Chapter 123: Battle! (2/2)

The group continued to walk on the debris and cobbles, dead leaves and wood of the forest. Just like that, half an hour passed. The two poor boys who were carrying Kadyn were on the verge of crying — both of them were mages; if they were any ordinary people they would have already collapsed. Although they haven't awakened their five stars yet.

Nonetheless what made them even more depressed was the speed of Old Dem. Though he appeared frail and week, with a hunched spine, and withering skin, he was pretty strong, because there was no sign of fatigue on his face until now and he was walking faster than anyone in their group — the forest looked eerie as the huge banyan trees started to appear one by one. Their long tentacles were falling from above like the tails of poisonous snakes. The deeper they went the larger number of tentacles became.

”It seems we're pretty lucky; we haven't encountered any magical beast till now,” Waul commented, walking pleasantly and gracefully with his hands behind his back, examining his surroundings now and then.

”Indee… careful everyone!” just as Roclus was about to reply to his son, he shouted towards his companions and punched towards Waul's head. The boy saw his act and turned deathly pale in terror, all the gracefulness he was maintaining all this while completely shattered. As the punch covered in gauntlets neared his head, he closed his eyes and stood there with his wobbly legs.

”Boom!”

The hand collided with something, but it wasn't his head; he felt something warm and sticky over his face. Therefore, he slowly opened his eyes and realised that his father was nowhere to be seen — when he turned around he spotted the man, he was punching here and there like a moron, but when he calmed a little and focused in the darkness of night, he realised that he was attacking tentacles of the banyan tree.

”What are those tentacles?!” he shouted when he realised that something was amiss.

”Those aren't tentacles of these banyan trees, but magical beasts who disguised themselves in the banyan trees' tentacles,” Old Dem replied and swung his wooden stick and killed one of the beasts. ”These are Tentacle Snakes. They mostly live on banyan trees and act like tentacles that's why they got such a name.”

”Are they dan-dangerous?” he asked and his legs started to shake.

”Not until they bit you,” the old man replied and once more swung his staff, and a wind blade discharged from it, cutting another snake in half.

Refu and Hari had since long dumped Kadyn at the corner of a tree and were fighting with wooden sticks in their hands. Kadyn opened his eyes and looked at the scene in front of him. ”Roclus is an 8-star earth elementary mage and he knows a 7-star spell that could harden his body as hard as a rock. Hmmm, no bad, not bad at all.” Then his gaze fell on Old Dem and shook his head. ”6-star elementary wind mage, but he knows just a single 5-star spell — wind blade.”

On the other hand, Tandu was holding a blue coloured sword in his hand at the moment, slicing all the incoming snakes with the weapon. ”6-star water elementary mage. Though he also has just a 5-star water spell pattern, similar to the Old Dem — If all of them knew spell patterns equal to their magic ranks, they would be able to solve this problem after some struggle. However, right now…” he looked at the hundreds of snakes attacking their pitiful group and shook his head.

After that his gaze fell on Waul who had collapsed on the ground in terror. What a waste. He was already a 5-star mage, but due to fear he couldn't even think straight and lost the will to fight.

”No!” a shout came from the left side of Kadyn — Refu held Hari in his arms and roared in agony and pain. ”I will slaughter these bastards! I will not let a single of them live! Die die die!” he swung the wooden stick frantically, he had lost his mind completely when he saw his brother's lifeless open eyes and foam coming from his mouth. His tears fell continuously as he fought but no matter how hard he tried, he could not defeat those snakes. His hands ached and it slowly started to become difficult to breathe. His body was losing strength with every attack.

While Kadyn was observing the fight about three snakes reached him and tried to bite him. He snorted coldly and swung his hand, cutting all three of them in hundreds of pieces. Such low-level magical beasts weren't anything in front of him.

”We can't fight with them; we need to escape from here,” Roclus shouted when he started to lose his strength slowly.

”You moron should have done it from the start. At least you have saved that Hari,” Kadyn murmured and pulled the blanket over himself once more, waiting for someone to carry him.