NOVPUB
Chapter 76: The Predestined Fate [2]
In a dark and harrowing forest, 5 young mages were walking through it with apparent dread and discomfort. It was a dark and dreary forest, filled with countless magical beasts of various nature. Especially, those with deadly poison and dark elements.
In that dark and damp place, the 5 people looked extremely out of place, their clothes did not even have a speck of dirt, even when walking through deep muddy ground or water’s, their feet’s were not dirtied, a magic reflective barrier was warding off any substance that spit towards them, they were all powerful mages, all 5 of them.
Anti-sense magic and various other defensive spells were protecting them, diverting the senses of any magical beasts or creatures that might try to sense them. Each of the 5 had their roles to play in the party. As they were there to hunt a particular beast, that was their mission. Despite each having their own strengths and weaknesses, they all had similar looking clothes with some slight differences here and there.
There is the same insignia on all of their clothes. The insignia of the Sage Tower, which was often regarded as the strongest tower and profession of magic, only the arcane tower being able to compete with them somewhat.
But that changed in the last competition held by all the tower’s, where one undisputed supreme genius was revealed to the world that changed the hierarchy of the towers in their entirety. The rune tower which was always regarded as the weakest, that one genius proved the world wrong and put the weakest tower as the strongest among the next generation of the mages.
The Sage tower lost all of its fame and glory in that one exchange. But they were not to be looked down upon, as they also had their own genius emerging next. And that very Genius was the little brother of the supreme genius from the rune tower himself. It was Akon.
He was currently a peak 2nd circle mage, alongside his party, they were on a monthly mandatory mission that every mage from the sage tower needs to complete. After completing the mission, Akon would have enough credits to buy the resources needed to advance to the third circle Sage.
The reason why Akon was held in high regard in the Sage tower is because, just like his brother. He could also fight above his stage, though not to the same extent as his brother. For now, he could fight and defeat any normal peak 3rd circle mage just as a peak 2nd circle mage. His genius came from his insane comprehensive ability to understand spell structures and break them down or edit them on the fly.
The beast they were currently hunting was a 4th tier beast. And since Akon himself had the battle prowess of a peak 3rd circle mage, it wasn’t too difficult of a hunt. But the reason he had formed a party with the other 4 sages who were all talented in their own right was because the beast they needed to hunt down was one of the slightly troublesome ones among the 4th-tier beasts.
So, it was an extremely poisonous and smart serpentine beast. There were many cases where stronger and powerful mages were killed by it because of underestimating it. So, he had gathered enough information and made a suitable plan to deal with it, with utmost caution.
Normally, he himself had the confidence in killing the beast, albeit with some struggle perhaps. But considering how strict his brother was about his safety, if his older brother heard of it, there would be no end to his constant nagging. So, he was fairly sure that news would obviously reach the ears of his brother if he did take even the slightest risk.
Most of the world did not know that Akon was actually Ashborn’s little brother. Maybe only the Sage Tower and Rune Tower’s vice master, mostly, a few other higher-ups of the Sage and Rune Towers.
Soon they reached their destination, the layout of the Damp serpents. Yes, the damn serpents lived together in packs, each packs had two 4th tier beasts in charge, male and female and hundreds of 3rd-tier and more lower ranking beasts.
Now that was one of the more challenging parts. How they would lure out just one 4th-tier specimen. In their normal seasons, the male would go out hunting with some of its underlings that would make things easier. Unfortunately, this was not their normal season, the opposite.
This was the breeding season, and they would rarely come out as they were busy breeding or warming the laid eggs together. Akon used one of his spells to see through the walls of the cave. As expected, since the beasts had covered the entire structure with their own poisonous gas, he couldn’t peer through it.
"Alright, everyone, let’s start," stated Akon.
"Yeah, I’m getting sick of this dark and damn place." intoned Arkos.
"Let me cast the fireball," added Zhale
"Yeah, this place is too disgusting," added Korr
"I’m already hungry, could we eat the Damn Serpent barbeque?" questioned Orin.
Everyone looked at Orin questioningly. Zhale stated for the umpteenth time,
"You idiot, how many time do I have to tell you that the goddamn serpents entire body is poisonous, its meat is not edible!!"
