The Beginning After The End (New Heights Book 2) (14 page)

*CRACKLE*

The rampant vines that were crawling out of the
crater Elijah conjured were withering at a rapid pace as the moisture was
sucked out of them.

Before the withering spread, the rest of the
mist surrounding the cave swirled and gathered, sucked in by the vines.
 
The dead brown vines were once again
filled with vigor and seemed angrier, if that was even possible.

“N-no way…” Samantha’s drained face just slackens
in shock.

The mist that once surrounded us was all
absorbed into the huge wave of vines and our limited view was cleared.

As the mist was sucked into the vines, we all
finally got to see what exactly it was we were up against.

Towering almost 20 meters above our heads was a
gigantic mana beast.
 
This mana
beast looked humanoid to a certain degree, reminding me of a centaur.
 
While it was made up completely of entangled
vines and branches, the top half of its body was that of an armored man.
 
The two green eyes that looked down at
us were filled with pride and anger.
 
Its two humanoid arms were holding unto a giant wooden lance that looked
more like a drill.
 
Its lower body
was that of a horse, but instead of limbs, were an uncountable amount of vines.

For the last hour, the seven of us were
literally battling against the feet of this mana beast.

“…I-
I’ve
read about
that monster… That’s an S class mana beast named the E-Elderwood
Guardian!”
 
Samantha just stutters
in horror as she just sinks in defeat.
 

“What’s an S class mana beast doing here?
 
This is unheard of…
”
 
Reginald almost drops his giant
hammer as he looks up at the Elderwood Guardian in horror.

An S class mana beast meant that he was on par
with an SS class Adventurer or at least 10 S class Adventurers.

“I-Isn’t that Kriol?”
 
Reginald points at the lifeless torso
and legs sticking out of the body of the mana beast.

“W-we’re doomed…” Brald has a crazy look on his
face as he’s smiling madly at the giant mana beast.
 
He already lost his arm and he was worn
out from the fighting.
 
This was
probably the last straw for the veteran Adventurer.

“We have to run.”
 
Jasmine pulls my hand, gesturing me to
leave the party here and run away.

“What about them?”
 
I mutter out, my eyes never leaving the
gaze of the Elderwood Guardian.
 
Even if I wasn’t too close to any of them and I certainly wasn’t on
close terms with Lucas, it wasn’t right to betray their trust as their leader
like this.
 

“…”

She doesn’t respond as she tugs harder at me to
move.

“BOOOOM!” The Elderwood Guardian thrusts his
giant drill lance at us.

“Rock Shield!”

Elijah erects a flat wall of earth from the
ground slanted, so the force of the drill is parried away from us.

Picking up his hammer, Reginald yells, “Impact
Blast x10”
  

The giant hammer vibrates in his hands as it’s
surrounded in a thick yellow aura.

“BOOBOOBOOBOOBOOOM!”

As the hammer hits the lance, multiple lumps
form on the mana beast’s weapon and explodes from the inside.

Just as he’s about to land on the ground, the
broken vines that made up the lance whirl and surround him.

“GAAAH! HELPP!! NOOOO!”
 
The tendrils that
formed the giant lance flurry around to mold back into its original shape but
entangle Reginald inside.

*CRUNCH*
 
*CRUNCH*
 
*SNAP*

I hear Samantha hurl from the sound of
Reginald’s body being grinded up into pieces.

Fuck.

The lance is formed back into its original
shape, with the addition of Reginald’s body and weapon inside it.
 
The Elderwood Guardian doesn’t have a
mouth but from the look in its eyes, I feel like it’s gloating at us, as if
we’re just bugs to him.

I grab Samantha who was still in shock and lift
her up on my shoulders.
 
“Jasmine!
 
Grab Brald and
lets run!
 
Lucas, Elijah!
 
You have to try and block any incoming
attacks until we get out of here!”

Jasmine picks up Brald who’s still laughing
psychotically and we look back to see that the Elderwood Guardian was looking
directly at us.

“We need to move!”
 
Just as I will mana into my body…

“Fire bolts!”
 
A blast of fire hits me square in the
chest and I fly back, Samantha tumbling off to the side.
 

While the mana that was reinforced into my body
and the fact that I had assimilated mana into my bones and muscles prevented me
from sustaining serious injuries, my breath was still knocked out from the
almost point-blank spell casted by Lucas.
 
Furious and baffled by the sudden betrayal, I peel my eyes away from the
blond brat and look for Jasmine.
 
She was knocked back much farther from the spell and was unconscious,
but she didn’t seem to be dead.

