Leon, still wreathed in darkness and invisible to all senses—or so he was supposed to be—rose into the sky, the air all around him under his complete control. However, for all his supposed invisibility, the eyes of the black male wyvern that now rapidly approached were locked upon him too unerringly to be a coincidence.

‘He can see me!’ Leon realized. He supposed the wyvern’s natural power over darkness magic allowed him to see past Leon’s shroud, but his theories aside, the result was beyond doubt in his mind.

[Heads up!] Leon roared into the minds of his retainers. [Big one incoming! Eighth-tier! Darkness! Less than five minutes!]

He didn’t get too detailed, trusting in his retainers’ judgment to prepare accordingly. Sure enough, he saw those of his retinue that were visible quickly quaffing potions to increase their defenses against darkness magic. Leon did likewise, briefly removing his helmet in order to do so.

He felt the magic take effect within him, the potion settling into his stomach where it interacted with his natural magic to form an almost protective sheen over his skin. Darkness magic wasn’t that dangerous in direct attacks, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. Leon still felt much more secure once his helmet, heavily enchanted as it was against darkness magic, was back upon his head.

At the same time, he was summoning his anti-magic enchanted stone that countered darkness magic into the slot on his left arm, while he pulled the black opal out of his right slot and summoned his white topaz to replace it. This rendered him fully visible, but against the black wyvern, that appeared to already be the case, so it hardly mattered.

Then he quickly evaluated the surroundings once more. Against the black wyvern, there weren’t many fancy tactics he could immediately think of to use, but he wanted to be sure that the monster was in range of the Lightning Lance. He’d need that weapon’s power.

Leon positioned himself about two miles north of the Lance and turned to stare down the rapidly approaching wyvern. Not too far away Maia came flying in on Anzu. She nimbly leaped off the griffin’s back and joined Leon in the air, her flight gear taking up the work that Anzu had been doing until now.

To his griffin, Leon ordered, “Get to Alix and the Lance crew!”

Anzu squawked in complaint, but he did as Leon ordered, flying as quickly as he could toward the Lance emplacement. Fortunately, the black wyvern, as far as Leon could tell, didn’t even spare the griffin a single look. Instead, the monster’s eyes were fixed solely upon Leon and Maia.

Leon stared back, his golden eyes burning with fighting spirit as the wyvern advanced. His aura towered, his killing intent was strong; he was ready, and had to fight the urge to fly out to meet the wyvern.

He didn’t have to wait long for the monster to reach the vale. As soon as the beast made it through the pass that connected his gorge to the vale, Leon charged, surging forth with lightning filling his body.

The wyvern gave an earth-shaking roar, but Leon was undeterred. The monster opened his maw to unleash his power, but Leon was faster, and a burst of lightning exploded out from him, projected not just by his body but by his armor, too. Dozens of silver-blue bolts raced across the sky and raked across the wyvern’s scaled body in groups of three, almost like talons. At almost the same time, Leon punched outward with his right fist, and a beam of pure white light lanced out from his knuckles and struck the wyvern’s tongue.

The wyvern shrieked in rage and pain, though it seemed the former was the stronger emotion. Instead of using his magic, the wyvern barreled through Leon’s assault and snapped toward him with his massive jaws.

Leon nimbly tumbled out of the way, and as he turned, he saw a water dragon materialize out of the air and wrap itself around the wyvern’s massive head, locking his jaw tightly shut.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Leon noticed that his barrage of lightning had done negligible damage, lightly scratching the wyvern’s tough scales but little else.

But Leon was undeterred and shot after the wyvern. He summoned a lightning bolt in his right hand. He could feel his power bursting out of his skin beneath his armor and converging around his fingers. Unlike what he was used to, though, his armor, infused with his power at its creation, aided him greatly in channeling his magic. Leon barely lost a single aetos of magic power to the environment, leading to his lightning bolt coalescing in his hand with greater speed than he’d ever seen, and with greater power.

