Ron knew they were in deep trouble from how silent Isanna was as she led him through the forest.
"Are they still near us?" Ron asked hoping that since they had been running for so long they might finally had made some distance from the enemy.
"Yes, and one of them is very close, " said Isanna.
"How many are there I thought there was only one?" he asked.
"Before they were together so it was difficult to tell their numbers, but now they have split so I can tell there are more than one, " she said.
"What about Derek?" asked Ron.
"We can't rely on him, we have to prepare for the worse outcome, sooner or later we are going to have to face these enemies after us, " she said.
Ron wanted to say no like it was a choice but he knew she was right. He also was extremely tired of running, his legs were hurting badly and he was running out of mana.
Isanna knew Ron wouldn't be able to go for much longer, she was just looking for the right place to stop. But they were running out of time so she had to do whith what they had.
Isanna stopped and looked around, Ron was glad for the rest but he was also warrily looking back expecting someone to appear any second.
"Get up in one of these trees and don't make a sound, " Isanna said to him.
"What?" he exclaimed.
"Hide and don't come out no matter what, I don't want their attention going to you, " she said.
"You are asking me to do nothing?"
"Ron please understand, these ones are too strong, you are nowhere near their level yet, I know it's harsh, but it's the truth of the battlefield, " she said.
Ron upset and his heart beating like crazy wondering what's about to happen climbed on a tree and hid. All he was praying for was Isanna to be safe.
Cormac had been the closest to them and he was the first one who noticed that his prey had stopped, he grinned knowing what that meant and sped up. He didn't want the others interfering with his fight too soon.
Ron waited with bated breath trying to calm his heart down and focus. In his head all the scenarios that could possibly happen were going through and how he could help in each of them. He had taken out his bow and arrow pulled and ready to shoot.
Isanna was standing still her one hand on her sword handle which she hadn't taken out yet. She was looking in one direction and Ron was sure their first enemy would come through there. So he also aimed his arrow at the middle of the two trees she was looking at.
Then a noise of someone walking started coming from that direction and Ron saw with wide eyes the person who stepped out.
His legs had transformed like he had seen other half-breeds in their hybrid forms, they had an orange fur and long very sharp claws, he was expecting a lion but he was taken back when he saw two big goat horns coming out of the man's head. The man was a strange mix of a lion and a goat. But what surprised him again was when it's tail came in the light. It had a big purprle curved stinger on it like that of a scorpion. Ron was all too terrified of the man's appearance alone but the way he was looking at Isanna made his heart tremble even more. The man was grinning showing his sharp rows of teeth and growling with exciting energy.
Ron hadn't realized but the man was slowly transforming in front of them the last of the human aspects of him gone, his eyes turned yellow and torso wider and thicker, claws even bigger and taller as a whole.
On Isanna's part preparing for battle only meant taking out her sword which was glowing yellow.
"I am Cormac, I can see you are having trouble figuring out what I am, I am a chimera type, It's my first time seeing a human, especially a riped female like you, the beast inside me is growling asking me to mate with you, but I have also always wanted to fight you humans, and I can tell you are a strong one, so I am kind of pissed at my luck right now, tell me do I want to fight you more or fuck you more, which would be more fun, " said the man.
"You don't want to try anything because you'll get your head cut off like a small worm, " said Isanna.
Cormaz growled in anger.
"You dare speak to me like that, you have no idea what I will do to you once I'll get my hands on you, " he growled and sprang at her to attack.
His two clawed hands, wide open mouth with four long canines and the stinger all came forward to attack at once, it was an animalistic attack, like a lion going for the throat of it's prey. Even Ron saw the weakness of attacking like that, and the half-breeds knew it too that's why they never let their beasts take over completely when fighting with an intelligent opponent with similar strength, but Isanna couldn't take advantage of it because in Cormac's case he had a deadly tail which was along with attacking also doing the important job of guarding his neck from the open left side. Isanna still seeing this tried to cut the sword off by a quick swipe of her sword, but she soon realized that Cormac hadn't been all that stupid because her sword got stuck in its scales and in the few seconds it took for her to pull it out with both her hands, Cormac landed a swipe at her stomach with the claws on his left hand.
They both jumped apart and checked who had come worse off the exchange.
Isanna had three cuts on her stomach they weren't deep, her chainmail had protected from the worst, her sword had coke back a little wet with dark red almost purple blood from the tail, but it was still intact and moving fine and she knew from experience how fast their healing usually is. So in all Isanna was the worse one, but she hadn't lost any confident because she now knew that his opponent had come prepared and she wouldn't fall for the same tricks again, Cormac was hoping to deal much more damage but he hadn't expected her to be so fast and strong.
Isanna was actually now feeling relaxed if a slight swipe of her sword had been able to cut the very hard looking scales on his tail she was sure a little powered up lightbeam could cut her opponent in two easily. She was looking for the obscure powers like the kind Rin had shown and Derek had later told her about that the half-breeds start developing when they train more and become stronger.
According to Derek since the half-breeds are actually a mix of many genes, some of them especially the strong or the ones from royal lineage have some little genes of ancient ancestors who are much rarer types, he called them mythical-types, there other halfs are rare creatures and beasts. When they push themselves more and more those genes finally show themselves and they develop strange abilities by in reality accessing mana and magic. And she was sure Cormac in front of her definitely had a little bit of these mythical genes because she had never heard of anything like a chimera, which was half lion, half goat and half scorpion.
Cormac attacked again but this time he didn't lunge like an animal, Ron was rather surprised to see how fast his tail moved, the six or so inches long stinger was being used like a dagger and Isanna was blocking it's attacks with her sword. For Isanna it was suddenly like being in a sword fight which she had been many times before, the only difference was that his opponent could move it's tail freely and very fast, she had to move twice as fast to not get Caught off guard and the other difference was that her opponent's body was nowhere in her reach, so even if she could hold herself for sometime eventually she will tire and slip. So she needed to do something else, using her second affinity of air she formed a sword of air behind Cormac, Ron could only see it because she had seen it once before, it required tremendous focus and control to move air molecules so fast in a small space to give it the hardness and sharpness of a blade. Ron couldn't even imagine doing something like this with his second affinity.
Isanna waited for the right moment and with a forward gush of wind she sank the blade of air in Cormac's back deeper and deeper. Cormac's tail stopped moving and he looked down at his chest, he couldn't see anything but he was sure something was there and his shirt slowly started turning red.