Chapter 109: Escape by Fog
When Lily said she had a plan, both Hao Ren and Vivian threw a surprised glance at her. The idiot was going to be the savior of the day. This does not fit your average story setting, doesn’t it?
Lily was of course put off by the look the two gave her. Nary a word, she stepped forth and posed as if to draw on her inner strengths.Slowly, she raised her twin claws of ice and fire. Out of nowhere, a burst of flames and frost came roaring out. Innumerable icicles formed on her ice claw and blazing heatwaves on her fire claw, forming a tornado-like force.
“This idiot actually…” Vivian was so taken aback by the display of power that she was at a lost for words. She never thought Lily’s elemental claws could in fact be used as a magical catalyst. Before she could gather her wits to finish her sentence, she saw that the demon hunters had all nocked their crossbows in unison. The demon hunters had realized that something was amiss and would not give Lily the time she needed to finish her spell. Simultaneously, they released their bolts towards the werehusky.
Vivian recovered in time and transformed into a cloud of black mist to engulf the bolts. Using teleportation magic she returned the bolts back onto the crossbows. Hao Ren also ran towards Lily and used his back to shield her from the remaining three quarrels. After three violent thuds, he received a warning message. “Steel Membrane Shield capacity depleted. Shutting Down.” That scared the living hell out of him and spurred him to escape, lest one of them would really die!
“Haaahhh!!!” A girlish cry rang as Lily managed to conjure two enormous tornadoes of ice and fire. The demon hunters understood the dire predicament that they were in and started swapping their equipment. An assortment of charms or potion canisters were drawn. They were shortly activated to create a protective barrier, intended to fend off the spell that Lily was about to cast. These were experienced hunters and they knew that their prey was throwing all she had at them.If she failed to take them out, it would simply be a matter of cleaning up.
“Eat this! Frostfire Tornado!!!” Lily finally felt that she was at her limits of controlling her spell and swung her hands into a roaring clap. Both flame and frost tornadoes clashed into each other violently.
A loud explosion rang as the compressed air imploded. A massive shock wave blasted out around her followed by a dense fog that encompassed the blast zone. Visibility was almost zero.
Lily quickly grabbed Hao Ren by his arm and dragged him. “Run! Run! Battie and Mr. Wolves, run!!”
Hao Ren felt like he was being pulled through the air on a speeding motorcycle. He had neither the chance nor the time to react before he realized that he was floating midair as Lily dragged him along. He could not see anything whatsoever as all that surrounded him was nothing but white. Heatwaves buffeted him as Lily continued running. He knew Lily was close by but, he could only make out her silhouette amid the thick fog. You could easily imagine how bad it was.
A few thuds could be heard behind them and the whistling of quarrels started to echo. Clearly, the demon hunters had recovered their senses and started attacking again. However, by the sounds of things, they were not hitting their mark.
It was true that the demon hunters were more human than monsters. Sure they were armed with weapons, contraptions and magic but, their reaction time as well as intuition could not match the supernatural folk. Vivian would not have made such an error if she were chasing her prey. She could sniff them out by their blood from miles away.
Hao Ren was lost in his thoughts until he realized that the sound of pursuit was fading away. Having calmed down, it seemed like the worst had passed for now. He heard a flapping noise above him and understood that Vivian had also managed to keep up with them, almost unscathed. He looked up to greet her. “Vivian, you alright?”-
“I’m fine. Just flesh wounds. They’ve almost healed. Vivian’s silhouette appeared from above. While the fog was still spreading, it was thinning and they could now see much better. They seemed to have escaped the industrial area into an empty field. “Not sure if the two werewolves managed to catch up…”
“We’re here!” Casar Ebben grunted from behind. The stout werewolf leapt out from the mist carrying Ewen on his shoulder. His arm that was pierced by the silver dagger dangled limply. It seemed like it was temporarily unusable. His flesh wounds however, were clearly healing. Perhaps with distance, the magical potency of the silver weapons had also diminished. “You there, what did you do to summon a fog like that…”
“It’s steam vapor!” Lily yelled at the top of her lungs as she dragged Hao Ren in the air. “When ice meets hot metal, it’ll produce steam. So, I made two gigantic tornadoes of ice and fire. Then poof, lots of steam!”
Everyone had no response to her revelation.
“So, that’s your finisher?” Vivian almost fell out of the sky. After regaining her balance, she asked, “So… your plan was to create a hell lot of steam and then run?”
“Yep, yep!” Lily nodded vehemently, her wagging tail smacking Hao Ren in the face. (Hao Ren was still being dragged through the air, mind you.) “I even thought of a name, Super Frostfire Collision: Steaming Getaway!”
Casar Ebben almost flung Ewen away upon hearing that. “Which family are you from really? I’ve never heard of a werewolf having such innate abilities.”
“I think she’s probably from the Arctic or the Siberian plains….” Hao Ren sighed. “Probably has something to do with sleds.”
“Oh, frozen plain werewolves? I did hear that there were frequent attacks on human sledding teams a few hundred years back. But they have been silent for many years now. If she’s one of their descendants, perhaps it’s not impossible to have such abilities.”
Hao Ren sighed even harder. “No… Her parents were probably the one pulling the sleds.”
“Huh?”
“Lets just pretend I didn’t say anything.” Hao Ren looked around and noticed that they had already escaped well beyond the veil of the fog. They were in unknown territory. He grabbed Lily by the tail (it was the closest appendage to him) “Enough, let me down please. I’m about to puke.”
Lily was running about happily with the breeze in her face until she felt a tug on her tail. She yelped at the sudden tug and threw Hao Ren about 20 meters away…
While it was not a real toss, but it was close. Hao Ren climbed out of piles of rocks some 20 meters ahead of the rest. His face was understandably grumpy. “…Calm down would you?”
“No one’s tugged my tail before!” Lily looked shaken. “It was only stepped on before. I’m still traumatized by that!”
Casar Ebben could only shake his head at this kin of his who clearly had a screw or two missing in her head. After he set Ewen down by a rock, he spoke, “Seems like we have eluded them for now.”
“I’ve wiped the traces of our presence clean along the way and went on some detours as well. With the thick fog, I think it would take a while for them to catch up. Vivian gazed at Ewen with pity. Despite their kind being hostile to each other, she still had some shred of compassion. “Will he survive?”
“Just a piercing wound. As long as a werewolf can still draw breath, he’ll heal.” Casar nodded and slapped Ewen on the cheek. “How long do you want to pretend sleeping?”
“Ugh….” Ewen groaned as he opened his eyes. “Can’t you let me rest for a while… It hurts… Those demon hunters were sure not holding back. How did they even burn me when I was unconscious?”
Ewen was curious about the scorched marks on the left side on his body and asked. All three who were standing quickly glared at Lily viciously. She did not notice it and she squatted in a corner, grinding her nails against the rocks.
“I don’t understand how so many demon hunters could appear at the same time. Was there a raid or something?”
It was only then did Casar have the time to ask this very important question
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