Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin

by Weiqi Wang

  The oppressive silence went on for a few seconds, but it felt like a few hours. The friends stayed still, letting their cold sweat drip from their foreheads. Everyone tried to be as quiet as possible, so the only sounds to be heard were the deep and resonant grumblings coming from the ape’s chest.

  After a while, the ape finally started to talk to Pipi again. He still looked angry, but better than previously.

  {Oh dear, he made an offer of combat!} Snower’s voice sounded soon enough. {He wants six of you to battle six of them! The winners take Pipi and walk away!}

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Hearing Soarame’s update, everyone was stunned. It seemed that the ape-like and monkey-like magimals were indeed a bit more intelligent than other breeds, as people tended to believe.

  ‘But we can’t take that gamble! Pipi stays with us regardless!’ Catheray hurriedly said. ‘What shall we tell Omi if we lose?’

  ‘HOCHACHA!!’ The ape obviously understood the friends’ talk. He yelled at them again, punching his own thick chest. In the meantime, another five big monkeys walked out of the gang to stand behind him.

  {He said either you take his offer, or he’ll tear you into pieces with his whole gang.} Snower interpreted. {Meow! I hate this rude ape!}

  ‘Guys, we don’t have a choice.’ Soarame looked around his friends and spoke in a low voice. ‘We have to fight!’

  ‘Fine! Let me take this ape then!’ Kardiac barked with a reddened face — the ape had driven him more to anger than fear now. ‘If we win, we don’t have to quit the quest. I actually think it’s a good deal now!’

  ‘Hold on,’ Julia said suddenly. ‘Someone needs to protect Pipi while we are fighting. We don’t want see him stolen after we win. Pipi, tell them we want a 5v5 instead of a 6v6. Let Jemario stay out of the battle with you.’

  ‘Wowha, wowha!’ The ape instantly shook his head, denying the friends’ demand. This made the friends anxious, but they couldn’t persuade the ape.

  ‘Let Kardiac watch Pipi then.’ Jemario suddenly talked to the ape. ‘He’s the strongest among us, so if he quits fighting you have a better chance to win.’

  ‘I’m the strongest?’ Kardiac was puzzled, but he wasn’t too silly to catch Jemario’s anxious eye-signal. ‘Ah-ha, of course! I can beat any of them 1v2!’ He turned to the ape. ‘If you want, I can stand by and watch you fight. Otherwise…’ Kardiac actually wanted to do the sabre-rattling face again, but his previous failure with the dholes made him stop.

  ‘Hohoho!’ Just when the friends worried that the ape wouldn’t buy it, they saw him suddenly start to laugh. He looked happy, clapped his palms and agreed right away.

  The friends had to hold their amusement back. They certainly wouldn’t say anything, but quickly got prepared for the group fight.

  ‘Kardy, don’t let loose! Watch Pipi closely and do whatever to protect him!’ Soarame urged. ‘I’ll take the ape…’

  ‘No. Let me take him!’ Dileys cut Soarame off. ‘Please?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Soarame was startled. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of Rodka.’ Dileys bit her lips. ‘I was thinking… if I can’t even handle this big monkey, how could I ever face Max?’

  ‘That’s…’ Soarame sighed. ‘I see your point. But be very careful!’

  The battle broke out soon. The five magimals were certainly not ordinary apes or monkeys; but fortunately, they were all single-lineage Earth magimals, and they were only good at stoneball and stoneshield. But unfortunately, these five were all Adepts, so the battle was a very close one.

  ‘Watch out!’ Kardiac shouted. He saw the ape punch hard at Dileys’ iceshield, cracking it open and knocking her over. Soarame instantly let go his rival and spelled a windblade to force the ape to dodge, barely saving Dileys from his big fists. The ape was angry; he yelled at Soarame and pounced towards him, but Dileys spelled an icearrow to force him to block. This enraged the ape even more, but he couldn’t do much — Soarame was obviously winning his own fight, no matter which monkey he was facing at any given time. Therefore, he could lend a hand to his teammates from time to time, although he hadn’t managed to overcome any of the monkeys just yet. In the meantime, everyone else was doing well too; the magimals seemed really surprised to see that they couldn’t beat any of the four girls.

