Zach had downgraded his scythe quality since the floor with the saber tooths wolves so he knew that the scythe he had was more a decoration than anything else but it could have a value if an oppening presented itself. As for Zoe she had already started to summon roots and kept a few light spears ready.
The fox and them looked at each other for a few seconds and suddenly it disappeared from their view. Zach clicked his tongue 'Annoying, it's quite quick and would be hard to hit. Either it attacks me from behind or it rushed towards Zoe.' Considering that Zoe and the fox were almost evenly grounded Zach turned back and made a wall of hell fire sprout.
Like he had anticipated the fox was about to attack Zach from his back but when the fire wall rose, it was confused and it lost Zach from its sight. It felt that even if this fire wouldn't kill it, on the spot, it would give quite a few wounds which could lead to its downfall. So it turned back and decided to not lose this first display of its high speed to attack Zoe.
However Zoe who had already summoned quite a number of offensive measures released them against the fox in its moment of hesitation.
The fox only had the time to turn towards Zoe when 3 lights spear hit it on its side. It let a low growl of pain and decided to go back to its starting place, it didn't want to stay inbetween the two of them with its surprise effect lost.
When Zach saw the fox returning back he dispelled the fire wall. He coated his scythe in hell fire to make it more useful and started to near it, while they were recovering he had thought about a new mean to use his scythe and hell fire, now was the perfect time to test it.
He put the blade downwards with the tip facing the fox and he started to slash vertically, while his scythe was ascending the hell fire gathered on the blade and a half moon of hell fire was sent towards the fox.
The fox was a bit surprise by this outcome and didn't have time to fully dodge it and got the point of its left ear cut in two, nevertheless it didn't have any impact apart from angering a bit the fox.
Zoe seeing that took advantage of the situation and tried to grab its legs with roots and while she was trying this she was also sending a few light spears.
However the fox let out a burst of the fire coating its body and the roots were rendered useless, as for the light spears it used its tails to block them with ease. Seeing this Zach jumped back, they needed to set a powerful combined attacks to hope doing some damages.
"We need to put more power in this fight, do you only know to throw light spears and use roots to fight or do you have anything else ?" Zach said seriously, he was already doing his utmost so he hoped Zoe had still more firepower.
"I can condense the light to make spears more powerfull but it will take me some time so we need to immobilize it or to be sure of where it would be. I can also increase the environment pressure, so its speed could be restrained or to serve another purpose if you have one in mind."
Zoe let out information on her abilities, it wasn't the time to have to much secrets concerning her powers, as for her greatest trump cards, obviously unless she was about to die neither she would tell Zach about it nor use them.
Zach had to think about a new plan to beat this fox, however he didn't have the privilege of doing this calmly. The fox didn't just sit there and watch them talk, while Zoe was explaining what she could do, it rushed towards them. She just had the time to finish when it tried to bite Zach's arm, Zach never lost the fox of his eyes so he saw it coming.
Zach used his scythe to block the fox's maw, however this fox was much more powerful than Zach so it pushed him down and both fell on the ground.
Zach would have been in a tough spot if not for the fact that it was calculated, given that his scythe still coated in hell fire was in the fox maw. At that instant, it felt the burning feeling coming from its maw and it was so painful that it let out of the scythe and jumped a dozen meters back.
Zoe, who had witnessed the whole thing, was first panicked but when she saw the confident look in Zach's eyes she calmed down. She understood that Zach had already more or less guessed what would happen, though she found this talent fascinating it could also be very dangerous.
The corner of the fox's maw were burned and it made so they could see his teeth even if it had its maw closed. Even if he could have injected all the mana he had Zach knew that it couldn't kill the fox but it would made it beware him and this was his goal.
If the fox decided to focus on him, he wasn't certain that he would last long enough for Zoe to kill it. He had done that to plant warriness against him in the fox so he would have greater odds of survival.
It worked pretty well, even if the fox knew that Zach was weaker it didn't dare to try to kill him without thinking before. In fact the fox wasn't intelligent enough to not let go of Zach's scythe and attack him with its paw, in this scenario Zach would have a lot more trouble and maybe he could have been heavily injured.
This time the fox decided to go all out, it knew it wouldn't last long if the fight continued like this. Its 3 tails burnt harder and the color went to black, this new black fire spread to its whole body. 'It shouldn't be hell fire, right ?' Zach remembered that the more he neared the true power of the hell fire the darker the flame to eventually become black.
The fox fired 3 fire balls on Zoe who wasn't ready for this attack as it was the first time it used it and she was used to the patern it used in her former fight.
Even though she wasn't ready, it doesn't mean she did not reacted in time a root's wall rose up in front of her and the fire balls collided against it, 2 of them disappeared after losing all their energy against the wall. However the last went through, it took Zoe aback and she jumped on the side to avoid it.
She nevertheless got hit by it on her left hand and it left a burn mark. When Zach saw that he was relieved, it wasn't hell fire, he knew what power it had and if it was hell fire the best choice would have been to flee.
As for Zoe she was troubled, when she had fought the fox they were almost evenly matched however the fox broke her toughest defenses, meaning that the fox was now more powerful than her by a significant margin.
"Gather light to make more powerful spears I will draw its attetion !" Zach yelled, he knew that the fight just got harder, Zoe nodded. Zach ran towards the fox, while he was running he lauched a few hell half moon, there was enough hell half moon to prevent it finding a spot to just dodge them so the fox had to block them, the fox didn't have much trouble to block them with his fire balls.
Zach couldn't do more at distance, this is why he was coming closer and closer of the fox. Once he was about 7 meters from it, he jumped while still launching hell half moon and tried to land on its back.
However just before his landing one of the fox's tail punched him and projected him next to Zoe, he was in a pretty bad state, he had the time to use his left arm to block this hit but it resulted in it being broken and useless.
Luckily, while Zach was distracting the fox Zoe didn't stand there idly and had gathered a half meter wide, 3 and half meter long light spear, it had the power of about 30 ones she had used. At the moment Zach got hit she released it towards the fox, it was launch early enough to not let the time for the fox to dodge, it traveled at a great speed even greater than the little ones.
Zach could feel the power emanating from this spear, it would undoubtedly reduced him into dust if he was to be hit. Feeling the power he felt that the fox should die and they would be able to put their hands on the treasures.
Zach had expended quite a lot of mana, all he had left was 130, he had used a lot of hell fire, each hell half moon was one hell fire summoning which lead him to this absurd consumption.
A split second later the spear light landed on the right side of the fox, the impact caused a cloud of dust to appear which shrouded the fox.
Zoe didn't know if she had got it but Zach had a dark look on his face, he knew, he didn't have any notification meaning that this beast was still alive, the only thing he hoped was that it was on the verge of death.