An enemy!

 

The eagle huffed visible white air and turned to her back rapidly, narrowly dodging a two-meter ice lance. Behind her, the surrounding had turned foggy, and the silhouette of a whitish creature could be seen appearing surreal. If she had not seen it with her own eyes, she would never notice this tiny creature! Not even a tiny wisp of aura leaked from its body!

 

The white Silver-banded eagle became extremely wary. Her senses had been spread out to the fullest, but she still failed to notice the white creature who just appeared out of thin air. The unusual color of the tunnels within the pit seamlessly blended the fox in until it couldn’t be noticed. The fox also withheld his aura perfectly and stopped breathing.

 

The clashes between the white Silver-banded eagle and the Mirage Fox shook the spacious empty space. However, the space was so solid, only dust mixed with ice specks fell.

…

 

“Stoppppp!” By the time Lord Fearsilver called out to the whole group, more than half of the birds had already entered the darkened pit. The pit itself was suspicious. Additionally, the way the little worm wiggled itself provocatively almost made it look like a trap. Lord Fearsilver was helpless to stop the Missus who was leading at the forefront; she was too enraged to be reasoned with. Before he knew it, more than half had already entered the pit before he could stop them.

 

The rest of the eagles stopped abruptly in front of the pit while looking at each other in confusion. They turned to the Monarch and waited for further instruction. However, they heard the shrill screeches of the birds within the pit instead. All of them were screeching their lungs out in horror! If one has goosebumps, all of them will surface at this moment. Because the screams sounded quite faint and scattered in various directions, not just from the hole they just entered. It was just a few minutes later too!

 

Lord Fearsilver narrowed his eyes in fury. They were being played by the worm! It was never alone in the first place. It was plain as day that this was a systematic trap designed to ensnare all of them!

 

The opening of the tunnel was too narrow for the eagle boss, hence he resorted to ram the pit with his powerful body to force himself in! From where he stood, he could clearly detect that the white female Silver-banded Eagle was deep underground and was currently battling someone. He was going to teach the worm and its friends that sheer power will triumph over all deceitful tactics!

 

BAM!!!

 

The forest shook from the impact. The entrance of the pit crumbled to pieces revealing a different translucent white texture covering the pit within. The material was very sturdy! Only several tiny hair-line cracks appeared after a physical attack from a late-stage Lord-level spiritual beast!

 

Slightly surprised with the sturdiness of the pit, Lord Fearsilver prepared to ram a second time. He hadn’t exerted all of his powers before, hence he wasn’t worried. He knew it was just a matter of time to breach the peculiar pit with his level of strength.

 

Suddenly, a group of colorful birds appeared from the horizon. They squawked and cawed noisily, gaining the notice of the eagles on the ground. Currently, there were less than ten Silver-banded eagles, including the Monarch himself. They were quite taken aback by the appearance of another tribe of spiritual avians nearby. Usually, every ‘tribe’ had their own turf, and this location was the Silver-banded Eagles’ hunting zone. The birds got nearer, and it didn’t seem that they were just passing by! Were they planning to steal their prey?!

 

Tension filled the air. Without the existence of malice within the incoming bird’s group, the Silver-banded eagles couldn’t come to a decision of whether to attack or not. Usually, they were the aggressive bunch and would attack without question at the first chance they got, however, at the moment, their overall strength and numbers were quite lacking since the rest of their forces were stuck underground.

 

The energy signature of the incoming birds was of mid-tiered Nobles on average! There was even a late-staged one leading the group! Roughly, the overall power of the incoming birds was slightly stronger than them, if the presence of the Monarch was unaccounted for. Nonetheless, with these many adversaries, the Monarch could wipe the forest floor with all of them, piece of cake! Hence, although they were quite tense, they weren’t afraid.

 

Under the Monarch’s command, the eagles adopted a wait-and-see approach. They waited for the arrival of the other birds to see what they really wanted. If a fight they wanted, then a fight they shall have! Surely them birds could detect the vast amount of power within the Monarch, right?

