Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin-Chapter 139

With steady long steps Ethan advances, sword in hand and ready for a fight, rushing into danger like a true warrior and imposing as such, making the fox stagger and growl in response at the sheer about of force backing each of Ethan’s attacks.

For a Magical Creature it has been very long since I let my claws run wild, but this time I chose to use my griffin form and my leopard paws showed their strength, flaking the fox any chance I got, with Ethan forcing him back and not giving space for a counter attack with the sharp edge of his sword making silver arcs in the air, and no rest for Kasumi as he would dodge to the side only to meet my beak as I dive down from a low flight, claws brushing and bringing the fox back to Ethan’s reach.

With no space to take a breather and the fight advancing at rapid speed the fox gets hit a couple of times by us, the slices sweeping out blood that bubbled back in place, the liquid black river holding him patched up just like the fog had done the same by feeding on anything that got in its way and that it is even more fierce now around us, like a maddening hungry beast jolted awake by our presence, fighting against the flow and little by little surrounding us more. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

We did not have much time now.

With anger building up the fox seems far from gone, a maddening looking glinting in his eyes as he howls and sends the skulls after me, the flowing black substance keeping them above while connected with the black fox, moving almost like tentacles that ended up in clacking craniums with sharp teeth and hollow eyes socks.

And these skulls prove to be quite the challenge to avoid since, incorporeal and weightless, they are very quick and nimble when launched in the air.

So is no wonder that I can only dodge and fly around them at the beginning of their attacks, surprised by their agility, clacking of jaws and twisting Abyss essence surrounding me almost as a creature pulled out from the deepest parts of the core of the earth, where light has never shined, a creature made of skulls and boiling liquid darkness.

I flee by turning around in the sky and getting height, but once the initial surprise is gone I dive back down to attack it, and unable to get close to Kasumi since the skulls twist and put themselves in my path every time, I start slashing against them, but the space opened by my claws is quickly closed by the liquid darkness, the skulls clacking their jaws as they mock me.

I frown my owl brow and try again, but the only thing I am managing is to tire myself, and annoyed by those flying rascals I claw one down as I avoid the goop, and to my satisfaction the skulls scatter and the black tentacle supporting him vanishes with in a satisfactory black smoke.

Only that, at the point when I finally realize its weakness, is when I notice my mistake too, and find myself surrounded by black goop, a cage in the sky closing in on me, the skulls up above clacking as they twist around as a brand with me right in the middle.

At that moment I do not think, I act, and my sturdy wings beat fast and strong and prompt me up with all their might as the free space around me closes in my the second, the goop reaching in and making the exit smaller and smaller, with almost no breathing space.

Is at the last second that I pop out of the death trap, but is at that moment that I use its failed attack to my advance and with one single Wind Strike take all the skulls out.

"You... you bastard!" I hear the Fox growl out only for his attacks to intensify, the tentacles moving more freely in the air but as much as I had to avoid it and focus on dodging soon after the Fox tires out, getting harder to maintain their shapes without the skulls to hold the tentacles together, getting slow and clumsy, but the fox is not dumb and soon notices that I am about to join back down with Ethan’s attacks and that a dragged out battle would only make things more difficult for him, outnumber like as he is.

So he grows bold and we should have expected the suicidal attack he uses next, at one moment he was battling with both of us and the next he mounts a full out attack on Ethan who does not notice at first since his eyes were focused on the Fox movements, not up above at his tentacles, that’s why when Kasumi retracts his goop to attack Ethan from all sides he was not ready to defend himself.

But I was.

I have one second to notice that Kasumi is pulling off the attack on me, a moment of hesitation making me lose some precious time to help Ethan out when they do not come back at me, so as I close my wings and dive down, letting gravity pull me with all its strength, blurring things around me with the quickness, and opening my wings to stop my fall at the last second I stop right between Ethan and the foxes claws, having less than a second his leaping fake attack and the corrosive tentacles met their target and surround us all, so I act out by instinct and rise a shield of ice around us, and as much as it is efficient to stop the Fox itself in front of us the time it takes to circulate around us is enough for one of his tentacles to sneak under and wrap around my hind leg, and even though it is all but for a moment until the shield cuts it off the damage done is great and quick, much as if dipping my leg inside corrosive acid.

I howl with pain and fall down, a quick look back telling me just how bad it is when I can see bone peeking out of the wound, the pain taking the strength left my limbs and I fall down, boiling agony wanting to cloud my thoughts as I forced myself to stay awake and sharp so I can keep the shield up, clenching my beek and clawing the stone under me.

For a moment all I can do is let the excruciating pain run up and down my body and paralyze me in place, barely keeping the flow of magic on the barrier, the ice crazing at places with the acid goopy blackness covering it all, plus the grinning half rotten fox leaping at the other side with all its body and claws, a maddening force pushing him beyond his limits and reasoning, clawing and bumping until his own claws had broken and blood oozed out from his wounds, parts being self inflicted by his recklessness and expanding the rot from his face to his sides.

But then, a pressure, an energy, so familiar and yet not at that moment, makes me stop and turn my head around, a raw power emanating from the only one beside me capable of such.

Ethan.

A very furious Ethan.