With a smile spreading across his face, Leon flew after the wyvern, the lightning bolt in his hand growing ever more powerful. With the wyvern’s attention on trying to dislodge Maia’s water dragon, Leon shot above him, then plummeted right back down, slamming the lightning bolt into the wyvern’s weaker scales between his wings. He drove the bolt as deeply as he could, lightning pouring out of him, the wyvern’s scales tearing away under the concentrated pressure…

But then a tendril of darkness snapped out at him, knocking him backward and disrupting his attack. This tendril attempted to snake around his helmet, but Leon felt his armor’s anti-darkness defenses snap into play, and the tendril was unable to find purchase on the surface of his helmet.

Still, Leon was knocked backward right off the flying wyvern. But the wyvern wasn’t done with him, and with timing and aim that Leon was surprised by, the wyvern’s massive tail snapped backward and struck Leon with what seemed like the weight of a mountain, batting him aside like a horse brushing away a fly. All the air in his lungs was forced out, and he was rattled harder than he’d ever been before. He hit the ground like a falling star, shattering a boulder beneath his impact.

And then he rose, none the worse for wear. His armor had taken most of the impact—both of them—and prevented Leon from suffering much damage, the enchantments within saving him from a lot of potential pain.

Above, Leon saw the wyvern struggle a bit with Maia’s water dragon, but the monster’s face darkened and what almost looked like a hand of darkness slid off the wyvern’s face, covering the water dragon and pulling it off. The water dragon resisted, but the clump of darkness enveloped it, and any purchase the water dragon had was lost.

This deep shadowy clump of magic hovered in the air as the wyvern shot past, then compressed and collapsed in on itself, vanishing and taking Maia’s water dragon with it.

The wyvern then roared again, and a stream of darkness erupted from his mouth, aimed at Maia. Leon launched himself back into the air, his body blazing with silver-blue lightning, and his river nymph was already acting. She dropped, momentarily cutting off power to her flight belt before regaining control of the air around her, then sliding below the flying wyvern and his eruption of darkness magic.

The wyvern roared again, and a mass of darkness seemed to grow in his wake, with dozens of thin tentacles reaching down and entangling Maia in their grasp.

Leon shouted in anger and slammed into this darkness a moment later, punching out with his left hand. His anti-darkness magic gemstone filled with power, and then with a loud, dull thumping sound, expended all of it. The darkness magic that entangled Maia dissolved away, and she was freed again.

She looked a little haggard, her clothing slightly torn, but she seemed free of blood, so Leon forced himself to calm down as the wyvern flew away, getting a bit of distance from both of them. Maia then rose up to take up a position next to Leon.

[I didn’t do much,] she observed.

[Neither did I,] Leon replied a little dejectedly, noting the areas that he’d targeted with his lightning and seeing that they were a little scorched and scratched, but only the wyvern’s wing-shoulders had suffered any appreciable damage.

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That didn’t dampen Leon’s desire to fight much, if any, but he did feel a little bit of frustration. His light beam hadn’t seemed to have done much, so he switched out his topaz for another gem, replacing it with his red onyx, hoping that his fire weapon would prove a little more efficacious.

The wyvern flew in a wide circle around Leon and Maia, eyeing them warily. He clearly wasn’t done fighting them, for his killing intent still poured out of his scaled body, but he wasn’t charging right in.

[Seems we’ve made him wary,] Leon said to Maia. [You go right, I’ll go left. Make him choose targets, and whoever he doesn’t go after, strikes.]

Maia sent Leon a quick burst of feeling, and then broke off to the right. Leon, only a moment later, followed suit to the left.

Leon wasn’t sure if he was gratified or frustrated when the wyvern’s head swiveled in his direction. It seemed that meant the wyvern was taking his threat more seriously, but on the other hand, it also meant he’d be doing much less damage against the monster.

