Book 3: Chapter 15 – Enjoyable Battle
After Linley left, Ace, Amira, and Julius continued their adventure through the mountain range.
Other than looking for beasts to hunt that could pose a challenge to Amira or Ace, they also looked for different ingredients for Julius.
Whilst Linley received the dragon's blood, Ace kept the bones, scales, and its core for himself and gave the meat to the overweight teen chef.
Ace was practically salivating over the thought of tasting it after it was cooked by Julius, but he told them that meat like that was too precious to cook with the ingredients he currently had on hand. Instead, if he wanted to truly make the most of the dragon meat to make a meal deserving of the quality of meat, he needed certain ingredients.
Over the last month, they had found the majority of the ingredients Julius had mentioned. Now, they were only missing one more.
"Fatty, I think I've found the lion heart ginseng you mentioned," Ace said as he stared at the ground from the top of a cliff.
At the base of the small mountain they stood atop, a large crimson ginseng with specs of silver could be seen poking its head out of the ground.
"Finally!" Julius exclaimed as the corners of his lips raised, giving shape to a wild and excited grin. Whilst Ace was excited to eat the dragon meat, he was excited to finally try his hand at actually cooking it. "What are we waiting for? Let's go get it!"
"Not so fast," Ace said. "You guys stay here. I'll go get it."
Amira's right eyebrow raised suspiciously when she heard that. "What rank is the beast down there?"
"Not particularly high," Ace shrugged. "Only at the peak of the fourth rank."
"Then why are you grinning like that?" Julius asked as he noticed the fiendish smile that hung on his friend's lips. "You only ever smile like that when you're about to face something that can really give you a challenge."
"Don't tell me there's a…" Amira looked down at the ground where a large opening could be seen in the mountain opposite them. "Since when was it so easy to find Divine Beasts?
How does its aura compare to Bebe's and that Azure Dragon from before?"
"No weaker than either of them," Ace replied, his grin getting wider by the second. "But its aura feels a lot more bloodthirsty."
Amira looked down at the opening of the cave unwillingly. She was yet to fight against a Divine Beast, let alone one of that level, but she was also aware that although she'd improved a lot over the last few months, she was at most capable of challenging a peak rank six beast. A Divine Beast like that was still too strong for the current her.
Plus, Ace's expression said it all. This fight was his!
"Tch, whatever! But the next one is mine." Amira snorted.
Ace and Julius gave her a look as if to say that they had already run into three; the chances of them running into a fourth were virtually zero, but when they saw the threatening glint in her eye, both boys wisely decided against saying anything.
With that decided, Ace excitedly ran down the mountain laughing wildly as he ran towards the beast's cave, basically announcing his presence to the beast inside.
In response, Ace received a deafening roar. He may not speak beast, but he knew whatever was inside was angry for being disturbed.
"Haha, COME!" Ace bellowed back, his blood boiling with excitement at the prospect of his first serious fight since the Azure Dragon.
As the creature exited the cave, Ace's eyes lit up, his fiendish growing to the point it looked like it would envelop the whole of his face.
"Do you recognise it?" Julius asked Amira from atop the cliff, calmly looking down at the growling beast that emerged.
"I don't," Amira shook her head as she studied the horse-sized black lion with a striking crimson mane. "Though my family's documents on Divine Beasts are extensive, there are still many Divine Beasts and beings that aren't recorded."
As Ace looked at the large lion-type Divine Beast before him that boasted an incredibly muscular physique, a strange thought suddenly popped into his head. "Submit to me!"
Like the Azure Dragon from before, although it couldn't speak, it could understand the words of the little human in front of it, and just like the Azure Dragon, its pride ran bone deep.
Though there were many beasts in the mountain range stronger than it, it had slaughtered its way to the top of the food chain in this region, making it something of a local hegemon.
Not only was the human before it provoking it by encroaching on its territory, it was even trying to violate its pride by telling it to submit to him.
A deep growl escaped the lion's mouth as its hind legs bulged.
"Shit," Ace said as he hurriedly ducked, barely avoiding its paw, which was no smaller than Ace's head.
