33 Risen#re

"LET THERE BE FIRE!"

Lirians words echoed falling onto the ears of everyone.

Soon the first wave of mages came forward, forming spells of fire, and releasing long streams of fire, over fifty mages came in the first wave concentrating all their flames onto the trees.

As the first wave of mages stopped their attack a second wave came not letting the flames die down, and a third wave took their place.

Just as the third wave of flames came crashing down, the mages from the first exploration group arrived.

Although they were unwilling, when they saw the disadvantage the mammoth was at they happily began firing streams of fire at the beast, that caused them to flee with their tails between their legs.

They had a ton of pent up anger that they wanted to unleash especially due all the deaths that it caused, there were many of them that lost their close friends to the beasts attacks, and although rare there were some that lost family members to its wild and fierce attacks.

They rushed forward and cast their spells, making fire fall like rain onto the fiercely howling mammoth, its pain only seemed to egg them on, filling them with the desire to cause it more harm.

From above Karen and Lirian stood, one could only feel the intense heat licking his skin, and the other looked down in fear.

"That's so much fire," Karren muttered weakly, as nothing but red flames and smoke filled her vision, she couldn't even make out the silhouette of the gigantic mammoth through the flames.

The only thing that reminded her that there was something alive beneath all those flames was the pained howls of the beast.

As Karen watched from afar, the heat of the flames made her break out into a sweat, and her long hair, was being lifted, by the wind that that the intense heat was creating.

Suddenly a torrent of wind formed try to fight against the growing flames, but unfortunately for the mammoth its attempts to protect itself only fuelled the flames, making them grow even more intense.

"ROOOAAAARRR!", it howled furiously, even for a creature of its grade, the flames were to much for its body to bear and the wood began to splinter and crack, raining down red hot embers onto its fur.

The mammoth was covered in a thick coat of fur and the intense flames quickly grasped onto it holding it tightly and wrapping around the beast's entire body.

The mammoth roared again and opened its mouth wide, at the centre of its mouth that small devastating sphere appeared once more and began to suck in the flames and tree in front of it.

The fires were being pulled against their natural flow but only the trees that were close to its mouth were pulled and just barely at that, after all the tree themselves weighed several tons.

The suction seemed to work but only for a short while, because while the flames in front of it were devoured the flames that wrapped around its body and everything behind its head was almost completely unaffected.

As Karen watched the scene from above she couldn't help but cry out in relief, as it looked like the beast had no way of aiming that spell anywhere other than in front of it, meaning that the trees continued to weigh it down and burn against it.

"At this rate we won't have to do much more to take it down," she laughed with relief.

Lirian however chuckled, "Don't be dumb now," he chided her, "The only reason the trees can hold it down is because of the ropes and sooner or later the ropes will completely burn away, at that point it will be free, at most this has gotten rid of that annoying coat of fur," Lirian explained, he knew the power of every rank perfectly, there was no way that this little amount of flames was enough to give it anything more than some moderate injuries.

"Once the fur is gone we'll have a much easier time piercing its flesh," he explained to her.

Lirian had set up this entire trap to take down the biggest hindrance on the mammoth and that was it's fur, mammoths were creatures that usually had very thick and hairy bodies, and from the watches message that was the only thing he characteristic he could figure out, as for its abilities he was completely in the dark.

After all it wasn't like any race was restricted to having only one element, for a mammoth in Lirian's experience he would say that earth and water elementals were the most frequent he came across in his travels.

So he focused on the one thing he knew would work against it in an ambush, that was to burn of its fur, and lower its natural protection, so that physical attacks could be used to ruin it.

As Lirian focused on the students below, he noticed that most of the mages stopped, they were exhausted, after all they were the main force for this strike, and many of them seemed to think that the battle was already over as they began to cheer loudly.

Many of them were even shouting about how easily they took down the beast and were shouting insults at it through the flames.

"Mages fall back, I want all of you to rest for the next half an hour then I want you to stand a hundred yards away from the beast and prepare a set of long range spells," Lirian quickly ordered, ending the little celebration.

Lirian knew that within an hour at most the beast would free itself, so they had to use that time wisely.

Many of the students seemed to think that the battle was already over, but at Lirian's words the student from the first exploration group were ready to complain, but then they noticed that everyone from the main base obeyed Lirian without complaint.

The reason was simple by now they had seen just how meticulous Lirian was, they knew that he wouldn't be making them act unless it was necessary.

"Warriors and psychics it will be your turn during the third attack phase, but be sure to attack only when I order and not a second sooner, especially the archers!" Lirian said pointing to the group of archers in the crowd.

Due to the beasts abilities Lirian had to alter the attacking plan, that repulsion ability of its with the wind was a bigger problem than its devouring law in his opinion, but he had noticed that the beast had an insatiable appetite when it came to spells, it always tried to devour them.

Lirian figured that most of its devouring law was focused on breaking down energy to replenish its own, and for such a big thing to move around it needed tons of energy.

If Lirian had to guess on this little abandoned world, this mammoth was probably the biggest predator, after all it had a law, that could give near infinite stamina as long as it consumed something it would be inexhaustible, it could even consume the earth to recover its energy.

"Karen there is a bag tied to the tree where you climbed up, open it up and bring me the two grapples from inside," Lirian said not shifting his focus from the mammoth for a second.

Karen spotted the bag after a few seconds, she was surprised that she hadn't noticed it at first, but for the first time she realised the uses of the camo uniforms, because the bag was made the same colour, and it blended in perfectly against the tree.

Had she not been told it was there she doubted if she would have noticed it, she opened the bag and extracted the two grappling hooks that came from the mountain climbing gear and gave it to Lirian, who quickly wrapped the long ropes around his arms with the grappling hooks held firmly in his hands.

She couldn't understand what he was planning to do but she had a feeling that it wasn't a good idea, at least not for anyone normal, and from that excited glint on his face she doubted that anyone could talk him out of whatever he was planning.

The class of 5-A had a special motto when it came to Lirian, 'If you see him grin, pray that he isn't grinning at you.', from the way he was grinning at the beast she could only feel sorry for it, at that moment the silver energy around Lirian stopped gathering and instead it began to thicken brilliantly.

The warriors and psychic's began to gather up as the burning logs began to move again, they were still burning wildly, but they could see the silhouette of the mammoth slowly moving through the fire and ashes.

It released a deafening roar of anger, as it dash forward, there were still traces of burning hair on its body, making it look like a living ball of fire headed in the direction of the mages that were facing it with slightly panicking faces.