Olivia sprinted through the foliage of the forest at breakneck speed, creating a gust of wind strong enough that Hex was barely able to hold on to the end of Olivia's yellow scarf as the white glimmer became brighter. Hex frantically climbed up the scarf before firmly grabbing the collar of Olivia's shirt and yanking on it until Olivia came to a stop.

"Geez you didn't need to pull on it so hard, Hex," Olivia commented as she rubbed her neck.

"Given your track record that was differently warranted," Stormed commented as she caught up with Olivia. Olivia rolled her eyes before the trio slowly snuck over to the white glimmer.

Olivia popped her head through an orangey/yellow bush and peered around a large clearing. She surveyed the area and squinted her eyes as she noticed the clearing was completely barren, save for the orangy grass and a small ball of white fur with tuffs of pale red fur in it. Olivia sighed loudly as she fully emerged from the bush.

"What a tease..." Olivia commented as she and Storm walked over to the white fur ball.

"Perhaps, this is some fur left behind by the fox... maybe we could team up with a tracker and have a better chance at finding the fox using this fur," Storm remarked as Hex appeared next to the ball of fur and crouched next to it.

Hex lightly poked the fur ball before panickedly jumping backwards into Olivia's legs when the fur ball shook at Hex's touch. Olivia, after grabbing Hex, and Storm ducked behind a bolder as the ball of fur began to rapidly shake.

The trio popped their heads out from behind the boulder and cautiously watched the fur ball as it began to unravel revealing a baby ten-tailed silver fox with pale red eyes. Storm and Olivia glanced at each other and gave each other puzzled looks; the two looked back at the fox cub and panicked when they saw Hex squeezing the fox's four ears.

Olivia raced over to Hex and picked her up before she could unintentionally anger the fox cub. Hex tried to squirm free from Olivia's grip but after half a second of effort her arms, legs and head slumped down when she ran out of energy.

"As much as I understand the desire to want to fluff a fluffy animal's ears, it could be dangerous if it isn't a tamed animal," Olivia explained as she reprimanded Hex, who angrily huffed before she teleported out of Olivia's arms. The trio crouched down around the fox and inspected their appearance.

The group realised the fox's fur was actually a faint red with pale red tips and the pairs of ears on each side of its head were conjoined. The fox tilted their head at the trio as they continued to stare at the fox.

"Kyu?" the fox cooed before they licked their paw and straightened out their tails.

"How fascinating, it's rare seeing such ears on a member of the feline species," Stormed commented as he stood up.

"And why's that?" Olivia asked as she to stood up.

"It means that this fox is part angel, I believe," Stormed explained as Hex playfully shook the fox's paw.

"I mean finding an angel fox is pretty cool but I would have preferred finding the giant fox...," Olivia muttered, as Storm placed his hand on his chin.

"If I remember correctly, the book I read about feline species stated if they have angel blood they should have the ability to alter their size," Storm mentioned.

"You saying this baby is the giant fox, just at a reduced size?" Olivia asked as Hex placed the fox on her head.

"It's a possibility," Stormed added as he also mentioned that even if it wasn't they should head back since it would be impossible for them to continue their search during nighttime.

"Fine... we'll take the fox cub for now," Olivia murmured as she picked Hex and the fox up.

As Olivia and Stormed walked back the way they came a black, with flame-like metalically silver tips, haired Zalroth(wearing a long black fur coat, white fighting gi, a grey crop top, silverwood getas and having grey moon-shaped tattoos on his palms) watched them from atop a tree.

"Just my luck," the black-haired Zalroth commented; he took the grey crop top off and handed it to the fuzzy pink-furred ten-legged spider, wearing a pink tiara on their head, standing on his shoulder.

"Thank you... Mr Zalkutaro," the spider meekly said as the crop top disappeared when she grabbed it.

"Don't mention it, Xelphia,... did you happen to catch what Zallino said before he suddenly flew off?" Zalkutaro asked, with Xelphia nodding her head and looking up at Zalkutaro with her ten spider eyes, the two near the middle of her head being slightly larger than the other eight.

