The Third Party - Chapter 38

Ken’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

‘Open Status window.’

[ Status Window.

Name: Ken Rogers

Race: Human

Job: Apprentice/Disciple

Level: 23

Strength: 70

Agility: 75

Intelligence: 150

Defense: 7.5

Luck: 45

Mana Points: 5,000

Health Points: 3,580

AP (attack/magic power): 7,349

Primary Points: 0 ]

Okay, good, I’ll be ready for battle now. I just need to remember my various spells and their effects.

‘Are you going to check your talent tree? Passive and active spells description? And concept?’ -White-

‘No thank you, the descriptions are too long to read.’ I reply, I sat myself on a squat position and cultivated while waiting for the preparations to complete, the King apparently wants to send out battalions to deal with the other two gates.

My friends are chilling either at the trees or running around chasing one another, mostly the boys, and uncle and Auntie are with the King to make further preparations.

‘Okay.’ -White-

“Alright everyone, let’s move out.” said Uncle Trunk arriving with Aunt Coralia and the lioness from earlier, how I know that, I have no idea, just kidding, the lion sounded a lot like a woman, so I presume she is a lioness.

I stood up and padded towards the group as we make a formation of two lines, six people in front, five people at the back. I’m at the back.

“Everyone meet, Syla, she will take us to the demon gate assigned to us.” said Auntie, the lioness bowed as we did too.

“I am pleased to meet the group.” Syla said.

“The pleasure is ours.” replied Allen.

“Shall we?” she asked, the group moved out along with a lot of lions, the King mobilized himself as well. That’s surprising, then again the King does love a bit of action.

“Auntie, can we use our transport spell?” I ask, as we walk out at the direction we came out of, oh wow, other lions are making holes to move out of, but according to intel, the gates should be just around the valley, I think this is some kind of way to mobilize the troops much faster.

“We can, so we could arrive there much faster, but how are we going to travel with our escort?” she says, good question.

“Then I’ll just teach her the spell, surely she’d be able to do it.” Aunt Coralia nods, I nod back and walked towards Syla.

“Excuse me Syla, can I teach you a spell?” she turned her gaze to me, and I look at her, why does it feel like I’m looking down on her? Is it because she’s walking on all fours? Let’s erase this thought right now.

“What kind of spell my dear?” she asks.

“A transporting spell, it’ll make our pace a lot faster.” She looks reluctant, but then she shrugs.

“Well, there’s no harm in trying, might as well do it.” I smile and used my memory magic, and yeah, she was surprised.

3rd Person’s POV

The group arrived at their destination at the outskirts of the territory of Nature Deers, and from a distance the group could see herds of deers clumped up from one place, and some are scattered here and there.

The place was southeast of Ken’s house, with a wide field but has trees littered here and there, not like from when they travel to the northern village where you see trees at every corner, on this place there is also a river right of their position where other deers are drinking from.

To the left looks to be a continuation of the mountainous range, must be the direction to the sea, Ken thought. A large deer approached them from the confines of the grass, rising to a height similar to that of Trunk and Coralia’s beast form.

With large antlers like tree branches, and leaves and grass all over its animal body with its leaves ranging from light green at the top going darker down, but greatly contrasts the form, everyone was in awe of the majestic creature.

“Greetings Granarados, we have come in request of the King to aid you in the battle ahead.” said Syla as she bowed down, as well as Trunk and Coralia.

“Thank you for coming here as soon as soon as you had, we are in need of great help.” said Granarados, he looked at the back. “Ah, my cousins are here, how have you faired Coralia, Trunk?” he asked.

“We’re doing great cousin, thank you for asking, by the way these are students and disciples under the teaching of our village leader, they are here to help too.” said Coralia, Granarados gazed wearily at the young people his cousins brought, he was even surprised to see three humans in their midst.

Thinking of how absurd this was, he could not help but judge harshly the decision the King made in silence, nonetheless, he shook the thought and focused on the matter at hand, surely they’ll be able to hold out for long with his two cousins present.

“Alright, everyone follow me, and Coralia, escort the group of youngsters to the herd.” said Granarados, the group was confused while Coralia questioned her cousin’s decision.

“Cousin, but these youngsters can help.” She said.

“They’ll only be a liability Coralia, I don’t understand why the King sent them with you but I shall not risk anyone for this dangerous time.” He said sternly.

“But-.” -Coralia-

“I will not have any more of this conversation, escort them to somewhere safe immediately.” said Granarados, and walked towards the gathered herd of deers. Coralia, left in her own thoughts as her face contorted in turmoil, sensing his Aunt’s distress, Ken said…

“We’ll just have to show him what we’re capable of, don’t worry Aunt Coralia, I’m sure once he’s seen what we can do, he’ll be in for a surprise.” Ken smiled, making Coralia smile softly, she brightened up and lifted her spirits for the battle that is to come.

