Showdown in the Forest.

Spiked barding created by Jerald’s Conjuration magic appeared on Digby as the three closed in on the fleeing guards, Digby activating a Skill that prevented him from being slowed down by the new weight.

One of the guards heard the thundering sound of Digby’s much heavier footsteps and turned to have a look at who was following them.

“Holy shit!” the man screamed as he saw the giant mole barrelling towards them, the barding was making Digby’s battle form look even more impressive than usual as well as providing more of a defence against attacks than his hide would usually.

Jerald’s armour shimmered into existence around him quickly followed by his shield as Digby took it from his Inventory just as a wave of arrows flew towards them.

Jerald snarled in irritation as he raised his shield to protect his son from the projectiles.

“Really guys, this is how you want to play it?” he growled as he deflected the arrows aside with his shield.

The guards wordlessly knocked more arrows to their bowstrings causing a vein to pulse on Jerald’s forehead. “Fine!” he snapped raising his hand and conjuring a large and strangely shaped bow of his own.

Jerald pulled back the string of his bow as an arrow appeared on it, causing Denzel who happened to be looking back at them to shout something at the guards who quickly release their arrows before spreading out.

“That’s not going to help you,” Jerald grunted as his arms strained against the massive weight of his bowstring once more before releasing his own arrow which shot away from the bow faster than Kyle could see it as Jerald quickly returned his shield to his arm and knocked the arrows that were flying at them away.

The arrow that Jerald had shot was made using his Conjuration magic and could split up into ten arrows that Jerald could control with his magic and several guards screamed in pain as an arrow ripped into their shoulder, some even fell of their horses, luckily for them Denzel’s order too spread out meant that none of them were trampled under another guards’ horse.

Unluckily for them they had all been firing arrows at their pursuers which meant that Jerald was extremely angry with them and didn’t even bother to be gentle when he conjured a suit of phantom armour around them, locking their joints in place with the arrows still embedded in their shoulders as they passed.

Denzel having seen what had happened to his archer shouted some new orders and the guards left the road and started heading towards a nearby forest.

“They’re trying to lose us!” Kyle shouted in his father’s ear.

“Yeah that forest is starting to form into a Zone which means that there’s going to be a lot of monsters to deal with.” Jerald replied.

A Zone was an area that was created when a monster had grown to the point of being labelled a Boss by the System, Bosses became more powerful than they were previously and gained several new abilities one of these was creating a Zone, a spatial fluctuation that contained large amounts of Mana which would attract monsters from the surrounding area. If enough people were killed by monsters in and around the Zone it could even change into a Dungeon which was why the Adventurers Guild would send out teams to destroy Zones as soon as they were discovered. The only known way to destroy a Zone was to defeat the Boss so these teams would often scout the area first to see how powerful the normal monsters in the Zone were as the Boss of a Zone would at most be ten levels higher than the average monster that they had attracted. If the team wasn’t powerful enough to defeat the Boss on their own they would try and decrease the likelihood of travellers being killed by roaming monsters by killing the monsters inside the Zone which would slow the rate at which the Zone spread.

“That’s not good!” Kyle replied.

“Nope!” Jerald shouted in a surprisingly cheerful tone of voice.

“Then why do you sound so happy?”

“It’s a Zone! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been in a Zone?”

“It’s not a Zone yet!” Digby shouted, he really wanted to catch up with the guards so that Jerald and Kyle would get off his back so that they were trying to hide in the woods was really starting to annoy him.

“Well then, let’s hope we catch up to them before one of the guards gets killed by a monster, that might be enough to push things over the edge and form the Zone!” Jerald replied.

Digby rolled his eyes, Jerald still sounded surprisingly happy despite the realities of the situation, it seemed that Kyle had been right, his father did indeed miss being an adventurer.

The sky surrounding the forest was a bruised purple which was how they knew that a Zone was forming, the strange colour also gave the forest a foreboding appearance as they got closer and could make out details.

The purple light made the tree look stunted and twisted, their clawed limbs seeming to reach out at the guards as they passed making the horses they were riding shy away as their eyes started rolling in distress. It didn’t bother Digby though and soon they had caught up with the worse riders who found themselves trapped in unmoving suits of armour cursing loudly at Digby and his riders as they passed.

Ben swore as his horse once again shied away from the trees as he passed them, he wasn’t a much better rider than the guards who had already fallen and was currently struggling to keep up with Denzel and his inner circle of high ranking guards, he couldn’t believe that Kyle was following him, Jerald was another story but Kyle had always seemed to be looking so far ahead that it had always felt to Ben that he never really saw him. Ben had known for years that Denzel was grooming him to become the captain of Farholt’s guard when he retired which meant that Ben’s life had all but been laid out for him, he would become one of the three most powerful people in the village, whereas Kyle had trained for a purpose that he had chosen for himself. Ben had felt the weight of Kyle’s choice for the first time today when he had been struck by that strange Skill Kyle had truly looked at him for the first time.

