--------Meeting room in the Anten castle-----------------
"Your majesty! The enemy has a new kind of ship!" a minister sitting at a meeting around a large round table said. "What makes it different from their old ones?" the king asked. "It seems that their hull plating has changed from enhanced wood to hardened steel. Even though it is significantly slowly, it can take a tremendous amount of damage before it can sink!" another minister replied who was the minister of defense. "It takes a long time to sink one." he continued. "So that's how they reached our land." the king concluded.
"That's correct your majesty." the minister of defense replied in a grave voice. "How did we sink it?" the king asked. "The only way to sink it is to focus a point of the ship below the water level and concentrate fire on it while distracting the mages on board. After their new ships secured water space near our land, they launched their riders form their carriers." "How did we manage to make them retreat?"
"The dragons helped your majesty. They appeared over the horizon and started blasting the ships with fire breaths. They kept on flying past and blasting it with fire until the metal plating started to heat up which then caused the interior of the ships to burn." "In the end, we had to rely on the dragons." the king said dejectedly. "We need to find a way to counter them. Begin research immediately!" the king continued before leaving the meeting room.
"Say do you have any idea how to sink one effectively?" another minister asked the minister of defense. "Not yet but we will soon i hope." he replied before leaving the room as well. "It should be cost effective as well." the minister of finance added before leaving the room as well." "Why are you telling me this!" the minister of health exasperated.
---------In the academy------------
After the attack from Rishon, everything was in disarray. There was damage to infrastructures, including the academy. Families that lost their loved ones were grieving while wanting revenge against those who did this. Aria was walking around looking for someone. "Zaomi where are you?' she shouted worriedly. "Big sister Aria!" Yui called out to her as she came running towards her.
"What's wrong Yui?" "I saw big sister Aoi getting captured by the enemy!" Yui cried out frantically. "What! That idiot. I told her to stay inside." Aria muttered under her breath. "What are we going to do?" Yui continued. "What can we do? We have to inform your father or somebody." "I have already informed the king students." the headmaster informed them, appearing behind them suddenly.
"Kyah!" Yui jumped in fright. "Please don't appear so suddenly again please headmaster." Aria said. "Your father has already began preparations to counterattack the enemy. Rest assure youngsters." the headmaster continued, ignoring Aria before disappearing into thin air. "So all we can do now is sit tight and wait?" Yui asked? "Well not for me! I am going to join them when they depart for Rishon whether they like it or not." Aria concluded. "You should not follow me though. It's too dangerous for you." Aria continued.
-----------Planning room-------------
"So how are we going to counter the new enemy armor plating?" a researcher asked the head of research department. "I should be the one asking you! Not me. Anyway, the armor plating is made out steel alloy with magic enhancement. First we need to somehow disable the enhancement or find a weak spot." the head said. "How about using the same tactics like the dragons?" another researcher asked. "Idiot! We can't produce flames as hot as their breaths so that idea is out." the head replied annoyed.
"I have an idea. How about developing a new weapon? Instead of using mages to attack directly, how about we make them power a weapon that can be more destructive than raw magic?" "And what type of weapon will that be?" the head asked, interested. "Maybe have multiple mages power a weapon which would cause a explosive stone to compress and spin around in a tube and after gaining enough speed, open the tube, letting the content out onto the enemy." the researcher said.
"Then that way we might be able to penetrate the enemy's ship armor with enough momentum and after penetrating, the explosive stone would explode." the head continued. "This might just work. We need to make a prototype right away. The king is expecting results from us in a few days. This meeting is adjourned." the head continued before standing up and leaving.
-------------Ishria-------------
---------Arata P.O.V-------------
"Listen to me!" i warned the man in shining armor as he was eating with his comrades. "What do you want kid?" he replied, looking annoyed. "There is undead in the forest! There might be other monsters too!" i yelled at him as he started laughing. "Hahahaa monster in the forest. What a joke. You think the king is lying? Cause i don't think so. I think you just imagined the monsters while pissing your pants crying for your mama." the man in shining armor mocked.
"Hey Jack, i think you should listen to the kid." one of his eating buddy interrupted. "Huh? You saying the king lied to us? That's treason to even think like that! I should cut off your head right now!" roared Jack. "We need to fortify the place." i tried to say to him calmly, holding in my anger. "Fuck off kid. Go bother someone else before you get charged with treason." Jack replied back with venom in his voice before going back inside his tent.
