About thirteen hours following the conclusion of Team Pyron's mission, three entity hunters from the Land of Stone had been dispatched to the Great Nahata Valley due to the rapidly rising firepower levels in the area. "The air pressure is dropping rather low as we proceed, don't you think?" one of the three members said. This hunter was locally known as Harlo of the Stone, and the two that followed behind him were known as Ola and Nathaniel. These three were rather new to entity hunting and had not gained much experience due to their inability to hunt outside of the Land of Stone, but they were classified as the strongest available hunters that were capable of leading Pyron away from the mountain.
About a second later, all three of them had come to a sudden halt. A loud, ferocious roar stretched through the mountain range, nearly throwing them off their feet. "So it really is true," Nathaniel muttered under his breath, tapping on Harlo's shoulder. "We will not back down, for we are fearless entity hunters of the Stone!" he declared, pointing straight in the direction of the roar. "We shall head that way!"
Ola rolled her eyes, pushing her long, brown hair behind her head. "Ever since Team ENTITY's been in action, all the entity hunters in the country have been acting like they have some sort of thing that makes them stand out!" She criticized Harlo. "And you're a prime example!"
Before Harlo could open his mouth to insult Ola, a loud rumbling sound shook the entire valley. The shaking was accompanied by repeated roars, then loud stomping that inched closer and closer to them. All three of them looked up at the sky that had turned red, noticing a giant, roaring fireball soaring down from the sky straight at them. "We're going to have to take that attack, there's no way we can dodge it!" Nathaniel informed his partners. With his persisting confidence, Harlo stepped in front of them yet again and hardened his body into stone. "The more hits we get, the faster the battle is going to end!" he claimed, running straight into the line of fire and withstanding the major explosion it had created. Extreme currents of wind blew Ola and Nathaniel across the valley, the sharp tip of a rock nearly impaling both of them. "It's said that you always have to make a sacrifice while battling a pristine entity - I'm here to TEST THAT THEORY!" Harlo screamed on the other side of the fireball, echoing across the valley to Ola and Nathaniel. Without second thought, he changed into his armor and leaped straight towards the pristine entity - and this would be his greatest mistake yet.
Volume 13, Chapter 22 - The Mighty Pyron Awakens
"You will NOT APPROACH THE LAND OF STONE!" Harlo declared, coating his entire body (with the exception of his eyes for sight) in the metal armor. As he jumped over the mountain, he had his first glimpse of the large, one eyed entity that was known to be one of the most powerful and dangerous creatures in the entire world. "Who the hell does that idiot THINK HE IS!?" Ola screamed angrily, pulling Nathaniel up from the ground and into the raging fire that separated them from the battle. With both of their armor now on, they charged straight up the mountain, taking their first glimpses of Pyron themselves.
A second after they had arrived, the sharp fingernail of Pyron had impaled Harlo straight in the chest, sending blood splattering across the floor. Five seconds of silence engulfed the battlefield, giving Nathaniel and Ola time to process their current circumstances. Desperate, Harlo attempted to pull himself off of Pyron's fingernail, but was unable to do so because of his weakening strength. "He… pierced through my armor like it was a piece of paper…"
Pyron roared once again, and the wind pulled Harlo right off of its fingernail. His clothes and armor were now stained with his blood, the puddle spreading to his legs with his attempt to emerge from the ground. "HARLO, BEHIND YOU!" Ola screamed, noticing that Pyron's hand was charging right towards him yet again.
It was too late - Pyron's slap cut Harlo's left arm right off of his body, creating a second puddle of blood that merged with the first in a matter of seconds. "I'm going to rescue him!" Nathaniel informed Ola, who had been trying to process a feeling of absolute fear that she had never felt before. Nathaniel carried the bloody body of Harlo off the ground, pointing to the fire that had scattered due to the fireball. "That's our only route of escape now, Ola! We have to get going, or we aren't going to survive much longe-"
Without hesitation, Ola jumped right in the direction of Pyron, aggressively striking him right in the head. "My feelings…" she thought to herself, noticing its quick recovery. "I feel defeat, but I also feel like I have a sense of hope inside me!" She lifted her body off the ground, quickly noticing that Pyron was planning to slap her like it had done with Harlo. In response, she activated Stone Style on her entire body and coated her fists with armor, knocking Pyron's left hand straight off its body. "I may not be able to defeat you, but I know that I can still take something AWAY!"
Before she could take action again, her body dropped onto the floor, and she had slowly faded out of consciousness. The echoing cries of Nathaniel overlapped with the high-pitched sound she heard in her brain, which persisted until everything faded to black.
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The door to the food vault swung open, almost ripping straight off the wobbling hinges that stabilised it. Racing through the door were Kevin and Gerald, who jumped in the massive pile of food like they had just won the lottery. "You're really giving us all this food, Blossom?" Gerald said delightfully, aggressively stuffing a loaf of bread on top of the pile right into his mouth. Blossom, who slowly walked through the door behind Forrest, Blu, and Yakasa, nodded her head happily.
"You're not going to let them eat it all, are you?" Forrest whispered right in her ear, noticing her cheeky smile as she turned right back at him. "Are they even capable of eating this much food? The food bank is packed with hundreds of pounds of fresh food in case of special occasion-"
She turned her head back to notice that the entire food bank had been completely wiped clean by Kevin and Gerald, their stomachs both sharing the form of jumbo-sized bowling balls."I fwink we ate foo mufh," Kevin spat out, patting his stomach and rolling across the empty floors in a circular formation alongside Gerald. "THEY ATE ALL THAT IN JUST THE SPAN OF THIRTY SECONDS!?" she screamed, dropping to her knees in despair and bawling. "We were going to use that for tonight's dinner!"
Suddenly, both of them took a large gasp of air - the warning sign for one of the largest burps ever known to man. "WE GOTTA GO!" Yakasa exclaimed, picking Blossom up and carrying her right over his shoulders as if she was still a child. Right as they exited the food bank, the burp had shaken the entire building as if it were a major earthquake. Forrest and Yakasa curiously peeked back into the vault to see Kevin and Gerald, their bodies now back to normal, fast asleep. "They have very unusual eating habits," Yakasa whispered to Forrest. "Tell me about it," he replied.
That was the exact moment they heard the automatic sliding doors open, accompanied by the repeated dripping of blood. With a singular turn of their heads, both Forrest and Yakasa noticed a bloody Harlo and Ola carried by Nathaniel, who had been on the verge of passing out for a long while. "P-Pyron…" Nathaniel muttered before fainting, his saliva mixing with the blood that had been spread across the floor.