Ben shuddered as he remembered the way those eyes looked at him, burning with their unholy light as Kyle walked towards him with that terrifying look on his face, Denzel had always told Ben that he would have to defeat Kyle at some point, to prove his superiority, but in that moment Ben had understood that he wouldn’t be able to defeat Kyle, not without resorting to methods that even he balked at, methods that would end with one or both of them dying.

Even now he could swear that he felt Kyle’s eyes burning into the back of his head as Digby crashed through the forest unaffected by the aura of strangeness that filled the very air within it, slowly warping the trees and beasts within into something else. Ben’s companion a one-eyed raven who went by the name of Cyril looked at him worriedly, he had never seen his partner act like this before, sure he wasn’t a very nice person most of the time but today had been something else entirely, Ben had gone after those other kids like a man possessed driven by his desire to prove himself to Denzel, the man he looked up to like a father.

Just then Ben heard a whistling sound behind him and reacted instantly swinging his spear behind him just in time for something to rebound off it with a loud clang. His horse reared as the sound finally pushed it over the edge sending Ben tumbling to the ground.

Ben struggled to his feet as the sound of Digby’s footsteps grew until they were almost on top of him before stopping.

“I’ve got this dad,” Kyle stated calmly as he swung down from Digby’s back. “You go after Denzel and the others.”

“Are you sure son?”

Kyle turned to look at the pale-faced Ben and said one simple word that sent a chill down the other boy’s spine.

“Yes.”

The two young men faced each other silently as Digby once again chased after the still fleeing guards, they were very close to catching up to them now, even Denzel who was the best horseman in the guards was struggling to make his horse continue deeper into the increasingly sinister looking forest, the only reason that Digby hadn’t caught up with them yet was that he was larger than a horse in combat form making it harder for him to travel within the tightly spaced trees.

“So, what exactly is the plan here Ben?” Kyle asked.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Ben stammered.

“I mean, everyone in Farholt knows why you guys left in such a hurry, so why are you making things worse for yourselves, think of your mother Ben, she’s worried about you.”

“My mother?”

Kyle rolled his eyes, “Yes, your mother asked me to come and bring you back, unharmed preferably.”

“I don’t trust you!” Ben shouted gripping his spear tighter, he had hurt Kyle’s friends, so he was sure that there was no way Kyle was going to take him back safely no matter what he said.

“Shit, the kid’s lost it, Kyle,” Fi hissed launching herself into the air so that she would be out of Kyle’s way when the inevitable seeming fight finally began.

Perhaps we should listen to him Ben,” Cyril whispered.

“Shut up!” Ben shouted. “I can’t believe him! Even if he does take me back without hurting me, one of the guards stabbed the mayor before we ran away!”

Kyle sighed, this was indeed a problem, it was unlikely that anyone in the village would have any sympathy for Ben after the events of the day, especially after he and the other guards ran away.

“Well, I promised your mother I’d bring you back, however I only said I’d try to bring you back unharmed. Last chance; throw down you spear now and surrender,” Kyle stated as he started swinging his chain around to build up momentum.

Cyril’s eyes widened as the situation escalated beyond his control, Ben had never been good at listening to his advice but today he seemed even more stubborn than usual, the raven launched himself into the air and started circling the two, much like Fi had earlier.

“Dammit Ben, why are you acting like this?” he muttered to himself.

Kyle activated his Mana Skin causing a thin film of energy to sink into his skin giving it a slightly blue tinge as Ben activated his own defensive magic.

Kyle’s whirling chain blurred as he used his Lash Skill for the first time against an enemy, the weighted end of his chain hurtled towards Ben’s head causing the other boy to reflexively raise his arms to protect his face.

Kyle smirked as his attack bounced off, he had already anticipated Ben’s reaction, when he had tested the Skill earlier while he was riding Digby he had noticed that it was an incredibly fast attack that caused his chain to crack like a whip, so had known that if he struck with Lash first knowing that people automatically react to objects flying towards their face by covering it, something that his father had drilled into him repeatedly, it was a cheap trick and one that wouldn’t have worked as well normally. But Ben hadn’t seen Kyle use his chain before which was why Kyle was now rushing towards him while his vision was impaired.

Tiny shards of Mana appeared around Kyles left hand as he pulled his right one back to punch the surprised Ben in the face but was blocked by the whirling winds that protected the other boy, but it did have the effect of knocking Ben backwards allowing Kyle to launch his Mana Darts at Ben’s legs.

