Chapter 74: Head for the gates
He smiled grimly at me.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I should be asking you that". He said and gestured around me.
I looked around and realized during my fights, I had moved closer to the fire mages till I was beside them now.
I was now practically in their ranks.
But I was with the two star mages.
"What\'s going on?" I asked him. "How did you guys know the castle was being attacked".
"Now\'s not the best time for chitchat Levi". Aaron said as shot two fireballs at a purple peacock.
"This is important". I insisted and dragged him to the back of the ranks, where Emily was.
I found her fighting a blue beaked hawk, just like the one I killed earlier.
I glanced at Aaron and he sighed. "Fine."
"Flame whip". He shouted and a thin cord of flame shot out of his hands. It immediately went to the hawk and wrapped around its neck.
The hawk struggled as the flames burned through its feathers and into its skin.
It fell to the ground and remained there, unmoving.
Emily looked up in surprise, wondering who just helped her out.
She gave a slight smile when she saw it was us.
She looked tired and her face was covered with a sheen of sweat. Her clothes didn\'t have as much dirt on it since she had been fighting most aerial battles.
Her hair was however disheveled.
"What are you doing here?" She asked Aaron.
"I brought him here". I replied.
Emily turned to me. "What are you doing anywhere near here in the first place?"
"It\'s a long story". I promised her. "The most important thing is that we\'re not going to win this battle this way".
Emily and Aaron exchanged looks.
"How do you know?" Aaron asked.
"I\'ll get to that". I said. "What I want to know right now is how did you know the beast monsters were here?"
"Don\'t look at me, he was the one at the castle walls".
Aaron shrugged. "We were on duty when we saw beast monsters marching here".
"From where?" I asked.
Aaron frowned. "Huh?"
"Where did they come from?" I asked him.
"I.. I don\'t know". He replied.
"How can you not know where the beasts came from?" I asked.
"I don\'t know man. I wasn\'t looking at where they were coming from, I was looking at the freaking things". He replied.
"Hey, hey it\'s fine". Emily tried to douse the tension between us.
"Just try to remember. What direction did they come from?" I asked Aaron.
He squinted as he tired to recollect. "They came from the right, I think."
"Which means somewhere near the textile stalls". I said.
"Yes". Emily replied. "Why are you asking all these though?"
"Because I know how the beast monsters are transported". I told them.
Her eyes popped wide in amazement. "You do?"
I nodded. "They move with portals".
Aaron frowned. "Portals?"
"Yes. Look I can\'t tell you the full details now but beast monsters are not from this world. They enter through portals".
"I\'ve seen one before and I\'ve seen them use it."
Aaron leaned in so he couldn\'t be heard by anyone else.
"So you\'re saying the beast monsters are aliens?"
"I don\'t know honestly". I replied. "All I know is they are not from this world and they enter into it through portals".
"Why didn\'t you say anything since?" Emily asked.
"I wasn\'t sure of the safety of my family". I replied. "But now I know sharing the knowledge will not affect them in anyway".
"So you\'ll endanger the whole kingdom just to protect your family?" Aaron asked.
"Yes".
It was a very easy decision for me. What had the rest of the kingdom done for me to want to protect them?
My family gave me a place to stay when I was displaced, they nursed me back to health when I was sick.
It was a no brainer.
"We have to go find the portal". I said to them.
"Why?" Emily asked.
"So we can destroy it".
"You think we can do that ourselves?" She asked me.
"What choice do we have?" I replied. "The masters are clearly busy here. Do you think they\'ll leave the battle front just to follow baseless claims made by an unregistered level one mage?"
It doesn\'t matter. We\'ll vouch for you, they should be able to see it is a matter of importance".
"He\'s right". Aaron said.
Emily stopped talking. "Huh?"
"They won\'t believe him. No one has claimed to see such, ever.
Even the mages who are war currently haven\'t come to say they\'ve seen something like that.
They won\'t believe him."
"Thank you". I said to him. "That\'s why we have to go ourselves".
Just then a huge hog rushed to us.
I wanted to send a one directional wind slam at it but Aaron reacted first.
"Fire cage". He said and a cage of flames formed around the hog, rooting it to the spot.
The cage shrunk smaller and smaller until the hog was burnt to a crisp and the hog was nothing but ashes.
It was amazing to see how much stronger two star mages were compared to one star mages.
Aaron had done all that with relative ease.
The thought spurred me on to kill more beast monsters so I could quickly level up.
A few rouge beast monsters were near us now and I coated my tan with mana and rushed at them.
I killed a giant fanged wolf.
I killed a giant spider.
I killed an iron teeth hyena.
I killed two more blue beaked hawks.
I killed three red nose foxes.
I stopped when exhaustion hit me.
All the while, neither Aaron nor Emily had stopped me.
They just stared at me as I let the bloodlust consume me again.
"Let\'s go". I said to the two of them. "We need to end this now".
Aaron and Emily nodded and together we began to run towards the textile stalls.