Chapter 202   - Lenny's Fist

The group ventured down the staircase into darkness. Luckily each of them had prepared a light crystal beforehand thanks to Lilly informing them. The staircase went deep underground and Gary couldn't help but shiver.

"What's wrong, you can't be scared, can you?" Lilly said trying to tease Gary.

"No it's not that but this place just reminds me of somewhere I've been before and I don't like it one bit."

Jack suddenly started sniffing the air around him, which meant he caught the scent of something unusual.

"What is wrong with the man?" Keke complained.

"I smell something that doesn't belong here." Jack said.

"What are you a dog?" Keke Replied.

"Close," Jack said smiling.

Keke decided to leave it at that, he thought the group of people from Red wings were all just a bunch of weirdoes.

"I wouldn't worry too much. You saw the entrance, it was completely sealed, I doubt anything is living down here." Lilly said.

After walking down a few minutes, they had finally reached the bottom of the staircase. The floor levelled and was now flat and in front of them was a fairly large double door.

"Is this the door you spoke of?" Ark asked.

"No not this one, there is a bigger one further in," Lilly replied.

The door had several chains around it all connected to a single lock in the middle.

"Should we break the door down?" KeKe asked.

"No, it's best if we try to leave this place as it was, that way my father won't get suspicious."

"Alright then, Ray it's time to do your thing?" Gary said.

Ray walked up to the door and pulled out some small tools.

"You know, I seem to remember that you were a black sash knight too, were you not Gary."

Gary started to laugh.

"You know I was always the worst out of us three"

"Oh so the two of you were black sashes," Lenny said, "What a rare class indeed."

Gary and the others had almost forgotten that Lenny was once a student at Avrion, at a time when the Dragon knights had existed.

The lock was taking longer than usual for Ray, not only because it was a difficult lock but also because it had been a while since he had done something like this.

While Ray was busy dealing with the lock, Jack couldn't stop sniffing the air.

*sniff, *sniff, *sniff

"Would you please stop it with the sniffing!" Keke shouted.

"I'm telling you something is in this room with us." Jack replied.

The next second the others could see red glowing eyes behind Keke.? Then when Keke felt the breath of the beast on his neck he quickly turned but it was already on top of him. A human-sized bat-like creature with claws of a tiger was ripping into Keke's chest at an alarming rate.

It was a deadly Tiger bat. Although small in size they were fast and powerful, an Advanced tier beast.

"Quick we have to save him!" Lilly shouted.

Unexpectedly though, the first one to act in the group was Lenny. Lenny immediately leapt to the beast and punched the beast with his giant fist causing it to fall to the ground. Lenny quickly chased down the beast and continued to punch it while it stayed on the floor.

Several punches later the beasts stopped moving.

"Did he just kill that thing with his bare hands?" Ark said.

Lenny then stood tall shaking his fingers.

"That hurt more than I expected."

It was a strange sight for the group because Lenny had worn nothing but a cloak down here. He was the only one that wore no beast armour equipment and that included gauntlets. Which meant he really did kill the beast with his bare hands.

"How did you...?" Ark asked.

"It's a special magic spell I cast on my fists, A forbidden magic I might add for what reason I do not know, so you won't be finding that type of stuff at Roland," Lenny said.

The others started to see Lenny as a true member of the squad now, before they felt like they had to protect him like he was some type of old expert but Lenny could hold his own ground.

Lilly quickly went over to Keke's side to check up on his condition. The Tiger bat had managed to claw away most of Keke's armour and had caused cuts across his chest. If they were a second longer Keke would have been a dead man.

"Is he okay?" Ark asked.

"I'm not sure, I've never seen this type of beast before," Lilly replied.

"I wouldn't worry too much, the claws aren't poisonous if that was what you were thinking. That thing is known as a Tiger bat, they dwell underground and are basically blind so they don't react well to loud noises. My guess is when he shouted he attracted the beast on his own."

"Serves him right," Gary mumbled under his breath.

"The strange thing is how the beast got in," Lenny said, "Someone must have put the beast in here then locked the door, unless it followed us in here form behind but that is unlikely."

"Finally!" Ray shouted.

The whole time Ray had been unaware of what was going on behind him. He was simply too involved in unlocking the lock. At first, he wasn't too bothered but when the lock was proving difficult, he saw it as a challenge.

While Lilly was busy examining the extent of the wound on Keke. Lenny was busy examining the Tiger bat. He couldn't quite get it out of his head why the beast was inside.

He began to search through the beast's body tearing the beast limb from limb until he eventually uncovered a ring.

Lenny held up the ring which bared the symbol on two angelic wings.

"Do any of you recognize this?" Lenny asked.

"Yeah, the ring belongs to my guild the fallen angles," Ark replied.

"It looks like we have a traitor."