The Third Party - Chapter 39

3rd Person’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

A glint of red shone from the humanoid’s eyes and turned around to walk into the forest, Ken’s face scrunched up in confusion, he circulated his mana to prepare defensive spells if need be, he cannot take any chances.

“Flin, are you done with your spell?” Ken asked, Flin nodded, and summoned an orb atop his hands, as a bright white magic circle with a touch of sky blue, appeared below his feet that reached up to twice the magic circle Granarados conjured.

“Spirit Magic: Tied Fate.” He chanted, the magic circle turned bright as tendrils of white wrapped around the monsters then turned into chains that suffocated the monsters both werewolves and ogres alike slowly in its tightening grip, shrieks echoed from the cries of monsters.

Ken jumped at the tangled monsters and executed one of his weapon techniques, ‘Sword Style: Dance of a Deathblade’, with a quick tug at his scythe, cuts formed at the monster’s body wounding them and bleeding profusely, eventually dying, bodies littered everywhere.

Ken looked at the forest and saw that the monsters ceased their attacks, either by hiding behind trees or quivering on their feet.

All the monsters affected by Flin’s spell suffered the same fate, Ken fully held his scythe on his right hand, the area turned quiet as the battle came to a slow, Ken turned aro-

Only to feel eminent energy blast towards them with incredible speed, Ken got caught in the blast and pushed backwards colliding with the barrier before falling down to the ground, another two dark red energies came blasting towards the formation hitting Glen and Wilbert creating smoke.

Allen and Princess Lang immediately flew down to their friends, covering them with the smoke in a rush, and the fact that they are worried.

The creature of twisted chaotic energies walked out of the forest slowly, this time looking a lot more menacing as its eyes gleamed red in the dark atmosphere, black smoke exited it’s body, and upon close inspection as if it was decaying with tears of flesh visible here and there.

It smiled eerily at the terrified warriors who in all sense felt that they’d lost hope the moment those three dark energy blasts hit the kids, with the monster slowly walking towards them and not speaking brought chills running own their spine.

Granarados and his two cousins did not fare any better as the fluctuation of dark energies froze them in place, no matter how much they wanted to move, their bodies wouldn’t comply, as if someone had taken over their control.

The monster stopped centimeters away from the smoke it created as it slowly dissipated revealing a crater, its eyes instantly widened in surprise at what he is seeing, there in the middle of the crater is Ken, holding his scythe forward as a silver shield was erected.

“Surprised?” Ken said. He dashed in-front, hit the monster and pushed it back, then did another attack winding from the bottom to the top, sending the monster flying upwards, he used blink and appeared beside the monster.

‘Sword Style: Precision Strike.’ Ken performed ten slices in the blink of an eye, rendering the humanoid monster unable to retaliate as it took all hits making wounds litter all over its body.

Ken struck him again this time sending the monster at the entrance of the forest. Ken landed and stared hard at the culprit.

“I don’t know what you are or who you are but no one, and I mean no one, hurts my friends, except for me.” said Ken seriously, except the last part. The monster growled and shrieked a guttural sound rushing towards him.

“You know, you could have defeated me if you had checked twice first and then be cocky about your achievement.” said Ken.

With a quick turn and twist of Ken’s scythe, he used his momentum to swing at the side of the rod of the scythe hitting the monster square on the face, used his other hand to switch the rod and hit again using the bottom part at the face.

The monster’s growl intensified, but Ken retaliated and abused the window of time given, he swiped his scythe at the monsters feet making it loose its footing.

“Earth Magic: Earth Pillar.” a magic circle barely the circumference of the body of the monster summoned a pillar that hit it at its back that flung it upwards and fell down with a thud.

“Oh and, one more thing, let’s play!” shouted Ken enthusiastically.

“Fire Magic: Firestorm.” another magic circle formed below the monster and summoned ascending fire glaves, it summoned twenty glaves that passed through the monster causing more wounds to form.

The monster breathed for a moment looked up and conjured a dark energy ball but wasn’t able to finish when the glaves descended upon it again, not causing any smoke but embedded themselves on the body of the monster as it shrieked.

The monster conjured again another dark energy ball, but shrieked louder as the fire glaves spun on its body, the shrieks chilled the onlookers to the bone, even Ken’s companions, they had known how savage Ken’s personality is whenever he’s pissed off, but being a witness of the massacre is never a good experience.

But there he was, seemingly enjoying and at the same time serious at what he is doing.

The glaves detached themselves of the body and disappeared, leaving the monster weak, and almost dying, almost. It tried to crawl forward but wasn’t able to as the pain of many open wounds and damaged insides prevented it.

“Wow, you’re a fighter? Hmm, that should be a given. I don’t know why but when I look at you I feel like I want to castrate you on the spot.” said Ken malevolently, but the creature only looked at him in anger.

“Let’s end this. Lightning Magic: Plasma Gun.” a ten meter radius magic circle the color of yellow appeared on mid-air directly above the monster passing the max height of the trees, and summoned a condensed lightning with the same width as the magic circle, blasting the area the monster is at, once.

