Chương 12: [BL] 12. Will to Fight [2]

Are you ready, Josha? She had asked him that question before half of them got wiped out by the black knight. Mera always was a bright star to Josha. Not in the heroic kind the legends always spoke of; not like the storybook his late mother always read to him and his brothers before bed. She had been someone he struggled to say no to.

He always knew it was not because of romantic attraction, but because of the pull she had that reeled others in, which made it all the more strange that she always got him to follow her. No, maybe not strange; perhaps it was because... The glint in her eyes that spoke of absolute confidence. The smell of herbs and mystique was so infectious that you knew she would take you on an adventure you would never forget. Like when she teased him a bit for backing out, he got this urge to prove her wrong.

Like he believed it would be what she would always call a 'once-in-a-lifetime' adventure. And she kept her promise all right. Like when they, along with ten others, went stargazing, sneaking to the very top of Sheran Tree, where a fall could kill them. It was scary and dangerous, and well… stupid. Yet the stars back then were so bright that Joshua thought he saw Mera's hair. He knew he saw the stars as yellow back then. It was hard to say no. Even with her dangerous plan to secure their class stones.

Josha had no doubt that, given time, she could rise to lead Sheran Village, maybe even abolish the elders' system that she hated dearly, as they took too long to make decisions. In the end, however, her pull was so strong that it cost them so much. Why? Why did he not say no back then? He could stop them. He knew Mera would be stubborn, but there was plenty he could... Josha shook his head. He ran a thumb across his sword handle and stared at it, which turned into a glare. He knew very well the reason.

I'm hungry for power. Yes. Mera had wanted to stand with her father to protect Sheran, but not Josha. He wanted to fight against the monsters, the rift-born. The anger he felt when his parent perish upon the rift still lingered like an innocent ghost that followed him, heaving his shoulders. He knew he was a good fighter, one of the best. Yet, one of the Elders saw what he intended to do. One of Josha's brothers, who worried about him, talked to the Elder who agreed to withhold Josha's rightful class stone.

That day, when the new class holder was announced, Elder Resta had brought him inside a building. There, he found all his brothers, each saying they were afraid Josha would get himself killed. That infuriated him so much that Mera's reckless plan seemed the only choice for him. Because of his rage, he allowed the bright star that was Mera to pull him. And his brothers had been right. By all rights, he should have been dead. He wanted to die and give his life to one of his fallen friends.

Josha had been too ashamed to drag Jaquin into his problems; Jaquin was the only one who was also too blinded by loyalty to him. He thought Josha deserved a class stone. If only he had listened to the wisdom of the others and not… Inside the cold cell, he'd wanted to rot away. He cried and cried and ended up telling a random outsider about Willow. Yes, Willow. He'd decided to never let himself be blinded by someone else's light again. So why?

Why was it that the one who took over Mera's body had to be someone who was about to grant him his deepest wish? And someone who might have pulled him into the world of mana? Are you truly dead? Mera? He wanted to ask, but the words did not come out. The wind swooped in, tossing her golden hair. At such a sight, Josha gritted his teeth. A yearning passed by inside him. Flames scorched through the sky from the wyverns, and the smell of burnt flesh reached them as they stood by the cave maw.

"Josha? Are you good? You know she's rude," Willow scowled at the back of Raven. He drew a deep breath and managed a little smile.

"That's Raven for you. She acts like that, yet deep down, she actually worries." Willow nodded slowly.

"But she has a point. You don't have a Class. I might be new at Magic, but even I can recognize you're the one who will be in most danger. You can stay here y'know," Ah, there it is. Just like Mera, she had a twinkle in her eyes as she smiled with challenge. And as always, he did not want to back down.

"If I did that, you would not give me the class, would you?" She smiled, and it was mysterious as it was heartbreaking, yet it excited him.

"No, probably not." She shrugged.

"Then let's go. I will keep some dragons away from you." -- The sky was violet, or perhaps it was orange. It was a sign that night was coming. Willow did not pay attention. All her attention was on the beautiful creatures; their scales gleamed with a warm orange sheen of the dying sun, and they were about to swoop down toward them—to kill the humans, including her. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Along with the other guards, they stood on a giant ledge of the mountain just outside the cave, behind a charred forest that let out smoke which crawled upward, thanks to the wyverns' flamethrowers. The damage to the forest was well contained thanks to the guards using their spells to disperse the flames, and what appeared to be water mages were busy running around shooting water from their hands.

According to the small briefing the senior guard gave, the plan was to take down the wyverns with the ballistas that had been hidden in the forest. Willow threw her head back and saw those ridiculously big arrows being carried away by guards. They exert themselves to go up the slope, into the charred trees, and finally to the busy forest. So their job was to keep the Wyvern's attention for the first volley of the ballistas.

They and the new guards would also serve as a new fighting force to relieve the one who had been tanking the wyverns' flamethrowers. When a moving flame passed by the guards' glowing shield, the group of wyverns flew forward, passing the mountain reach.

"We're a unit, and I'm in charge!" Raven shouted.

"Go!" Raven and Dio brought up the front while Josha and Shera protected Willow as they did against the liches. They sprinted apart from the other guard unit as planned. She did a quick count, and there must be about twenty guards fighting up here, separated into four units with five each. The reason they fought separately was, first, because the wyverns' flamethrowers could spread; and second, because of the spells some of the Guards were capable of.

Five meters away from the next unit, Dio raised a fist, and Raven quickly shouted the command.