Suddenly the atmosphere changed from quiet and peace to tense and horrid, as well as the surroundings turned dark red, a gate has been opened, or more precisely it’s power is taking effect. The group noticed the tension in the air and felt as if their knees were about to buckle down.

They’ve never felt such intense killing intent before, and to be surrounded by it abruptly, seemed like they’re suffocating with air.

“We need to hurry, the gate has been opened, let us catch up to-“ Trunk’s sentence was cut short when the Nature Deers ran towards their direction with the pounding of hooves on the ground, a wave of magical powers the color of green erupted from the location where the herd gathered.

A barrier was erected, and from a distance the group could see that outside it, Granarados and his warriors were fighting of monsters, Ken recognized them immediately as wolves, but he hasn’t quite qualified what they are called.

“Everyone, move out and assist the leader!” shouted Trunk.

“Arcane Magic: Mass Teleportation!” casted Ken as a magic circle appeared below their feet and teleported them beside the Nature Deers that casted the barrier.

“What the! Coralia, I thought you’d taken them somewhere safe?! Why are they here!?” said Granarados as soon as he noticed that Coralia and Trunk arrived along with the kids as the group stepped out of the barrier.

The dears that casted the barrier, were weary of the bunch, more so in worry. Granarados unleashed an earthquake to at least buy him some time for a conversation.

“This is not the time cousin, let them help, they have the strength to aid you.” said Trunk, but before Granarados could retort, Ken flew passed him unsheathed his scythe, and in mid air casted…

“Fire Magic: Pyrokinetic Burst!” he directed his scythe downwards to the cracked ground activating the spell as magic circles appeared below the huge wolves and bursting them apart. Over fifty huge wolves were killed. The group was stunned in their feet, or hooves for that matter.

“What are you guys waiting for? You don’t wanna join in on the fun?” he said and flew up again just to repeat what he had done in other places. The group recovered and resumed fighting, the warrior deers received help from Glen, Wilbert and Icarus by defending them, to which they nod in gratitude.

Flin, Riyah, Lila, and Celine assisted from the back, with enhancing, and healing spells and the occasional rain of bolts of elements or arrows, Princess Lang and Allen flew up to meet Ken in mid-air about to rain down more firepower on the wave of wolves, the two rained down fire and ice magic in mid-air covering for Ken.

As the fight went on, Coralia had chanted a spell that had given everyone additional defensive and recovery spells, while her brother joined in the onslaught of wolves alongside Ken using his bare hands to tear into the masses.

“Uncle, what do you call these wolves?” asked Ken, mid-fight as he swing his scythe wounding and sometimes severing the head of wolves.

“They are called Dire wolves, twisted beings, manipulated by forces of chaos from the realm of demons to wreak havoc whenever the demon gates open.” Trunk said, Ken nodded, and flew back into the air again.

Trunk was confused but shook his head to focus on his fight, he changed into his dark deer form, and continued rampaging.

Ken, in the air assessed the situation, he could still see more wolves coming from the nearby forest rushing towards their location, thankfully nobody circled to attack the back of the barrier where most of the deers gathered.

There were about two hundred warrior deers on their side while their enemy still grew in number from one hundred to five hundred within minutes.

‘Wait, the barrier at the back.’ He thought, and teleported at the back to see that every nature deer was huddled close to the edge of the barrier.

‘I’ve got to secure this place first in case the barrier falls.’ He thought to himself, he landed down, cleaned the blood from his clothes and weapon with water and air magic, then placed his hands on the earth.

“Earth and Nature Magic: Forest Guardian.” two magic circles the color of deep green and brown overlapping one another appeared below him engulfing a radius of thirty meters including the area within the barrier leaving small magic circles all over the circle, completing the spell.

“There that should do it.” He then teleported back to the fight in mid-air and plunged the staff of his scythe down to the ground, and simultaneously casted…

“Water Magic: Tidal Wave!” A huge wave erupted from the bottom of his scythe and proceeded to drag the wolves backwards, friendly’s that were caught in the spell be it his companions or the deers, were gently placed down on the ground as they watched the wave take the wolves back to the forest without as much as damaging the forest.

They stared dumbfoundedly at the culprit, even the deers are staring blatantly, how could a child do such kind of magic? And be precise at that, they all thought in their mind.

“Ken, where did you go for a second?” asked Wilbert jogging to him.

“I just went at the back and casted a protective spell.” Ken said. “Anyway, I’ve got some news in regards to our situation.” By now the group formed a circle.

“I don’t know why but the wolves kept pouring out from the forest and in large numbers.” Ken added.

