Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin

by Weiqi Wang

  ‘They are ambushing us!’ Kardiac’s mouth was wide open. ‘They actually planned for it!’

  ‘How is it possible?’ Dileys stamped her feet anxiously. ‘They are supposed to have little brains! They should be just like the dumbats!’

  ‘Soar, do you remember the rats?’ Kardiac suddenly asked in a quivering voice. ‘I mean the rats in MagiMax.’

  ‘Yes. Why?’ Soarame looked confused for a second before he smacked his own head. ‘You mean they have a leader, too? There’s a spider king?’

  ‘A spider queen, probably!’ Omifo claimed. ‘The giant spider in the pit — it’s so much bigger!’

  While the friends had been talking, the rustlings had become louder and louder. The spiders, both big and small, had shown up from behind the trees and were marching straight towards them. The monkeys were jabbering loudly at the spiders, and a fight broke out as soon as they got close to each other!

  ‘Our monkey friends are covering our backs!’ By the entrance of the cave, Soarame was leading the friends to finish off the remaining small spiders from the cave. ‘Let’s join them as soon as we can!’

  ‘What? Those new spiders came from a cavern?’ The monkey leader was talking with Pipi, and Omifo updated the friends accordingly. ‘And the cavern has ripraps around its entrance?’

  ‘It’s the cavern where we got out!’ Dileys muffled a scream. ‘The cavern must be connected to their nest!’

  ‘Damn these spiders! They tried to kill us in the cavern! We went through so much to find each other, but they made our efforts worthless!’ Kardiac’s breath became heavier and heavier. ‘And they almost killed Jemario minutes ago! And they wanna kill the rest of us now!’

  ‘But they can’t! It’s our turn to take revenge!’ Soarame turned around after clearing up the cave. ‘We have strong allies now! Let’s take them all down!’

  ‘Aww!!!’ Kardiac suddenly howled like crazy. The next second, he turned around and ran back to the cave.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Dileys was stunned. She thought he had freaked out and was running away, but her guess was soon proved wrong —

  ‘Got it!’ Kardiac ran out of the spider cave soon enough. ‘I set their nest on fire! Let’s really take them all!’

  With that, the friends joined the monkey army for the battle. Because the monkeys were much stronger than the spiders, and there were a lot of them, the battle worked out pretty well for a while — until they saw a giant figure emerge in the centre of the spider ranks.

  ‘It’s the spider queen! The one in the nest!’ Dileys yelled. ‘Finish it, then we are all done!’ The friends dived towards their target, only to find that the spider queen was a lot more powerful than they had expected.

  ‘My windblade can’t cut through its exoskeleton!’ Soarame shouted from the air.

  ‘My rocks can’t hurt it either!’ Omifo smashed a small spider with his stoneball. ‘It doesn’t make sense! Even it’s a level 6, it shouldn’t be as strong as that!’

  ‘ZHIII—!!’ A miserable screech attracted the friends’ attention. A monkey had been caught by the spider queen — her sharp leg had pierced through its body and nailed it down to the ground. The smaller spiders then dived on it and split it apart, making the friends scream with horror!

  ‘NO!!!’ Dileys felt cold going up her spine. For the first time so far, she started to doubt her decision to stay when she could have teleported away yesterday. Staring at the remaining flesh of the dead monkey, she looked shocked and stunned.

  The monkeys were also frightened, and their morale dropped as their fear rose. The close battle was still ongoing, but due to the impact from the tragedy, the monkeys started to lose.

  ‘We should leave!’ Omifo yelled. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘What about them?’ Kardiac was pointing at the monkeys, his eyes red. ‘They didn’t have to come and die, for us or our jankide ores!’

  ‘You are right!’ Dileys raised her head, with tears on her face. ‘I’m not running! Kardy, follow me!’

  ‘Wait, what are you doing?’ Soarame and Omifo hurriedly followed them. ‘Calm down!’

  ‘Remember how we cracked open the spider webs?’ Dileys looked at Kardiac. ‘I’ll freeze its body, and you set it on fire afterwards!’

  ‘Okay!’ Kardiac nodded instantly. ‘But why?’