"That bastard!" Norio exclaimed angrily. "How is he the leader of this expedition!" Norio continued. "Who knows. Maybe he bribed someone?" Arisu suggested. "We have to warn the others even if he does not listen to us." i said before heading to where most of the adventurers were at. "Can i have your attention?" i shouted at them, silencing the chatter. "My party has encountered a group of undead in this forest. I suggest that you should not leave the camp and stay put." i continued.
"You think we are fools!" an adventurer shouted back. "You are lying so that you can find all the loot aren't you?" he angrily continued. Other people started jeering at me and throwing rubbish at me. "Listen!" i tried to say but they did not allow me to speak. "Fuck off kid! You think we were born yesterday? So what if you are from the trinity party. You must just be as greedy as others out here." another one yelled.
"It's no use." i said to my party members as i walked away from the area. "At least you tried." Arisu tried to comfort me. "If they are going to get killed, let them be. Let them reap what they sow." Norio angrily snarled while walking with us. As we were walking back to our tent, i noticed Jack giving me a smirk from the corner of my eyes. A few hours later, Jack announced the plan for the expedition.
"One third of us is going to say behind while the rest of us are going to north and start exploring there. Anything you see useful, it's yours to keep." Jack said to the anticipating adventurers. "Let's move out!" Jack ordered and about 450 adventurers went with Jack to the north. We were also part of the expedition going north. The undead was at the south of the camp. I wonder what is at the north.
We trekked through the dark jungle before reaching a clearing. "Well well what do we have here?" Jack exclaimed with glee as in front of us was a huge floating island high up in the air that we were not be able to see from base camp. There was many small islands serving as steps to the floating island. "Jackpot. Now we shall be making our way through the floating rocks to reach the main island." Jack said to the adventurers.
The huge island was about 100 meters in the air. The small islands were in jumping distance although if one lost concentration, they would slip and fall. As we started going up, the steps we were using were getting lesser and lesser while the space between them grew. When we almost reached the top, one boy slipped and fell. His body splattered against the ground below. His body has exploded from the impact, spewing his guts and organs everywhere with blood.
"Noooo!" a boy cried out in grief. "That's too bad. Who ask him to be so excited and lose his footing. Nothing can be done know. Move along people." Jack said with a smile that seemed forced. We all reached the top soon. What greeted us was a huge glowing sapphire rock that glowed radiantly. Upon seeing this, Jack immediately rushed towards the rock and picked up fragments of it. The fragments were floating in air as if there was zero gravity.
When Jack plucked the rock floating in mid air, he also started floating. "Holy shit! I am flying!" yelled out Jack in excitement. Soon many adventurers were rushing to get a rock of their own and many of them started floating as well. "Wheeee i am flying!" one of them shouted as he continued to rise. "Should we take some too?" asked Norio. "Not yet. I have a bad feeling about this." i replied back.
A large roar filled the air as more and more adventurers took the stones. "Uh, what was that?" Norio asked. Something huge swoop down on an adventurer that was too high up. It swooped out of the black clouds in the sky and dragged the boy into the cloud. What followed was a terrible scream from the boy, ending with a sickening 'splat' sound. Body parts rained down on the others below as they all looked at the cloud in disbelief.
"Well does that answer your question?" i said to Norio sarcastically. "Nope! Didn't see since it was flying too fast." he replied back calmly. "How can you guys still act calm!" Arisu said hysterically. "We faced similar monsters like this before." Norio replied back with a smirk. While everyone was still staring at the cloud, a huge black figure swooped down on the next nearest adventurer. "Everyone attack! Use any spells or arrows you have!" screamed Jack as he started fire off spelled of his own into the cloud cover.
Bolts of flames and ice while other various spells plus some arrows were hurled blindly through the cloud cover. An explosion occurred which blew away the cloud cover. A huge black figure was visible after the cloud was blown away. A 20 meter long and 5 meter high creature could be seen. "Th..that's a Chimera!" i gasped as i watched it with horror. The creature had huge black leathery wings, each spanning a length of 30 meters. It had a lion's body and head with a long tail spanning 10 meter which was a snake and on the body, there was a goat's head as well.
"Chimeras are not suppose to have wings aren't they?" Arisu asked while trembling. "The stronger ones do have wings but this is too big!" exclaimed Norio in disbelief. "Ahhh RUN!" Jack yelled before using a wind spell to push him away as he was still holding onto the stones. The ones that did not know magic bu had picked up the stone and gotten too high to just drop it begged the ones with magic to help them as well but many of them ran away by themselves, not helping anyone that needed it.
"GRAHHHH!" roared the Chimera loudly before diving into a group of adventurers that was holding onto a mage. The Chimera opened it's lion mouth and green fire rushed out of it's mouth which instantly roasted the group. While it was flying by, the goat's head opened it's mouth a plucked an adventurer which happened the be nearby. The snake swallowed another person whole. There was total chaos. People was running everywhere while some were pushing others down the stepping steps to get down for those who did not picked up the rocks.
