Heavy clouds concealed the sky the next day Felix had experienced his over-the-clouds sensation, indicating the weather’s sad mood. However, the shapeshifter himself was having a perfectly sunny day inside. The previous night’s small adventure kept him positive minded. This spirit might even last until the spring came.

Yesterday, when Felix got back to earth and hurried not to make his master wait too long after changing his now Sereena persona, the woman was practicing her swordsmanship to defend against cold. She vaguely answered Felix’s question if he took too long to return. But the shapeshifter sensed his master was not upset or angry form his possible delay. Anyone could lose track of time when experiencing the heaven’s vast liberty.

Felix attempted to convey what he had done and share his excitement with the magic warrior, but she only listened to him halfway through before shushing at Felix to keep quiet about his skill related trip. Still, his mountainous high mood didn’t diminish from his master’s seemingly indifference. Maybe it was the side effect of his maiden form, but he would have been similarly delighted in his original form from such a flight nonetheless, he was sure.

They were currently riding through a landscape where ridges were a common encounter. Flanked by a short chain of hills on one side and a slope on another side, which grew naked shrubs and trees, the prisoners escorting soldiers and following merchants continued their travel to Chindon. The whole convoy members had sped up their pace, prompting their horses, mules, and huge lizards to quicken up as well, hoping to reach the destination of the nearest village before snow completely blocked the road.

However, all of a sudden, multiple whooshing sounds echoed over the half enclosure road. Following that, several pained shouts and cries of surprise and warning sounded among the warrior folk.

Kiria deftly inclined her body back, making Felix bent backwards together with her as she put her one hand around her disciple’s slender waist. Felix didn’t fall from the mount, but a few people did. Some with stuck with the shot arrows in their chests and head, pierced through eye sockets, some from cautiousness and to protect themselves while making the mounts living shields.

This is an attack!

“PREPARE SHIELDS! DON’T PANIC! Archers, get ready to fire at the enemy! They are behind the trees,” Commander Kart began shouting instructions with his fully raised voice.

Kiria dismounted, helping Felix to move down and quickly led him to a nearby rock boulder along with the horse. “Don’t leave this place. Stay low! I’ll fight the attackers. Understood?” she sternly ordered Felix as she equipped her pair of short swords on her back and wielded her daggers at hand.

Felix could only nod at this kind of situation. Seeing people die or killing one were not enough to prepare someone to an actual all-out battle, he understood now. He watched his master go to welcome a few ambushers who had recently come down from the slope behind the trees. A pair of them parted from their small party and headed toward Kiria, seeing her warrior bearing.

Other soldiers started engaging in battles, too. There were battles with one-on-one pairing, or one-one-two, even three, people diving in fights. Arrows kept raining occasionally from an ever-changing direction.

Felix watched between a barrier of a boulder and a horse as Kiria advanced at her opponents. She took a large step to the side and threw one of her dagger at the closest man, who was coming with expectant expression for a serious battle. The dagger only flew from a side when the man quickly dodged it, as did the female ambusher behind him. The man’s expression turned into disappointment.

Kiria scurried to her first opponent with a slightly bent posture as she unsheathed her swords. The next moment though, in about a tenth of a second, or even less, she appeared half a meter away from the woman behind the male ambusher, her blade raised to the side diagonally. The man stood still, wide eyed as if he was not capable of comprehending what just happened. Before he could reach his hand to his midsection, he fell to the ground, more apparently, his upper half of the body collapsed, being followed by the lower half. The woman’s head at the rear was slid back. The place her throat should have been was open as the blood fountained passively from it. She fell the next half a second with an incompletely severed head.

Felix was only able to see the direction his master had darted. This must be the true mastery of mana usage in live combat.

Kiria didn’t linger a moment at the scene. Removing the blood with a brief swing, she began searching for new opponents. The enemy warriors who saw her killer move quickly found other opponents to themselves, or called for a backup. Soon Kiria confronted another pair of warriors. She didn’t feign any weakness this time.

One of the burly men Kiria was confronting initiated the battle as he darted in a similar way as Kiria did to her previous opponents. But it was for far shorter range and slower. Kiria moved with the same speed and blocked an attack her other opponent executed. While defending, she gave a lightning fast kick to the second attacker, sending him flying. He rolled at least for half a dozen meters after landing.

Kiria continued her fight as she clearly overpowered him in strength and speed, and even with technique. She raised one her blades and hit it with another, hurtling it toward the remaining man. When he parried the speedily tossed sword, a dagger was struck below his chin. It was thrown with brutal precision at right time by Felix’s master.

