The Novel's Sidekick

Jon flung away, breaking through a trunk of a tree and was about to collide with another when his legs lurched, as the knees bent to manoeuvre against the trunk of the tree. He stayed against the tree for a prolonged nick of the moment before his body was shot again towards the rampaging beast.

Mad wind curled around him as Jon shot, swirling his magical energy to melt the ice from his skin. He found Noyar running, cutting through the angry wind the saint beast charged her with. However, even with all her attempts, the winterheart reindeer would collide against her within a couple of seconds.

Jon rushed to the top of his dominion, pushing harder against the earth. He dropped just beside Noyar, who stood in sword stance, while the beast was only ten paces away. Jon redirected his anchor of the gravitational push. Instead of earth, he pushed against the three metres long humongous beast, but the problem was that he only managed to slow it down pouring everything out.

So in the nick of moment, he jerked his right arm towards Noyar as she flung away, still in her stance. Jon tried to shoot in the air as well, but the beast didn’t give him any time to do that. It roared as the heavy snowfall in the surrounding turned into sharp projectiles to shoot toward Jon.

Jon gritted his teeth and reinforced more energy in his defence, still, the centre of the anchor was the beast. Sharp projectiles of icy hurled through the mad wind and struck his body, as if sharp nails were hammering against him. However, with the protection of spirit armament and the armour, he was fine. Mostly.

However, even if he managed to be safe against the ice attack, how would he manage against the beast? The beast roared and charged.

Jon leapt. He didn’t know if he used gravity or just on his physical body, but he barely manage to get over the top of the beast, which was barely enough to dodge the attack.

Jon was safe and his anchoring with the beast was still intact. Hovering in the air, Jon pushed forth again and this time it was a lot easier, as the direction of the push was the same as the beast was charging at. The humongous beast was flung away a dozen metres. It collided against trees, displacing, breaking, uprooting them to a halt.

Jon didn't wait for the beast to stand back up, but looked for Noyar. He was pretty sure the Winterheart Reindeer would get up in no time.

“How much longer?” he asked, finding Noyar. He sprinted to her and caught her arm as the beast behind them rose up, roaring.

“We aren’t even halfway there,” Noyar answered. The two of them rose in the air and flew towards the direction of the cavern.

Jon grunted. It was about five minutes they were luring the beast, and they have already tried everything. After all, he had been through, he couldn’t even pull half of his highest speed, but he didn’t need to fly with the top speed either. He was luring the beast towards them, not fleeing from it. If somehow his speed was faster than the beast could chase after, it would likely go after the city again.

Jon increased the pace they were going a little, trying to take a breather. Well, with the snow slapping against his face, the wind curling around him, he would need more than that. This time he was not pushing Noyar separately, but carrying her, running on a single anchor.

Dominion of Gravity was one dominion that could be usable for a prolonged period unlike most other dominions, though it mostly depends on the person. Some were just innate prodigies in it, like him.

It was not that they just chose the dominion, but the other way around. If one doesn’t have the innate spark, then he would get nothing out of the ritual other than misery.

Noyar was on the lookout with her eyes glowing in a faint blue light. She could see through the spatial nodes in all the directions—probably something to do with the beast rampaging and the five moons radiating in the sky. She could see spiritual energy undulating all over the mountain range, more so near the beast, it's swirling all around the saint beast, which didn’t seem to have any mood to stop its rampage.

“Jon,” Noyar said in a shaky voice, “I think we have pissed it enough already. It wouldn’t go anywhere without finishing us first.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jon said, but his voice wasn’t a bit happy.

“We’re going to depart at our full speed then,” Noyar said, but her face turned pale, finding their top speed was only a tiny bit higher than what they were usually going at. And no way it was enough to get away from a rampaging saint beast.

As both of them feared, the beast got on their trail and attacked with hundreds of icy spices. There were so many that they couldn’t block against all, nor could Jon stop them with his gravity, because it would flap his anchor, slowing down their pace. That would undermine everything and put the two of them to doom.

If he was alone, that's another story.

So he remained high enough in the air where the beast couldn’t reach leaping, but could assault with the ice attacks, which they were barely holding off. Each of the icy spikes was like bullets from firearms stabbing against their body. The armament coating was getting weak with each impact. No matter how much they were trying, it wasn’t enough to stand against a saint beast’s relentless attack.

“What are we going to do?” Noyar asked, biting her lips. “Jon, drop me.”

“No” Jon answered without even considering it.

“I’m not telling you to drop me before the beast,” she said, “but somewhere safer, where it wouldn't notice me. You can see it already. With me, you won't be able to take it to the rift.”

“That’s not possible,” Jon said. “The only thing I can do is toss you in the other directions, but there’s no guarantee it won’t chase after you, and if it did, I don’t know if I can get you back before it could.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“No,” Jon said. “Without something to distract it, it's suicide. Besides, I don't know where the rift is.”

Noyar groaned as a spike struck the back of her skull, rendering her spirit defence useless. She infused more energy to protect herself to notice a single red light flying from far away. Even though it was not a critical blow, it stabbed with an impaling pain in her head.

“We got our distraction,” Noyar said. “Be ready.”

Jon turned his head to notice the light, too. “Is that . . .?”

“Yeah,” she answered without hesitation.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah.” This time, there was no hesitation either. “It would take him half a minute at best to reach us.”

“Got it.” Now what Jon needed to do was be a distraction at the exact moment. Perhaps if this gives them an opportunity, they could take the beast to the rift with minimal damage.

“Are you ready?” Noyar asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “Be prepared in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .”

As Jon finished the countdown, he tossed Noyar to the right side and gripped his sword tight with his free arms. The beast went for Noyar, ignoring him totally even though he was closer to it. It knew dealing with him would be harder, so it picked on the easier target.

“Zashin burn it,” Jon swore, flying behind it at a swift speed. Well, Noyar wouldn’t go that easily. She was already on the run the moment she landed on the snow.

However, with her speed in the damning weather, it would be no time before the beast would reach her. That’s why he was here. Jon pushed with everything he got, not against the beast entirely, but just one leg in the back. It was tremendously hard to do something like that against a moving object, but Jon was not your average Knight.

Even under all the fatigue and pressure, he succeeded, making a jumble of the Winterheart Reindeer’s strides. The saint beast fell head first on the snow, crying. Noyar withdrew further, and Jon was about to lurch up when a red light dropped on top of the fallen beast.

“Run!” A new, but familiar voice said, hovering in the air, as flares of fire burst out of his back, lurching up upwards.

BOOM!

In the next very moment, whatever the newcomer threw at the beast, it burst right on top of it, warping noise and fiery disastrous spiritual disturbance in the five-metre radius.

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