Everyone stood on edge as they made their way closer to the cave's exit, it had been their sole protector from the poisonous jungle ahead of them for the past ten hours or so. With their camp equipment all stored up back in the princess' ring, they were ready for an attempt.
Elyenora turned to each of her companions, looking at them one at a time. She took a breath of the still fresh air sitting in the cave, then readied herself for the outside. "Alright then, here goes nothing..."
With a wave of her rapier, she began gathering whatever wind there was in the surroundings, granted, not much, but a decent amount for an underground world.
"Namir! Do your thing!" she shouted whilst spinning her hand in a circular motion, with the blade raised high and weaving air like thread.
"Aye! Aye!" Namir nodded with his hands crossed in an X formation, he grinned widely as hurricane winds began to bubble up amidst the magical energy surrounding the environment. Each
The throngs of winged creatures circled above like a plague of grasshoppers. Their heads were round and yellow, their beady eyes small and cast the brightest of glows, like the fire in a blazing torch, their eyes glowed red like wards of a devil.It was a flock of harpies, enormous and menacing. They glided through the treetops like a hurricane of feathers. Their crowns of green, black, and white feathers drew in the light as if they were part of the sun itself. With their beaks, claws, and armored talons pointed down at the ground. Fringed wings and leathery skin replaced their human arms and hands with talons covered in razor sharp feathers. These harpies do not speak, their language is a deafening cry to the prey they relish.And now, as it seemed, they had taken an interest in the windy sphere below them. As well as the creatures moving within it, our party."Danger birds is definitely a good synonym..." Samuel grimaced in reply to Mon'Ter's previous comment
Total utter silence.Mon'Ter didn't dare to croak as much as to speak in this situation. His eye stood wide open as a bead of cold sweat started gently streaming down the side of his cheek. He balled his hand into a fist, suppressing the urge to bite his own lip in an effort of self calming."Well," the feminine voice spoke again, digging its nail further into Mon'Ter's neck. The blood started spurting out like a fountain and painting the chimera's white mane in crimson. She continued. "Your answer? Little man?"He stood almost petrified, without taking a single breath or doing anything to stop his bleeding. It wouldn't stop on its own either, there didn't seem to be any innate regeneration happening at this moment. Instead, a searing pain crept all across his upper body, as the place where the unknown enemy’s nail had dug itself melted into mush.Mon'Ter quickly opened his left eye to reveal an auburn brown colored iris, the griffon's eye. 'If I mo
The Runes which Samuel drew glowed with a bluish luminosity, creating a gate right in front of the two warriors who readily rushed through. Sereia and Lanos hopped out of the other end, just a hundred meters above the Harpy Queen, as they readied their individual attacks.Of course, she noticed them first and looked up at them. "Hoh? Trying to take the height from me? Fools."Her wings expanded as her grin erased any beauty she might have possessed prior to the smile. It was ominous, bringing fear to even the most hardened of warriors with just a glance. But despite that horrific look on her visage, a sudden surprise took her off guard and ruined her advance."Huh?" the harpy queen took her gaze to the side, where yet another portal had manifested itself."This is all on you, Sereia!" Samuel bellowed from underneath, having created two portals on each side of the Harpy queen. The last set of runes he'd written activated and formed a torrent of water that
“Unforgivable...” Mumbles amidst ashes sounded, the jungle trees nearby burned down to nothing, crumbling as if made from sand. The surroundings all darkened, becoming a murky black color which liquified everything as if turning it to ink. “Unforgivable!” the harpy queen roared into the distance. “Do they dare?! Do these vermin dare?!” her throat almost ached from her screeching. “Do they dare fling me away like that?! I’ll have their intestines paint my canopies!” Her saliva dripped down from her razor filled maw, her breathing ragged from pure anger rather than exhaustion, and her nails grew out to the length of a foot long in a matter of moments. “They’ll pay for this... All six of them will perish on this floor if it’s the last thing I do...!” As she seethed, her dark pupils began to emanate with more and more black light. It pulsated, slowly shimmering as the boiling oil over her wings began to expand to her body, covering her skin down to the so
As the noble lady knight walked to the front of her friends, her eyes not moving an inch away from those of their foe, Elyenora couldn’t help but stare at her comrade and mumbled.“Sereia… That’s…” her eyes widened as brutal memories from not too long ago came back. ‘It’s the same as that assassin girl…’In that next moment, Sereia brandished her sword and pointed it at the harpy queen, grinning with her other hand at her hip. “Alright bird brains, let’s duke it out! Me and you, one versus one!” she rested her blade onto her shoulder. “That’s my usual shtick I love, anyways.”Still taken aback, the queen mumbled in a defensive state. “...That attitude will get you killed… Little girl…”“Guess we’ll see which of us is right on their statement then?” Sereia took a stance, right leg forward, while her left leaned back
The party tended to Sereia after she’d finished her battle, Namir made sure to cast his healing magic on her too, albeit it didn’t seem to have any effect. Elyenora, on the other hand, took care of patching up the surrounding barrier. She made sure there were no holes or deformities present while Samuel simply looked over the unconscious Mon’Ter. Namir couldn’t find any way of waking him up quite yet, it appeared that the harpy queen had inflicted him with something bad, and his body was still fighting it back.“I’m sorry guys,” Namir downcast his gaze as he healed Sereia. “My healing was supposed to be useful, and yet…”Sereia looked at the child who was doing his best at getting her back to her feet. “It’s completely alright, Namir! Just let me rest up and I’ll be fine later, okay?”“Okay…” he stood up and went to walk around in their tiny safe area.
