Chapter 37: Cage of fire

"No". Emily whispered.

The two serpents raised their heads and slithered towards Aaron.

His cocky had demeanor disappeared, he felt he could take one of the snakes on by himself and win but two serpents was else entirely, especially serpents that were as cordinated as these ones.

"We have to help him". Liam said, he started to walk towards Aaron.

"We can't". Zoe said and shook her head vehemently.

"He's going to die". Liam retorted.

"We are mages, we have a code". Zoe replied and shook her head again.

"What's the point of a code if one of us is going to die?" Liam said.

"She's right Liam". Emily cut in. "In good times and bad, we can't break the code".

Liam looked defeated and he walked back to join us, Emily put an arm around him.

I looked at Emily. "What's going on, why won't anyone help him?"

If a mage steps up to a fight, they must complete the fight by themselves. Emily explained. They must do it without external help.

I looked at them in surprise, that rule didn't make any sense to me, the point of having comrades is the teamwork and having the luxury of someone helping you out in time of danger.

Emily read the look on my face and sighed. "I don't think you understand". She said. "We expect mages to fully understand the seriousness of fights so they don't abuse their abilities".

I thought about it and it made a little sense honestly, mages are very powerful beings and one thing about power is that it doesn't mix well with emotions. A mage must not be as prone to anger or provocation like an average human being or else he or she risked using their mana to wreck havoc on people, things or even places.

Aaron flexed his hands and studied the two serpents in front of him, he had told Zoe to open the wall thinking he would fight one snake but another one had entered and now faced two snakes all by himself. Sёarch* The ηovelFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The odds of him winning against two snakes was very low compared to one snake but Aaron couldn't give up now, especially since none of the other mages could help him.

He didn't know if any of them wanted to help him anyway but even if they did, they couldn't, it was out of their control and they had to follow the code of mages.

Hissss!!!

The first snake hissed at him and gave a weak hearted strike. Aaron didn't flinch, he knew the snake wasn't actually going to strike him, it only wanted to test him, see how scared he was.

As expected, the snake pulled back from the strike just before it got near him.

"I'm not scared of you". Aaron said with a smile. In fact you're lucky you have a friend here, you'd be dead by now.

Hissss!! Hisss!!

The two snakes hissed in response to his words and Aaron had to wonder if they understood what he was saying.

He studied the situation again and decided he had to put the snakes on the defensive while also searching for an opening for him to hit them.

He began to build a fireball in his hand, the two snakes saw what he was doing and moved fast to prevent him from shooting the fireball, they both lunged at him from different directions but Aaron was more than ready for them, he formed the fireballs in his two hands and pointed each hand at one snake. Then he shot them.

The fireballs left his hand and zoomed straight at the snakes, and they had to cancel their attacks midway and twist their bodies to avoid the fireballs.

Hiissss!!

The first snake hissed and lunged at Aaron.

Aaron ducked to the side and covered his palm in fire, he touched it to the snake's neck as he moved out of the way.

Shrrrr!

There was a burning sound as his palm burned through the snake's scales, causing smoke to rise from the spot and fill his nose.

The smell of burning skin quickly spread to the other mages' noses.

Hissss!!

The snake hissed in agony and twisted it's body violently, it jumped away from Aaron and moved back to nurse it's wounds.

The other snake saw what Aaron just did to the first snake and was reluctant to fight Aaron, it decided to be more cautious in its approach.

"Way to go!"!Liam cheered. "Now finish them up!"

Aaron smiled to himself, Liam was his best friend ever since they met at the academy and even though they were both competing to win Zoe's heart, he still cared deeply about Liam and it was nice to know Liam cared about him.

"I'll be fine, I don't need a cheerleader". He shouted back at Liam.

Liam scowled. "For that I hope one of them bites you".

Aaron smiled again and brought his attention back to the snake circling him.

Hissss!!

The second snake hissed loudly as it studied Aaron. While Aaron's mana level was not as high as Zoe's, fire was still a very destructive element that could burn it even at a low level.

It decided a quick strike would be the best option and launched itself at Aaron.

Aaron flexed his hands very quickly.

"Cage of iron!" He shouted and the flames that left his hand formed the shape of a cage around the snake.

Hissss!

The snake hissed loudly as it was trapped in the cage, the cage fell with it and began to burn.

The first snake seeing that Aaron was distracted used to opportunity to crawl close to him undetected, it had coiled around his feet and now wanted to crawl around his body.

Emily was the first to see it. "Aaron look out!" She shouted and pointed to his feet.

Aaron looked down and saw the snake, the snake twisted around him quickly, trapping him.

"No!" Emily shouted.

With Aaron now trapped and unable to escape, the snake raised its head and went in for the strike.