"Here!" Above and beyond them, twenty Wyverns finished their turn and, with a wing flap, swooped further down. The flying creature made sure to get some distance so it could build a flame inside its throat. Willow blew out a lungful of air and tipped her hair up to prepare for the upcoming flames. A hand tapped her shoulder, and Josha held her eyes.

"Just focus on your job. We chose this tactic on purpose. Dio and the other four guards in each group have the Guardian rune." She nodded, still unsure about this, but decided to trust them regardless.

"Lock!" Dio shouted. The young man slammed his kite shield's sharp end down into the earth, and the others followed. Josha took a position beside Dio and slammed his shield similarly. Shera and Raven raised their shields up, forming a small roof that blocked the sunlight. Willow awkwardly penned in, calmed herself, and summoned her Wind Mage Outfit. [Dark Wind: 12/12] The Sylph Sword brightened with a green glow that startled Shera until Dio chided her.

"If you don't want to be burned alive, then make sure those hands sturdy."

"R—Right, sorry," she mumbled. Willow wondered if she should get a shield too. The twenty Wyverns came in two lines. At the very least, each group would tank four of the Wyvern's attacks. She stared at the back of Dio, who appeared very calm. Their lives would depend on him. Could he do it?

"You appear nervous," an almost silent voice said. Willow glanced at Raven, who blinked back, her red hair unfurled around the spear shaft that she raised up, resting against her shield as if it were a harpoon.

"Might as well," she mumbled.

"There are three Runic Paths: Might. Aegis and Instinct. Dio has the Guardian rune; as the name suggests, it's a rune that belongs to the path of Aegis. The moment Willow opened her mouth to question her, Raven spoke again.

"Your Dark Rune belongs to the Path of Might, well probably or maybe its an Instinct. A power to take down foes rather than protect, so focus on that and leave the protecting to someone with Path of Aegis." A wave of power, brimmed with glowing blue light, emanated from the four shields above her. Dio drew a sharp breath, and his shoulder tensed up.

Above, the wyverns crossed the mountain's reach again, and the air turned dry once more as they opened their snout and the fire built in their throats; they launched it as a scorching ball of flames. Willow felt her skin burn as the two fireballs streaked closer, then the heat was gone. A large blue aegis shield materialized above them, three meters up. In a fiery sizzle, the flames dispersed like a wave of water hitting an invisible glass wall.

The fiery heat spread around the blue shield, rolling safely past the group. Smoke churned up, and the air was hard to breathe.

"Not yet, Raven!" Dio shouted in time as Raven just moved her spear. The second line of wyverns came, this time with a flamethrower that cascaded down the ledge's underbelly and rolled right toward them.

"Okay! I will use all my runes! So keep that in mind." Dio grunted, and the blue aegis shone even brighter, earning sharp cries from the others, except Raven. The flamethrower flowed over them, surging across the shields, and the stream of flames baked Willow's skin red. She felt it boiling her skin, and she pulled her Mage cloak tighter around her.

"It's getting weaker!" The blue light began fading, but not before the flamethrower did. Dio turned into a figure of light, and his guard outfit disappeared in a flash. The young man fell to his knees and breathed shakily. In the next instant, through the smoke that hung thick around them, Raven raised and thrust her spear upward, blowing over the smoke, and her spear extended in a second, reaching toward the sky before returning to its original size.

Seeing such magic, Willow stared at the redhead and just noticed the top of her spear had blood running down its steel tip. She did it again, and more blood ran down her spear's shaft to her arm. Willow glanced up to see one Wyvern falling toward them. [Wyvern—level 13] A hole punctured one of its wings, and another punctured its neck, but the Wyvern was still alive, and its scaly eyes settled on them. My turn. Willow pointed her finger up, but the Dark wind did not respond. She stilled her breath and waited.

The Wyvern built another flame inside its bleeding throat, but this time it had entered Willow's range. Wind danced around the fallen creature, and a circle of hungry blades of darkness opened their eyes upon their prey and feasted on it. Hundreds of curls shredded the Wyvern's scales, ripping them apart and causing them to fall upon Willow and the others like small rocks. And with them came the Wyvern's blood.

The creature roared as Dismember kept going, flaying it apart with hundreds upon hundreds of small cuts across its wings. Through sheer will, the Wyvern tried to flap its wings for balance, but too weak; all it did instead was hover for a brief moment, killing its speed. Raven capitalised by aiming her spear up again, until—"No!" Willow said. The red-haired girl threw a glance at her, but Willow had already built a Scythe on one of her fingers. Her Ravenous eyes had seen where she should strike next.

She sliced her hand upward, and a dark blade of wind surged up, cleaving straight to the Wyvern's underbelly—the area where its scales fall more easily. A last roar of defiance cut off as the Wyvern collapsed into a roll and its body stopped upside down by the cave entrance. [You recover one Dark Wind Rune] [You grow Stronger] [Wind Mage—level 5] [Spell] [Ravenous Spear]"They're easier to kill than the Treant," Willow said.

"Dismember rips around their bodies, and the scales on their underbelly will go first; it's their weakest spot—" Willow stopped, noticing they were staring at her.

"What?"

"Nothing," Raven was the first one to speak. She shot her a small smile.

"I will keep that in mind for my next Spear Reach. There will be another sweep in before the ballistas volley. Only three Wyverns died, so they will swoop in again. Dio! You rotate now! Shera, get ready for the mist."