Chương 85: Those Were My Materials

The first wyvern descended less like a gliding bird than a starving boulder rolling downhill. Snow and ice burst beneath its forefeet. Every fold and spread of its wings overturned the wind across the plain. Its eyes were fixed on the saber-toothed tiger—living prey, meat that had not yet been torn open. Kichan stepped forward without thinking.

"Not that one." The wake-up rod moved first. A creature with that mass and momentum would keep charging even after a direct hit. So Kichan struck the snow instead. Snow steeped in aurora light had a different grain. It was hard, but once twisted, it became exceptionally slick. Boom. Gold spread from the impact. Cold hidden beneath the snow sprang upward. At the same instant, Valkyrie pushed a thin film of water across it. The film froze immediately into something like glass.

One of the wyvern's feet landed on it and slipped. The body tilted sideways.

"Wings don't make you invincible." The wyvern did not fall completely, but its path changed. Its claws struck ahead of where the tiger had stood, and its jaws bit empty air. The saber-toothed tiger used the opening to retreat. Riphiel fired. Her arrow went for the eye, but the wyvern raised a wing. The shot missed its target and tore the edge of the membrane instead. The wyvern shrieked. Its cry carried a metallic edge that grated against human ears. Every other wyvern on the ridge raised its head.

The whole group looked toward them. Kichan gritted his teeth.

"It even screams as ugly as it looks." Riphiel drew again.

"We will be at a disadvantage if they come together."

"I know."

"Then what do we do?"

"We'll manage." A second wyvern came in lower. This one reached for Kichan rather than the tiger. Kichan stepped aside and struck the inside of its ankle. The current of cold wrapped around the joint shuddered. The creature lost balance just after landing and beat its wings wide. The wind cleared the snow, exposing buried reindeer bones and a clump of glowing fur. Even then, Dust tried to crawl toward a glittering horn fragment. Without looking back, Kichan reached out and caught it.

"Do you know how much material and energy already went into you?" Dust struggled with two legs, but could not argue this time. A third shadow was descending from above. Valkyrie spread a broad water shield in front of Kichan. Wyvern claws tore through it in one blow, but the shield had done its job. Their speed dropped by the smallest amount, enough for Kichan to twist away. The saber-toothed tiger bit into the flank and held on. The wyvern turned to tear at the tiger, but Riphiel's arrow struck inside its mouth.

It could no longer close its jaw and only screamed.

"Nice shot."

"Praise me later!" Argaon still stood in human form on a rock some distance away. His calm face drove Riphiel half mad with anxiety. Kichan had not forgotten him either.

"Hey." Argaon lowered his gaze lazily.

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"Watching the fight." The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"So you don't want dinner?" Argaon went silent. He sighed softly and flicked one finger through the air.

"I will slow one of them." A fourth wyvern dove at the saber-toothed tiger from behind. Air settled with sudden weight in the direction of Argaon's finger. The wyvern rolled once in midair. Its wings opened too late, destroying the angle of its landing. Kichan did not miss it. He charged. Before the wyvern could rise from its sliding landing, the wake-up rod came down. Boom. The rod struck below the horn. Blue light still clung where it had swallowed reindeer antler.

The instant the rod hit, gold burst outward—not ordinary sparks. Golden wings opened behind Kichan for one instant, and the same light frosted the wake-up rod. The wyvern slammed face-first into the snow. Snow erupted before the sound of breaking bone, followed by a choked scream from its throat. Argaon tilted his head on the rock.

"Why did that happen again?" Riphiel watched Kichan's back with her bowstring drawn. The golden wings had already vanished, but faint light remained on the tip of the wake-up rod. Kichan did not notice. His gaze was fixed on the fallen wyvern's horn, mouth, and half-chewed reindeer bones.

"I think it is because of materials and food," Riphiel said.

"Then you and I should both be careful around him when either is involved."