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"We have to do something!" Norio yelled. "We have to damage the wings so that it can't follow us!" he continued to yell. "I agree! Let's go!" i yelled back before taking out my great sword. "Dragon Rupture!" i yelled as my sword started glowing brighter and brighter until it hurts to look at it. This caught the Chimera's interest and started flying towards him. "Release!" i yelled out immediately and i slashed my great sword at the incoming beast, sending out a slash towards it.
The Chimera rushed straight towards it which the bright slash entered the beast body as it tried to fly upwards to dodge it. Blood erupted from the wound across it's chest. Golden blood was raining down on us. "Redemption!" Norio cast a spell on Arisu which boosted the power of her next spell tremendously. "Frostfire Missiles!" yelled Arisu next. Usually 10 homing missiles would appear but thanks to Norio, 20 appeared instead. "Aim for the wings!" i said to Arisu. "GO!" Arisu cried out and the blue missiles covered in flames homed in on the right wing of the Chimera and all 20 exploded on it with a bright blue explosion.
The Chimera cried out in pain as it's right wing was torn and burning from the cold flames. It crashed landed onto the island and caused massive amount of smoke to rise. "Everyone run away quickly!" Norio yelled to the onlookers. "We started making our way down the steps and reached the bottom as a large roar was heard from the floating island. All of us were running back to base camp.
After the Chimera attacked, only about 200 adventurers was left alive that returned from the expedition. There was only about 500 left. After we reached base camp, many of them was crying while others were trying to get some answers from Jack since he was the leader of this expedition. We had a day left before the portal would open up again to let us out. "I don't know anything!" Jack yelled at the group of people pestering him about the Chimera. "How can you not know? I bet you knew and used us as meat shields so that you could escape!" a person snarled at Jack.
"Get out of here!" one of them screamed at Jack before he started preparing a fireball at his hand. The rest started readying their own spell as well to us it on Jack. "Fine i will leave but don't regret it you fools!" Jack yelled out before walking back to the forest. "Was that okay?" Arisu asked us. "Serves him right!" Norio said. "Now we have to hope that we can survive until 16 hours has past." i muttered.
"Let's start fortifying the place!" Norio shouted at the rest of the adventurers. "We have to be ready in case more monsters come. Prepare simple traps like pit trap or something like that." he continued. The remaining survivors started moving about setting traps and some resting or nursing their wounds. About 3 hours later, there was numerous pit traps and barricades made with spike from ice or trees and from the ground as well.
"13 hours left." i muttered to myself while building fortification around the base. "ARUUUU!" a howl rang through the base from far away. A watchtower we built with a spotter on it shouted at us. "Monsters incoming! It's about 100 monsters of all kinds!" screamed the spotter to us. "Oh shit!" someone cursed. "Get to your positions!" Norio commanded the adventurers. Everyone scrambled to their own place. Warriors would fight near the barricades while mages would support them from behind. The newbies would try to lure monsters to the traps laid out or help the wounded.
A few minutes later, the thundering footsteps could soon be heard coming from the forest, all around the base and soon after the monsters started coming out from the forest. There was all kinds of monsters that was charging towards the base. Majority was undead base creatures. "Hold your ground!" Norio yelled out to the waiting mages. The monsters came closer every second and when they reached the first layers of trap, Norio shouted out. "All mages fire at will!"
Bolts of flames, shards of ice and many other types of spells were launched towards the horde that was approaching. The first undeads was roasted while some was frozen in place. Most of these undeads were from the slaughter that the Chimera caused. Many undead fell into the pit traps and were stuck there. "Archers fire at will!" Norio sonce again commanded as monsters such as ogres and hobgoblins started emerging as well.
Bodies of undeads and monsters were falling down everywhere. It seemed like the warriors didn't even had to fight them once until the drakes started coming out. Drakes are the subspecies of wyverns although they are considered as savage creatures which cannot be tamed. Drakes possess no wings but had sturdy armor of scales with acid spraying attacks. They are about 5 meters in length usually.
"Drakes spotted!" i yelled out at Norio. Many mages started concentrating their attacks on the drakes that started appearing. The drakes can withstand tremendous amount of punishment before succumbing to death. A drake roared and spit acid at the closet person which was a warrior that was hiding behind the barricade of spikes. "AHHH!" the man screamed as the acid landed on him accurately. The helmet he was wearing started steaming and melting, burning his head. The acid also started eroding the armor he was wearing, slowly eating through the armor until it reached his flesh. He started convulsing on the ground before dying.
