Grimoires - Treasures above the Clouds

Three Lightning Wolves were charging at Serenade. Lilith used [Spatial Blink] to ambushed one. Two were still a great threat. And Jack's other women were not in position to help Serenande.

"Damn it!" Sparks snarled.

He activated his crestmagic spell, the [Devil Contract (Time Stop)].

The world froze. The charging wolf hung in the air. A tableau of snarling fury. The buzzing insects halted mid-flight. The very dust motes suspended in the humid air.

Spark was unaffected by his own temporal magic. But, he had a very short time limit. Immediately, the werelion form of Spark moved with impossible speed. He was a blur of black fur and raw power. 

He was beside the lunging wolf in an instant. His mighty claw ripped its neck. A swift, brutal slash severed its throat. 

He then turned. Moving to the other wolf. Tearing. Ripping. Crushing. Three seconds... Time resumed.

The targeted wolves collapsed. Their life blood bursting like an explosion. The usually calm Serenade gasped. Looking at the dead wolf that had been inches from her face.

The fight resumed its frantic pace. Only a few wolves remaining. They were enraged. And extremely dangerous. One lunged at Spark. Its fangs crackling with electricity.

Spark met it with a ferocious roar. He ripped its huge head off with a single swipe of his Earth-coated claws.

The fight turned more manageable now. The remaining wolves fell one by one.

The last wolf saw its pack decimated. It hesitated for a split second. That was all Lilith needed. She flashed next to it. Her arcane handgun fired a precise blast that struck one of its eye. 

The Lightning Wolf howled. Scarlett's gu-insects swarmed. Overwhelming its other eye. Ivy lobbed an alchemy grenade at its body. 

BANG! A corrosive mist enveloping the creature. It yelped. Twitched. And died. Its body was partially dissolving.

The silence that followed was deafening. The air was filled with the smell of residual magic and blood. 

Spark returned to his human form. His body was steaming slightly, his immense muscles still coiled. He retrieved his dropped rifle.

"Status report!" He rasped. His voice was still a little rough from the transformation.

Lilith, Scarlett, Ivy, Melody, and Serenade quickly reported their conditions. No major injuries. Just a few scrapes and exhaustion from the sustained high-intensity combat. They had done well. Very well.

Spark nodded, his gaze sweeping over the carnage. Seven Lightning Wolves. Two Horned Hares. This island was not holding back.

They had barely a moment to catch their breath. To wipe the sweat from their brows. When the ground began to tremble. 

A distant, earth-shaking regular beats reverberated through the very bedrock. The colossal trees around them swayed. Disturbed not by wind. But by immense, approaching... footsteps.

The vibrations grew stronger. Low, guttural snarls, deeper than anything they had yet heard, echoed through the jungle. 

The air grew heavy. Smelling of decay. And something else… A cloying, chemical scent.

Melody's Witch Doll of Fortune spun wildly. Then pointed straight back the way they came. Effectively telling them to flee. 

Serenade's Witch Doll of Misfortune also spun wildly. And then pointed to the opposite direction. Great danger was coming.

Scarlett's gu-insects, usually fearless, began to retreat en masse. A frantic, buzzing wave of panic.

Then it emerged. From the dense foliage. A creature of nightmare.

It was a Tyrannosaur. But it was utterly unlike any Spark had ever seen in his past life's movies. It was... excessively enormous. Even bigger than the dragons faced by Mayor Hilldove.

Black scales shimmered with an oily sheen. Its massive teeth were not just sharp. But also dripped with a viscous, greenish-black venom. Its eyes were even bigger than Jack's body. Glowing with malevolent intelligence. 

It was towering over even the colossal trees. A horrifying, living mountain of muscles and death. A Tier-5 monster. One which was about to advance to Tier-6.

A Venomous Tyrannosaur.

Silence fell. Broken only by the creature's heavy, rasping breath. Every instinct Spark possessed screamed danger. This wasn't just a monster. This was an alpha. And it looked very, very hungry.

This wouldn't be a fight at all. This would be an execution waiting to happen. Spark's combat instincts screamed the truth. 

They couldn't win this. Not without catastrophic losses. The creature was Tier-5, nearing Tier-6. Not to mention that it was huge. And venomous. It outclassed them in every conceivable metric.

"Damn it!" Spark's swore in a low growl. Barely audible over the monster's rasping breath. 

