The platform was brought above the eagle, William now piloting. Quala and Tounaki were winged, the Arcanist’s colored feathers completely covering her forelimbs like her head and trailing some of the now green fire. Everyone was going through the motions, heightening features they’d need and activating long duration enhancing powers. Murdon stood as far to the front of the soarer as he could without tipping it into a dive, a half-smile on his face under the helmet. “You know, I have been looking for a reason to use this.”
“Awakened a new power, Sir?” Janice guessed.
“I’d wager we all have. I’ll use it on the way down. Everyone ready?”
“Hatched ready,” Tounaki confirmed. “You guys are crazy, but hey, I like crazy. And I’ll take the advancement potential.”
“We’re pretty high up Commander,” William pointed out. “Everyone else is flying down. Do you need me to go lower?”
“This is fine.”
Quala gave Murdon a look. “That new power of yours doesn’t let you grow wings too, does it?”
“Better.” He spared one last moment to remind Janice, “Don’t rush in. I’m serious. We can all consider fighting up our level because we’re well armed and experienced, but the disparity is too risky for you.”
“Got it, sir. Distance fighting only.”
“No, I want you to keep clear.” Murdon’s stare was made more intimidating by the helmet. “If it looks like you’re being targeted, jump off and make for the ground limit. Even in a dive that eagle is too large to catch you.” Janice nodded her understanding and Murdon breathed out. “Let’s go.”
Murdon ran towards the back of the glider, William simultaneously trying to dive to counter out the shift in balance while Quala and Tounaki jumped off either side. Murdon could have, but didn’t use Jump as he exited. Lessening the impact of the fall would have been nice, but it would lock him out of other abilities during the jump and there was one he wanted to use instead.
All classes could gain powers that influenced their Focus, though the rarity of these varied even when considering the trends classes could go down. As a Knight, Murdon should have received Focus Enhancement before he faced the lightning dragon, but hadn’t. Somewhat bitterly, he suspected his leadership powers had gotten in the way. His patience was rewarded after the fact. His power had arrived after advancing endurance to 39, along with a function unique to draconoids.
As Murdon fell, his armor began to shift. From head to tail, the metal took on the coloration of the scales underneath, and then the patterning of them. The gaps between his armor melted together, hinges disappearing while the helmet separated into a lower and upper jaw. It inherited the faint avian touches creating a strange hybrid appearance with the draconic power, but otherwise gave Murdon the appearance of growing over his armor.
After the transmutation was completed and a fair amount of mana was exhausted, Murdon felt the effects. The transmuted armor was weightless. The metal had become like a second skin, though Murdon’s real body inside the armor hadn’t changed. The defensiveness of his scales compounded with the metal, throwing in a bonus resistance to necrotic damage that overlapped with his natural one.
This function, once activated, would last for just over an hour. The downside to receiving such a potent function as part of his enhancement was he could only do this once a day. Otherwise, it was everything Murdon had been waiting for. The improved responsiveness of his armor alone was equivalent to heightening Agility to level 3, and with both on board, he felt he could out-dance Gadriel. Talented or not, the Hero was in the beginnings of level 3 while Murdon was nearing its end.
Correcting his fall toward the giant eagle below him was no issue. It sensed him in the last stretch of the fall, but as he predicted its size was a weakness that he now exploited. The castle wall it used for a wing tried to strike him from the air but couldn’t rotate to catch him. Murdon’s confidence lasted a few more seconds before a level 2 stone eagle minion flew into the main body, and another launched out of the approaching wing as if it had been fired straight at him.
Are they being remade or teleported? Murdon had just enough time to ponder that before the eagle just smaller and heavier than he was dove into his chest, knocking him off course. The impact itself barely hurt, something that should have thrilled Murdon if not for the next one. He was propelled so far that he missed the giant eagle entirely and struck the marble beside it. The world turned fuzzy for a few seconds as he recovered, his first sight being the shattered remains of the eagle spawn he’d landed on. Then he noticed the massive talons overhead poised to crush him and desperately rolled out of the way. Still overconfident after everything I’ve faced?
