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Return of the Fallen Vol1 Ch45

Author: Blue_Rat

ch45

Not even a second after the howl was heard did the trees spread apart as a 10-foot beast appeared in front of them.

The creature shared similarities to the two Sky Beasts from earlier. The only real difference seemed to be its size and the color of its body. Standing just over 7 feet tall, this creature had a black mane with the rest of its fur being a dark muddy brown.

Tilting its head slightly to the side, a long tongue fell from its mouth as it smiled excitedly.

“Hehehe, you guys are the heroes, right? Father says I can’t kill you but he said nothing about not playing with you.”

Alice pointed her staff at the dog-like creature and threatened.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll strike you down.”

The dog-like creature smiled at Alice and slowly stepped forward. Alice took no chances and gathered power in her staff, raising it above her head. The tip of her staff began to glow before she pointed it at the continuously approaching dog creature.

“I warned you, now die.”

A streak of lightning descended from the sky above and following Alice’s will, struck the dog creature dead center on its head.

*Ka-Boom*

A cloud of dust and smoke billowed out filling everyone’s vision with darkness. Alice smiled in satisfaction at her handy work and was prepared to leave but Kazuki’s sudden shout put her on alert.

“It’s not over!”

Had Alice not been so distracted with thoughts of her master, she would have easily sensed the magic gathering in front of her but because of the earlier thoughts, something which should have been simple to dodge for her was deemed impossible.

*Bang*

Alice had no possible way of dodging the attack but because of Kazuki’s warning, she had just managed to raise a barrier as the beast charged forward and rammed her with its large heavy body.

*Crack Snap Crunch*

Alice had been knocked backward and sent flying for several hundred feet. The only thing that slowed her momentum was several trees breaking upon impact with her barrier.

The cloud of dust and smoke settled and everyone but Kazuki held looks of surprise. As the creature stood tall a small crack could be seen on top of its head. Soon the crack spread and chip until small pieces of something began to fall off from its head and face.

Looking closely at the falling debris, Kazuki could tell that it was actually small pieces of rock. The dog-like creature simply tapped one of its front paws on the ground and a few nearby stones rolled over as though they had a will of their own. The small rocks and pebbles somehow crawled up the front arm and made their way to its head. Once there the rocks began to fall apart and separate themselves into tiny pieces before they sunk into all the cracks upon the creature’s head, repairing the bits that fell off before.

Danny shouted in surprise.

“Is it healing!?”

Shin shook his head.

“It seems like that is a form of armor or something, instead of its actual body.”

The dog-like creature began to nod its head happily.

“Hahaha, that’s right that’s right, this is my armor its made from Gordonia. With this, that shrimp’s lightning can cause me no harm even if it was 100 times stronger, hehehe.”

Sam’s expression changed as he looked at the armor and admired it. Just being this close and examining it, he began to gain a few insights from it.

(It can be used like this as well.)

Kimi looked slightly confused

“Gordonia armor?”

But Danny quickly filled her in.

“Don’t you remember? Gordonia is this planet’s name so they call Earth magic Gordonia magic, so to us we’d just call it earth armor.”

Kimi nodded her head in understanding. They had only gone over that once but now that Danny mentioned it, she remembered Garn going over that.

The dog beast became slightly confused at the conversation going on but was more curious as to why none of them seemed scared.

“Hey, why aren’t you guys afraid of me? Don’t I look terrifying? I even just hurt your friend. Why aren’t you guys running away in fear?”

Shin chimed in.

“Well, you yourself said you weren’t going to kill us and you’ve even not made a move since attacking Alice. As for scary looking, well maybe if you weren’t still smiling at us. It makes you look like an overgrown happy pup. As for you hurting our friend…”

Shin smiled and pointed a thumb over his shoulder.

*Thoom Boom Bang*

Dozens of trees and boulders came shooting down from the sky like a rain of arrows. The dog beast had little time to avoid this and was struck several times on various parts of its body. Head, shoulders, arms, legs, back, nothing was left untouched from the now enraged Alice. Soon the dog beast became overwhelmed and was buried under thousands of pounds of debris.

Alice descended from the sky and let out a heavy breath.

*Phew*

Patting Kazuki on the shoulder, she did not thank him for the warning but gave a simple nod instead. Asuna’s eye twitched slightly as Alice held her hand on Kazuki’s shoulder for what she thought was an inappropriate amount of time. Yanking Kazuki by his arm she dragged him away and said.

“Don’t you think we should all be on our way.”

Alice agreed and led the way, while Shin and Danny couldn’t help but think.

(Kazuki, you lucky bastard.)

Racing through the swamp, the group had covered quite a bit of ground, When Danny curiously asked.

“Alice, what the heck was that thing? Why is it after us?”

Alice had a few thoughts but decided there was no reason not to tell them.

“That was a Scron wolf, did you notice its similarities with the larger dog looking creatures that Master Garn is fighting, that one seems to be a cub, very young but still very powerful. As for why it’s chasing us…Damn, is it back?”

Alice began looking behind her again and could feel the creature’s approach.

(No, it can’t be, that mutt should have been crushed already.)

Alice stopped and so too did the others.

“It’s not dead yet. Here it comes.”

That large body once more broke through the trees and stopped in front of Kazuki’s group. Tilting its head at them, it smiled once more.

“Eh, you’re stopping, why are you stopping so soon? I wanted to pounce on you.”

Alice already had her barrier up and took to the sky. Several trees were uprooted from the ground and floated next to her.

“What the hell do you want? Why do you keep following us?”

