Chương 48: My Pride

Ch. 48: My Pride Folus' eyes darted toward me.

"There it is," Folus muttered. I kept staring at Nelo.

"Tell me who." Nelo's eyes teared. She muttered the one last thing, my name.

"Drake…" She collapsed next to Kayla, losing consciousness. I continued to look at her.

"The smell," Folus continued, "Those two both had it. I was starting to wonder if all the champions smelled like it. It has been outside my nose' reach since we entered the hatch. But I have found the source. You."

"Me," I finally turned to look at him.

"You reek of divine energy. Mixed with ash and dew."

"Something about you stinks too, so you know."

"What are you? Are you those we seek to destroy? I'll admit, I never encountered one. I have been itching for a quarry so rich. Answer me. Are you a god?" I threw the column down away from my friends' unconscious bodies. The piercing noise the glass shattering made did not wake them from their unconsciousness. Oku stepped forward, ready to fight. Folus placed his hand up, stopping him.

"I ask again, what are you?" All I could focus on was the gash in Nelo's cheek. The blood that trickled from it. Even with a health potion, it would inevitably scar. I walked over to her and kneeled. I placed my hand on her face. Health potions were massively expensive, but Nelo carried a kit on her person for wounds. I didn't have any health potion, but I knew she kept a kit on her person for wounds. I grabbed the thigh pack she had and tended to her wounds.

Folus spoke, "Did you know that there is an experience bonus for us when we're through the hatch? We receive a double bonus for every being we kill on this side. Isn't that something?" I applied antiseptic to her wound, before attempting to create a rudimentary stitch with bandaids.

"That was why my pride and I were so eager to come here. Because it meant getting ahead. If you are what I think you are… then killing you means more to me than anything." I finally looked up and matched Folus' stare.

"Are you the one who touched her face?" Folus took a slight step back."Answer me first."

"We can understand you. You speak celestial. You are more than I have been looking for."

"It's too bad she couldn't testify. She would have told me that war is hell and they probably think they're protecting their people like we're protecting our. Blah. Blah. Penelope would have insisted that I didn't need to get into a fight. It's too bad. If she were conscious, she would have begged for mercy on your behalf." I rolled up my sleeves and stood up.

"But since she's not… I'm going to have to be hard on all of you." There was a subtle tick in all their body language. Maybe I would have picked up on it subconsciously. Maybe that extra 12 in perception gave me just the boost I needed to notice it, and process that it was intentional. They shifted their feet just so. They dropped their center of gravity just a hair lower. Their faces changed. They were ready to hunt. Folus closed his fists so tightly, that a red energy began to leak from his knuckles.

He leapt at me and punched at me. I dodged. His fist slammed into the column behind me and created a spiderweb of cracks. When he retrieved his fist, there was a large hole. He rotated with his body and punched again. I dipped under this one too. This cross took out the middle section of the pillar. It hung from the ceiling like a newfound Roman ruin. He swiped with his nondominant hand with a claw attack.

"Big guy. And pretty fast too," I said. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it"But you're so used to taking down weaker foes, that you leave yourself wide open." I threw a quick jab, right in the solar plexus. He coughed, getting the wind knocked out of him. He took a step back. I hit him with a snap kick to the calf. He let out a howl and covered the spot out of instinct.

"Wide open. Just like I said." I pummeled him with blows along the torso. He fell to his knees. I punched him square in the jaw. Blood spurted from his mouth.

"My pride!" I punched him and he flew backward. His three lackeys jumped in behind him. Oku, wily and spry, had been ready for a fight since I entered the picture. He was the first to attack me. He clawed and I conjured a cloud shield in one hand. His claws drummed the side of my shield, barely scraping into it. The moment his clawing let up, I lifted my shield and snap kicked him on the right. Then I crossed my feet and kicked him on the other side.

Like we were in a martial arts class, I would rebuff his punches with my mitt of clouds, and attack him when he was tired. The two others jumped in between but I let out a tiny firebreath. Knowing it cost the most of my mana, I decided to reserve it for the fight. Still, I scanned my head left to right, right to left, as the dragonfire streamed on the ground in front of them. It caused all three of them to jump back, give me some distance and some time to reassess. I dispersed my cloud shield.

Folus had landed, and was recovering. His three gang members around me, My eyes tracked them as best I could but soon the three of them had completed a circle around me. One in front of me and two to my back. They all waited for some moment to intercede. As soon as I turned my eyes away from Oku, he shot toward me. His speed was admirable. He was probably 15 feet away from me but he closed the distance like it was a single step. Within no time at all, his claws were two inches from me.

As they came down to strike at my face, I called upon my newest ability.

"Gap." I moved back five inches and his claws whiffed in the air. He lost balance, expecting to connect with his foe, he put everything into that pounce. I took advantage of this and kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying in the air to the metal wires above. He grabbed at the wires and pulled himself further, biding his time for his next strike. That was a great spell, but it took a huge chunk out of my mana. I looked at my mana bar and saw that I was sitting at 7%. I would need to make blood soon.

"Finally, a worthy prey!" Folus' voice boomed from the back. The two others attacked me after Oku. I punted one away with my foot, and created a cloudsphere. A huge one that blocked the other one from reaching me. His claws sunk into the soft cloud and I bounced it on the ground like a basketball. The cloud popped but it kept the leonid away from me. I was trying to create enough of a time gap before Folus would be on me once again. I failed. He was on top of me and struck my back, causing me to stumble backward.

He attacked me with reckless abandon. He clawed at me with intense ferocity, charging up his strikes with the red energy that he'd caused before. It was actually putting some oomf in his attacks. The next strike he made at me, I intervened. I grabbed his wrist, dug my nail into the center vein and bent it, twisting his body. His center of gravity was over the ground and not his legs. It gave me the opportunity to drop him. I kicked his legs out and he fell to his knee to recover. His torso was exposed.

I called forth a firefist and slammed it into his chest. The heat stung him and burned the fur covering his heart. I shifted to a void fist and puncehd him again. Once again, he was burned but this time by the frigid vacuum of space. I was giving him the icy hot of his life, and I was out of mana. I reached into my holster and pulled out Bloodsucker. He resisted it, sticking his hand out. That would do. I stabbed him in his palm and Bloodsucker slurped up that good blood.

"I need all your help, brothers! Let us return to our world as devils!" Instead of attempting to free his wrist from my grip or his palm from my knife, he used this opportunity for a bite attack. His teeth sunk into my shoulder before I could react. His eyes rolled back in his head as he tasted me.

"Ambrosia. Nectar. Mother's milk. It is everything we want, brothers."

"I want some too!" Said Oku as he dropped from the ceiling.

"We're hungry as well!" Said Snir. Those two and Ponzo used Folus and I's deadlock to their advantage. Ponzo and Snir leapt and found an exposed portion of my body to sink their teeth into. Oku fell down and his teeth laid roost in my neck. All three of them had surrounded me were clamping down hard on me. Although I did not feel a draining effect like a vampire or a poison, they were drawing strength from the richness of my blood. I lifted my foot up and conjured cloudstep.

I placed my foot on the platform as they all stayed attached to. I used it as a spring board and jumped into the air, lifting all of them up with me. Then I flipped backward, and divebombed all of them into the ground.