Kiria evaded a whistling arrow with an inhuman speed as she rolled over to recover the thrown weapon, and resumed her search for new opponents, like a hunter looking for a next prey. The survived one from the last battle had scampered away.

The other combat scenes were not that easily won by the empire soldiers. There were clearly some skilled inner mana users in the enemy ranks. Felix could only see fragments of ongoing battles as his vision was obstructed by horses and carriages. Though it was evident the other battles didn’t fall behind Kiria’s level of fighting, as he was witnessing a few people were zooming around in superhuman speeds or humans were being tossed as a piece of rag.

If not for the bloody skirmish, this kind of fighting must be thrilling.

Suddenly, the rear part of the convoy began moving disorderly. People were running at different directions, their mounts hollering in fear from the chaos, as some merchants started loosening their reins to escape quicker, or to engage into the battle with more powerful allies.

It was the former.

The attacking force’s raid was now spreading among the traders’ groups. Men and women, some wearing face covers, stroke back and forth at the merchants. Luckily, they didn’t appear to be mana users. Otherwise, this would be a complete massacre.

Felix couldn’t bear defenseless people being slaughtered like chickens. There had to be done something. If the situation were to be let to develop in this course, sooner or later, the whole traders’ convoy would be wholly slayed. More importantly, if the escorting troop of the Empire were to be annihilated, Felix’s fate wouldn’t be envious in the end either.

He had to disobey his master’s instruction.

What can I do?

Felix didn’t have live combat experience. The pitiful amount of knowledge he self-gained would be for naught when his first opponent chopped of his head off. But he had considerably more mana than others, if his assumptions were correct.

Having determined the course of action he was about to take, Felix walked cautiously to a nearby dead body of a soldier, and grabbed his sword. He didn’t go back to his previous safe place. There was another chest-high tall boulder nearer to the merchants’ location. Luckily, the rain of arrows had ended by this time. Still, being wary of catching any stray arrows, the shapeshifter took a risk to reach there by quickly walking. Upon reaching the rocky mass, the sword he had gained struck to a fragile side of the boulder with mana-fueled swing, splitting a head sized chunk. Felix then kicked it with his magic powered leg, shattering the rock piece further into hundreds of shards.

Now the handmade projectiles were ready, Felix filled his palms with the tiny missiles, and started hurling them with all his might he could master toward the ambushers attacking the merchants.

Most of the rock bullets found their marks with deadly consequences. Bones started cracking and skins were being penetrated by the stone shards, leaving bloody traces and holes. Felix kept his vigilance not to make any innocent victims on his shooting path with his crude attack style while trying his best to convince his mind that he was doing the right thing as he threw the projectiles. Hiding behind the boulder, the shapeshifter kept one eye for any sudden flying arrows, his limbs energized with mana for any possible assault to flee at a moment’s notice of danger.

Soon, three members of the enemy force lay motionless on the road, and many more were injured. This filled the shapeshifter’s heart, which was slightly hesitant about the action he was taking, with vigor. This was the sense of accomplishment. And it solidified Felix’s confidence on a new level.

The empire soldiers seemed to have dealt with their share of an enemy group. Around ten soldiers rushed to the rear at the traders’ location. A few looked back briefly at Felix with gratitude expressing gazes, some with curiosity.

The shapeshifter halted his barrage to search for his swords master.

There she was in her previous location. Being engaged in one-on-three battle, the magic warrior seemed to be struggling to breach the human barrier in front of her.

Though the fight was supernatural. The enemy side was clearly having a hard time. They were only in a defensive position; they seemed to be trying to impede Kiria’s advance. Kiria was executing lunges with sudden and mighty bursts of hits at the two men and a woman in front of her, the sound of sword clashes spreading for long distances with ear piercing clangs. However, the enemy formation proved itself unbreachable as the trio merely moved back inches away by a second, barely blocking their single opponent’s attacks with gritted teeth.

“They are after the main prisoner!” someone shouted. This forced Kiria to briefly stop her assault and look, and her opponents to strengthen their defensive position.

Indeed, three sword wielders with a few pieces of armor on them, with only their eyes visible behind their disguise, had released the sole witness of the assassination in the Kartan Town. Lina was being abducted.

“BLOCK THEIR PATHS!” Kiria yelled to the soldier who shouted, suppressed anger in her voice as if she was the only one doing the job.

No one was able to hinder the kidnappers. Every warrior was busy with their own adversaries, and the ones who were unoccupied would not be able to stop the enemy from taking their leave. Two empire soldiers got sliced in half by one of the enemy warriors the instant they tried to confront the three kidnappers.

