"Listen here kid, you can feel grateful or whatever but she is a bloodsucking vampire, she probably would have killed you if you weren't the manifestation of fodder in human form" expained Molbas to the armored kid, whose name was apparently Jamilo.
"You can use your aspect to do many things, with just a bit of training and you'll severely outclass any other bodyguards with your aspect and armor"
"Molarine only said that it was shit to provoke you, right?" she asked to her friend, who didn't bother to respond or look her way.
"That means yes" it meant no.
"E-Excuse me but, I was told that there also was a parrot with you, where is it?" he asked, having been wondering about that since the start.
At that, everyone looked around, no one had noticed that Ipiti had went away.
"Where is that goddamn bird?" muttered Molbas.
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The parrot in question landed on a tree branch, overlooking the mansion, it's many towers surrounding it from all sides, the unruly gardens had seemingly merged with the surrounding wildlife.
Everything was completely closed off and nothing was to be seen, had she not known better, she would have thought this place was abandoned.
Remembering the things the humans had told her about this Dea of theirs, the parrot flew up and looked at the surroundings of the mansion from a higher point.
'There are no villages or cities anywhere close' she remarked, Dea had supposedly been gravely wounded by the sun and needed to drink blood to recover, this was confirmed that she was avidly drinking blood as corpses had shown up on certain pictures made by Laura.
'How could she find these people if no one is around?' wondered the parrot, the only road leading to this place had clearly not been used by a carriage or anything of that sort in a while due to the lack of wheels marks.
This was strange and only reinforced the strange feeling this mansion gave out, Ipiti had ignored it until now but this place was reeking of something she didn't like, her animal instincts told her that she should back off and never come back.
She landed back on the same branch as before, something was strange though, she looked to her left, meeting eyes with another bird, he was standing on the branch of another tree, staring at her with an animals unfeeling eyes.
Those sort of eyes were normal for animals and especially wild ones but his were somehow even more empty, sucking her attention in.
It looked like a big crow with white feathers in his chest, she had never seen a crow looking like that or any bird for that matter.
'Is this an alpha crow or something? Is that even a thing?' she wondered as she looked around trying to catch sight of his possible group of crows, only to notice that ever since he had arrived, no birds or animals were in sight, barely any sounds were to be heard and none was close.
They had all fled stealthily in the presence of this big crow.
Ipiti didn't know it but she was looking at Corbao, another pet of the same master as Gevaudan, the dark beast she had had a run in with some time ago.
Corbao wasn't working for Dea, nor was he genuinely here to try and kill her, his intentions were left a complete mystery to the parrot, hidden behind his empty gaze or rather, his masters intentions were shrouded.
Without an telltale signs or the slightest of unusual movements, two mass of a sickly-looking mana appeared on each side of the crow, forming into two liquid projectiles.
Ipiti quickly flew out of the way as the two missiles crashed into the branch where she had been standing, the branch seemed to melt in an instant as the whole tree lost its color and its leaves fell before the tree itself collapsed under its whole weight, having seemingly decayed in an instant.
Ipiti had nearly no time to take that information in as the crow was flying straight for at an incredible pace, it had accumulated so much speed in so little distance and few wing flaps.
He had shot himself like an arrow right at her, shattering the branch he had been standing on in the process, aiming to ram his dark beak into her.
Clearly, he wasn't just a big crow with a peculiar appearance, he had to be a magic beast or monster.
Being that Ipiti wasn't exactly a normal bird either, she managed to twist her body around and push herself down with a strong wing movement, dodging the savage beak thrust.
The pressure caused by his swift passage threw her off balance for a few moments and she saw herself crashing toward the ground for a few seconds, getting back on track a few seconds before becoming a puddles of flesh with an assortiment of colorful feathers as a topping.
Seeing the crow recalibrate his position in the air like contortionist in an instant, she flew into the forest, hoping that the many obstacles would slow him down.
Only that he had yet to show the extent of the outrageous stuff he was capable of.
He flew past the trees and branches expertly, soaring through the air without losing any speed, Ipiti made use of Strength to cause event to her advantage to happen but no matters how many things got in his way, he always managed to get past it.
Blocking his vision served no purpose as he bursted through the leaves used to that effect, as if perfectly aware of what was behind and that it was safe to do so.
Falling branches were avoided and charged through and even falling trees were somehow taken advantage of as he used his powerful talons to push his body forward.
She had never used her card to such an extent before, usually only for small things or a single big occurence.
Of course, with her mind tingling and the flying beast not losing speed, he ended up catching up to her, instead of shooting her with his magic attack, he only grasped her back and chose to stop flying, his much heavier weight causing her to crash onto the soil below.
The crow looked down upon her, not doing anything for a while, it would have been incredibly easy for him to kill her, breaking her skull with his beak and tightening his grip and shatter her whole body.
All he did however was get off, give her one last look, as expecting something and at last, it arrived, a perfected usage of Strength, an implausible thing happened, seemingly without anyone's intervention as multiple trees fell at a certain cadence.
Each of their positions and timings were perfect to prevent the crow from evading the attack fully while completely missing the battered parrot.
The trees impacted with the ground, making Ipiti jump up due to the sheer power of the crash.
The crow was also unharmed however, his body surrounded by a buble of the same sickly mana has before, the parts of the trees supposed to hit him had been melted into nothingness.
The crow seemed to be about to fly away for a few moments but decided to leave a trace of his passage as he grasped one of her talons with his beak, breaking it and twisting it the wrong way before flying away.
Ipiti let out a pitiful squeal, she laid down for a little while before standing up, her broken leg causing an immense amount of pain as she tried to fly for a few minutes before managing to take off.
"SoN OFf a Bitsh!" she cursed wrathfully, promising to get back at this damned birdbrain.