He would not sacrifice his women. Just to win against this overgrown lizard. Not for a foolish, unnecessary battle.

He moved without hesitation. His hand went to his Spatial Belt. Yanking out the thick, leather-bound book. The Slave Grimoire.

"Girls! Dive into the Grimoire. Now!" His command was sharp, absolute. There was no time for preamble. No room for question. He quickly activated the grimoire.

Magic flared. Followed by a series of quick, silent pops. One by one, the women shimmered. Their forms dissolved into motes of light. Ones that rapidly converged on the open pages of the Grimoire. 

Lilith. Ivy. Melody. Serenade. And Scarlett. All of them disappeared into their particular page within the grimoire. 

The book pulsed, then settled. Its power was containing them. Spark snapped it shut and shoved it back into the Spatial Belt. They were safe. For now.

The Tyrannosaur roared. A sound that ripped through the air. Shaking the very roots of the trees. It had noticed the shift. The sudden absence of smaller prey. 

Its massive head swung. Its ferocious gaze was locked onto the lone figure standing before it.

Spark didn't wait. He snarled. A guttural sound that transcended human speech. His muscles bulged again. His black hair thickened. Morphing into a ragged mane...

Within seconds, Spark reverted back to his half-beast form. In his place stood the Draconic Werelion. A werebeast of immense power. Shimmering with a faint, draconic aura. This time, he didn't use the transformation for its power though.

The Tyrannosaur lunged. A mountain of black scales and dripping fangs. Moving with horrifying speed for its size. The ground shuddered.

Spark didn't meet the charge. His draconic werelion form burst into motion. Not forwards. But sideways. A blur. [Godspeed Reflex] activated. The assimilated essence of the Lightning Cheetah surging through his enhanced frame. 

The world stretched. Distorted. As he moved with impossible velocity. He was fleeing. Escaping. Survival was the only objective.

His powerful legs propelled him through the dense undergrowth. Trees became streaks. The ground was a blur beneath his powerful legs. 

The chemical stench of the Tyrannosaur's venom still felt burning in his nostrils. A constant reminder of the leviathan on his heels.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Each impact of the Tyrannosaur's feet was like a tremor. A localized earthquake that vibrated through Spark's bones. 

He heard the rending of trees as the monster ploughed through the forest. Too large to navigate the dense foliage with any grace. It didn't need grace. It had mass. It had jaws.

A shadow fell over him. He instinctively twisted. The Tyrannosaur's head, impossibly vast, slammed into the space where he had been a millisecond before. 

A massive jaw snapped shut. The CRUNCH of splintering wood echoed like a cannon shot. Thick, greenish-black venom splattered onto the ferns where Spark had just been. Sizzling. Dissolving the plant matter into smoking sludge. 

The heat of its breath, putrid and hot, washed over him. Too close. Far too close.

He drove his legs harder. He pumped his werelion muscles. Pushing through the immediate exhaustion. 

The jungle became a parkour track. Thick vines. Treacherous roots. Sudden drops... He navigated them by instinct. His enhanced senses was feeding him data at an impossible rate.

The Venomous Tyrannosaur was relentless. It wasn't just a brute. It was a hunter. It anticipated. It cut off paths. 

It used its sheer size to create impassable barriers. Forcing Spark into specific, narrower routes. And the possible route all went uphill. Increasing the movement difficulty.

He slid under a fallen log. Scraping scales against the rough bark. As he emerged, a low-hanging branch, thick as a carriage, swung towards him. 

The Tyrannosaur's tail had clipped it. Spark ducked. The branch whistling over his head. A hair's breadth from tearing his face open. He felt the wind of its passage.

The chase was a brutal tango with death. Spark moved like a phantom. A blurry, dark streak through the verdant nightmare. 

The Venomous Tyrannosaur was like a living battering ram. Demolishing everything in its path. Its roars echoing through the ancient forest. Sending smaller creatures scattering in blind terror.

He burst into a small clearing. Only to find it ended in a sheer cliff face. A thirty meters tall cliff in all three directions but behind. He was trapped.

Spark cursed silently. He had felt that the 'parkour route' was significantly leading to higher and more complex elevation. But to end like this?

The Tyrannosaur's thunderous footsteps were closing in. He could hear its heavy breath. The vile scent of its venom growing stronger.