In front of Raluth’s mouth, Draiky and Oaky were facing him, waiting for further orders.
Then, sensing something, Draiky signalled to Oaky, and they both stuck their hands on the soil.
A deep hole appeared that sucked them in, and under Taisetsuna, her group, each Teacher, and student, a hole appeared as well, which took them to a few meters underground.
Taisetsuna looked around and saw a few vines bound to form two small hands with four tiny fingers.
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The hands signalled her to wait, and she frowned as she said, “What is the matter, Draiky? Is that you, right?”
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Both hands gave her a thumbs up and signalled for her to wait again. The others inside the holes received the same signals, and they all wondered what was going on.
Then, the inside of Raluth’s mouth, which was again pointing at the City, started to shine, and after a few seconds, a powerful blast of Magic came, which travelled two meters above the ground, destroying and killing everything in its passage.
Everyone and everything that had that height was vaporized. A few Bovine-kind, Taisetsuna’s Tornado Wall, and the City ahead.
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Inside their hole, they all saw the bright gush of pure Magic, and while munching a new chewing gum because the previous one had lost its flavour and side-effects that granted her the ability to resist Raluth’s control, Taisetsuna mumbled, “How the heck will we stop him? If it wasn’t for Draiky, I would be dead! I hope the others are alright!”
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As soon as the blast ended, and as if to answer her doubts, the vines raised her to the surface, and the hole closed on itself.
She looked around and saw all her friends emerging from similar holes, and she shouted, “Let’s do this, everyone! Stop them while I go have a word with Raluth and teach him not to try this joke again! Hinen! Make a wall like I did, or at least the strongest and biggest you can manage! I will be right back!”
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Before Hinen could argue, Taisetsuna jumped, and her Wind Magic pushed her forward, straight at Raluth’s mouth, with her screaming in anger all the way.
As she was approaching, she saw Draiky and Oaky creating vines around Raluth’s mouth, trying to close it.
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She landed and slid on the floor with both hands and feet, and shouted, “Move out of my way!”
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As they were running to one side, she stopped in front of the big mouth, and gathered so much Magic, that her bright light called the attention of all the Dragons, who stared at her in amazement.
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Hinotsume called for them all to continue the attack, as he said to Nozomu, “Climb to my back. She is going to do something crazy, judging by the absurd amount of Magic she is gathering. Take that chance and go in. Good luck, Nozomu, and may the Gods have pity on your soul and grant you peace in the afterlife. It was an honour to meet you and to fight at your side.”
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“It was an honour as well, Hinotsume. Protect Taisetsuna and the others on my behalf, and may you have a long and happy life.”
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Hinotsume took off, and when he looked down, he saw Taisetsuna with both arms raised and a huge Fire Ball almost touching her fingers. The ball was so huge that it was almost the same size as Raluth’s mouth, and it kept on growing.
Then, she increased the power in that ball, and it turned bright red as if it contained all her anger towards the menace that she was facing.
When Hinotsume was going down to land next to her, she shot the Fire Ball straight at Raluth’s mouth, and it went in, vaporizing every tooth and flesh it touched.
A massive scream came from Raluth, which filled the air and made Taisetsuna jump inside another hole that Draiky quickly made for her.
The Dragons and everyone around tried to cover their ears with their hands and paws, trying to protect themselves from the massive sound. Some eardrums were pierced, blood came out of their ears, many stopped hearing, and they all continued the attack while Raluth was still screaming.
Near the trench, the scream made Hinen and the others lose control of their Magic, and the horde of people broke free, running straight at Raluth again, as fast as they could, because Raluth increased his control in an attempt to have his food give him the energy to heal from the wounds the Dragons were making and from Taisetsuna’s attack.
Nozomu jumped from Hinotsume’s, and he took off the moment Draiky was raising the gasping-for-air angry Cat-kind girl, and the moment her feet touched the soil, she started to gather her Magic again.
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He shouted, and she frowned at him while still gathering Magic, “Point that to the crowd that is coming! It is my turn now! Hinotsume said that when Raluth eats, he will be stronger! Many people and animals were already eaten, even with Draiky and Oaky trying to stop them! Don’t let more people come in! Oaky, give me a branch to make a torch!”
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To his surprise, the immense muscular tree took one arm off and gave it to him, and he showed it to Taisetsuna, who used her Fire Magic to light it.
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She asked while facing the running crowd, “You are going to sacrifice yourself, aren’t you?”
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“I don’t want to, but do you see any other option? You were lucky moments ago, but the next blast that Raluth shoots might kill you and all our friends. Many Dragons have already died, and he keeps on healing his wounds. I am going to make sure he doesn’t heal. I will try to come back to you, but I can’t promise that.”
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Taisetsuna nodded and faced the crowd, her hands shining with Magic. “I will stop them all. You do your thing, and you come back to me, or I am going to kill you!”
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Nozomu smiled and gave her a quick kiss on her lips. “You are completely nuts, but that also makes you amazing. Goodbye, Taisetsuna, and be happy. Continue on living, or I swear I will haunt you every night!”
