"There it is."
Numoral gestured to show the creature that we were searching for, walking at a slow pace through the sands.
It was little more than five meters tall, and was unlike any other Cor I had seen before.
It was not completely black, it had layers of white on all of its joints, and a large patch on its chest that went up to the top of its head.
It had four arms, each of them sporting two elbow joints, and its hands had two fingers and a thumb, all of them with pointed ends, looking like claws.
Its hands were long, long enough to reach its knees, which looked far too thin to be able to support its weight. Its feet looked like those of a bird's, bearing three toes with claws at their ends.
The white armor on its head formed a helmet-like structure over the top of its face, with a single large spike protruding from it, pointing back.
Suddenly, it paused and turned, looking to its left, directly opposite our location, revealing its back to us.
its back had a part missing, with an empty ribcage occupying that space, connecting its head and lower abdomen.
It seemed to have sensed something, as it let out a growl and started moving away from us.
"Looks like it has not been a stage 4 for long."
Numoral remarked as he turned to me.
"Want to try to fight it?"
I was a little surprised at the question he asked me.
"Do you think I can win?"
"With your skillset? Most experienced spirit warriors would have problems against a normal stage 4, but this is much weaker than a regular stage 4, so there is a good possibility."
I thought about his words for a moment.
It was true that I had not experienced many battles, but I had trained quite a bit, and Arquero had himself admitted that I could defeat most of his students.
I also had the advantage of surprise in this fight, meaning I could cast a few spells to trap the Cor before attacking it, as long as I take some of its mobility away it would be much easier to deal with it.
"Well?" Numoral pointed at the Cor. "It's walking away."
"I want to try."
"Get after it then."
I nodded and took off after it.
The moment I gained a little distance from our group, the Cor snapped its head towards me.
It had not sensed me because we were hidden from it, but now I had left the barrier, and it had immediately noticed me.
It turned its body and roared, a black sphere gathered in front of its mouth, as a red light glinted in between my fingers.
The light grew brighter and gathered in my palms as I concentrated on its attack.
Its head reared back slightly, and I jumped to avoid the imminent attack.
Less than half a second later, the place where I just was was hit by a rapidly moving black ball, which exploded on impact, sending up a huge cloud of dust along with a booming sound.
As I flew through the air, I swung my hands through the air, launching my spell at the Cor.
The red light disappeared from my hands, and a dozen red rods stabbed into the Cor from various directions, seemingly freezing its movement.
It was a sealing spell that I had seen in use before, it was called 'Mizage'.
As I drew closer to the sands, a yellow glow emanated from my hand.
I landed on the sand and rolled forward, then I sprung to my feet as I swung my right arm forward with an orange glow emanating from the index finger on my left hand.
The yellow glow turned into a glowing chain as it flew towards my target and wrapped around it.
This was 'Lengalt', another binding spell. Unlike Mizage which completely immobilized its target, this spell only held the area that it wrapped around but was easier to cast and harder to break.
The rods of the Mizage spell shook, letting me know that they were close to being overwhelmed and destroyed.
I brought my left hand in front of me, the glow was thrice as brighter than the previous time I used it against a Cor, but that was a stage 2, and this was a stage 4.
It was 'Risiprinde'. One of the most effective spells against a Cor, it targeted their shells, causing their wounds to grow over time.
The Mizage rods shattered and disappeared into the air, and the Cor let out a roar as the complete movement restriction disappeared.
The ray flew from my finger and struck the Cor exactly where I wanted to hit it, on the point connecting its left leg to the rest of its body.
A large part immediately disappeared as my ray impacted, but not as much as I would have liked.
It tore at the chain as I drew close, grey liquid emerging from underneath my robes.
The chain broke, but it delayed the Cor for enough time, and the next instant, a grey liquid wrapped around its left leg, and before it could even process what was going on, its leg was pulled from underneath it, causing it to fall on its back as the liquid flowed up to its wound.
It roared again and pushed itself up into the air using all of its limbs.
It landed on its feet ten meters away from me.
The next moment, it fell down again as its left leg was removed from its body, thanks to the grey liquid that severed it and then quickly wrapped around its leg and pulled it back to me.
I jumped back as my Own brought the leg to me.
I grabbed it, and it immediately vanished into my palm.
I did not look at my palm to see if the star had appeared again, it was not the time to be distracted, and Arquero had repeated that multiple times before, making sure that I remembered that particular lesson.
The Cor was back up, on its one leg, still very much off balance. Just one leg was disorienting it, as it fell on its chest when it tried to run at me.
I watched it as it tried to reach me, crawling through the sands using its hands.
I jumped forward, over the crawling creature.
It tried to jump up, but another Mizage spell hit it, immobilizing it slightly above the ground.
My Own wrapped around me as I raised both my arms and held them in front of my chest.
An orange light emanated from my chest and increased in intensity over time.
The loss of a limb would affect the Cor quite significantly, giving me enough time to prepare my next spell.
Five seconds later, a wave of orange light mixed with yellow flowed over my entire body, forming a thin cover over my armor, with a much brighter part covering my hands.
This was 'Nemean fury', the spell that had made my teacher jealous of my learning ability.
It was both a defensive and offensive spell.
The cover functioned as an extra layer of armor, and the part around my hands unleashed power whenever I struck anything using my hands, the harder I attacked, the more power was used.
The power that added to my attacks looked like a lion's mane from the outside, giving the spell its name.
The Cor turned around as I kicked off of the ground towards its head.
Two of its hands came towards me, and my Own moved, pushing the arms and the Cor attached to them backward, leaving its front open and opening an opportunity for me to attack.
Both of my fists slammed into its face, surrounded by an orange field of energy resembling a lion's mane.
An orange shockwave emerged from the point of impact, and half of the Cor's head started to fly off as the rest of its body was blown back by my attack.
My Own moved faster than a human eye could track and wrapped around the piece flying away, then brought it back to me, where it disappeared into my palm.
I did not move, just stood there looking at the Cor, not sure if it was dead or not.
"It can't move anymore." Numoral's voice sounded by my side as my head snapped to look at him.
"Go ahead, kill it."
I did just that.
I walked up to its head and separated what was left of it from its shoulders, then put my hands on it and absorbed it.
The star had not reappeared.