Chapter 60 : Rivals

Itekan and Itoyea moved further into the forest and dispite their earlier encounter with the Forest elementals, the rest of their adventure so far had not been too hard.

They got to the wall dividing the yellow and red zones and went in without much preamble. Once again they encountered some Forest elementals which they swept throughly.

By now they had already gathered quite a lot of SE stones so they decided to rest. They sent camp beside a large tree, Itekan and Itoyea sat a the base while Togira lay curled up on Itekan's laps.

Togira was tried chewing through a large SE stones they had gotten from a fire wolf. He kept gnawing at it till it lost it original color and became a dull shade of its earlier red.

"So... why'd you want to be a hero?" Itekan asked Itoyea as they sat there resting.

"That's easy I want to protect others from the demonic beasts, I want to ensure that the massacre that took place in my village never happens anywhere else" Itoyea said as he twirled his sword in his hands, his expression dark.

Itekan nodded, he couldn't claim to understand his pain but he could understand why it would hurt. As he did this he started thinking back on his motivation for becoming stronger.

The words of Headmaster Kime came back to him then, how far would he be willing to go. Itoyea seemed, with the look on his face now, able to go to hell and back to ensure he accomplished his goal.

He almost questioned his resolve. Keyword, Almost. He suddenly smiled as he remembered why he wanted to get stronger.

And though it wasn't because he had lost anything or because he wanted to avenge anyone, that didn't make his reason for wanting strength any less important or reasonable.

"How about you?" Itoyea asked looking up at Itekan who had a smile growing.

"I'm going to become the strongest being in the world, so I can stand on equal with my Father."

"Strongest in the world huh!" Itoyea said grinning, ", you'll have to defeat me to become the strongest, because I'm going to become the strongest hero!" Itoyea said grinning ear to ear.

Itekan responded with a first thump, smacking his chest.

"Then we're rivals then." Itekan proclaimed.

"I guess we are." Itoyea said smiling as well.

Just then they both heard a sound as if stone were being cast, they turned to its source to see Togira covered in stone like he'd been petrified. Itekan and Itoyea were immediately on high alert thinking a monster had snuck up on them.

After a few minutes and nothing happened, Itekan rushed to get Togira, the moment he did however he felt his SE being sucked into the petrified Togira.

"O'm-slryht-i'tz-juht-mt-furm-if-greyh" Togira said telepathically to Itekan whose tense shoulder relaxed, he looked beside him at Itoyea who had come to check up on Togira as well.

"He says he fine, that he's simply growing" Itekan said to Itoyea who let out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"He's evolving" Itoyea said as they watched the stone Togira.

***

Morning...

Itekan woke up, jerking from his position by a tree trunk, beside him Itoyea was just rousing from sleep as well, Togira.

He was nowhere to be found.

"Togira!!" Itekan called out into the wild causing Itoyea to get up.

"Don't go screaming in here you'll attract everything and anything"

"Togira's missing, I can't find him!" Itekan said holding Itoyea's arms.

"Okay calm down first, we'll get him back" Itoyea said, when they heard a snap sound from ahead, Itoyea sent Itekan a glare in anger.

Itekan groaned.

"Maximum Chajama!!" Itekan said, throwing up the hand signs for the skill, creating a ball of fire three times as large as Itekan.

He sent it in the direction of the noise. The leaves around turned to ash immediately a shriek came from the area attacked.

"Showoff!" Itoyea said softly though Itekan still heard.

"That's not important now, what's important—" Itekan stopped when he saw the look of horror on Itoyea's face, wondering why he spun around.

In the direction where his attack had been sent there was a massive figure in the fire that seemed to grow larger every passing second. The fire around however seemed to reduce in size, as if being eaten by this being.

Itekan was surprised, that was his strongest attack, yet it was being shrugged off like it was nothing.

He equipped his shadow daggers in apprehension, waiting for the beast, Itoyea as well had unsheathed his sword.

He had seen it from the start so he had a better idea of what they were facing, that monster was consuming the fire, Itekan had shot it.

There were only a couple of beasts with that ability in this side of the continent. The first of the flame salamander, they are usually C rank monsters but some evolve after a while and become B or even A ranked monster. The other was the supreme flame Phoenix, those are usually B ranked some grow to becoming AA ranked but only after hundreds and hundreds of years. The last of them, the emperor crocodile, these monsters are said to be decendant of dragons and each are born with B ranked strength. Their strengths was said to proportional to the amount of fire type SE they consumed. Capable of destroying others equally ranked demonic beasts even at birth of fed an astronomical amount of fire SE.

The issue with that was all three of them were several times stronger than both he and Itekan. Itekan grimaced as he watched the beast come closer, he had just had the same thoughts as Itoyea.

"Itoyea. We might need to run get ready" Itekan said softly to his partner who nodded understand their opponents overwhelming advantage over them.

"Krahhhh!!" A loud roar came from the beast as it ran towards them haven eaten it's full of the flames, Itekan and Itoyea shot off in opposite directions. Trying to escape the monster who crashed into the tree where they had slept the night before.

The amount of heat it released dwarfed anything Itekan had ever produced and made both of them feel like they were melting.

Suddenly it stopped.

Itekan and Itoyea stopped and looked behind to see a small creature the size of a large bulldog atop the creature who had just chased them.

Itekan peered through the steam that had filled the atmosphere and saw Togira atop the emperor crocodile, his teeth were on one of the horns on the crocodile.

And before their eyes, the emperor crocodile lost its oppressive size growing smaller by the second, it tried attacking the 12 horned Beak cub on its head but nothing it did could throw Togira off it's head.

Finally with a loud roar it's breath it's last and fell to the ground, a pile of dead bones and dried up mummified flesh.

Itekan and Itoyea looked in surprise as Togira killed the beast much stronger than them like it were merely a morning snack.

"Pkwah!" It said, rubbings it tummy.

Itekan cringed as he understood Togira's words.

"This oaf is always hungry!!" Itekan said stepping forward with Itoyea.

Spiritual Energy (SE)

Spiritual Sea (SS)

Spiritual Signature (SST)