by Weiqi Wang
Everyone finally saw Max’s face. It was a big, pear-shaped face with an obese jaw and a thin forehead; on top of his head there was some grey hair on both sides, but he was completely bald in the middle. All of these details didn’t matter, but what did matter was that the kids saw his face. This was the worst possible scenario, but most of the group did not know this — not even Rodka.
‘Believe me or not, you think I care?’ Max sneered. ‘Tell me, and I will give you a quick, merciful death. Otherwise — ’
‘Ouch!’ Before Max had finished his words, a shadow threw itself into him in a flash. Max was caught off guard and almost went down, but the shadow stopped abruptly when it got close to Max and was stuck there. A dagger showed up in front of Max’s nose — the tip was a mere few inches away!
A DRAGON?
The dagger was in Halgon’s hands; he felt as if he knocked into an invisible wall in front of Max and got stopped sharply. He was waiting for his chance to pull off a snap shot and he would have succeeded, however due to the invisible wall he actually hurt himself instead.
‘He has a defensive magigear.’ Sachastain said to Halgon. ‘That’s why I didn’t manage to put him down in the first place.’ Sachastain was amazed by Halgon’s sniper attack; it seemed that this kid knew about the kidnapper’s rules, so he had made this desperate try.
‘What defensive magigear can do this?’ Halgon was pale due to the pain all over his body; the blockage function of the magigear was very unusual and he was unprepared for it. Everyone subconsciously checked Max’s body, and noticed a diamond-shaped crystal plate on his chest; it was of a good size and could be partially seen through his torn clothes.
‘That plate must be it, and it must be of really high rank, although I don’t know exactly what it is.’ Sachastain coughed out another spray of blood. ‘You guys go now, I’ve got him!’
‘How dare you!’ Max had been shocked by Halgon’s sudden assault; sweat was dripping from his forehead. At the same time, Max suddenly realised something, perhaps because of the assault, and pointed at Sachastain. ‘I see! Shadowcape, you can perform Darkness magic? That would be the only way to sneak in!’
Max had got it right this time. Sachastain had heard of the MagiMax sale and found it abnormal; plus, he knew about the duckbear egg from the kids. Therefore, once he saw Soarame and his friends come out of campus, he decided to follow them secretly. Thank god he had come; there was really a big problem here.
Sachastain had actually got into MagiMax quite a long while ago, during the busiest time in the morning, while Soarame’s crew was waiting outside. While people knew that Sachastain was a highly trained warrior, he’d been keeping the fact secret that he was also competent in Darkness magic; so getting into a big busy building by the shadowcape spell with no one specifically looking for him was as easy as strolling in the park. Then he hid in the darkness and waited to see what would happen in the end; because Darkness Elements are black in colour, they fit perfectly in shadows and even Soarame’s special eyes didn’t spot the trick. Thanks to his patience, he was still there when Max closed the gate and trapped the kids.
Sachastain didn’t hurry to rescue the kids because Max hadn’t shown himself yet, and there was almost no way to find him in a strange building full of traps and secret rooms. Sachastain kept watching and waiting and was ready to fight if the kids were really in danger. However, what Halgon was capable of really amazed him; so he didn’t have to do anything until the kids were put to sleep. After that, Sachastain finally got the chance to follow the magimen into Max’s secret room. Max might have had a chance to detect Sachastain in normal circumstances, but he was really exhausted and distracted by all the weird stuff the kids were doing in his shop.
‘How dare you, you two pathetic rats!’ Figuring out what happened, Max really blew his top. If it weren’t for the defensive magigear being the best in the world, Max would have been cut down by the attacks from Sachastain and Halgon. Even so, Max knew he was not able to physically fight a professional warrior, even if the warrior was injured; and then there was Halgon, who was not bad at all either. There was nothing else for it; before they knew what was happening, a series of chittering noises echoed through the room, and a torrent of tiny shapes pounced into the secret room, towards Soarame’s group.
