The expedition (2)

'What!? Aren't they supposed to be good-natured?' Faust thought to himself.

'Gra! Come back here, right now!'

Faust hurriedly called over for Angra to come back and told the zombie crew to gather up at a safe place and protect each other, since Faust was afraid if the zombie crew ever faced a third rank magic beast head-on, there would be casualties from the zombie crew, especially Pat Kai who is still only on the first rank.

Angra quickly came back to the campsite using wind fusion, running as fast as he could when he heard Faust calling him over. When he came back to the campsite, he saw that Faust was currently battling three magic turtles that seemed to be floating using some kind of water carpet.

What Faust is doing right now is dodging and countering the magic turtles attacks, with such a large body of water, the magic turtles can just manipulate the water available instead of producing water using water mana, which makes the water spells stronger and makes it harder for Faust to deal with the turtles.

Faust tried to use the wind element to make wind blades to try and damage the turtle, but the shell is so hard that the wind blades barely did anything.

When Faust noticed that Angra is already near him, he stopped Angra from directly joining the fight,

'Gra, I will make an opening, don't go out yet until I do so.'

'Okay'

After dodging the tentacles coming at him, Faust made a small distance between him and the magic turtles, just slightly away from the tentacles' attacking range. Then he gathered fire attribute mana around him, he then began constructing his spell.

Faust always avoids using huge AOE(Area Of Effect) fire spells in the forest since it may cause a forest fire which Mark didn't like and Faust also doesn't want to destroy the environment for no good reason. But now that he is beside a large lake and his enemy is a heavy water magic user. Using a fire spell to counter it may not defeat his enemy when the water is more abundant, but he is not alone, and using a large fire spell may create the gap that Angra can utilize to go in and deal fatal damage to the turtles.

The spell Faust is planning to create this time is a spell that is strong enough to offset the water spells that the magic turtles will use to counter, but Faust also needs to create another surprise that can catch the magic turtles off-guard and thus creating a wider gap for Angra to slip in. So, only making a huge and mana-dense fireball won't do the job.

After gathering the necessary fire attribute mana around him, Faust then made a huge wall of fire, three times his height that moves forward like a tsunami, but instead of water, it is made of red searing-hot flames. Seeing the wall of fire closing in, the magic turtles disabled their water tentacles and countered the firewall with their own water wall.

The two elements clashed against each other and as usual when fire and water that is equal in strength confront each other, a steam explosion is bound to happen in the next moment. But when the steam explosion occurred, the magic turtles saw three dots of lights from the other side of the steam explosion. The three dots suddenly became bigger and before the magic turtles realized what it was, three solid fire swords were flying towards the tree turtles. Caught off-guard by the density of mana from the swords, the three turtles moved their water carpets to their front and fused their water carpets with each other to make a dense water shield to defend against the fire swords.

With their water carpets gone, they are currently floating at the surface of the water and with no other water spell ready. And at this moment, Faust signaled Angra to come in and deal the fatal damage. Angra used his fire hand-blade to go in and cut the turtle's heads. Angra's timing is already perfect, and Faust already did a great job creating that gap, but they forget one thing about turtles.

When Angra comes in through the steam and headed for the turtles that is the nearest to him, he succeeded in coming at the attacking range of the hand blade, but when he wants to cut the turtles head, the turtle's head suddenly went in on its shell, causing Angra's hand blade to miss the head and hit the tough shell and bounced off of it.

Seeing that Angra's attack missed, Faust swiftly pulled Angra out of the water using the combination of attributeless and wind magic to get him back on land.

"What the hell was that?"

"It's turtles anatomy 101 Gra. Apparently, after living in this magic-filled world for 7 years, I forget basic biology and fail to remember that a turtle's main defense is to hide inside their shell."

"What should we do then Faust?"

"We should attack its inside."

"How?"

"One of the ways we can do this is to boil it by encasing its whole body with fire, but they can just counter my fire using their own water magic."

"What about using death mana?"

"We can use death mana to eat away the water attribute mana, but since we're fighting them on a large body of water, I don't think our death mana is able to devour all that water, I think it will be the other way around, where our death mana will be overpowered by their water mana."

