Chapter 420: Footprints

Riev took them further into the forest, hoping to lose some of the hybrids. He then landed on a tree branch, high up on the trees and placed Alicia down.

"I'll go deal with them," Riev told her, obviously telling her to stay put.

"But there are too many of them! There's no wa-"

"Please don't insult me, witch princess. I am not weak. Raven is our captain because he knows how to lead but I am just as strong as he is," Riev cut her off.

Riev's red eyes blazed as he made mincemeat of the hybrid vampires that came at them. Alicia provided back up by casting protection spells, healing spells and buffs on Riev. Riev felt unstoppable. His body felt light but stronger. He was somewhat amazed at the difference he felt with Alicia's spells running through his body. It was actually kind of scary.

Alicia watched from the branch as Riev fought four hybrids at once. She saw him fling two small knives towards the foreheads of two of the hybrids and they made their mark with a swift sharp cut. The hybrids fell to the ground, dead. He then lunged towards the hybrid in front of him, savagely piercing this one in the throat with his sharp talons. The fourth one held a knife and lunged at Riev, aiming the point of the knife towards his heart, but Riev merely swatted the hybrid's arm away with his left wrist before stabbing the hybrid in the heart with his sharp claw.

Alicia saw that another hybrid was about to stab Riev from behind so she quickly threw a potion towards its head, getting her target. When Riev turned to see what had happened, he saw the hybrid already on the ground, with only half a head left.

This was how they fought the hybrid vampires; Riev on the ground, with Alicia watching his back. He made sure that none of them passed by him to get to her - it was after all his mission to keep her alive - and she made sure to deal with the hybrids that crept up behind him.

The number of enemies were slowly dwindling and a large number of dead bodies were scattered all over the forest floor.

Riev looked up at where Alicia was standing. He was about to leap up to her when he heard another mob of hybrids running at him.

Alicia looked at this group and she immediately called out to Riev.

"Riev! Be careful. These are hybrid witches. Don't look them in the eyes!" Alicia yelled but her warning came too late. Riev had already turned around and was frozen in place.

She immediately jumped off the branch, throwing several potions towards the hybrid witches, and landed in front of Riev with a soft thud. She closed her eyes and chanted another spell and when she opened her eyes, they glowed green. The ground beneath them shook and cracked underneath the mob of hybrids. Suddenly, many sharpened tree roots appeared from the cracks, stabbing the hybrids all at once in the heart. Every last one of the hybrids fell and a second later, the roots retracted back underground as Alicia fell to the ground, breathing heavily. That spell took all of her power to cast and she felt like she had no strength left.

However, she still had to save Riev. With what strength she had left, she pulled out a silver blade from her bag and cut a small line on the back of his hand. In the next moment, Riev staggered backwards, awakened from the hybrid witches' spell.

Alicia was still on the ground as she and Riev looked at the carnage around them. A crazy amount of dead hybrids lay everywhere but it looked like they had finally finished them all off.

Without waiting for more of the damn things to arrive, Riev picked Alicia up and they left to find Abigail.

Dark shadows flew in the darkness, moving swiftly and silently towards the glass house. They surrounded the house and looked for any signs of enemies within the vicinity but all was silent. There was nobody out there and there was nobody inside or around the house.

Raven looked for signs of a fight, or anything to indicate that Alexander and Abigail were attacked and had been taken, but he found none. His relief was short lived, however, when one of his men called him over to look at an imprint on the snow.

He cursed and told everyone to quickly follow its course - the route that Abigail had taken towards the mountain - for it was her footsteps that were imprinted on the ground. What made him uneasy was the fact that Alexander's footprints were nowhere to be found.

"Where are you going, Abigail? And where is Alexander?" he muttered to himself.

Raven and his team didn't get very far before they had to suddenly stop because a sea of red eyes appeared before them.

"Sh*t!" Raven cursed under his breath before he told his men to get into formation. He and his team have been on many missions and they knew how to work together as a team. They had grown stronger and more efficient over time but looking at the number of enemies gathered around them, he knew this fight would take more than a few minutes, minutes he couldn't afford to waste because he needed to find Abigail. He didn't want to do this, but he knew he had to leave his men here to deal with these hybrids because he had another mission to fulfil. He had to find Abigail and protect her.

He turned to all his men and spoke in a voice full of authority. "I will leave these enemies for you to deal with. I will go ahead and look for Abigail. Follow after my trail once you've dealt with these monsters."

With that, Raven leapt up over the sea of red-eyed hybrids.

However, the enemy wasn't going to let him leave that easily. A number of them leapt after him, intent on stopping his progression and he cursed again. Raven was about to stop to deal with them but when he looked back, he saw that his men had started to attack, starting with the ones that were following him. Raven's lips curved up with a slight smile of pride. His men really could be counted on.

Thus, he leapt further away from the battleground, following the small footprints on the ground.