The Third Party

3rd Person’s POV (4yr.s and 7 months old)

"STOP GATHERING AROUND THE BOY!!!!" shouted someone from the other side of the gathered magical beasts, and immediately they dispersed from smothering Ken at the center.

"Ken! Over here!" Wilbert shouted beside Celine, Ken looked their way and ran immediately towards the, the three engulfed in a tight hug. Letting go was a bit of a shock to the two, as Ken was crying, both tears and snot adorning his face.

"K-Ken, are you okay? Why are you crying? You'll make me cry too." pulling him back to a hug made him cry harder, making the two join in on the crying as well, although a bit soft and are just affected by their friend crying.

Ken wales a little bit more before saying…

"I-I thought y-you guys were gone! I-I had a dream that you were all leaving me." Celine’s eyes widened at his statement, what kind of dream did he have for him to cry so much, Ken had always been cheerful.

Sounds of hurried footsteps clapped nearby.

"Ken!" Lyn appeared out of nowhere and engulfed her son in a tight hug, followed along by Alfred.

"Auntie? Uncle? Why are you here?" but before they could answer Celine’s question someone scooped their arm around her and lifting her up to their waist, when she turned, it was her father!

"I'm so glad you're safe my princess." The little girl hugged her papa back and said. "Me too papa." Kel appeared behind Vin and joined in on the hug, when Celine looked at Wilbert, he is also engulfed in a hug with his parents, him being carried by his father like her and Ken.

"My, I'm glad that we had let the parents accompany us back here at the village, or else I wouldn't have known what to do.” said Coralia chuckling along, beside her is Trunk along with Ulysses and Lana.

"Thank you Coralia, for bringing us to our children." Vin spoke.

"You're welcome Vin, it looks like the kids have calmed down now." -Coralia-

"But matters aside, since you guys have been acquainted with our two other companions here, -now where is the other one." Celine looked back at her father and mother, asked them silently what is going on, which they answered with a smile, she just looked back at Trunk who spoke and looking everywhere. Wonder who he's looking for...?

"There he is." Pointed Coralia at the left.

"You're late Klein." said Trunk to a person with white hair, wearing a white robe with embroideries here and there, particularly on the edges of the robe who just arrived.

"I was just clearing up the mess our people had done at the town square." said the person.

"Now that every leader is here, I'm going to introduce everyone now. These people are Lana The "Fluffy Bunny", who's cave Wilbert stumbled upon, Ulysses the "Black Panther", who's cave Celine stumbled upon, and Klein the "Continental Serpent", who's cave Ken stumbled upon." Coralia said as she pointed at the three person, so that's the name of the panther she fought moments ago, *feeling of dread*, somehow she feel a negative energy coming from her left.

Alfred's seething inside while maintaining a smile, Lyn looking restless at her husband’s reaction.

"Vin, Kel, Erick, Lorna, Alfred, and Lyn, may we request that you six come with us, we have important matters to discuss, you can let the three children wander around the town, they are safe here." said Coralia, which the adults agreed immediately, Vin puts down his daughter and looked into her eyes.

"Be careful now our princess, we know that what you have gone through was terrifying and we could not have been more scared to death, know that we love you, and we are so proud of you." said Vin before kissing his daughter’s forehead followed by his wife, they both urged their child to go to her friends.

Ken’s eyes are still puffy from crying.

"Your eyes are red." she said, teasing him, making the boy flush red.

"Ehhhh, you have snot on your nose thought!" replied Ken back, with the same tone, but with exaggerated gestures, closing his eyes and pulling his arms back in a fist.

Laughter erupted from the three children, soon they started wondering around the place they are at.

"What do you guys say, we walk around this town while talking about what happened to the three of us." said Wilbert, Celine and Ken looked at him and simultaneously said...

"OKAY!" the three pushed their small fists on the air and did a small hop. The thought of taking a stroll strongly wavering their past tears and fears.

After a moment of Wilbert and Celine sharing their experience at the cave, noting that the deeper they went to the village tree’s would be larger and taller with houses.

"Wilbert's such a cheat." pouted Ken, crossing his arms, while walking at Celine’s right.

"*chuckles* I never even did expect that I would face a bunny warrior, what's more is that, it's a girl, but my experience could never go beyond what Celine had encountered." Wilbert said at her left, emphasizing Celine’s name and looking at her, the girl involuntarily blushed under his stare, but more so of the embarrassment she had gone through or the experience.

"ah, hehe, yeah, oh, we still haven't heard Ken's story, Ken tell us what happened after your battle with the big green snake." Celine exclaimed since he didn't really finish his story and cutting at the middle.