Shadows swirled in the air, covering the party members in a vast cocoon of black. The surrounding fog submerged them like a thick blanket, they almost couldn’t tell they were falling even with all the wind pressure at their backs.It should have been… Unsettling, by all accounts.And yet...The more time that passed, as they watched the little ray of light on the top slowly close up, the more they relaxed. Felt drowsy. And even began to succumb into the notion of closing their eyelids.Sereia became the first to fall prey to this hollow nap, her ragged breathing and will to shout, instantly overpowered by a strong urge for sleep.Namir followed shortly, his frame going face first downward through the hole as his consciousness left him, undoubtedly, he must have been feeling as if floating amidst beautiful clouds of white, not this tar like fog.Lanos mustered the strength to yell into the darkness, but for naught, his voice felt
As Elyenora stared at the soulless foe, the fog began returning to surround everything yet again, blurring out her sight fully once more.‘No wonder I can’t find this thing with my soul vision…’ she clicked her tongue, even more wary than before. ‘How can there be a living creature without a soul? This makes little to no sense!’“My dear,” the soulless one spoke, “won’t you take a quick nap alongside your friends as we all fall?”“No…” Elyenora put her guard up towards where the voice still came from, it didn’t seem like the thing had moved since she last saw it, other than going downward along with her and the party, of course.“Why not?” it asked, “don’t you see how blissfully your comrades are sleeping? Wouldn’t you want to join them?”She scoffed. “I’d rather wake them up, thank you very much.”
Just as Mon’Ter was busy rotting on the inside, Samuel and Sereia were finally able to get back on their feet. Samuel could now see properly and move around, and Sereia had drunk a high grade healing potion that brought her back up to speed. “Agh… My back was killing me there…” Sereia said as she stretched, trying to get herself back into shape. “Do I even need to mention my head…?” Samuel held it, he still felt like it would start spinning again but thankfully it was over. “We really need to go and help Mon’Ter out,” Sereia mumbled out loud. “It seems like he got two of them but he’s facing that guy that my dad said was the best assassin in the world…” Still, they were a bit far away from the chimera and couldn’t assist him right away, especially since Mon’Ter’s fear came true. “It seems like we have our own troubles to deal with first…” Samuel pointed out as he gazed at the sky above them. “Huh? That guy again?” Sereia said in annoya
As Mon’Ter stood in a confrontation between himself and the three assassins, Sereia and Samuel did their best to catch their bearings and get to assisting him rather than being a burden for him. Thankfully, Samuel had some recovery potions on him, but due to his issue with coordination caused by Hendrick’s eye ability, he couldn’t move his arms in the right direction much less find where he’d stored the bottles.And as for Sereia, she actually did try to get to Samuel and find the potions for him, but, given how wounded her back really was she was having some difficulty pushing herself to stand back up and move towards his bag. Of course, this would only take her seconds to do in real time, maybe ten or twenty, but in the moments of combat those seconds would be more than enough for her and him to lose their lives at once many times over.They were dealing with assassins after all, and while these assassins were definitely slowed down from the g
Just as Elyenora was dealing with Alinesia with the help of Randus’ Gravity Zone spell, so were Sereia and Samuel working on using the spell to their advantage too. Seeing as they were able to outmaneuver their respective match ups and bring down two specters, they had now managed to get away from the other two old men who’d targeted them and made their way towards where Mon’Ter was being held down by Alinesia’s parents.That, of course, didn’t take long at all with the help of Samuel’s teleportation magic.Sereia quickly landed right over the female assassin with super long nails, Allison, while Samuel waltzed right into her husband, Hendrick, and swung straight at his arms that were holding Mon’Ter’s head up close to his eye level.On Sereia’s end, things were quickly and easily dispatched. Having had the jump on the opponent she was able to instantly get Allison to dodge her first blow and leave Mon’
