Chapter 102: Slivax’s revenge.

Chapter 102: Slivax’s revenge.Lee’s suggestion to go back was dismissed, and this time the warning of a deadly danger didn’t work either. The brothers and Jiraxa didn’t even wait for him to finish eating when they rushed in the opposite direction the big group went earlier.

Lee reluctantly followed with a piece of meat in his had, weighing his options on the way. If he stayed and anything happened to one of the three, he would be in a pickle to say the least. He had no clue how to make it seem believable he was healing anyone. But if he left and they got hurt, or even worse – killed, the strongest one, Arax, would likely come after him anyway.

He had a bad feeling about all of this.

For a while nothing happened – their group didn’t encounter any beasts or other treasure hunters.

But in the early afternoon they arrived at ravine that stretched over a mile into the mountain. It was around fifty yards wide, but wasn’t particularly deep at the spot where they stood – not more than ten feet – but as it extended further, the ravine’s sides grew taller.

"Let’s go!" Arax said, "I feel we’ll find something there!"

He didn’t try to hide his excitement and his brother was the same.

At first they got lucky.

Two beasts, the same species they encountered earlier, lied in the shadow, probably having a nap. Arax tiptoed toward one of them and, in the last ten yards sprinted with the sward drawn. Then he made a stabbing motion and expertly killed it in one blow. He sank his sword behind the beast’s right shoulder blade, destroying its heart with the burning blade.



Surprisingly, the other one didn’t intend to fight. Despite it’s size, it easily ran up the almost vertical cliff wall and disappeared behind it. Brothers could only follow the escaping beast with greedy and upset eyes, but getting another spark was not a bad start.

But this is where their luck ended.

There were no more beasts in the ravine, no trees, only rocks and batches of grass. When the trio arrived at the very end of it, their excitement died down, but for some reason Lee’s anxiousness grew.

He already began to retreat before the first rocks from the side of the cliff fell. At first, there were only a few, but those were followed by a thundering rockfall, filling the ravine with clouds of dust.

The rocks were not that big, not larger than an average millstone. But there were so many of them it felt that the cliff was going to crumble on top of the four squad members. Fortunately they managed to fall back in time, and the only injuries were left by few sharp rock fragments, but they were minor.

All four got away with a light scare and already heaved sighs of relief, when the real problems began.

At first Lee noticed spiderweb cracks covering the ground, that was followed by tremors that almost threw him off his feet. The air was still full of dust and it was impossible to clearly see what was going on, but for some reason it felt like the shaking of the ground was unnatural.

"What’s going on?" Jiraxa cried in panic, but before either of the brothers could answer her, a deafening screech pierced their ears.

And then they saw something moving inside the clouds of dust, something big.

"Run!" Lee shouted.

It was the only advice he could give, and without a second thought, he immediately followed it. The brothers, though, did exactly the opposite.

"Spark!" They shouted in unison and rushed towards the humongous beast, but according to Lee’s understanding, they resembled ants attacking an elephant. At least the proportions of the sides were similar.

He had no clue what gave the brothers the confidence they had a chance against the beast that was bigger than the emperor’s palace, but he was not going to stay around to witness the outcome.

Lee did expect that Jiraxa was about to overtake him any moment, but instead he only heard the loud stomps of the beast that was closing up at incredible speed.

Within a heartbeat it became clear that he was not going to be able to outrun the monster, and if there was the smallest crack in the wall, or a small cave, Lee would’ve immediately dived in. Unfortunately, the best he could do was to squat behind a larger rock at a side, in hopes the beast wouldn’t notice him.

Apparently the brothers weren’t as helpless as Lee though, because a moment later the beast stopped. From what it seemed, Arax managed to wound it, because it began to screech, but this time in pain.

It felt like the sound cut Lee’s his ears like a knife, but more troubling were the tremors that never stopped. The two brothers were putting up a fight.

It was hard to imagine that a tiny person, no matter how big his sword was, was capable of dealing damage to the hill-sized beast. But it probably wasn’t even close enough, because the next thing Lee heard was Thorax’s cry of pain.

He didn’t see him, though, only his shied. It was thrown far behind Lee, toward the exit of the ravine.



Lee didn’t think much. He left the rock he was hiding behind, and ran to the shield. There was no telling if this was the correct choice, but he instinctively felt that there was a reason why all the tortoises in the world lived in their shells.

He crawled under it, and waited while the ground continued to tremble, and the wounded beast went berserk.

What Lee didn’t know was that on the top of the cliff, on one side of the ravine, three people contently observed the events below. Slivax was certain he finally got his revenge, and after observing Arax’s desperate struggle, he left along with the other two remaining squad members. They had to gather more people to get this score of the lifetime.

Initially they intended to bury Arax’s squad under a pile of rocks, but the slumbering beast below turned out to be an unexpected bonus.

Meanwhile Arax was going all out.

Lee thought so, although didn’t know for sure, but the people of his race weren’t particularly adept in intellectual endeavors. On the other hand, they were born battle maniacs. The amount of adrenaline generated in their bodies during a fight was dozens of times larger compared to a human.

Arax didn’t think, nor feel. He fought purely on instinct until one of the sides was dead. And adding to that the power of a fire and wind sparks, transformed him into an actual combat-machine.

For Lee’s comfort it took way too long for the battle to end. But the longer the fight went on, the safer he felt hiding under the shell. The only thing he hoped for was that after the battle the beast would go back to sleep where it was hibernating before the rockfall woke it up.

The end result surprised him, though. When everything calmed down, and Lee was finally ready to crawl out, Arax lifted the shell, and shouted, "Quickly! Come!"

His clothing was torn, and he was covered in blood, but there was no telling whether it was his or the beast’s. But Lee knew it was not time to celebrate because Thorax wasn’t there, and there was only one reason why Arax could urgently need him.