"There's more that happened right?" she added.

"Well..."

----- A few hours earlier-----

‘Not here, hmmmm.......’

‘Not here too, ..........’

‘Not here either!!! *grunts* Come on! I thought this tunnel was the right way, but every single one of these holes around me leads to a dead end, and there's only five of them. ‘

Continues grumbling to himself.

‘What's that smell? It's coming from back at the entrance of this cave, eeeek! The burnt part of the body of the snake -which is the head- is emitting smoke, and it's spreading fast.’ the little guy released involuntary coughs.

‘It's suffocating!’

"Wind Magic: Tight Air space!" A sphere of condensed air surrounds him as it prevents the smoke from entering and suffocating him some more.

‘I better get rid of this, but how? hmmm, not only do I need to get rid of the smoke, but also the source too, now how do I get rid of a body, it's too big for me to bury it, I can't use fire, it'll create more smoke and who knows what may happen to me after, are there any way to dispose of this?’ a thought appeared in his head.

‘Hmmm? Dispose? How bout I try this one.’ positioning himself five feet away from the body of the snake, he chanted…

"As it was in life and death, so shall too the living returns, as like the others had lane, return from whence you came, Nature Magic: Decompose.” A magic circle appeared below on both him and the body of the snake, he held both hands with the palms facing up in an urging manner, the power of nature gradually engulfed the body of the snake by growing moss, vines, and small trees all around it,

Creating a garden of some sort, while slowly sapping away the energy at the remaining carcass, and once the body fully covered by nature, a single puff of smoke left the body, then it deflated as if it’s a balloon getting popped.

The garden remained and a single flower the color of red sprouted in front, just by the edge of the garden -can we really call it a garden, there are no flowers-, the magic circles disappeared right after.

Ken walked towards the flower and upon inspection, found out that some traces of energy obtained from the snake had exited the flower and is surrounding it in a fairy lights kind of manner, touching the flower with his right hand, causing the energy inside to attach to his pointer-finger.

‘Not bad of a spell, good thing I thought of this.’ The energy acquired from the snake is quite small it barely sizes up to his palm, but if he take a closer look, Yah! Energy surge, he could have been electrocuted, hehe, guess it’s time to absorb it.

Once the energy had been absorbed by his body through the chest and into the heart, energy spread all over him through the veins giving him a power boost (A.N.: Ken will not be mentioning that he had checked his status window since he’s narrating what happened to him to his friends)

‘Woah, I didn’t think that it would give such a huge power boost, this power is almost similar to mine, only mine is, hmmm, I don’t know, 1% stronger? Hehe, okay enough of that, if I’m going to deduce something about what happened,

I’d say that this spell is really powerful, it will become dangerous if it goes into the wrong hands I’m sure, but that’s okay since I’m the only who knows about this spell, why am I talking to myself again? Hehe, moving on, moving on.’ He thought after a few moments of absorbing the energy.

‘Now back to the topic, what should I do about these tunnels now? Maybe I could use a searching spell? Let’s try.’

“Arcane Magic: Surgical Sweep.” Mana burst out from around him engulfing his surroundings and made his eyes glow, as to how do he know that? He doesn’t, it just feels like his eyes are itching a little, and feeling the energy coursing through it, and he has used this spell before, on certain occasions.

A certain glint of light and magic fluctuation catches his attention.

‘Oh, there’s a dense magic coming from a location there, it’s on the… ground?’ Blinking his eyes made him cancel the spell, and then he walked towards the location where the dense magic is coming from, his face perked in question.

‘Never noticed this before, *light bulb* oh right, the body of the snake was laid here that’s why I wasn’t able to notice it, but why wasn’t I able to notice it when I arrived here?’ he brushed of some dust covering the magic circle.

‘Hmmm, this looks like a slab of stone embedded with… are these runes?’ he inspected the engravings softly with his hands, curiously. ‘Hmm let me move the flora around.’ after moving away the plants that he grew, he is introduced with what looks like a platform of some sort,

Crouching down and inspecting the… uh… hmmm… let’s call them runes for now, he… doesn’t know what this is... maybe with a little bit of mana, he could know what this is.

Pouring the platform just a little bit of his mana, made it glow in a mixture of blue and white hues, but before he is able to inspect what this platform is all about, a bright flash of light enveloped his vision.

He finds himself… on another part of a cave, the surroundings are illuminated by a crystal on the ceiling, and him sitting at the platform? But one thing is for sure, he hasn’t nor has he ever been to this part of the cave before, maybe this is another cave?

