HUNTING TRIAL
Logan stares down one of the Wendigo that is hanging on the side of the tree with its sharp claws. It creates long and loud noises alerting its kind, it starts to make Logan much more wary; even 1 can give them a hard time. The other 4 starts to appear in the distance, Harry can see silhouettes jumping in between trees or running on the ground. The same noises came traveling back from the other 4.
Because of the echoing of its footstep, Harry thought it was getting closer than. Startled, He accidentally set off a fire ball towards one of the Wendigos and the light reflects off the eyes of the creatures, and they are right there. 3 of them starts to climb around the trees and looks on them, the other 1 stares down in with Logan and the last one is nowhere to be seen or heard. All they can hear are their breathing, their small movements, the low growls and squeaks from the Wendigo and their movements, and the eerie howling of the wind .
The cloud that covers the moon starts drift apart and it casts the area with moonlight. What they see was much more terrifying than what they expected. The Wendigos that they are confronting is the most ugliest thing they have ever seen. Its long slender, fragile-looking arms as if it will break in a single hit. Its face just screams death with its teeth, some of the parts of their body has bones and their insides exposed. As the atmosphere becomes more tense by the moon revealing their enemies, fear starts seeping through their fortified minds. And In the distance they can hear echoes of screaming, someone is being attacked.
Despite the haunting screams in the distance their focus did not break. After a little more time the 5th Wendigo appears before Ava, the length of its limbs doubles that of the other 4. From the distance it is clearly different from the other 4. The Wendigos seems to start panicking.
"What's happening?" Ava asked the boys as she can only see the big one in front of her, "Cheering" Logan said with a trembling voice. The massive Wendigo jumps and hangs on 2 tall trees. They see its much more longer and disgusting body, rotten smells comes off the monster. Its snarling mouth made Ava step back, the new Wendigo starts to scream and they start to run.
The massive Wendigo jumps down and quickly catches up to them, it grabs Ava by the hair, fortunately, Logan cuts its arm off.
"COME ON AVA!"
"GUYS WE NEED TO GO, MORE OF THEM ARE COMING!"
Ava ran in front as she shines the accumulated and crystalized Imperium on her staff, the staff lights their way but at the same time they slowed down. The Wendigos seems to keep their distance, with the summoning of the bright light.
"Are they gone?"
"LOOK OUT, TREE!" Debris starts to be thrown by the massive Wendigo towards them, fog somehow starts to appear around them and they cannot see where it comes from. Ava creates a small barrier around them but it was using her all just to create one. The barrier was weak and was destroyed easily.
"Oh no, the light" Harry pushed the snow off the staff and the light returns.
"We keep running, get up!"
They kept turning left and right depending on where the trees land in front of them. They can only dodge as the Wendigos has proven to be a lot harder to fight against because of its speed and strength. "Screw this" Harry stomps and held his ground as the 2 almost left him behind, they stopped before they completely lost sight of him in the fog that is swallowing the whole forest. The Massive one swings its arm and the other 4 jumps towards them, Logan swings the stick and he felts something come out of it. He opens his eyes and he has managed to slice the decapitate the big one, and halved parts of the other 4.
"What was that?" Logan looked at his sword and it seems to be "closing".
"Just come on" Harry pulled him. The Wendigos despite all their wounds are proving itself to be persistent. "The Alpha is regenerating" A voice among the woods echoed around them, and it seems to be a fact.
They start running as the head on the Alpha starts to regenerate from the bones up to its teeth, and the smaller Wendigos reached for their parts and stick it on the part where it was sliced off. It starts to hiss as they reconnect it with their sliced off parts, the Alpha starts to shriek into the air and it seems to call more of its kind, some are from even the once that the other students are fighting. The trio looked back as they see more Wendigos run, jump, and crawled towards them. They have to stand there as the horde of Wendigos come running towards them in all direction, Logan firmly holds the weapon that he has and infuses it with his Imperium, but nothing happens. He keeps doing it until his vision starts to blur, his body is not keeping up.
Ava and Harry created spikes from the ground as soon as the first wave of Wendigo charge them, some of the Wendigos died as their hearts were stabbed and Ava released a jet of flame from her staff completely burning some of the Wendigos.
"Oh no, Logan buddy we have a bigger problem than that!" Harry said as Logan keeps doing what he is doing, ignoring his surroundings.
More Wendigos climbed up to the tallest trees and stayed there, they jumped around and they are completely surrounded. "How many?" Ava asked and Logan replied "Over 50" with a smile, he manages to figure out the weapon his weapon. He starts to imagine his weapon as the handle of a sword, his Imperium starts to wrap around it and creates a sword that he imagined it to be. The handle starts to decrease in width and felt much easier and lighter to grip, the blade starts to appear from the end of the stick. The tip and belly starts to manifest first which extends more than the cutting edge, the heel curves into the blade and the bolster extends out. The spine has a a sharp and shallow edge than the cutting edge, made for one swinging.
