This was the point where Beth and Blood could really get involved and shine, and it turned out they would be shining quite a bit tonight. The ground had not one, not two, but three elite units, though none of them were the rumored casters. Beth and Blood were deep in the thick of it from the moment their collective feet hit the ground, fighting two versus three against the elites of the enemy company. Beth found it a challenge, but not exceeding anything they had done so far, as it was clear that individually, the opposing "elites" just didn't quite stack up to her or Blood. Only by having greater manpower were they even keeping it mostly even and, when Blood tripped two of them only to dash away and maul the third elite from the side, crippling her quite badly, things turned for the worse. For the Blue Thorns, that is.
Beth was able to relatively quickly finish the woman who was badly injured, hammering out a series of rapid yet precise strikes that threw her balance completely off before dealing the coup de grace with a thrust to the throat. From there it was almost too easy, the elites not fairing nearly as well in a two-versus-two scenario as they had with a numbers advantage. When the other two elites were dead, Beth and Blood moved through the rest of the Blue Thorns, turning a mostly even battle into a rout. They didn't stay to try to mop up, nor chase too far, as the opponents had proved both slippery and well adept at setting traps in their wake. They instead resumed the patrol, finishing at the fort an hour after the sun had risen.
Flying at night had been a somewhat different experience, though with Beth's enhanced eyes it hadn't bothered her right from the start. And of course, the fighting at night was something that was becoming old hat at this point, between her regular fighting at night as well as constant delving into underground areas and dungeons, it was almost stranger to be fighting in the daylight. They took a rest of around an hour while Beth went over what had happened and tried to decide if there was anything she could do to push for a resolution to the stage. The flying was fun, but they'd been in the stage close to a full day at this point, and it seemed it would only be a standard two-day stage, so she was starting to get a little concerned about the time.
As if in answer to her silent musings, the fort stirred like an ant nest that had just been heavily kicked. It seemed it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation, as every single person was moving about, gearing up and grabbing extras of consumables such as food and potions. As Beth and Blood watched from the side, Shell came running up to them, firing off the sloppiest salute by far Beth had seen her give.
"Ma'am! Major movement from the 'Thorns! We're gearing up for a full-scale battle. Get ready and get to the griffons, the full wing sweep departs in ten!" Shell hammered out in almost a single fluid breath before turning on her heel and sprinting away.
Beth and Blood exchanged a glance and a shrug before moving into the aerie with the griffons, heading for the platform they had been using on the second floor. They found Red and his son saddled and hooked up and waiting, Blood jumping in the basket as Beth hopped up on Red's back. It was only a single minute later that they launched, Beth marveling at the amassed weight of the full battalion, half-a-thousand griffons and riders in the air and ready to fly.
And fly they did! They set out at a blistering pace, a speed that they hadn't hit in any of their previous outings, and not on a sweeping route, but a direct beeline for a specific location. The sun was climbing through the sky, though it was not yet noon, and they flew north with the sun on their right as the air continued to warm. The sky above was a cloudless light blue, the fresh air still, apart from the wind kicked up by their passage, and the temperature slightly warm. A great day for an epic battle, Beth feeling her pulse pick up a little as she thought of the coming conflict.
A conflict that was rapidly approaching, as her enhanced eyes picked out shapes in the air ahead of the battalion only twenty minutes into their flight. It seemed the enemy had brought their entire strength to bear, with the sky crowded with wyverns while there was a distinct haze of dust further behind the air wing, a sure sign of a large column moving. It seemed the Blue Thorns had been angered by the heavy losses they had suffered right from the start of the latest set of skirmishes, thanks in no small part to Beth and Blood, and were now determined to deal a heavy blow of their own. Beth just grinned as they soared closer, thinking about how hard she was going to make them work for every inch.
The clash in the air was swift and vicious, the two sides closing with each other at greater than highway speeds with screams and screeches, battle cries and the rending of metal and flesh. Beth wasn't shy about the conflict or her intent, steering Red and Red Jr. into the heart of the melee, her sword blazing with fire and a preternatural speed as she hewed apart first one rider than another. A third wyvern came in from above her, trying to tear her from the saddle and limb from limb by attacking from a higher vantage, but very quickly found itself missing its left foot and half of its right leg. It tumbled down and to the rear of Red who needed no encouragement to maul the animal and its rider with his rear legs and a flap of his mighty wings. The wings of the wyvern were decimated by Red's foot-long talons and, while the rider survived mostly intact, he did not survive the impact with the ground several seconds later. Many of the riders of both sides had no safety nets, no parachutes or spells to slow or cushion a fall, and not everybody had drank elixirs that increased their END and toughened their bodies as Beth had. She could survive a fall like had just killed that Blue Thorn, though it would be an immensely unpleasant experience in every way.
She didn't need to worry about such things, however, as Red and Red Jr. were terrors in their own right, each individually out massing any single other flying animal on the field, while together they had the mass and power to overwhelm even a squad. Coupled with Beth's power and reach, able to hew apart enemies a decent distance from Red if she leaned a little, nothing could threaten the four of them during this skirmish.
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That wasn't to say the same for the rest of the Red Feathers, as they were outnumbered and partially outmaneuvered, the Blue Thorns having come in fast and staggered, with half of the air units sweeping down from a higher angle. The Red Feathers took a number of losses in the beginning, but a battle such as this wasn't won in the first few moments. That proved especially true as Red and Beth tore across the entire length of the airspace, ripping apart or maiming one enemy after the other. It took longer than their previous fights, but fifteen minutes of bloody butchery had the advantage back firmly with the Red Feathers, the griffon riders starting to really tear apart the wyvern contingent. The numbers were still about even, but the amount of damage Beth and Red had done had turned around a disadvantage into an even fight and, if the two plus Red Jr. continued as they were, the writing was on the wall. The Blue Thorns could either try to take Beth down, something they hadn't had any luck with, or they could pull back. Seeing as they didn't seem to have any elite air units amongst their entire battalion, retreat became the better part of valor, though it was more orderly than a rout.
