Lavanda

A small crimson-red sun appeared in the sky above the fortress. Like many other adventurers, Lavanda had been waiting for the signal for hours. Until now, the suspense had been hitting on her nerves. Having her precious Emery right in the middle of a thousand scrub who would take advantage of her at every opportunity was unsettling, even if she knew that the girl she trained wouldn’t be weak enough to be defeated by mere bandits.

To avoid detection as much as possible, the group of almost a hundred adventurers had been hiding a good distance away from the fortress. Far enough that those on foot would need five minutes to reach the main gate. Magic could have allowed them to hide right under the fortress wall without being seen, but the guild representative insisted that there was a risk of being discovered by an enemy mage.

Even if Lavanda knew her and Caryly's magic wouldn’t be clumsy enough to make sense, they didn’t insist. Arguing with the guild, or any organization in power, was as futile as tiring. Lavanda knew that all too well.

Not like they had to run to the fortress like the others anyway, Lavanda and Caryly had special and exclusive access to a very special and unique way of transportation. On top of the proud black wyvern, the duo was already on their way to the soon-to-be battlefield.

The light given by the moon was bright and generally good enough to see at night, but Randal remained undetected up until he was above the fortress. His ebony scales masked the red flare even higher than him as he stared at the people observing him from below. The ground was painted in his shadow as a bright red light illuminated the fortress.

Lavanda gave him a small pat on his scale. Now free to do as he pleased by the lady he served, Randal's neck began glowing orange until the colour turned to bright, ominous black. A dark fire sprayed out like a flamethrower when he opened his mouth.

Screams of fear and panic echoed in Lavanda's ears as some of the bandits on the ground tried to counterattack with their bows. Randal was far too high for regular arrows, as they couldn’t defy gravity, but some continued further than others. Having predicted magic arrows and magically assisted shots, Caryly created a whirlwind, deviating projectiles away from their initial target.

Fireballs also targeted Randal, but the magic wind was too strong and they were dissipated into nothingness. To the pleasure of the riders, the only thing the fireballs did was heat the surrounding air from chilly to comfy.

Aimed toward each fleeing target he saw, Randal aimed the fire as such as they only had a few seconds to contemplate what was happening before it was too late. For every minute that passed, a melody of screams and crippling fire sang across the fortress. Of course, the fire couldn’t reach any of the interior inside the fortress, at least not without risking harming the hostage or the rescue team.

Too preoccupied with the wyvern spewing black fire, the bandits didn’t notice the swarm of adventurers passing through the main gate. To avoid any risk of friendly fire, Lavanda ordered Randal to stop and instead search where the flare came from. Having taught the spell herself, Lavanda already knew who launched it. Emery always added a touch of spectacle to her spell, even if she hadn't realized it yet.

Sometime after the first flare had been launched, two others joined it in the sky. Out of the four rescue groups that had been sent out, these flares meant that three of them had succeeded for now.

In the corner of her eye, Lavanda spotted things flying fast in the sky. Even in the relatively illuminated night, she should have been able to see what they were, but when she tried, the things were gone from her sight. She could still feel their ominous presence around.

Caryly, who was right behind Lavanda and had better vision, was looking worried.

“Any idea about what that was?” Lavanda asked her friend.

“No, but I have a bad feeling about it. Let's find the girls quickly.”

Out of nowhere, both women felt something and turned their heads around. There was a giant red fireball coming at them. Behind it was a woman clad in armour standing on a barely visible flying shadow.

---

Guarding the webbed entrance of the training ground, I let out a big yawn. It has been a dozen minutes since the chaos started, at least for the bandits. The training ground was safe, too safe. Since the very start, we didn’t see or detect a single soul coming for us. Earlier, we did transform the nearby bandit dorm into a nest of spider cocoons, so it probably wasn’t that surprising that not many of them were left roaming the area. Maybe we could have gone a little less throughout when we neutralized all the barracks. Without a fight, waiting was long and annoying.

With the potential menace of bandits, the rescued hostages got the message not to bother us with their anger issue anymore, although we never let the healer out of sight.