"This is crazy" Logan calmly said, his fatigue seems to go away with the invoking of his sword.
As Logan is checking his new weapon, one of the Wendigos jumped towards him and his right arm automatically swung as if it has a mind of its own. The Wendigo is sliced completely in half and green flames appeared as it made contact with the body. It landed on the snow and it starts burn. The Wendigos seems to start panicking as they see something on the sword. The kids cannot see it, but his sword is completely covered with fire, his imperium, but it was terrifying for the creatures.
"Their going crazy"
"We can beat them!"
"Hopefully"
They engage and attack away as more and more Wendigos focused their attacks on Logan, the other 2 easily got tired as they used up their energy casting and controlling more than 1 element; their imperium starts to be drain. Logan attracted more of it as he killed one of its companions, more kept coming than dying as the Alpha calls on more of its minions. They can hear their movements around them, on the trees, on the ground, and the sounds they make.
"This... is too much!" Harry struggled to speak as he falls down on the ground, he tries his best to stand up but he can only kneel.
"Yeah, we need to kill the big one"
"I have an idea, this might kill me actually"
Using all his remaining strength Harry seals the tree of them into a earth dome. The Wendigos completely surround them and starts scratching and punching it, despite being thin their nails and bones aren't breaking with every strike. Some of their long limbs starts to break away on the dome but Logan cuts everything that passes through.
1 Of the Wendigo's sharp nails stabbed through Ava's left foot, she screams in pain but manages to hold on.
"Hold on!" Logan said, he pulls her off the limb and cuts off the limb. "Harry we need to get out!". The dome starts to crumble and one of the Wendigo's heads came through. Harry stuck his wand in the middle of the dome and lifted it up into the air, the Wendigos on the trees jumped up to it only to get here as Logan continuously defends them.
"I'll hurl us to it" Harry's stamina starts to deplete and can only get them to a certain height. The Wendigo caught up to them quickly.
"No, No NO!" Harry said as he feels his legs cramp up. He kept punching his feet to force it to move, he slowly gets up as his feet starts to shake in pain and his legs froze in the cold.
Harry pushed the stick in front and the dome with the grow flew across to the unsuspecting Wendigo, it hit the Alpha directly on the face but it was not enough to wound it nor knock it out. They are covered in small debris and before the dust starts to settle, the Alpha sees them and charges an attack with its healed arm. Logan hits a small rock towards the Wendigo and follows through, he amputates 1 of its arm.
Ava gets up slowly. Using the watery part of the tree sap, she morphs the tree around them into tendrils. It pierced through the Alpha's leg and held it on its place. The tendrils wraps around the Alpha and slowly towards its neck, before it screams once more the tendrils wrapped around its neck and spikes pierce through.
"KILL IT LOGAN!" Harry screamed as he launched him towards the Wendigo.
Logan stabs it from its jaw as he moves forward, he swings down and stabs its heart. he is kicked back to them and stands up to finish it. The Alpha starts to burn but the cold is against them, Ava uses the wind and warms the whole area and the fire starts to grow larger. The Wendigos starts to surround them, but they all start dying as the Alpha is killed. The burnt rotting flesh stink up the area and the 3 finds a way to get out.
"Logan.... What is that?" Harry pointed in the the middle of the fire, it starts to be sucked into the middle of the of the Alpha's burning corpse. Logan and Ava checked it out and they see it contained the fire that was created.
"What is that?"
"An orb, with a fire... something" Helps Ava walk and they showed it to Harry. It starts to burn Logan's hand and he drops it down on the ground. It melts the snow around, Harry moved some snow to cover it but it melted upon contact.
"Is it, still hot?" Ava and Harry reached out, as soon as the 3 of them get into a certain distance the fire went out. Ava picked it up and its not hot anymore.
"Weird" As they reached for it their hands was pulled towards it.
"The thing we need to p-" A light beam suddenly transported them to a massive theater made up of granite this time, still with the same design as the huge building they saw earlier. They look around and only 6 triads are there with them, the teams that has passed. They have minimal wounds unlike them. 2 of the group has distinct people with them, some are tall, short, muscular and other characteristics. The other 4 almost look a like, one of the members of a triad approached them and seems to have stepped off the wrong foot.
"You guys have been eyeing us?" One of them said, she carries a war-hammer and lifted it up to Logan's face.
"No we didn't mean to" Logan stumbled upon his words, he does not want to agitate this people, especially her. He feels threatened.
"We get it, 6 appeared before you, the test seems harder than it is, but don't worry your 2 friends will heal in this place, you can rest easy"
She smiled and the feeling of threat only got more bigger, "don't be scared" She said. She sat down beside Logan and the other 2 beside Ava and Harry.
"What did you guys face?"
"A Wendigo, apparently this are trophies" Logan lifted up the orb and it now has 3 flames of tongue in it and flying around each other.
"I'm right Logan" Harry said as he gets back up, the healing was quicker.