‘Rats! Thousands of rats are coming!’ Alicey suddenly raised her head and screamed. ‘Ahhh!’ She was right; the crew were under attack by the teeming horde of rats soon after. A cacophony of chittering, scratching, yelling and screaming filled the air.
‘You call us rats?’ Soarame was holding Alicey in his arms and howling at Max. ‘You are the biggest rat of all!’ Soarame appeared to be the only one who was not at all affected by wave of rats — for some reason the rats were encircling him but not attacking him.
‘Go away!’ Soarame took out the black feather from Volsta and waved it around, trying to cover his friends and gathering them together.
‘He can’t bond this many rats to him at one go! Plus these are just ordinary rats, not magimals!’ Halgon shouted to his friends. ‘He must have bonded himself to their king, so the king commanded his soldiers to come here and attack us! We need to find the rat king!’
‘Damn, I really wish Snower was here!’ Kardiac couldn’t help muttering. ‘She should be good at handling rats, right?’
‘What the heck is that mangy feather thing?!’ Astonished by Soarame’s actions, Max had no time to think about what was going on; he made an instant decision to withdraw the magic seal over the building, so that he could perform magic and put an end to this chaos.
How could he perform magic? Soarame was the first to notice that Max had started summoning magic elements, due to his special eyes. ‘Guys… things have changed! He’s performing magic, watch out!’
‘We can perform magic now, too.’ Rodka instantly tried to incant a spell. ‘But he’s much stronger; we are not a match!’
‘Go! Don’t look back!’ Sachastain pushed the kids out of the broken room, but he was attacked by the ferocious rat wave right away. Sachastain knew he couldn’t really hurt Max because of that mysterious defensive magigear, but his purpose was just to win time for the kids to escape, by blocking the insta-cast from Max.
Seeing Max starting to chant a long and obscure incantation, Soarame swung his wand, purely by instinct, and sprayed a beam of water towards Max’s mouth. However, the invincible incantation choker didn’t work this time; it was blocked by the invisible wall too. Max gave Soarame a sneering glance; he noticed that the boy was a Grade-2 Water wizard, according to his emblem. How pathetically weak! He chuckled inwardly.
‘Soarame, get the heck out of here!’ Sachastain barked at Soarame, so Soarame had to run with his friends.
‘Bloody hell!’ However, after getting out of the broken room, the crew was stunned to see the things in front of them — there were countless twisted corridors intersecting each other. ‘It’s a maze?!’
‘God! What shall we do now?’ they were all flustered; Sachastain wouldn’t be able to win them much time and they all knew it. “Damn, we are so doomed this time!”
Calm down, calm down! Knowing that Sachastain was unlikely to survive the terrible rat wave, Soarame was silently yelling at himself. There has to be a way to survive this, I just need to figure it out!
‘This way… follow me!’ Just when everyone was on the point of desperation, a small shaking voice sounded through the dust and chaos. Although it sounded weak and tremulous, they all swore that this was the most beautiful voice they’d ever heard, with the best news they ever wanted to hear; they were so wishing for someone to say these words, but now they couldn’t really believe it had actually came true —
‘Alicey?’ Soarame was surprised to see that the voice actually came from the little girl who they thought they were trying to protect, Alicey!
‘Sachastain, come with us!’ Alicey rushed ahead into a corridor. The boys dashed back to Sachastain and together they dragged him away
to follow Alicey. Although no one knew how or why Alicey could figure out the maze, they had to blindly trust her and run at their maximum speed. They were pleading in their hearts as they rushed blindly along, hoping for Alicey the genius girl wizard to lead them to the right way out; until a few seconds later, the crew made yet another turn and found themselves face to face with —
‘What!’ Their hearts sank; there was a blank wall in front of them.
‘Alicey?’ Soarame looked at Alicey anxiously.
‘Break it! The shortest way is behind the wall!’ Alicey was already preparing her spells, which Soarame recognized to be windblades!
‘Lepida-tou-anemou!!’
‘Petra-bala!!’
‘Bouloni-fotia!!’
