Chapter 12 - Stopover
Chapter 12 - Stopover
"Did you hear that, Kenji? Are you really capable of empowering one of my limbs with your scales?" Yoichi joked, smiling and looking at his demon pet.
"Screek!" it replied, merely saying something incomprehensible in its verse. ??
"Oh, Yoichi! Here we go! Look, someone's fighting in front of us!" Enatsu interrupted, pointing his finger forward and indicating something in the direction of Ambershire's gold-coloured castles.
Two men, facing each other, were in the middle of a fight. The first, after a few moments of pause to recover from the last attack suffered, began to run towards his opponent, holding his halberd, whose blade seemed imbued with a strange green liquid.
In front of him, a much younger boy, with long blue hair tied behind his shoulders, had his nunchaku spinning, waiting to receive that frontal attack.
"Aaargh!" the charging fighter yelled when a long snake-demon twisted around his halberd a moment before it was swung forward, firing the demon at high speed.
With its jaws wide open, the snake-demon headed towards the blue-haired young man: just a moment before he was hit, he grabbed both ends of the nunchaku with his hands, and in front of him, something incredible happened.
Both the snake and the warrior wielding the halberd stopped in mid-air, waving as if trapped by an invisible force.
"Whoohooo! Go!"
A small audience was witnessing the fight behind them, and after that scene, someone began to cheer on the favourite.
"But... he blocked them both of them in mid-air! Was it his demon? Where is it?!" Yoichi gasped, pulling Enatsu's tunic towards him to get his attention.
Before the young trader could answer, the blue-haired warrior made a high leap forward, overcoming the still immobilized snake-demon and pointing to the enemy tamer, ready to mitigate the blow.
Rotating his body and giving maximum energy to his nunchaku, the warrior violently hit his opponent's face, causing him to fly away and disarming him.
*boom*
After the thud caused by the heavy armor impacting on the ground, the snake-demon was freed from the grip, and as soon as its tail touched the ground, it used it to jump in the direction of the attacker, ready to ambush him from behind.
A second before the snake's venomous jaws reached the mysterious warrior's body with the nunchaku, a long tentacle grabbed the reptile's neck, tightening firmly and pulling it backwards.
"Oh, fuck... that's a Kuwatako!" Enatsu quaked as soon as the blue-haired boy's demon came out into the open.
Under the incredulous gaze of Yoichi and his friend, the tentacle that had just come out of the crowd of spectators joined its own body, which floated towards it.
An octopus-like demon, with four tentacles and small spikes on its large soft head, flew in the direction of the snake-demon, which, desperately, twisted around the tentacle, trying to win the showdown and free itself from the grip.
Meanwhile, the warrior in heavy armour, seeing his opponent approaching menacingly with a smile printed on his face, kept crawling backwards. The nunchaku swirled in the hands of the skilled blue-haired fighter and, moments before launching the final blow, a scream ended the fight.
"Dil'goth!"
Suddenly, the snake demon, who was about to lose consciousness trapped in the grip of the strong purple tentacle of the Kuwatako, disappeared into a greenish aura, quickly flying towards its tamer.
The aura moved in the direction of the ground, thickening in contact with the soil's surface and materializing a Demon Tooth.
"Wohoo! Long life to Kato!"
"Kato, you're great! You gave him a lesson!" the crowd began to shout again, joyfully cheering the winner of the challenge as if he was an illustrious character.
Enatsu and Yoichi approached curiously as the blue-haired warrior extended a hand towards the newly defeated tamer, still knocked on the ground.
Suddenly, a small red sphere a few inches in diameter was ejected from the Demon Tooth's upper end, irregularly floating towards the Kuwatako.
When it pierced the surface of the octopus demon's soft head, it permeated its skin, disappearing inside its body.
"Have you seen, Yoichi? That's exactly how a real tamers fight works! That little red droplet is the experience point that the winning demon just received!" Enatsu mumbled, silently explaining to Yoichi what he had just seen.
"Get your hands off me, kid!" the heavy-armed warrior barked with malice, slapping Kato's hand and rising with his own strength.
"Hey, calm down, man! By acting like this, all you do is make your situation worse... ahaha!" the winner replied aloud, storing his nunchaku and spreading his arms, welcoming the compliments of the crowd.
"His demon's skill was much stronger! Also, he seems to be an experienced tamer, the crowd already knows his name," Yoichi commented, responding to his travelling companion and mingling with the crowd.
"Fuck it, one day I'll destroy you and your octo-shit!" the defeated warrior grunted, violently pulling his Demon Tooth out of the ground and picking up his halberd, moving away from the battle site.
"Hey, Yoichi! This way, come!" Enatsu said, making room among the people and walking nonstop towards the entrance to the small borough of Ambershire.
"Wait a minute," Yoichi interrupted, "it seems like a good opportunity to learn how to fight!" he replied, thinking that more than 24 hours were left before his secret quest expired.
"You're kidding me, I hope! That guy just defeated a huge warrior in a few simple moves! I think you should start with something simpler, don't you think?" Enatsu chuckled, trying to dissuade his inexperienced friend, who was attracting prying eyes.
"Tell me about that demon, uhm... the Kuwatako. Which are its weaknesses?" Yoichi asked, looking at Kenji, ready to execute his every order.
"Yoichi, get that out of your head! The Kuwatako is a rare psychic type demon! How can you want to deal with it without even knowing how to use Kenji's skill? It seems to be a foolish idea! You only gift it with one experience point!" Enatsu muttered in his ear.
"Tweet!" Sora confirmed.