"He said something about surveying the col-weh-siam before the tournament tomorrow," Xelphia explained as she climbed onto the top of Zalkutaro's head.

"That seems about right... now let's go get Kunai before those adventurers set her off," Zalkutaro remarked as his tails and ears retracted into his body before he leapt into the air.

In the dark reaches of night, Olivia and Storm callously walked down the gravelly path, lit up by dim orange transparent lanterns. Hex, with Kunai sitting on Hex's head, glanced around and watched as the group walked past the same rock multiple times.

"Is it just me or are we somehow walking in circles?" Olivia jokingly remarked.

"It's just you," Storm stated as he gestured to the evenly spaced out, identical rocks lined up on the side of the path. Olivia sighed before her head was pushed down when Kunai jumped off Hex's head, which almost caused Hex to fall off Olivia's head. Kunai landed on the ground, behind Olivia, and spiked up her tails while aggressively growling.

"What's wrong, Foxy," Hexed asked as she floated down and sat down on Kunai's back. A purple cloud began to form around the group and gather into denser smoke.

"I had a feeling we were being followed," Storm commented as he pulled his coral staff out from his sleeve. Hex gathered purple mana into a small ball before chucking it over her head. The mana ball expanded and bursted apart to reveal a golden battle axe with purple blades; the battle axe fell downwards and was caught by Olivia before it could hit the ground.

Olivia raised the battle axe over her head and encased the axe in wind mana. She slammed her foot into the ground before swinging her battle-axe and fanning the smoke away with a single wind blast. The smoke scattered for a second before it spiralled into the air and gathered into a single cloud.

Kunai barked, as her teeth lit up, and fired a barrage of lightning bolts from her mouth at the purple cloud. The lightning bolts pierced through the purple cloud and forced it to disperse. The cloud regathered and began to condense into a creature-like shape. The cloud bursted off the creature's body revealing a giant snake-like skeleton wyvern with two clawed arms.

"A soul weeper?!" Olivia shockedly blurted out as she twirled her battle-axe around her fingers.

"How odd, they normally only manifest during Delkio and Destrio," Storm mentioned as Olivia confusedly looked over at him.

"But isn't that a six-month, or five depending on which way you look at it, time disparency?" Olivia asked. Storm nodded his head as he created a giant clamshell to block a claw slash from the soul weeper. The soul weeper's claw dug into the clamshell Olivia darted to the side of the soul weeper before slicing one of its arms in half.

"Eat this!" Olivia trash-talked as she slammed her hand onto the soul weeper's face, casting a burning explosion before scorching the soul weeper's face as she instantly detonated the spell. The mini-explosion sent the soul weeper flying before it crashed through a cluster of trees and was buried under the trees. Olivia rested her battle axe on her shoulder as she glared at the pile of tree logs.

"I don't want to jinx it but that seemed a little-" Olivia managed to state before Kunai jumped into her head and knocked her over right before a purple flame-covered bone tooth raced past the trio. The bone careened into an adjacent tree and exploded on impact, as purple smoke seeped out from the tree log pile and reformed into the soul weeper.

"Seems like you spoke... too soon," Hex quietly snarked before Kunai hopped off Olivia as Olivia stood up. The soul weeper let out a ghastly howel as its flame-covered teeth erupted out of its mouth and swarmed around the group.

Storm attempted to cast a spell but a volley of teeth pierced through his hand and arm, forcing him to drop his staff and grasp his wounded arm.

"That was... unexpected... oww," Stormed remarked with a strained voice.

"Storm!" Hex shouted as everyone surround him.

"I'll... be fine, Hex," Storm stated as he picked up his staff and rose to his feet. The group cautiously watched the flaming teeth as they encircled the group before abruptly stopping and all the teeth pointed directly at Kunai. Olivia tightened her grip on her battle-axe as she transformed into her sage form(making her hair glow).