  ‘…’ Soarame was choked by Kardiac’s question just as he was about to congratulate Dileys on her idea. ‘Man, just do it!’

  ‘Fine!’ At this moment, Kardiac had no interest in pursuing the reasons — it wasn’t his style anyway. So Soarame joined Dileys and Kardiac for their combo shot, and they successfully froze one of the spider queen’s legs, then set it on fire — like anything else, the exoskeleton was supposed to break, or at least become brittle, after experiencing a drastic temperature change. After that, Soarame bombarded it with windblades and Omifo with stoneballs but, frustratingly, they only created some slight fractures.

  ‘We must focus on its head! The legs are too tough!’ With that, Soarame put Kardiac on his back and flew up into the air. Carrying such a weight on his back, Soarame barely managed to fly up, but thankfully that was enough. All that he needed to do was to stay high out of the spiders’ range, and redo the same combo with Kardiac. This time it worked; after a painful screech, the spider queen started to fall back. At the same time, the spider army seemed to receive a new order from their queen — they no longer tried to push for attack, but instead protected their queen, and went into retreat.

  ‘They are running!’ Dileys yelled. ‘Don’t let them get back to the cavern!’

  Pipi passed on the friends’ intention to the monkey army. However, the spiders outnumbered the monkeys by so many that the monkeys couldn’t break through and get their queen. Soarame thus took the risk of diving down from the air, but the spiders blocked his spells for their queen at all costs. Therefore, to everyone’s desperation, the spider queen was still, step by step, retreating towards the cavern.

  ‘We are running out of time.’ Dileys sighed heavily. The friends barely defeated the spiders thanks to Soarame’s flying spells, so they couldn’t risk battling them in the cavern. But that meant that they couldn’t take control of the spider nest, where the jankide ores were so clearly visible.

  ‘We tried.’ Soarame tried to comfort Dileys. ‘The walls are too hard, we can’t take the ores out anyway.’

  ‘Meow meow!’ Just then, Snower suddenly jumped up, pointing at the retreating spider army. It seemed that the army had suddenly encountered something and was falling into disorder.

  ‘They were still fighting? Against who?’ Soarame wasted no time and dashed into the air. Once he got closer, he saw a large number of small figures harassing the spiders. Strangely, the unknown creatures came and went in a flash, so that Soarame couldn’t see them clearly. For the same reason, the spiders suffered sudden strikes here and there, and their enemies disappeared before they managed to react.

  ‘What is going on?’ Although Soarame was confused, he knew this was probably their last chance to detain the spider queen. So Pipi brought the monkey army for another round of charging, and this time, with a closer look, they realized their allies’ true faces —

  ‘Pangolins?’ Omifo muffled an exclamation. ‘I thought they hid from everything? Yet they dare to fight the spiders?’

  ‘Indeed! Why are they here?’ Soarame was amazed to see the pangolin-like magimals suddenly strike from underneath the spiders, and swiftly dive back into the ground straight afterwards — that was why he hadn’t been able to see them clearly from the air.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Kardiac barked. ‘Get me up there again, Soar! This time let’s take them all!’

  So Soarame and Kardiac started their air strike combo again, while Omifo and Dileys led the monkey army against the rest of the spiders. The spider queen looked really anxious this time, because her troops were besieged from literally all angles — other than the friends, the monkeys and the pangolins, there were a
n increasing number of rolling spiky balls that kept throwing themselves at the spiders. The spiky balls couldn’t do much damage to the spider queen, but they did do a great deal to its soldiers.

  ‘Hedgehogs!’ Dileys screamed out of excitement. ‘I got it! I know what’s happening!’

  ‘Careful!’ Omifo knocked a pouncing spider off the girl. The spiders were put at bay but fought ferociously in their last stand. It was a scary battle that lasted almost an hour. Tons of spiders were cracked, thanks to the pangolins — they broke the spiders’ legs, so the monkeys only had what looked like a bunch of sandbags to fight. In contrast, the monkeys didn’t sacrifice much, thanks to Snower’s healing spells and Pipi’s coordination.

  With a desperate screech, the spider queen was finally knocked down. The remaining spiders, having lost their leader, started to scatter away, but the allied troops wouldn’t let go — the monkeys, pangolins and hedgehogs were in hot pursuit. As for the friends, they had contributed the most and were too tired to carry on; they were lying on the ground, catching their breath.

