Chapter 2: The adventure begin
Three months passed like a blink of an eye, Lenny has became a decent magic user with the help of Dararia. She, the grandma and her dog are like his new family. They take care of him, taught him how to live in this forest, protected him from monsters that he sometime he accidentally provoked while studying the art of magic. It made him feel like he himself is belong to this place, even though many parts of his memories have came back and they make him wants to go back to the Light Half to find the truth. The memories came back in many occasion: in dreams, during his studying time or even when he talked about things that are similar to what he used to talk in the past. Now he knows that he used to be a soldier from a special force called "GOM". GOM is consisted of elite soldiers who has unique skills in combat to do specially dangerous missions. Joe was his best friend, and also the leader of his squad. He knows nothing about the motivation of the Great Invasion, or his men preferred to call it "Operation Thunderstorm". Most of the other soldiers also did not have any idea about this operation until a month before it. No one knew why the King want to declare war to the Dark Half, they just followed the order, which sent them to their end..
Lenny still remember the face of his King, who has a long scar from his left eye down to his chin. People said that he used to be a great warrior who can easily defeat hundreds of men and united the Light Half into one Empire inside his palm. Being of the few people trained by GOM, Lenny had the privilege to meet the king once. He even had the chance to a sword duel with His Majesty so the King can test how well his special force is trained. Of course Lenny lost because that was just a performance for the media to show how strong his King was. However, to be honest, even in a fair fight, the king could still be a fearsome opponent.
The memories also brought back Lenny a lot of his skills as a special force soldier. His favorite weapon was a sword, but there is not any sword here around this house. The grandma said that he can find one in the graveyard of the soldiers where she and Old Fart found him. So he decided to do that on today, when Dararia finally gave him a break.
The sun is high above his head, its light sometime goes through the heavy fog and point directly onto the surface, gives the trees some life. Lenny and his little dragon companion pack up some food, some water and a blanket to prepare for his first night outside the house alone. The graveyard is one day walking away from grandma's house, so if there is nothing unexpectedly happens, he should be spending a night in the graveyard. It is certainly not a good idea since that place is crawled by hell spawns. Dararia was actively against this idea until Lenny persuaded her that this trip would be a good test for his magic, and since Old Fart must stay here to protect the grandma, she will go with him to prevent him from doing anything stupid. The grandma was also worried, but she said Lenny will be okay as long as he still listens to Dararia.
Lenny take a deep breath, then walks into the fog west of the house. Unlike the first time inside this fog with Old Fart, he now can see pretty well through the thick fog with the combination of magically enhanced vision and fairy light from Dararia's tail. He walks down the hill, which he called the Lone Hill because it is the only high ground in this area. Sometime a couple of mutated rats glared at them but then quickly ran away after Lenny used his Igniscorpus spell to scare them off. It is the spell that Old Fart used to scare off that giant Sketagon during their first walk from the magical spring back to grandma's house. Basically, the spell turns its caster's body into flame, enhances physical strength and emit fire magical aura that burn everything around. It is an exhaustive spell that drains a lot of magic aura when activated so Lenny does not use it too much until very necessary.
After six hours of walking toward the graveyard direction on a map provided by the grandma. They found the ruin of what used to be a city. There are many tail buildings that are not damaged standing next to the wrecks of others. The fog is still everywhere, while moss and vines are covering almost every corner of the concrete infrastructure. With his enhanced senses, Lenny can feel the presence of countless Hell Spawns inside those building. They are all glaring out through the windows, doors and cracks to him. He can feel their thirst for his blood and their hungry for his flesh from them. However, none of them actually have the gut to come out or attack Lenny. His magical aura. even when not activated by any spell, still can emit a dominant will over their heads. That is actually a trick Dararia taught him to scare off the lesser evils without wasting his energy on them, and it seems to work very well, until..
Up until now, Lenny can not stop his feeling of a very familiar presence that started to follow them since they entered this city. It is certainly a Hell Spawn, a very powerful one, but he can not recall its name. It has not appeared again since the first time he arrived to grandma's house. An "old friend" of Old Fart, that was what he remembers how the grandma calls it. Dararia can feel it too, and she starts to panic.
"Heey heey, can you feel that. That creep has just followed us for half an hour now. I am scared." She whispers.
