Chapter 17

Over the next month whenever we were in the cave Exo and Fen played together, they were like siblings, Exo always appeared as a wolf to play with Fen.

Never the less, the rate we were hunting magical beasts at was insane, when we met A rank beasts Fen would always become interested, anything below A rank and she didn’t even bother jumping out the bag.

Over the course of our stay I continued to get stronger and stronger, I could now match the A rank beasts with Exo as my weapon and using only my physical body.

We had collected quite a bit of loot, I took to skinning the beats before Fen ate them, this meant I at least made a little bit of money, Fen didn’t seem to mind neither.

Speaking of Fen, she hadn’t grown one bit, from all the eating I thought she’d at least grow fat but she’s still the exact same as when I found her, where does all that food go anyway?!

Today was like every other day in the wilderness, a fight for survival! And Magical beasts were attacking whenever they saw me, this was good news for Fen because she wanted to eat them all!

Everyday we seemed to venture deeper and deeper, we got more confident with our abilities, today was the deepest we’d gone so far and we ended up in a dark, densely grown forest, the forest was incredibly dark, the sunlight couldn’t penetrate past the leaves of the overgrown foliage, luckily I could see just fine though, I adapted pretty easily to new environments.

The dark forest was dead of life, I didn’t even see a single magical beast, it was eerily quiet and It was rather unsettling, as we carried on walking through the dark forest we arrived upon a small lake, the lake was glistening slightly, it looked majestic and it felt like we’d stumbled upon a natural treasure, the contrasting with the dark forest and the bright lake made it feel almost divine.

Fen seemed to sense something and went on full alert, she hopped out the bag and stood in front of me,

“Grrrrr” she growled towards the lake, something was in there, my senses were alarming me of the imminent danger, Fen seemed to also sense something strange about the lake.

As we walked closer the ground shook, the trees were swaying aswell, it was like a mini earthquake under the lake, the water splashed about and then everything went still again.

We stepped backwards and went on guard, preparing ourselves for anything that was going to happen.

“KEEEEEEEEEEE” a air rattling screech came from the lake, instantly a giant red worm came out of the lake, the weird thing was that this worm had a humanoid shaped head, it’s body had red scales that covered it’s worm like body, it looked like something out of a nightmare.

“A human and a little wolf? How dare you enter my territory!” the worm’s inhuman voice echoed throughout the forest, it could speak!

I think this worm is a armoured plate worm! they are magical beasts of the S rank! Magical beasts of the S rank were much different from the ones lower ranked ones, they had human like intelligence and could even talk! They were existences of terror and extremely rare to find!

“HOOOWWWWLLLLLL” Fen howled like a wolf, she’s challenging it!

The armoured plate worm shot out of the water and landed a couple meters in front, it’s body was used like a spring underneath it to support it’s balance.

“Hahahaha! a little puny wolf and a human dare to challenge me!?” with speed I couldn’t register the would lashed out towards Fen, it’s giant, razor sharp mouth headed straight for Fen, shit!

I got Exo to change into a shield and jumped in front of Fen at the last second, I took the full force of an S rank beasts attack.

As the worm’s head hit my shield every single bone in my body rattled and tensed up,

“AHHHHHHHHHH!” with a roar I unleashed every ounce of my strength into blocking this attack, I wasn’t going to be pushed back by a fucking worm!

A look of surprise flashed over the worms humanoid face then it smiled, using it’s body to to fling itself backwards and then straight at me again, it wasn’t going to give up! fucking worm!

It’s whole body shot towards me this time, it wasn’t fazed in the slightest by me blocking it’s first attack, I held steady with my shield, but Exo’s voice rang in my mind,

[Master, dodge!] He shouted, seemingly worried.

However before I could even dodge the armour plated worms whole body glowed a dark brown and spears of earth shot out from it’s body, it was using earth magic!

I tried to dodge the spears but they were everywhere, one grazed my arm and another grazed my leg, luckily they didn’t hit!

