453 Stormheart's Ways
[“Sapphire Whelp”]
Manifesting in front of him was a beast of two wings, covered in gem-like, blue scales. It resembled a dragon, only small enough to perch itself on its shoulder.
ραпdαn૦νel
‘A dragon whelp?! This thing won’t be of much help in a fight, though!’ He thought.
There was no time to figure out the capabilities of the young dragon as he was faced with another rush by the supersonic hornets.
From every direction, they dashed in, forcing him to maneuver swiftly as he avoided their lethal stingers. As he flipped around, catching himself on one hand, he used his other to unleash a potent blast of wind: “Concoction of Storms.”
The shockwave of wind rippled through the ground, digging up the soil and ripping through the plant life before blasting a group of the hornets back. It was a shock wave powerful enough to rupture the organs of large predators, yet it only seemed to stun the monstrous insects.
‘These things are scary, but I can handle them. The problem is…if Celly or Everett encounter something like this, can they make it?’ He questioned worriedly.
“Hey, err, dragon, can you do anything?” Emilio asked the azure-scaled whelp perched on his shoulder.
In response, the small whelp let out a small roar before a stream of bright-blue fire breathed out from its parted jaws, managing to burn a few of the speeding hornets in their tracks.
“Oh! Nice one!” Emilio called out.
Fighting in the same style as the tiny dragon that rested upon his shoulder, he pointed his hand to the left just as a trio of the supersonic insects thrusted their stingers towards him, creating an elemental beast: “Flame Kuma!”
A massive bear made out of flames manifested, roaring out with heat as it swept its paws, leaving enormous swipes of crimson fire that cleaved through the hornets.
SWOOSH
“–!”
Though he kept an eye on the surrounding insects, he was surprised to find the stingers launching straight towards him–without the main bodies themselves.
‘They can shoot them?’ He realized.
With a simple snap of his fingers, he conjured a circular barrier of elastic water, catching the projectiles as they were unable to pierce through the formless element. Witnessing just how troublesome the hornets truly were, he felt impatient–knowing that every moment he spent fighting the insects, the higher the chances of his friends being hurt were.
‘–I’m ending this,’ he decided.
Holding his sword sideways, he ran his fingertips along the blade itself, pulling down as if drawing an arrow across its flat side. He manifested a string of fire, and with it, a dozen blazing arrows that were drawn back, with his sword acting as the catalyst.
“Hellfire Blitz.”
As he released the fiery string, the dozen arrows all launched with supreme speed, changing their direction on the fly in accordance to the movement of the supersonic hornets. The whelp on his shoulder watched as the blazing projectiles chased the hornets, passing through small gaps between uprooted stems and dancing through flower petals.
Each arrow that struck their target exploded into a glorious mass of flames, eradicating the monstrous hornets on the spot.
“Phew,” he slowly breathed out, relinquishing the flaming string along his sword.
“Raa!”
He was taken by surprise after finishing off the swarm of hornets as his cheek was nuzzled by the dragon whelp on his shoulder.
“Hey–” He said, though let it happen, petting the whelp, “What do I even call you? Hmm…How about Ciel?”
“Ra!” The whelp rescinded, sounding happy.
“Alright, Ciel it is,” Emilio said with a smile, “Let’s go find the others–”
Before he could even begin setting out to find others, an unmistakable flash of magenta lightning fluttered through the skies above, rumbling the air. A lightning bolt struck down in the distance.
‘Sirius,’ he thought, finding a tangible lead to follow.
–
[The shores of the island]
Whistling as he walked along the sandy outskirts of the colossal island, the purple-eyed man scoped out the area, kicking a few shells he found along the way.
‘Hmmm…I can vaguely sense Emilio’s mana. It’s hard to sense anything on this island, though. Let’s see–why don’t I try flying there?’ Sirius thought.
Crouching down, the man leapt up, flying upward as he thought to search the island the easy way before–THWOOM.
“–!”
Straight back down into the sand, he landed, never able to conjure his flight abilities in the first place, leaving him surprised.
‘That’s odd…I couldn’t fly at all. I’m pretty sure I could when I first fell in, what gives? This place sure is weird,’ he thought.
Though for the confident man, he wasn’t worried at all, seeming more so excited about the foreign, unknown situation he found himself in as he brushed the sand off of his uniform.
RUMBLE
“Oh?” Sirius let out curiously, keeping his hands in his pocket with a smile.
The sand around him vibrated, swishing around as it began parting in the area in front of him. Something rose from the sea of sand, erupting from its buried spot–it was extraordinarily large, using its limbs to toss the burial of sediment around it aside.
What unearthed itself from the shore was a crustacean that dwarfed the man by a few dozen times, possessing one enormous claw that snapped, clad in a bright blue-and-yellow exoskeleton.
“A crab? You’re pretty big,” Sirius remarked, still holding a smile.
The colossal crustacean made clicking sounds as it continued snapping its claws as if threatening the human before finally launching straight towards him.
Sirius raised a single hand before snapping his fingers, “See ya.”
Lightning touched down from the skies above, striking down the enormous crab with impunity. It crashed down like a hammer upon a forge, causing sand to be thrown in waves like an unruly sea.
The summoning of the grand element was heard across the entire island–both by its natural inhabitants and those who ventured into it.