  ‘Hunt them down! Take them all!’ Although exhausted, Kardiac was still yelling. However, the allied troops, especially the hedgehogs, couldn’t move as fast as the spiders on jagged rocks, so the victorious pursuit ended soon.

  ‘I can’t believe pangolins can be as brave as this!’ Dileys said, watching the gleaming scales of the returning pangolins. The pangolins slowly walked over to the friends, and they seemed shy again; but this time the friends would no longer believe that they were as easy to defeat as they looked.

  ‘Zizi…’ A spiky ball moved to the friends, followed by many more. The friends sat up and Soarame updated them according to Snower. ‘They came to our aid because of the mother that we met the other day.’

  ‘That’s what I thought!’ Dileys clapped her hands, facing the hedgehog group. ‘Which one is the mother? They all look the same to me… Oops, I’m sorry.’

  ‘The mother…’ Soarame hesitated a bit, ‘Is dead.’

  Dileys froze, her eyes starting to redden again.

  ‘Take it easy.’ Soarame sighed but he didn’t know what else to say. ‘The good news is that the babies all survived.’

  Dileys nodded, fighting back her tears. The friends had a brief talk with the hedgehogs via Snower and Pipi, and learnt about their historic struggle against the spider gang. The empty cave turned out to be the hedgehogs’ old home, and the pit attached to it — the current spider nest — used to be the pangolins’. The two clans had been living as peaceful neighbours for ages until one day, the spiders arrived. After a bloody battle, both clans had lost many of their members and been kicked out. Apparently, even though the spiders didn’t need the cave, they didn’t want neighbours in there. So when the friends now walked back into the cave to put out the fire for the returning owners, they realized that the countless twigs on the ground were actually broken hedgehog spines, and the flakelets were broken pangolin scales.

  The two clans had both broken up into small groups and had to run for survival. They had been trying to get together again, but there were always members that they couldn’t find — for example, the dead hedgehog mum, her babies, and the dad, who had died even earlier.

  ‘Remember the wounds on the mum’s back? They were from the spiders, too.’ Dileys muttered as she looked around in the cave. ‘Now it all makes sense.’

  The boys suddenly cottoned on to what she was saying. They recalled the saliva-like semi-transparent gel on the mum’s back; now they knew that it was actually the remains of spider web. According to the hedgehogs and pangolins, the spiders had been aggressive and hunted all over the place. The poor mum was actually lucky to have escaped from their hunt, although she still didn’t make it in the end.

  ‘Meow, meow!’ Snower’s excited voice woke up the emotional friends. They looked around, and saw lots of pangolins going up and down inside the smoky pit. Soon enough, the first one came out, holding a uniquely dark-coloured stone in its claws —

  ‘Jankide ores?’ Kardiac rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m not dreaming, am I?’

  ‘How did they…’ Omifo paused halfway and smacked his head. ‘I see; they are pangolins!’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t need them?’ Soarame asked Snower to interpret for the magimals, holding back his quickening heartbeat. In the next second, the friends burst into loud screaming and cheering — the pangolins said ‘Feel free to take them all!’

  KISS HER!

  ‘I must be day-dreaming!’ In Soarame’s dorm, Kriagon stared at the three shining soulcores in front of him — the returned team had exchanged their jankide ores for them. ‘Three Expert soulcores, already?’

  ‘And the fourth one will be from the Dragon&Empires Championship.’ Kardiac said proudly. ‘Then the last two can be from auction.’

  ‘Easy to say!’ Catheray wrinkled her nose. ‘Are you a Grade-6, or do you run a bank?’

  ‘I agree with Catheray. It’s going to be very difficult for us to get three more.’ Dileys said, holding a dark-coloured soulcore in her hand. ‘I so wish the spider queen’s soulcore was an Expert one too, but it’s one step down from it.’ The friends had exchanged most of their gains for the three Expert soulcores, but fortunately they could keep this special soulcore as one of the few extra ones.

  ‘That one step is why we won and got the jankide ores. If it had been an Expert, we would have ended up gaining nothing — if we had even survived.’ Soarame disagreed with Dileys. ‘So let’s be content for now. Remember what Sachastain told us? “Don’t rush”.’

