At this time, in a cave close to the mountain a terrible voice was speaking. If Villin were here he would have to cover his ears. The voice was terrifying, it was as if a thousand wails were combined, their terrified screams organized in such a way that words could barely be made out.

“Two more magus came! I saws them, we kill and eat!” one voice sounded out in its terrifying manner.

“No, no, NO! Think! Think of the maaagus earlier! They are too shtroooong. If we go, then we die!” the second creature responded in an equally terrifying tone.

“No, NO! These ones is different I tells you! WEAK! This one, this one. He is slow, so slow. He only got a bit away with his magics, couldn’t even get to the nest without resting. We can kills this one!”

A series of growls and rawrs came from the second creature as it thought “I am hungry.” another series of growls followed “We go, but we stay careful! If more come, we run!”

The wails of hundreds of creatures soon came out of both of their mouths, no longer forming sentences, instead it simply sounded like the voices of the damned, wailing in eternal agony.

------------

Villin was once more moving through the woods slowly, using his spells to make a path where needed. He still had no idea the opponent he was planning to set a trap for wasn’t all that far behind him.

In this last little while, his speed had increased by a decent amount though. He had a better grasp of how to properly control his own vines to clear the way. He also stopped using his quicksand to have the bushes go down entirely, always keeping a few inches above ground he had to walk over. It made it a little harder to traverse physically but made a substantial difference in the time and magic power required.

Leonardo had been moving through the path Villin created for a while now. Thus far he hadn’t had any real problems moving forward. He did spot a trap or two but all of them were set to activate when a magus stepped onto it. It was activated by magic instead of weight, as most magic traps were. But well, since he had rubbed ghast rat’s ashes on himself his magic signature was hidden. He was no different than a mortal to traps using the ‘modescus’ rune.

And so he had been moving, mainly focusing on remaining silent. Even when vines blocked his path he stopped using magic, instead he decided to climb over them or move around it, he didn’t want to risk exposing himself now that he had such a good opportunity.

Soon, he was but a hundred meters away from Villin. Even though the boy still wasn’t in his line of sight, he could faintly feel magic power being attracted to a certain direction.

Knowing that Villin was moving slowly, Leonardo moved slower as well, if he messed up now, he might lose his teacher and with it, the opportunity to become a runemaster, he did not want such a thing to happen.

After just a bit, he could finally see his target. Leonardo was crouched behind some of the bushes that weren’t cleared, fifty meters in front of him was a boy of similar age to himself, he was moving his wand about causing vines, thirty centimeters wide, to sprout out of the ground.

The vines turned and twisted, entangling both natural vines and some of the large twigs that were in the way. Then the magical vines pulled to both sides, pulling its ‘prey’ with it.

Leonardo got a little excited as he pointed his wand toward Villin and slowly got up. He began to slowly cast a spell silently.

The spell wasn’t particularly powerful, but Leonardo never focused on casting them silently, so it took longer to cast compared to usual.

He aimed at Villin’s right breast, if he shot him there, he shouldn’t die but be incapacitated nonetheless, it should be sufficient.

Villin was still oblivious, moving aside the vines in the way when something happened that caused them both to stop their actions.

A loud scream came from the forest in front of Villin. Villin’s heart stopped for a moment, he recognized that voice it was Amelia.

Leonardo heard the scream as well. It disrupted his concentration causing him to fail in his spellcasting, but to him, the scream was male in nature. “JACOB!”

Hearing someone behind him Villin quickly turned around, but neither one of the boys looked at each other in rage or with vigilance, they both had the same expression on their faces, worry.

Without any more hesitation, Villin jumped forward, forcing his way deeper into the forest. He was afraid, afraid Amelia would get hurt or even die. The previous method he used to keep going was too slow. At the very least the scream came from two-hundred to four-hundred meters away, by the time he got there, who knows what would’ve happened.

And so Villin moved, he got entangled multiple times, using ‘icy pike’ or ‘vococito’ to get out whenever he did. Still, cuts began appearing all over himself as branches and thorns cut into him as he forced himself through.

He could hear wood shattering to his right and he knew that would be Leonardo also forcing his way through.

The two of them moved forward without caring about their magic power. Destroying anything they saw that would halt their advance and ignoring the wounds caused by the nature around them.

Generally, Villin would rest when he had half of his magic power remaining but that was no longer the case now, if he stopped moving he would regret it.

After a bit of time had passed another scream sounded through the forest “AMELIA!”

Villin yelled out as he corrected his course. It was closer now, a lot closer, he was almost there.

The forest had long since grown dark due to how dense the leaves were and so, when Villin saw light somewhere in front of him he rushed straight towards it.

Leaves rustled and branches broke when Villin jumped out of the forest into the light.

He found himself in a massive clearing with nothing but short grass. He looked around for a sign of Amelia but saw nothing.

But a moment later a second person rushed into the clearing a few dozen meters to his right.

At this point, Leonardo and Villin looked very similar. They were both breathing heavily and had blood pouring down their faces. Their shoes were completely ruined and their shirts were torn. Dozens of small branches were entangled in their hair and their arms were pierced in a multitude of places.

They both looked confused and exhausted yet alert at the same time.

The clearing was five-hundred meters long at the longest, there was no way the scream was from further away. They both listened, trying to get a grasp of the situation, but this attention would be nothing but harmful.

“OoOOoh would you look at that! The fishes bit they did!”

The voice of the creature came from all around them and in but a moment they had both fallen to the ground, clutching their heads. The agony present within the voice influenced them both causing them to scream in agony.

“HmMmm you were right! Oh so weak...AND TASTY”

The duo barely managed to hold onto their sanity as they felt as if their minds were being ripped apart by the voices. Villin wanted to move his arm to grab the wand he had dropped but was unable to find the courage, the fear he felt was unlike anything he had felt before. Much, much worse compared to Granolf’s bloodlust.

“NoW wE EaT!!!”