Chapter 26 – A Flower

Third Person’s POV (4yr.s and 7 months old)

He never thought he could run so fast in his life and cast so fast, because just as he had arrived near the river he had immediately used magic to teleport to the other side and two more to give a big distance between him and river.

He didn’t dare to turn back, not when he was being chased down by the snake, it’s slithering body had created shock waves on the earth, not strong enough to deform it, but strong enough for him to feel it.

And now looking from this distance, it had stopped at the edge of the river, oh wait no, it’s slowly bounding towards me, and did he mention that it’s really big? Flowers, may you pardon both of them from trampling them.

It was able to cross the river in one swift movement and immediately bounded towards Ken, if he should deduce, it should be around twice the size of the big green snake he had fought earlier, ‘Now is not the time to be calculative of your opponent Ken, you must escape!’

“Momentum Magic: Flight!” rising towards the air he quickly look for the entrance he had come out of, it should be right th- ‘*GASP*, it’s not there anymore! What should I do?!’

In his moment of vulnerability he felt a looming presence, ‘Huh?’

Suddenly a mouth appears before his peripheral vision, almost eating him alive, but quickly evading it using teleportation

“That was so close!” But he’s still near the snake.

“YAH!” *Evades*

“YAH!” *Evades*

“YAH!” *Evades*

“YAH!” *Evades*

“KYAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” still evades.

‘I can’t keep dodging forever, I need to fight against’… is it a him or her?... No matter, let’s do this!’ Taking the scythe he strapped on his back he held it with both hands and flew higher, stopping just a few meters away from the snake.

“Wind Magic: Scythe Cut” he slashed down and the wind blade came falling down towards the snake, but to his surprise, it wasn’t able to leave even a scratch, as it had been deflected by the scales and disappeared. ‘It’s quite tough.‘

Seeing as if the boy’s still pondering on the choices he had to make, the snake lunged towards him, but he also avoided it, and on this moment that he realized the snake is also very, very long, avoiding the bite gave him the chance to inspect it’s body, that had spread all the way to the other side of the center and passed the river at the back, stopping at the middle of the flower field.

He flew towards the center to give himself distance from the head of the snake, ‘I don’t know if it’ll be able to hit me with its tail, nope wait it can, Whoa! Barely dodged the tail! But one thing is for sure, -If I think so- it cannot simultaneously use its tail and head to attack.’

Stopping right above the middle of the body of the snake he positioned himself parallel to the position of the snake, spread both of arms in opposite directions, the scythe on his left hand and chanted…

“Earth Magic: Parallel Barricades!” Walls approximately higher than the width of the snake came rising diagonally aiming at each other before stopping, the width as thick as five meters and length only covering one fourth of the snake. ‘This should be able to give me some time.’ Pointing his right hand towards the tail he chanted again.

“Fire Magic: Fire Blast!” A ball of fire larger than him was sent straight towards the head of the snake before making contact and exploding, but since he has made some kinks and stuffs to the after effects of his spells, smoke didn’t create upon impact, instead just gave a faint light upon bursting.

Clearly agitated, the snake suddenly bellowed a thunderous roar, that shook the dome and along with it sonic waves flew towards Ken, but since he’s prepared…

“Arcane Magic: Sound Alteration Barrier.” A faint violet colored barrier enveloped him, diminishing the thunderous power of the sonic wave, but the force wasn’t nullified sending him a couple meters away, but it saved his eardrums, it’s nothing to worry about.

Is that a fireball?

“YAAHHh.” Flailing around and narrowly missing the projectile, he watched as it hit the ceiling of the dome causing shakes.

‘ANOTHER FIREBALL! UGH!’ dodges a fireball. ‘It’s throwing fireballs at me? But where is it coming from? From thin Air?! Oh it’s the snakes magic. And it’s roughly the same size as the one I had casted!’ he flew aside to avoid another one.

‘ANOTHER ONE!’ then and there, fireball after fireball came flying his way, which he avoided swiftly, avoiding even those ones he doesn’t know where they were coming, but then the ones that were still flying suddenly stopped mid-air before coming into contact with the surroundings, and looking around, pretty much one fifth?

Or one sixth of the dome is damaged, flowers burning, dents on the wall and ceiling, water overflowing from the river with the holes that were made, SUBMERGING some of the FLOWERS! What a shame.

Huh? The fireballs are coming straight towards him, flying on the opposite direction, made him realize a big mistake, the fireballs had surrounded Ken blocking his escape. ‘Oops, wait, I can still escape this.’ Holding the scythe with both hands, he chanted silently before the fireballs could hit him.

“Arcane Magic: Blink zone.” As if the time had stopped, his magic made everything look transparent in a blue color as the outline and black as the boy making the spell secure, before returning back to its own color and letting time continue again.

Ken blinked just a second earlier before a loud boom occurred, smoke rose from the location where he was before obstructing the vision of the snake, luckily he teleported back down on land at the center making him unnoticeable,

And in that small time frame, the snake destroyed the earth walls that secured its body to the ground by a swift upper movement of its body ‘So it was able to destroy it that easily? Why didn’t it just do it in the beginning?’

Without wasting anymore moment, he decides that he has to fight this snake with his full power if he has to win, this guy’s pretty strong.

