Another War

Two giant shadows loomed over the area where they were earlier.

Despite they were on the higher floor of a building, Ranger and Yule could feel the tremors from the ground due to the giant footsteps of these two massive creatures.

"You have to get out of there," Avatara ordered them from the communication line.

"We know," Ranger answered. "But we have to retrieve Sanna first. She's still back there. And I'm pretty sure, she's exhausted after releasing that large scale magic."

"Sanna can take care of herself. You, two should -"

"We will never leave her behind!" Yule interrupted Avatara's rising tone.

Avatara paused for a second, assessing what should be her next response to them, then replied to them again.

"Okay. I'll request some back up from other teams within the area. I'll ask Matteo to rush his current task so he can retrieve the three of you."

"The professor is busy?" Ranger inquired.

"Oh, forgot to mention that he's pretty occupied with three level 2 aswang. Currently, he's slashing his way through, but these monsters are persistent."

Yule almost gasped when he heard that Professor Fields was dealing with three giant aswang, but Ranger assured him that the professor can handle himself.

Shrugging his worries and trusting Ranger's words, Yule looked determine again in saving Sanna.

"Here's the plan, Yule," Ranger started and smiled at him albeit their grim situation. "I'll carry you to where Sanna is while I'll distract those two aswang."

"So that's the plan?"

Ranger nodded in reply to his question.

"But how are you going to escape them?"

"Yule, are you forgetting something? I can fly!" Ranger pointed to his yellow blade swords behind him.

"Yes, trust me."

Then Avatara's voice chimed in again. "Good news, guys! There's a team nearby. They already sent their confirmation to send some of their students to provide some backup. You can proceed now to Sanna's extraction."

Yule and Ranger voiced their confirmation to Avatara. Then Ranger quickly grabbed Yule's shoulders and started flying toward their destination.

*****

They tried contacting Sanna through their communication line but to no avail, she was not replying to their messages. Ranger thought that she fainted after depleting her magic reserves.

Yule remembered that the last time he laid his eyes on Sanna was she stood on top of an abandoned trailer truck. He relayed this information to Ranger, so they started scanning below for a trailer truck.

Strong current of winds blew through them while they were gliding above. And as they got closer, Yule could finally see the true horror of level 3 aswang appearance.

As mentioned by Professor Fields, they were like a golem type creatures wherein their body is made of different kind of large stones.

The stone body was covered by dark green moss and looking above, the head or what should it be was devoid of facial qualities. It was a plain blank.

But there were little shadows behind them, rushing along these two giant monsters.

Yule paled at the incoming wave of level 1 aswang, and above him, he could hear Ranger's cl.i.c.k.i.n.g his tongue. He was shaking his head at the sight before them.

"Ranger, get me down. I could use my Lunar Monument spell to eradicate all the level 1 aswang." Yule offered to his companion.

"And make you deplete your magic reserve? No! I need you right now to get Sanna out of here. Plus I need that spell later on. We need to save it since you could only use it once at your level."

Yule nodded at him and hating himself for being weak in this situation.

"I'll be dropping you now. You have to find Sanna while I'll distract our guests." Ranger winked at him and started to descend his flight.

Yule found himself on the ground again and bid farewell temporarily to the flying form of his friend. He quickly searched the area while holding to his violet spear just in case another aswang slipped past from Ranger.

While roaming around the area, he could hear some explosions from afar where Ranger was. The two gigantic level 3 aswang were trying to swat the flying form of Ranger. Unfortunately for them, Ranger was fast and launching various electrical attacks at them.

Ranger also had the full attention of the packs of wolf-like aswang where some tried to leap from a tall building just to grab him. But his yellow bladed swords behind him intercepted the leaping creatures by blasting electrical attacks.

Until he spotted a crumpled form under a ruined yellow bus. Window glasses were already shattered by an unknown force and the whole length of its body was covered by rust and dirt. The tires were already depleted of air.

He hurriedly headed to the bus to better check if it was Sanna. Crouching his body, he heaved a sigh of relief. It was Sanna. She must have dragged her body under the bus to hide herself from other threats.

"Ranger," Yule started. "I've found Sanna. You can leave -"

Yule didn't finish his sentence when he saw the approaching forms of wolf-like aswang.

They were all baring their fangs at him. Yule put his spear before him to prepare himself on attacking them.

Then a single monster leaped itself from the ground and headed to Yule.

He gripped his spear tightly. When it was already inches from him, Yule timely pierced the head of the aswang.

The monster w.h.i.n.ed in pain and Yule pulled out the spear quickly and faced the remaining aswang.

But he was caught surprised when he saw the pack simultaneously preparing to charge at him. He was about to launch his spell when -

Yule was also taken aback by the sudden appearance of these tiny blue flames when he heard a male voice.

"Never thought of you as the princess type," said the mysterious voice from behind.

Yule and the monsters turned their gaze at the source of the mysterious voice.

When Yule turned his body, he found a black-haired boy wearing the same white academy uniform as him. On his right hand, he was holding a long golden metal pole topped with a metal finial with two sections, each with three rings - a shakujo.

Yule recognized this weapon since he always watched anime. In the anime, onmyouji has this kind of weapon for exorcising demons.

"Haruto?" Yule said in disbelief.

Haruto nodded at him and stomped the ground with his shakujo. The golden metal pole chimed from the rings attached to it. And this action made the aswang angrier.

"You owe me after this. But we can talk later after I terminated these pesky monsters." Haruto scanned the whole area to get a better look at the aswang cornering them, then he shouted -

"Kitsune! First Tail! Aoi Hono!"

Yule was gaping in awe and smiled at Haruto.

"So your contracted mythical being is a kitsune?"

"Yeah, the nine-tailed fox. Why? Got a problem?"

Shaking his head, Yule grabbed the shoulders of his roommate which made Haruto a bit uncomfortable.

"I'm a big fan of kitsune! I used to watch this show where the main character can transform into this giant nine-tailed fox!"

Haruto irritably removed the hands of Yule and brushed him off. He moved closer to Sanna and checked her pulse.

"Enough with your stupidy, we have pressing matters at hand. You need to carry Sanna now and evacuate this place." He ordered to Yule.

"But how about Ranger?"

Haruto pointed his finger to where Range was. "Oh, we got him covered."

Giant magic circles with snowflakes symbols appeared beside the two level 3 aswang. Those magic circles released a cool blast of arctic wind from within.

At first, nothing happened after the released of the cold wind, then the aswang tried to lift their giant stone arms, they couldn't move it.

Frost started to spread around their shoulders, freezing the arms.

"Lee Jin-Yoo is supporting Ranger."