Just as I was thankful for it’s miss the ground beneath me split open, this made me lose my footing and the worm, which was flying like a missile towards me smiled and then opened it’s mouth, the worm hit me straight on, I didn’t have a chance to block because I had been busy with the earth spears and I’d also lost my footing, I had no defence.

Instantly My whole body went numb, the force that hit me was astounding, it was like being hit by a flying mountain, I could also feel my left arm burning slightly, it was a tingly feeling.

The pain which assaulted me wasn’t that bad, I’d been through the worst pain imaginable, how could this hurt at all?

Saying this, I couldn’t move my body at all, it was over, I then moved my eyes to look at the worm, it was now in front of me, staring down, it had something in it’s mouth, huh? was that my arm?

I glanced towards my left arm, or my lack of left arm, my arm had been bitten off, but what could I do but lay there, in my own pool of blood, all my bones were broken and I knew I didn’t stand a chance, this beast was far too strong.

As I accepted my fate a little boy appeared beside me, he had tears streaming down his face,

“MASTER! MASTER! IT’S MY FAULT, I COULDN’T WITHSTAND THE ATTACK!” he said with an emotional voice, Exo blamed himself? no, it was me, I wasn’t strong enough..

I looked up at him with my eyes and with much effort I managed to squeeze out,

“It’s okay Exo, don’t blame yourself, it was me, haha” I put my best smile on and looked at him in the eyes, he seemed to cry even more.

“HAHAHAHA weak! weak! human are so frai- EH?” the worm was taunting us from above when suddenly he stopped, instantly the worms whole body ripped in two, it’s innards sprayed all over the cracked earth and it’s guts lined the floor.

What just happened?

A little wolf then appeared to the side of the worm who now flailed around on the floor, a black aura surrounded the little wolf, it was dense and I got chills from just seeing this, the little wolf continued to attack the worm, it was brutal, the worms skin was peeled off, it’s teeth ripped out one by one, it’s eyes gouged and eaten, even it’s tongue was ripped out , I could barely watch the chilling assault, It was.. terrifying and merciless.

“SKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” the worm screamed at the assault, it made me even feel slightly sorry for it, but this didn’t help as the little wolf continued to eat the worm alive, the worm probably cursed it’s strong life force, any normal magical beast would of been dead by now but it was still alive, clutching to it’s draining life.

After a while it stopped flailing and froze, it must of died, well.. I don’t blame it, ¾ of it’s body was eaten and the rest was in a sorry state.

The little black wolf continued to eat the worm until nothing was left, it then ran over towards me, Fen was whimpering as she licked my wounds, she must of gotten extremely angry, I’d never seen her be so cruel.

The strange thing about Fen licking my wounds was that the bleeding stopped, however, I still couldn’t move due to having almost every bone in my body broken.

I glanced at Fen who was whimpering at me, she looked extremely worried, but I was thinking about something else.

How strong was Fen? she must at least be somewhere in the S rank, after all, that armoured plate worm was an S rank magical beast, to be able to kill one she’d have to be on the same level or higher, right? and that black aura that surrounded her when she attacked.. was that magic?

I cleared my thoughts, it was far too confusing to think about now anyway, the first priority is finding shelter and healing, I spoke to Exo in my mind and told him to find shelter for us.

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Exo came back about 5 minutes later from when he had set out, being extremely careful he picked me up and went towards the lake, he then jumped in and once at the bottom there was a small magic formation, he stretched out his free hand and the formation glowed a bright blue colour, instantly we were teleported to an underground cavern, this must of been the home of the armoured plate worm!

Putting me down extremely carefully he opened his mouth,

“Master, this place is the home of that magical beast, it seemed to be living a good life, this cavern is huge and full of weird gems.”

Gems? I’d have to take a look around once i’d healed up, I couldn’t grow new limbs though so I was stuck with one arm… this was going to suck, surely this would restrict my battle potential by at least a quarter.

With a sigh and a numb body which was being embraced by an exhausted Fen I attempted to heal myself through cultivation.

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Thank you :)