?Although the fire mage was beginning to have trouble breathing, the temperature and the air bustling with fire mana strengthened the flames on her legs and increased her speed, and she burst out with power, leaving flaming footsteps in her wake.
The fire mage went from losing out in speed to the Demonic Bull to equalling it and then surpassing it. The Demonic Bull noticed the fire mage increasing the distance between them and, with a snort, increased its own speed to its limit, despite the feeling of danger that accommodated the rise in temperature.
The bull-headed Demonic Bull didn't have any intentions of giving up on its targets and ignored the heat by expanding even more demonic energy to shield and reinforce its body.
However, by ignoring the heat, the Demonic Bull failed to realize that the temperature continued rising without end. The fire mage was getting farther and farther away, despite the bull's efforts to catch up, and the bull knew they were running in the direction of the humans' base camp, so it decided to stop chasing.
The Demonic Bull slowed down and stopped with a snort before turning around. It could sense the heat still eating away at its protective cover of demonic energy, so it began running away.
But it didn't get very far.
The demonic energy surrounding and reinforcing its body began rapidly dissipating into thin air. The Demonic Bull lost control of its demonic energy and was thus exposed directly to the heat.
It didn't take long for the Demonic Bull to suffer. And it only got worse when four wisps of flame appeared around it, each flame increasing the temperature to unbearable levels. The air itself was on the verge of catching fire.
The injuries from the water mage's attacks had begun healing, but the heat put a stop to that. The torn skin melted and dripped off the Demonic Bull and landed on the ground with a sizzling noise. The rest of the bull's hide soon accompanied the skin.
Before the Demonic Bull could even properly understand what was happening, it had already turned into cooked beef. And with a final popping sound, its brain and eyes ruptured. Combined with the bull's boiling insides, there was no way for the Demonic Bull to survive.
The Demonic Bull that prided itself on its strength and physical prowess had been rendered nothing more than a steaming pile of charred meat at the hands of Mindle's flames and Asilean's void magic.
Toz and Mindle went forward to inspect the bull's remains, just to see what kind of devastation Mindle's heat had wreaked upon the Demonic Bull. Since the extreme heat prevented the other cats from approaching, they stayed back and waited.
The bull's skin and flesh had melted, but its bones were relatively intact. It had died and turned into something less than a pile of burned meat. But Mindle wasn't satisfied. She hadn't been able to incinerate the bull completely by only heating it. And the ground was also practically untouched by her heat. Mindle realized that she had a long way to go in her mastery of fire magic, even after successfully conjuring the fourth Tongue of Flame.
After inspecting the results of Mindle's magic, she and Toz rejoined with the other cats as they headed deeper into the battlefield, searching for more opponents.
Although Mindle'smagic was the one that had actually dealt damage to the Demonic Bull, Asilean's assistance made it a lot easier for her. Asilean used his void magic that he brought to the seventh level during the time they waited for Dyra to dispel the Demonic Bull's demonic energy.
Since it was Asilean's first time interacting with demonic energy, he was a little uncomfortable during the process. But he quickly realized that demonic energy was similar to other attributes, even if its nature differed slightly, in that the owner lost control of it if he softened its borders and mixed it with the mana in the air.
And after making the demonic energy unusable for the Demonic Bull, there was nothing stopping Mindle's magic from reaching the bull.
Asilean still hadn't found a way to attack enemies and kill them on his own, but he had discovered how he could help the others display their true strength. Learning how to use his magic more offensively would take a while, but Asilean was constantly making progress and thinking about how to improve. And using void magic to reduce or remove an opponent's defenses was certainly one way that Asilean could use to improve his offensive might.
Asilean wasn't the only one thinking about how to improve and remove weaknesses. The other cats were doing that as well. Toz, Mindle, and Asilean had all gotten opportunities to try out their magic against strong opponents, even if they hadn't been quite strong enough to really put up a fight. And the others were itching for an opportunity for themselves.
But while they walked and waited for their next encounter with the enemy forces, the cats prepared themselves and their magic so that they would be able to show off their might, defeat the enemies, and accumulate merit.
Not all of their attention was on how to improve their magic since they were in the middle of a battlefield where danger could strike from anywhere and at any time. But by working together, they could share the burden of keeping a watch on their surroundings and making sure they didn't unknowingly step headfirst into any ambushes.
But simply thinking about how to improve their magic wouldn't do much, so rather than avoiding enemies and ambushes, they sought them out so that they could find targets and opponents to help them temper their magic and fighting experience.
So far, they had only encountered a pair of demonic beasts that couldn't really put up a fight and were easily killed by them. They hadn't even needed to exert any effort against the Earthworm and the Demonic Bull since they were too weak and unskilled to put up proper resistance. What Toz and the cats really wanted was to face enemies like the demons they met in Tumbling Thunder Forest, or at least enemies like them that could force them to go all out and make them push themselves to the limit while experiencing the threat of death.
Fighting enemies like those would both earn them more merits, but it would also help them temper and improve their magic.
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