"I will handle the drakes!" i yelled to Norio before launching myself at it. While i was in mid air, above the drake, i yelled out "Mystic Rupture!" My great sword started glowing in a dark blue before i slashed down at the drake below me. "GRAH!" the drake cried out as it got cut into two. "Well that's one down 15 more to go." i muttered to myself.
The drake had acted as the shield against the mages attacks for the monsters which led the monsters nearer to the base. "Warriors! Prepare for battle!" Norio shouted, acting as the commander. As undeads surged towards the adventurers, they readied their spears and swords and charged at the horde. "Abjuration of the spirit!" Norio casted the spell on the warriors. "Let's do this!" "Woah! I feel lighter!" the warriors said in awe.
The undead and the warriors clashed at the border of the base. Mages continued to bombard the monsters behind. We started pushing back after monsters stopped appearing from the forest but with a huge cost. Many warriors was killed by the undead as most of them was inexperienced in battle. There was only about 100 of us left. The battle lasted about 2 hours.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. Undead bodies mingled with human bodies. Why did the monsters attack us in the first place? i wondered to myself. "Arisu have you finished gathering mana for summoning your golem?" i asked her. "Yes, now i will use it in case of emergency to act as bait." Arisu replied while looking haggard. The remaining adventurers were all worn down and some started falling asleep.
"Thirty more minutes until the gate opens." Norio announced to the survivors. "BLEHHH!" a goat's roar shook the ground. "Is that what i think it is?" Arisu asked with her face pale. "It's over...." someone moaned as he fell to his knees. The Chimera landed right outside the base while scanning the survivors with it's eyes. When it spotted Arisu, it became angry as it still remembered what happened before.
"Arisu! Summon the golem now!" i yelled at her as some mages started bombarding the Chimera with spells that did basically no damage to it. The Chimera had also healed it's wing. "Summon Pyro!" Arisu yelled. The earth in front of the Chimera started burning red as the temperature started increasing. The ground erupted, allowing a huge monster to be freed from the ground. A huge burning phoenix appeared with black lines against it's red and orange feathers.
The size rivaled the Chimera in size. The phoenix opened it's beak and spewed out red flames at the Chimera. It countered by using a fire breath of it's own which was green. The flames crashed against each other as green and red flames started battling for superiority. "Life spike!" Norio yelled out. The phoenix glowed with a faint blue outline before the flames it was spewing out turned blue and started pushing back the green flames.
As the flames was almost pushed back to the Chimera, it had sneakily used it's tail to go underground and appear behind the phoenix which then bit the neck, causing the phoenix to roar out in pain. Since the phoenix stopped using it's fire attack, nothing was there to push back the green flames which then surged towards the phoenix. The phoenix caught on green fire which started hurting the fire bird.
"Shit i have to do something. Rain of doom!" i yelled out which i used my sword and aim it above the Chimera. A black bolt was shot from my sword and burst above the Chimera. It started raining black water on the Chimera. It started corroding the flesh of the creature which cried out in pain before trying to move out of the rain but the rain cloud followed it. Just then, the portal opened behind us, creating a vortex of wind.
Survivors started dashing for it while me and Norio rushed for it as well. A survivor was hauling a huge bag that was floating towards the portal as well. "Come on Arisu! Let's go!" i yelled at her but she simply shook her head. "I have to stay and continue to supply mana to the phoenix or it will crumple away." Arisu smiled sadly while she said that. "You have to leave me here." she continued to say.
"NO! WE ARE NOT LEAVING ANYONE BEHIND!" Norio shouted and started trying to drag Arisu back with us. There was a magic circle below Arisu but if she left the circle, the phoenix would disappear, causing the Chimera to be free to do what it wants. "WAIT FOR ME!" a familiar voice ringed throughout the air. From the forest, Jack appeared running for the portal while a horde of monster was following him. The Chimera focused on Jack as well.
Taking this chance, Norio picked up Arisu with incredible speed and threw her towards the portal. "EHHHHH!" Arisu cried out before she disappeared into the portal. "Let's go." Norio said while smirking. "Jack will be the shield for us." he continued to say. As the phoenix disappeared, the Chimera focused on Jack as it was the closest to it. We jumped through the portal while we heard Jack screaming in rage.
After we exited the portal, the machine broke down, causing the portal to close. "That was close." i laughed. "That Jack was helpful in the end after all." Norio laughed. "How could you throw me!" Arisu pouted while bashing Norio's head. "Now then. Time to meet that damn king for some answers." i said while getting up from my butt.