花季v3.0.2

Since they have very bad eyesight and only come out at night time, they can\'t identify many things using their vision, but one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb in their vision is anything that is lit on fire or emits heat and as a natural defense mechanism, the Frost Cobras instantly seek shelter and try to get far away from the object.

Leon was chucking fire randomly and had managed to surround the entrance of the forest with tiny flames that repelled the Frost Cobras from getting any closer. The fire near the trees of the forest had illuminated the area enough for Leon and Erin to spot multiple giant Frost Cobras that were slithering around on top of the trees, searching for an opening to advance and kill their prey.

"Alright! It worked!" Leon exclaimed as he saw that his idea had worked as the Frost Cobra was no longer engaging them.

"What worked?" Erin asked.

"Before I ran over to save you, Mako told me that since he could sense the snakes having the ice ability, I should use my fire to create a perimeter around us so that the snakes wouldn\'t engage us as they would be repelled by the fire, similar to how those fire dog beasts were very afraid of water or ice," Leon explained.

Since the perimeter of flames was sufficient enough to keep the Frost Cobras at bay, Leon used this opportunity to quickly come up with a tactic to deal with them before they decided to circle around and move closer towards the shelter.

"Alright since we have control over the battlefield, I say we purposefully make an opening between the flames just enough so that snakes would attack us one by one, and that way we can deal with them as they come and not be overwhelmed by them," Leon said as he proposed his plan to Erin.

It was a decent plan with great chances of success which Erin approved of as well. Leon was quite proud of himself for coming up with a good tactic as that was usually Mako\'s job. He never really was the "think first" kind of guy. Leon always ran headfirst into the problem and would try to figure it out as he move along and hope that he wouldn\'t get into trouble while trying to get rid of the problem.

After both of them had agreed upon a plan, Leon was about to begin executing it when all of a sudden they were blasted by a very loud screech. The screech was so loud and high-pitched that Leon thought his eardrums would bleed even after he had tightly covered them with his hands.

They didn\'t understand what was happening, but after they noticed the flames lit the closet to the forest going out, they quickly put two and two together and realized that it was the Frost Cobras\' doing.

Mako didn\'t have time to warn Leon about the Frost Cobra\'s having the Sound ability as well, and now Leon and Erin learned the hard way as they tried their best to cover their ears to protect them from the painful screech while watching the powerful sounds able to blow away the small fires that Leon had lit all over the ground, one by one.

Leon had only just awakened the fire ability and it was only at Level 1 which meant that it wasn\'t very strong. Even though the sound waves didn\'t pack a big punch as it was mostly just painful noise, it was still strong enough to blow away Leon\'s weak flames.

Leon and Erin couldn\'t do anything as they were stuck covering their ears and protecting them from the sound while more and more flames were getting put out by the sound waves, making the darkness creep back in towards them.

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The situation was becoming more hopeless by the minute as both of them could observe a couple of the Frost Cobras moving in closer to their position so they would be close enough to start firing sharp icicles at them again.

Seeing as there was no way out, Leon raised his leg into the air and smashed it into the ground with as much earth aura as he could creating a huge crater beneath their feet that swallowed them whole. Leon manipulated the earth to cover them up again, basically burying them underground.

The sound waves weren\'t strong enough to vibrate through the ground and it was finally safe for them to remove their hands from their ears, although their ears were still ringing quite a bit.

However, they couldn\'t wait for the ringing to stop and Leon quickly got to work. He took a small piece of earth from the wall of the crater and manipulated it to the size of earplugs and from that piece, he was able to make four.

He quickly handed Erin a pair and instructed her to put them in her ears as well to protect against the sound attack.

Leon didn\'t expect the sudden sound attack and Mako hadn\'t told him anything about this or how to counter it making Leon really think hard about what to do from here. He realized that it wasn\'t really him doing all the thinking as he was still just following Mako\'s advice and the moment his advice ended, he started facing difficulty.

Leon\'s thoughts weren\'t really siding with him at this critical moment as he kept contradicting himself, thinking that he would never be to get up to Mako\'s level.

"Leon! What do we do now?!" Erin asked in a panicked voice, "If we don\'t think of something fast, those snake beasts are just going to start making their way over to the shelter and attack Iris and the others who are in no shape to fight."

The pressure was on. Leon had to think of a plan to deal with these snakes quickly or else it would be all over. Since the snakes slithered on the ground, Leon was able to sense them moving forward thanks to a trick that Bill had taught him while they were stuck inside the cave for two days.

From what he could sense, the snakes had already begun moving towards the shelter and would cross over their location in under a minute given their moving speed.

\'My fire ability isn\'t strong enough to pose a threat to them as they can just blow it away. I don\'t know any fire-related skills that I could use either. Let\'s try...\' Leon thought as he came to the realization that his fire was useless in direct combat and that he had to look for another way.

Leon stood up in the cramped space they had and stopped on the ground while sensing the position of the closest snakes.

Since fire didn\'t work, he thought to use a skill that Bill really liked using, and that was the earth spikes. By pinpointing the location of the snakes, Leon used his earth aura to raise a sharp earth pillar from underneath the snake\'s body, impaling it and killing it in an instant.

However, when he raised the earth spikes from the surface to attack the snakes, even though they were the sharpest that Leon could make, they weren\'t sharp enough to impale them through their tough scales and basically knocked them back a bit.

Leon was quite angered by his own weakness as he had used a good amount of energy and it only bought him a couple more seconds to think and nothing more.

\'What can I do here?! My speed and hardening would help me face them head on but I still lack the offensive capability to take them out. I don\'t have mastery over fire yet and I can\'t flawlessly switch between fire and hardening making it risky to fight them head on and then what about Erin?\' Leon thought.

He kept racking his brain but nothing came to mind. He was ready to admit that he was indeed nothing like Mako and that even though he found the courage to fight, he didn\'t have the skill and ability to fight.

The snakes were getting closer and closer by the second and if he didn\'t act now, it would be too late to stop all of them from reaching the shelter.

"What did he mean by my fire is the key?! It\'s useless! How can I fight with this low-level ability!?" Leon shouted out loud with frustration.

Erin couldn\'t help but feel sorry for Leon as she could feel the pressure that Leon was dealing with.

"What if he meant to use your fire ability in an indirect way? He must have known that your fire ability is weak. Maybe he just wanted you to figure out how to incorporate its heat into an attack. Maybe the thing he was talking about was just heat." Erin suggested as she hypothesized a possible meaning of Mako\'s words.

"Heat? Huh!... Of course! HEAT!" Leon exclaimed as finally, a switch went off inside his head.

"Did you figure it out?" Erin asked to which Leon only nodded.

Leon quickly asked Erin to give him the combat knife that she borrowed from Mako. She was a bit skeptical as to why would the knife be of use in this situation, but nonetheless, she trusted Leon to have found a breakthrough and handed it over.

Leon quickly grabbed the knife and summoned every ounce of fire aura he had within his body and erupted his hand in flames. He quickly directed his flames over to the combat knife heating it up as quickly as possible.

Erin watched quietly as she quickly understood what Leon was trying to do. The snakes were approaching the crater and with literal seconds to spare, Leon had used up all of his fire aura and heated the knife as much as he could turning the blade completely red and hot.

He carefully handed the blade back to Erin and said," With this, we can fight back!"