After a while, there was still no action in sight, but I did hear a lot of things going on. More screams were echoing around every minute and the burning sound of flames could be heard from even our position. Occasionally, we could see black flames pass over the training ground, but when I recognized that it was Randal's doing, I calmed the twins down.

If we ignored all the fire and nightmare-like screams, it was actually a pretty chill place.

At some point, the light of the red flare I launched was blocked by an ominous black presence in the sky with a humanoid person on its back. Looking at us with glowing red eyes, the monster dived at us.

“Look like the cavalry's here!” Reylia said at the wyvern appearance.

Seeing the wyvern in the sky, Karcie froze in pure fear. I could have sworn she was on the verge of a heart attack.

Gnash sniffed the air for a moment before yelping at the wyvern.

It took my brain a moment to register, but that thing wasn’t Randal. “That not Ran…”

As the thing was about to make contact, it let out of his mouth a mountain of bright red flame straight at us.

Not knowing what to do, I reached for my acid vial, opened it as fast as I could and threw it toward the barrage of flames. Using my mana to control the acid, I forcibly made it explode midair to form a shield between us and the flames.

Consuming each other, after delaying the flame for three seconds, the acid lost the battle against the overwhelming ongoing flames.

Fortunately, I had brought us enough time and the twins were able to throw their water vial to perform a shield just like I did with my acid. Holding out far longer than my acid did, I felt the insane heat coming from the fire, even from behind the twins' water shield. Unfortunately, though it wasn’t long before the water completely evaporated, when it happened the twins both used their mana to transform their magic into water and feed the water shield.

To help them, I threw my own water vial with their shield and used my meagre abilities with water to help solidify our defences. As to not get toasted, the water had to absorb as much heat as possible while maintaining its form. As soon as a layer evaporated from existence, we had to replace it with a new one in less than a second, or else some fire would pass the shield straight into our face. The process was hard, especially since it was the first time I tried it.

Without losing her concentration, Phyralia was able to improvise a few pieces of advice on how to stabilize part of the water shield.

Grouped in a corner when the fire reached us, we didn’t have to worry about a full sphere around us. With only about 150 degrees to protect, the task was already way easier than if we had been waiting in the middle of the area.

Behind our shield, we were only me, the twins, my familiars, Karcie and the webbed-up bandit captain we captured earlier. The rescued hostage had been on the other side of the area when we were engulfed in flame, so their fate was unknown.

Thrifty seconds passed since the breath attack started and it was still going hard. Our mana reserves were depleting fast and if we didn’t want to get toasted, we needed a solution quickly.

“Karcie? Karcie! Do you know who this is? You looked quite shook at its sight!” I asked the healer.

It took her a second to notice me yelling at her. Her voice was tainted with fear and almost on the verge of breaking. “It’s the Shadow killers! A duo that is known for their extreme tendency to kill everyone they don’t like with their night wyverns. Our leader had a contact who knew them. He wanted to hire them and orchestrate an attack with their help.”

If there were two of them, that meant that it was possible that the other one was either not here or rampaging somewhere else in the fortress. Compared to Randal who was a black wyvern, night wyvern had weaker fire attacks, but was almost undetectable at night. Even more than any other type of wyvern or dragon.

“Never heard of them. How strong are they if they feel confident they can wipe a city off the map?”

It was Reylia who answered. “They have a reputation closer to the capital. The bounty on their head is pretty huge, but nobody who tried to take them on came back alive. Apparently, even S rankers stay away from them.”

Phyralia continued for her sister. “Based on that, we probably don’t stand a chance. Even if we are at the top of B rank and you at A rank, if even the strongest rather avoid them, then we better find a way to run.”

“Not sure they gonna let us get away! We need to stop these flames first!” I yelled. The fire was loud, so there was no way that bastard would have heard us. “Karcie, your boss ever told you anything useful we could use against them?”

“No. They are hard to reach and not many lived an encounter with them. Let alone learn anything useful other than running away is the smart move.”

Smart choice or not, we needed to try something and fast. The twins were burning through their mana just to keep the water shield up. At this speed, they would be out in less than a minute. My mana was running low too, but I had a handful of mana leaves shoved down my throat, making my reserve stay stable for the moment. As long as the leaves weren’t made into regular potions, I was the only one able to digest them due to my plant affinity.