He practically shouted in his face, but Orin simply ignored him. Korr gave Orin an annoying look, "Just let this bastard do whatever he wants after we go back, and let’s stop wasting more time. I don’t want to spend a second more here than I have to."
Akon only smiled at the antics of his friends. But a moment later, their expressions turned serious, they were simply messing around to lighten up the mood. But now it was time for business.
The first in action was Zhale, focusing his mana and making it flow through a certain pattern, a focused fireball was created, aiming at the entrance teeming with a disturbing amount of Damp Snakes, he fired it, the fireball shot right through the entrance.
And a loud explosion occurred. countless snakes of the first tier and fewer were caught on spreading fire, it wasn’t just a normal fire. But a slow burning fire of unique kind that caused extreme amounts of pain, and it was hard to put out, and could burn even the dampest things since it fed on mana rather than actual material.
Countless hisses and cries of snakes sounded in the surroundings, Korr immediately cast a camouflage spell, then two deafening cries that out shadowed all the snakes cries sounded thunderously, it was the two leaders.
It seems the fireball reached moderately deep through the cave and caused some significant destruction. And the two 4th-tier specimens were extremely enraged. However, they did not come out. Rather, countless 3rd tier snakes came out and spread everywhere, hissing and sniffing everything in a certain radius. They often flicked their tails and broke trees or various vegetation in anger and suspicion. If something was hiding in the bushes.
More of Akon’s friends helped Korr to do a better camouflaging, through other enhancement type of magics. Of course, they did not expect the leaders to come out with just that small spell. They obviously needed all the 3rd tier ones to come out, when they became sure that most of the underlings within the cave came out, they dispelled their camouflage.
All the 3rd-tier and 2nd-tier specimens turned all of their heads at a certain point right in their middle as their instincts screamed in fear. But the order of their leaders was obvious and overrode their fear. But in that moment of hesitation between fear and obedience, their enemies had launched their wide-ranging, destructive attacks, something in which Akon himself did not participate. Because he was not needed.
After 10 minutes or so, all the 3rd tier and lower levels of specimens were slaughtered like dogs, most of them did not even have their bodies remaining. And there was a silence in the surroundings, an eerie silence in fact.
Akon himself, walking in some distance. Nodded towards his companions and they also nodded towards him, and Akon hid himself through and invisibility and sense evasion spell. In the next moments another deafening roar resounded from the cave, sounding far angrier than before.
Then a massive, disgusting-looking serpent came out, its looks were extremely disturbing. The serpent’s body was filled with a sticky, liquid-like substance. Its face looked disfigured and horrifying at the same time.
But the party was not deterred, the four looked at the large serpent with apparent wariness and the narrowed slits of the serpents eyes focused its intents on the 4 individuals. While it did look extremely furious, but it did not rush towards its enemies blindly. Rather it looked around for a moment, as if searching for someone. But it found no one, as if it was it knew that there is a fifth individual.
The 4 friends of Akon looked at it with more wariness, seeing the intelligent glint in its eyes. It let out a low growl, as if chuckling towards the humans that ambushed it. Then, with no further fanfare, they engaged in a brutal fight. Using that opportunity as intended, Akon swiftly rushed inside the cave. There was a thin filtering barrier, which he personally created, that filters out the toxic air and all sorts of harmful substances through multiple recycling of the air itself.
He walked down, slowly and carefully, extending his senses as far as possible. For some reason, his senses were being blocked after a certain point.
As he approached closer and closer, he realized that it should be the hatching room, or breeding room, however you call it. With some hesitation, he entered it. And in a micro second, a powerful gale of poisonous acid poured all over him, while he himself was a tad bit late to react, his automatic defenses were not.
Akon immediately, launched a flurry of focused attacks, but from another direction a swing of large tale landed on his barrier as he was flung away and he crashed onto the walls of the cave. The entire cave shook slightly from that impact as it was very powerful.
Gritting his teeth, Akon stood up and looked forward with some tension and wariness. He cursed internally, ’Goddamn it, damn it, damn it.’
