-Ria POV-

It has been a couple of days since I have begun following the party of people whom I believe to be people who specialize in hunting daema from what I have seen so far. Whenever they encounter one which is hostile they would flawlessly work together to kill the enemy before them. I was particularly interested in the techniques used by the man in heavy armor. He wielded a huge blade with two hands and used powerful techniques to prevent the enemy from attacking his comrades and to slowly dwindle his opponent vitality.

Their weapons were rather weird however. Each one of them had similar looking weapons yet once battle begun their weapons would transform into one fitting their combat style. The normal form was a short dagger yet once battle begun the heavy armored man weapon would turn into a huge sword. The man with leather armor dagger would split into 2 and mana would create a whole body. The man in a robe dagger acted as a spell catalyst similar to the girl in the robe. From what I could tell mana was important to transform their weapon.

I tried releasing my mana into a branch I found and I could form a blade shape but it wasn’t as efficient as their weapons. Another weird change I found was that I was releasing blue mana instead of a black mana. Daema mana was always black in colour yet mine turned blue when I was in my current form. I was still able to release my regular mana if I transformed a part of my body to a more dragon like variation. Even then I could only release it through the part of my body that was in partial dragon form as I decided to call it.

After several days of practice as I follow them I have gotten proficient enough to instantly transform a single part. However the more parts I try to transform at any given time the longer it takes and the pain intensifies which each added part. Its probably because the more I transform the more my internal structure changes. In all honesty this transformation is flawless in all ways since I felt significantly weaker and even my control over the elements has decreased to the extent I could only use elements for more simple attacks like a fireball. The problem is easy to solve since I get closer to my original power the more I transform, but I must remember my goal is to blend in so I suppose my current strength isn’t too far off since I have confidence I’m only slightly weaker than the man in heavy armor, not taking into account the difference between our mastery of the sword. If that is taken into account I would have no hope to beat him in a one versus one fight in this form.

It was important for me to understand my current body as quickly as possible since I would rather avoid losing control in a place filled to the brim with humans. Its rather unfortunate that I couldn’t test the limits of my current body due to the fact that I was stalking a group of people and didn’t want to be detected. Just to be safe I have been following from a rather huge distance and have been using my dragon eyes to follow them.

A couple more days has passed without any particular event happening that peaked my interest. If anything other than testing my ability to partial dragon form I have been trying to remember the technique used by the man in heavy armor. It was a rather dull day today as well as I made sure I didn’t lose sight of them. As usual a daema confronted the group. The daema was particularly big this time. It looked like a huge wolf with huge bulging muscle. It stood on all four and had blue fire blasting out from its back in a straight line following its spine. The very same flames were also covering all 4 of its paws. It looked familiar almost as if I had seen it before. It was rather massive compared to the daema the group faced before.

Looking through my memories I somehow managed to remember meeting it once before around the time I first moved into my cave. It was complaining about the fact I was invading its territory and challenged me calling me to leave. I think I was tired then cause I remembered defeating him with a single blow from my tail. Well I can’t really estimate its strength since I’m well aware in that form I’m much stronger than I will ever be in my current form. With the reason I found him familiar out of my mind I watched the battle between them with great interest.

-Party POV-

(heavy armour=warrior /leather armor=rogue/ male mage/female mage)

“Aren’t we being to careful we have only encountered D rank daema so far.” The warrior complained.

“Its better to be sure rather than sorry. I find it weird we have only encountered D ranks this deep in the wild. A few days ago we encountered C ranks and even B ranks” male mage replied

“Whats there to fear all of us are B ranks we can just defeat anything with our flawless teamwork. Besides the trees here are normal sized maybe we are getting closer to a town.” The warrior replied.

“That’s because cases like this can only be caused by two things you idiot. Its either the area is unsuitable to live in which is impossible since this place looks perfect to live in leaving the possibility of an extremely powerful daema which has claimed the area as its territory. Furthermore your theory is likely wrong since there are still daema here so it means there can’t possibly be a town anywhere near here. Haven’t you learned anything in school.” The female mage replied

“There isn’t a black fog here though so our worries is that the daema is currently hunting.” The rogue said while looking somewhat worried.

“True they do stop releasing mana if they were looking for prey, scaring them away would be pointless.” the male mage said

“Well lets get out of here before it shows up then easy.” The warrior said happily.

Suddenly there was a rustling sound among the trees before a huge black wolf jumped out from the trees. It looked at the party and a grin seemed to formed on his face as fire exploded out of his back and paws.

“I think it’s a little too late for that, It found us.” The rogue said as he activated his weapon.

The party quickly organized themselves in a formation with the heavy armor guy in front to protect the 2 mages. The rogue was in the middle of the formation to look for openings to attack the beast that now stood in front of them.

“Hey what rank is this guy in.” the warrior said as he readied himself to charge head on and try to draw its attention.

“He is probably a A rank.” The male mage replied with a serious look on his face.

“This will probably get dangerous. Damn I didn’t think we would meet a A rank here .” The rogue said looking worried.

“Its ok guys it should be fine. We fought a A rank before we just have to do it like we did then.” The female mage said as she prepared to attack.

The conversation came to a abrupt end when the daema charged forward towards them. The warrior covered his body with mana and charged forward to meet the attack head on. Meanwhile the two mages both finished their chant for their spell. The girl created a wall of wind surrounding the guy to further enhance his protection. The guy however created ice spikes blasting out from underneath the beast. The beast jumped to easily evade the spikes. The warrior jumped upwards as well controlling his mana to increase his weapon size and aimed it towards the beast with the intention to pierce it. The rogue appeared behind the daema at that moment both the daggers length increased almost like a chain he used it to wrap the daema. The daema easily broke through the mana chain and with its fangs it bit the warrior sword . With a swing of its head he easily tossed the warrior towards a tree. The warrior crashed against the tree snapping it in half.

The warrior stood back up seemingly unfazed and dashed towards the daema with his sword dragging along the ground. With a shout he yelled out “Take this Land Crasher!” as he yelled it out his blade has left the ground slashing upwards toward the daema. The mana that acted as the blade left the handle and travelled along the ground as a blue wave aimed towards the daema. As the blue wave travelled along the ground it left a huge mark anywhere it had travelled. The daema let out a roar and surrounded itself in a flaming tornado. The 2 mages finished chanting another spell as the girl released 10 wind blades spinning at high speed towards the daema. The guys spell was a huge ball of ice that travelled towards the daema. Before hitting the daema the huge ball of ice transformed into countless blades of ice all aiming at the daema from every angle possible. At the command of the mage all the ice blades went flying towards the daema. Yet as all 3 of their attacks met the daema flame they disintegrated into nothing.

-Ria POV-

They seemed to be having problems against the daema. If worst comes to worst it looks like I will have to interfere. I can’t go losing my guides after all. Well for now I guess I can observe a little longer before I interfere.

(Author Notes) : Finally caught up with the previous version. Thank you for all the support it means a lot to me :) .

Hope you enjoyed this chapter if not feel free to voice you're opinion as usual.