THE LION THAT STOPPED THE WAGON
THE LION THAT STOPPED THE WAGON
Those unfortunate souls who faced the monstrous Lion beast happened to be merchants traveling to the nearest town but meeting the Crimson Lion at a crossroad.
The Crimson Lion leaped toward a wagon and smashed it with its large and powerful paws before breaking another wagon that escaped destruction from the initial strike with a magically conjured slash.
Power and magic were conjured out from the Crimson Lion's claws projecting an enlarged image of his claws. But the projected claws weren't ethereal projections, they were powerful and forceful, probably as devastating as the real claws of the lions.
The projection from the lion destroyed the wagon and killed almost all the inhabitants on it destroying the wagon and scattering all the contents inside the wagon.
"Run for your lives", the caravanners and merchants screamed out to warn each other and themselves.
But the merchants needed no reminding as the Crimson Lion destroyed another wagon with his magical paws and claws.
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"Fireball"
Suddenly an elderly man cast a magical burning sphere at the Crimson Lion, which exploded on impact, but the explosion of the magical sphere failed to harm the Crimson Lion. The lion leaped over the flame to avoid it like a cat playing with a ball.
"This damn lion is too quick", the man complained out loud.
Before the man could react, the Crimson Lion jumped toward him but at the last moment, someone pulled him away with magic conjured from within one of the wagons.
This wasn't the usual wagon of the convoy of caravans, but an ornately decorated one that was designed to carry important people.
The old man landed on the wagon when suddenly an aura of magic surrounded the wagon.
Then the Crimson lion attacked the man and the wagon again by the casting of several powerful claws projected from its paws.
To the surprise of the lion, the magic of the lion failed to harm the older man and his wagon, because it was protected by a mysterious force field.
The Crimson Lion charged into the magically rotected wagon trying to break its defenses. The force field of the wagon was strong, but the lion was relentless and the strains on the force field were beginning to show.
"Hell, can anybody save us from this hellish lion", the elderly shouted out, who probably didn't expect anybody to reply to him.
"Its your lucky day, old man", someone shouted out to reply to him followed by a blinding light.
"Zzzziiiinnnnggg"
"Good shot Ronnie", I told Ronnie Grump.
A hole was burnt through the head of the Crimson Lion, stopping his murderous rampage on the magic wagon, killing the beast almost immediately.
"What is that beam?" the old man who asked to be saved asked out loud.
"It's a divine weapon", Bommurs replied to the old man and bragged.
"Boys? You are boys, how can you possess a divine weapon?" he asked us when he looked at Ronnie, who was holding his divine weapon, his hand phaser and was the only adult among our group.
"Who are you who saved us. How can we repay you?" the old man asked Ronnie but he didn't reply to him.
His translator couldn't translate the old man's words quickly enough to make conversation with people who weren't familiar to him. It was easier at this stage for him to talk to people whom he knew because his AI would have understood them from frequent interactions.
"Don't worry about payment, but the lion's heart is ours", I told the old man as I walked toward the dead lion and carved out its heart and placed it inside a hanging brass lantern.
"What is the strange lantern?", Minna asked me.
"I bought the Heart lantern from Gaesov town. There's a spell inside the lantern that could break down magic from creature's hearts like a gathering spell and we could gather magic easily when we sit around the burner", I told Minna as I asked my friends to gather around my brass burner and burned the Crimson Lion's heart.
The magic lantern was one of the reasons I went to Gaesov town in the first place.
Hunting continuously in the deep forest required an efficient way for me to absorb all the magical hearts that I collected, and the Heart lantern was that way.
I no longer needed to draw a spell on the ground and wait for hours before the magical heart's magic was absorbed. All I needed with the lantern was to feed a magical heart inside and carry the lantern around with me and magic would be fed into me continuously while the lantern burned.
After about an hour all the lion's heart was burnt and we absorbed all its magic, just as all three of my friends immediately broke through a new magic level.
"Wow I've reached Awakening level 6 now", Bommurs told us.
"Me too", Raven added.
"And I'm level 5 now", Minna reported her progress with joy.
"Fantastic", I told them.
Although I shared the heart with my friends, I didn't lose much magic compared to taking everything myself because the magic gathering was an inefficient process, and it wasn't possible for me to absorb everything from the heart even if I wanted to.
There was enough of the magic that went around so my friends could benefit too.
----
After we finished with the Crimson Lion's heart, we were surprised that the caravan that we saved earlier hadn't left. They were apparently waiting for us to finish what we were doing.
"We would like to thank you again for saving us from the lion", the old man said to us after we were done gathering magic.
"It's fine like we said we got the lion's heart", I replied to him.
"My name is Hugo, and we are merchants Gaesov town going to Antenne town, would you like to join us in travel", Hugo offered to be our travel companions.
In actual fact, he wanted us to escort his caravans.
"I'm sorry we are not going there and would rather travel alone", I told Hugo refusing his offer because I didn't want to be bogged down by the caravans.
Besides our destination was Gaesov town, which was where Hugo's caravan was coming from.
"We could pay you silver for escorting our caravans", Hugo offered again to us, this time with some dangling carrots.
"Sorry again we are not interested", I told him again.
Suddenly, a woman walked out from the ornately decorated wagon and to my surprise, I've seen her before.