At dawn, the fairies had gathered. Unlike the whole of the week, where they would be rushing off to find whatever prey they could, today was different. A major event was taking place.
Kigen, the mighty guardian, was going to hunt a powerful serpent hidden in a pond.
All the fairies were excited. The older ones, those that had seen Kigen hunt before, were eager to see just how amazing their big brother had gotten.
The younger ones did not know much about Kigen, but seeing their elder siblings so excited, they too understood that their elder brother was a force to reckon with.
Some fairies were familiar with the serpent in the pond. They always made it a point to keep as far away from the beast as possible. It was poisonous, had magical abilities, and was extremely scary to behold.
Even for fairies, such a beast was the stuff of nightmares. Therefore, they dreaded to think about what would happen if they had to challenge such a beast. Yet, Kigen had accepted the challenge so easily, as though he was not afraid at all.
"Perhaps, only this kind of opponent could bring out big brother's full abilities," Nina commented as she joined her siblings. Kigen had not yet turned up.
"Oh please, that little snake?" Luita said confidently, "Big brother won't even use a fraction of his strength to bring it down."
Their banter had attracted a lot of attention. Tande and Foli drew closer to listen in. Nixa directly interrupted the two.
"Come clean Nina," she demanded, "what are big brother's full capabilities?" By now, many people were looking on, waiting to hear the answer.
"Even I don't know," Nina answered plainly, "I guess we just have to find out."
Right as they were discussing, a huge shadow fell upon them. Looking up, they saw the majestic wings of the golden eagle. Standing upon it was a fairy, erect straight as a spear.
He did not even turn his face, simply looking ahead. With just one sentence, he set everyone flying: "Let's go."
"Big brother sure means business," Foli whispered as he looked at Kigen's powerful looking back. He had never seen him this serious.
All the fairies took to the skies. A disgruntled woman cursed as she activated her magic boots. Using them, she could levitate a few inches off the ground. She could therefore skate and keep up with the fairies.
She had not been able to get access to better boots back when she was in Faye city, her rank was just too low. Hence, she could only use these. Age was catching up to her.
Soon, the fairies got to the waterfall, and down they went, headed for the river basin no doubt formed by the falling water. Once they were a certain distance away, Kigen directed the eagle, and the rest of his kin, to a small outcrop sticking out in the mountain.
It was quite well fortified, and it could provide the party with a proper viewing platform as he went about his thing. He did not want to put the juniors into any kind of risk.
Truth be told, he had often thought of the monster he was about to encounter. Since their first meeting, he always wanted to take back the power it took from him. Sending him running in such an undignified manner, he was not willing to take it.
At the time, there was little he could do, but today, things were different. He was no longer the scared junior, but a fierce protector, the leader of the noble fay clan.
Kigen was also aware that he did not have a good understanding of the monster. In all their encounters, however brief, it had overwhelming strength. Therefore, there was little data on its capabilities.
The reason why the fairies, and virtually all the beasts in the forest, were so scared of the monster was because of the aura it gave off. If it had such a powerful aura, how much more would it be in real life.
Hence, whenever someone saw the serpent coming out, they would tuck their tail and run.
Today, something else was playing out. Instead of keeping a wide berth, one small fairy was drawing closer to the river basin.
From his position, he could feel the evil aura of the beast as it washed over him. He wondered if he had attracted any attention, but he still kept progressing. Getting closer and closer.
Since he did not know much about the enemy, he was attempting to draw them out, engage in a more neutral terrain. He did not want to fight over the water. There must be a reason the thing had built its habitat in a water body.
As he approached, Kigen unleashed his own aura. This was something he had recently learned to do. After listening to Mistress Kering's stories, Kigen had learned that powerful beings could exude a certain aura easily detectable by other prey or predators. It was a way to assert dominance and discourage competition.
He did not make any effort to conceal his movements.
"Are you really not coming out?" Kigen demanded as he got closer, acting all brazen. This was not something any other beast would consider doing.
