Danger!

Dark red painted itself over the surroundings, tinting the atmosphere with gloom. Goblin blood, limbs, guts and corpses littered the clearing; this place was a battlefield. An eerie silence had fallen upon the clearing, only the sounds of heavy breathing could be heard coming from the only living beings around.

Standing amongst this carnage, covered in blood, were two humans- Xing and Lei. The two were breathing heavily after what was assuredly a hard fight, as shown by a few bloodied cuts that had yet to be tended.

Breaking the silence Xing asked, "You alright Lei? Do you need healing? You look like shit."

Looking at Lei was like looking at a human-shaped and sized tomato; she was covered in red, from head to toe. Contrasting with Xing, who only had a few red splotches dotted around his armor.

"I'm fine…" Lei glanced at Xing with a peeved expression, "It looks bad but none of it is my blood. I'm not like you who can waltz around the place through the shadows fighting from a distance- I fight in the thick of things, hence why I'm covered in blood and you and your smug face are practically clean."

She put her left foot forward to walk but ended up gritting her teeth in pain, "Okay, maybe some of the blood is mine, I need my leg healed before I can fight again."

Xing called forth the surrounding mana, willing it to form the spell-model for his healing magic: Light Missile, "Well I better do it quickly, since you jinxed us before the fight and now we can expect a third wave."

A bolt of light raced out the spell circle toward Lei's left leg. Upon contact, the leg was enveloped in a soothing light which appeared to be absorbed into the skin. Within seconds any cuts she had on her leg closed and her face eased as the pain faded.

"Haaahh, much better." Lei put her weight on her left leg, testing the effects of the healing.

Sounds of loud chirping echoed out from within the dense jungle followed by the snapping of twigs in the undergrowth.

"Damn, it's that Followtail again, there really is a third wave. My stupid mouth really did jinx us!"

"Goblins wouldn't make that much noise." Xing frowned as he caught sight of the newcomer through the darkness of the forest, "It's something even more annoying than goblins."

An obnoxious and high-pitched voice called out from within the dark forest, "Lei, darling! I'm here, come and greet me!"

Liang and his lackey warrior Chao waltzed out into the clearing as if they owned the place.

Lei stared at Liang and Chao annoyed, "Ugh, you're right, even worse than goblins. I'd prefer a third wave of the stinky creatures rather than this pair of arrogant idiots."

"You were the one using that Followtail to find us weren't you Liang!?" Lei shouted her question.

"Heh, you're right Lei. You've been marked by me for years and I've used this exact bird to find you many times." Liang petted the bird which had just landed and perched on his shoulder.

"Creep!" Lei exclaimed with evident disgust on her face.

The prim and proper act she puts on in the presence of others had disappeared, as she looked as if she would charge at Liang at any second and trash him.

Liang ignored her vicious glare and turned slightly to look at Xing, "Hey trash, you're in the way of things, in two ways."

Liang walked a few steps closer, "Firstly, you are in the way of my conquest of this beautiful, fiery lady- so you need to disappear." He stopped when he was around 50-meters away from the pair, "And secondly, since you are the Tribe-Chief's son, your in the way of my fathers' ambition- so you need to die."

Liang shouted at his lackey, "Chao, you deal with my darling Lei! Use the stuff, and try not to mess her up too bad!"

Chao took up his spear and started casually walking forward, stopping when he was off to the side. Proceeding with inviting Lei to fight him by sneering at her with evident disdain.

Lei glared at the fellow warrior with equal disdain whispering to Xing, "Do you have enough mana to fight Liang?"

"I believe so, ever since we finished those goblins I've been draining a mana-crystal to refill my reserves; preparing for the inevitable third wave since someone jinxed us." Xing opened his hand revealing a dimming blue stone.

"Hmph, when are you ever going to drop that?" Lei pouted as she took a fighting stance with her spear, readying her leg to push off the ground to accelerate forward, "I'll go take on the warrior lackey and quickly beat him, so all you need to do is keep that bastard occupied."

"What, you don't have confidence in me? I'm saddened."

"Liang may have brute forced and unnaturally made his way into 2nd Circle using mana-crystals, but he still needed to have comprehended the Fire Element at least a little bit. Also, we just fought two waves of goblins there is no way you're in your best condition, so don't look down on him and just keep him occupied. We can easily defeat him two-on-one."

"Alright, fine I'll be careful. You should also be careful, Chao is a Rank 2 Warrior and Liang said something suspicious to him, watch out for any tricks." Xing notched an arrow and took aim at Liang with his bow while casting Magic Missile. 'Might as well keep my elements hidden for now,' he thought.

"Heh, I can beat him, your mother hasn't trained me 10 years for nothing." Lei pressed off her feet charging toward Chao.

As-soon-as Lei took off, Xing had released both arrow and spell. The two projectiles whizzed through the air toward their target, yet they stopped short of Liang. The arrow looked as if it had hit a wall, crumpled in on itself, and then dropped to the ground. While the Magic Missile faded out of existence when it had hit the same spot as the arrow.

The spot where the projectiles had hit shimmered for a second upon contact but quickly faded back into the surroundings, becoming invisible.

"Mana Shield," declared Xing.

He wasn't surprised, upon reaching 2nd Circle one would be able to erect a crude barrier around themselves created from the surrounding mana, and stabilized by internal mana. One would need to either exhaust an opponent's mana supply before the shield fell, or overwhelm it with rapid attacks- from multiple sources helps.