“I think I have an idea. It’s risky, but it's better than nothing.” Phyralia said.

Reylia and I looked at each other for a moment. “We take that over being roasted to death.”

Phyralia quickly explained her plan. It was indeed very dangerous, but if it worked, it would allow us to kick the bastard ass into oblivion. Even if the priority was to stay alive, Reylia did say the wyvern riders had a big bounty on their head. If it came to it, I wouldn’t miss the chance to rid this world of criminals and get the bounty.

Phyralia's plan didn’t require any preparation, so seconds after she finished explaining it, we were already ready to go.

Climbing on my back, Hybry would stay with me while I would be fighting. He tightened his grip as much as he could while Tenta roped him to me like a backpack. I didn’t like putting him in danger, especially against a strong opponent while he was still young, but he was the only one who could help me fight. Tara was too big for me to carry, and while agile, she couldn’t fly or follow a wyvern. Same for Gnash.

Mizuko confirmed the Shadow Killer's location through the firewall. Missing wasn’t an option. Taking her big form, she barely fitted in the limited space we had.

Leaving the handling of the magic shield to the twins, I climbed on Mizuko's back and made sure I was ready.

Flashbang in my right hand, Hybry on my back. My bow was still in my room at the inn, it would have been too cumbersome to bring along with my sword. No potion, but my mana leaves had me covered for mana. I only had a single acid flask left with me, the other one was used to protect us from the initial fire attack. If possible, I wanted to keep my flask for a drink when it was all over, but if it came to it, I didn’t doubt it could give these Shadow killers a hangover they wouldn’t wake up from.

“We’re counting on you, Emery.” The twins said in unison.

“Don’t worry, I got this. You’re ready Misuko? I’m counting on you for the shield!”

“I may not be able to transform my mana into any elemental affinity, but I am quite confident I can create a raw layer of mana that will protect us from the flames. I do my best to help you during the fight, I turn that wyvern of his into mince meat.” Just as she said that, I could sense a small, thick intangible texture enveloping us. It was the raw mana layer she talked about. If she hadn’t told me about it, I wouldn’t have guessed what it was.

“On your signal.” Mizuko stretched one last time.

“GO!”

Diving straight into the blazing barrage, I felt an extreme heat building up as my world became a sea of flame. I couldn’t see anything except fire, fire, and the exceptionally rare sight of more fire.

In this oven, Tenta wasn’t pleased at all. If it could talk, it would probably be screaming it's hot, too hot for it. I didn’t need to imagine it, through my plant affinity, I felt that it wouldn’t last much longer. My ability to transform and manipulate mana into water wasn’t very good, but it was better than nothing. I used some mana-created water to relieve us from the heat as much as possible without wasting all my mana on it.

Even if my efforts were mainly on Tenta since it needed it the most, I could feel Hybry's gratitude. After all, several hundred degrees of heat was a little much for all of us. I wasn’t aiming to cool us for eternity, just long enough to get out of this midnight sun.

Mizuko mana shield was doing its job, we weren’t burned to a crisp even after bathing in these infernal flames for about five seconds. She was doing her best to get us out as fast as possible.

Suddenly, the field of red, orange and even more red changed for a relatively calmer dark and light-lit night. A part of me wanted to enjoy the refreshing breeze offered to me, but the others were still barely avoiding being cooked alive. There was no time to waste.

Without wasting time, Mizuko jumped in the air. Straight above us, I could barely see a silhouette, as dark as the sky. My flare had run out of fuel, but some remnants of it were still brightening things up a little.

The monster above us, just as I saw earlier, was a wyvern. About the same size as Randal, the monster's scales were not just black, they were the night itself. I read that night wyvern scales were almost impossible to see at night, and at that moment I understood why. If it hadn’t been for my flare, sniffing him up earlier, none of us could have seen him, except maybe Mizuko.

The night wyvern and its mast haven’t moved since the beginning, our escape hasn’t been detected yet. It was my chance.

Mizuko could jump high, so high that with a single jump, we reached the underbelly of the monster. She also timed it very well, my sword was at the perfect range to slice that thing's stomach right open.