Other than that, maybe the flash of light from before was caused by a spell, was he teleported? Cause the feeling is so similar.

Scanning his gaze before him, he turned to the light at his left side, it must be an exit. Walking straight out of the cave he was blinded again by a bright light and used his arms to block his vision, but it was only just for a moment.

Opening his eyes and looking at the place before him, stunned the boy in position as he takes in a beautiful scenery, the first thing he noticed out of all the beautiful things before him, was the dome shape of this cave, light comes in from above what he thinks is the center of the top part of the dome, looking like a hole on the ceiling

The dome is especially very big, because the birds he’s seeing are quite small from over where he is, making them miniature dots from the big hole where light is coming from, spread before him are fields and fields of different colored flowers that seem to blend their color harmoniously with one another before stopping on the side of a river.

He could also see it’s trace from up here, now that he’s mentioned it, he is actually at a high place, making him look over what seems to be the center of the dome, it has a mini forest near the center, and surrounding it is the river he mentioned before,

Water comes out from a waterfall at the left direction, and ends somewhere on the side of the walls before disappearing… beneath?, other than that there are no other holes coming from the walls of the dome, the cave he came from must be the only one -except for the hole where the water is flowing-.

As he walks down towards the river, the flowers surprisingly reach below his waist, but the flowers near the river are shorter, at first he thought that he could cross the river on foot but nooo, cause just as he had barely walked two steps forward, he felt that the ground below had dipped quite considerably, let’s say, about two meters below?

How could he have not noticed the black blue color at the center of the river, it’s an indication that it’s deep, he doesn’t even wanna think of swimming across, the current’s too strong. Guess he’ll teleport...

*BLINK*

After teleporting across the river, he continued walking towards the mini forest, he doesn’t know why but there’s some kind of force pulling him towards a direction, feeling particularly saddened that he couldn’t inspect the flowers.

Okay, now he’s here at the center, what should he be doing? Hmmm, strange, there’s nothing much here…

*rustles*

What’s that?

“Who’s there?” he called out but no one responded, he cautiously and quietly stalked at the right direction where the sound came from. I see something,

*Pops*

“Yaaah!” he thought he leapt a few feet unto the air. What scared him is actually another snake, but small and has a white color, it towered over him, but isn’t that much bigger than the green snake he fought before, oh! It ran away.

“Wait-” Before he could even chase towards the snake and finish his sentence a shake stopped him on his tracks, clearly confused he tried to look behind him when suddenly…

*HISS*

Gulping down his nerves he turned around fully, and was internally frightened at what he is seeing,

‘A VERY LARGE WHITE SNAKE IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT DO I DO?! WHAT DO I DO?! WHAT DO I DO?!?!?!?!’

It suddenly opened its mouth

*snap* *HISS*

“KYAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!!” he never thought he could run so fast in his life and cast so fast, because just as he had arrived near the river he had immediately used magic to teleport to the other side and two more to give a big distance between him and river.

He didn’t dare to turn back, not when he was being chased down by the snake, it’s slithering body had created shock waves on the earth, not strong enough to deform it, but strong enough for him to feel it.

And now looking from this distance, it had stopped at the edge of the river, oh wait no, it’s slowly bounding towards me, and did he mention that it’s really big? Flowers, may you pardon both of them from trampling them.

It was able to cross the river in one swift movement and immediately bounded towards Ken, if he should deduce, it should be around twice the size of the big green snake he had fought earlier, ‘Now is not the time to be calculative of your opponent Ken, you must escape!’

“Momentum Magic: Flight!” rising towards the air he quickly look for the entrance he had come out of, it should be right th- ‘*GASP*, it’s not there anymore! What should I do?!’

In his moment of vulnerability he felt a looming presence, ‘Huh?’

Suddenly a mouth appears before his peripheral vision, almost eating him alive, but quickly evading it using teleportation

“That was so close!” But he’s still near the snake.

“YAH!” *Evades*

“YAH!” *Evades*

“YAH!” *Evades*

“YAH!” *Evades*

“KYAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!” still evades.

‘I can’t keep dodging forever, I need to fight against’… is it a him or her?... No matter, let’s do this!’ Taking the scythe he strapped on his back he held it with both hands and flew higher, stopping just a few meters away from the snake.

