deflect her nails breaking all of them on her right hand. Jumping away from her enemy, Gala formed her Crystal Razor Knife and flipped it in her hand holding the blade upside down. She ran back into the group of soldiers, killing a few before jumping into the air and striking toward the hammer wielder with her knife. As the blade got closer, the soldier swung his hammer at the blade again only to meet with nothing but air, continuing his swing until he nearly fell over. Before he could even regain his footing a knife had pierced the back of his head, Gala had used Deceive when she leapt through the air making the end my think she was attacking him while she landed and waited for his swing to go away. (Too easy, these soldiers aren't even a threat.) Gala made her way back into the mob before dissolving her Crystal Razor Knife and reactivating her claws.

As the enemy soldiers numbers dwindled down to the single digits, Gabriel finally made his way back to the officer in charge. The man was still on his knees, what looked to be a puddle of piss surrounding him and a terrible smell emanating from him. (Pitiful.) Gabriel picked him by his throat then made him look at the field of blood and gore that was once his army.

"You people were warned. Now you will suffer. Die." Taking the man's head in one hand and his shoulders into the other, Gabriel swiftly snapped the man's neck, killing him instantly. "Ahhhhhhh!!" Gabriel let out a victory scream as the last of the soldiers fell to the ground. Serah, Cerno, Sila, Lady Ara, the trio of Cubs and Phillips were all staring at the horrific scene before them. It wasn't their first time witnessing Gabriel's battle prowess, but it had never been against this many enemies before. Granted they knew that most soldiers were only high stage Basic Realm and Gabriel was Bander Realm, but the differences in realm had never been so obvious before. Most Basic Realm fighters could at least fight against a low stage Bander, but Gabriel made it look like child's play.