—??? POV—

Hungry. Want to become stronger. Search prey.

Found. Many creatures. Weak creature. Smart creature. Armor. Weapons. Weak. Weak. Truly weak. But some strong. The weak very many. Risky. Too risky.

Fly away.

Found. Big monster. Strong monster. Alone.

Drop down from sky. Attack. Vital hit. Enemy retaliate. Fly away. Fly. Fly. Attack again. Repeat. Repeat. Win.

Fly. Fly high. Disappear in the sky. Find new prey. Found. Hunt. Hunt some more. Feast.

Found. Another prey. Challenging prey. Strong. Smart. But few. Tired. Injured. Half weak. Very weak.

Drop.

~~~

—Back to Haell POV—

“What was that!?” I asked as Luine sat down and Baston healed her arms. “That was waaayyyyy too fucking strong for a level 20.”

Luine snorted as her flesh mended. “Oh yes. Being that strong at a lower level is totally unfair.”

“Exactly! Only I am allowed to do that!”

She snorted at my answer.

“To actually answer your question,” Baston said while healing and growing a bed of flowers around Luine’s injured arms, “that bitebit was over level 40.”

“Huh?” I looked at him, and then back at the dead carcass of my enemy. “My level sense told me it’s around level 20 though…”

“That’s because it can be fooled.”

“Oh.” I looked at the dead creature in a new light. “I guess I got bamboozled. Damn. I’ve heard of that ability, but I’ve seldom seen it.”

Luine’s presence suddenly shriveled and shrank. I felt like I was staring at someone even weaker than I was. I didn’t even feel a shred of wrongness like I did with the bitebit.

“Whoa! You can do that!?”

“Of course I can,” she scoffed.

“Why didn’t you tell me!!” I pouted, looking at her now with pleading eyes.

“It’s far more difficult to learn than level sense, and it requires the exact opposite training method. You’d have to act far weaker than you are for dragons know how long! But sure, since I’m so nice then I'll teach you alllll about it.”

“On second thought, I’m good.”

“You sure? It is a very useful ability. Don’t you love those?”

“No, no. I don’t want to take any more of your time.”

“Nonsense. You’ve already taken years.”

“Ouch.” I knew she was joking, but that hit a little bit too close to home. “But that’s why I want to take no more. I’m happy enough flaunting my power.”

“Oh I know, Haell.” She chuckled. “We all know.”

That was a very funny joke, and we would’ve all laughed for sure had we not been interrupted before we could.

“Run!!” Baston suddenly shouted and tossed Luine away, some bleeding scratches still remaining on her arms. A large bird the size of a common ogre crashed down where she just was, its feathers were reflective like glass, tinged strongly with the colors of the vibrant blue sky and the fluffy clouds that could be found within. It looked sleek, elegant, peaceful.

It was anything but.

The beast moved before any of us could react, chomping down and crushing large chunks of Baston in rapid succession. His left arm, leg, and parts of that entire side of his torso was crumpled like paper, flesh and armor digging into each other. Blood spurted from the bird’s left wing in the next moment, finally pulling its attention away before it could finish off Baston. Luine had jumped right back into the fight with her arms still bleeding, running her blades against the bird’s feathers and dyeing them… white? The monster’s blood was white. Why not?

“What are you doing!?” Baston yelled as Moonwash and I just stared. “Fucking run!”

“NO!” I found myself shouting before I could think better of it. I ran to Baston’s side and helped him support himself up. My mind was a mess, but I was surrounded by the forest. Even getting ambushed by a random beast was part of nature, and so was struggling til the fucking end!

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My magic exploded out of me like it never had before. A bed of flowers grew right underneath our feet and colorful floral vines began reaching up and enveloping the injuries of my friend.

“I told you to–” Baston began but I interrupted him.

“And we fucking won’t so fucking deal with it!!”

He was annoyed and uncertain for a second, but he collected himself a moment after, accepting that he could not change my decision. My friend drew his staff from his back and held it with his one functioning hand. He summoned up vines right in front of him, entangling the nearly level 80 skyvern.

The monster shrieked, thrashing against its bonds and breaking them, but not without being slowed down and even injured. Luine did not miss the openings this created, and soon more and more cuts started opening up on the creature’s body. I helped too, by sending out waves of menace magic toward the enemy. There was no visible effect I could see, but I hoped that tilted the odds in our favor, at least a little.

I continued to support Baston up, wrapping my arm tightly around him even if I knew that would cause the man more pain with all the injuries on his left side. I was left with no choice because he was far too heavy for me to be gentle. That was only to be expected for someone so high level, but damn this wasn’t easy. At least he didn’t seem to mind as he kept a tight hold on his staff, the weapon nearly planted into the ground. My friend continued to use his vines, restricting the movements of the skyvern further so that it could not get to us.

Unfortunately, his efforts still proved insufficient. The monster thrashed around wildly against nothing, but the sprays of red blood that sometimes came told me an invisible Luine was being hit. Its attention could not even be forever kept by my stealthed ally, as the creature’s gaze finally landed on us.