"Well, at least that is what that man says"
A man sits away from them in the theatre stage looking over the 3 circles which are the arena, it looks small from where they are but in reality it is as big as a country. His eyes dart around the map and they can see other groups in it running around.
"Well, you are Logan and you 2?"
"I'm Harry and this is Ava nice to meet you"
Harry offered his hand to the sister beside him, but she backed away.
"No handshakes, ookay"
"I'm Enola, this is Halona and Istas"
"Hi girls"
"Hello"
The 3 girls look identical and the only thing to differentiate them from one another are their hair braid. Enola has a three strand braid, Halona has a fishtail, and Istas has a twist braid. They seem to not belong to any place in the Overworld. All of them are of the Warrior class since their 'connection' with the Imperium is weak, as they are most comfortable with swords than elements. They are the first ones to appear in the coliseum, they hunted the Wendigos instead of 'it' hunting them, because of the sheer cold of the environment they hate the fire. The Wendigos noses has turned into a pit organ, detect infrared radiation from warm bodies, because of the fact they still have human eyes they can see 20 feet ahead. The Wendigo's Alpha doubles that.
Using the knowledge they have they swam in cold water and hid into the snow, they have frostbites which has already healed as they stay in the coliseum. Being hidden in the snow allowed them to ambush and somewhat 'camouflaged' themselves in the snow.
"You guys handle the cold well?"
"Yes, but this leather uniform helped us a lot"
"Cool, no pun intended"
"That's awesome!" Ava gave her compliments to their intuition.
"Yeah, we did not figure it out, that resulted in the 3 of us being annihilated"
"You guys sound like you ran a lot, and they can see heat signatures as well"
"Oh, that explains a lot"
"Well, we almost died" Harry cut into the conversation between Logan and Enola.
"So what are the weapons you guys were given by your mentors?"
"Mine is a stick, or a handle I guess, hers is a staff and his is a wand"
"Fascinating"
The 2 triad like Hans and his sisters starts to create a bond and they start to get closer with their experience earlier. As they are talking the man in the stage turns around and looks directly to Logan which Halona noticed. As they are talking she pointed it out and Logan looks at the man, the man kept his sights on him but eventually glances away, he blinks and his eye lids close vertically.
"Creepy, that guy"
"He's an overseer, that explains his eyes.
The man continued his work on the battlefield, his hands moves quicker than his eyes. He also starts to look at himself as the handle clearly reflected his face, he blinks and he sees himself with a menacing grin. He looks back on Logan using the reflection of the glass, despite not looking at him he can feel that something from Logan is looking directly at him. He drops the handle and he stood up, startled, the people in there with them held on to their weapons as the noise echoed though. The man starts to speak in tongues by himself and everyone got up.
Logan can hear whispers from the other 5 teams murmuring among themselves, 'don't', 'stop it', 'he might kill you', 'or he'll kill us'. He closes his eyes and once more his senses muffled until Hans and the twins appeared sitting in front of them. The 3 of them look confused as Hans hold the orb, he turns around.
"So, the orb absorb the essence is that supposed to happen?" He asks and the 3 of them are wet.
Everyone in the room heard that and do as they hear. The orbs absorbs the essence and it becomes clear, the triads hold the orbs and bits of their imperiums were absorbed into the orb.
"Uhm, so what now?"
The orb seems to be attracted up front the once who are holding were pulled up, the orb is strong enough to pull them upward but not strong enough to pull them off the ground. 'Veni ad me' The man upfront commanded and the orbs starts to heat up and they all let it go. The orbs slowly float towards the man and the essence are being drained, the orb is given back to their respective owners.
"I got it!" Harry cockily screamed, he wants to show off but it floated down to Ava's lap instead. He smoothly talked to Hans in order to not embarrass himself in front of the other students.
"So, how did you guys beat the creature?"
"Uhm... annoying we almost died"
Hans and her sisters immediately encountered the beast that they are supposed to fight and they dodge every attack. The tail of the Chimera strikes quickly and almost hits them one at a time, the snake-tail hissed and venom clearly drips. The tail fires venom at them from its teeth and the venom destroys everything it hits until it dries up. The lion and goat breathes fire, the Lion sprays it almost 10 feet while the goat spits it toward the enemy. The lion strikes fast and they have to worry about two heads that strike quickly is, the temple starts to crumble with every pounce and from distance they can also see other fighting the beast.
The siblings are Magic class but uses it to create weapons instead since they are only used to 1 element each. The siblings has all mastered and maid Water their main element. They can control the phases of water as well from solid to liquid and to gas, but the chimera is their complete polar opposite which makes everything harder. They are on top of a hill and it is scorching hot, if they want to beat the chimera they have to quickly adapt the other elements.
"We need to use earth or fire to beat this"
They tried to use earth but it is completely different, they can literally only move the pebbles into a straight line. The Chimera breathes massive waves of flames around them.
"This will be hard"