Leon began tossing lightning bolts—nothing too powerful, but enough to force the wyvern to fixate upon him. As he did, Maia circled around behind the monster and raised her hand into the air. Leon felt almost every single bit of water magic within the vale immediately fall under her control, while her body radiated even more into the surroundings. All of that water magic instantly started to coalesce around her, then take on physical form.

She wasn’t summoning a water dragon, though; instead, a fluffy white cloud, opaque to the eye, appeared, shrouding her from sight and growing mightily fast.

The wyvern turned and roared, but another bolt of lightning splashing across his face forced his attention back to Leon. The beast opened his maw and left loose with a great deluge of darkness, the black shadows erupting from between his fangs like a burst dam. Half of these shadows rushed toward Leon in a great wave, while the other half bent around and covering the wyvern’s body. He didn’t fade from view, but his already pitch-black scales took on a strange pearlescent sheen, like oily water.

Leon fell back while bringing his left hand up. Magic flowed through his arm and armor with equal ease, powering the anti-darkness stone in his gauntlet. A pulse of magic spread rapidly from his gauntlet and the wave of darkness that threatened to engulf him dissipated like vapor, all momentum arrested.

The darkness covering the wyvern remained, though the wyvern stared at Leon with what kind of looked like disbelief—it was extremely difficult for Leon to tell given the monster’s draconic head and features.

Behind the wyvern, Maia’s cloud continued to grow and surge toward him, prompting him to fly closer to Leon. Leon darted forward, lightning blazing in his left hand as his right activated his fire onyx. Fire balls shot from his right knuckles while lightning streamed from his left hand, stinging and biting at the wyvern’s shining scales… and passing right through them.

Leon, realizing what was happening, immediately cut off his magic power. The wyvern had cloaked himself in shadows, and that made him largely intangible. He could still be reached, but it would be a little tougher to do so.

First, as Maia’s cloud nipped at the wyvern’s tail, Leon fired off another pulse of antimagic. A spot about his height in diameter lost its sheen, only to regain it as rapidly as it was lost. The wyvern grunted, sounding almost like a human chortle.

Leon gritted his teeth and fell back to his plan B. As usual for his plan Bs, he summoned his blade back into his hand and charged forth, intending to strike at the wyvern from closer range.

The wyvern roared and beat his massive wings, maneuvering to face Leon head-on. However, before they could get too close together, something flew past Leon so quickly he barely had time to realize what it was before it struck the monster on the body.

It was a shot from his Lightning Lance.

Leon spared a quick glance back with his magic senses, noting that his Lance crew had turned the weapon and were tracking the wyvern through the sky, with Alix hurriedly reloading another round into the barrel. The first had bounced right off the wyvern’s scales somehow, and though it didn’t pierce the monster, the wyvern still shrieked in more pain than ever, and turned toward the Lance.

Leon scowled and restarted his charge. Lightning blazed along the blade of his sword, glowing silver-blue, but the wyvern ignored him, choosing instead to begin a steep dive.

Confusion briefly flitted through Leon’s mind, but he didn’t slow down. Whatever the wyvern was doing, he had to stop it.

Maia’s cloud spread far enough to enclose around the wyvern’s tail, and Leon could hear a horrible scraping sound. The wyvern, as his dive picked up speed, escaped the cloud, showing his tail to be scratched worse from the cloud than from all of Leon’s lightning bolts.

Leon crashed into the beast a moment later, attempting to stop him. He hit the wyvern’s scales right between the wings, just as he’d done before, and he was rewarded with a huge crack in the beast’s scales, and a fountain of bright red mana a moment later.

Leon then understood: the wyvern’s shadow cloak protected him from magical attacks, but more physical strikes still got through.

With a dark smile, he pulled back just a little bit, intending to slam himself back into the wyvern, but a burst of darkness pushed him even further back. He cried out in surprise and had to take a moment to right himself in the air.

That one moment was all the wyvern needed to hit the ground. However, instead of splattering into blood and gore, the wyvern vanished into the ground like it wasn’t even there. A deep black shadow appeared in the rocks roughly the size and shape of the wyvern, and it turned in the Lightning Lance’s direction.