Making contact with the wyvern flesh, I ignored the part with the hardest scales and aimed for the stomach. I knew Randal very well, and if that night wyvern had the same baseline anatomy as a black wyvern, then it was one of the few spots where the scales were the weakest.

To add to the injury, Hybry looked over my shoulder and let out a vile toxic breath right into the insides of the monster. The wyvern didn’t waste time to get away when it felt my blade cut in, Hybry was still able to get a good shot of plague toxin in. Not enough to kill it, but the creature wasn’t gonna feel well for a few days, that much I was sure.

Almost thrown off by his wyvern, the man held on tight and looked under his mount. There was a single way to describe the way he looked at me. He wore a rather heavy armour hiding his face, but reading his expression through it was easy. What I saw was annoyance. “These pests escaped the fire? Nightclaw kill them!”

For him, we weren’t a real threat, just a reluctant nuisance. At his master's order, the night wyvern drifted a few metres away into the dark until I wasn’t able to see it at all. As hard as I tried to find him, I only saw darkness all around.

“Emery, he’s now right in front, coming for us!” Yelled Mizuko. We were still in the air at that point, there was no way for us to evade its attack.

Trusting her indication, I loaded up mana into Flashbang and sent light straight into the dragon's face. The amount of light I used was close to being able to blind him permanently, or maybe it did. I didn’t know how far away he was, so I played it safe and I didn’t fully charge it. If I had miscalculated and taken too much time, he would have chomped on my flesh before I could do anything. All I knew for sure was that the wyvern would need serious medical attention to get some light back in there.

Having been blasted with several seconds of sunlight straight into his eyes, the wyvern was unable to keep flying straight, and his teeth-filled jaw missed us by about a single metre. The man atop the monster didn’t eat my attack straight up, meaning he still had his vision.

Whip in his right hand, he aimed straight for my face. Even riding an unstable mount, his aim was perfect, my face was about to get marked pretty hard. Coming out of my shirt at the last moment, Tenta tentacles covered my vision entirely. A fraction of a second later, I felt the whip hit my tentacle’s protected face. I felt the pain, it was sharp, but definitely not as hurtful as it should have been. When the whip retracted, Tenta was more hurt than me, but it was fine. Good luck seriously hurting grass string with a rope. Most of all, I was thankful to have been spared from a potentially incurable mark on my face.

On top of his wyvern, the man held the rein, trying to make the monster fly where he wanted. When the monster didn’t follow his instructions, he used his whip to encourage his mount toward the desired direction. Even with an injured wyvern, one thing was sure, he wasn’t giving up on killing us.

Flying low, he ordered a flame barrage on us. Mizuko had no difficulty avoiding the blindly launched attack with quick side jumps. When he came into range, his whip struck the empty of our last location with pinpoint accuracy.

Not happy to not be able to see where he should chomp, the wyvern tried to claw us using sound as his only detector. The effectiveness of which was undeniably horrible. Instead of leaving nasty giant open wounds in our flesh, it was the rocky ground that ate all the claw marks.

On my back, Hybry was good artillery support. The wyvern was still all black and hard to see, making hitting it impossible without Mizuko's help. Although not a single projectile hit, Hybry's acid attack forced the man to back off whenever he got too close.

He ordered another barrage of flame on us when an arrow missed his head by a hair length. Not under constant attack anymore, Phyralia shot again. Seeing the projectile coming, the man dodges with ease. She tried with more arrows, but those that hit the wyvern were deflected by the thought scales. None of them landed on the open wound we made earlier, but the new holes in his wings did get a few painful roars out of him.

“These pests keep getting in my way.” I heard him say.

With his attention on Phyralia, the man didn’t notice Tara. In no time, she was able to guess where the wyvern leg was and link it with a web to the ground. Poisoned, blinded and with a leg attached, the monster had more and more difficulties staying airborne.

A look of disgust could be seen in the man's helmet movement. In a quick wrist motion, he unsheathed the dagger at his side and threw it at the web. I saw his lips move, but I didn’t hear what he said. When it hit the web, the dagger exploded, destroying the webbing in a fire explosion.

Tara couldn’t see exactly where they were, she fired more webs anyway in the hope that some would stick, but none of them hit.

