Will of a Prince

Gabriel surged forward, trying to be the first one to attack the beast. Emma distanced herself and kept her arms pointed at the monster of Peter. Right as they were within a hundred feet of each other, the monster seemed to shoot its limbs forward, trying to decapitate Gabriel before he could close the distance. However, Emma’s hair glowed as she activated her power, completely stopping the wood from growing any longer. The beast expected this and swung its extended arms at Gabriel.

"You’re going to wish you never messed with the Katra Clan, bastard."

Gabriel ducked under the attack with ease and jumped towards Peter with malice. Dozens of wooden spikes shot out from the creature’s chest, trying to defend itself from the incoming attack. However, Garbriel was ready for this. Right before he was pierced through the body, he shrunk himself down to the size of a bug, his armor shrinking with him. He flew in between the roots of the creature and invaded its inner organs. Gabriel went on a massacre inside its body, destroying everything in sight with his condensed power.

When Peter tried closing the roots to squash him inside, Gabriel grew to a gargantuan size, causing the entire left side of the creature to explode into wooden shards. Even after growing, Gabriel never let up on his attacks. He was continuously shrinking and growing himself, allowing him to dodge any attack that came his way with ease. Everyone looked at the fight with awe, especially Lidia.

"Since when did he have such a high mastery of his power? Who knew that it could have such devastating potential."

"Maybe the power isn’t that bad after all..."

Even with its body exploding in half, it almost immediately regenerated. This never stopped Gabriel for a moment. Even as he was running out of energy, he continued shrinking between the roots, punch the creature in the face, and exploding its body parts outward.

’Buy time. I need to buy more time.’

With the help of Emma’s power, they could see that the regeneration was slowing down more and more the longer they fought. Unfortunately, their luck wouldn’t last too much longer. Peter managed to finally land a good strike on Gabriel, sending him flying into a stone tower. He opened a small hole in the face of the roots. A dark voice shrouded over everyone as sounds escaped from it.

"Reale-"

But before the words could finish, his jaw was kicked upwards, sending him flying into the air and crashing into the ground.

"What just happened? Who..."

Luna noticed that Jack was smiling heavily.

"That crazy bastard."

Bo had landed a devastating kick into the creature before it could release an insane amount of its power. Thanks to his invisibility, it had no idea the attack was coming. Not only that...

"Bo! If you can hear me, I would stay clear if I were you!"

Bo looked up at the top of a tall stone hill to see William holding a concentrated beam of light. His face seemed to struggle holding in the power of his attack. Bo quickly cleared some distance between himself and the wooden creature. Using all of his power, William sent a massive blast of energy towards Peter. The light seemed to sear into the wooden flesh and burn its surface. The creature squealed in pain as the light continued pouring on it. Even with is body constantly regenerating, it couldn’t keep up with the combined powers of Emma and William. However, the powers holding him down merely slowed his movements. It still continued to move sluggishly towards Emma with pure malice.

"It can still move?! No way!"

Emma’s face was sweating and her arms started to shake. It was clear that she was running out of energy. Bryce started running forward.

"I’ll buy us the last few moments we need! Don’t stop that beam of light even for a moment! Doc, I may need your help keeping me alive!"

Doc nodded and ran into a position where he could see the battlefield clearer. Bryce started sweating as he approached the monster hesitantly.

’I’m about to get one terrible sunburn.’

He jumped on the creature and grappled to its back, holding it in place. The creature screamed and kicked trying to escape Bryce’s monster grasp, but it was no use. The concentrated beam of light was burning into his flesh, but doc was ensuring new flesh was immediately replacing the damaged ones. Even so, he never let go of creature for a moment.

"Any moment now!"

Suddenly, a roaring fireball started circling around the creature. Zoey was riding on the back of Harold as Serena intensified her flames she was releasing.

"I learned this one from Serena! Now burn alive!"

A vortex of fire erupted into the air, encasing both the creature and Bryce. However, Harold managed to scoop Bryce off the creature before the vortex exploded into chaos. The heat coming off the inferno was so incredible that the rocks around it seemed to melt. Harold continued grabbing people around the battlefield and taking them a safe distance away. However, Zoey wanted to make sure the job was finished.

"Make sure to keep an eye on me, Serena. Don’t even think about holding back."

Serena smiled and nodded her head.

"Right."

Zoey jumped high into the air as the vortex cleared. At the very bottom was a charred body of the wooden creature they had just fought. However, Zoey was about to make sure there was no body left to deal with. As she soared through the air, she encased her entire body in flames. Serena’s brow started to sweat from pushing her limits on how hot she was making Zoey’s flames.

Suddenly, the color of her flames sparked from a dark orange to a light blue. The moment Zoey landed on the creature’s body with her foot, the entire ground exploded into a raging sea of flames. Everyone had to jump behind the nearest rocks for cover as the flames shot past them. When the fire finally cleared, the entire ground was steaming with heat. Zoey was proudly standing above her fallen opponent with her messy, red hair floating above her back. The creatures head rested in her hands as she studied it with her dark red eyes. Surprisingly, even though it was only a head, it still managed to utter its last words.

"You will all die." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Zoey laughed and sneered at the faceless head in front of her.

"See you on the other side then."

With that, she caught her hands on fire, incinerating the last piece of the creature with ease. The powers of all the noble clan members combined were too much for the Warden of Shinak to handle. Slimo looked over the group proudly. Then, he started running up to them and checking for any wounds they may have had.

"Is everyone okay? Anyone seriously injured or need Doc to fix them up?"

Lucy started laughing seeing his worried reaction.

"You’re a funny man. You remind me a lot of Miss Lidia!"

Slimo blushed slightly hearing this.

"W-Well, I just wanted to make sure her family was okay is all. It took us a long time to get here, and it would really suck if someone was seriously hurt. And-"

Lucy was giving Slimo a suspicious look that made him feel like she was asking him, ’so what’s going on between you two?’

"What’s with that look?! I was just being nice!"

"Mhm. Sure."

"I’m serious! Lidia, please help me!"

Lidia was yawning and scratching her back, clearly uninterested in whatever they were talking about.

"Huh? What’s happening?"

Slimo pouted and slouched over.

"Never mind."

Off in the distance, two green masked cultists were watching the scene unfold with curiosity.

"That man... Did you see him use that power? Do you think it could be the one our lord has been desperately searching for?"

"I believe so. I can see why we’ve had so much trouble looking for it. We need to capture him and see for ourselves. It looks like the Warden of Shinak was really as weak as the rumors said. How pitiful."

"I heard he infiltrated some place called Iron Kingdom to try and convert all the nonbelievers. Look how well that turned out for him."

"Don’t waste your breath on his name. Besides, our lord lied to him about what our true plans are anyway as a test to see how many followers we could earn by prettying the picture. He promised him salvation in the end times and a fresh start to this world."

The other cultist laughed.

"A fresh start? A new beginning? How could he be so gullible! This world is well beyond its expiration date. It must end eventually."

Both of the green masked wardens turned around and disappeared beyond the stone horizon.