Realizing what the wyvern was doing, Leon, knowing that they weren’t going to be able to hit the monster now ordered his Lance crew, [Run! Abandon the Lance!]

To their credit, not one of Leon’s retainers hesitated. Alix, Marcus, and Helen dropped everything and fled from the Lightning Lance. Leon, meanwhile, darted after the shadow, raining lightning down upon it. He wasn’t quite sure if what he was doing was having any effect, but the antimagic pulses he was using weren’t doing much, either, doing little to the shadow other than make its edges wobble a bit.

Maia’s cloud then surged past him, moving with much greater speed now. Leon caught short glimpses of sharp blades of water filling the cloud, along with razor ice and a few small water dragons.

Unfortunately, even this move failed to catch up to the wyvern, and the monster’s huge head burst up from the ground right beneath Leon’s Lightning Lance, closing around it with great force.

The Lance immediately shattered, Leon’s hard work putting up little resistance against the powerful jaws of an eighth-tier wyvern.

Leon shouted in frustration and reached out with his magic power, his mood now transitioning from competitiveness to vindictiveness. The monster had destroyed his weapon, and that was an affront he couldn’t abide.

Hardly a moment later, another cloud appeared in the sky, courtesy of Leon’s magic power. From that cloud fell a lightning bolt, breaking through the wyvern’s darkness shield and burning right across his face, opening a huge, bloody crack in the monster’s cheek.

The wyvern screamed in pain and fury, then rose from the ground. He roared at Maia’s oncoming cloud and a black cloud of his own shot out of his mouth to take her head on. Then he took back to the skies, his enormous wings nearly destroying the entire ledge that the Lightning Lance had been mounted upon.

His eyes were locked upon Leon, rage greater than any before burning in his slitted reptilian pupils.

The wyvern held nothing back with the cloud combating Maia, sparing none for Leon. Instead, he flew toward Leon, his wings beating furiously as he roared another challenge.

‘Seems you want this to be a contest of strength…’ Leon thought briefly. ‘The time for that passed.’

Another lightning bolt fell from Leon’s cloud, slicing into the wyvern’s flank and spilling more of his blood. The wyvern shrieked again, and pulled out of his charge, instead falling back to the ground. A third lightning bolt followed, striking the monster along the belly as he dove. This one didn’t pierce his thick under-scales, but still left a deep scratch running from hip to the base of the neck.

But then the wyvern hit the ground and once more faded into shadow, his black cloud of darkness fading behind him. His shadow turned toward his gorge and sped off even faster than the shadow had moved before, leaving Leon and Maia behind, though they gave chase for a short while before pulling back.

[You all right?] Leon asked the river nymph as Maia’s cloud dissipated and her body reappeared.

[Without injury,] Maia replied, holding her arms with a sly grin on her face before turning her eyes back down to the ledge where Leon’s Lightning Lance now lay in thousands of bitty pieces.

With a deep sigh, Leon began to drop from the sky, his magic senses locked upon the wyvern and making sure the monster was retreating as it seemed he was. The vale now seemed safe, all of the wyverns who laired here either gone or dead already.

Pushing out with his magic power, Leon mentally shouted for his entire retinue, his voice backed with his wind magic and carrying to the vale’s every corner, “Form back up on the ledge! We’re done here!”

One eighth-tier wyvern attack was enough. Though they’d gotten the better of the exchange, Leon didn’t want to take any further risks. Besides, they’d already secured some wyvernlings and yet-to-be-hatched eggs, so it was time to go. As unsatisfying as the final fight had been with the black wyvern’s escape, their mission was over. It was time to turn in the eggs and wyvernlings and get back to regular hunting.

But as Leon’s retinue began appearing among the rocks of the vale, he turned one last time to the black wyvern’s gorge. The thing had been intelligent, showing a level of emotion, awareness, and presence that he’d not seen in any other wyvern.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this was really the end of their battle, or just the closing of the first round.