After a couple minutes, Zephyr himself quietly awakened and groaned as he ascertained his wounded body. After seething in pain, he looked at the destroyed scenery.
All that appeared in front of his view was the slow golem that seemed to be mending its shattered arm. It was submerged into the ground but was glowing a dangerous orange and looked ready to get back up and destroy the bug that injured it.
It was an intense moment as silence ensued between the recuperating Zephyr and the Golem. After a few minutes, the wounds Zephyr had were healed enough for movement and thinking back to how he acquired the kitty, he tried approaching the golem. Suddenly after one step-
"AHHHH!!!!"
the entire area near him caved in and fell down the already battered, steep cliff with nothing around him.
While Zephyr was falling and crying for dear life, the Duke was also stressing along with the bodyguard. Both kids had disappeared for about two months.
The Duke looked aged and weary, not to mention the death stares he would be receiving every other second from the man beside him.
The only time he'd been able to get him to talk was when asking for his name, Krosé. Aside from that it had been constant silence aside from the occasional beast they'd chase away. Just like that, they continued there, silently waiting.
After falling for a while Zephyr landed hard on a smooth stone surface, causing him to grimace in pain and inhale a breath of cold air. When he got up he noticed the walls there were massive and everything was a coral blue and water seemed everywhere in the distance, as if a gigantic bubble enveloped everything.
He heard a noise and hurriedly turned around and raised his guard, although still fatigued from earlier. There he saw another young boy making a dash back to the wide square which made Zephyr flinch in fear.
No, it was not because of the boy, but the horde of monsters following behind him at a rapid pace with abysmal roars constantly which would make even the toughest of men's knees weak.
Even Zephyr felt like it was over when the boy made it to his area, the only reason Zephyr didn't flee was because he wasn't able to, there was only one path and that path was where the boy came from!
Confusingly however, while the boy landed on the ground and started panting for dear life, the monsters stopped chasing any further.
All they did was start roaring for a few minutes and reluctantly back off, all the while the pair were closely monitored with glaring eyes of multiple predators.
"Uhhh, are you the boy who came with a bear like man, my names Zephyr?" Zephyr cautiously asked.
"You met, huff, Krosé and are, huff, still alive!? Tha- surprising." The boy gave a breathless answer and resumed his panting.
"Anyways whats your name, and what's going on with the monsters chasing you!" Zephyr still had a fear of massive monsters after experiencing combat with the golem.
"My names Avare Draco Feldora Griffith, Draco for short. I assume you made it past your predicament and ended here after being transported?" Draco questioned.
"Sure" Zephyr wiped the sweat off his face and nodded.
"What's wrong, didn't happen to you?" Draco finally caught his breath and was able to speak better.
Thus Zephyr explained how he fell down a cliff after being one shot by a massive Golem and ended here.
"Sigh, I don't know if your lucky or unlucky. My master scouted this information out and sent Krosé and me here to succeed in the Spirit World's tests and attain a reward." Draco explained
"What's that have to do with this? Zephyr asked.
"Fool listen. We've both probably had a crazy trial so I think we have proved ourselves, plus with what you just saw, I believe we are near the end of the trials. Unfortunately you just saw what happened, there's a massive amount of strong monsters there with their average levels being around stage seven Disciple rank.
Obviously I couldn't take a hit and had to run but they spotted me and hunted me down untill here." Draco explained slowly.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Why'd they stop?
"That's because I assume this is a safe zone, or an aura the monsters fear is potent in this place, anyways I learned that after suffering this experiment on a lesser scale five times before this. If your any good this may be our chance" Draco got excited and his fangs showed up.
Once Zephyr examined him closer, he saw some differences. Draco had fangs and horns just like Krosé, but there were blue markings on Draco's temple. His hair was black and scraggily, covering up his forehead.
His pupils had a dark red sheen to them and looked quite beastlike. The blue markings were vivid among his disheveled appearance.
"I think I'm pretty strong, why? You got a plan?" Zephyr asked.
"Nothing much, just lighten the load on each other and try to break through, lets make it fair this way, whoever makes it past their defense can keep running while the other remains here." Draco summed up.
"Then how will we leave this world if we stay put? Zephyr kept squawking.
"Naturally once this trial is complete the world will force us out, I think. " Draco looked away at the end.
