Sir Selddup stood in the air with Ashley atop his back. To be precise, the large dog was standing on four translucent birds that looked suspiciously like pigeons, and the birds were doing their best to keep the Light Lord and her dog airborne as they scanned the ground below. Ashley frowned, her eyes unable to be seen thanks to the binoculars pressed against her face. “I think we found them.”
“About time,” Sir Selddup said and squinted at the ground. “They look delicious, don’t they?”
Ashley peered through her binoculars, focusing on one of the insects on the ground. It was black and purple with pure eight pure-white eyes on its head. It had six legs, two mandibles, and three sections, reminding the Light Lord of a giant ant. “What part of that looks delicious?”
“You don’t see it?” Sir Selddup asked. “I bet they taste like lobsters.” Drool leaked out of the white dog’s mouth before falling from the sky and hitting the ground like rain. “They’re so fat too. Just thinking about how plump their leg meat could be is making my stomach growl.”
“I’ve heard your stomach growl when someone mentioned chicken feces before,” Ashley said, lowering her binoculars and making eye contact with her dog. A furrow appeared on her brow as the insects on the ground swarmed towards their direction. “I think they smelled your drool.”
Sir Selddup smacked his lips together. “Are you sure they can even smell? It doesn’t look like they have noses,” the white dog said before looking at the birds underneath his feet. He barked. “Let’s get a move on. Make sure you remember to tell Vur you found them.”
“I already did,” Ashley said, sinking down into her comfortable seat, which was her dog’s back. “He had the tower send some items into my root bracelet. We’re going to open a barrel of insect gold and attract these bugs to the tower.”
“So…, we’re bait?” Sir Selddup asked. “I only agreed to be a scout; you’re going to have to throw in a few more treats and treasures to compensate for the emotional trauma I might suffer.”
“How about I pay you after you suffer?” Ashley asked as she pulled out a barrel. “Besides, what emotional trauma? You’re not even going to get hurt.” She frowned as she pried the barrel open with her bare hands, revealing a viscous liquid inside: insect gold. Then, she dug her heel into Sir Selddup’s side. “Giddyap.”
“I’m not a horse,” Sir Selddup said and wrinkled his snout. Before he could say anything else, a droning sound from below caught his attention. He lowered his head to look, and his eyes widened upon seeing hundreds upon hundreds of winged insects flying towards him. His feet shuffled forward as he commanded the translucent birds to fly. “They can fly!”
Stolen story; please report.
“I can see that,” Ashley said and turned her whole body around, unwrapping and rewrapping her legs around her dog’s waist. She dipped her finger into the insect gold and smeared some of the viscous liquid onto Sir Selddup’s tail—much to his protest—before storing the barrel inside her root bracelet. Then, an automatic rifle appeared in her hands. The Light Lord aimed the barrel of the weapon at the incoming bugs and pulled the trigger, her eyes glowing with a white light. A volley of bullets flew forward and struck the insects, leaving behind traces of light as if they were laser beams. A frown appeared on Ashley’s face. Instead of piercing through their exoskeletons, the bullets struck the insects before bouncing off, sending the struck bugs careening into the ground. Moments later, the bugs got up, flapping their wings even harder than before as they surged into the air once more.
“They’re tough,” Ashley said, not taking her finger off the rifle’s trigger. Although her bullets couldn’t kill the bugs, knocking them onto the ground was enough to buy time for her dog to escape. It didn’t matter if she didn’t lessen the number of insects in the swarm because Vur was confident enough to deal with them all. At least, the Light Lord assumed he was from the tone of his message.
***
Malvina swept her gaze over the phoenixes standing before her. There were a few hundred of them, all of them adults. The children were left behind in Great Canopy, guarded by a few chaperones. As for the elderly, well, they were the strongest of the phoenixes, so it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to be absent from the final battle. Malvina nodded and spread her wings to catch the phoenixes’ attentions. “The dragons will have to pass through the tunnels of the seventieth floor to reach us; that’s where we’ll set up our ambush.” She nodded again. “Let’s move out. We only have a few hours to get into position.”
***
Volearden stood on his hindlegs, looking over the dozens of dragons waiting before him. There might not have been as many dragons as phoenixes, but they still took up almost the same amount of space. Volearden’s armor swirled with colors before turning into a bright red. “It’s about time we end the fight between dragons and phoenixes. How long has it been since you’ve last slept peacefully for as long as you wanted? I know it’s been hard for us to get good sleep with the phoenixes always waiting for us to drop our guard.”
The other dragons murmured and nodded their heads in agreement.
“Alright,” Volearden said. “We don’t need a morale-boosting speech. Our tower is going to coordinate with us by attacking the other tower and sending us straight into a cavern with lots of tunnels.”
“Tunnels?” one dragon asked and raised its front paw. “Why are we going to the tunnels? Wouldn’t the tiny phoenixes have the advantage in there? I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t fly very well underground.”
“We’re going there to ambush the phoenixes,” Volearden said. “Fern leaked some information to them, so they’re going to set up an ambush there.”
“How’s that going to work?” another dragon asked. “If both sides are setting an ambush in the same spot, won’t there just be a regular conflict?”
“It works by moving your butts,” Volearden said. “We have to get there before the phoenixes do, so we can ambush them before they can ambush us. Let’s go.”