For all his assurances that the veteran stone eagle would be too slow to reliably hit anyone, he’d glossed over the fact that it was strong enough to mortally threaten even defensive classes with single hits. More marble cracked behind him as the crater deepened, but he escaped unharmed. He heard a bird cry and saw Quala, too far away to even shout, signaling him. A line was tracing from the tip of one of her wings that she was trying to keep on his body, finding the task hard to do while sustaining flight. Murdon got the message and ran to follow the arcing line.
It made contact with his leg, and Quala quickly moved the point to his chest with a slight adjustment. After a second, the line became a bright green beam that carried what Murdon recognized as a healing effect. The fall had injured him slightly, and whatever new power Quala had used fully restored him. Just in time for another eagle spawn to dive bomb him. It tried to rake its talons into his armor but got more done with the sheer weight of the impact. Only level 2, but they are dangerous distractions. I’ll need to fight defensively until William can target them.
Another eagle spawn shot towards him, this time from the sculpted tail feathers. This truly was the largest monster Murdon had ever fought, perhaps the largest he’d ever seen. The attack coming at him was far enough away that he had time to react, simply because of how damned tall this eagle was. At almost one hundred meters standing, it was a colossus he somehow had to demolish with an ax.
That’s what he’d brought a team for. Quala had already assisted with a heal, and his second ally chose this moment to bring the heat. While sizing up the eagle to plan for a Jump, he watched as the Arcanist performed a twisting maneuver in the air that brought her into a brief hover. She then brought both wings forward, sending the flames around them spraying forth. Even if she was far enough away to avoid the giant eagle’s wings, Tounaki couldn’t miss. The swath painted over the back and onto the wing joint, burning and sizzling at the same time.
Acid, Murdon thought approvingly. Unenhanced fire attacks against this kind of monster wouldn’t scorch the stone. She isn’t just another Lograve. He wouldn’t be able to improvise his ice attacks against this. The bar between an Arcanist on the road to becoming an elemental specialist, and one with just an elemental manipulation power, were the various auxiliary abilities and features that enhanced one’s mastery of their chosen element. By all appearances, Tounaki was well on her way to attaining the Pyromancer evolution.
Her flame spray also got the attention of the giant eagle, who sent half of its minions toward the airborne fireball. It hadn’t been a critical attack, the acidic flames burning themselves out after eating away a few meters from the surface of the titan, but it had been more effective than Murdon’s mid-air flailing. It was time for him to catch up. He Jumped, anticipating one of the wings to pass over his location and arcing to land on it as it did. Murdon could have drawn on his practice of dual-channeling this ability with Necrotic Breath but decided not to waste the mana. The air movement from the wings alone would disperse the cloud.
No, for this he’d rely on another, less flashy power he’d unlocked from strength. Between his defensive and leadership powers, Murdon had been lacking in a nice, solid attack ability. Stomp was fine, but he couldn’t use it with a weapon. Like Focus powers these weren’t too common for Knights in the early levels and he’d been less surprised by the absence of one. So far he’d just compensated by being a two meter tall descendant of dragons with one, sometimes two, barrel-sized axes.
Now, he had Vital Sundering Slam. Like any Strike, it was an actively channeled ability that improved his attack and consumed an average amount of mana for its level. What redeemed it from complete mediocrity was two-fold. First, it allowed his attacks to be more effective against other armored opponents. The overall punch to the attack was also amplified by how healthy he was. Thanks to Quala, he was in top shape.
Murdon landed on the wing and caught himself as the world began moving at its pace, just like the mobile walkways of Rikendia. Shield in one hand and ax in another, he activated his ability and brought the ax down. Powdered stone bloomed upwards as a huge chunk was carved out. Murdon felt he could have cut through to the other side if he continued his swing, but at a certain point, he had to stop or be thrown off balance. Relatively speaking, he’d done about as much damage as Tounaki had over an area in one spot.
The wound didn’t bleed or show any other signs of injury a normal beast would. The giant eagle was simply missing part of itself. The trade-off was that its protection was spread out across the body compared to a biological being’s concentration of defenses at the outer layers. To be fair, not having any vitals to hit made any hit on this target worthwhile.