“Wind Magic: Scythe Cut” he slashed down and the wind blade came falling down towards the snake, but to his surprise, it wasn’t able to leave even a scratch, as it had been deflected by the scales and disappeared. ‘It’s quite tough.‘

Seeing as if the boy’s still pondering on the choices he had to make, the snake lunged towards him, but he also avoided it, and on this moment that he realized the snake is also very, very long, avoiding the bite gave him the chance to inspect it’s body, that had spread all the way to the other side of the center and passed the river at the back, stopping at the middle of the flower field.

He flew towards the center to give himself distance from the head of the snake, ‘I don’t know if it’ll be able to hit me with its tail, nope wait it can, Whoa! Barely dodged the tail! But one thing is for sure, -If I think so- it cannot simultaneously use its tail and head to attack.’

Stopping right above the middle of the body of the snake he positioned himself parallel to the position of the snake, spread both of arms in opposite directions, the scythe on his left hand and chanted…

“Earth Magic: Parallel Barricades!” Walls approximately higher than the width of the snake came rising diagonally aiming at each other before stopping, the width as thick as five meters and length only covering one fourth of the snake. ‘This should be able to give me some time.’ Pointing his right hand towards the tail he chanted again.

“Fire Magic: Fire Blast!” A ball of fire larger than him was sent straight towards the head of the snake before making contact and exploding, but since he has made some kinks and stuffs to the after effects of his spells, smoke didn’t create upon impact, instead just gave a faint light upon bursting.

Clearly agitated, the snake suddenly bellowed a thunderous roar, that shook the dome and along with it sonic waves flew towards Ken, but since he’s prepared…

“Arcane Magic: Sound Alteration Barrier.” A faint violet colored barrier enveloped him, diminishing the thunderous power of the sonic wave, but the force wasn’t nullified sending him a couple meters away, but it saved his eardrums, it’s nothing to worry about.

Is that a fireball?

“YAAHHh.” Flailing around and narrowly missing the projectile, he watched as it hit the ceiling of the dome causing shakes.

‘ANOTHER FIREBALL! UGH!’ dodges a fireball. ‘It’s throwing fireballs at me? But where is it coming from? From thin Air?! Oh it’s the snakes magic. And it’s roughly the same size as the one I had casted!’ he flew aside to avoid another one.

‘ANOTHER ONE!’ then and there, fireball after fireball came flying his way, which he avoided swiftly, avoiding even those ones he doesn’t know where they were coming, but then the ones that were still flying suddenly stopped mid-air before coming into contact with the surroundings, and looking around, pretty much one fifth?

Or one sixth of the dome is damaged, flowers burning, dents on the wall and ceiling, water overflowing from the river with the holes that were made, SUBMERGING some of the FLOWERS! What a shame.

Huh? The fireballs are coming straight towards him, flying on the opposite direction, made him realize a big mistake, the fireballs had surrounded Ken blocking his escape. ‘Oops, wait, I can still escape this.’ Holding the scythe with both hands, he chanted silently before the fireballs could hit him.

“Arcane Magic: Blink zone.” As if the time had stopped, his magic made everything look transparent in a blue color as the outline and black as the boy making the spell secure, before returning back to its own color and letting time continue again.

Ken blinked just a second earlier before a loud boom occurred, smoke rose from the location where he was before obstructing the vision of the snake, luckily he teleported back down on land at the center making him unnoticeable,

And in that small time frame, the snake destroyed the earth walls that secured its body to the ground by a swift upper movement of its body ‘So it was able to destroy it that easily? Why didn’t it just do it in the beginning?’

Without wasting anymore moment, he decides that he has to fight this snake with his full power if he has to win, this guy’s pretty strong.

Flying towards the river, he used his magic to scrape around the left side of the river and silently made water blades underneath before revealing himself on the sky and chanted…

“Water Magic: Tidal Surge!” Eight water spheres formed behind him before surging its power towards the upper body of the snake along with a dozen water blade he created carrying with them water empowered by magic.

*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*

The first that hit the snake where the eight water blasts followed after by six water blades and then the other six, but the results disappointed him.

He felt my complexion pale a little bit from the outcome, since the snake was able to take the blast but also raised a force field surrounding it’s head rendering the water blades useless upon impact.

In an instance the snake also created a dozen water blades only this time they were twice the size of Ken’s blades, and if he deduce it, the snake’s water blades are sharper than his. So he ran, he means ‘flew’, the blades following him.

Dodging here and there became his course of action since he couldn’t let the blades touch him, and upon close inspection, the blades are taller and bigger than him, no doubt they could kill Ken in an instant.

As the blades followed him across the flower field he didn’t notice that he was nearing the head of the snake, but before he could be eaten -again- in a split second decision, he teleported away again to where he last teleported, on the comfort of the shade of the trees.

