The Final Protectors

Chapter 11: Abyss Dhole Part 2

“You attacked someone!” Evan stared at John as though he was a monster. “The first rule of a hunter, we cannot assault ordinary people!”

“I didn’t assault him,” John spoke lightly. “It’s just a joke. Turning his teeth into toothpass… Toothpaste! Mhm, I definitely said it right this time. Toothpaste-flavored chocolate. It’ll turn back to normal after a day.”

Evan’s eyes were so wide that they were about to fall out.

Just as John thought that he was about to start reciting the rules of a hunter, Evan spoke in disbelief, “This is impossible. No one can so easily… j-just turn something into something else that he just saw! Unless they understand the composition of the two substances inside-out!”

“Alright, buddy,” John said, “I’m not called ‘No One’, thanks.”

“How did you do it?”

“Wanna learn?” John turned his head, giving a glaringly brilliant smile.

Evan nodded dumbly.

John pulled his hat down, striding forward without hesitation. “Like I’ll teach you. You’ll break the first rule of a hunter.”

Evan, “…”

The further they tread on the path, the narrower the path, and the denser the plants. Yet, that thick color surrounding them was also becoming increasingly darker, as though it was about to stick right on their skin. Their visions were also becoming increasingly narrow.

From the depth of the thick fog came a certain animal’s rough panting hitting right against their hearts. Evan felt his breathing became difficult. In an attempt to distract himself, he turned to observe his companion, John.

For some reason, seeing him would always reassure him a little.

In order to avoid the increasingly thicker foliage, John bent over slightly—the movement made the wound on his abdomen very unbearable. From Evan’s perspective, his exposed jaw and lips turned abnormally pale, and his breathing can barely be heard.

“Don’t look at me,” John said in a low voice, “Watch your feet.”

If only he hadn’t said those words. The moment Evan lowered his head, his legs turned into jelly—on the ground were lines after lines of blood red that were the exact same as the ones wrapped around the girl. Utterly frightening.

With his legs turned into jelly, he fell face down.

“Oh, no!” John hastily received him with a stretch of his hands. This movement was too big, and the wound caused his arms to stiffen. And added on with the fact that his good friend, Student Evan… truly had a healthy figure like Mr. World’s, it resulted in the two falling on the ground together, alerting those red lines instantly. They showered down on them and winded around their bodies in all directions.

“Fantastic,” John said drily, “It’s my first time experiencing this.”
“W-What happened to us?” Evan asked.

“We dropped onto the Abyss Dhole’s food plate—” John said, “No, no, no! Don’t faint! At the very least, not now! Please, buddy!”

Evan mustered up all his strength to control his desire to roll his eyes back. His Adam’s apple bobbed in difficulty as he asked, “Then… what do we do now?”

“I don’t know.” John shrugged, enjoying himself despite their predicament. “I’ve never rolled into an Abyss Dhole’s hunting zone because of a fall before.”

“…” Evan could not see how this could be amusing at all.

“Get up, you’re squashing my calf.” John pushed him. “Alright, since there’s no one here anyway and we’ve already been discovered anyway, why don’t we have a fight?”

He habitually stretched his hand to his back, only to find nothing. John sighed. He forgot that his greatsword did not come along with him. He truly was unused to this.

So, he turned to ask Evan, “Right, do you have anything on you that can be used as a weapon?”
This question was truly too shocking, enough for Evan’s legs to wobble as he fell back on the floor again.

John burst into loud laughter. It was clear that his vile joke had succeeded.

Yet, his laughter stopped short in the next instant. Evan practically did not even see what happened before his surroundings were shrouded in white fog. The fog was so thick that even John’s figure in close proximity became blurry and indistinct. Then, an exceedingly bright light nearly blinded his eyes.

Evan widened his eyes, only to see a water arrow suddenly shoot out of the nearby lake. As though it was guided by something, it flew straight into John’s hand and swiftly congealed into an ice sword. Practically at the same time, John tilted his body without hesitation, swinging ferociously at the area behind him on the right. A beast’s hoarse roar rang out above Evan’s head. He watched a grey shadow flash past that area in terror and instantly vanished in the depths of the fog.

At the speed of light.

