The Shapeshifter - Chapter 18 Raging Tempest 1

“No!”

The loud howl reverberated in the beast-filled forest, attracting quite a number of it.

Arthur’s mind was in a mess. He was rooted in place looking like he lost his soul. His eyes began tearing up when his brain kept on repeating the scene of his brother smiling at him and being sent flying defenselessly.

‘Whoosh!’

It began as a whispering in the air, then the wind started gusting through the leaves of the trees.

‘Pitter-patter’

The sound of drizzle soon followed, as the rain poured down on the forest.

This woke Arthur up as he lifted his head and gazed at the dark clouds above. He then closed his eyes letting the rain fall in his face.

If someone was to observe carefully, they would see tears leaking at the edge of his eyes.

‘I shouldn’t have been overconfident. I should have helped him when those three came rushing towards him!’

‘I could’ve endured a punch or two. He’s only 15 damn it!’

Even though thoughts filled his head, he was still wary of the surroundings. He heard faint footsteps coming towards him amidst the downpour.

He opened his misty eyes just in time for the gorilla to grab his neck and lift him up the ground.

He looked at its face and saw it looking back at him. It had a disgusting smile on its face that expresses mockery.

“Are you mocking me, you damned ape?”

Arthur asked the gorilla in a condescending manner, as if it was very normal for a man to talk to a beast.

‘Grunt!’

The Silverback Gorilla grunted as an answer to Arthur’s question.

Arthur’s eyes dilated at the gorilla’s answer. He was just casually making fun of himself and the gorilla. Now that he chanced upon a closer look, this Silverback Gorilla was bigger and smarter than the others he just killed.

Its silver fur was also growing in its forearms and its neck

He remembered that this gorilla instructed the other one to block him.

It clearly underwent evolution. Although it wasn’t completely evolved, an evolved still has the strength of a professional Mage, it might be even stronger and has certain resistance to magic due to the usage of mana to temper its body.

[Earth Spike!]

The earth spike was conjured from his hand. He thrusted his hands as fast as he could during the conjuration, hoping that the gorilla would be caught off guard.

Unfortunately for him, the gorilla was guarded with such an attack and crushed the Earth Spike with its metal-like hands.

He knew that casting a spell without direct contact with the earth would prove to be weak. It was the law of the elements.

He could’ve used more mana to empower the spell but was afraid that the beast would notice the disturbance of mana since it was familiar with mana.

His actions seemed to have provoked the beast as it looked at him with rage in its eyes.

‘Even though it is slightly intelligent, a beast is still a beast.’

The Silverback Gorilla closed its fist and punched him that sent him flying.

After landing on the muddy ground, he coughed hard and spat out blood.

“Why does this rain won’t f*cking stop?!”

Arthur saw the gorilla pick something on the ground and threw it upwards to him. He saw earlier that the gorilla was angry at him. Now, it acted like it was toying with him. He wondered what the thing was and was then struck by a rock on his head.

“Why does every f*cking thing falls to the earth?! Do you think it’s some kind of f*cking magnet?! F*ck gravity!” He cursed and complained to the gorilla. His head was bleeding as blood falls on the side of his face.

Arthur was angry at everything. He was angry at the gorilla, the rain, the rock and he was angry at himself, mostly self-mockery.

He was tearing up again as he lamented at his fate. He promised his mom that they would be back safe. Yet he was unable to protect his brother! And now, a gorilla was looking at him with pitiful eyes.

“If you wanted to fall down, then I’ll f*cking help you!” Arthur was enraged by the rain, he hated being soaked in water with his clothes on. Especially when he was wearing socks.

Arthur expended a large amount of mana to increase the thickness of the ground. He wasn’t really sure what he was doing. It just came to him naturally, then the rain around them started falling faster.

One thing was for sure, and that the volume of the raindrops didn’t increase, it just fell faster.

He felt an unfamiliar aura when he was adjusting the structure of the ground. With every thickness he added to the ground, he felt an increase in the ‘quantity’ of this aura.

He tried copying the aura and released it with the use of his earth-attributed mana.

What he produced shocked him greatly. He emitted a type of pressure that makes people kneel or make them fall flat on the surface.

‘This is a Domain! A Domain of the Kings!’ Arthur was thoroughly shocked as he learned himself a domain. As the owner of the Domain, he knew that only he, can feel it.

What came after was a surge of mana. The increased flow of mana in his body came in as another shock for him.

“Mage! Finally!” His eyes lit up as he broke through the ranks of a Mage. Although currently, not a professional one at that.

The benefits he received when he broke through was only an increase to size of his mana pool and its quality. It was now like a real mana ‘pool’.

Since when he was an Acolyte, his mana ‘pool’ was more like a gas. Now, it was completely liquid. Fitting to be called a mana pool.

Arthur dashed towards the gorilla, with his new-found strength.

The unsuspecting gorilla had been staring at him for the past minute. Like ‘This dumb human was on the verge of crying. Did it finally accept death?’

‘Snort!’ The gorilla snorted and used its arms to charge faster at Arthur.

While both them were about to engage in combat, they were unable to notice the tiny scorpions emerging from the ground.

The scorpions gently lifted Alex up and marched away peacefully.