Most of the tiny projectiles dissipated on contact with Ben’s Wind Curtain, this was one of the problems with Mana Darts, each individual projectile was weak, it made up for this with a low Mana Cost and the ability to conjure multiple projectiles at once, unlike a spell like Mana Bolt which had a single more powerful attack. The darts that didn’t dissipate on contact with Wind Curtain embedded themselves in Ben’s legs causing him to scream in pain.

“Sunnovabitch!” Ben shouted, casting a spell of his own which picked Kyle up and threw him bodily backwards into a nearby tree.

Kyle groaned as he slumped to the ground, even he had to admit that had been a good move on Ben’s part, if he had been allowed to continue attacking Ben the way he had been there was a good chance this fight would already be over, however Kyle grinned, he was just getting started.

Ben staggered to his feet as Kyle started grinning maniacally at him, then fell to his knees as the same force from earlier that day fell upon him, causing him to feel like someone was running sandpaper across every inch of his body.

Kyle’s grin widened further as he saw the effect that Suppression Aura was already having on Ben and Ben hadn’t even had one of his Skills fail to activate yet. Flames flowed down Kyle’s chain as he cast Minor Flame Enchantment, this probably wasn’t as good an idea as it had seemed when he and FI had first come up with the idea, seeing as they were in a forest, but Kyle didn’t have enough Skill Levels with Chain Fighting to be able to face off against Ben’s spear without using his newest tricks.

Ben roared in rage as he deflected the burning chain with his spear over and over again before the flames fizzled out, but the barrage of attacks continued and soon the flames returned this time joined by more of the tiny darts that had made a mess of his legs, he couldn’t even move properly anymore and if he couldn’t somehow stop these attacks he was going to lose before he even landed a clean hit on his enemy.

Kyle gritted his teeth as he slowly edged closer to Ben, he couldn’t keep this up forever though more than a few of the attacks were getting through Ben’s defences but at the rate things were going he was going to run out of Mana and Stamina before he managed to defeat Ben, so he had to get closer, so that he could draw Ben out.

Kyle lowered his rate of attack for a moment, which allowed Ben to activate a Skill of his own launching the young man spear-first at Kyle as the Skill activated properly despite the secondary effect of Suppression Aura, but Kyle hadn’t been counting on the Skill working properly the first time anyway and activated another of his new Skills rolling underneath the vicious lunge and coming to his feet in a smooth motion behind Ben, dragging his chain behind him.

Swiftly Kyle looped his chain around Ben’s neck as the other boy struggled against the inexorable metal links that bit into his flesh. Ben’s higher Strength stat battled against Kyle’s superior leverage for a moment, but this was soon put to a stop when Kyle briefly released his hold on the chain to deliver a punishing Hook to the side of Ben’s head with the last of his Stamina.

Ben slumped to the ground as Kyle pulled the key to the manacle that was latched onto his wrist out of one of his pockets unlocking it.

“At least my weapon can also double as a way to keep a prisoner if I have to,” he mused as he wrapped his chain around Ben tightly before slipping one side of the manacle through a link and locking it once more.

The fight had been easier than he had expected. Ben’s mental state had been far worse than he had anticipated which had allowed his simple tactics to perform much better than they would have normally, Suppression Aura in particular had caused Ben serious issues due to the constant irritation it caused to enemies within its radius allowing Kyle to choose the distance to stop advancing at his own leisure which had in turn afforded him just enough time to activate Dodge Roll and get behind Ben.

Cyril flew down and landed in front of Kyle, “May I ask what you intend to do with him now young man?”

“He’ll do exactly what he said he’d do,” Fi snapped as she wrapped herself once more around Kyle’s neck.

The raven’s single eye blinked at this response before the raven sighed and closed it completely, “So he did all this for no reason, you were never going to harm him if he just surrendered were you?”

“Nope,” Kyle shook his head. “Like I said, I promised his mother I’d bring him back. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still angry about what he did to my friends, but he’ll receive a fitting punishment form the villagers, not revenge from me.”

Cyril cocked his head to one side, “Thank you Kyle, I’ve been worried about him for a long time now, he’s been pushed hard by Denzel in his training, some might say too hard.”

“Oh, he was pushed too hard alright,” muttered Fi under her breath. “He seriously injured two kids form the village he was supposed to be training to protect.”

“It’s alright Fi,” Kyle said. “Denzel will get what’s coming to him, dad will make sure of that.”

“Yes, your father,” Cyril croaked. “I got the feeling that Denzel was actually more afraid of him than he was of Emma, despite the way he acted towards her, why do you think that is?”

Kyle grinned down at the flustered companion as he remembered his father’s training and the stories the others had told him about what he was like when he was younger.

“Well, you see Cyril, it has to do with how he got his title…”