Hal joined Tai on the battered battlefield where his friend had battled the lizard on his own. Tai looked exhausted, but he was mostly free from injury.
"You look like you went through a lot"
Tai scoffed as he let his sword disappear back into his bracelet
"That lizard was child's play once I learnt not to look at its scales, it always made itself open hoping that you would stare into its mirror, but thanks to you, I did not make that blunder and was able to land some devastating blows on it"
Hal laughed as he proceeded to present Tai with the mirror scales they needed to proceed to the next stage of the battle, and without wasting much time, the two of them arrived at the next door and placed the scales where they needed to go
A deep voice spoke from the door it sounding full of elation and joy at the boy's achievement
"You did well if you beat the mirror crawler. That creature has the ability to snatch the body of another through one willingly giving it up to it. That lizard you fought was one of its victims, mutated by its authority"
Hal felt a shiver run down his spine as he thought of what he would look like if he had failed to resist that creature's influence
'That sounds like a horrible nightmare to be honest'
He brought his attention back to the door in time to hear it speak of their next challenge
"You have cleared most of my challenges thus far, you beat my most slippery and most cunning pets, but can you defeat the fastest of them all? I guess we have to wait and see"
The voice went silent as the doors slid open and let them through; the next hall they came across was wider than all the previous chambers they had come across, and the walls all had scratch marks left by some sort of monster
"I wonder what did this."
Tai's voice was filled with a silent fear as to what had claws sharp enough to rip through these crystals, and Hal asked himself the same.
Last time they were here, he had struggled to get his dagger to penetrate through the wall last time yet this creature seemed to have done it with ease.
They continued to descend deeper into the caverns, where they found bones of other creatures piled up in heaps around the wide Hall.
Hal's ears suddenly twitched as he heard something speed past behind them. He suddenly turned back, but saw nothing there.
"Did you hear that?"
Tai gave Hal a nervous nod that didn't help with his nerves either. They summoned their weapons and continued to move deeper into the cave.
But the feeling of being watched suddenly rose within them as they looked up and only saw their reflections looking back.
Hal wanted to release a King's talent now that he had enough soul flame, but resisted the urge to do so since it might end in them all being covered by sharp crystals.
The creature sped by again, forcing Tai to turn and point his sword forward in a stance ready to cut through anything that may come this way.
Hal followed in his footsteps and stood back to back with the young swordsman man his breath heavy and slow.
And then he saw it, something sped past in front of them, he tightened the grip on his daggers and readied himself as he heard the creature speed by behind them, followed by a sudden movement from Tai.
And that was the cue for both boys to activate their abilities. Hal turned and marked Tai's sword, only to turn back and see a bird-like creature standing right in front of him with almost zero distance between them.
The creature twisted its face into a stupid look on its face. It looked like a bird with purple feathers and eyes, and it had four small wings with sharp claws at the end of each.
It had a lightning-shaped horn, and its feet had long, bloodied talons
Hal's eyes suddenly widened, 'Where did it get the blood on its talon'
Tai, behind him, fell to the ground, forcing Hal to look down at his abdomen and see his stomach ripped open with his entrails almost visible before he stumbled to the ground and blacked out
Hal had blacked out too many times to let this be another, as he quickly transferred his mind into the mark he had placed on Tai's sword that was still tightly gripped in the unconscious Tai's hand
He felt the pain of being dragged on the ground and being squeezed by the grip of an energetic person
He looked up and saw the weird bird dragging them quickly as it ran through the hall of the caverns, and this is when he finally identified his problem
He and Tai had just had their stomachs ripped through by a creepy bird who was dragging them who knows where
And even if they managed to get up somehow, the speed demon would simply do it again, so how was he supposed to save them from this grave they had dug for themselves
He suddenly felt a thud as the bird finally stopped and dropped them in a place filled with corpses of weird creatures, with some of them partly rotten
Hal had to thank all the concepts of this world for this sword not having a nose to breathe in that blasted smell. The bird looked around before running away to find more prey for itself
"What a glutton, now to find a way to save us and take down this weird monster"
He looked at his body and jumped back to it, allowing him to take back control of it, although he was also still connected to the sword, so that he could escape into it at a moment's notice, but even he knew it would all be over once his main body died
He grabbed the sword and planted it at the entrance, and heightened his senses to a level where he could see the bird before it arrived
Then he moved to Tai and felt for his pulse before letting out a sigh of relief
"Good, you're still alive"
He removed the bracelet from him and summoned the bag they travelled with. He rummaged inside it and extracted a potion they had received from Nanny Leya before they left.