He waited for sounds, a sound of pain, or a roar indicating that the snake was hit by its own spell, but nothing, he suddenly felt twelve presence of magic in all directions before the water blades appeared in a sudden motion almost catching him of guard.

Almost.

“Fire Magic: Pyrokinetic Burst!” Holding the scythe with both his hands created a force field, before sounds of explosion from the water blades occurred, simultaneously getting destroyed.

This spell is a select area type spell that enables Ken to select a location where he wants an explosion to occur that packs quite a punch, steam arose from the location where the water blades exploded,

Making his location known ‘I think it was predicted that I would teleport here since water blades where waiting for me?’ but to his surprise again, as he had teleported from place to place, to place, Water Blades popped out of nowhere and always aiming at him,

Those that appeared early took note of the location Ken would appear and chased after him, always changing direction every time he teleports away, and before he knew it a blade storm is chasing after him. Ken can’t help but…

“AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” shout everywhere he went. If he doesn’t do something soon, this would never end, and possibly could lead, to his death.

*Blink*

Appearing just above where the storm of blade was, Ken condensed a huge amount of his mana and concentrated them on his finger tips, leaving his scythe to float beside him, a magic circle the color of sky blue appeared on both his hand as he chanted…

“Ice Magic: Broken Frost” Immediately the storm of water blades froze in their tracks, the water turning to frost before breaking down, rendering them useless, the magic circle quickly dispersed, but before the snake could react and cast another spell,

Ken grabbed his scythe, used both hands and pointed the tip of its rod towards the snake while the middle section of the scythe is under his arm pit as he once again condensed mana, this time on the tip of the rod,

A big magic circle appeared below him and another smaller than the first that appeared but still able to cover the radius of Ken’s body situated between him and the bigger magic circle, then lastly a very small magic circle at the tip of the rod appeared, ice energy started to gather at the magic circle at the tip of the rod then turned itself into a ball, he chanted…

“Delve in my cold embrace, in where the heat remains, Ice Magic: FROZEN SHOT!” the ball of icy energy shot a blast not big, but small in size, just the size of the rod, towards the snake, as it passed through its head and toward its body at the back,

At first the snake looked confused, anticipating what would happen, when it moved its head to look over itself and confirm that nothing really happened to it, the spell took effect and like a wildfire, ice spread from its head and body to encase the snake in a thick block of ice.

The spell didn’t stop there as it continued to create a much bigger block of ice probably fifteen or sixteen meters thick, some parts of the river turned frozen solid too.

At the thought of finally defeating the enemy Ken exhaled a sigh of relief, and slowly floated down on the flower field, but just as he was about to touch the ground he felt a great force that suddenly dragged him back to the sky,

As suddenly the ice that had incased the giant snake cracked and broke under pressure, the snake that was free bellowed a thunderous roar then moving its head, it looked at Ken, at this the force that was holding him was cancelled, him falling fast to the ground.

Ken activated momentum spell again and went to fly at the edge of the dome towards its tail, planning to cut open its skin starting from the bottom to the top with his scythe,

When suddenly…

“Oh, a flower.” not knowing that he had abruptly stopped to stare at a flower that caught his eye, he wasn’t able to evade the attack from the snake, a tail hitting him square on his body sending him flying the other way,

Ken thought he had lost consciousness but when he opened his eyes he was quickly approaching the wall of the dome upon realization, he used both hands to block the impact, his scythe tightly gripped by his right hand, before everything turned black.

--------End of Flashback--------

“That’s pretty much what happened.” Ken said and scratched the back of his neck, Celine doesn’t know why but tears were pooling on his eyes as she recalled Ken’s experience with that giant snake,

She doesn’t know this kind of unpleasant feeling, but all that she knows is that she doesn’t want to lose her friend.

Without quite thinking anything, she quickly lunged herself towards Ken and sobbed into his shoulders, not long after, she could feel a cold substance on her head, when she looked at Ken, he was sobbing too,

Celine repositioned her head on the huge as before, few seconds later, Wilbert joined in on the hug, sensing another heat from a body being pressed near hers and Ken’s, she didn’t look up knowing that if she’d raise her head, the tears would be a lot harder to hold on.

Wilbert sniffled as quietly as possible, but just as expected, he was the baby of the three of them, as he wailed into their embrace.

(A.N.: Celine’s pretty mature for her age,)

---Meanwhile at the cottage where the adults gathered---

“Who’s idea was this?” -

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