They were magic warriors, and powerful ones at that.

Kiria intensified her battle pace, spinning in place while whirling her twin swords, which were glinting in faint pinkish hue. If the opponents were a notch less skilled, they would have turned into mincemeat from this deadly move.

“You go after them. We’ll handle these three,” Commander Kart said to Kiria as he came to her aid with another high ranked warrior, promptly diving into the fray.

The shapeshifter’s master rapidly circled around the small enemy blockage, but it was too late. The three kidnappers had already hoisted up Lina on one of the warrior’s horse’s front. The three whipped their mounts hard, making the animals start galloping onward. They took wary glanced backward as they disappeared around a veering point of the road.

Kiria was too late to even hurl one of the daggers on her hip by the time she went around the enemy group. She didn’t instantly try to find a mount to give chase after the kidnappers as she looked back at the situation developing on the rear side of the convoy. The state of the escorting troop and the merchants weren’t in immediate danger at this point. Then she directed her gaze toward Felix, a calculating expression on her stern face.

Was she worried the end of the battle would turn onto the ambushers’ favor? Did she suspect the people abducted Lina had prepared a trap ahead of the road? Or was it Felix she was concerned about?

The shapeshifter couldn’t tell since his master had already made up her mind as she began walking to the direction Lina was taken away. She changed her hold of the swords on hand; they now rested in parallel with her forearms as she wielded them reversed. And started running.

In fact, running could not depict the action the magic warrior took. She flew without detaching her feet from the earth’s surface. If she kept up this speed, catching up behind the kidnappers would be within a couple of minutes. Or even less. Her rapidly moving legs could even rival a horse’s speed, or even put one in shame, as she too vanished behind the road turn.

Having left behind with nothing to do, Felix observed the still raging battle. The enemy force was now in disadvantage. Their numbers had been dwindled short, so they were struggling to make a retreat. The empire soldiers wouldn’t just let them go freely as they pleased. The escorting troop warriors pursued the attackers. There were slicky ones who had run off the moment they sensed the tables had been turned. They too were shot down by archers, who were eliminating the escapers one after another, their long thin missiles finding the enemies’ heads and backs, sometimes legs and arms. But the persistence for living won out as the defeated ambushers scurried with arrow stuck limbs into the amidst of trees.

Still, the fight hadn’t come to its end. Felix wondered about what to do; help the soldiers to exterminate and make the prisoners multiply, or should he go after his master? Kiria had handled three opponents effortlessly before, so the kidnappers wouldn’t cause too much issue for her. But pursuing after the magic warrior to make sure her condition was not dire could help Felix boost his prestige in the eye of his master. Besides, idling around while the empire soldiers were making sweat and Kiria had gone on pursuit of the enemy wasn’t good to his future reputation as an apprentice of the wandering warrior.

Felix got into action as he left his safe hide and sought a loose mount for himself. A motley horse with white and brown blended color stood towering over a corpse of a soldier. Felix climbed on its saddle with ease as his physique was still enhanced with mana.

“Young warrior, if you wait for us to finish the bandits, we would accompany you to go after warrior Kiria,” the Commander's fellow warrior called behind Felix who was asserting the battle while shouting due commands at his subordinates.

“No need, thank you,” Felix gave him a hurried bow as he prompted the mount forward. “Master Kiria shouldn’t be in trouble, anyway,” he quickly added a suitable excuse.

Riding a horse wasn’t that challenging, now he gained control over one for the first time in his life. Sitting back behind Kiria, the shapeshifter had gathered sufficient knowledge of how to guide the prominent travel companion to the path he wanted and in which speed he needed. Still, Felix stooped his feminine body downward as the mount galloped on after his nudge. Soon, the wind around him was buzzing and the animal below him was bouncing ahead.

Felix now realized he preferred sprinting in his barghest form than resting on a galloping speedy creature. That way was faster and more comfortable.

The shapeshifter took a turn left and rode onward. After a few hundreds of meters, there was a fork of the road that produced a branch route. This area was a small mountainside, and minor hills obstructed the vision considerably. However, it was evident which direction the passers had taken as the hasty hoof tracks was leading. Felix steered the mount right and continued riding ahead. After minutes of galloping and encountering multiple turns, the shapeshifter didn’t spot any footprints of any animals or human feet; the surface of the road was flat and harder on this part of the land.

Where to go now? Should I go back?

There was a smaller path forward and one on the left led back to the hilly landscape. Apart from the route that guided Felix to where he came from, there was only a sight of a plane land, which exhibited several protruding lone trees far away on a dried plants covered grounds.