A few droplets of warm liquid landed on his face. Evan wiped it away. His face was streaked with stinky blood, its color so purple that it was nearing black.

“Come again if you dare!” John casually flung away the purplish-black blood on the tip of the blade. “You salivating mangy dog!”

The red strings on Evan had already completely vanished, but he did not notice. He only stared at John dumbly, hot blood rushing upwards all of a sudden.

“This… this is too cool,” He mumbled.

The white fog disappeared, but the dark green air continued to swirl around without dissipating. John stood there quietly with the ice sword formed by lakewater, judging the Abyss Dhole’s next step. Evan climbed up with his hands and feet. “What’s going on now? T-T-That…”

“It hid itself,” John said quietly, lowering to glance at the torn jacket.

Evan’s gaze landed on his jacket. In that clash earlier, the Abyss Dhole’s claw had slashed John’s jacket. The torn part had cut the spell drawn with mineral water into halves.

“The spell is damaged?” Evan said.

“Although mineral water is pure, it holds no energy. It’s not a suitable medium. Even a simple tear could make it lose its effectiveness.”

You have to know that not everybody can easily draw a spell with mineral water…

“So it lost its effect?” Startled for a moment, Evan asked dubiously, “But you told me that its effect is to hide something, but now that its attribute is lost, so it… I’m talking about that Abyss Dhole, so it hid itself? Is it because you made it feel afraid?”

John gave him a noncommittal look. “No, my brother, this is a greedy type of Derot. It will absolutely never give up on any prey that came to its mouth. Just… it would probably get more serious.”

“Wh…”

“Ah—” A scream bathed the two men’s eardrums. Evan turned his head, realizing it came from that girl completely wrapped in bloody red lines like a silkworm. She had woken up since God knew when.

“She can’t see those red lines right? Like those people on the way here.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that’s not the case.” For some reason, Evan felt that John seemed to be enjoying her suffering a little. “No one other than the roasted chicken lying on the plate has more rights to witness the knife pointed towards it, isn’t that right?”

“Who did this? Who?” The girl was screaming loudly. “Pervert! Freak! I’ll let you have it! I guarantee it! Someone, help me… help me, get these damn things off me!”

Evan glanced at John dumbly. “We should help her.”

“Don’t worry.” John waved his hand unconcerned. “She won’t die. Our job is to deal with who she’s addressing, that… Per-per- what? Perfreak?”

Evan, “…”

He kept feeling that John, who laughed at the girl leaping on the spot while bound by red strings, was a little… unkind. That expression looked just like a bad kid who just punctured another person’s tire.

But although John’s smile remained on his lips, the ice sword in his hand raised upwards again. His seemingly gleaming pair of eyes that looked shockingly greener glanced at Evan. He said quietly, “It’s here.”

He had not yet finished talking when the dissipated fog once again enveloped them. The ground beneath them began to act up violently. The originally grey sky was covered by the thick clouds without a speck remaining. And accompanied by the girl’s scream at the top of her lungs, Evan felt so much adrenaline rise up in him that he was about to get endocrine imbalance!

John held the ice sword in front of him. Perhaps due to his injury, his back was a little curved, but still stretched taut. From the side, it was like a string that could break at any time. The hat brim pressed heavily down on his slightly floating hair, as though it was suppressing a collision that could be set off at the slightest touch.

He asked, “Do you know what is a ‘field’?”

“I-I do,” Evan said swiftly. “A ‘field’ is a special space that only strong Derots can open. In this place, even people with an affinity to light would be suppressed too. The strength of the Derot itself will reach its peak.”

“Do not memorise, little friend.” John muttered, “The teaching materials remain unchanged even after a thousand years?”

Evan sucked in a deep breath, expression wry. “I’m already feeling the effects of this thing. I can’t even move my limbs anymore.”

John glanced at him oddly, “According to what I know, amongst the ‘fields’ of the known Derots, there are none that cause people to lose the use of their limbs. You’re actually just scaring yourself, right?”
Hm? Evan startled. Oh, that was true. After knowing this information, his stiff and numb limbs came to life again as though they had been released!

A wild beast’s roar shook the ground. Evan opened his mouth and raised his head to see a pair of gigantic eyes of at least two meters suddenly appear in the sky. A rotting stench drifted over. That thing took a step forward, allowing him to see its appearance in its entirety.