“Huh, I told you that already.”

Alice shook her head angrily.

“No you haven’t, now state your business or we will kill you.”

Kazuki wondered why Alice was even talking to the beast instead of killing it when a sudden realization struck him.

(Could it be she can’t handle it.)

Kazuki normally would not have thought in this direction but it was the only thing that made sense. In this situation where they were fleeing for their lives, a creature gets in their way and attacks. Alice had already used her lightning and it was ineffective and used her wind as well and found that the dog beast came back only a few minutes later unharmed. Alice’s two main elements didn’t seem to work so now she seemed to be resorting to threats.

After realizing it hadn’t actually said why it was here, it flicked its scorpion-like tail, creating a whip-like effect, releasing a snapping sound. Sometimes people would snap their fingers and shout “that’s it.” or “eureka.” The dog beast seemed to be mimicking what a person would sometimes do when they figured something out. Everyone found its behavior slightly odd but only observed it cautiously and quietly. The dog beast though was quite chatty.

“Father said that the heroes are to remain in the swamp until further notice. You though, I get to kill anyone who’s not a hero so come down here and fight me.”

Sam and the others began to draw their weapons. They don’t know why this Scron cub’s father wants to keep them but if it’s anything like the other one who wanted to eat Kimi like a snack, they could not allow that.

Alice remained in the sky and yelled at Kazuki and the others.

“Stop, it says it won’t kill you all so hurry up and flee. I’ll figure something out and catch up to you later, so go.”

Everyone ignored Alice and prepared to fight. They had seen its speed and know it’s quite fast but when it knocked Alice back, its strength seemed only slightly above theirs.

Alice was about to yell at them but before she could, Shin had already made the first move.

Shin recalled the spell Garn had used on him and the others before and gathered wind around his legs and feet. His body became lighter and his speed increased several-fold.

*Shoom*

Shin charged forward and appeared before the Scron wolf within the blink of an eye.

“Hehe, you’re fast.”

The Scron cub squealed in delight and swept a paw towards Shin’s face. Just as it was about to hit him though, Shin pivoted on his right foot and dodged to the side. Lowering his body, he put power into his legs and jumped high above the Scron wolf. With his sword drawn, he thrust it downward while falling on top of its back.

*Ching*

His sword sunk in about four inches or so and got stuck. Shin tried to pull the blade out but to no avail. The Scron wolf laughed and began to buck like a wild horse. Shin did his best to hold on while still trying to remove his sword. That’s when a poisonous scorpion tail came stabbing towards him. In the end, Shin could only let go of his precious sword.

Landing on the ground though was not pleasant either. With the Scron cub’s wild bucking, its paws came crashing down with thousands of pounds of weight behind them. Just as Shin was about to be crushed, Sam caught a paw and with the strength in his body, he lifted the paw and threw it away.

The Scron wolf stumbled a few steps back and looked at Sam with awe.

“Wow, you’re really strong for a human. Again!”

The Scron wolf charged ahead with its large body and Kimi pointed her ring towards it. Gathering her magic energy, she shot forth her power.

“Beam of light!”

A beam of focused energy shot forth like a laser and struck the Beast directly in the eyes. A burning sensation was clearly felt and the beast had to shut its eyes or face some serious damage. With its body still charging, Alice launched some trees from the sky and struck it in the chest, knocking it to the ground.

*Crash*

Alice pulled up a few more trees and was ready to launch them but Kazuki, Asuna, and Sam were blocking her path of attack. Asuna thrust a dagger forward with all of her might into the exposed belly of the beast but her blade, like Shin’s, only sunk in a few inches before it was completely stopped by the Scron’s rock-like armor. Kazuki as well only managed 5 or 6 inches before his blade could go no further.

He pulled his sword with all of his might but could not remove it from the stomach. Only when he snuck a little ki in did the armor seem to crumble a bit and his sword was released.

Asuna had a trick of her own for removing her blade.

(Blink!)

Her blade disappeared and reappeared in her hand. Asuna smiled and thought.

(It worked.)

Sam drew his 5-foot long sword and pulled strength deep from within. Slicing down, Sam swung his blade with terrifying momentum.

*Crack Shick*

Sam’s blade sunk into the beast’s body completely penetrating its armor and cutting deep within its stomach.

*ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRR!*

A tail flicked forward with lightning-quick speed and struck Sam directly in the chest. Sam’s eyes went wide and he fell to one knee.

The Scron wolf jumped to its feet, its face no longer that of a playful puppy but instead of a predator on the hunt.

“That hurt! Father said I can’t kill you but he didn’t say anything about maiming you.”

The Scron cub flicked its tail at Asuna and Kazuki. Asuna’s body vanished and reappeared several feet away. Kazuki filled his arms and eyes with ki and followed the tail’s movement. As it came sweeping towards his side, Kazuki turned his wrist and slashed diagonally upward.

*Shick*

Purplish-black blood sprayed all over as Kazuki severed the tail in half. Kazuki managed to avoid all the blood but some had gotten on Sam. Sam instantly puked and his consciousness grew dizzy. The beast began to roar in both pain and anger.

“You damn human, my tail, you cut off my fucking tail! RAAAAA!”

The beast was now seeing red and not thinking clearly so instead of charging at the one who actually cut off its tail, it went for an already downed opponent. Kimi saw this and screamed in terror.

“Sam Noooo!”

Kimi instinctively pointed her ring at the beast and fired her magic at the beast. Something like a memory flashed in her head and her power became twisted as she roared out.

“Devour!”