Having no choice, the shapeshifter decided to use his ability. Kiria was the only person who knew, and he was sure no one was pursuing him as the dead silence ruled the rocky zone.

Felix positioned the mount to a side of the road where huge boulders were sheltering partially. After taking off the basic clothing except the undergarment, he chose a direction toward withered shrubs expanding to the flatness. Better avoid frightening away the animal.

When his senses were sharp again, the shapeshifter finally was able to detect the scent of the familiar person. He hadn’t chosen the pathways wrongly. The presence was not too far from his location. It was ushering him to the smaller road ahead. He quickly rushed, following a track the smell was guiding. There was also a thick smell of blood of an animal floating in the air, and another one, which belonged to a human.

Felix didn’t want to take his chances. Stopping in his track for a half a minute, the shapeshifter gathered enough mana into his limbs in case the clash waiting ahead of him required his interference as well. Kiria must have dealt with the kidnappers, but better be prepared for a possible fight than being a liability to his master. He didn’t want to face the situation like in the streets with the merchant’s son when he couldn’t put to use his mana power.

Within a couple of minutes of sprinting, he came across a sight of another battle. The situation wasn’t what he had expected. A horse lay dead on the center of the road, its body covered in dust and its head distorted, the hind legs were meters away from the corpse with bloody trace. Lina was inclining to a bold tree trunk, her sitting posture was inconvenient. Her left leg’s pose was even more worrying; it was twisted in a wrong angle.

And most importantly, Felix’s master, who was barely managing to fend off the three kidnappers, now had multiplied to five, had several shallow wounds visible on her clothes; she must have taken off the winter coat for movement advantage. But it was not helping. She was defending herself with difficulty.

Felix felt his blood starting to boil with rage. The only companion he was familiar with in this strange magical world was being cornered with no mercy.

This could not be allowed.

Felix bolted toward the combatants who were exchanging blows in superhuman speeds; sometimes stopping the pace of battle, sometimes quickening in wild series of clashes. Not waiting for a right timing, the shapeshifter joined the skirmish of humans in his barghest form.

He lunged with a threatening roar on one of the furthest standing enemy warriors, making the battle participants to take huge strides back swiftly before evaluating Felix’s monster form. Felix didn’t care to their opinions and threw his bestial sharp claws at his chosen opponent’s thighs, where he could strike the fastest, while trying to encompass the other fighters within his sight. They could give him surprise attacks, and he hadn’t completely lost his human wits.

Having positioned himself in an optimal spot, the shapeshifter started wildly attacking one of the people who hurt his master. The man didn’t retaliate at first, just dodging and parrying, probably judging Felix’s might and speed. But suddenly he swung his sword at the shapeshifter’s paw, which was evaded in time due to his empowered limbs. He was still fueling his body with mana bit by bit. The training he had been self-teaching to himself was paying off. However, the swing turned out to be a feigned move since a powerful kick landed on Felix’s jaws. The blow pushed him a few meters away from his opponent, making him stumble with his two pairs of legs.

It hurt. And it made Felix even angrier.

With another roar, the shapeshifter began barraging his claws furiously at his opponent with more speed and vigor of poured adrenaline from the recent hit. Additionally, he kept close distance in order to prevent the man using his sword; he would swap away the blade in case the warrior tried a swing.

It worked. Multiple cuts began appearing on the man’s outfit, some were bloody. If the pieces of armor weren’t there protecting the human, there would be more.

But this was a mistake.

The being assaulted enemy warrior suddenly managed to execute an unexpected jab at Felix’s chest with a sudden back and forth footwork. Felix was aware of this kind of abrupt moves since he had seen how these professional magic warriors battled. Still, a deep slice appeared on his upper arm when he attempted a dodge, causing blood to start freely leak from the wound

Felix promptly retreated some distance away from his adversary, howling from the pain. He looked at his master’s situation, and took a sigh of relief. She was managing well. Clearly, she was now overpowering her opponents.

Sensing her apprentice’s gaze, Kiria glanced at the shapeshifter. Then she motioned at him to retreat further, to escape.

Felix wanted to shout that he was not weak. However, his state was saying otherwise. So he did what he was told. He ran. Fortunately, the warrior he had fought didn’t give a chase.

Quickly finding a safe spot wasn’t an issue. Burying himself among dead plants behind a tree and observing the battle from afar, Felix couldn’t still set his mind at peace. He could’ve won the fight, he was sure of it. He just lacked more mana power in his limbs. And a more powerful transformation.

I can actually win.

So Felix decided for a rematch.