Flying towards the river, he used his magic to scrape around the left side of the river and silently made water blades underneath before revealing himself on the sky and chanted…

“Water Magic: Tidal Surge!” Eight water spheres formed behind him before surging its power towards the upper body of the snake along with a dozen water blade he created carrying with them water empowered by magic.

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

The first that hit the snake where the eight water blasts followed after by six water blades and then the other six, but the results disappointed him.

He felt my complexion pale a little bit from the outcome, since the snake was able to take the blast but also raised a force field surrounding it’s head rendering the water blades useless upon impact.

In an instance the snake also created a dozen water blades only this time they were twice the size of Ken’s blades, and if he deduce it, the snake’s water blades are sharper than his. So he ran, he means ‘flew’, the blades following him.

Dodging here and there became his course of action since he couldn’t let the blades touch him, and upon close inspection, the blades are taller and bigger than him, no doubt they could kill Ken in an instant.

As the blades followed him across the flower field he didn’t notice that he was nearing the head of the snake, but before he could be eaten -again- in a split second decision, he teleported away again to where he last teleported, on the comfort of the shade of the trees.

He waited for sounds, a sound of pain, or a roar indicating that the snake was hit by its own spell, but nothing, he suddenly felt twelve presence of magic in all directions before the water blades appeared in a sudden motion almost catching him of guard.

Almost.

“Fire Magic: Pyrokinetic Burst!” Holding the scythe with both his hands created a force field, before sounds of explosion from the water blades occurred, simultaneously getting destroyed.

This spell is a select area type spell that enables Ken to select a location where he wants an explosion to occur that packs quite a punch, steam arose from the location where the water blades exploded,

Making his location known ‘I think it was predicted that I would teleport here since water blades where waiting for me?’ but to his surprise again, as he had teleported from place to place, to place, Water Blades popped out of nowhere and always aiming at him,

Those that appeared early took note of the location Ken would appear and chased after him, always changing direction every time he teleports away, and before he knew it a blade storm is chasing after him. Ken can’t help but…

“AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” shout everywhere he went. If he doesn’t do something soon, this would never end, and possibly could lead, to his death.

*Blink*

Appearing just above where the storm of blade was, Ken condensed a huge amount of his mana and concentrated them on his finger tips, leaving his scythe to float beside him, a magic circle the color of sky blue appeared on both his hand as he chanted…

“Ice Magic: Broken Frost” Immediately the storm of water blades froze in their tracks, the water turning to frost before breaking down, rendering them useless, the magic circle quickly dispersed, but before the snake could react and cast another spell,

Ken grabbed his scythe, used both hands and pointed the tip of its rod towards the snake while the middle section of the scythe is under his arm pit as he once again condensed mana, this time on the tip of the rod,

A big magic circle appeared below him and another smaller than the first that appeared but still able to cover the radius of Ken’s body situated between him and the bigger magic circle, then lastly a very small magic circle at the tip of the rod appeared, ice energy started to gather at the magic circle at the tip of the rod then turned itself into a ball, he chanted…

“Delve in my cold embrace, in where the heat remains, Ice Magic: FROZEN SHOT!” the ball of icy energy shot a blast not big, but small in size, just the size of the rod, towards the snake, as it passed through its head and toward its body at the back,

At first the snake looked confused, anticipating what would happen, when it moved its head to look over itself and confirm that nothing really happened to it, the spell took effect and like a wildfire, ice spread from its head and body to encase the snake in a thick block of ice.

The spell didn’t stop there as it continued to create a much bigger block of ice probably fifteen or sixteen meters thick, some parts of the river turned frozen solid too.

At the thought of finally defeating the enemy Ken exhaled a sigh of relief, and slowly floated down on the flower field, but just as he was about to touch the ground he felt a great force that suddenly dragged him back to the sky,

As suddenly the ice that had incased the giant snake cracked and broke under pressure, the snake that was free bellowed a thunderous roar then moving its head, it looked at Ken, at this the force that was holding him was cancelled, him falling fast to the ground.

Ken activated momentum spell again and went to fly at the edge of the dome towards its tail, planning to cut open its skin starting from the bottom to the top with his scythe,

When suddenly…

“Oh, a flower.” not knowing that he had abruptly stopped to stare at a flower that caught his eye, he wasn’t able to evade the attack from the snake, a tail hitting him square on his body sending him flying the other way,

Ken thought he had lost consciousness but when he opened his eyes he was quickly approaching the wall of the dome upon realization, he used both hands to block the impact, his scythe tightly gripped by his right hand, before everything turned black.

--------End of Flashback--------

“That’s pretty much what happened.” Ken said and scratched the back of his neck, Celine doesn’t know why but tears were pooling on his eyes as she recalled Ken’s experience with that giant snake,

She doesn’t know this kind of unpleasant feeling, but all that she knows is that she doesn’t want to lose her friend.

Without quite thinking anything, she quickly lunged herself towards Ken and sobbed into his shoulders, not long after, she could feel a cold substance on her head, when she looked at Ken, he was sobbing too,

Celine repositioned her head on the huge as before, few seconds later, Wilbert joined in on the hug, sensing another heat from a body being pressed near hers and Ken’s, she didn’t look up knowing that if she’d raise her head, the tears would be a lot harder to hold on.

Wilbert sniffled as quietly as possible, but just as expected, he was the baby of the three of them, as he wailed into their embrace.

---Meanwhile at the cottage where the adults gathered---

“Who’s idea was this?” -

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