“What the hell are you doing?”
 
I hear Elijah yell for the first time as
he points his staff at Lucas who was already heading towards the entrance of
the cave.

“Pfft!
 
You think I’ll risk my life to help all of you escape?
 
Be honored that you’ll be the valiant
heroes that stalled the beast enough for me to escape!
 
I’ll tell everyone all about your
courageous deeds!”
 
He looks back
giving me an arrogant smirk before casting a smokescreen spell.

*CRASH*

The ground splits around us as the Elderwood’s
Lance pierces a hole where Lucas was in the smokescreen but he’s already gone.

“Fuck!”
 
The stumbling Elijah curses while he straightens his glasses.
 
The endless vines that make up the mana
beast’s limbs manage to climb out of the crater left from Elijah’s spell and
approach us.

“GRAAAAAAH!”
 
The whole cave trembles as the gigantic
mana beast’s beady green eyes turn bright red.

The Elderwood Guardian’s whole body disassembles
into a tsunami of vines, destroying everything in its way as it’s almost upon
us.

“HAHAHA!”
 
I hear Brald’s maniacal laughter as he’s eaten up by the wave of vines.

Elijah’s brusque face pales and his legs are
trembling while Jasmine is still in a daze from Lucas’s spell.
 
It must’ve managed to catch her off
guard before she had time to reinforce her body as I see some bleeding.

I start calculating the options I had left.
 
Even if I were to use the first phase of
my Beast’s Will, I can’t last long enough to save everyone and carry
them
out.
 

Fuck.

I don’t know how severe the recoil of this would
be but I had no choice but to try.
  

I feel a surge of energy forming around my body
and I’m surrounded by an aura of different colors.

“
Phase
Two.
 
Dragon’s Awakening.”

“Kyuu?”
 

Undergoing Dragon’s Awakening seemed to startle
Sylvie who was now frantically asking me what’s going on and why I was
activating my second phase.

‘It’s fine Sylv.
 
I want you to stay away for now and if
anything happens, go back to the Helstea’s house for me.

‘No!
 
I’m going to go towards you now Papa.
 
Hold on!’
 
I could sense Sylvie getting closer but
she’s still a few dozen kilometers away.

‘Stay away Sylv!
 
Please!
 
I need someone to tell my family what
happens just in case.’
 
I say
desperately.
 

I don’t know if I’m going to make it out of
this alive, and I don’t want my family wondering what happened and why the ring
activated.

‘Be careful…’

‘Thanks Sylv.’

One of the abilities of my first phase,
Acquire, allowed me to temporary separate myself from the space and time around
me, which seemed to be one of Sylvia’s innate skills.
 
That phase was limited in many ways
because I’m not a dragon.
 
The
limited mana I have access to restricts what I can actually do when I activate
the ‘Acquire’ phase.
 

The most efficient way, I realized when I was
training with Grandpa Virion, was coupling the first phase with Thunderclap
Impulse.
 
I would activate my first
phase in short millisecond bursts while the reaction time of my body is
increased dramatically from my lightning skill; this allows me to react and
counter almost anything.
 
That was
the best way I could think of for utilizing my first phase, since I can’t
affect anything that’s “frozen” while the first phase is activated.
 
Even though I can’t able to keep it up
for long, that was my biggest trump card; the fact that the first phase of my
beast will isn’t noticeable by those around me makes it all the more useful.

I think back to when I first used the ‘Acquire’
phase on someone else along with me that time at the auction house.
 
Sebastian wasn’t able to communicate
with anyone besides me since I separated us from the time and space of those
around us.
 
I could only last a few
seconds before I was crippled in bed for the next day.

Right now, though, was one of those times where
my first phase wouldn’t be so useful.
 
No matter how much I can react to this tsunami of vines, I could neither
dodge it nor escape from it in one piece.

No choice.

*FWOOOOM*

I feel every pore in my body opening and a
surge of mana flowing in and out of my body.
 

The air around me distorts and the ground below
my feet starts cracking from the mana surrounding my body.
 

My vision shifts into black and white.
 
The only colors I see are from the
numerous particles of mana in the atmosphere around me, all shimmering to the
corresponding elements they make up.

The surge of mana that was rampaging around me
suddenly gets compressed into my body and the feeling of holding insurmountable
power overwhelms me.
 
The sense of
superiority over everything, living or not, in this universe almost makes me go
crazy.
 
I suppress the urge to
destroy everything and everyone around me just because of how insignificant
they seem to be compared to me now.

“Kuh!”

The mana in the atmosphere seems to bend to my
will, as if even nature is under my command.

