Chương 54: [BL] 53. Sky Battle [5]

Willow blinked. She had to. Despite having a lethal Tier-three aiming what might be a lethal sunbeam at her, she almost dropped to her knees to apologize to Shera. Or was she?

"What did you say to me last time?"

"You will know what I choose?" The hag's voice came like a cracking, whirring machine. It was still hard to believe, but… but this was Shera. The hag drew a sharp breath, and it—No! She. Yes, she. She had a strange hiccup twice. After a long second, Willow noticed it was a cry.

"Shera!" Willow opened her arms for a hug.

"I'm sorry—""My lady! Behind me!" Krywen's cry rose. The Squire wore a brigandine bearing a flower crest, similar to Josha's. Josha remained entrapped in ice beside the hag, Shera, who touched the ice with her elongated, thin limbs. Willow turned around and aimed her Auric bow upward toward the point of flare gathered by the Sunheart Griffin's opened beak. A mirage blurred its surroundings. Its fellow riftborn hovered around it to avoid their fur being caked.

"Krywen, get out of here. Go! Ride away!" Willow ordered, but just as she shouted, Krywen dismounted and kicked her horse, which ran toward still-mounted Evan. The noble boy grabbed the horse's rein and rode behind Krywen. Like planting a flag, Krywen cupped both her hands. The wind gathered around her, materializing into a tall flag with a white banner billowing across the rain, and an almost invisible barrier came to being right in front of her, causing the rain to patter away.

A red beam blasted away from the Sunheart Griffin's beak. The world went alight when it slammed right into Krywen's shield. The impact pushed everything in a powerful shockwave. Krywen's hair tossed upward, while Willow tried to reach for her. The banner lost its light, and it broke along with the beam that went spreading across the ground, catching some poor cavalry. Leaning her body to the flag, Krywen shuddered and almost fell when her banner disappeared in a trace of light.

Willow caught the squire and pulled her shaking body close, dragging her away while the dust covered them. She wished the downpour would continue, but to her horror it began to weaken. The Sunheart Griffin noticed this. It tipped its head up. Willow also looked toward the two incoming flocks of Griffins, each flock delayed as mobile ballistas were being fired down below, forcing some Griffins to deal with them. She noticed there were no Wyverns anymore, but they could come later.

The Sunheart Griffin, instead of attacking them again, soared high toward the sky. The move caught Willow off guard as she stared for a moment, wondering what the hell it was doing, but she snapped to attention.

"Come on! Up!" Willow pushed Krywen onto the horse that Evan brought. The girl still shook, her shoulders especially tensing.

"My lady," Evan said. He glanced at Krywen for a moment with a small, judging stare before looking toward Willow again.

"You should ride with me; the other is coming soon."

"Shera!" Willow turned to her friend. The ice around Josha and Nora had melted, and their bodies lay drenched. Hopefully, Nora's wings could fly despite that. The good news was that it seemed they both healed thanks to Shera's spell.

"Can you get them up?"

"Lady Willow!" Evan reached for her shoulder.

"I don't like whatever that one is doing. We really should go now." He reached up to call on the nearest cavalry with familiar faces.

"I can fly, Evan, and yes, that one concerns me too," Willow said. A shrill cry cut through like an annoying steel being rubbed together. Both Evan and Willow winced. They turned to glare at Shera, who lay on her back with Josha on top of her, his dagger pointed downward.

"Wait!" Willow, Krywen, and Evan shouted in unison.

"What? Why are you three defending this atrocious—""Don't!" Willow pointed, and Josha shut his mouth.

"Don't say another word." He blinked, confused, then he glanced back down at the sobbing hag.

"Shera? Shit. I'm so sorry—" Instead of taking Josha's hand, Shera pulled her knees up and hugged them. In a miserable voice, she said, "You guys need aerial help, so I picked this. I know this makes me an Ascendant-class holder or whatever, but do you think I'd pick this if not for you two?" She demanded.

"Get up already!" Evan snapped.

"What did you say, you little noble boy prick?" Just in time, Erick arrived with Rom atop their horses. Behind them were Willow's Olympyas. The Archer and the Executioner did not need horses. There was someone else. Willow's senses pricked, and she looked toward the sky, where a golden figure shone amid the dark clouds.

"The Princess?" Willow asked.

"My sister has broken out safely; we need to retreat now," Evan said. Willow beat her wings down and rose to see the Sunheart Griffin now looking like a far figure of gleaming sun. But why? This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The answer came immediately; the Tier-two below it suddenly had fire running through their bodies despite the downpour.

"It has become a miniature sun for others to draw power upon," Maxim said, and he turned his horse.

"This is bad, my Lady; the other two groups will face the Tier-three Griffins with possibly close to their full power." Josha could barely get Nora up. The horse, however, could not hold his weight, so he decided Nora would run riderless while Josha would take over Erick's horse and the old man would ride behind him. So either go after the Sunheart, which was protected by its flock high above, or deal with the other two? The problem was that the human Tier-threes were all earthbound. They could not fly.

What to do now? She decided. Better stick to the original plan. But that didn't mean she would not try to hurt the Griffin flock a bit. In her mind, Willow reached for her Olympya Magus, who responded by flying toward one of the battlefields. There, humans rode about, protecting their mobile ballistas while futilely firing arrows upward against the Griffin's wind.