The Blue Thorns air group pulled back to their ground-based units, and this was where the truly heavy fighting was going to happen. The wyvern units still had the numbers that they could provide cover for the ground units and the biggest threat, Beth, was going to be hitting the ground, tilting the air battle back towards even. The second troublesome factor was the mages, as the battalion's rumored nature and wind mages were now taking the field. The nature mages used their power to erect walls of grasping, thorny vines to protect the ground troops from dive-bombs by the Red Feathers while the wind mages shot out powerful blades of air to try to clip the griffons' wings.
Beth and Blood joining the fray tied up a large amount of the ground force, as the Blue Thorns first threw the weight of numbers at them. This wasn't a very good strategy, as they learned much to their deep regret after ten minutes of Beth and Blood slaughtering the regular troops. The next stratagem was much better and tied them up for much longer, as a group of five elites took the field against the two, keeping them pinned down for nearly a dozen minutes as they struggled in an almost even fight.
It wasn't all sunshine and roses for the Blue Thorns, however, as Beth and Blood slaughtering an eighth of their ground troops before tying up most of the non-mage elites left them much more vulnerable. The Red Feathers were still slowed by the mages, but Beth had lent them even more help by fully committing, unhooking the basket from Red and Red Jr. when they landed, freeing the two heavy hitters to much more agilely claim the field. It became a snowball effect, as the mages could only slow the bleeding, and eventually even they couldn't stop the decimation of the air force. This, in turn, led to more Red Feathers being able to land to form a fighting wedge, tying up and pressuring the Blue Thorns ground units.
The whole thing broke wide open when Beth and Blood beat the elites, using their ever increasing teamwork to trip up two of them and score a killing blow on the largest of the five, who was the first to trip. It still took another two to three minutes to handle the remaining four, but it was a case of skill versus numbers and, once again, skill proved to be the victor. The skill of the five and their numbers had let them hold the even ground, but once it was a two versus four, the game was basically over. As soon as the second elite troop fell to Blood, the woman's throat torn out with a brutal, vicious bite, the remaining three were finished. It was only a series of fast and dexterous blows from Beth's sword that was needed to kill the third, with the fourth falling to Blood ten seconds later. "Elite" number five tried to break and retreat, but only suffered a sword through the back of the neck, severing his spine for his trouble.
Beth and Blood redirected from there, prioritizing the remaining powerful enemies: the mages. Beth hadn't had a ton of experience fighting mages, with most of the foes she fought up until now that used magic using it to empower themselves or their weapons. She had fought a handful of beasts that cast spells from their bodies, such as the lightning salamander beasts oh so long ago in the Endless Trial, but fighting sapient beings using magic at range was still a relatively new experience for her. If nothing else, she would get some nature and wind resistances out of it.
The fight turned out to be a little anti-climactic, as there were two nature mages and only one wind mage. The nature mages seemed almost entirely defense orientated, as they built walls and barriers with vines and spiked branches to block advance and try to tangle their opponent. The wind mage was the only one who could really dish out offensive spells, firing out blades of wind at them long before they got close. It made the whole thing more tedious than anything else, as they had to dodge blades of wind while hacking through dense plant matter. On the other hand, the mages being entirely focused on the big threat, Beth and Blood, caused them to stop worrying about the rest of the Red Feathers, at extreme detriment to the Blue Thorn's overall battle position.
Beth killed the first nature mage as she got to him, hewing him apart with two massive, empowered swings in a row, annoyed at how tough they had made the whole thing. Blood took longer to kill the second while Beth confronted the wind mage, taking several blades to the torso and one to the head which her helmet fortunately stopped before she was able to start hitting back. The wind blades were actually easier to dodge up close, as they took a second to form and at point blank, Beth could see where they were forming and even what direction they would be firing in. The more annoying factor to deal with was the wind barrier the mage surrounded herself with, causing Beth's strikes to be pushed off course, making it difficult to land any powerful hit to the caster.
Beth wasn't deterred, however, and the fight became rather one-sided when Blood managed to eviscerate the second nature mage, joining in against the wind mage. The two versus one was immensely stacked in their favor, and it was made worse by the fact that the wind barrier wasn't very good at stopping bites. Add to that the fact that the wind mage was rather poor in melee combat, and the ending was quick and brutal at that point. Unable to dislodge Blood's jaws, the pain and injury distracted her, allowing Beth to get a clean hit in that deeply wounded her neck. Another powerful horizontal slash removed the mage's head, ending the last of the difficult enemies, paving the way for the near-total victory of the Red Feathers.
The battle this time had been much larger, with much greater losses, than any of the skirmishes so far. Consequently, the mop-up operations took a great deal longer, with Beth and Blood helping to guard the area as the Red Feathers tended their wounded, captured enemy wounded, and looted the spoils of war. Once they had rounded everything up and were ready to go, Shell approached the two for a discussion.
"Thanks to the both of you, ma'am," she said. "Without your assistance, that might have been a rout for us. We would have had to fall back to the fort and play defensive, possibly for weeks until we could be reinforced. You really saved us there."
"It's just what we do," Beth replied with a shrug. As soon as she finished the motion, everything went white as they finished the stage.
For performance beyond the stage condition, additional rewards are granted.
Reward of compounding experience granted.
Applied granted reward.