~$ So, are dragons real, or is the Beast king just lying through his teeth?$~
"No no no no and...er... no," Murasaki complained.
"What do you mean no? You're plenty strong to take that guy on, aren't you?" I asked him.
"That's besides the point! And about that nickname–"
"What, Saki? It really is a good name," I shrugged.
"Yeah, whatever. I'm still not fighting that thing and you can't make me," he whined again and stared backing away from the goblin.
I sighed and got off his head. I then turned to Red who looked at me, curious to what I'll do next.
"Saki, I order you to fight the goblin king!" I declared.
"That's low, even for you, Master Max," he grumbled and turned to his brother for some support. Red painfully turned away from his brother, understanding why I did that.
"Not you too, brother! I thought we had each others backs, but I guess I was wrong," Saki sulked as he lowered his head in defeat and began walking towards the king.
***
"I hate this," Red suggested as I tried making myself comfortable on his back.
"You and me both, Red. Now quit moving your behind and stay still, it's about to begin," I said.
"Never have I ever been shown such disrespect! You're lucky I'm your servant cause if I weren't..."
"Oh, put a sock in it! Now shush!"
The king had stopped just a few metres away from where we were. Judging by its stance, it could clearly see us from that distance. We had moved a lot closer to the goblin to prevent and other wolf from being collateral damage of the fight.
Saki advanced ahead of us, seeing that he was the one who was supposed to fight the beast, until they were just a few metres apart.
"Purple one, do you wish to die first?" were the first words spoken by the king.
"Um...no?" Saki answered.
"Then why do you face me? I can easily clobber you to death, you know. I'm giving you one last chance to leave with your life, I only wish to spar with the strong ones behind you,"
"Psst! Hey Red, hear that, he called me a 'strong one' " I whispered to my chair–I mean wolf while grinning.
"Die!" was the only response I got from him.
"Aww! I love you too!"
Saki took a deep breath then stared the goblin king dead in its eyes and answered with new resolve:
"If you wish to fight them, you'll have to go through me first!" he issued his challenge and charged with lightning speed while enlarging himself to battle.
The goblin king laughed and watched as the wolf rushed towards him. He too roared and charged and so the battle began.
Once the distance between them was covered, the goblin threw a punch that Saki dodged easily which gave him an opening to pounce on the goblins neck. The goblin was too slow to stop the bite from reaching its neck, or so I thought but it looked like it really didn't care as much about that.
Murasaki took this as an opportunity to bite down hard, but immediately regretted his decision the second all his teeth shattered at the impact. He jumped away from the goblin to gather himself up as blood dripped from his mouth.
The king roared in laughter and began advancing to Saki while lifting its club.
"If you can't even land a hit on me, how do you expect to defeat me?" it mocked in amusement.
Saki just stared at the goblin, perhaps looking for a weak point he could exploit. Unfortunately, he wasn't given a chance as the goblin struck with its club. Thankfully, it lacked speed and Saki dodged yet again.
He tried slashing at the back legs but the same result happened with now his claws shattered. Things weren't looking good for him and I had a suspicion that the king wasn't taking this fight seriously.
Saki could only dodge as he could not attack anymore with his shattered teeth and claws. The goblin knew this so he went for the offensive, throwing blow after blow and occasionally tossing his club at Saki if he ever got far from him.
It would always return to its hands anyways but even with fists alone, I was one hundred percent sure that even one hit would be enough to end the fight abruptly. It looked like Saki had began slowing down, and with that little blunder, the goblin aimed a powerful strike to Saki's side, sending him tumbling a few metres away.
"Damn! That one must have hurt. Maybe I gave him a lot more that he could handle? What do you think Red?"
"First of all, never ask me to be your chair ever again. And second, how do you think I climbed up to centurion level? The only thing we can do is hope that he wins, cause if he can't, he might as well remain at A rank,"
"Jeez bro, he's your brother. Cut him some slack," I told the wolf thinking that he might be a little harsh on his brother but when I felt the vibration coming off from his body, I could tell it was taking everything in his power to stop himself from interfering.