“That’s because the gate hasn’t closed yet, and with the increase in strength of those dire wolves, I’m afraid their numbers have increased as well.” said Granarados appearing behind Ken. Ken nodded leaving the group in thought.

“We need a plan if we want to deal with them effectively, they’re strength is not to be underestimated, I’d almost got wounded heavily from the fight back then.” said Ken, popping the group from their train of thought, as Ken showed a healing wound on his arm, it was deep before, but with his healing magic, it’s recovering at an alarming rate.

The nature deers were stunned again on their hooves, thinking about a child getting wounded like that, and healed in just a matter of seconds, what kind of atrocity did they undergo? Meanwhile, the group -except for Coralia and Trunk- went into conversation on how to tackle the situation.

“Wilbert, Glen, use the spell that I taught you to gain their attention, Icarus, join the support team, we’ll need all the fire power we can get, while the three of us hover above the group to keep large numbers at bay.” the group of kids nodded, and positioned themselves in a three lined formation.

Two at the front, them being Glen, and Wilbert with their shields and swords -except Glen’s only carrying a shield and uses his fists to pound any monster that may come by-, five in the middle with Icarus joining the group, and three at the back. Ken turned to the leader and said…

“Leader is there any way to close the gate?” Granarados shook his head.

“I’m afraid the gate will remain as it is and will continue pouring out monsters or in this case, dire wolves, usually it lasts for a day.” Granarados added, Ken nodded, deep in thought.

“Leader Granarados, can you order your warriors to form a pyramid using my group as the basis.” the leader looked at him confused, Ken then abruptly used his memory spell on the leader to make him understand quickly.

“We must hurry, my spell will run out soon.” said Ken, waiting for the response of the leader, he took out his scythe embedded on the ground, and the sound of waves falling bounced off from the forest, and Granarados understood finally.

Granarados executed the pyramid formation Ken showed to him, with the outer warriors created nature shields while those on the inner provided support by magic or spears, and in no time, everyone was ready for another wave of monsters.

“Get ready!” Ken shouted and activated his flight spell along with Allen, and Princess Lang and flew to the air as another wave of hungry looking, red-eyed dire wolves emerged from the trees running at their full speed towards the formation.

“NOW!” shouted Ken.

“Enchant Magic: TAUNT!” Wilbert and Glen shouted simultaneously as two magic circles appeared on their feet the color of white and an aura of red erupted from their frames hitting the wolves directly making them turn their heads towards the two and snarled viciously preparing to lung forward.

“Sword Style: Blade Surge.” said Wilbert as he stood still, a buzz reverberated from his body making him almost blurred out, when a wolf would be close enough in striking range he would slash swiftly before returning back to position, as if he didn’t move out of his position.

Sword styles don’t function in terms of cast to magic, since a magic circle is required to form before the activation of the spell, the sword style that was taught to him by his father required only rigorous training and constant wielding of the sword.

Eventually leading to a swordsman creating their own style of swordsmanship and be able to use aura, aura is similar to magic, only ever available to weapon practitioners, and since all of the people in Ken’s group, are touched with a slight effect of aura, or aura for that matter.

They are able to sense Wilbert’s aura.

But not as much as Wilbert, one close to being equal to him would be Ken to say the least, so for every slash in his blade surge struck lightning fast, almost unnoticeable by the naked eye, but if one focuses, they’ll be able to see a blur, not clear, yet.

And quite probably the sword spell was influenced by Ken, the spell may be efficient but requires mana to operate, done in quick successions costs more mana to be spent.

“Earth Magic: Earth Guard.” chanted Glen as it summoned an earth wall reaching up to his waist, while striking anyone in close proximity with a barrage of earth spears or in this case, the wolves that jump to strike him.

A two way spell that both defends and attacks at the same time but requires the caster to stay still and pour a constant amount of mana to every attack, the only vulnerable window of time for Glen is when a spear retracts to the ground, lucky for him he uses a shield and his fists, to defend and strike those that stick too close to him.

“Shadow Magic: Arrow Daggers.” said Celine and Lila simultaneously as they both released a black arrow from their bows, one bow made out of shadow magic held by Lila.

After the release, the bow dissipated, while Celine’s bow emitted a black smoke, after the release returned to its original state.

The black arrows flew deep into the enemy, and upon landing on the ground activated a black magic circle, each with a radius of fifteen meters, and exploded thousands of shadow arrows with the arrow/s as the center striking the monsters head on,

With a quick snap of their fingers the black arrows expanded to that of daggers further wounding every monster unfortunate enough to be pierced by the arrows, others that were caught in the center of the blast were shredded into pieces.

