His eyes widened as he saw the claw's getting closer, suddenly he felt a pressure and an ice-cold wind blew past and he heard howling.
The malikia paw stopped in mid-air as the brief outline of a shadowy figure blocked in-front of him.
Aven dodged and rolled to side grasping his dagger before he sprung forward and struck at the exposed side of the malikia's throat.
The malikia struggle for a few seconds before it broke free and turned on Aven, but he was already moving, the shadowy figure followed after it and knocking the malikia to the side as it lunged again.
The malikia neck was bleeding sluggishly as Aven attacked again this time aiming for the other side.
As the malikia moved the shadowy figure move to continually block it from reaching Aven.
Aven managed to get in several hits, but he saw that the shadowy figure was gradually fading and the malikia had more room to move.
'I have to finish this before it to late' he knew the weak spot of the malikia is its belly, but he was going to have to take a risk, or it will be all over soon anyway.
Aven's purple eyes became almost pin pricks as he started to rush forward, the shadowy figure seemed to become more focused for a few seconds and stopped a range of fast attacks from hitting Aven before he managed to slip underneath the malikia.
Just as he reached underneath the malikia the shadowy figure finally disappeared and the malikia focused solely on trying to reach Aven.
He reached up towards the creature's belly. Pulling himself up he struck out with his dagger towards the malikia weak underbelly.
———————————————————
As the sun started to set on the edge of the clearing of Garbell Village lay a malikia it body measuring about 1.5 meters long it was laying on its front, its sides appeared covered in wounds.
The malikia suddenly shift and a hand appeared from under and started to feel around on the ground before finding a hand hold.
Slowly a boy pulled himself out from under the body his eyes closed.
The boy rolled over on to his back and opened his purple eyes.
Aven just laid there for a few minutes breathing.
'It's getting dark, how much time has past.'
He tried to roll over knowing he need to at least get off of the ground level.
Slowly he got to his feet and gradually made his way over to the tree that he was preaching in earlier that day.
As he struggled to climb up into the tree, he could feel the wounds pulling and felt the blood starting to flow again.
'Why did I have to leave my pack in the tree.'
Just as he lost his grip suddenly, he felt something under his foot, as he looked down, he saw the shadowy figure again supporting him.
He used the shadowy figure's help to him get up into the tree and got himself up into the tree branches.
"Thanks"
He looked down at the figure and he realised it look like a creature, but he couldn't make out which one.
"What are you?"
The shadowy creature just stared up at him before fading away.
He sat there staring down to the ground for a sort while before shaking himself lightly and then reaching for his pack that was secured to the tree branches near him.
'Alright I have to focus as much as I want to know what that was, I need to see to my wound before it gets too dark to see to bandage the wounds.'
By the time that Aven was finished bandaging his wounds it was dark, so he reached into his pack and removed some of the meat that he had already cooked.
'It would seem like I will have to risk sleeping tonight.'
As he dosed off, he could just make out the light sound of a howl.
———————————————————
As the darkness of the night gave way to the day Joseph Randall rose from his bed.
The day before had most definitely not gone to plan.
They were meant to head out with their groups to their individual institutions but the appearance of the malikia had caused them to change their plans.
In the end he had not even managed to make the trip out into the forest to check the area as they kept running into problems.
He made his way out of his hut aiming to join up with the others.
'Hopefully we will have received information so that we can head out of here already.'
As he neared the hut that Damian was staying in, he saw both Jonathan and Sabrina making their way down the road towards him.
"Morning Joseph" Jonathan called.
"Good morning "
"Shall we" said Joseph as he gestured to the hut.
Together they walked through the door as Damian opened it for them.
The day before had not gone well or according to plan. They all knew that they had to do something and soon after all they were originally told that they couldn't delay from leaving to return to their institutions, but they also realise to do so would be to endanger the lives of the people in this village.
They truly were undecided of what to do next, after all they hadn't been given instructions with when or even if a patrol unit from the Kingdom would be round and malikias were definitely not meant to be in this area.
" Good morning everyone" Damian said as he walked past them back to his seat.
"Good morning, Damian" Joseph answered.
They all found themselves a place to sit facing one another before Joseph asked Damian.
"Have you received any other messages".
"Not yet but I am expecting another communication very shortly after all I was told they would let me know when they had made their decision. The situation is definitely not normal so I'm sure they will be looking into it quickly" Damian responded.
The sat there in silence for a short while.
"Well while we wait I plan to head to the location that the creature are on my sense" Joseph stood and headed for the door leaving the other behind.
He head from the hut to the village gate, the village was silent as the villagers were making themselves scarce as they waited for Chief Dean to handle the situation.
'Handle that man has not idea and doesn't care to know what is going on around him, I'm certain they are covering something up in this village but it not my place to sort it. '
Joseph was just passing through the gate, as he did he scan the area and stop short his eyes widening at what lay before him.
Laying a short distance from the village barrier was a malikia. This one was smaller than the originally one that was still in the clearing.
'How, how did it get so close without anyone noticing. Was this one also able to avoid our senses.'
Joseph crept forward and drew his sword using his magic.
As he got closer, he could make out small wounds covering its body.
'It's dead what happened here, who managed to defeat it?'
Surely the guards aren't the ones that defeated it or we would have found out sooner.'
As he looks on his eyes were draw to its front paws, so he moved closer and crouched down.
'Blood so it injured someone.' Joseph started to stand back up when he froze 'the boy where is Aven.'
He quickly searched around looking for the boy and at first saw nothing.
'Where is he surely, he wouldn't go far injured.'
'Then again would those in the village even try to help.'
Laying propped up on the tree branch at the forest barrier he saw Aven.
He swiftly made his way over keeping his eyes and sense peeled for any potential danger.
'That twice now that we have been unable to sense anything even with danger so close.'
'This keeps happening how can even their young hide from our senses'.
He arrived under the tree and looked up.
'I can't believe that they wouldn't let the boy in even with the threat lurking. Now how to do this?'
In the end he chose a simple approach first.
"Aven Fire-Rose"
For a short while the boy did nothing and he started to worry.
'How to get up there without causing him any problems.'
Just as he moved to climb, he saw the boy shift.
"Aven" he tried calling again, he was rewarded with a pair of purple eyes looking straight back at him.
'Maybe I am worrying about nothing.'