"Yes, I can feel it too. Don't worry, we will be fine", replies Lenny with sweat all over his face. He wants to assure his companion that he is not scared but who can still stay calm when such a huge threat is coming near?
The duo continues to walk to the center of the city where they are found a fountain that is still spilling out water in the middle of a big area. This area is called the Clock Square, as there is twelve main roads lead to this circular area with the fountain at its center. Each road has a number written on its intersection with the Square: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII.
Lenny and Dararia came from road VI. According to the map, now they have to go through road I to get to the Swan Swamp, and then the graveyard. Lenny is about to head that way, but Dararia flies to his front and stops him.
"Wait, we shouldn't move forward, not yet."
"Why? I don't have time to waste."
"There is a water fountain here, with it you can enhance your ability without using too much energy for fire spells. This is a perfect place to kick that creep's ass. I don't think you will have any other better place than this to fight him."
"Sounds good to me. So we need a plan!" Lenny agrees with her.
They quickly prepare themselves for the fight ahead. Lenny makes some kind of spells to the fountain while Dararia flies around to watch for the monster.
About ten minute later, he hears a loud scream of her. Lenny quickly turn around to road VI, where the scream came from. The ground was shaken violently, and Dararia is rushing toward him...with a fierce giant monstrous demon chasing after her. Its body somewhat resembles a snake, long and covered in scales with spikes run down its length, but instead of having snake head, it has the upper torso of a man. The head is completely demonic, with a couple of curvy horns on top and two green eyes glow sinister light in the middle of a shadow face. The buildings are collapsing around it not just because of the giant snake body is slamming into them, but also because of the poisonous un-breathable gas that keeps coming out of its scales, melting even concrete.
Road VI is completely destroyed by this demonic creature when it is chasing Dararia, and it doesn't seem to stop advancing to the square with a destructive force. Dararia does not stop screaming though.
"IT'S AAPEP. IT'S HIM. I KNEW IT.", she confirm the thought of Lenny.
So now, it is really that monster that was about to kill him three months ago if Old Fart did not interfere. Lenny still remember that pair of glowing green eyes staring into his soul. He knows that if he want to get out of here alive, this beast must be taken down. However, even Old Fart only managed to rip out one of its scales, then how can Lenny beat it?
He is just standing there, facing the monstrous being that is advancing to his position. It almost catch up with Dararia, and they are just about thirty feet from where Lenny is standing and if they don't do anything now, Lenny will be crushed by it. Suddenly, Dararia shouts out to him.
"NOW, MASTER, NOW", then she disappeared into thin air, right in front of AAPEP surprising face. Before it can stop to see what is going on, Lenny pulls back his right fist mumbling something then throw a devastating giant water shaped punch directly on the monster's stomach, sending it flying back several blocks. The punch made a sonic boom that shaken and broke walls of several buildings around Lenny.
"You will not go any further, APIP!", says Lenny. Apparently, he still can not spell its name after all these times.
The monster's giant body was sent flying along the road, hitting a nearby stone tower and broke its feet. The tower collapsed with many stones fell down, buried AAPEP under, only part of its long tail revealed out of the wreckage.
Dararia appears on Lenny's shoulder, looking at that scene while making her comment.
"That will teach him a lesson, huh?"
"I don't know, maybe I killed it", says Lenny.
"Don't worry, he is not dead. I meant, he was dead a long long time ago. You can't kill the dead."
"What do you mean by that?" Lenny asks her, confused.
"Well, he is not just any normal Hell Spawn you know. He is a demon. A demon is created from the tortured soul of an angelic creature in the ancient time. They were killed during the War of the Creators millenniums ago. Stata's dad collected their wandering souls on earth and forged them into high ranked demons for his own army. When the Hell Gate was opened, AAPEP escaped his boss, disguised as a regular hell spawn and entered our world.", she explains to him.
That makes Lenny excited, "So did I just defeated a general of the Underworld army? Yay!"
"Not a general, AAPEP is just a high ranked demon. If he was a general, both of us would be so dead by now. But hey, you did well, master!"
"Oh, really? not even a general? Oh well I don't know what I expected."
"shhhhh....there ...are many...things... that you did not.... expect...shhhhhh", a creepy voice echos in the air, right after Lenny finished his speech.
The duo immediately look back that the wreckage with AAPEP under it. Now, it is shaking heavily and everything blow up. The giant monster emerges from the wreckage, grabs a large concrete wall and throws it at Lenny at unimaginable speed.