  A few minutes later, one of the monkeys screeched and fled from the battle, with a number of bloody cuts over his body — mostly Soarame’s work. The friends were excited to see this happen, and their morale was boosted. At the same time, the other monkeys became anxious and distracted, so Julia grabbed the opportunity for a hard shot — her icearrows got a monkey’s face, breaking his nose and a tusk. She didn’t stop after that, but followed up with even deadlier attacks — she was actually aiming at killing!

  Seeing this, the ape went totally mad. He waved his big palm, spelling a number of stoneballs to knock Julia back, at the same time calling for something. Hearing that, Pipi instantly jumped up from Kardiac’s palms and yawped.

  {Soar, the ape is asking his whole gang to attack!} At the same time, Snower’s mind-talk came over. {He’s breaking the deal!}

  ‘WHAT?!’ Soarame was enraged. ‘HOW DARE YOU!’ He spelled a blast of windblades at the ape, forcing him to stop yawping in order to dodge again.

  However, the magimals didn’t launch their joint attack right away — unexpectedly, they seemed to be hesitating. For what it was worth, these monkey-like magimals seemed to understand and appreciate promises, so that they were resistant to breaking the deal.

  ‘Shame on you!’ After realizing what was happening, the friends were all furious with the ape. Surprisingly, even some monkeys seemed to be on the friends’ side; they showed disgust for their leader. The ape, in contrast, became even madder to see this. With a hard punch, he knocked off a monkey that was mocking him — that monkey was actually slapping his own bottom towards the ape!

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Everyone was stunned to see this unexpected scenario. Many more monkeys became disgusted by the ape’s behaviour and the battle ended because of that; it turned into a fight between the monkeys — most of them were against the ape, but the rest were still following him.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Julia urged everyone anxiously, trying to keep her voice low. The team tried to make their way out of the area bit by bit, till they finally got behind the trees and started running.

  ‘Wait! Our food!’ Kardiac suddenly cried out and slowed down. ‘And clothes, and all that!’

  ‘Forget it! Run!’ Catheray hurriedly kicked his shank, and pushed him into running again.

  ****

  ‘That was close!’ After making sure of their safety, everyone was very short of breath. ‘It was definitely worth the bluff. Especially for you, Dileys!’

  ‘No, especially for me!’ Kardiac jumped over. ‘Everyone agreed that I was the strongest, and the beasts were all afraid of me!’

  ‘Hoho, Jiji!’ Pipi suddenly started laughing at him, with a big grimace.

  ‘Hey! Stop!’ Kardiac tried to pat Pipi’s head, but the little one was too swift and jumped away.

  {Meow! How are you now, Soar?} Right then, Snower’s voice sounded again in Soarame’s mind. {Good news! We are finally out of the cave!}

  ‘Really?’ Soarame cheered up instantly. He spoke it out at the same time as mind-talking. ‘Did you see our roadmarks?’

  {Meow, no.} Snower said. {So it means we came out of another exit, and we need to find each other now.}

  ‘But how to find you without a map? What does your compass say?’ Soarame kept speaking out his mind-talk with Snower, so that everyone understood what was going on. ‘Hmm… the valley is to your southwest? That means...’

  ‘Oh no. They are almost at the other side of the valley!’ The team quickly worked out Snower’s rough position. The valley had been to their north when they were by the cave, so the other team was roughly at their 2 o’clock — across the valley. That meant that the two teams were probably not even in the same cave i
n the first place, so it’s a wise choice not to wait for each other!

  The two teams had a discussion and decided to move towards each other, with their best estimation on the direction. Since they were only on the third day, they had time to give it a try. They were hoping to avoid any battle until the two teams joined forces, then to go for a big blast together. But, unfortunately, the magimals didn’t agree.

  ‘A bear! Stop!’

  One day later, Alicey’s team ran into a big brown bear-like magimal, who was biting another unknown magimal’s dead body. It seemed that the bear had just killed it, but his lunch got interrupted by five human invaders plus a little kitten.

  ‘Careful! See the silver veins on his belly? That’s an adult silveinbear.’ Omifo looked tense. ‘It’s stronger than a Grade-5 wizard.’