They began to make a fighting retreat, but even with the Tier-threes taking the brunt of the damage—the Griffins had learned and avoided them, making Drey's swing useless, and Beck's cleave kept missing.

"Shera, with me!" Willow ordered as she floated up.

"We're charging a Tier-three?" Hag-Shera asked.

"Don't worry, it can work, kinda," Josha shouted from below as they kept hovering upward.

"Oh! You two! If you can capture a healthy Griffin—a Tier one—then I can rejoin the battle!"

"What are you talking about?" Willow shouted the question, stopping her flight.

"I can gentle it and bond it!"

"Gentle?" Willow blinked.

"Think of it like taming a wild horse and then making it trust humans, so it will become accustomed to people riding it," Shera explained.

"I doubt we can get one uninjured, though," Willow said. She spread her six-fold wings, and through her Elf ear she could feel runes gathering by them as they burnished with an orange gleam.

"Wait, Willow! I'm slower—""Just catch up!" Willow pumped her wings and zoomed through the rain. Below her, the battlefield was busy with humans galloping with their horses and firing arrows, and no one had landed a hit on the Griffins. The Tier-threes guards looked like a group of mighty knights upon their warhorses, but they could do nothing except offer their bodies to tank the Griffin's sunbeam with their shields.

The other Sunheart Griffin unfurled its wings to hover upward, and through its belly a ribbon of flames burnished like a slightly altered Pi sign. The magic then formed into a spear of bright embers. With a powerful wing flap, the Sunheart propelled its spell downward. One [Royal Guard] rode out to meet it. With his shield, he blocked the spear, but it kept searing through his mighty dark steel, and flame expanded outward—even Willow could feel the heat high up.

The tier-three shields melted away, and the Sunheart's spear lanced right into the man's armor, blowing him off his horse. Rising against the slippery ground, the [Royal Guard] stood his ground with a two-handed great-blade. The other [Royal Guards] rode to defend him, lifting their shields. But they were not Legionaries. There was no shield wall formation. The mighty Tier-three rained down multiple blazing spears that sent their shields scorching, then their armor.

To Willow, what was even more annoying than the Griffin's flight capability was their refusal to leave their downed comrade. She gets it. Sure. But losing five Tier-three would be a blow that might doom them all. So, Willow ascended, cutting through the rain with her body.

The Olympya Magus flew from the other side of the Sunheart Griffin, who did not regard them and kept firing its spear—it even summoned a new symbol, one of a whirling scythe, and blew it down into a fiery tornado that circled the [Royal Guards] and, within seconds began to melt their armor away, all the while a hail of spears kept coming at them. The sudden tornado unleashed gusts even more powerful than those conjured by the Shamanic Lich, twisting the very air.

Willow had to keep beating her wings just to hold her position against the current. Fortunately for the magus, he was already much closer than she was. The magus split his cubes into six green blobs. Each blob was like an acid and shot toward the Sunheart, who ignored it. The Sunheart glanced at it once and maybe arrogantly thought it could just tank it. When the blob of green was a mere two meters away, it suddenly mutated into a zip of green lightning that surged at the Griffin.

In a pure reflex, the Griffin swooped aside, spreading its heated talons to block the green lightning, but the lightning branched out. They arced around to surround the Griffin, and in one thunderclap they sparked and shot right at the Sunheart, who closed its wings for a moment and opened them again as traces of electricity ran through its body. But the Griffin drew heat and recovered in a mere second—in an instant it formed another spear and shot at the Magus, who dodged it.

However, just as the ember spear whisked past the magus, it exploded in brilliant red, taking the magus's body with it. The explosion faded quickly thanks to the rain, and what was left behind was the half-figure of the magus—his cloak was charred to complete darkness, his body disappearing in traces of gold as rain ran down his smooth, white-green skeletal face and neck. His last green eye opened wide, and with his last hand, he pointed at the Sunheart Griffin.

The green cube reformed and unfurled around him with red ember—the absorbed spell that had saved his life for a brief moment. The Magus fired. His spell only met with a pathetic glance. The Griffin did not even defend, as the small ember might as well have tickled its fur. [Auric Huntress, the Olympya Magus has returned to your embrace and shall await your next hunt!] Just as the Griffin was about to rain down on the poor [Royal Guards] again, Willow appeared right behind it, both palms open.

The Griffin turned in time and, about to fire a quick fireball it had built in its beak, but Willow had cast her spell first, way before. The Magus sacrificed himself on her orders. For this. She spread her fingers, and as if she were to wring apart the Griffin's body, she twisted them. Ten swift strings of light shot out, swirling around the Griffin like blinding lightning.

The Tier-three responded by spreading heat through its body once again, and that heat, by all rights, would burn Willow's Sun Thread to dust, but her class was a Huntress. [You challenged a predator who is higher level than you!] [Right of Hunt activated!] [+30% Sense +30% Arcanic] Willow pulled both palms to her opposite shoulders, binding the Tier-three body in a taut lockdown. The Sun Thread dug into the Griffin. The thread naturally had heat resistance, yet almost instantly, it began melting.

There was no time. She plunged downward, pulling the Griffin with her. Glaring at her, it opened its beak and was about to shoot a fireball, but it struggled to maintain the spell as they went on a free fall. She gave the Tier-three bird a much-deserved, smug grin, and together they plummeted to where multiple Tier-three humans awaited them hungrily.