It was at this time Murdon realized he’d erred again in judgment. Compared to dragons with wings sprouting from their backs, the wings of birds were more flexible and versatile. Murdon had known this but had assumed the stone eagle would be too slow in its movements for this fact to matter. What happened next may have occurred to him if he’d questioned how such a monster could have flown in the first place.
A mana burst detonated as the giant eagle used an ability its kind gained at level 4, and Murdon felt the ground underneath his feet vanish. For a few seconds, the monster’s movement’s became unburdened by its size and it sped away from land. The draconoid was left behind in midair, unable to grapple onto the wing before it brushed him off. Rather than strike at the off balance Murdon, the monster instead began chasing Tounaki who was barely evading.
As the alternative was to watch the fight from the ground, Murdon desperately searched for a way onto the eagle as he fell. Jump required a surface to jump off of, and he was currently without any. His opportunity came when he noticed one of the eagle spawns had split off to hit him on the way down. He was able to twist in the air to hit it with his ax but purposefully held back to not completely destroy it. Suddenly, he had a springboard attached to the end of his ax.
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From there, he reversed the dynamic and Jumped at another of the eagle spawns. The reciprocal force of a draconoid clad in heavy armor finished the one he’d initially latched onto, and by repeating the process Murdon was able to catch onto the legs of the eagle before they fully folded under the tail feathers. On the other end, Tounaki was alternating curses and screeches while throwing green fire at the monster’s head. It let out another burst of mana, taking Murdon along for the ride as it shot itself further into the air. The smaller eagle spawn were constantly maneuvering about the main body, forcing Murdon to fend them off instead of attacking.
Murdon was saved from playing fly swatter against flies his size by the appearance of William. It had only taken the Ranger a minute to drop Janice off at a safe distance, though that was enough for the battlefield to entirely change. It had also given him enough time to figure something out about the soarers.
As already demonstrated by Tounaki, the platform could be controlled by only one arm if necessary. William did this now, though he also held his bow in that hand, using the free one to reach for arrows. The platform flew in the direction he pointed, and so did his arrows, effectively weaponizing the transport. His first few shots on arrival missed as he got used to the delay in the platform moving after adjusting his arm. Soon, though, the Ranger was a bird of prey onto himself, taking out the smaller spawn from a distance.
While the veteran stone eagle was drawn between the fire mage and Ranger, it left Quala and Murdon as afterthoughts. This had given the Knight time to recover, and also time to notice that it wasn’t restoring any of the stone it had lost. Considering where he was, Murdon reconsidered his assumption that there weren’t any critical areas to hit on this monster.
He chipped away at the stone of the leg with his shield, the enchanted one taken from Heldren’s corpse, until he could both hold onto it and the eagle. Two of the spawn got past William’s arrows by appearing from the tail feathers above him, but Murdon just kicked one out of the way and used his ax on the other. The veteran stone eagle’s seemingly endless supply of them was formidable, but the spawn themselves were easily dispatched. There also seemed to be a limit on how many could be out, and a delay in making new ones. Otherwise, the giant would just blanket the sky with its lesser kin.
Footing and opportunity secured, Murdon began hacking away at the leg with the intent of severing it. This was one of the thinnest sections of stone on the main body, and with at least one leg gone, the eagle wouldn’t be able to land anymore. The wing joints would have been another option if they didn’t connect along most of the back. This was hardly as glamorous as using an explosive punch to expose the brains of a dragon, but he was a Knight. His class wasn’t meant for absolute carnage.
That was Tounaki’s domain. Out of everyone she was harrying the eagle the most, having already burned away a good portion of its beak. Her constantly regenerating feathers provided fuel for her fire. Quala had focused her efforts on supporting the Arcanist, using Nova Shield to block several attempts by spawn to strike at her while healing what damage did get through.
Even with the relative safety of everyone on the team, an issue soon appeared. When Murdon was most of the way through the leg, every blow of his ax demolishing a good portion, Tounaki stopped shooting gouts of flame. The fire hadn’t let up until now and had burned the top of the Eagle’s head to slag. She’s running out of mana. Then, Murdon checked himself and realized, I’m running out of mana.
