Ethan's POV:

"RUN!" I yell towards Aria while holding my hands on my ears, trying to block the soaring roar from the Soundhawk. As I saw Aria running towards me, she began to show despair in her face, and now acceptance. I can't bear it as I see Aria fall on her knees still covering her ears as she is landing on the grass.

As Aria starts falling on her stomach, the beast comes down, hovering above Aria. Without thinking about the situation, my body reacted on its own and I hear myself roaring towards the beast. "DON'T YOU DARE!" I roar towards the beast while running with a grip on my sword hilt, while the sword is still down in the scabbard. 

I have experience in martial arts, and I use it to my advantage in this situation. In the Northern Martial Arts and Northern Sword Arts, my strength is equal to knights, but compared to this monster, I am nothing.

"Faster, faster, quick. Move faster, you sluggish body!" I tell myself as I am accelerating faster and faster. Before 5 seconds had even passed, I stood between Aria and the Soundhawk. As I got into position between my love and the beast, I took a giant leap, enhancing my legs in mana. Jumping over 3 meters with my sword drawn over my head, preparing a swing towards the Soundhawk's head. "YOU'RE DEAD!" I yell out before hitting the head of the beast.

My sword which was imbued in mana cracked in the impact, causing a big recoil forcing itself into my body. Creating an immeasurable internal pain, towards my organs and to my bones. The recoil shook my whole body, making me unable to stand up properly after the impact. I tried to stand up properly but only resulted in me being back on my knees with chaos inside. After 4 seconds of breathing my body began to shake and made me throw up blood. 

"Bleergh," I mouth out as my body is twitching and twisting the insides with blood flowing through my mouth. As I look up, I see the beast writhing in pain, to be hit with steel or iron, I would not like it either. The beast writhed in pain for almost two minutes, while I am trying to recuperate from the recoil.

"Damn, this body. I was not expected to exert this much energy today." I exclaimed cursing my luck. I managed to stand up properly now, and I took the hilt of my broken sword and put it back in the scabbard. "Come on, let's get out of here," I whispered inside Aria's ear before noticing the blood which flowed in her ear canals. I guess that doesn't work.

I try to position Aria on my back, with her arms around my neck while I am holding her legs up so it's not dragging on the ground but it didn't work as I can't hold two things at the same time in this situation. I rip a piece of my shirt under the leather armor and tie it around Aria's wrists. I managed to take up on my back with a piece of my shirt tying her arms together and me holding her legs up.

"This might work," I mutter under my breath and began running like there is no tomorrow.

I ran and ran without taking the precaution of the area before me. I passed the big tree covered in vines and saw Daniel, climbing down from the tree hollow from behind the tree we weren't able to spot from before. 

"Daniel!" I yelled out as I began running towards him. As I yelled out, Daniel turned his head towards the voice of a running man, causing him to lose grip of the tree and began to fall. I managed to catch him with both of my arms, making me accidentally drop Aria's legs on the ground. 

"What's going on?" I hear a trembling voice from a small little kid.

"I'll explain later, but right now we have to get out of here!" I say putting Daniel through a small gap between Aria's stomach and my back.

I looked towards the river and I began to follow it. More vines are starting to fall from the big trees, caused by Thunderlizards running up on the trees, hunting us. 

"Great, now I have to run from a Soundhawk and now from Thunderlizards," I say out loud, causing Daniel to become distressed.

"Stay still or I'll drop you." I threaten the blond-haired boy, making the boy stop wiggling between Aria and me. "Good." I continue.

We ran through vines and even more vines. Thunderlizards are now falling from the trees while the Soundhawk is roaring in the back, making the ground tremble beneath us.

"Damn it, Thunderlizards," I say recounting what I saw in the library.

They are quite small, not very threatening if they are alone. But if they are in a group they are a feared being. They usually hunt in groups of around 100 Thunderlizards, around 20 are laying down the vines to be accessible to the prey while around 80 of them fall to the ground, trying to snap an electric paralyzing shock into your body.

As I began to see the light after following the river for 4 minutes, we heard one last roar from the Soundhawk. Creating a big shock for the Thunderlizards which were hunting us. 4 Thunderlizards managed to bite me in the legs and chest. I can't stop now, otherwise, everyone here will die.

I began to run faster even though a pulsating aching pain screamed in my legs and in my whole body. "Come on! So close!" I yell to encourage myself to keep on running.

In the last 10 meters, the whole group of Thunderlizards started to jump down to ambush us But so am I. Over 20 came at the same time, all landing on my head while I still carried Aria and Daniel, they're desperate. But so am I.

They started to snap at us, causing Daniel to scream in pain, blood and paralyzing pain spread over our bodies. 30 more came down pouring down from the trees in their last attempt to get us. Come on, COME ON. I tell myself. There are only 4 meters left, I try to encourage myself. COME ON! 

Blood started to gush out of my body from all the bite marks. Blood filled my vision and I only saw a red color before falling to my knees. COME ON! COME ON! COM-. My mind was cut short before losing consciousness.