The murderous aura coming from the pond intensified, letting Kigen know that his actions had been noticed. He had the attention of whatever was bubbling under there.
Step one complete. What was step two again? As Kigen was musing, a head popped out of the relatively calm section of the river basin.
Given that this was directly behind a waterfall, for water to be that still, it signified that that section was quite deep.
Kigen immediately noticed the sudden development. All this time, he did not have a clear picture in his mind about who he was fighting. Most times, he would just flee or encourage everyone to stay away from the basin. Only now did he finally get a glimpse of the enemy.
The head was massive, probably the size of a human's head. The rest of the body, the part that he could make out anyway, was just as thick, or thicker. To Kigen's small stature, it looked like the size of an entire barn.
Kigen was shocked. He had expected such a ferocious animal to appear massive and overly intimidating. This size was just right for him to demonstrate his talents.
With the boost of confidence, he started drawing closer to the river basin. He was not going to suddenly charge in, but he felt comfortable enough now that he could make out where the beast was.
Kigen did not wish to fly directly above the basin. His plan was to draw out the serpent from the pond, minimizing any chances of anything going wrong. As he looked, a bright smile flashed his face momentarily since he could see the beast drawing closer.
When he saw the beast taking interest, he hoped it was lacking in intelligence. Intelligent animals could identify traps beforehand. Hopefully, the thing would be too overconfident in its abilities, forgoing safety.
To attract its attention further, Kigen spread his wings wider, and started flying about in the air. The beast actually drew closer to the riverbank. Seeing this, Kigen was emboldened, and started performing all manner of tricks in the air.
He had used this exact trick to bring out a jaguar from its hiding place. Cats seemed to be unable to resist a small moving object. Kigen hoped the same would apply for this leviathan.
The gods seemed to be smiling at him that day, since the beast seemed cautious, hesitant to leave the water. No matter what antiques Kigen tried, it seemed content to just sit back and enjoy the show.
Even the spectating fairies were shocked. By now, they expected the fight to have already started. However, the beast they all feared even getting close to was simply observing Kigen, without making any attempts to attack.
Was it slow, or just lazy? Kigen wondered. He had interacted with sloths before, and this thing was giving him similar vibes. If Kigen wanted to remove it out of the water, he had to do something radical.
Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself to do just that. He started flying higher and higher. He knew he would need speed for what he planned to do, and the only to get much speed is by gaining plenty of altitude.
Once he was sufficiently high enough, he started angling his body to point towards the beast. All this time, he had been moving about seemingly aimlessly, although with a goal. To an observer, he looked as though he was performing a dance for the beast. However, the tune was about to change.
Dashing suddenly, Kigen shot towards the serpent, aiming for the beast's eye. Just as he had done with stone bear, he wanted to exploit this magical weak point. However, the beast in question had other ideas.
Seeing Kigen rushing at it, it simply opened its mouth to receive this snack that had just presented itself.
Such laziness. Kigen was shocked by how unthreatened the beast seemed. Thinking fast, he agilely changed direction, moving towards the beast's eye once more.
By now, Kigen was moving too fast and was too close that the beast could neither dodge nor parry the attack. It quickly closed its eyelid, just as Kigen's fist was closing in.
Puff!
Kigen quickly attacked and flicked away as fast as he did. He did not want to linger around the leviathan's massive head. His movements were so fast that not even the serpent could keep up with him.
In mere moments, he had created sufficient distance between the two, where he took the time to turn back and analyze his handiwork.
Shock! Kigen's attack had not borne his true might, but it was still a spectacular charge and a fierce fist directly into the eye of the beast. However, looking back, it did not look as though it had taken any damage. In fact, the only thing Kigen had managed to do was to anger the beast.
Seeing the red and enraged eyes staring back at him, Kigen was sure, he had achieved his initial goal. Of course, he did not have time to celebrate, since the serpent was charging at him with anger written all over its face.