Chapter 880: Breakdown
Chapter 880: Breakdown
The three beastmen looked at Arad, a bit confused. As a cat, he wasn't even hissing. He just sat there on the ground, staring at them, menacingly.
"What's up with this cat? That was loud." One of them gasped, staring at Arad with a confused
face.
"Kick him away, what are you afraid of, it's just a cat." One of them suddenly rushed in, swinging a kick at Arad.
Lucia panicked, waving her wand as fast as she could to form a barrier, but it was incomplete. The moment the beast man's kick hit the barrier, it shattered it and raced toward Arad's small head.
Lucia gasped, if she only was a bit faster at casting spells, her barrier would've formed right, and the cat wouldn't be about to get kicked in the face.
Arad lifted his small paw and stopped the beast man's kick with ease, "Do you really want to fight?" A deep growling voice boomed from the cat and the beast could sense a shiver running down their spine. They just realized it, but it was already far too late. This black cat, reeks of pine.
Lucia and Ramy immediately recognized the voice, and what they saw next made it as clear as day. The cat's body started expanding and swelling, from its small form a massive muscular man emerged, standing tall and glaring down at the beast men, his eyes dripping with purple magic.
"ARON?!" Lucia gasped.
"You know the law can't save you from me." He glared at them.
To them who just got beaten by him out of nowhere this evening, this threat didn't seem like
a bluff or a joke. This human before them is an uncontrollable monster.
"Forget it," One of the beast men turned around to leave, "Let's go, it's not worth it anymore."
Arad had just gotten warned by Mira about beating people, so he decided to not chase them. In any other case, he would've at least scared them a bit.
"Aron...wait, you were the cat?" Lucia gasped and Ramy looked at him. "Since when you can do that?"
"I'm a druid, you should've known, it's written on my papers and I did deal with the beavers, didn't I?" He looked at her, "Besides, you should've been able to sense my magic, right?" He shifted back into a cat, and Lucia stared at him, she could indeed sense a faint trace of magic, and now that she was trying to remember, it was indeed there from the start.Nôv(el)B\\jnn
Lucia fell on her knees and growled, "Why didn't I figure it out, it was so obvious!" She couldn't be more embarrassed of herself, even though he approached them clearly shapeshifted with magic, she couldn't tell the difference. "Am I that stupid..."
Ramy patted her back, "Come on, calm down a bit. Even I didn't notice. It's obvious when you look for it, but probably near impossible to spot without a hint." It's like someone with really long hair, and then shortens it by one centimeter, you'll never notice, but when you see it, you can't unsee it.
Arad shifted back into his human form and sat beside the fire, "Come on, take a seat. They won't bother you as long as I'm here."
Lucia stood but quickly froze in place, remembering how she was patting his back, rambling about what he did in front of him. She turned and ran away, crying her eyes out. She can't take it anymore, the embarrassment of what she just did.
"Wait! Where are you going?" Ramy cried, calling her back, but Lucia wasn't listening, she couldn't even hear her among her weeping cries.
"This is bad, she's running into the jungle." Arad stood, "You wait here, I'll catch and bring her." He lunged after her, "Teacher, wait."
"Leave me alone!" She waved her hand and immediately disappeared in a puff of magic. "Damn it, where did she go?" Arad tried to track her magic, but he could only learn of her general direction. Strangely enough, due to her emotional distress, her magic turned up to be a bit jumbled up, making it harder to track.
Arad knew better than anyone how dangerous the jungle was, normal humans can't survive there alone, and certainly not while having an emotional breakdown. With a single leap, Arad rushed amongst the tall trees tracking Lucia's magic, "It twists and turns, I know she went this way, but not where she is."
He growled, ^{This jungle isn't just filled with giant monsters, most of them have a lot of magic after all, it's almost interfering with the magic left by Lucia. }^ It was like standing in a snowy field, trying to track the footsteps of a human in the middle of a snowstorm, while that human's footprints don't look like footprints at all.
"Should I use curses? Won't those harm her?" Arad asked as he leapt above a confused raptor, racing across the jungle.
^{Don't. She'll get harmed, but if you must, don't aim directly at her.}^
{Don't use curses at all, focus on your senses.} Mom added in Arad's head, {That woman is distressed, she's crying uncountably and can't think properly. Focus on your draconic senses and try to smell or feel her. With your speed, it'll only take a fraction of a second to reach her, as she's still within your 40km radius.}
^I can't expand my expansion, I can't use curses, and all I can rely on is my senses. As strange as it seems, teacher Lucia's magic is extremely powerful in a sense. She's good at making spells work, but that usually would be best for spells she uses a lot, like teleportation.^ Arad looked around and decided to jump into the sky.
Looking down at the jungle, he sighed, the forest was so thick that he couldn't see the ground, a view from above was useless. If this happened in Alina, he would've asked Loci for help, but The can only count on himself now.
"Fine..." Arad growled, landing on the ground. His shirt and pants disappeared as he was left in a pair of shorts, scales slowly covering his body as wings sprouted from his back, and horns from his head.
[Time Slow: 99% ] Arad immediately disappeared, faced with such a complicated issue, Arad preferred to return to basic. He'll systematically search every square meter in a one-kilometer radius, one by one, running as fast as he can and doing his best not to damage the jungle. ^{Be careful, you're moving at such a speed that you'll blow anything you touch into pieces.}^ Doma warned him.
^I know, if Hati and Skoll got angry, we're so done. ^ This wasn't his land, and he's well aware of the monster ruling it. He'll try to solve his problems, without alerting the beast.
Thanks to Mira getting a divine portfolio and becoming a demi-goddess, she requires less and less of Arad's mana to raise the child inside her, which allows Arad to draw more of his power at any time.
With a single solid step, Arad's muscles contracted as his bones shifted, absorbing the impact of his steps like shock absorbers as he raced through the jungle, searching behind each tree and beneath every stone, straining his senses to the extreme.
As he rushed, blood boiled in his veins, and his draconic nature rapidly started to surface. If anything was to harm Lucia, it'd be facing a raging dragon, a monster that even a god failed to
stop.
The ground beneath the village rumbled as Arad searched, and Hati sighed on her bed, "Look at this now...he's still destroying the land to find her...^ She turned and looked at her servants, "What do you say?"
"You can just tell him where she went, that would stop him." One of her servants replied.
"Then he'll know I'm watching him. I can't do that." Hati shook her head and leaned back.
At that moment, another servant walked inside and she looked at Hati, "We received a divine promotion. It's quite urgent."
"From who?" Hati waved her foot, "If it's Tiamat, tell her to fuck off. I'm watching something interesting; I'll get back to her tomorrow."
"It's indeed from Tiamat..." The servant looked worried, "It says, accelerate, we're losing
time.Ʌ
Hati's face immediately twisted and she jolted back up, "Wait...what did happen? Is
everything fine?" She cried.
"I don't know, that's all we got. And from her voice, she seemed angry." The servant said, carefully looking at the stressed Hati.
"Damn it." She stood and shook her head, "I'll get to work, prepare my clothes, we'll get everything done as quickly as possible."
"Your Eminence, look!" One of the servants in the room gasped with a scared face, pointing at Hati's crystal orb. They could see Lucia running in the jungle chased off by raptors without her knowing, and she stumbled down into a Trapdoor Arachnid trap.
All monsters here were large, and Trapdoor Arachnids were massive spiders that didn't wave webs but instead created traps beneath the soul to immediately snare targets with their fangs. As clearly as they could see, Lucia got snared in the blink of an eye, bitten across the torso. Arad could smell her blood, and all hell went loose.