It happened in the blink of an eye, the flash momentarily blinding the crowd, but Ken just closed his eyes. He opened his eyes before the crowd recovered, and saw the lifeless corpse of the monster, he activated glow and saw…

Swirling dark energies clumping together at the monster, indicating that it was still alive. He deactivated glow and jumped backwards two times just as a dark spike thrust itself upwards at his previous location, he jumped twice just to be sure.

The monster with renewed powers but still a weak body, gazed at him angrily, it shrieked -again- and dozens of dark red spikes burst forth around him, successfully grazing or hitting some of the group, but luckily with quick reactions, Ken’s group jumped upwards, avoiding the onslaught.

The warriors didn’t fair much except for the three deer leader/guardians, Ken used glow again to look into their vitality, and found many slipping away. Upon landing he executed ‘Dance of a Deathblade’ again aiming at the embedded spikes on the warriors.

“Grand Healing Magic: Restoration.” chanted Ken, magic circle the color of green appeared below the warriors and healed them for twenty percent of their missing health instantly, but were still unconscious.

“Arcane Magic: Mass Teleportation.” the green magic circle was replaced by a violet one and teleported the injured warriors inside the barrier.

“Enchant Magic: Strength!” chanted Ken holding out his left hand at the barrier, doubling its strength. He executed the spells in quick succession and finished casting just as his companions landed.

“What are we going to do?” asked Allen.

“Find out its weakness.” said Ken and blinked forward with his scythe swinging downwards. “Earth Magic: Mountain Toss!” a magic circle formed at the scythe as it plunged to the earth, making the land burst forward sending with it, the monster, backwards.

“Use all types of magic, but execute one spell, I’ll keep him busy!” shouted Ken, he rushed forward using ‘flight’ and ‘strength’ to glide along the falling debris and use his scythe for a game of baseball.

He hit the monster upwards. ”Royal Magic: Draconic Flame.” making it collide with Princess Lang’s spells of golden fire ball. ‘Arcane Magic: Blink Zone.’ chanted Ken, and appeared beside the monster, hitting it to the left.

“Water Magic: Water Rush.” chanted Allen as water rushed from below unto the monster flinging it upwards.

“Shadow Magic: Shadow Prison.” chanted Saber as a dark cage trapped the monster and struck it with shadow spears, it shrieked but got cut short as Ken appeared beside it and executed his ‘Sound Alteration Spell’ and disappeared just as fast along with the cage.

“Nature Magic: Poisoned Thorns.” chanted Glen as vines appeared below an caught the falling monster entangling it, and with a rush of energy caused the poison on the thorns to explode and cause further damage, the thorns loosened its grip letting the monster fall.

But in mid-air, Ken appeared again and striked the monster upwards, sending it flying.

“Spirit Magic: Spirit Blast.” chanted Flin, hitting the monster in mid-air, the monster shouted as loud as it could, but the spell casted on him by Ken prevented it from ever being heard by the others, it fell down with a thud, this time, with no more renewed energy, lay lump on the ground.

“Why are you still not dead? We’ve dished out spell after spell and you’re still alive?!” asked Ken, to no one, but everybody knows that he’s directing those questions to this humanoid monster, the swirling dark red energies ceased it rampage on the humanoid body.

Leaving what could have been a human male, but with dark and wounded skin. Ken poked the corpse.

“… hate… re-venge… hu-mans…” it spoke, the group stopped in their place, as the voice shook them.

“Flin, what is it saying.” said Ken, Flin immediately opened his connection to his magic in a special way that allowed him to perceive the words spoken and find the meaning behind it’s sentence, a special ability only the nine-tailed foxes possess.

“It’s, a collective energy of negative thoughts.” said Flin, the connection still visible as his eyes glowed in wispy blue.

“What?” said Ken with as much impatience as he can muster, in his tone of voice.

“The reason behind why we can’t get rid of it is because it doesn’t possess a body, it created one, with the chaotic energies it was exposed to, and no spells of physical form is able to vanquish it.” explained Flin.

“How did you get that information? I thought your gift was only able to perceive the context behind words spoken?” said Ken jokingly.

“It did, but my gift lets me delve deeper into further understanding, and I advise you to not be so nonchalant with the situation, this creature might be able to recover quickly if given enough or sufficient time.” said Flin, gazing hardly at Ken, Ken scratched his neck timidly.

“Then what do we do? Do you guys have any idea how to solve this problem?” asked Ken, as he looked at his companions and the three adult deers. The group sheathed their weapons and looked at the lifeless looking body.

“Apparently no, we haven’t encountered one before, this is the first time one of this abominations appeared.” said Granarados, while tending to his wounds. Coralia and Trunk walked up to him to help him in healing the wounds.

Ken stared hard at the wound, he walked towards Granarados.

“May I inspect the wound?” He asked.

“Sure.” said Granarados.

“If you don’t mind me asking sir, did you get wounded by one of the creature’s attacks?” asked Ken.