“
Phase
Two.
 
Dragon’s Awakening… Integrate.”

The same markings that Sylvia once had, the
golden yellow runes, run down my arms and back.
 
I see my hair get longer, coming down to
my shoulder, and the once auburn color of my hair was now a bright luminescent
white, swaying from the swirl of energy constantly encompassing me.
 
The Integrate phase seemed to make me
look more like Sylvia.

Calming the voice inside my head that wants to go
on a rampage, I look around.
 
Jasmine and Elijah are the only ones left.
 
Elijah is next to Jasmine now,
supporting her up with his shoulders while she’s still out of breath and
sweating in pain from the point blank impact from Lucas’ spell.
 
He’s looking at me with a dazed
expression, his once serious face almost comical, as his glasses are crooked
and his jaws slack.
 

“GRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAWRR”

The tsunami of vines that made up the Elderwood
Guardian expands as a face is formed within the wave.
 
The face was looking at me; the face
that once looked at us like we were insects had a trace of fear in it now.

“
Let’s
play.”
 
I smirk.

The world moves around me in slow motion as I
jump up, willing wind unto my feet.
 
I instantly clear the distance between the Elderwood Guardian and myself
in a split second as a storming gale I propelled myself off with creates a
crater bigger than the spell Elijah used.

“
Thunderclap
Impulse.”
 
A surge of black
lightning forms around my body as I effortlessly dodge the thousands of vines
that shoot at me.

Every vine that the tendrils of black lightning
surrounding me touches instantly disintegrates and withers away, but for every
vine dead, ten more replace it.
 
Using the vines that are shooting at me as a foothold, I breeze through
the onslaught of vines that were the size of my body, covered in thorns, as I
draw near the core of the Elderwood Guardian.
 

I could already feel the recoil from using the
second phase as my body is trembling and I hold back the urge to vomit blood.

It was time to end this.

“
White
Fire...”
Both my hands ignite and are engulfed in a blazing white flame
that almost freezes the air around it.
 
This was the most powerful offensive skill that I had in my arsenal, but
one that was also the hardest to control.
 
While my Lightning Attribute skills are focused more towards one vs. one
situations
, I steered my Ice Attribute techniques to
create as much mayhem as possible, just in case I had a need for that.
 

The white fire ablaze in my hands grows bigger
as I absorb the particles of water attribute mana particles into my body.
 
Using the last of my strength I cast my final
skill.

“…Absolute
Zero.”

The Elderwood Guardian, who was in the form of
a giant wave of entangled vines, rapidly turned into ice as the very atoms that
made up the mana beast froze in place where the White Fire spread.
 
The black lightning traced through the
frozen tsunami of vines and instantly shattered it, leaving only the beast’s
mana core.

*Cough*

The second phase wears off as I cough out
blood, my body falling down along with the shimmering fragments of ice that
once made up the legendary S class mana beast.

The last thing I hear is the distant echo of
Sylv’s voice in my head.

______________________________________________

“GAHHHHH!”
 
The intense pain that shocks me awake leaves a stream of tears down my
cheeks.
 
I hurl both blood and the
remains of the little food I had since I arrived in the dungeon as every
muscle, every pore, every fiber of my body felt like it was getting sawed
slowly by a jagged blade.
 

Fuck.

“You’re awake!”
 
My body doesn’t stop trembling from the
pain and I ignore the worried voice.

“G-glove.
 
My glove.”
 
I manage to cough
out in between my cries of pain and the blood that keeps leaking out of my
mouth.

“What about your glove?”
 
I see Elijah’s face over mine now as he
takes off the glove my parents gave me from my hand.

“B-break one of the c-crystals on the glove and
give… me.”
 
I almost pass out from
the pain again, but before I do, Elijah manages to understand my stuttered
instructions.

A surge of pleasant soothing light envelops my
body, and the once unbearable pain eases enough so I can calm down a
little.
 
I try to get up but my body
refuses to listen. Lying still on my back, I finally try to assess the
situation, as my cognitive abilities aren’t completely focused on enduring the
pain anymore.
 

Around us was dark and cramped, with the only
source of light coming from a small fire in the middle.

“Where’s Jasmine?”
 
I can move my neck at most, and I’m
reminded of a very similar situation when I first fell from the cliff when I
was four.
 

Oh man… good times.

“She’s over there.”
 
I barely lift my head enough to see
Jasmine laying against the other end the dark cramped place we were in.
 
It’s evident she’s not doing so well as
I hear her groaning while beads of sweat were streaming down her small face.