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He ran to Raluth’s mouth with the torch illuminating while singing ‘Adventurer’s Last Stand’, the song he learned with Muse Sirel. “Adventurers for miles. One behind you, one near you. Monsters ahead. Grab your sword. Prepare your soul. Avenge the dead piles…”
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Taisetsuna glanced back with teary eyes that she quickly wiped and then faced the running crowd again. It was immense, and it would be impossible to stop them all, but she would at least try, and she sang along with Nozomu, as his voice was fading as he was going deeper and deeper.
Inside Raluth, Nozomu was looking around at the damage Taisetsuna’s attack had caused.
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The teeth disappeared, and there was burned flesh all around, and the smell of roasted meat invaded his nostrils, making him mumble as he kept on running inside the gigantic body. “She really hurt him, and I don’t see him shooting anything so soon with all these wounds. I guess all her training was useful. So, where is your heart, your brain, or your stomach, you big nasty worm? I have a present for you that will definitely give you indigestion!”
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Outside, near the trench, the others were doing their best to stop as many people as they could, but with hundreds upon hundreds of people trying to break through, many were able, and more and more were approaching Taisetsuna, Draiky, and Oaky, who were the last barrier before Raluth’s mouth.
A few had already gone in while Taisetsuna was gathering her Magic, with only Oaky and Draiky stopping a few while Nozomu was inside Raluth, running straight ahead as fast as he could, looking for something that looked like a vital organ.
The sound of people talking as if they were praying alerted him that some were behind him, and he ran faster, stopping bothering about his surroundings and only worrying about going as deep as he could, aiming at Raluth’s centre.
After a long time and many circles while going down, he lost track of how much time had passed since he entered.
Nozomu realized that Raluth’s body was an enormous spiral that went deep underground, with no end in sight or any kind of change in the fleshy walls around him.
Then, after another curve, there was an abrupt descent, and he stopped. He carefully approached the edge and looked down, wondering what was inside all that darkness in the distance. He then took a few small branches from the torch and, after lighting them up, he threw one after the other, watching as they fell, illuminating the walls around.
Then, as the lit branches were almost hitting something shining, and that looked like water, he saw it and it also explained why the stench of flesh was so strong.
There were people, animals and Monsters down there, in all that water.
The sound of voices was approaching, and Nozomu quickly took his sword. A few slashes on the nearby flesh made an opening for him to go in, and he used his sword inside to make it large and deep enough. He threw the torch to the water where people were being digested, and he went to the opening he made and used daggers to stitch the gap behind him, uniting the flesh, so that the ones that were going inside couldn’t get to him.
He stood silent and still, waiting. But he quickly realized he didn’t need to worry, because not only did the darkness work in his favour, but also because Raluth was more focused on eating than a small wound inside his massive body.
Nozomu dropped his sword and put both hands against Raluth’s flesh. He closed his eyes and thought about Hinotsume and Mizukonta like they told him to do while they were fighting Raluth outside.
The ‘Dragons Vow’ activated and granted him access to the Dragons Magic. His hands shone with Magic, the hole where he was hiding illuminated, and he grimaced at the sight of the bloody flesh around him.
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In seconds, Nozomu saw himself surrounded with light, and as he sensed that the Dragon’s Magic was reaching its limit, he mumbled, “Now, you ugly worm, what about if you gave me your Magic as well? Let’s see if you like to get your Magic used against you.”
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For minutes, Nozomu absorbed more and more Magic, and the massive Raluth felt that something was wrong. He was feeling his Magic vanishing, the healing stopped, and there were huge chunks of flesh and scales falling from each of the Dragon’s Magical attacks, with him unable to understand what was happening and why he was in so much pain.
He kept on screaming and began moving his body, trying to get away from the pain, but the only thing he did, was to increase the ground tremors, because his entire body was so deep underground that he wasn’t able to get free.
For thousands of years, he kept on slowly growing, even during his sleep, and as he grew, his body circled deeper and wider at each passing century.
He never worried about not being able to move, because his food came to him whenever he woke up, but now, the food was not arriving, some beings seemed to resist his control and were stopping his food from coming, Dragons were all around him, hurting him, and there was a strange itch inside of him that he couldn’t scratch but was bothering him.
All that was happening at the same time that his Magic was decreasing at a scary rate without him using it, or being able to stop it. It was as if he was shooting his Magical Blasts non-stop, but the problem was, he wasn’t shooting any. And for the first time in all the millennia since he arrived at that planet when the asteroid with him inside crashed, he felt fear.
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Raluth lost control of the people on the ground, and they all stopped, looking at the gigantic body with vines closing the mouth with two pet plants making even more vines, and a glowing Cat-kind girl in their way, screaming at them while shooting Wind Magic to push them back, “You will not go in! Even if I have to kill you all! You shall not pass! None of you!”
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* Story available as an ebook in the Smashwords website, in smashwords.com/books/view/1138702 *37Please respect copyright.PENANAjDyWK6USV2