~Notes~
There hasn’t been any since the prologue. =D Firstly, thanks to anyone who reads this series. Appreciate it. Also from now on, there will be Next Chapter previews added to the end of each new chapter, provided to you by the cast of ToaLP!

Episode 29 The Valley of Dark Fog

Kunai, Ryuu, Arai, and Ivy slowly continue navigating their way through the foggy darkness, making their way slowly further down into the heart of the valley.

“Ugh…why does it have to be so dark in here?” Ivy asks, staring around at the impenetrable darkness.

“This darkness is not natural,” Ryuu replies gruffly. “It’s the presence of the Undead Paradox that’s causing this; think of all the fears you ever had. This is it, in tangible form. Although it’s true that even if it weren’t for the Paradox, I doubt it’d be very much brighter down here.”

“Hm…it must be all the cliffs surrounding this valley,” Arai murmurs as he chews on a cookie.

Ryuu sighs as the sounds of Arai’s chewing rings loudly behind him throughout the clear silence of the valley. “And what is today’s cookie?”

“Oatmeal!” Arai answers cheerfully. Ryuu sighs again.

Ivy shrieks suddenly as a hairy arm wraps around her right ankle. Ryuu and Kunai turn abruptly, and Ryuu draws his sword, shedding the light of its flame throughout the small valley path.

“Undead Jr. Yeti!” Kunai growls, stepping forth. With one swift movement, Kunai raises his arm, severing the Undead Jr. Yeti’s arm from its tiny body. He then stabs the Undead Jr. Yeti twice, leaving it dead at once.

“Heh…nice shriek,” Ryuu growls softly, raising his sword and staring around the valley floor with its light. He narrows his eyes as a soft slithering sound appears in the air. “That undoubtedly drew some unwanted visitors…”

A huge, hulking figure suddenly appears in front of the group with a loud roar. It stumbles forward towards them into the flare of Ryuu’s sword.

“Is that the Undead Paradox?!” Kunai cries.

“No!” Ryuu shouts suddenly. “It’s an Undead Werewolf!”

The Undead Werewolf lunges forward suddenly, swiping the air with its huge jet-black claws. Arai steps in front of it quickly, sending a hail of icicles flying towards it.

Ryuu leaps into the air after the icicles, striking the Undead Werewolf twice around the arms, embedding several deep cuts within its hide.

“My turn!” Kunai growls, leaping into the air, Gephart poised. He flies headfirst straight towards the Undead Werewolf’s chest, and with one mighty push, sends his Gephart hurling straight through the center of the monster’s chest.

Kunai quickly withdraws his bloody Gephart, landing back on the dark, snowy ground and skidding several feet back as he does so. He stares up at the beast, where he has cut a large hole straight through the Undead Werewolf.

“Your Gephart went straight through!” Ivy cries out loud. “That’s amazing!”

Kunai pants heavily, standing his ground and facing off against the Undead Werewolf, staring up into its pitch black eyes as it does him.

A pair of dark, oozing tentacles suddenly fly through the hole in the Undead Werewolf, causing Ryuu and Arai to jump in alarm. The tentacles fly through the air, groping for Kunai.

Kunai gasps out loud, shifting side-to-side to avoid the searching tentacles. He then turns swiftly, cutting off the tips of each tentacle and allowing them to fall to the floor.

As the tentacles fall, they suddenly round out, and become small, wriggling worms, rising into the air and attacking Kunai. He gasps, taking a step back, and fighting off the shadowy fibers of the worms.

Ryuu dashes forward with a grunt, cleanly slicing each worm in two with his sword. He turns and stares up, watching as the Undead Werewolf sways and falls to the ground with a crash, revealing behind it an even larger, uglier form.

“Now that’s…the Undead Paradox, I assume…” Ryuu pants next to Kunai.

“This looks dangerous,” Arai murmurs.

The Undead Paradox stands before them, a monstrous beast standing tall into the air. Its eyes are a malicious, glowing yellow. Its left hand is made of the same shadowy, fibrous material, and innumerable dark tentacles protrude from it. However, it’s right hand is completely made of stone, somehow an even more intimidating sight.

Ryuu narrows his eyes, staring up at the undead seal on the Undead Paradox’s forehead and on the muscles of its right arm. “Big thing.”

“No time to stand admiring!” Arai cries, dashing about as a host of tentacles fly towards him, groping their way closer towards him. Arai bares his teeth, using his staff to fend off the nearest tentacles. He then creates a bolt of lightning in his hand, using it to sever several of the tentacles.

The tentacles quickly regenerate and in a flash, wrap themselves around Arai, causing him to drop his staff to the ground with a clatter.

“Arai!” Ryuu cries, leaping forward and slicing off the tentacles again, forcing them to drop Arai to the floor. Ryuu turns and cuts off the tentacles again as they regenerate.

“Ryuu! Watch out for the other arm!” Kunai yells, running forward and raising his arms in front of Ryuu as the stone arm comes hurtling through the air towards them.

Kunai is sent flying into the air from the impact of the arm, slamming hard against a cliff wall behind him. Kunai slides weakly down from the wall, a thin crack appearing behind him.

Ryuu growls, raising his sword at the stone arm. “Zakum’s Third Arm? I don’t care if it’s his head, this thing isn’t gonna beat me today!” He runs forward, slashing at the arm, forming several deep cuts within the stone.

The Undead Paradox quickly grabs its right arm with its left, leaving a trail of oozing shadowy fibers on Zakum’s arm, healing the wounds.

Ryuu’s eyes widen as he watches this. “How the hell…can it do that?!”

“Uh…good workmanship by Azuma?” Kunai says, slowly picking himself up from the ground.