"I got a better idea, just give me a couple hours, I promise its much better for the both of us." Zephyr smiled evilly and looked towards the monsters.
"What is it?". Draco looked open to suggestions.
"Slaughter them all!" Zephyr leered towards the camped monsters with great thirst for battle. After that fight with the golem, he finally was able to trigger another breakthrough and summon his armor at will along with the seal of rejuvenation. Though his seal of gravity was still getting there.
After the fight with the golem, Zephyr was able to make inferences about his power level.
He could probably take anyone within four stages of him until stage four disciple but the blessed and talented ones maybe until stage two disciple.
With his armor equipped, he did not need to worry about any damages all the way until a high stage disciple, thus these monsters should show some, but not too much difficulty due to his incredibly high defense.
Thus he quietly sat at the middle of the safe zone and sped up his seal of rejuvenation to get back in peak condition while Draco also sat down and recuperated.
When they each thought they were back at peal condition, the pair stood up and looked at the howling monsters prowling around the area listlessly. Without further ado and no words between them, Zephyr immediately left the barrier and charged forth.
Draco's mouth was wide open as he saw the boy who was the same height as him, charge towards twenty- 6 meter tall monsters full of bravery, and he wasn't even from the beast tribes!
Draco gritted his teeth and transformed, gaining small, scaly wings and claws and also dashed forth to help Zephyr. What he noticed however was quite different than what he expected, he thought it would take a hit to make him realize a solid plan was needed but what he saw shocked him.
"To me, Shiede phantom!" Zephyr raised his hand to the sky as violet light shined everywhere from his summoned black book, blinding everything in a five meter radius. There in Draco's sight, was a smoky looking lizard on the armored Zephyr's shoulder.
"Hmm two blessings, very nice, we might be able to outsmart these monsters." Draco nodded at this revelation, but Zephyr wasn't done yet.
"Possession!" There Shiede enveloped Zephyr in another orb of purple light and a new transformation occurred.
There in front of the monsters was a demonic looking small figure in sleek shiny black armor with black ice all around him, a stark contrast from his bulky looking original black armor. There were two curved black horns growing from the side of his helmet that turned backwards and were long and intimidating as frost emerged from his body.
With a roar, shards of ice formed and flew straight at a couple monsters and impaled them directly into other monsters, it slowed them down and brought great pain but wasn't lethal whatsoever.
A scaly Kaluga, a fish looking beast came rushing at Zephyr before a black Barrier enveloped it and caused it to be crushed within itself.
After doing that to three more monsters while able to freeze two more all at once, the rest of the beasts finally made contact with him and started crashing into him, biting at him, swatting him and doing whatever to gobble him up.
However, no matter what they did they could not grab onto him, as if he was too slippery and would glide around anything. Just like that Zephyr would summon a spiky shield, a bow and arrow, use the bloody palms technique and constantly use snowstorms. These techniques would wound the monsters and some damage was being done to both sides.
After a full two hours of constant combat, Zephyr finally retreated and stepped back into the zone to rest. He expended too much energy so his devouring and his seal couldn't keep up any longer so he took a much needed time to recover.
Now with the ability to open the black book he saw on the first page a lot of items disappeared but even more came into existence. What he had lost was Shiede, the barrier and a couple others from the bandits he fought a while back. However new additions were made.
Life:( Raven's) thunder phantom x5 , (Vladimir's) air compression phantom x4,(Golem's) rock hardening phantom x2. (Siegmund's) Ifrit flashfire phantom x2, (Siegmund's) thunderstorm phantom x2.
Death: Mountain Lion's fire fangs, steel Sunspider's thread, Green Kong's frenzy, Abyssal Wolf's Roar, Frost Ogre's ice smash.
All these additions plus the Shiede transformation made Zephyr curious about the potential the book had, clearly he could copy it if he saw the summoning as it was recorded by the book.
Another bonus was that if they died and he was witness to it, he kept the ability forever as it now became the book who retains ownership instead of returning to the spirit world. Plus the rank they were seen in had something to do with the amount of uses.
Zephyr hypothesized that since Raven was a bit weaker, the average usage rate was five, Vlad at the time was a bit stronger so it was four. Then since the golem was so strong it was at best two the times he could repeat it. Zephyr held the book in his shaking hands with palpable excitement. Such astounding power and potential the book held!