  ‘Actually, I disagree. Because Sachastain didn’t know about Myriad Eyes.’ Ericson spoke up. ‘If we have a way to find out Max’s whereabouts, we’d better be quick.’

  ‘He’s right.’ Dileys nodded. ‘Let’s get prepared for the Championship. I’ve been borrowing money from my friends for the auction too.’

  ‘Same here. And I heard Sunrise Alliance offers an Expert soulcore to any newly-joined wizard.’ Ericson said. ‘So if we lack one soulcore in the end, maybe Soar can graduate and report to the Alliance.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Soarame was surprised to learn about this. If not for his promise to Scankeen he would have listened to Ericson, the boy who almost sacrificed himself for him in the cavern. ‘But I need to be an Expert on Wind, Water and Lightning altogether before graduation, so it’s going to take time.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Ericson raised his eyebrows. ‘Three lineages, all for Expert? That will take time.’

  ‘It’s my master’s command, and I trust him.’ Soarame propped his forehead on his hands as if he was developing a headache from all of this. Just then, he seemed to see some golden colour flash by in front of his eyes, in between his fingers.

  ‘You had a master before school?’ Ericson looked surprised. ‘That… that’s… hum… really lucky for you.’

  ‘Yes, he’s super nice.’ Soarame moved his palms from his forehead and checked them, but couldn’t see the indistinct golden colour anymore, so he had to let go. ‘All right, gonna go practise. See you guys later.’

  ‘Wait…’ Jemario wanted to say something, but Soarame had already dashed out of the door. The boy was eager to practise using the Godmade — he hadn’t had a chance to do that during the quest.

  Jemario bit her lips in silence, looking sad. She had been madly anxious since she’d teleported back to the school. Because Snower and Pipi had both stayed in the quest field, she had no way of contacting Soarame. Thank god that the anxious wait only lasted about 30 hours — though it actually felt more like 30 days — then Soarame was back in one piece. However, the boy seemed not to care about her feelings at all — he just left like that? Really?

  ‘Sorry, Jem. I feel for you. Boys can be stupid sometimes.’ Watching the friends leaving one after another for practice, Dileys came to Jemario for a whisper. ‘And I certainly don’t want you to be like me — you know what I’m talking about, right?’

  ‘I know, thanks.’ Jemario bit her lips. �
��But what can I do?’

  ‘Something.’ Dileys said with a meaningful look in her eyes. ‘If you are too shy to confess — like me to Rodka, then do something to make him confess.’

  ‘I see.’ Jemario nodded as she blushed. She didn’t want to continue this topic. ‘And Rodka will be fine.’

  ‘Of course.’ Although Dileys still looked depressed, there were colours in her eyes now. ‘I have faith in Rodka. He will survive whatever Max might do to him. Sachastain will find him soon, and there will always be ways to make him recover. After that he will get over the whole thing, and become even stronger — I have faith in him!’

  ‘Me too!’ Jemario was quite relieved to see her friend toughen up, and she felt happy that she had such a strong heart. However, once she moved her focus to her own matter —

  Soar… What shall I do?

  ****

  ‘Hi, Jem!’

  The next Water class, Soarame ran over to Jemario. Close to the elegant face, the boy had to marvel one more time over the beauty of this girl. Even in Water Department, where pretty girls were the norm, Jemario was still the prettiest.

  ‘Hi.’ Jemario returned a thin smile, without looking at him. Soarame sensed something unusual, but he didn’t really think about it. So the class started and Soarame stayed by Jemario’s side as usual, but soon he noticed that Jemario was ignoring him.

  ‘Jem, what’s wrong?’ After class, Soarame finally had to ask.

  ‘Nothing.’ Jemario glanced at Soarame, with a special type of smile. This made Soarame anxious, but however hard he tried to find the answer, Jemario was just smiling in the same special way. Finally, Soarame had to leave her because she insisted that she wanted to enjoy her free time with her friends.

  ‘Oh dear, this is not going to be good for you.’ Back in the dorm, Kardiac jumped up from the couch. ‘Soar, Jem is running out of patience. You need to do something!’