He must have decided to retreat. Instead of coming at us, like before, he tried to gain altitude and fly away. Before they were able to leave the training ground, I saw Reylia and Gnash use a web Tara placed earlier as a catapult and launch themselves straight at the wyvern.

Using Gnash's sense of smell, she must have calculated the catapulting very carefully, because instead of missing the near-invisible night wyvern, she and Gnash were able to anchor themselves into its flesh. Reylia used her sword and Gnash used his nasty teeth. Doing such a thing in normal conditions would have been extremely dangerous by something the law of physics calls potential fall damage. But, as there was Tara nearby to provide padding in case of a fall, it wasn’t a stupid idea.

Not wanting to miss the action, I asked Mizuko to follow them, which she was already doing.

Leaving the training ground behind, with Phyralia and Tara there, we were in hot pursuit as Reylia and Gnash climbed on top of the wyvern. With not a lot of space or control, they had to use all their strength to stay stable. Falling from their height was not a desirable option.

The man used his whip against them as Reylia parried it with her sword. She played it defensively, they didn’t need to beat the man themselves, just gain time until the wyvern was too exhausted to fly. To accelerate the process, Gnash was biting into the wyvern flesh while staying behind Reylia.

Understanding their strategy, he closed the distance between them and engaged in melee combat on top of the wyvern. On his master order, the wyvern kept flying in a straight line, trying to stay as stable as possible.

At arm's length, a sword should easily win against a whip, but there was something strange about his weapon. Using it to block Reylia's strikes, her sword couldn’t cut through the thick rope at all. The off-putting flexibility of the whip paired with the ability of her opponent to deflect her attack was more often than not putting her off-balance. She was almost thrown off the flight multiple times trying to find an opening. In the few hits she was able to land, the man armour did its job all too well, deflecting all of Reylia's strikes.

When she wasn’t on the offensive, the enemy took his turn to attack. Instead of going for melee whip attacks, his style was closer to someone going for command grabs using his whip. If she wasn’t careful, Reylia could find herself or her sword tangled into the unbreakable whip, each case ending in her loss.

In close range she was skilled, more than I was, so it came as a surprise when after the man used a feint, his whip stroked his own wyvern on the side. This made the monster lose his already unsteady balance even more for a split second, which threw Reylia off guard.

Falling backward, she wasn’t able to grab any of the wyvern scales to stop her fall. Lucky her, Gnash was still on board. Barely keeping himself upward, the dog held Reylia by her boot with his teeth while his claws were deep into the monster's meat.

Technically successful, the man tactic led to the wyvern almost crashing into the fortress, which put him in our range. With a jump, Mizuko was close enough to the wyvern that with Flashbang in hand, I was able to jump off and board the wyvern, which was on its way to a crash landing.

Landing in front of the man, he was about to whip me, but my Flash fire was faster. Just in time, he covered his helmet with his arms and stopped the fire from reaching inside his visor. While his armour was on fire, he ignored it and lashed at me instead.

Blurry in flames, I wasn’t able to see what exactly he was doing. In a last-minute tackle, he threw us both into a free fall. The wyvern didn’t even notice that his master wasn’t on board anymore. I didn’t know if he was trying to burn me with him, but I wasn’t about to let myself get burned by my own fire.

Inevitably, I had lost my grip on Flashbang when he tackled me, sending my weapon too far away to get it back. With the hot fire armour hugging me, Tenta was too weak to fetch my sword.

Wearing a heavy chunk of metal did protect him well, but it also made him a bigger target, especially with the fact that I could practically breathe on him at this point. And that is exactly what I did.

I had the ability to convert water into poison or acid. This also included my own saliva and the high humidity in the air when I exhaled. Getting a potent effect with such an abysmal quantity was impossible, but some poison was better than no poison at all. I initially had the idea from watching Hybry's poison breath attack, mine was just on a smaller scale.

By putting my mouth near his burning helmet, I spewed acid near his visor and exhaled poison right afterwards. The acid created a few holes in the metal, which allowed the poison breath to sink in. I could have just breathed in his visor, but the more holes there were, the easier it would be for the poison to get in. I also made sure to use a poison that wouldn’t get consumed by the fire in an instant.