With Alinesia’s light blinding everyone, Randus was able to easily move about by practicing a simple spell to allow his eyes to perceive past the blinding shine of her. He had basically created pseudo shades on his face which he used to escape from Lerroy’s immediate reach.During the course of the battle so far, the two of them had been flying high up in the air and blasting each other with all manner of magical spells, it had gotten to the point that most of the soldiers down below were getting nervous just by standing underneath them. However, Randus hadn’t just been mindlessly flying about and chucking explosions at his old master, no, of course not, he wouldn’t be where he is at today if he did something so basic.The whole time they were moving around the air space, Randus had been leaving small sigils in specific locations high above the ground and laying out a layer filled circle of magic large enough to encompass most of the existing su
Alinesia had completed her transformation, however, she wasn’t the only one making moves during that last minute of action. There were still many people on the battlefield, and the ones who made the biggest change aside from her, were definitely Randus, Samuel and Sereia who all made good use of the previous minute or so of time.On their side of the field, just as Elyenora and Alinesia were having their clash of wills, Samuel and Sereia both found themselves pushing against their respective spectral opponents. It had gotten to the point where they were chasing after these Low ranking Arch Lord Class entities as if they were hunting rabbits.It was at this time that both Gandar, the court mage of the Royal palace and the elderly master of the assassin’s guild intervened on their little chase. Gandar shot through the sky atop a conjuration of wind and flew near enough to be within his range of Samuel, he weaved his staff and made a spiraling motion with it b
Back to the princess’ side of the field, where she was facing off against a previous foe. Elyenora could feel that things weren’t going her way at all, she knew it in her heart with every strike she sent towards Alinesia and every second she wasted on fighting against her. But what could she do while everyone was being held back like this? There was one and only thing she could really do to try and help out.Ending the fight swiftly.Alinesia had certainly grown significantly since their last fight, she was more than the princess’ match even after Elyenora had gotten her significant growth spurt after releasing the spiritual cultivation shard from her body. However, it didn’t seem like the Lioness would be able to keep up with Elyenora if she just made a simple action and unleashed her newly acquired artifacts.“I’m sorry, but I’ll be ending our little rematch early,” the princess said as she pushed back on the fla
Cazimir fell, cut in half and in a completely stupefied state. Someone meant to have been on his side, an ally, had just taken him down. His bloodied eyes shone with a bright light and created shadow soldiers that tried to hold him back together, barely, even as his own blood and organs left his body to splatter down on the ground. “W–wh–y…?” Cazimir asked as only one of his eyes barely managed to move and look at Finn. “Because you interfered where it was not your place, stupid assassin,” Finn said, his eyes wider than an open door and staring the vampire down with intense pressure behind his every word. “Couldn’t you follow simple instructions? I told you. Don’t interfere with my fight. Leonidas is mine to do battle with.” “Bast–ard…” Cazimir barely mumbled out, and with another glow of his eyes he forced the soldiers to move him about ten meters away from the now enemy. With yet another glow, he summoned out a potion that fell from a litt
Alinesia glared at Elyenora with her fiery blade burning at her side. “It’s sure been a while, hasn’t it?”“You again?!” Elyenora clicked her tongue, she had been forced to stop right in her tracks by her once again, for the second time. “Why are you here!?”“Why?” Alinesia grit her teeth. “Did you seriously ask me why, you blond bimbo?!”“What?” The princess felt a little taken aback by the assassin’s words. “Don’t you understand what you’re working towards right now? Do you even know what my brother is trying to do!? It’s all foolish! Why would you work for him? You’re smarter than that!” Elyenora tried to change her mind if she could, though, it didn’t seem like Alinesia was here for money or anything of the sort by the look on her face.“You think I’m here just because that prince twat brother of yours asked t
“We kill all of them to get to him,” Mon’Ter’s voice reverberated throughout the entire space, being heard by everyone that surrounder him and his comrades.It caused several laughs to erupt, which then continued into multiple more and more until the entire enemy legion made a laughing stock out of Mon’Ter’s words.“Bold words from someone bound to die,” Gandar, the royal court mage, snickered at his words. “Who even are you, boy? Another knight? Not with that get up you’re not. Perhaps a mage? Shall I teach you some proper manners in speech?”“I’d actually like that,” Mon’Ter said truthfully. “But it’s not the time to be learning manners.”His hand extended and his fingers grew as his nails elongated into sharp swords capable of piercing the thickest of hides and slashing the hardest of steels. The strange development caused many to put their guard