If it weren't for his [Observation] remaining active the whole time, Ace's head would've been slapped off of his shoulders.
As soon as the paw passed over his head, Ace realised that even with the combination of his recently comprehended fusion of 'wielding' states and his [Armament Haki] coating his arms and glaive, in a battle of raw power, Ace would always come out on the losing side.
Surprisingly, Ace felt that this lion was the strongest of the three Divine Beasts he'd seen thus far in terms of pure power, but that only served to excite Ace even more.
"Only a beast like you is qualified to follow me!" Ace declared as his body flickered, appearing on the opposite side of the lion, his glaive descending with incredible speed and power.
The lion roared furiously as if it wanted to deafen the ignorant human in front of him, its paw swiping up to meet the incoming polearm.
Despite having gravity on his side and having started his move first, Ace was still forced three steps back, a feat that made his smile grow all the wider.
"Again!" Ace bellowed as he laughed heartily.
"It's always Ace who gets the best opponents," Amira said as she enviously watched Ace enjoying himself.
"Best opponent?" Julius asked as he palmed his face. "I knew getting stuck with you two masochists was a terrible idea."
"Who's a masochist?" Amira snorted as she glared at the round teen threateningly.
"Did I say two?" Julius replied nervously. "Ace is the only masochist in the team. You definitely should've been chosen to lead the team instead of that brute."
Amira just rolled her eyes at the supersized mage's attempts at flattery, very much used to his slick tongue, before focusing back on Ace's battle. Though she wasn't particularly worried for his safety, she still found it hard to concentrate on anything else.
From the outside looking in, it looked as though Ace was the one in the superior position as several shallow cuts started to accumulate on the body of the giant feline. Still, Amira, who had a very keen eye for battle, knew that their battle-crazed team leader's condition was no better.
His attacks were still incredibly fast and sharp, but they were definitely slowing slightly. Amira's understanding of Ace's current strength was second only to Ace himself. She knew that with his stamina, there was no way he would be slowing down this soon. The only possible reason was that the impact of each clash was doing more harm than he let on.
She could also tell that he was trying his best to avoid a direct clash, but incredibly, the lion's battle IQ didn't appear to be much worse than Ace's.
Even though Ace was definitely the faster of the two, the lion always managed to find a way to force Ace to fight head-on.
Amira and Julius watched as the strength of Ace and his opponent began to wane as the fight went on. More cuts and bruises began to form on both of them, which only sped up their fatiguing.
Amira was tempted to assist Ace on more than one occasion, but when she saw the pure-hearted smile on his face, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead, she couldn't help but think back to Julius calling him a masochist. 'Maybe he was right…'
The most peculiar part about it was that it appeared that Ace wasn't the only one who seemed to be enjoying himself. It looked as though the lion was also grinning as it clashed with an equal opponent.
As a Divine Beast, it was rare that it met an opponent and rarer still that the opponent was of the same realm.
After another hour, Ace and the lion collapsed. They were both still conscious, but neither was able to move another muscle.
"Seriously?" Amira scolded as she appeared behind him. "You're supposed to be the team leader, yet you decide to fight till you can't even move?"
"Haha, my bad," Ace chuckled as Amira helped him up.
"Let me guess," Amira said as she looked over at the exhausted feline. "You don't want me to finish the job…"
Even though it was unable to move anymore, its pride hadn't waned in the slightest. It didn't exhibit so much as a hint of fear as it calmly met her gaze.
"You know me so well," Ace chuckled as he too focused his eyes on the giant lion. "I'll be the one to defeat him, and when I do, I'll make sure to beat him till he agrees to follow me of his own will!"
A look of surprise flashed across the eyes of the lion when it heard its former opponent tell his companion to spare it, but when it heard the following sentence, a loud and surprisingly human-like snort left its mouth. An act that was subsequently met with a boisterous laugh by the glaive-wielding teen.
"Come on, let's get going already," Amira said as she pulled the enervated youth away. "I've already picked the ginseng. The faster we set up camp, the faster fatty can make our 'Divine Dinner'!"
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Book 4 - Chapter 22