"Watch out!", he shouts then shoot a fireball into the flying wall, blow it into dust, leaving a fierce explosion mid-air. Months of training with Dararia has just saved his life in an instance.
When the dust fades away, Lenny sees the mountainous AAPEP standing still just a building away from him, looking straight into his eyes. Several minutes of silence between them passed, then it begins to speak.
"Shh...Very impressive, son of Stata and Leviathan...shhh... Even if you don't tell me, I can still smell their blood ...shhh...in your veins.... the smell of water...and...fire...elements....shhhhh... Delicioussss...."
That shocking statement leaves Lenny speechless. It just can not be true, but somehow it makes so much sense to him. Stata - the lord of fire and Leviathan - the lord of the ocean, if they are his parents, then it would explains his ability to control fire and water. However, the grandma said that their son was lost fifty years ago, and Lenny is just twenty four years old.
"That is not true, AAPEP! Lady Stata only has one child, and the baby was lost long before master Leonard was even born." Dararia speaks out before Lenny could say anything.
The creature looks at Dararia as she speak, "...shhh...good old Dararia...shhhh...you are still so ...beautiful....and...deliciousssss... are you trying to...protect this boy....from me...shhhh.... he is a ....descendant of the ....godsssss...... I will ...eat him....and gain.....more power....shhhh...you can't...protect him...from...the poison of hell...."
Poisonous saliva drops fall down from its chin, melt the ground. It raises up one arm, reveal the long and venomous claws, then stab down to Lenny's chest. Lenny is still standing still on his feet, with AAPEP's claws piercing through his chest to the ground behind him, much to the shock of Dararia.
"MASTER!!!" she screams with horror on her dragon face.
But she is not the only one who is in shock. The monster start grunting, "shhhh...it...can't...be...shhh...this is impossible..."
There is no blood comes out of Lenny's chest. He then promptly turns his head to his little dragon companion, smiling.
"Don't worry old bookie. It might be wrong about my parents, but it wasn't wrong about my elements", said Lenny before his body turned into water.
His water body falls down to the earth, split into several streams of water running down the road. They head toward AAPEP, surrounds it as it desperately is trying to stab into them. Of course, its efforts are useless against the water streams. Shortly after surrounding the monster, the water started to boil and turns into mist.
"That's right Master Leonard. Show him who's boss!" Dararia cheers on her master.
"Find a place to cover, Dararia." Lenny's voice echos out of the mist around AAPEP. The little dragon listens to her master, quickly hide behind a wall, while the monster is still furiously slashing its claws into the air, hoping to get rid of the mist.
"You chose the wrong pray, APIT", his voice is heard again, just before the mist around AAPEP suddenly vacuumed into a single point above its head.
While the monster is still wondering where the mist went, a flame covered Lenny quickly appear above it, pulling back both of his fist.
"I AM HERE, MONSTER!", he yells at top of his lung, then release two giant water punches at the same time, letting them landing on the top of the monster's head.
The punches generate two sonic booms beside of the force of the punches themselves, multiply the devastating effect. The attack knocks the demon's head down to the ground, making an enormous shock wave that demolish all the remaining buildings nearby. When the dust fade away, Dararia come out of her hiding place to see Lenny in his fire form standing on the back of a now unconscious AAPEP. Its head is facing down to the ground at the center of a giant meteor-crate on the ground. The surrounding area is flattened to the point that it looks like the Clock Square had an extension, make it twenty times bigger.
Lenny bends down, and subsequently rips ten scales out of the demon's body, making a L shaped scar on its back.
"This mark will remind you of me when you wake up.", says the young man.
"Hey, do you know that you almost killed me?" Dararia flies to him, scowling.
Lenny turns back to his normal form, and smiles to the little dragon. "Oh come on, I know you would be okay, we have practiced this move many time before, right?"
"But not when I had nowhere to hide beside of those thin walls!! And you turned them into dust anyway." she becomes angry.
"Alright, alright. My fault. Next time I will wait for you to hide somewhere safer. You are such a grumpy old bookie."
"Enough of calling me that name. I am a beautiful fairy dragon now!!!", she is getting grumpy as usual. "Also, I think you can forge those scales into something useful. They are Adamantum, the hardest substance known to men."
<To be continued>
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