That was a dhole with a height equivalent of a few storeys. It looked as wretched as the dholes on Earth themselves. It walked forward step by step, saliva dripping down from the edge of its mouth.

Evan already had some trust in his companion. He even picked up a metal pipe leftover from some construction. He waved it in his hand, yelling at the top of his voice within the wild beast’s earth-shattering roars. “We’ve never learned how to deal with Abyss Dholes, do you have a recipe for success?”

John held his forehead—this unlucky child truly wasn’t good at picking a time. Things were already like this, and he was still talking about a damn recipe for success!

He pushed Evan who was provokingly boxing and jumping on the spot, and yelled loudly in his ear, “Quickly run!”

Evan turned a little dumb from his shout. While waving his hilarious pipe, he turned to look at John dumbfounded.

John gripped his collar, and the two scampered off to the lakeside, towards the opposite direction of the struggling girl. The Abyss Dhole, who grew many times in size as though it consumed foaming agents, was hot on their tail. Each step it took, the ground sank down deeply and fell into a boundless darkness.

This was probably the origin of the name, “Abyss Dhole”.

Evan felt that he never even ran for his life like this even during the Temple’s physical examination. His lungs were even nearly squeezed out from his chest!

John’s footsteps suddenly halted. The ice sword in the man’s hand emitted a bizarre blue glint. He spread both of his hands, the hat on his head had long been blown by the hunting wind, and his long hair scattered in the wind and flew around messily. Yet, his chanting voice seemed extremely low, carrying a rhythm that seemed to come from the ancient ages.

Evan had never heard it before, but he still felt power in every single word. The lakewater surged violently behind them. A wall made up of water formed behind them, freezing into ice bit by bit at the speed of light and turning into the shape of a ladder. John leaped onto it without any hesitation, telling Evan, “Follow me!”

The two ran up the ice ladder swiftly. Chief Evan had to be led. His feet kept slipping relentlessly. The ground stepped by the Abyss Dhole sank into the unknown abyss in the darkness. Other than the icy ground, they already had no other place to stand.

In the blink of an eye, the two have already ran to the center of the lake. That gigantic damning native dog was still chasing behind them while salivating. John suddenly made a muted groan, his feet staggering as he nearly fell. Evan supported him and found that his hand was pressing on a spot slightly beneath his heart. A spot of blood red was already seeping out of the clothes.

Evan sucked in a cold breath. John hurriedly gripped his jacket to wrap around his chest, not letting him see the blood on him.

“Take this, take this!” John’s panting was a little hurried. He shoved the bone-chilling ice sword into Evan’s hand. When that ice sword touched Evan’s palms, it suddenly grew into five or six meters long, the sharp increase in weight nearly crashed the young man into falling face down.

At an angle that he could not see, John pressed his blood-drenched hand on the icy surface. In an instant, the icy surface seemed to have received a calling as it swiftly solidified into an endless, narrow path, circling upwards into the sky like a spiral. “Follow this path up. Don’t stop. If I tell you to jump down, you jump down.”

“W-What?”

“Listen to me.” John snarled lowly. “Water is a pure but fragile thing. The body of an Abyss Dhole is too fierce. In its ‘field’, I can only freeze it for a moment. I’ll draw its attention. In the instant I freeze it, I need you to jump down from above. Borrowing the power of a high place, stab this ice sword into its neck. I’ll catch you, believe in me!”

Evan wanted to cry. He believed in John, but he did not believe in himself. Looking at that path that was so narrow that it seemed to be only the width of a foot, he only felt that that was a direct escalator to heaven…

The Abyss Dhole was like the King Kong in the movies as it broke past the icy layers that John set up, invincible. Step by step, it approached them.

Countless icy arrows started flying from the lake. John’s face was as pale as a ghost’s, but he did not land a single shot on that beast. Just like what Jel said—its movements were so quick that it was difficult for the human eye to catch.

“Quickly go!” John pushed hard on Evan’s shoulder.

Evan staggered—if his legs became jelly again, he would die, he told himself.

Then, he suddenly shouted loudly, the veins on his neck popping out, his face so tensed that it turned dark purple. Stumbling, he dashed towards the spiraling icy stairs.