The beast slammed into a tree at its back with full force and fell to the ground. It growled a bit and stood back up, its eyes blazing with anger at the a.s.sault it suffered. It roared at her again.

At the same time, Jareth who had just finished dressing up, suddenly heard a loud scream and a roar followed right after.

"That voice, it can't be... Astrid!!" His eyes opened wide in alarm, he picked his bag and dashed towards the sound of her voice.

"Please hold on, I'm coming." He muttered and ran with full speed.

*************

As the beast roared again, a wind from nowhere rushed at her and pushed her. She quickly reached out to her powers and used the earth to hold her feet hard to the ground.

After the wind that came with its roar subsided, she curved her lips into a half smile as she glared at it.

"How dare you use the air against me!!" She took a fighting stance, breaking the earth would on her feet as she yelled at the beast.

The beast on the other hand was a bit taken aback what happened. It had just attacked her with its formidable roar, but she didn't move or shake. Instead, she shouted at it.

Both parties got ready for another attack. The beast leaped to the side and tugged its tail towards her, spraying spikes in her direction.

In defense, she raised her right hand up and a wall of earth formed a s.h.i.+eld in front of her. It continued its onslaught of spikes at her side and she used her left hand to raise another wall. Distracted, the beast moved to her back and wanted to catch her by surprise.

She quickly did a 180 degree turn, moving her feet and faced it just in time. As it took a leap, she ducked, lifted a broken tree branch and threw its sharp edge at the stomach of the beast.

Astrid rolled away from underneath the wild beast and watched as her attack did not inflict any injury on it. Instead it only pushed the animal against her earth wall, destroying it in the process.

"d.a.m.n it. Well I still have a lot of tricks up my sleeve."

She took several steps back, creating a good distance between herself and the wild beast. She controlled her powers and formed a thick ice sword in her right hand and a ball of earth in the other.

She threw the earth ball at the beast, but it used its wings to push it away. At that moment she ran fast, charging at it with all her might. As it saw her lounging at it, it threw its spikes at her, she quickly jumped up above it and pierced its wing with her ice sword.

Again, it only scratched the beast's wing and didn't do much damage. As she turned back to face the beast and saw the little injury she gave it, her anger rose instantly.

"What the heck is its skin made off anyway?!" She yelled in her head but hid her frustration.

"Guess I can't keep calm anymore and worry about disclosing my location to the Elven soldiers."

As she thought, the beast grew more angry that a human injured it and charged at her. Unprepared, she missed a step and fell to the ground. It towered above her and as it was about devouring her flesh, she quickly raised her ice sword forward and it got stuck in its mouth.

It shook its head, trying to fling the sword from her hand and its mouth but she held on strong and extended the ice to her arm.

At this moment Jareth arrived.

"A manticore!!" He muttered in disbelief

He noticed the beast was about to devour Astrid and searched for any weapon on the ground. He picked up a wood from the ground and charged at it.

The beast raised its paw and flung it at Astrid's face, but before its paw could touch her head, Jareth threw the wood at its head and it landed first, stopping the beast's attack on Astrid.

It turned its head at the intruder, Astrid took the opportunity and used her free hand to control her magic. She formed a sharp long dagger and stabbed the beast's eye. She missed and injured it beneath its eye ball.

It groaned at the impact and quickly moved away from Astrid. Jareth rushed to her side and helped her up while the beast was distracted.

"Astrid."

"Jareth?"

She was a little bit surprised to see him, but quickly erased the shock from her face. "Thanks."

"We must be careful, we are up against a man eating beast."

"I figured. What kind of beast is it? It's skin is as hard as anything. I barely did any damage," she said. Her gaze trailing off to where she injured its wings.