Right then, everyone started chanting their best attacking spells; windblades, firebolts and rockchunks were pouring towards the wall. Just when Soarame was ready to give up his secret, join the force and cast windblades too, his necklace suddenly lit up in a dim green glow; instantly, a beam of refreshing coolness flowed into his restless mind — I must stay calm and hold out, it’s not the last moment yet!
While Soarame was breathing heavily to restrain his eagerness, the rest of the crew had cracked the wall open —
‘Gee!’
‘Aww!’
‘Meowow!’
‘What the …!’
The crew jumped through the hole in the wall but were suddenly transfixed — they were in the designated magimal room! A large number of baby magimals seemed to have been resting and sleeping in the big room; now they were showing every sign of alarm at the uninvited guests.
‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!’ Alicey screamed to the shaking and hiding poor babies, who were terrified to see them breaking in. ‘We’re just passing through; but come to think of it, you guys might want to run with us too!’
Alicey was right — the rat wave wasn’t going to just let the crew run away like that; they had followed them all way down there, still trying to pounce on them. However, unexpected scene happened in the next second — although the magimal babies were scared of the sudden appearance of a bunch of human wizards, they seemed to be pretty excited to see the countless army of small creatures coming to their dinner table — after all, they were magimals, and there were a lot of them, too!
‘Meowowow!!’
‘Wuaaa!!’
‘Awww!!’
The baby magimals burst into action and lined up to fight the rats instinctively. The cat-like magimals especially, although they were mostly Novice level, they were born to be natural enemies of rats; this unexpected live hunting treat was something that they had seldom had chance to enjoy before.
‘Stop staring, run!’ Alicey was still really afraid of the rats; she opened the front door of the magimal room and dashed out, followed by the entire crew. Finally, they were facing a much simpler corridor and could actually get out of this scary place!
‘Damn you all!’
A raging howl issued from behind them like an unholy gale — Max was approaching too!
‘The exterior wall is protected by a magic barrier! It’s impossible to break through!’ The crew had broken another wall and jumped out into the main hall, only to find that they couldn’t get out of the building; they were still trapped inside. However, the situation was much better than back in the secret rooms, because here they had a much bigger space to dodge Max’s attacks, and also had a better chance to do all kinds of other things.
‘Awawaw!’
‘Wuwuwu!’
‘Howlhowl!’
With a series of whining noises, a disorderly flock of terrified baby magimals followed the crew to the main hall, trying to escape and hide. It seemed that they could no longer enjoy hunting for food and had to flee; because right behind them, a big belly with a half-bald head on top stepped out from the chaos of crushed and dismembered walls!
‘Where are you going?’ With a wave of Max’s wand, a number of snake-headed whips made of flame burst out, roaring and rolling, pouncing towards the kids.
‘Dear lord, firesnakes?!’ Seeing the spell chasing them out of the secret room, Kardiac almost wet his pants. He finally saw his dream Fire spell from a real Fire Expert, which was perhaps the dream spell of all Fire students, only that this was not an ideal situation to witness it; he wanted to be the wielder of the spell, not the victim of it.
Firesnakes? Everyone was trying to take this in. He’s Level 9?! The worst case had happened — Max was merely one step from a Master! There were dozens of firesnakes roaring and blowing flames with scarily high temperatures, pouncing towards their targets. Sachastain tried to fight one of the firesnakes with his sword, but on just a single touch, the sword melted. Luckily Sachastain was swift enough to roll over and dodge. Elsewhere, Rodka made several attempts to fight against the firesnakes by casting icearrows, but failed miserably. Part of his body was burned and he lost the ability to fight any more.
‘We are so dead.’ Kardiac was hiding behind the counter, surrounded by two firesnakes. The high temperature from the flames was going to bake him dry, but luckily the firesnakes didn’t jump on him. It seemed that Max was trying to avoid accidentally burning the house down.
Now everyone was surrounded by several firesnakes. ‘It would be a shame if I killed you so easily without getting what I want.’ Max sneered at Soarame. ‘I will leave you as a hostage and let you watch your friends get burnt alive — starting from the little girl here, how about that?’
‘Ahhh!!’ Seeing a firesnake moving towards her, Alicey burst out into high-pitched screaming.