“Yes.” replied Granarados.

Ken hovered his hand over the deep wound on Granarados’s arm, and used minor healing, the wound closed, but slowly it opened again, the wound opening was small making it unnoticeable to the naked eye, but Ken noticed, his mana sense was ticked by it.

“My goodness, this is bad.” Ken muttered, he concentrated on slowing the slowly opening wound with a slight patch of ice magic, he doesn’t know what will happen after this but he can only hope that the spell will delay the further opening of wound.

“I don’t know why but my healing magic is not working on the wound.” said Ken, making the group confused, but before anyone could say anything, Ken beat them to it. “Look closely at the wound with any kind of focusing spell you have, and you will see that the wound’s slowly opening.”

The group did as what was told, and gasped in realization -but not exaggeratedly, some just had their eyes wide open-.

“I don’t know what to do, but, do you guys have any idea on what to counter dark energies, if my speculation is correct, this is a kind of dark curse or a demon one.” Ken said.

“Isn’t it like darkness magic?” asked Allen.

“No young one, that magic is not similar to darkness magic of this world, it’s of different origin, and since the creature came out of the demon gate, then it must be related to demon magic.” said Coralia.

“Then, what does counter demon magic?” asked Saber. The group fell into deep thought.

“How about we try light magic?” Ken said. “Wilbert, try it out.” He added, Wilbert nodded and approached Granarados with the wound slowly becoming more visible despite being sealed by ice magic.

“Remember to be very careful with trying out a new spell for your magic, or the energies will fluctuate and cause more harm than good.” explained Ken, Wilbert nodded, he hovered his hand on the wound of the Nature Deer Leader, and slowly summoned his light magic, at first the attempt was a failure.

“It’s not working.” Wilbert said, frustrated.

“Imagine what you want your magic to do to the person.” said Ken. “If you want to heal someone, then imagine your magic healing the person.” He added. Even while under pressure, Ken’s voice guided Wilbert to his desired outcome, and soon enough the wound closed up, completely healing and not reopening anymore.

The group cheered in delight at their success, but was halted as they felt a fluctuation of energy behind them, the creature was steering again.

“Wilbert, use an offensive light spell!” shouted Ken.

“Right! Light Magic: Light Sword!” chanted Wilbert that summoned a yellowish white magic circle above the humanoid monster and struck it with a light sword, ceasing the collection of energy, ending the creatures life.

The group sighed in relief as the problem had been solved finally, Ken gave Wilbert a thumbs up, Wilbert smiled and the two proceeded to fist bump.

“Good thing I didn’t get to use moon magic.” said Ken.

“Yeah, it would be a disaster, otherwise the warriors would be caught by the blast.” said Wilbert.

“That reminds me, the other warriors were wounded by its darkness onslaught earlier, Wilbert tend to their wounds now.” said Ken, Wilbert complied immediately and he rushed to the center of the barrier were the warriors were teleported earlier, Ken modified his enchantment on the barrier allowing his friend to pass through the still erect barrier.

Ken told Granarados to tell his warriors that had erected the barrier to keep it active while he scouts the area and look where the gate is located if it was still open or closed. Ken departed immediately after Granarados nodded, and sent a mental message to his companions to either help Wilbert tend to the wounded or stand guard.

And check up on the dead humanoid, one person complied as Icarus went back on the battle site to check up on the corpse, and he witnessed the corpse turn to ash in a matter of seconds, but at first the complexity was pale, and covered in black blood.

He must send this message to Ken immediately. Forgetting that he can just telepathically contact Ken, he went back to the group and told them what he witnessed, now the group plan to join Ken once they were done with the treating on injured, and have secured the area.

On the way as Ken entered the forest, he encountered monsters again, but this time, they were few, and with him flying in full speed, he just swooped down on the either fleeing or lagging around monsters, and used his scythe to cut off their heads.

Well, his friends and others cannot witness him doing so, then might as well eradicated these monsters with one swift movement. Ken felt a fluctuation of dark energies by the distance, he went up the trees to get a better feel of the energy.

He sensed the direction going further south, and after traveling fifty meters further, there he, saw a gate opened at a clearing at the forest, with other nine humanoid creatures, he notice them gathering energy from the world, turning the lush greenery to brown dead grass.

‘They’re killing the forest, Concept: Concept of Concealed Presence.’ chanted Ken, as his body was covered by a translucent barrier, this type of concept makes Ken go unnoticed by anyone he wishes to not reveal his presence, even if he’s pretty much visible to the naked eye.

Only downside, is that he is required to have vision of his target to nullify their senses of perceiving his presence. So pretty much others can notice him.

And so he waits, and watches on what these twisted humanoids are plotting, he sent a message to his friends via wind spell, a ‘Surveillance Sweep’ spell, but one that he specifically targeted to his friends.

Now, he waits, for them to arrive, good thing they thought of the same thing.

‘I hope my commotion earlier had gone unnoticed, if not, then I would be in big trouble.’ Ken thought.

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