The teeth's flames exploded in ferocity before all simultaneously rocketing for Kunai. Olivia attempted to try and intercept the attacks but a kid-like voice told her to hold off; Olivia puzzledly halted herself and worriedly watched the teeth rapidly descend apon the group as the sound of a single harp sting echoed through the area.

Olivia raised an eyebrow as she noticed all the teeth' trajectories rotated by a single degree before completely missing the group and all flying into the forest, rising high into the sky and exploding.

"That was odd," Olivia commented before she braced herself when the soul weeper lunged at her. Olivia raised her battle-axe in preparation to counter the soul weeper but before the soul weeper could get close to Olivia Zalkutaro sky-dived in front of Olivia. Zalkutaro front-flipped and smashed the soul weeper's head with an axe kick, followed by its body bursting into a cloud.

"Huh...?" Hex perplexedly muttered as she and Olivia rapidly blinked. Zalkutaro stood up before coughing up some of the purple smoke.

"Forgot they do that when they die," Zalkutaro commented as he fanned the smoke away with a single tail before instantly retracting it. Zalkutaro turned around and picked up his small dawnite harp as approached the group.

"Thanks for the assist... um," Olivia said as she placed her battle axe on the ground and leaned on it.

"Zalkutaro and this is Xelphia," Zalkutaro said as Xelphia waved at Olivia. Xelphia quickly hopped from Zalkutaro's shoulder to Storm's shoulder and inspected his wounds. She glanced over at Zalkutaro, who gave her a thumbs up. Xelphia happily nodded her head and started to spin some pink string with her front four legs before placing one end of the string on Storm's chest and the other end on her own chest.

"I assumed she was going to use spider silk to make a makeshift cast," Olivia commented.

"Same here," Zalkutaro remarked in response, causing Olivia to give him a confused glance. The group intently watched Storm's arm as his wounds began to rapidly heal, much to their surprise. The wound quickly healed and Xelphia hopped back to Zalkutaro

"When'd you learn how to do that?" Zalkutaro asked as Xelphia landed on his shoulder.

"So, I found this injured cat, I tried to bandage it up, but I accidentally stabbed it with my string and it could suddenly stand again," Xelphia explained as the string between her and Storm faded away. Kunai happily waddled over to Zalkutaro and tapped his leg.

"Is that so, Kunai?" Xelphia asked as she dropped down onto Kunai's head.

"Oh... you know this fox?" Olivia nervously asked.

"Well, she is one of my familiars after all," Zalkutaro remarked as he glanced around the area. Olivia slumped her head and disappointedly sighed.

"Man... and I was hoping we found the large fox the guild requested us to locate," Olivia mentioned causing Kunai to flinch. Zalkutaro glanced down at Kunai, as she covered her face with her tails.

"Have you been running around in your giant form?" Zalkutaro asked calmly.

"Yip...," Kunai meekly voiced as she placed her paws on her head. Zalkutaro placed his hand on Kunai's paws and stroked them.

"I'm not mad at you, I know it's uncomfortable being in a smaller body, but you've got to be more careful in the future, ok?" Zalkutaro requested as Kunai gave an adamant head nod.

"Soo... just to make sure I got things right, umm... Kunai is most likely the giant fox the guild got reports about... right?" Olivia asked perplexedly with Zalkutaro, Xelphia and Kunai giving confirmative head nods.

"So... would you be willing to come with us to explain things to the guild?" Hex requested.

"It would be rude of us not to but before that...," Zalkutaro stated before slamming his hand into the face of the soul weeper before crushing it.

"We should deal with these nuisances," Zalkutaro added as he dusted the smoke away from the others. Even more purple smoke formed around the group before a murder of soul weepers erupted from the smoke and filled the area around the group.

"You think you'll be ok, Mr Storm?" Xelphia asked when she noticed Storm was rubbing his healed arm. Storm glanced up before tossing his coral staff to his other hand.

"Yeah, just didn't expect my arm'd be healed so quickly," Storm explained as he tapped the base of his coral staff on the ground and created a large water magic circle.