Chapter 845 Making A Run For It
After an hour of reading and filling, Astaroth was already mentally drained beyond repair.
"URGH!! Release me from this torture, oh mighty gods!" he lamented, his face on the desk.
Phoenix sighed in annoyance at his drama.
"It's only been an hour... What are you complaining about? I've been doing this at least four hours daily, every day, for the last few weeks."
Astaroth moaned, still face-first on the desk surface.
"I hate doing paperwork. It's soooooo boooooring!" he complained.
*Sigh*
"Fine! We can take a few minutes of break. But no more complaining after that!" she scolded him.
His face rose from the desk, a sheet of paper stuck to it.
"Really?! Thank you so much, oh benevolent goddess!" he exclaimed, giving her puppy eyes.
"Tch! Don't push your luck. You're cute, but not that cute."
Astaroth chuckled, shooting up from his chair and stretching, looking at the door to the office.
"I'll go take a quick run around the palace to stretch my legs. That okay?" he asked Phoenix with a smile.
"Sure. Just don't forget your personal guard. I tried ditching mine once, and Rodney chewed me up."
"I'll go take a quick run around the palace to stretch my legs. That okay?" he asked Phoenix with a smile.
"Sure. Just don't forget your personal guard. I tried ditching mine once, and Rodney chewed me up."
Astaroth grinned.
"Sure. If she can follow me, that is."
But he saw under him a white blur, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, almost following his speed as they barrelled out of the city.
"Jesus. How fast is that woman?" Astaroth asked, looking below as the guard accelerated again outside the city.
Astaroth could barely see her moving through the canopy of the Elven forest, but he knew she was there. Her mana presence was unmistakable.
Astaroth clicked his tongue, annoyed at her persistence.
"Speed isn't enough when trying to prove yourself to me. Let's see what you do against strength!"
He flapped his wings vigorously, accelerating again, and looped around toward the ground. Entering the canopy like an arrow off a bow, Astaroth aimed directly at the woman, the wings on his back disappearing as his skin turned red.
With a spin of his body, he kicked at the rapidly incoming woman, a grin on his face.
He saw how she had followed him and was now convinced he knew what she was.
Selena, whose arms and legs had turned to powerful tiger paws, was jumping in the trees, following her quarry's scent, when she suddenly gasped in surprise.
The king's scent had just changed, and a red being that looked like him was now directly before her, its leg aimed at her midsection.
Her first reflex was to curl up, so the incoming attack wouldn't hit her fragile stomach, but as soon as the leg hit her arms, she knew it wouldn't be enough.
It felt like she was trying to hold back a mountain from crushing her almost instantly; the speed and mass of her assailant all concentrated on that one point.
Instinctively, her body ballooned in size, an ear-shattering roar escaping her mouth.
Her legs, the armour on it morphing away to reveal powerful tiger hind legs, clamped down on the branch below her, her arms going from a guarding position to a grappling one.
She contorted in a swift movement, shifting the momentum of the kick sideways as she spun out of the attack. But she hadn't released the leg yet.
This caused Astaroth's grin to vanish as the momentum of his attack suddenly worked against him.
His body started shifting sideways, and he knew he had screwed up.
The woman, who now looked more animal than human, spun a complete turn once before releasing the leg and sending Astaroth away, like a rock launching from a sling.
Moments later, there was a trail of destruction, trees uprooted, rocks shattered, and the ground gouged out, for about a hundred meters, at the end of which, Astaroth was currently embedded inside a bigger tree than the others, head down toward the ground, laughing his lungs out.
"Woo! That was a surprise!"