Shadow magic still eating away at their flesh. Another phenomenon they could not understand to be possible, the warriors were more scared of the kids now more than the monsters, but wait till they witness what Ken can do more.

The area in front was clear as Glen and the other three used area of effect spells along with the constant diving of Ken, Allen and Princess Lang in the front lines made it more easy to manage the wave of wolves,

For every dead body of the wolves in front of their vanguard would be flung back to the wolves running towards them, making their bodies collide for a brief distortion, making their disoriented for a moment,

To be later taken care of, either by getting caught by a spell’s blast, or cut off by Ken’s scythe, some are still able to pass though, and that’s fine.

But the rear was slowly being over-run, Icarus jumped at the right side of the pyramid while Riyah jumped at the left, immediately casting one of their area spells.

“Fire Magic: Explosion!” casted Icarus after landing down and two magic circles appeared out of his outstretched hands, the explosion didn’t start at his initial position, instead, erupted a distance away from him of five meters in front.

With an explosion size of three meters the fire spell engulfed the wolves in flames in no time with fifteen explosions in total.

“Ice Magic: Ice Nova!” casted Riyah as a big magic circle appeared on the ground in front of her the radius of twenty meters.

Ice energies built up before exploding leaving the wolves caught in the blast either freezing and on the verge of dying or had frozen to dust and fell like a grain of sand -or salt-.

The two jumped back into position leaving the minimal wolves to be taken care of by the warriors. The group rejoiced as they had a winning chance this time, but a thump on the ground ceased their thoughts from processing.

As a monster came out of the forest, with a height of over two and a half meter, had a club in hand, brown in skin color and wearing tattered clothes, an ogre appeared. Suddenly the atmosphere’s temperature dropped several Celsius.

Another intimidating figure appeared out of the forest, this one looked to be a human, but with the swirling red and black energies as the body, with the slow moving of hands and feet, the figure made it look like a twisted nightmare of the people.

The wolves started to mutate as sounds of popping bones echoed, and the group saw the dire wolves stand on their two legs, they were now werewolves, but with bigger and furry build.

“Shit, the situation is increasingly turning dire by the minute. Flin, how are you doing in on with that spell!?” shouted Ken as he dived back and forth in front and sometimes at the rear.

“I’m almost done, just give me more time!” Flin replied.

“Okay, Allen, Princess, use a spell that’ll weaken the enemies.” Ken shouted as he went down beside Flin, sheathed his scythe, and helped him set up his spell by giving him mana for the spell to use, the other two nodded and quickly got to work.

“Water and Ice Magic: Torrent of Frost!” casted Allen in mid-air as a magic circle appeared in front of him summoning a gush of frost and water energies pushing back and occasionally drowning and freezing over the werewolves, the ogre fared no better.

But more came out of the forest, and more ogres padded towards the pyramid, Allen directed his magic on the approaching ogres and pushed them back.

“Stand on the ground to conserve mana Allen.” shouted Ken, and Allen complied but still dished out frost and water as he descended, wave after wave directed at the ogres that got too close to the formation while the wolves were taken care of by the supports of the group.

“Can’t let them outdo me, Royal Magic: Draconic Flames.” chanted Princess Lang in mid-air, a magic circle the color of golden red appeared in front of her outstretched right hand and burst forth a beam of flames that incinerated all the ogres hit.

She repeated the process over and over again, stopping mid cast only to cast it back on a different target but mostly focusing on the ogres. The warriors watched in awe as the group moved as a team, quickly switching with one another to assist the other.

Granarados was amazed as he watched the scenery unfold, of course he could not let a bunch of kids outdo him so he showed off his magic.

“Nature Magic: Wrath of the Forest!” he chanted, a magic circle a radius of one hundred meters appeared below his hooves and tendrils of roots burst forth to either strangle, tie down, or slice the monsters approaching, each tendril of root as thick as a ten meter radius and can extend how much he like, but only on his zone of influence.

Trunk and Coralia exploited this opportunity by brandishing their weapons, both having twin swords, the former holding black blades, while the latter, holding white blades, the two danced around the battlefield finishing of those caught by the roots that were still breathing.

And those unfortunate to get caught in their way were spared none of the slaughter. The monster’s numbers are rapidly dwindling, but Ken felt awfully wrong, he cannot shake the feeling that something is amiss.

Part of the reason why he jumped into action without sparring a second or teleported at the back of the barrier to place a trap was for this very feeling that he cannot explain, cold sweat ran down his back, and his guard is raised.

At the same time, his body alternates from cold to extremely hot, but he was able to stabilize his situation after he had positioned himself with Flin to assist him, he took a look around, his eyes stopped at the humanoid figure.

It was smiling, eerily, at him, or so he presumes so.

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