The next day we arrived at the site. I had summoned both lions to see if they too could help me track down what had happened to this convoy, it was very important to keep the ties between Panthera and Anamothra strong.

“Well, this is the place,” said Ibiki, looking around. There was nothing here, no signs or smells that a convoy of any kind had been through here, just an opening in the dark woodlands.

A dark fog began rolling in, a mist of thick water vapers, which was strange for the time of day and its sudden appearance. I looked around on guard, then my eyes widened as I saw a vision appear before my eyes, an imminent attack, powerful attacks from all directions.

“Ambush!” I shouted as I created a shield around us as an onslaught of attacks came upon us, from fire-based attacks to water and lightning struck the barrier.

I felt the power and energy from the attacks clash against Larana’s wind, it was so strong. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep it up, but long enough to shout out my orders.

“We’re surrounded be careful! We need to find where they are coming from.”

“Not good,” said Ibiki. “We might be in over our head.”

“An ambush,” said Kiba.

‘Set up.’ The words entered my head; had this been a plan to take us out? We were the strongest team in all of Cathopia, but who would want to do that, the only ones who knew we were on this mission was King Alton, he wouldn’t have done this, unless…

“I’m so sorry.” I’d taken the mission from King Alton obviously fooled into sending us on a death mission by those under Dumah. This was my fault.

“Alex.” Kiba looked at me, then glanced at Lin.

My barrier shattered and everything happened in slow motion. I heard the shouts of my unit, my friends as they attempted to defend themselves from any of the attacks. Some even ran forward trying to find the ones that were attacking, but they were pushed back from the constant attacks, unable to progress any further, all we could do was defend ourselves, but for how long. We could barely see what was in front of us, let alone the enemies that were attacking us. An executed plan to take us all out.

“Raziel, Arata,” I called the lions, grabbing hold of my swords and swiping them from one side to the other sending out fire and lightning, trying to hit our attackers, but the haze seemed to just devour my attacks, almost like it was actually alive, preventing me from hitting anything.

I looked around as I witnessed my entire unit taking hit after hit, even I had been struck. Mila quickly went into healing mode, but I was unable to heal the others in the mist of this ambush. I tried to help by summoning another barrier, constructed from water and wind, but it was shattered by an unexpected attack of powerful dark energy. I felt that it didn’t just destroy my barrier but drained me of half of my energy too, what was that?

At first it was just an onslaught of elemental attacks, then something that moved quickly within the darkened haze began to attack with pure dark energy, I’d never seen anything like it. We needed to get out of here now. “Ibiki!!” I shouted his name as he was hit by one of the dark energy attacks and I watched as the life faded from his eyes, collapsing to the ground. “Ibiki!!”

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The lions both took on quite a few hits for me and fired out attacks into the darkened forest. I heard someone let out a cry and the attacks lessened a little. I felt a twinge of victory, but it didn’t last long as I realised, I needed to somehow get my remaining team out of here.

“Everyone back up, we need to get out of here,” I let out an order and summoned my strongest water barrier, but just like with the previous one, a dark energy broke through it again and lessened my power even more.

“Fang!” Rex suddenly jumped in the way of an attack that came from the left.

“Rex!” I cried as he fell to the ground.

“You must survive…” Rex’s last words as his life faded. What was this dark energy, so powerful to strip anyone of life.

Finn stunned by Rex going down, that he jumped forward, enraged by this attack, but left himself open to the same attack, and he fell not too far from where Rex lay.

“Lin!” I heard Kiba as he jumped in the way of one of those dark attacks, just like Rex had done for me. He stood there panting, glancing back at Lin.

“Kiba.” She winced ducking down for cover, avoiding an attack. She quickly summoned daggers, throwing them into the forest, summoning large explosions. I caught a glimpse of the enemy’s shadow, one collapsed to the ground, she’d hit them.

The fastest shadow moved, it was in the form a Draco, it was him. He fired off multiple attacks at once, sprayed out over the area. Edge had no chance to defend himself, the attack breaking apart a flaming wall he had summoned. Kiba jumped to protect Lin, being struck three times, light fading from his eyes as he collapsed over her.

Before I knew it, I was the last one standing, Mila was an amazing healer, healing most of the wounds as fast as they could be inflicted.

“Master,” said Mila “We’re in trouble.”

“I noticed,” I felt anger building up within me, my unit had been taken out before my very eyes. I was only still standing because of the power that my talismans held. “You won’t get away with this!”

Another dark attack came at me, both Raziel and Arata jumped in the way taking the hit and most of the damage, but it still took my breath away as I stumbled forward as it drained more of my strength.

The lions disappeared all their strength used up in defending me. A black figure jumped out from the trees and attacked me directly. I defended against a flaming sword, as our swords came into contact, I picked up a familiar scent along with six others. I knew who it was attacking me – Dumah and his unit.

While my attention was on Dumah, I was struck in the back by five different elemental attacks. I was pushed forward, almost unable to recover. Dumah took the chance to stab me in my right side with his flaming blade. I let out a welp, but quickly gritted my teeth.

I grabbed hold of his blade, but I was too weak now to even pull it out. My eyes widened as he pulled the blade out from the right.

“Goodbye Fang,” I heard him snarl as he moved away from me to the left.

I saw a pair of red eyes looking at me, it was the one with the scent I did not recognise but I knew it was the Draco. Two large wings opened, and I knew that the dark energy had been coming from him. His mouth opened, gathering all the dark power around him.

I couldn’t go down here, I needed to keep my promise to Tigra. I raised my hand summoning a combined barrier from my remaining strength, combining together the power from all my talismans.

I had put all my strength forward against that attack I had forgotten to defend from behind me, where I was struck again. I stumbled forward but stood strong as I readied myself to defend against the only attack that scared me.

The concentrated ball of dark energy broke through my barrier and hit me. It took my breath away. I fell to the ground barely conscious. I’d taken so much damage I could barely breathe. I blacked out hearing the sound of laughter.

“Tigra, I’m sorry.”