Thera

Chapter 15 Before the End

The old man admitted defeat from our battle. His last words before heading off into the city were " You beat me fair and square, and on my terms no less, but there is still 1 more person you have to beat to win this war."

I never learned his name or why he was part of the Human Hunters. None of us ever saw him again. We don't know if he is dead or alive, but what we do know is he seemed to have permanently left the Human Hunters.

We would have never been ready for what had happened the next day. I had woken up from my sleep because of a strange feeling I had. I wasn't sick but something was making me feel that way.

I went outside to get some fresh air. Then out of the city rose smoke. The smoke turned to flame, and the flame turned from yellow to red to blue then white.

I ran to go wake the others. I woke uncle Ian up first thinking that he would know what was going on. I woke the others while he watched the city burn with nothing he could do. 

They city I had spent almost half a year in went from fine to hell to ash I only a couple of minutes. The only things left standing when the fire burned out was our guild on the far outskirts of the city and the Human Hunters guild in the center of the storm. I couldn't even begin to imagine what pain the people of the city felt when they were burnt alive.

From the rival guild came one man the man in control of every attack. The man was unscathed from what just happened. He was tall, he was strong, and most of all he was scary.

When he got to us he announced himself as Jiok. I took one look into his eyes but saw nothing, no sign of evil, or blood lust. He came there looking for a fight and yet he didn't have a single emotion to show it.

He took the first shot. His first strike was on Dryme. Dryme was sent flying into the guild hall.

Rather than getting up and dealing with the pain to fight again Dryme was writhing in agony. Jiok said " it takes a lot more strength to kill you than I though". I tried running for Dryme to help him but Owa and Byto stopped me.

They both explained to me how none of us were ready to fight someone with that caliber of power. I couldn't do a thing even when Jiok squashed Dryme's head like a grape between 2 fingers. I just sat there on my knees softly crying, with rage creeping up on me while I had to watch.

Jiok saw me and listed me as an easy target. He came at me so fast that I couldn't see him until the attack hit Owa's shield right in front of me. Byto shot Jiok with his bow, but he wasn't even fazed.

If he had striked any harder than he did then he would have broken Owa's shield. I couldn't have been more scared of a person than him. If he was even a human.

He didn't use any magic and yet he was as stronger than anyone else. We tried setting up the rifle, but we didn't do it fast enough. He flew by us taking our weapons.

Unlike with Sero holding them didn't hurt or weigh him down any. He decided to do what we were doing and assemble the rifle. It turned into the rifle but he couldn't fire it on his own.

He forced all of his magic into it but that was his biggest mistake. He took aim and fired the weapon. The projectile that came out of it was heading strait towards us.

The magic never hit us, it stopped right in front of my face. Then the magic bullet reversed back to Jiok. It exploded right in front of the rifle, and with no magic left he couldn't protect himself.

He tried to block as much of the explosion as he could with his left arm. It burnt his arm so badly that he probably would never have been able to use it again. He dropped the weapon, and was too exhausted to continue battle.

Him of all people got tired that easily. The man who killed Dryme had one weakness. He had low amounts of stamina.

He left without a second thought. He went back to is own guild as slowly as he got to ours. None of us were strong enough to beat someone like that.

Not with any amount of training would anyone of us be able to go 1v1 or even 1v2 with him. We still need to try though. One thing is for sure we all need to work together to beat someone like that.