He’d spent it well, but every one of his attacks was like a hearty swing of a scythe in a field the size of a region. The stone eagle wasn’t tough, his cutting weapon broke it apart without much resistance, but its sheer size proved problematic for the lower leveled team to overcome. It could simply accept the punishment and outlast them up until they had to choose retreat or a battle without active abilities. Using its ability to reposition did draw on its mana supply, but it didn’t need to move to survive. This was a monster that embodied endurance, especially in the way you were meant to fight it. Tactics could only go so far.
Quala may have realized this too if Tactician was still active on her, but that had worn off and the Cleric was now entirely focused on whoever the eagle was chasing. Before she had the awareness to check in with everyone else. Murdon had a few bruises from eagle spawn getting through she could have healed, though in fairness they were no worse than what he would have gotten from tripping while outside his armor. The main threat they posed was in their potential to knock him off and knock his allies into their progenitor’s attacks.
At least Janice had stayed out of this. It would hurt the chance of her gaining advancement potential, but the eagle spawn would have given her a harder time and that wasn’t considering that her spear was a poor weapon against this type of enemy. Murdon turned back to the great stone tree he was trying to fell and considered the situation. If I can cut this off, it can’t land. Anyone still alive down there will have a better chance.
It hurt him to admit, but retreating while minimizing the damage this monster could do was their best option. He’d meant what he said to Janice; this wasn’t the Thormundz anymore. His responsibility wasn’t to the lives of everyone within the region, even if he couldn’t completely disabuse himself of that.
Once again, Murdon wished his friend was here. Strategizing without Telepathy was a nightmare. “QUALA!” he yelled, opening the mouth of his transformed helmet wide to show the world that it had grown metallic teeth. The Cleric heard and began swooping down towards him, a difficult approach given the giant eagle and its interceptors. Quala had done the least directly against the monster, but it still defended itself against any mortal trying to get close.
As she was diving under the belly of the eagle, which was currently tilted upright in flight, three of the spawn shot out towards her. It had to be said that of the four currently engaged with the monster, Quala was the least experienced in hunting. She hadn’t been there for the lightning dragon assault, which was the only reason she’d survived the Thormundz. Every other healer they’d brought, except for Thomas, had died after succumbing to the aquatic horror’s domination. There wasn’t a rule that healing-focused Clerics avoided close combat, but that was the norm because of how few directly damaging powers they awakened.
The glowing shield suspended from one of Quala’s wings blocked the first attacker, though this brought it to the threshold of damage it could absorb after already blocking previous hits. Nova Shield worked in two phases: damage protection, followed by a blinding burst that increased in potency the more damage was absorbed. Despite being fired at max power, the cast off light from the shield’s destruction did nothing to avert the approaching spawn as their vision wasn’t based on biological eyes. They also didn’t have an instinctive avoidance reaction for this reason.
Quala still managed to bat one away with a wing. The spawn hadn’t shown any power usage at this point, and despite not having one to use herself Quala could still dominate with her superior attributes. That left the third, which slammed into the Cleric’s midsection to drive the air from her while latching on with its talons to her legs. The two were of roughly equal shape and size, though the stone eagle was an animal scaled to human size while Quala was the result of ancient magic twisting her former species into something reminiscent of a human.
The wings of the eagle spawn grasped Quala in a winged hug while she recovered from the initial impact, swinging its head back and forth as it pecked into her flesh. Higher attributes or not, Quala didn’t have the defensive prowess of Murdon’s Knight class. Every attack left gaps of missing flesh. She did heal from the damage almost as quickly due to her powers, at the cost of mana.
An arrow appeared out of nowhere and the spawn’s head exploded. That was enough to make it grow inert, and the statue fell off of her. William’s soarer flew past and an off-hand throw of a dagger struck another that had been looking to pile on. As the Ranger was more practiced with throwing weapons than archery, this too brought death to the one it struck. Quala made it to Murdon, suffering the entire way for the simple reason that Murdon couldn’t direct the team from his position.
“We’re not taking this thing down.” Murdon felt bitterness at the back of his throat as he admitted it, but kept what he said simple and direct to not leave the Cleric overly exposed. “Get Tounaki to break off the rest of this leg, and William to pick up Janice. I’ll make for the ground limit when she gets here.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, no doubt worried about any survivors left in the sanctuary, but there wasn’t time. Quala flew off before more eagle spawn could get to her, and Murdon continued hammering away while fending off the ones that came for him. It turned out the giant eagle had little natural defense against someone who had tunneled their way inside it, besides summoning more eagle spawn, and his position was the safest despite his proximity to the monster.