Not like I was any better cause I was pretty sure he wasn't the only one seething with anger, despite my playful tone. Saki rolled himself off the ground and began limping towards the goblin.
"No one interfere! He's mine," a voice reached both my head and Red's.
"Seriously? Purple one, you should have stayed down. But I respect a warrior's devotion to finish what he started. What is your name?" the goblin asked as a show of respect.
"Murasaki,"
"Hahahaha! A fine name! They call me Seth, king of the goblins! Now come to your death, Murasaki, IF YOU DARE!" It roared as it raised its club to acknowledge Murasaki's bravery.
"I think you have it wrong, Seth. The only one dying here today, is you!" he screamed as he howled in anger. Suddenly, Saki began transforming into a type of cat demon, a boggart. His eyes began to glow a deep Red, his teeth regrew into Diamond encased canines, and his fur turned pitch black.
A large horn protruded from between his eyes, glowing purple, and was throbbing with power. His claws became larger than usual, even larger than when Red transformed, and looked to be also Diamond coated.
I almost fell off Red when I was hit with the massive shockwave from the transformation. Now, of course I had to appraise Saki, just to know what the hell happened to him.
*appraise*
***
<*Murasaki----LVL18(???)*>
<*Title:-----*>
<*Race: High Wolf/ Hell hound*>
<*Health: {50/100}*>
<*Ability: ???*>
<*Mana: {450/450}*>
---
[ Wha-Bradley, you loser! Why can't I see more?!]
***
"Why did I have to have to get a system with an attitude?" I muttered as I rolled my eyes.
"Wha-huh?!" Mr Red smartly said his mouth agape in shock.
"Are you part hell hound, or is it just your brother?"
"Is that suppose to be some kind of insult? No I'm not part–wait, WHAT?!"
"You heard me," I answered.
"I can't believe this! I've known my brother for a long time and never has he transformed into this form,"
"I think it has something to do with me," I started.
"Why I'm I not surprised," Red said as he sighed in exasperation.
"Hey! This time I didn't mean to! It's the dark mana I gave him, maybe I didn't clear all of it,"
"And why should I care enough to believe you? For all I know, you might have left it there intentionally," Red growled.
"Oh, that's it! I'm tired of your meaningless accusations. Get over here!" I roared in anger and grabbed Red in a choke hold.
"Arrgh! Fin.. ally...dec...ided...to.... fin...ish....the....job!" he choked as he tried shaking me off his back.
"Maybe strength doesn't come with intelligence," the goblin king though as he watched the two idiots fight for no apparent reason.
Murasaki, on the other hand, would have loved nothing more than to beat the ever living snout out of the two brain dead idiots bickering, but he had a task to finish first.
"Murasaki, I'll admit I wasn't taking this seriously, but now, I'll give you my full attention," the goblin spoke and raised it's right hand.
A large dark flame the size of a boulder flew towards Saki, who didn't look the least bit fazed. The second it touched him, it ignited into a large tornado of fire that burnt down anything in it as well as around.
I was forced to let go of Red since he too wanted to know why the temperature changed so drastically. Make no mistake I wasn't getting off his back, but at the moment, he looked too shocked at the type of dark flames ignited to even care.
As Bradley had rudely stated, I couldn't appraise the flames so I had to rely on a certain someone I never wished to ask help from.
"Red, what are those flames called?"
"Demon flames. A tier three spell that can't be easily put out unless one has a superior flame. I myself can't cast such a spell, so that's saying something. Wait, where's my brother? Don't tell me... "
"He's still alive, don't worry. But I have to wonder, how's he surviving?"
Levels of spells. If I remember correctly, Flintheart taught me that there are ten types of spells, ranging from tier one to ten. Anyone who can cast around fourth tier is considered one of the strongest mages. Only dragons can cast fifth tier and above but even with the dragon king, it was recorded that his highest was level six before the dragons disappeared.