‘Shame on you!’ Soarame was nauseated by the outrageous threat; he covered the tearful Alicey with his own body. ‘If you hurt her or any of us, you will never get Snower!’
‘Snower?’ Max was puzzled for a second, and then his eyes lit up. ‘That rare magimal of yours?’
‘Yes, she’s a real top-rank.’ Soarame answered. ‘If you let my friends go, I will give her to you.’
‘Ha-ha-ha, you think I’m some sucker kid of your age?’ Max laughed aloud. ‘You sign a magic pact and go get it for me, and then I’ll let your friends go after they sign it, too!’
‘No way! Let them go now, or you won’t get her, ever!’
‘Really? We will see about that.’ Max was angry enough to do more or less anything. With Soarame protecting Alicey, the firesnakes could not get to her, so Max switched to his next target — the firesnakes waiting around Halgon suddenly woke up, and started approaching the boy, the one that Max had wanted to kill for quite a while now. Max put six firesnakes just on Halgon, so that he would not have a chance to dodge the siege!
‘Nooo!!’ Seeing this, everyone knew that Halgon would not be able to do much but take the attack and would probably get burnt up entirely. But the group was too far from Halgon to do anything — except for Kardiac, who was surrounded by two firesnakes himself.
‘Halgon!’ Kardiac didn’t think about it; he just leaped towards Halgon. Although Kardiac was terrified, he just could not watch his brother get burnt in front of him. Kardiac couldn’t forget what had happened in the beetalbull nest — he wimped out and his friends had saved him. Deep in his heart, Kardiac blamed himself for not listening to Halgon’s repeated warnings since they got here today; if he had, they might not have ended up in this lethal mess.
In that moment, Kardiac saw the firesnakes inches away and could feel the burning temperature. He closed his eyes and hoped that his friends would revenge him for his sacrifice. The next second, Kardiac was knocked flat by a huge force and lost consciousness.
‘Hoawww!’ Out of nowhere, a sonorous dragon roar sounded. A giant figure flashed by, putting itself between Kardiac and the firesnakes. This happened amid bolts of lightning and the sparks of firestone and left everyone in bewilderment —
A dragon?
It was a dragon!
A dragon had emerged from somewhere and blocked the firesnakes for Kardiac and Halgon!
A dragon, with
scales glimmering all over its body and a pair of huge wings on its back, was roaring in front of everyone!
They were dumbfounded, jaws hanging slack. Max had stopped his attack; now he just rubbed his eyes in astonishment. He kept rubbing, to make sure the live dragon in front of him was not some kind of illusion.
Yes, it was indeed a real live dragon, and it was gasping heavily due to the pain of the massive burn. Its wings were covering the major part of its body that suffered the most from the firesnakes; they also protected the unconscious Kardiac behind it.
But this is impossible! After the Grant Migration of dragons, how could there still be any in the human world? Tons of thoughts flashed in everyone’s mind; especially Max — he found himself totally lost. It was under the irresistible power of a magic pact that no dragon survived in the human world after the Grant Migration!
The heavy breath of the dragon aroused Max’s consciousness; now was not the moment to ponder it all. While the others were still in shock, Max ordered the remaining firesnakes to gather, roaring and starting to launch another strike.
‘Hoawwww!’ The dragon roar sounded again, with its unique sense of coercion and deterrence against its enemy. It was the legendary born-talent of dragons, the Dragon Awe. An adult dragon can overawe an enemy of Max’s level into submission just by a single Dragon Awe. However, this one didn’t seem powerful enough to do that to Max; it only made Max anxious and afraid but didn’t make him yield. Despite that, it did awe Omifo and Alicey into unconsciousness at the same instant that the dragon showed up, so that only Soarame, Rodka, Sachastain and Max got to witness what happened. Judging from its physical size, the dragon in front of Kardiac was a bit small compared to the descriptions in the books, so Max believed that this dragon was not an adult yet. This gave Max a golden chance to defeat the young dragon, and Max couldn’t help feeling lucky, although the whole thing was uncanny.