He drank some of it before proceeding to tie a bandage around his waist, where the bird had slashed him.
The potion was not going to heal them, but it was meant to help them regain their blood while holding back the bleeding, at least for some time.
He looked down at his tailcoat and felt tears almost flow from his eyes
"You did well, and I shall avenge you shortly"
He moved to Tai and tied his wound as well before pouring water on his face from a bottle that he had found in the bag.
Tai coughed as he regained consciousness, though it was swiftly fading
"Here, drink this"
Tai gulped down the potion before Hal carefully let him down so that he could get some rest.
He sat down next to a wall and wondered how long they had been in here. He felt hungry, but in his current state felt like eating food would be a waste; his eyes wavered, and soon he fell asleep.
Hal suddenly awoke as the mark in the sword alerted him of the incoming threat; he opened his eyes and saw the bird staring at him.
"Not going to rip my stomach open again this time"
Hal had to thank his ability for providing him with a built-in surveillance system. He smiled at the creature as he stared it deep in the eyes
"I wonder why you monsters…keep falling for this"
He bird twisted its head only to see Tai swinging his sword. The bird slid away, only to see the swordsman disappear.
Hal chuckled as he got up and walked to where his daggers were
He picked them from the ground before turning at once to release a King's talent at the wall, forcing it to collapse and leave them alone with the creature in a tight place
"Ready for round two, you bastard"
The creature tilted its head, and before it could even blink, Tai had struck it with his sword.
The bird bolted away as Hal shrugged.
"Still too fast I see, but I still marked you, meaning I will always know where you will strike next"
Hal closed his eyes as different possibilities of how the bird could move appeared in front of him like holographic projections.
He turned to Tai, who could now be seen by the bird. He could not inform him of how he wanted to move, but he trusted his battle IQ, and so he would, as he was taught by the Owl and manipulate the enemy and his friend into doing what he wanted. ed
The bird looked at him and ran forward. Hal boasted all his senses in that minute before moving to intercept the bird as he blocked with his own dagger.
The bird's eyes widened in surprise as Hal could clearly predict its thoughts.
'How'
And he would gladly give an answer
"Because right now I have your eyes and can predict whatever you can do as long as I can see you"
Hal pushed the bird back that narrowly avoided being struck by Tai's sword once again.
Hal moved in a way that made the bird always end up in Tai's grasp; it almost felt like a game of ping pong as the bird raced between the two of them.
Hal moved to dodge a kick from the bird before cutting it with the Slaughter's gain, and Tai finally landed a hit that severed two of the creature's wings.
Forcing it to stumble back, lightening started to spark between its feathers as the bird's pupils now narrowed before it shot for him with using lightening to further injure Hal.
Hal narrowly dodged, although he was still struck by a little of the lightning coming off its feathers.
The bird raced towards him without giving him time to rest. He could see where it was going to strike, but as he got it faster, that would soon not matter; he would still get torn to bits.
"How can a man get healed just for a dumb turkey to injure him again and use up all his soul flame? I have had enough of you"
The creature was racing for him, only for him to simply disappear before the bird's eyes; it looked around before sending out lightning in weird places.
But it wasn't enough as Hal appeared right in front of it and stared it in the eyes before Tai's sword stabbed through the creature's chest.