Ryuu growls. “Now’s not the time for jokes, Kunai…”

The Undead Paradox reaches forward with its right arm, reaching forward searching for Kunai with its long, stony fingers. Kunai dashes out of the way, and quickly turns, stabbing the stone hand multiple times with his dagger, and finishes with a quick slash, flying straight through the hand and cutting off two of its fingers.

“Tch!” Ryuu smirks as he watches Kunai. “Kid got a lot faster with that bandit stuff. I’m so jealous.”

The Undead Paradox raises its right arm angrily, sending spears of icicles and blasts of lightning hailing through the air towards Kunai.

Kunai raises his arms, widening his arms and bracing for the fatal impact. Suddenly a bright, white light glows throughout the valley, illuminating it brightly for a moment. The light meets the blast of ice and lightning from the Undead Paradox and both quickly cancel each other out.

Kunai glances up in surprise, turning to Ivy who has her Thorns raised. “Ivy!”

“In case you’ve forgotten,” she says with a smile, “I can fight too!”

“Heh,” Ryuu grumbles, “do as you wish, but just remember you’re fighting a Paradox, which means you could be facing more danger than any of us.”

“I don’t care!” Ivy cries, “I’m not letting it hurt Kunai!”

Kunai looks up at her in surprise, temporarily speechless. Ryuu sighs. “Why do those two have to be so corny…?”

Ryuu hurriedly turns back to the monstrous arm of Zakum. He growls and raises his sword, cutting the air with a quick vertical slice and sends a blast of flame towards the arm. “Take this!”

The blast of fire quickly runs through the arm, scorching it multiple times. Ryuu smirks as the flames clear and heavy dark spots of charred stone appear on the arm. But suddenly, a sheet of ice covers the stone arm, evaporating into the arm and renewing it as if no damage had been done.

“How are you supposed to hurt that thing?!” Ryuu growls frustratingly.

Ivy runs forward and sends several long beams of light flying into the left arm of the Undead Paradox, severing several of the tentacles that had grown back.

“This thing is not quitting…” she murmurs, staring up into the yellow eyes of the undead as its tentacles easefully grow back into place.

Kunai suddenly lunges forward again recklessly, double jumping into the air until he lands on the Undead Paradox’s Zakum arm. He runs straight up the arm, as the Undead Paradox sends numerous tentacles crawling after him.

Kunai turns and rapidly severs the nearest tentacles with his Gephart, slicing them off as they come too close. He then takes a flying leap high into the air, landing on the Undead Paradox’s shoulder. He quickly takes another leap, planting a heavy strike straight across its right eye.

Kunai lands once again on the tips of the stone right arm just as the Undead Paradox lets out an eerie, earsplitting shriek of pain as blood pours down from its right eye. He then turns and loses his balance, crying out loud as a pair of tentacles slam into him, knocking off his Gephart.

The Gephart flies straight into the sky, cutting straight through the air and landing with an explosive crack into the cliff wall. The crack in the wall suddenly grows with a loud rumble and widens dangerously.

Kunai gives a yell of surprise, flipping over in the air and leaping off the arm back onto solid ground as the tentacles return, groping towards him.

Ryuu steps forward and slices the tentacles in half again, holding them off. He turns to glance at Kunai over his shoulder, “Tough luck, Kunai! Hurry up and get out of danger!”

Ryuu bends over panting slightly as the tentacles fall to the ground motionless once again. He lowers his sword, narrowing his eyes as he stares up into the eyes of the Undead Paradox. “You got it right in the eye…it should be weakened a bit.”

“Not enough, though!” Kunai shouts, leaping forward and pushing Ryuu out of the way as several spears of lightning slam into the ground with several loud subsequent claps.

The bolts of lightning pound into the cliffs behind them, jolting the rocky wall. Suddenly, the floor shakes violently, and the wall splits in two, sending large boulders and fragments of the cliff tumbling down from above.

“Look out!” Arai shouts. He waves his staff and shatters several boulders with thunderbolts before they reach the ground and crush Kunai and Ryuu.

All of a sudden, another huge boulder rushes down from above, landing on top of the Undead Paradox’s, right arm, creating a large crack in the middle of the stone.

Ryuu and Arai gasp out loud as the crack in its arm grows larger. “Kunai! Now’s your chance! Get the damn thing already!” Ryuu shouts to Kunai.

Kunai nods, dashing over to the cracked wall and retrieving his Gephart. He places it on his arm again, jumping into the air and landing once more on top of the Undead Zakum Arm.

As he runs up the stone arm, he punches it with his hand multiple times, forming deep, large holes within it. He then takes another flying leap once again, and the scene quiets in suspenseful waiting for a moment, as Kunai reaches out with his Gephart and slashes the Undead Paradox straight across the neck, flying with such great force that he flies straight through the Undead Paradox’s neck.

He then lands as another loud rumble erupts in the air. Kunai glances behind him, as the huge head of the Undead Paradox falls to the ground, the Undead Paradox having been beheaded.

“He beheaded it?!” Ryuu cries out loud. “He’s gotten way too strong with that dagger…”

The remaining body of the Undead Paradox sways and then suddenly crumbles, falling apart and landing in huge, heavy pieces on the ground. Kunai dashes forward, and with one strong strike, severs the claw of the Undead Paradox from its arm, raising it in the air.

“Let’s go have Azuma make me that claw!” Kunai shouts into the air in celebration.

Next Time: Episode 30 Myou The Claw

Arai: Finally! Kunai gets his brand new claw! What kind of claw is it? Why can’t Azuma make a cookie out of the Paradox claw we worked so hard to get? And just who is this Azuma person anyway? We’ll we ever find out?

Episode 30 Myou The Claw coming soon…