Valerian, The Legendary

36 Spar.

Gleam led the way and Valerian followed her. He asked, ‘Hey, you can transform, right? Why not you play as my sparring partner?’

The snake made a circle around him while giving him a stinky gaze, she said, ‘What do you know? Transformation is a magic spell, magic spell sucks mana. Why should I use mana for such a wasteful deed? Also, there is a risk that I might get hurt by you while sparing. I know you, so I will not go hard on you, that will be degrading the purpose of training.’

Valerian nodded and they continued to move through the woods. The boy asked again, ‘Where are we going by the way?’

Gleam replied, ‘To see an old enemy.’

Her words made Valerian raise his guard, he did not expect this crazy snake to find her enemy to be his sparring partner. While passing a few trees, Valerian noticed claw marks on the tree trunks.

These marks were not made by normal animals. The depth of each gash on the trunk was four inches. That was enough to shred the internals of a human before they could fall to the ground when the nails of this beast dig into the abdomen.

Valerian gulped a mouthful of spit and was about to ask what was the beast he was going to face when suddenly, his hair stood up on its ends and he ducked and rolled on the ground. He rolled a few times before he stood up.

When he stood up, he found that from his flank, a hairy beast had appeared. It took him a few seconds to register what was happening and what beast was it.

However, when he recognized this beast, he was not very optimistic about his future, and asked Gleam, ‘You choose a War Bear for me? Are you crazy?’

.....

In return he received four words, ‘It will be fun.’

Valerian wished he could have killed this snake. He did not have the time to finish scolding the snake when the bear attacked him once again.

The War Bear was known for its destruction capabilities. These beasts were recruited by the armies of powerful empires and then used in the berserker divisions. Now a rookie was going to face this beast and that too a wild one.

Valerian moved back and rolled to the side. The War Bear was seven feet tall, on four limbs. The strength commanded by the forelimbs was enough to break boulders as big as a carriage, not to forget that it was an earth-attributed beast.

Valerian did not have much of a chance, he was just dodging and dodging. He was very grateful that he did not get hurt. However, just when he thought he was getting used to the speed, the War Bear suddenly roared and Valerian was stunned.

War Cry, the special attack of War Bear struck the boy, leaving him in a momentary daze. Valerian could see that a huge claw was moving toward him, but he was not able to react. Thanks to the daze, his body stumbled and instead of the claw, he was hit by the paw of the bear and his small body flew away, directly hitting a tree trunk ten meters away.

The impact has left the trunk with a dent, and the tree even shed some leaves. Valerian was unable to breathe from the attack when his body slipped down from the trunk, the impact of the fall aided him and he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

The War Bear made a chase, but before it could reach, Gleam appeared in front of Valerian. She was not a snake anymore, but she was a bull, an earth bull.

She raised her front hooves and bellowed loudly. The War Bear was surprised and stopped in its tracks. Gleam picked up the kid, put him on her back, and ran away, leaving behind a roaring bear.

While running, Gleam could sense that the breathing of the boy was not very strong, seems like he has been hurt pretty bad, but this was for his own good.

The earth bull took the child to a safe place. When Valerian had fainted the last time, she had dragged him back to his burrow and detoxified his poisons. Today the situation was a little different, she could not bring him to the burrow because they were very far from it.

She placed the boy between two boulders and transformed back to her true form. She said, ‘You have to get up on your own, I cannot help you with medicine.’

Valerian was conscious, the pain did not allow him to faint, and breathing was a laborious task for him. He used the snake tongue, ‘Water.’

The snake understood this single syllable after three attempts and replied, ‘I will get some water for you.’

That said, the snake left. Just as the snake left, the ground beneath Valerian broke, and a translucent green vine sprouted from the crack, it gently spread all over his torso and began to glow dimly.

It was daytime, and the glow was not that obvious. After an hour when Gleam came back, she found the boy to be sleeping soundly. The breathing had returned back to normal. She was surprised beyond belief.

She crawled over his body and sensed that his broken bones have been mended, he was just too exhausted from tolerating so much pain. Gleam could not understand what happened here while she was gone.

She thought that the boy cast a healing magic spell, but she quickly gave up this idea as she knew, healing magic could not be cast upon oneself. The only plausible explanation was that someone held the boy in secret.

She thought, ‘It must be one of those humans from before, they must have used some healing charm on him.’

This idea was correct, for her.

She transformed into a monkey and used a hollow bamboo tube to fill water and bring it back. The stuff that Valerian had brought with him from the palace, was placed back at the bird colony.

It was in the evening when Valerian woke up groggily. He stretched his body and his bones gave off crackling sounds. He stood up and found the snake to be sleeping coiled over the boulder, he said, ‘Gleam, you are one of the most stupid creations of Primus.’

The snake snapped open her eyes and retorted, ‘You cold-blooded animal, how dare you accuse me? I went to get you water and even saved your life. I did not think so much, I am not very familiar with your human logic so I rushed to the stream. You are so ungrateful.’

Valerian raised his eyebrow and said, ‘You were the one who selected that War Bear as my opponent. So, you saved me. Big deal. You could have turned into some ice attribute monster and then cast a spell to condense water, but no you had to leave the injured me here in the open? What if some beast ate me?’

Gleam did not wish to back off, and said, ‘How dare someone eat you? I have left my mark on you. I am the highest-ranking beast in this forest now. Did you not notice that War Bear not daring to take me on? How can someone eat you with my mark?’

Valerian snorted and said, ‘I think, it is because of your mark that I was beaten so badly by that War Bear. Also, who allowed you to leave a mark on me? Clean it up.’

Gleam shook her head and said, ‘Mark means to smell, it will automatically clean if you do not come close to me for a few days.’

Valerian nodded and said, ‘Then you go, I will come after I have defeated that War Bear. I do not wish to face him enraged from the get-go.’

Gleam wanted to say something but when she saw the solemn and serious expression of the boy, she nodded and calmly left the boulder.

She said, ‘Be careful, and you know where to find me.’

Valerian nodded and said, ‘Do not eat those birds, or I will beat you.’

Gleam did not say anything except a few curses in snake tongue. Valerian gathered some fruits from the surroundings and after he was done eating, he climbed over to the crown of a tree and leaned his back on the thick trunk, and fell asleep while gazing at the sky.

The next day he woke up, rushed to the stream nearby with the hollow bamboo tube and after cleaning himself up, he filled up the make-shift bottle and had a fruity breakfast. Then he came back to the territory of the War Bear. Unlike before, he was not distracted in the slightest.

The War Bear was laying in front of its lair and found a few bones and dead carcasses of the beasts and some unfortunate humans lying there in the open.

Valerian took a deep breath and after calming his mind, he picked up a stone from the side and threw it directly at the forehead of the sleeping bear.

The whole forest shook with a loud roar.