’There were two damn snakes in here not just one, but that didn’t make sense. There needed to be an obvious hierarchy within the beasts’ pack.’
His eyes looked around carefully, then his eyes landed on the snake that had first spat the poisonous acid on him. Analyzing the snake with some magic, and his guesses were right. That particular snake was indeed the strongest. Casting all sorts of buff spells on him, he engaged with the two snakes. He wasn’t too worried about his current situation; he had enough artifacts and spells in his arsenal as well as the combat experience to kill the two snakes, but it still wouldn’t be easy.
And he did not grow arrogant, the snakes were indeed extremely intelligent, just one of the 4th tier specimen went out knowing that someone will come to ambush it here. And the ones coming inside for ambush would instead be the ones faced with ambush of the snakes. What cunning bastards.
Casting a more powerful shield, a one-way shield from him, that only blocked anything coming towards him, but allowed him to attack without hindrance. He shot rays of blue fire one after another. Then he tapped into his most aligned element or concept.
Calling upon all of his mana, Akon coated his entire being with a terrifying blinding light, which radiated extreme amounts of heat within the damn swamp like cave area, the waters in the cave started evaporating from the blinding radiance of the unmatched light.
The two snakes hissed in pain, they liked to live in the places of slight darkness and wetness, mud with poisonous properties in it. But the blinding radiance was making them unable to see anything and it was drying the place up. With their eyes closed and the heat scorching their skins, they started swinging their tails randomly, they could not even sense the surroundings with the mana since the heat was making them go haywire.
Akon easily dodged all of their attacks; the madly blows could not touch him in the slightest. After a while, they simply lost their energy, and the mana reserves of the beast were dried up. Their skin shriveled up.
Akon promptly finished off the two beasts, deactivating his light form. he breathed ruggedly, while that custom-made spell of his was quite powerful in its own right, and he did not even need to use all the functions of it in this fight. Just activating sucks dry almost half of his mana reserves and its quite taxing mentally.
Taking a deep breath of the purified fresh air, he brought out a few potions and drank them all up. Almost 80% of his mana had recovered from the potions, but his mind still felt extremely heavy, putting the corpses of the two snakes inside his ring. He walked back towards the exit.
He frowned internally thinking, ’They should have finished by now, why didn’t they come inside to help just in case?’
On the other hand, there was no need; he was proficient and strong, and everyone knew that. So, without giving it much thought, he kept walking. And.... 𝑛𝘰𝑣𝑝𝑢𝑏.𝘤𝑜𝘮
The moment he walked out, his pupils dilated in disbelief, the large snake and....his companions, all four of them, were dead? The entire ground was bathed in blood as if a brutal torture had happened there.
Arkos had his head severed, Zhale had his skull crushed, Korr had all of his limbs torn apart all over the place, while Orin had his brain matter and internal organs splattered all over. It was a horrid, disgusting, and disturbing scene in every possible way.
It was as if someone butchered them to splinters, not just killed them. Akon’s mind went utterly blank at the sight of the most brutal slaughter he had ever witnessed in his entire life. Unable to handle the gruesome scene, he instantly vomited up everything he had in his stomach.
After vomiting for a while, he stood up barely, and then someone slowly walked out from behind the tree’s and he only noticed it now, it was a mighty looking warrior, dawned in metal armor, but his entire figure was covered in blood, the metal armor covered almost every part of the mighty warrior except his head, Akon looked at the warrior who’s eyes blazed in fury like scorching fire in a desert.
Clank....Clank........Clank.......
As the figure walked closer and closer, the sound of metal armor sounded within the silent surroundings of the destroyed forest. The figure stated in a furious voice, "You’re the leader that these wretches were talking about?"
"Fine, let me butcher you as well."
Akon finally came to his senses as his shock receded, and he realized the person responsible for killing his close friends that he had made over the last 10 years. Akon gritted his teeth as anger, unlike anything before in his entire life, surfaced in his mind.
"YOU........BASTAAARDDDDDD................." roared Akon in boundless fury, at the top of his lungs, ready to burn down the entire damn world if necessary.
"I will kill you no matter what.....and that’s a fucking promise." declared Akon with every fiber of determination of his entire existence that he could possibly muster.