"I agree." Kichan did not hear them. One wyvern twisted in the snow, trying to stand. Kichan raised the wake-up rod again. Blue light stained the molars inside its open jaws. It might have been wolf tooth fragments or powdered reindeer antler.

"You ate my materials and used them to get bigger." Argaon muttered just loudly enough to be heard.

"They were not originally yours."

"What?"

"Nothing. I did not mean that they were mine." Another wyvern turned low toward the saber-toothed tiger. The tiger crouched, but the angle was bad. Kichan still watched the fallen wyvern. He looked like a man whose vision had gone red, with every other sound arriving half a beat late. Riphiel gritted her teeth.

"Over here!" The wyvern ignored her. Its eyes held only the tiger's scent. Living meat. A large body. Moving prey. It folded its wings and dropped lower. Riphiel inhaled once. Then she unleashed a long, cold, vicious stream of Elvish. Its wing membrane was worse than rotten leather. For a creature descended from the sky, it ate more filthily than a pig in a mud pit. The wyvern's head snapped around. Only then did Kichan look up.

"What did you say to make it turn around?" Instead of answering, Riphiel leaped backward—not straight away, but diagonally toward Kichan. She drew again and sent an arrow past the tip of the wyvern's nose on purpose. It banked after her. At the last instant, Riphiel ducked. The wyvern carried its own speed directly to Kichan, as if she had tossed its aggro to him. Valkyrie spread a shield in front of Kichan. The wing wind ripped it apart, but that one beat was enough.

The tips of Riphiel's ears were red as she steadied her breathing.

"A tactical necessity." Argaon laughed with obvious delight.

"You truly have not changed at all since you were a child."

"This is not the time to say that!" Kichan smiled.

"Good. You came right to me." The wake-up rod rose again. This time, gold gathered more clearly at its tip. Wing-shaped light spread behind Kichan once more. He had no idea. He saw only the wyvern that had eaten the reindeer and wolves and ruined his materials. Boom! The wake-up rod drove up beneath the wyvern's jaw. Its mouth snapped shut by force, scattering half-chewed bone across the snow. Blue light rolled over the ground. Kichan's gaze locked onto it.

"Oh." That one syllable made Riphiel more anxious.

"What is it?" Kichan stared at the bone. It was not white. Faint blue seeped from the inner grain. As the wyvern thrashed its torn wing, the inside of the membrane came into view. The outer leather was dull, but the grain within shone a strange silver-white. Blood fell from its mouth. Red blood. When it touched the snow, blue spread around the edges. Dust shot out of the bag before anyone could stop it.

It skated across the snow on two legs, stopped at the bone, ran to the torn membrane, then looked back at the bloodstained snow. Its tiny body shook in place, unable to decide where to go first. A smile spread across Kichan's face.

"You like it too." Dust answered by grabbing the bone and refusing to let go. The remaining wyverns cried low from the ridge. Kichan looked toward them and adjusted his grip.

"They're all materials." The sky darkened again. Wing shadows overlapped the aurora. Drawn by the fallen creature's screams, three descended almost at once. Wind struck first, carrying rotten blood, animal musk, and cold mana. The saber-toothed tiger dug its forefeet into the ground and growled. Valkyrie rose beside Kichan's shoulder and built another shield. Dust remained attached to the bone until Kichan's hand caught it.

"Stay still." Dust twitched its legs, neither clear agreement nor protest. Then a much larger shadow descended above the ridge. The others split aside to avoid it. The leader. Its horns dwarfed those of the first wyvern. They branched from thick bases, spreading like an imitation of reindeer antlers. Aurora light ran like capillaries through the inner wing membrane. Rows of white teeth gleamed whenever its mouth opened—the mouth of something that had spent a long time devouring wolves.

Frozen blood layered the scales beneath its jaw, faint green light seeping through it. Kichan's expression went still.

"That one." Argaon answered,"It has eaten the most." Kichan tightened his grip on the wake-up rod.

"I'm definitely catching that one."