The monster cawed, opening its beaks wide. Its head surged forward a moment after, but Baston managed to mostly slow down the attack with an impressive mass of plantlife. Two more pecks followed after that, and Baston managed to jerk them both away on time. But the next one came too fast on the heels of the prior three for Baston to stop completely.

I jumped forward and drew my sword, standing in front of my friends protectively. I knew it was stupid, but Baston would’ve tried to push me away if I gave him a chance. I swung just before the enemy’s attack connected, and my arms blurred from the ritualistic power of melting my blood. A loud clang resounded, and the next thing I knew the world was spinning. I was spinning. The ground felt rough and coarse and painful as I rolled, until finally my momentum was stopped by an unsuspecting tree.

Whatever breath I had left was instantly pushed out of my lungs. Pieces of bark and leaves rained down on me from above as shards of my metal armor dug into my back. I coughed out blood and tried to stand, but I couldn’t support myself with my now useless broken hands. I looked up with bleary eyes to find Baston sprawled on the ground, but still clinging onto his staff resolutely. I had managed to redirect that last attack to save both him and Moonwash.

The bird’s focus was no longer on us, as its entire right wing had been cut off. The damage had unfortunately not come without a price as its retaliation had taken out Luine's entire right hand in turn. A geyser of blood spurted out from where the limb used to be.

I gulped, knowing that the limb could no longer be replaced without proper biomancy. I made sure to leave my arms healable, probably, but Luine was betting her all into this fight. Moonwash was almost done with the ritual she’d been making from the start and Baston was coughing out blood on the ground.

I forced myself to move. I first crawled forward, and then I stood, arms still dangling limply to my sides. Menace magic flowed through my body with the desire to not allow this enemy to kill a single one of us. My walk transitioned into a frantic shuffle until I finally made it to my friends.

My jaw opened wide and I bit down hard on Baston’s shirt. I strained against his weight and willed more strength into myself, breaking muscle and tissue with every single twitch. This pain was nothing compared to what he and Luine were experiencing right now!

“I’M DONE!” Moonwash announced, just as I made it to her. I tossed and kicked Baston to the ritual circle with a final grunt of effort, and the ishkawtan man could only roll obediently.

“Nature’s Brightness.”

A field of flowing flowers burst forth from the ritual-stained ground. Moonwash didn’t use my blood this time, instead a mixture of nature and light elemental ink. Needless to say, it was bloody difficult to pull off any ritual, but of course my friend could pull off a mixture of two elements in the heat of combat. There was no reason to even be surprised.

The area around the skyvern was now covered by a deep mist of shadow. The monster kept on attacking an unseen figure within, but I presumed it missed or that Luine at least survived because the shadow magic had yet to be extinguished. In retaliation against our enemy, the darkness encroached upon it, further sapping its strength. The skyvern screeched and cawed for a moment longer, before deciding to flee, but it couldn’t gain any altitude at all as it flapped its single remaining wing uselessly. Unable to properly flee, it decided to go after easier prey instead.

Namely, us.

Baston stood back up, leaning against his staff. His skin had settled, and Moonwash and I had removed the metal shards in his flesh, but his two left limbs remained inert and mangled. As I feared, some of his injuries were things that he could never heal from. Yet still the man persevered, he faced the creature that had reduced him to such a state in the first place.

“Grab my pouch and throw everything inside,” he commanded. Moonwash immediately followed his instruction while I still could not move my hands. I sent out all of my remaining fire magic at the creature instead, and then began dumping all my reserves of menace mana as well in case it actually did anything. My eyes, my aura, they all flared out, and I felt that some of the red blood on the creature was mine. Naturally, I activated it, causing at least a very small bit of shriveling. I think. Even more mini-rituals followed as Moonwash blew all the inefficient blood balloons toward its face with an accursed blast of wind.

I felt that I saw at least some of the skyvern’s white beak crack and decay from our combined onslaught. Its elegant feathers burned, and the skin underneath sizzled.

And then Baston’s final offensive came. His staff cracked as roots and vines of different kinds, all nearly the width of small trees came out of the ground. Some pierced into the skyvern, others yet wrapped around its body, and most suddenly grew thorns, spilling even more of the monster’s white blood. It tried to screech at us, but a whole deluge of roots wrapped around its beak, and the appendage cracked.

The monster struggled for a while longer, ripping out a lot of the plantlife that held it down, but Luine’s return finally put a stop to all of that. She climbed across its body, towards its head, and stabbed repeatedly at its face until her blade broke through the skull.

The skyvern slowed. It slumped against the few remaining bindings of Baston, never to move again.