The goblin had a nasty smile on its face as it watched the flame tornado intensify.
"I can't believe that lower life form forced me to use one of my tramp cards. Well, I still have some fight in me. So, you two, wolf and half wolf, why don't you–"
"Don't count me out just yet!" a voice shouted from the dark flames. Suddenly, the black flames began to be overpowered by a brighter purple flame and soon, it cleared up to reveal Saki. He looked undamaged by the flames. Actually, one might say he looked better than new.
"Not possible! H–how?!" the king roared in outrage.
"Don't know. On an unrelated topic, how's your arm?" Murasaki asked smiling.
"What do you mean–" he couldn't finish that sentence as he had just now realizing he had only one arm, the one holding the club. The goblin screamed in pain as it clutched it's wound in pain.
For someone like me, I could only catch little glimpses of what happened. The second Saki had asked the question, he moved incredibly fast and slashed down the hand, then he immediately returned to his previous position.
Red looked dumbfounded and quite frankly scared. Murasaki calmly licked his paw as he patiently waited for the screaming goblin to calm down.
"YOU WASTE OF SPACE!! HOW DARE YOU INJURE SOMEONE OF MY LEVEL!! I WILL DESTROY YOU!!!
By this point he was frothing in his mouth, spitting saliva and blood in anger. But what surprised me was how quickly his hand began healing.
"No way! Is it a some type of troll?" I wondered cause only trolls had that ability. It was then that I noticed its good arm glowing. It was healing itself!
Soon, it regrew back it's arm and raised its club like a sceptre. After muttering a few words, its body was ingulfed in dark flames until it grew in height and even more strength. Two horns protruded from its head and it's skin turned a shade darker.
It's muscles were even larger than before and its eyes were dark flames. The club it was carrying had vanished, as if he had absorbed it.
"LET'S SEE YOU TRY THAT TRICK AGAIN!" It roared and charged.
"This is going to be fun," Murasaki said and used that speed of his again. It was only a matter of seconds, but to the goblin, it felt like days as Saki attacked viciously with his claws giving the goblin no time to think, attacking at lightning speed, leaving deep gashes even with its enhanced skin.
At some point the goblin lost one of its horns, and that forced it to retreat cowardly from the battle. Murasaki seemed to allow him to leave, even though he could heal his wounds.
"How are you doing this?!" the goblin asked panicking while Murasaki stared at him without a bead of sweat on his fur.
"It's time to end this," he spoke as he pointed his one horn at the goblin. I had to regain back my senses(and my mouth) after that show of power just to warn Red to back away cause my beast senses were picking up a large amount of power from Saki.
"Wanna know how I survived your flames? Easy, I have something more powerful," he said as his horn continued to charge with energy.
"That's a level four tier magic, no one can do that!" the goblin king shouted.
"Wanna bet?"
The goblins eyes filled with fear as he saw the amount of mana been poured into the spell.
"NOOO!! Please spare me!! I'll give you anything you want, gold, beast essence, you name it!" he begged while trying to back away from the spell.
"Your fate was sealed the moment you met me!" Murasaki finished and fired a huge tunnel of purple fire that burnt down anything in its path as it advanced to the goblin.
The goblin king tried dodging downwards, but the flames just followed him to the ground and struck. An ear piercing explosion that shook the planet itself echoed all around with the impact so strong, that shock waves could be felt vibrating off the ground. I pitied the poor king who took such a hit head on.
Once the dust had finally settled, there was nothing left but a huge beast crystal in the middle of a crater filled with burnt prints of flames.
"Now that that's done... "Murasaki shrunk down back to normal and passed out cold on the ground.
"That was so AWSOME! And cool by the way. What say you Red?" I asked the wolf as we walked to Murasaki.
"I'd say you've all qualified for the dungeon," a voice from the entrance of the dungeon said.
"Who the hell?"