To add a little more, Hybry, who was still in my backpack, threw in his own poison breath. Through the fire he was in, the man noticed just in time and decided to give up on hugging me until we reached the pavement, which gave him just enough distance to avoid Hybry's attack.

In the corner of my eyes, I saw Mizuko gracefully jump to save Reylia and Gnash from a rough landing on the pavement. They both landed on her fluffy back.

A part of me wished to be allowed such fluffy comfort, but Mizuko was too far away to reach me in time. There was no way for Tenta to be enough padding to save us from such a fall.

Using Tenta as a rope, I extended my left hand toward the nearest guard tower and fired a grass tentacle at it. Latching on it, our falling trajectory was altered. Instead of crashing on the ground, we were about to splatter on the wall. Which option was better, I couldn’t decide at the moment. Tenta wasn’t strong enough to propel us to the latch point.

Before doing it, I would have never thought about all the pressure it would put on my muscles. It felt like our momentum combined with G-force due to our speed was all kicking in in an instant on my arm.

My arm became more painful with each passing second. I saw a window slightly below where we were about to splat.

Quickly estimating in my head, I screamed “Detach!” at Tenta.

Obeying me, Tenta did as instructed and gathered all his matter as padding on my back.

Thinking as fast as I could, I grabbed Hybry with my right arm and held his body in a protective hug as tightly as possible, using my breast to cushion him against my body. My left arm was hurt, but still there. That meant even more impact protection for Hybry.

Just as I hoped, my aim estimate was right and I crashed arm-first straight into a glass window. Landing on a wooden table first, the table exploded as my body continued in its roll. I felt some glass fragments against my skin, but I didn’t let myself budge and kept myself all around Hybry until I hit the wall.

Opening my eyes, I saw a cute worried hydra licking my face hoping I was still alive. Lucky him, I was. Tenta had protected my back and spine from all the painful glass shards lying around. Except for a few scratches here and there, my right arm was fine. As for my left arm, the pain spoke for itself.

It was still there, but I could feel at least 3 broken bones in there, as well as a slightly dislocated shoulder. All that was caused by the amount of pressure and G-force of the one swinging I did. I used vines to swing before, but that time was different. All the speed I accumulated while falling had transferred into G-force, primarily pressuring my arm. Thinking about it, I was rather lucky to only have a dislocated shoulder and a few broken bones from the swinging. It probably could have ended much, much worse.

At the moment, I needed to do something about my arm. As far as I knew, the fortress was still under raid and the man could have survived his fall.

Once Hybry was calm enough to stop licking my wounds, I turned toward my left arm.

“Tenta.” Showing itself at my demand, the tentacle looked at me, wondering how it could be of assistance.

Its tentacle was battered by all the damage it had sustained. Some parts were also slightly burned by the fire I originally cast, even if it was mostly fine or at least far better than I was.

“Thanks for the save.” Pushing through the pain of my broken left arm, I petted him with my right hand. I didn’t know the extent of its emotion, pain and other senses, but by its gesture, I knew the petting was appreciated.

“Could I ask one more thing of you? I appreciate it if you could put my shoulder back in place with all the bones. That will be enough for now, I heal it more later.”

Tenta seemed to hesitate. Looking back and forth between my shoulder and my face.

“Don’t worry about me, I can handle the pain.”

Circling around my left arm, Tenta green vines covered it all with a thin layer of solid fibre. Not waiting for a second approval. It forcibly put my arm back into place as I bit my right arm to slightly muffle the pain.

After what felt like hours of agony and muffled screams, Tenta put itself around my left arm to make sure the bones wouldn’t move too much.

Looking for injuries I could heal, the fact that Hybry was fine without a single scratch put a smile on my teary face. Tenta had multiple injuries, but none that I could heal. As far as my plant affinity goes, I didn’t know how to heal plants, at least not yet.

That left me. The girl who just destroyed a glass window using her entire body. There were indeed a few of my own injuries I could heal by myself. I thought I could start by getting rid of all the small burn marks all across my body. The fire sure did it work on its own caster.

Don't know why it took me so long to write this chapter. My apologies.

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