  ‘He’s looking at us, but he’s calm.’ Vivarin said in a low voice. ‘Should we fall back?’

  ‘Or what?’ Omifo dragged her arms to step backwards bit by bit. ‘You wanna walk up and enrage that 1000-pound bulk?’

  ‘I don’t.’ Kriagon said as they moved farther away from the bear. ‘The best I could do would be to talk a deal out of him, just like Pipi did with the monkeys.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t.’ Ericson chuckled. ‘A duckbear doesn’t count as a bear.’

  ‘Hey, that’s discrimination!’ Kriagon chuckled too. The team was not too afraid because they knew they had a chance of beating the silveinbear if it did turn on them — the battles in the cave had made them realize their capacity.

  ‘HAWW!’ Suddenly, the silveinbear stood up and roared. It seemed that he had changed his mind for some reason, and regained his interest in the invaders.

  ‘Oh no, let’s run!’ Kriagon was anxious.

  ‘You think we can run faster than a magimal?’ Omifo disagreed. ‘Get ready to fight!’

  ‘But look behind! There are two more!’ Ericson claimed. Everyone turned around with a pale face — another two big silveinbears were a few yards away. They showed up out of nowhere, quietly staring at them — just like the first one had in the beginning.

  ‘Damn it!’ This time, the friends became really worried. They believed that they could beat one of them but not three.

  ‘Meow!’ Snower suddenly jumped out of Alicey’s arms and walked towards the first silveinbear. ‘Meow!’

  ‘Snower! Don’t!’ Alicey was freaked out and tried to grab Snower, but she was stopped by the team. ‘Let her try. She’s too smart to make mistakes like this.’

  So the team watched while the white kitten talked to the first silveinbear, and the other two were listening too. Soon enough, Omifo received Pipi’s mind-talk — the other team had received the update on the silveinbears. ‘Snower was trying to talk them into a deal, but it didn’t go very well.’

  All of a sudden, the silveinbear stood up again, and slapped a tree hard with his palm. The tree broke in the middle and fell down, but Snower dodged the fallen tree and kept meowing.

  ‘Snower asked us to get ready — to charge at the bear she’s facing right now.’ Omifo looked paler when he received Pipi’s update. ‘But how could we win this batt…’

  ‘MEOW!’ Before Omifo finished his words, Snower screamed and jumped at the silveinbear, as the bear launched another attack with his palms. She was swift enough to dodge the bear’s big palm — which landed heavily on the ground and pitted it badly — and jumped on the bear’s face, for a return slap with her soft, fluffy little palm.

  Surprisingly, the bear screeched painfully and rolled over in the grass.

  ‘What!’ The friends were stunned. How could such a little palm make any damage to such a bulky enemy?

  ‘Meow!’ Snower waved her little palm at them, hastening them to follow her. The friends did so — they had to do that anyway because the other two bears were chasing them already — and they suddenly found themselves enveloped in an aura of green light. At the same time, they felt a pulse of power surge within them, giving them so much energy that they could barely contain.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Kriagon suddenly found himself running a lot faster, as if his body had no weight.

  ‘Watch out!’ Vivarin made a jump to dodge one of the bears’ charging, but the next second she found herself landing on a tree. ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘Are you okay, Viv?’ Omifo meant to dodge a stoneball spelled by a silveinbear, but an instinctive impulse out of nowhere made him decide to punch at it instead. After a bong, the stoneball was knocked away by his bare fist!

  Meanwhile, Ericson pounced on a silveinbear with his windblade spell. The windblade doubled its original size — thanks to whatever Snower had done to him — and cut deeply into the silveinbear’s shoulder. Blood instantly welled up from the cut. The bear looked frightened, as if he had never expected a boy to cut through his tough skin and fur so easily. In the next second, the bear saw its accomplice screeching miserably, having been set on fire by a chubby boy.

  ‘They are running away!’ The friends had simply followed the instincts, and soon enough they saw the bears flee for survival. Turning around, they saw the first silveinbear still fighting Snower, but the reason seemed to be that he couldn’t get away from her.

  ‘Take him down!’ Omifo suddenly shouted. ‘Pipi told me that he wanted to eat us! We must clear that up!’