While the twins are thinking of ways to get past the magic turtle's formidable defense, the three magic turtles are already back on their water carpet and this time, they attack more aggressively. The water tentacles moved more swiftly and wildly than before, but now the attacks are divided between the twins, so they are still able to dodge and deal with the attacks.

'Damn it, Faust! These tentacles are so annoying! I wish that my hands could pass through that tough shell of theirs and pummel them straight from the inside.'

After hearing Angra's irritated babbling, something clicked inside Faust's head.

'Gra! You can!'

'I can?'

'Remember that skill? The one that you've learned not too long ago?'

'Which one… Ah! Stupid me. Okay Faust, I will be waiting for that gap you will make.'

'You're too dependent on me to make that gap aren't you? Why don't you do it yourself this time?'

'Come on Faust, this is our first third rank magic beasts hunt together, you won't be that harsh to me right?'

'Alright, now use fire fusion and follow my instructions correctly, those turtles won't expect this one coming.'

Faust then readied his spells. This time, without making a fire wall, instead he made a curved earth wall facing towards the turtle to completely hinder the turtles' vision. The turtles didn't stay quiet and used their water tentacles to hit and destroy the earth wall bit by bit. When the turtles finished destroying the earth wall, what they saw was 7 huge fireballs as huge as an adult human floating all around Faust.

When the earth wall goes down, Faust already finished preparations and fired off the 7 huge fireballs towards his enemies. Since the attack this time is not concentrated like the three swords , but instead spread over a huge area, the turtles made a huge wall of water, but not as dense as the water shield that they made before.

The 7 huge fireballs flew over swiftly to hit the water wall, but when one of the fireballs was about to be extinguished by the water, a person suddenly appeared out of nowhere from inside the fireball.

The person who turns out to be Angra, already finished his preparation for the elemental armor break skill and now that he is so close to one of the magic turtles, all he need is an extra push to get in range of his fist and fortunately, Angra got an excellent partner and teammate who understands his condition, and with the remaining fire from the fireball that wasn't extinguished yet, Faust made a small platform with solid magic for Angra to step on and give himself the boost he needed.

Angra then propelled himself forward and slammed his fist, condensed with fire mana into the turtle's shell. With the nature of the elemental armor break skill, the condensed fire mana inside of Angra's arm travelled inside the turtle. The turtle, who was startled that a person suddenly appeared beside him, quickly went inside his shell to defend against any attack that may harm him.

When he succeeded in hiding inside his shell, he was confident that he would be able to hold out against any kind of attack the person is trying to do. Since he succeeded in defending the first time, the second time will be no different. As long as he is inside his shell, he will be safe from anything. Or so he thought until he suddenly felt intense heat coming from inside his body swiftly spreading all over him. And before he could do anything, the magic turtle exploded from the inside, killing him instantaneously.

The other two magic turtles are confused seeing one of their friends suddenly explodes out of nowhere, causing them to panic and forget that the person who caused that explosion is still there near them.

'Gra! Quickly get them out of the water!'

Faust quickly made an ice platform at the surface of the water for Angra to step on and quickly Angra changed into earth fusion and kicked the two turtles away from the water as hard as he could to Faust's direction.

The two confused turtles are now flying from Angra's kick and landed at the ground behind where Faust is currently standing. And Angra soon followed them back to the land by jumping at the ice platform himself.

The two turtles who just now lost their source of water, couldn't do as much as they could earlier with water magic since forming water only using water attribute mana is way more taxing than controlling an already existing water source. The tens of water tentacles from earlier decreased to only 4 and they can't even manage to conjure the water carpet that they used for floating.

With their main source of power gone, it is easy for Faust to overwhelm them this time with the fire wall and their low mobility on land, it is easy to encase them in fire and kill them.

After the fight was over, Faust told the zombie crew to patrol again around the camp and not go too far away from him, afraid that they would encounter another rank 3 magic beasts. And then Faust took out the preserved meat from earlier this morning and cooked them.

"Faust, does this mean that dad's information is wrong?"

"I don't think so, I think something has changed."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, but let's eat dinner and rest first. I can't think with an empty stomach and tired body."