Zectas Volume V: The Sequestered Seminary of Sawtorn Read Free

don't worry. I can defend you myself now," answered Esper, flexing her muscles. "We may have worthless fathers, but they did give us sturdy bodies.... If only I was stronger back then. Maybe, Souer would still be alive today."

Smoke caught Colere give Esper a sorrowful look, but quickly tried to change the subject.

"We, OrkElves are still significantly weak when we're still below ten years old, but beyond that age... Well, let's just say that we're survivors," explained the burly Colere.

"Hm. I don't think I'm really good at close combat," said Smoke somberly as he recalled how Sharur and Laernea died in front of him when he fought against Ultimo.

"But I plan to change that soon," he said strongly with conviction.

Suddenly, he saw the source of the sweet fragrance of the land. A forest filled with pomegranate trees greeted them as soon as they stepped outside the city gates.

As they entered the trees, Smoke got interested in the several low level monsters feeding on its fruits. There were a few stone deer munching on the fallen pomegranates, these monsters were well known to him as they gave delicious meat.

However, there were a few that he had never seen before.

He spotted a very large squirrel, about the size of a small house-cat, which was suddenly attacked by a large black raven. The raven's claws grabbed the squirrel's bushy tail and carried it off its branch, revealing the squirrel's name and life bar, spittle squirrel (3,500/4,000 HP).

Smoke thought the spittle squirrel was a goner until it used its saliva as a projectile, and attacked the bird's eye. Thus, revealing the bird's details, rancid raven (6,200/7,000 HP). The spittle squirrel spat out four more times, and the rancid raven was forced to let go of its tail.

"That little guy looks really tough," pointed out Smoke as he directed their attention to the escaping spittle squirrel.

"Yeah, you better not mess with them, Faux," warned Colere. "They usually have families of up to ten, and their spit attacks have a bit of poison in them."

Smoke was not deterred by the poison. He salivated as he wondered what their meat would taste like, but he could not hunt them now. His disguise as an Earth Elementalist greatly limited his abilities.

They passed by the pomegranate forest unhindered by these low level beasts. Smoke surmised that he could probably kill them with one shot if they did try to make a move on them, but none of the spittle squirrels ever did.

After two hours of trekking passed, they exited the forest of pomegranates and reached the plains of Geparden. Smoke's Cunning of the Dire Fox instantly sensed four larger monsters approaching them fast.

Melding Igniz's mana from within his symbiote's concealed chamber, Smoke used his Telefax Vision to see the fast approaching sand cheetahs.

Smoke quickly took out his Digger's Wand and created a wide trench in front of them, of about eight meters wide and fifteen meters deep. Due to his extensive Earth Manipulation training, the effects of his wand had greatly improve as well.

However, the sand cheetahs only picked up their pace. The agile monsters were unperturbed by his actions, and careened towards them even faster.

With one strong pounce, the sand cheetahs leapt across Smoke's trench.

Quickly judging the monsters' distance, Smoke knew they could cross the gap. He pointed his left palm on the edge of the trench near him, and a wall suddenly sprang out from the ground.

THUD THUD THUD THUD

All of the sand cheetahs fell inside his freshly made trap. He lowered the earth wall, revealing the bewildered monsters inside.

They were desperately jumping to escape his trap, but only their heads could come out. The sand cheetahs even resorted to climbing on top of each other, but these monsters were not great at balancing, and toppled on top of one another.

The monsters life bars appeared. All of them had 80,000 HP.

With the monsters captured, he turned to face his OrkElf guides.