 

Surprisingly, the birds didn’t land, but just swooped low. The eagles were ready to retaliate as the birds neared them. However, at last, they didn’t land at all. Instead, whitish bubbles the size of small hatchback cars were subsequently thrown to them at point blank by an Elemental Fiend perched upon the birds’ back! The birds were working together with ‘food’ to backstab fellow birds!

 

The Monarch didn’t mind a clash happening between the eagles and the colorful birds. Afterall, it was natural to compete for protein-rich resources when they chance upon a nest at the same time. However, he couldn’t brain the cooperation happening in front of his eyes. With his sharp sight, he could see at least half a dozen of Elemental Fiends on each of the bird’s back, chilling in between the humongous colorful feathers. What sick joke was this?! Were they vegan?! A fraction of a second later, he was stumped with his own overthinking of ‘were they cannibals’?! The colorful birds were, after all, a size bigger than them eagles, though not by much.

 

More than half of the birds were covered by the whitish gooey liquid. It has a very unpleasant fume! The unlucky Silver-banded eagles flapped their wings hard, trying to rid themselves from the gooey liquid. However, it was futile; the peculiar liquid was too viscous! The affected eagles had been immobilized! Only Elder Rakk and three of its subordinates were spared from the gooey mess. After a few minutes, to their horror, the wet feathers turned hard, as if they were glued and solidified. The assertive Elder Perr was long gone, its fate unknown; it had been following the steps of the Missus too closely.

 

Elder Rakk immediately instructed its subordinates into an attacking formation and waited for the Monarch’s consent! It’s better to go down fighting rather than wait to die. No one knew that the gooey liquid did not pose a threat to their lives but only had the ability to restrain them totally. Unless, they were late-staged Lords, of course.

 

Feeling incredulous about the whole scenario, the Monarch of the Silver-banded Eagle stopped himself from destroying the white structure and went over to teach the intruders a hard lesson.

 

He was extremely irked with how the worm and the colorful birds had turned all of them into clowns. If this continued, he would really lose the grasp on his lair when he returns.

…

 

Suria had a mission to fulfill. The Mistress tasked her group to immobilize all leftover subordinates of the Silver-banded Eagles first and attack the Monarch together second.

 

Currently, Suria brought her group as high as possible while waiting for the next round of Bubble-glue to fill up. Actually, besides Elemental Fiends populating their backs, there were tiny inconspicuous freshwater marine creatures hiding in between the feathers of each bird. They were just too tiny to be noticed. Both Elemental Fiends and the Waterwave Clansmen worked in tandem to create the new projectile weapon invented by the Mistress, the Bubble-glue. A marine creature created a large bubble efficiently, while the Elemental Fiend filled them up to the brim with their ‘vomit’ before the marine creature re-sealed the opening. Together, as a team, they worked as a unit to attack their enemies.

 

The Worldtree Sanctuary Avians were just a means for airborne transport and they did not need to personally attack the eagles. It was upon the Mistress' request for them to vanquish any form of hostile intentions and solely focus as mere transports during the initial attacking phase. Although the birds were perplexed with the peculiar demand, they learned not to question the Mistress’ intentions, for they had been repeatedly awed with the positive outcomes from following her instructions to the T.

 

Again, Suria was amazed by the Mistress’ ingenuity. Just one round. They managed to immobilize the majority of the aggressive metal-attributed spiritual eagles!

 

Another aspect that deserved praise was the toughness of the ‘vomit’. All the trapped eagles were at least spiritual eagles with a Noble in tow, whereas the Elemental Fiends upon their backs were at most pseudo-spiritual insects! If they witnessed the Monarch’s attack on the reinforced tunnel, their lower beaks would have hit the ground, knowing that the Monarch of the Silver-banded eagles was already at its late-Lord stage.

 

We can do this! Suria was brimming with positivity. As usual, whoever spent more time with Hana will be infected with her absurd god-like level of positivity and cheerfulness. Suria, who had silently deified Hana in her heart, wished to eat, practice, and sleep while thinking about how to be in the Mistress’ good graces.

 

Until the Monarch of the Silver-banded Eagle’s power erupted!

…