Alan held his daggers at the front, around the height of his chest, with both the tips facing down his wrist. Marya concentrated and took a deep breath for her spiritual energy to gather around her arms and took her standing beside him to face the monster.
"I have no hope for the help to arrive. They won't send their best fighters to fight this creature," Alan said. "We have no choice but to deal with it ourselves here."
The bald boy who just lost his arm stood up while struggling. He gritted his teeth and groaned, "B*stard… You took my arm. I will take your head in return."
"Convex, don't do something stupid now," Marya said to the bald boy. "It is better to lose an arm than losing your life."
Alan could see the triggered face of the bald boy when Marya finished speaking. He didn't like the way she mentioned his loss so casually.
"Do you think I am an idiot, kid?" Convex said with a frown. "I have killed more enemies than you, and I am more experienced in battles." Convex tried to impose his superiority here.
"Yet you lost your arm. How pathetic," Marya mentioned it while she looked at him down her nose.
"What did you say?" Convex got furious at her remark. He clenched his fist and roared, "You, a mere girl dares to talk to me like that! If you were not the headmaster's daughter you would have been a slave to some rich a*s dude."
Women were not a thing for pride, rather for slavery and pleasing the men through their body, especially, for the upper-class Nigrosian men.
Alan listened to their quarrel and wanted to remind them about the danger beating its chest in front of them.
"Women are not your subjects of slavery. Someone like me can kick your butt anytime," Marya mentioned, making Convex even angrier.
"Do you want to get a piece of me, huh!?" He shouted. "I will show you what you get for talking back to an heir of an upper-class family." He headed towards Alan and Marya with his fist clenched tightly which showed he was about to indulge in a fight with Marya.
Alan noticed Convex's bleeding had stopped. He did not even pass out after losing his arm. He understood Convex used some kind of higher-level technique to do so.
Suddenly, Convex flew far and hit a tree with a loud noise. Bam!
The monster whipped him away with its tail. Maybe it found him an eyesore.
Alan and Marya got on their guards.
"It is not the time to fight among ourselves. We must fight it together," Alan said.
"It was not me who started it," Marya said casually.
"It was definitely you who mocked him first," Alan thought and sighed.
Waa! Doomster cried while looking at the sky and beat its chest fiercely. Suddenly, its chest grew spikes which looked frightening.
The sharply pointed spikes seemed to be made from the same hard material that covered his tails.
"Why does it grow during the fights?" Alan thought with an anxious expression on his face. "What kind of creature did those madmen create to massacre my people?" He tightened his grip around the hilt of the daggers when he thought.
The monster spun its tails up in the air together and created a small whirlwind around itself.
"What is it trying to do?" Marya reacted before she covered her face from her arms to protect her eyes from the dirt flying around.
"It is trying to create a favorable situation for itself," Alan said. "It is tampering with the battlefield to gain an advantage. It knows we won't be able to see its attacks properly in this dirt."
"Damn it, why is this creature so smart?" Marya muttered with a tensed face.
Suddenly, a tail came out of nowhere and whipped her away. She flew away and disappeared into the dirt cloud, only allowing Alan to hear a loud thud.
It tried to whip both of them but Alan trusted his instincts and sensed the danger, and jumped to dodge it.
"It hit her before I could warn her," He thought with a tensed face when he landed. He observed the monster spun the tails above its head and used the momentum to use them as whips. "If only they had not placed a spirit seal on my body."
"Marya! Are you okay!?" He asked in a loud voice as he could not see her amidst the dirt flying around.
"I am fine," She replied and moaned in pain. "Ah!"
A stone suddenly flew past Alan from behind and reached the monster's chest before he could even blink. The monster first did not notice it but suddenly blocked it in reflex with its arms when it almost hit its chest.
It seemed like it could not see the stone approaching it amidst all the dirt as well.
Alan noticed it as he could see a little between the dirt. Something clicked in his head suddenly. "Wait for a second, I can do that…" He smirked.
He sensed a tail-cum-whip approaching him from his left, so he jumped and dodged it.
"It is so annoying," Marya said while she came out of the cloud of dirt while holding her left arm.
Alan asked her, "Were you the one who threw the stone earlier?"
"I got annoyed by the fact we cannot approach it directly," She replied and gritted her teeth. "This is so annoying."
She did not expect Alan to hug her out of the blue when she said it. Her eyes expanded in surprise when he just did it.
"We can defeat it now," He said when red lines formed on her cheeks.
She got embarrassed and pushed him apart. "What do you think you are doing?" She said with a frown.
Alan rubbed the back of his head and replied awkwardly, "I am sorry. My emotions gobbled me up."
"If you touch me again, I would become a nightmare to you."
Alan again sensed a whip approaching their way from their left. "Get down!" He shouted and jumped at her to push her down.
The next second he noticed he was on top of her.
"What the hell are you doing?" She rebuked and pushed him away.
"I tried to save you from the attack," He said with an awkward smile and stood up.
"I can protect myself," She said with a sour face.
Alan found it all embarrassing. He was still a man in his mid-thirties from inside if not from the body. If he had not been in a child's body, they would have put him into jail accusing him of being a pedophile.
"Listen, I have an idea," He said, trying to bring her attention to the real problem.
"What is it?"
"First, we need to gather our comrades…" He said and looked at the monster's silhouette amidst the dirt which growled.
Meanwhile, in the woods near the battlefield, a few people approached Donke – the researcher who talked with Alan earlier about the monster.
"Would he be able to figure it out, your majesty?" One of them asked.
"He will," The other man answered.
Those people were The Emperor of Nigrosia Blood Victor Nigros, his right-hand man, and his soldiers.
"What if that thing harms the subject?" The right-hand man asked the emperor and put his palm on the researcher's back who did not show any movement.
"That thing is not strong enough to harm him," Emperor Victor answered.
"Even if we sealed his core?"
The emperor glared at him with his blood-red eyes which sent chills down the right-hand man's spine.
"Pardon my insolence, your majesty." He bowed his head after removing his hand from the researcher's back. "I forgot my place."
"You better do what you are told, Scarhead," Victor warned.
The right-hand man was Nigros Scarhead, apparently, he got his name from the scar he got in the middle of his bald head. The scar covered the area from the back of his head all the way to the forehead.
His built was smaller than most of the men around. He wore a black baggy gown with loosened sleeves and a hood hanging behind his neck.
He put his right palm on the researcher's back again and closed his eyes. Bluish aura covered his entire body before it concentrated around his palm.
He opened his eyes. "Ha!" He pushed his palm on the researcher's back. The bluish aura went into his body in a flash.
Donke, the researcher, came to his senses with a shock. "Huh?" He turned his head and saw Emperor Victor with his men. "Emperor Victor." He bowed his head. "I did exactly as you told."
"I will reward you," Emperor Victor said which resulted in Donke's lips to form a hopeful smile.
Donke realized something happened to him while he talked with Alan. "Your majesty, if you pardon me, may I ask something?"
"What is it?"
"What happened to me earlier?"
Scarhead chuckled when he heard the question but had to suppress his laugh as he was in the emperor's presence.
"You died," Victor said.
Donke's eyes expanded in shock and he held his chest. His heartbeat got faster because he could not believe he died and returned to life.
Emperor Victor turned his head and stared in the direction where a storm was brewing up.
Waa! He could hear the monster's cry.
"Now there is only one thing left to do."