Tounaki showed up soon after. Murdon had worn down the leg, but finishing the job would require more time than his armor ability would last. He didn’t feel as confident handling the spawn without the buff and hoped the Arcanist could provide the explosive variety of fire. What she’d accomplished so far couldn’t have been the result of more than half a dozen powers, and someone of her level should have more options.
“Can you sever this leg?”
Tounaki took shelter in the cavern he’d created and gave it and him an appraising look, tilting her head up and down. “I can give it a shot. We’re running after this right?” Murdon sharply nodded. “K.” There was a genuine smile on her face as she limbered up, shaking out the arms she’d reverted and stretching her legs. Murdon stared for a few seconds at the Arcanist who looked like she was preparing for a run. Then he decided the immediate area would be very hazardous to his health soon and ran towards the open sky.
He fell fast, armor and his natural bulk an anchor in this sea as he quickly reached terminal velocity. Turning his head, he saw Quala flying and William dock in Marbleview, which the giant eagle was now a good distance from. Rotating in mid air was difficult given he had all the aerodynamics of a shed, but he managed in time to see the fireworks.
A plume of green flame pierced through the last of the stone connecting the veteran stone eagle to its leg. The discharge was followed by a rush of flame out of the cavity and a distant boom. The limb fell through the air and another rock-grinding screech issued from the giant eagle. Murdon wasn’t sure if it felt pain, but it did feel the loss.
A vibrant, almost pink-red blur shot from the green explosion and arced down towards him. Murdon was concerned this was an attack gone wild until he realized it was a person. Tounaki, flame back to its natural color, looked like a fire gestalt taking the form of an avianoid. She grinned fiercely as she neared him. “Wooh! I never get to use Flame Form.”
“Why?” Murdon shouted back, his voice not carrying overly well through the rushing air.
“Can’t use fire powers for a few hours afterward. Not really a problem if I don’t have mana though.” She shrugged and then looked a little apologetic. “I’d try and help you get back to the soarer, but I’m a little too hot to handle right now. That armor’s a good look on you, by the way.”
Murdon grunted at the compliment, though that probably didn’t carry over to Tounaki. “How fast can Aurus mobilize reinforcements here?”
Tounaki seemed to sigh, though it might have been his imagination. “If we just fly straight back it could take a day. You think the people here will hold out?”
“We’ll have to hope that-” Murdon’s words cut off as he felt a presence around him, before his fall gently came to a stop. He wasn’t advanced enough in level or wisdom to sense the mana flow of others, but whoever was catching him with this power was also making it clear it was a person. The sky around him grew tinted in an odd but comforting way, almost as if the skyline of Rikendia overlapped Threst. It came with an overwhelming sense of safety, so much that he couldn’t help but relax.
Not everything in the sky was afforded the same treatment. Still oriented to look up, Murdon saw a shimmer in the air completely wrap around the giant eagle. If he squinted, he could just make out the form of a hand in the pattern of the haze. It squeezed, and in a few seconds, the monster he’d almost broken his ax to maim was reduced to fragments.
Higher above, Murdon saw who was responsible. It would have been a terrifying sight even to him except for the fact that he knew this was who had caught him. It was an air gestalt, but that was far too simple a description. They looked like a cross between a sky island and a cloud, the two mixed together in uneven ways and constantly shifting in their dispositions. The size was smaller than Marbleview, though not by much. People were inhabiting this island, both the solid land and the clouds.
What would have inspired fear was how Murdon’s gaze was drawn to the humanoid standing on an offshoot of rock with their hand out, positioned just like the giant one that had crushed the eagle. This was the air gestalt responsible for everything that had just happened. There was a connection between the figure and the power he was being allowed to feel that also extended to the island itself. He didn’t understand exactly what was going on, if the hybrid island was part of the gestalt’s body or just considered that through one of their powers. He didn’t care either way.
The only thing Murdon thought as the air around him began to drag him towards Marbleview was that he hoped he would still get some progress towards advancement from this.