  The silveinbear was cornered by the friends and put up a desperate fight. However, he couldn’t have defeated the friends even in their normal state, let alone with their powers so greatly enhanced. Soon enough, the bear fell down with a big bang.

  ‘Snower, how did you do that?’ As soon as the battle was over, the friends felt the surgent power leaving them like tidewater. A few seconds later, they returned to their normal state.

  ‘That’s a spell that Snower got from instinct. It’s the first time she’s used it, so even she didn’t know about it.’ Omifo updated everyone with what he had learnt from Pipi. ‘She can greatly enhance our power for a short period of time, but the cost is that we’ll be exhausted afterwards.’

  ‘Like right now?’ Kriagon threw himself down to the ground, breathing heavily. He felt as though he’d been running for miles at full speed.

  ‘It’s still amazing!’ Alicey said, crouching. ‘Each of the silveinbears is stronger than a Grade-5, and we actually defeated three of them!’

  ‘Yes, but if someone troubles us right now, we’ll be screwed.’ Ericson said, pointing at somewhere. ‘Like that one.’

  ‘Hooloo?’ A pangolin-like magimal was watching the friends. Seeing Ericson pointing at him, it hurriedly dived into the ground.

  ‘Take out the soulcores! We need to leave now!’ Omifo struggled to sit up. ‘Remember what happened to Julia’s team? Our battle noises must have alerted some other magimals too!’

  Each of the two teams fought a number of battles of varying sizes along the way, but they managed to break through every time. Both teams kept marching during the day, seeking wild food and water along the way, finding shelter and taking turns for the night watch. They familiarized themselves with the woods as they went, and became more and more confident about their mission. Until three days later —

  ‘We shouldn’t be too far from them now.’ The 6th day in the quest, Soarame’s team stopped marching, headed into the forest and started to search their surroundings more carefully. However, after several rounds of cross talk, the two teams frustratingly found that the trees around them were totally different — that probably meant that they were still far away from each other.

  Pisou!

  Right then, a firebolt was shot into the sky from somewhere. Julia instantly alerted everyone. ‘That’s a weft signal! Somebody around is in trouble!’

  {Did you see a firebolt in the sky, Snower?} Soarame instantly asked, watching another firebolt rising to the sky. {Two, actually.}

  {No?} Snower sounded surprised. {What firebolt? There’s no firebolt in the sky. Not even one!}

  ‘God… how far away are we, then?’ Both teams got update
d, and both were worried. If they couldn’t even see the same part of the sky, that really was not good news.

  ‘What now?’ Kardiac sat on a rock, totally frustrated.

  ‘Let’s go check the firebolt.’ Dileys suggested. ‘We can’t do anything here anyway.’

  ‘Don’t forget that’s a weft signal. Someone got into trouble.’ Julia grabbed Soarame’s arms. ‘Are you sure we wanna risk it?’

  ‘You guys stay here, I’ll go by myself.’ Soarame pondered a bit. ‘I’ll fly up to the trees and hide between the leaves; that should keep me safe.’

  With that, Soarame went alone in the direction of the firebolt. Thanks to the speed of flying, he arrived at the battlefield soon enough. Hiding on a tree, Soarame saw a team of students besieged by a large number of wolf-like magimals; but he only saw four students instead of five. Judging by the blood on the ground, one must have triggered his emblem and teleported away. Just after Soarame arrived, two of the four triggered their emblems too, leaving only two boys.

  ‘Go!’ One of them yelled to the other one. The latter one triggered his emblem, but when he was about to teleport, a wolf pounced at him and bit his shoulder. The victim screeched badly, but fortunately he disappeared in the next second, leaving his pained scream echoing in the forest.

  The wolves then pounced on the only remaining prey, giving him no time to react. They seemed to have believed that they were about to have a fine feast, but four out of five of their victims had suddenly disappeared out of nowhere, driving them to outrage.

  The last boy seemed to regret his decision as soon as his companions left. He screeched miserably as several wolves pounced on him together. He could already feel the bloody breath of the wolves, and the airflow of their snort had reached his skin on the neck!

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a wave of windblades cut into the wolves. One of them was already biting down, but the sharp pain made it re-open its mouth halfway. The boy was almost unconscious with fear; he didn’t realize that he had wet his pants.