This is what caused a massive disparity between Warriors and Shaman, as-well-as a disparity between 1st and 2nd Circle. Warriors could fight 1st Circle opponents fairly evenly, but when they go up against 2nd Circle and their barrier there is almost no way they could win one-on-one. The same goes for 1st Circle fighting 2nd Circle, the one who runs out of mana will lose- no way the 1st Circle would last longer.

"Correct! I'd like to see just how many arrows you have and how many times you can cast spells before you run out of mana, there's no way you can beat me! Hahaha!"

"I'll just wait for Lei to smack-down your lackey, then the two of us will whittle down your little barrier."

"Heh." Liang sneered, "I myself don't believe that she can beat Chao, but even if she does she won't be in any condition to help you. Now it's my turn! BURN!"

Xing felt the surrounding mana moving toward Liang as the air around him heated. Multiple spell-circles appeared in the air around Liang forming small sparks of flame. These sparks flew through the air toward Xing in a constant stream of flame, turning Liang into a turret.

Xing was hard pressed to dodge the sheer number of embers flying over, to the left, to the right, and just short of him. The surroundings now had many small fires lighting up the clearing, trees turned into burning torches, bushes emitting black smoke, even a few goblin corpses had turned into funeral pyres. With the addition of these fires plus the natural sunlight from above, there were no shadows form Xing to escape through.

'Damn, why did I think this would be easy!?'

"Hurry up Lei!" Shouted Xing as he received another singeing to his leather armor.

***

Meanwhile, sounds of clashing resounded out across the clearing knocks of rock-hitting-rock, the scuffle of feet dodging across the decaying undergrowth, the squelching of rock piercing flesh.

Lei stood there with a few cuts on her arms and legs, she looked relaxed, "You are too weak. How many holes have you got in you now? Three? Four? You're going to bleed out if you keep this up."

Across from her was a bloodied and pale Chao, he was leaning on his spear with shaky knees, barely keeping himself from toppling over, "I now see why all the adult warriors call you the little deviless, like the Great-Warrior, you're cold and merciless. No matter, I've already done my part." With that, he toppled over onto the ground unconscious.

"That went faster than I thought, he was so weak. I guess it was like aunt told me, I'm close to Rank 2. Time to go assist Xing, but what did he mean by 'his part'?"

Lei heard Xing calling out to her telling her to hurry, "I'm coming!" She yelled as she turned toward their fiery battle, however, when she started walking forward she felt weak and almost fell over.

Pupils shrinking Lei panicked and yelled, "WHAT DID YOU DO LIANG!?"

Liang heard her and halted his barrage of fire. Turning to look at her with a smug smirk, "I just so happened to stumble across a dead Hiding Tongue-Constrictor Lizard and I decided to take its saliva with me. I may… or may not have covered Chao's spear with it."

"BASTARD!" Lei could feel her body locking up as she struggled to stay standing, but couldn't.

"Lei!" Xing watched as Lei fell to the ground paralyzed. He could see into her eyes, and he saw both burning rage and a slight fear as she slowly drifted off to sleep.

"Since I'm getting bored of you and I want to go play with my damsel, I'll just finish with you." Liang turned back toward Xing as he pulled even more mana from the surroundings than before, and this time taking longer to draw out a complex spell-model packed with shapes, runes, and letters.

The surroundings turned even more fiery hot as a large ball of flame materialized from the pulsating symbolism.

"Take this! FIREBALL!"

Xing had no time to laugh at the cheesy line as the ball of explosive heat barreled its way toward him. The surroundings were still lit up so he had no shadow nearby to retreat into; all he could do was run far enough away from the epicenter that its trajectory would take it.

An explosive boom echoed its way around the clearing and further into the dense jungle. Parts of the decaying undergrowth were lifted in the air by the shock-wave and flung all around the clearing. Xing too had been thrown by the explosion and landed hard on the ground, breaking a few bones.

After the smoke had wafted away Xing spotted Liang walking over toward the helpless and paralyzed Lei. When he tried to move pain shot through his body causing him to grunt as realized he was incapacitated, however, he also felt his Light Element course through his body beginning to repair the damage.

Liang heard the noise as he crouched down and reached out to caress Lei's sleeping face. Looking over at the downed Xing, "You managed to survive that? I'm impressed, should I have fun with my beloved before or after I kill you? Hmm, since she is asleep and there won't be any fun in that, I'll deal with you first."

He stood up and casually walked over to the incapacitated Xing, picking up and bringing with him Lei's spear. A vicious glint flashed through his eyes, "Can't say I've killed someone up close before since you are a special person I give you the honors of being the first."

'Is this how I'll die for the third time? Why did I have to underestimate Liang and overestimate myself? No, even if I didn't there is little I could do differently to affect the outcome. He caught us off guard after a tiring battle, if there is anything I could have done differently it would be not taking his threat seriously, and not thinking that he could and would track us right from the start.'

As Liang reached Xing he held the spear above Xing's head, pointed downward, "Any final words?"

Before Xing could tell Liang to screw himself and to try a last-ditch attempt to turn around the situation by casting a final spell that he had mana for, Liang let out a loud screech, dropping the spear and doing a dance on the spot.

As Liang turned around Xing saw the culprit latched onto Liang's rear-end.

***

| 2000 A.C. | Hallway leading to the Star Archon's Office, Stellar Palace | Shangri-La | China |

A loud female shout of joy resounded out from within the Star Archon's Office startling those unlucky enough to have been walking past.

"IT'S MY TURN TO SHINE B****ES!!!"