Chapter 71: Downpour


    The storm-front rolled in as the walls were abandoned. Carts, crates and debris were pulled into makeshift barriers to stem the undead''s advance through the winding streets. Leif ducked behind one such barrier as it was closed off, the soldiers didn’t give him a second nce.


    His cloak hung heavy on his shoulders, the rain soaked fabric partially restricting his movements. But there was otherwise little difort. There was the ever present worry that his inhuman form may be revealed. But in the moment, surrounded by undead he found it hardly mattered.


    Above, the serpent roared in triumph, its movements bing quicker, its every motion more agile and dangerous. No longer did it beat its feathered wings, as it was swimming through the falling rain.


    “What is that thing?” Leif asked, staring up at the being of fire and scales. Another jet of white and blue mes scorched the now abandoned battlements, the undead streaming through gaps in the defences were incinerated as they blindly rushed forward.


    “Commander Kaan’s boundpanion. It’s called a coatl, a sacred protector of the empire.” One of the nearby soldiers said, the young man likewise staring up in awe.


    “Bound?”


    “Yeah, he has a high level [Tamer] ss.” The soldier replied, briefly taking off his helmet and wiping water from his eyes.


    <em>Something that powerful could be made subservient to a human? How is that possible? </em>Leif wondered, gazing up at the coatl with a new perspective.


    Icy frost bloomed a street over. Leif reached out and trickled vitality into the nearby soldiers with [Blight’s Bounty] before tearing off towards the familiar skill. He would fight, but he’d rather fight alongside those he knew.There was no path leading in the correct direction, so Leif took the direct route. He kicked in a door of a repurposed house, he crossed the in rectangr room in only a few strides before increasing his weight and shoulder checking the structure''s far wall. He burst out into a small dusty square in a shower of splinters right as a purple arc of lightning shed towards him.


    Leif nearly froze in surprise, his shield flickering around him for the half a second it took for the arcane energies to disperse.


    “Fuck, my bad!” Marcus called. “Did you just run through that wall?”


    “No time.” Leif hissed, turning to face a group of short, humanoid ghouls. The right hand side of the courtyard was inundated in frost. Several of the iing undead slipped and tumbled, their fall sending those behind them likewise spilling to the ground.


    A sharp whistle of wind came from a nearby street as Adriana ran into view, she was followed a momentter by Linus, the boy lugging a sword far too big for him to use. Leif didn’t have time to consider why. Wind magic swirled around him as a feeling of being lightened flooded through his body.


    The world slowed ever so slightly, his every movement flowing and crisp. The air around his arms and legs quivered slightly as he ran to position himself between the students and the undead.


    Sieg manifested an axe head of sharpened ice before bisecting three undead with a flex of his skill. Therge man was likewise surrounded in vibrating air. Leif stepped forward, amber limbs surging outward to puncture, crush or restrain. He found his control of [Gold Iron Physique] was just as affected by Adriana’s empowering skill as the rest of his body.


    <em>Convenient. </em>He thought, easily deflecting a skeletal beast’s wed swipe with two amber limbs. Leif dispatched the monster and cracked his neck.


    “Did you guys see the royal sky skimmer?” Linus called, shouldering the massive weapon. “It’s our ticket out of here.”


    “We all saw it.” Adriana snapped. “The problem will be getting onto the bluff with the docks.”


    “Fighting retreat?” Marcus suggested. Arcane lightning dancing between simrly coloured gauntleted fingers. “Also, what''s with that sword, Linus?”


    “He’spensating for something.” Adriana said.


    “I have an idea.” Linus said.


    The young teammates spoke over one another, then shared a baleful re.


    “Focus people!” Sieg called, the man using his aura in conjunction with skills Leif didn’t know to ice over the other half of the approach. Reanimated corpses clogged up the slippery entry point, clustered as they were. Marcus’s arcane lightning danced through the ever growing pile up, dealing incredible damage.


    “Above, on the right!” Leif called as the group retreated through a mostly unusedne, a low growl came from the worn tiles of the nearby rooftops. A momentter a pack of three undead drakes prowled into sight, their wed legs digging into the rain slick tiles.


    Two of the reanimated drakes were the size of the moremon beasts found in the foothills of the northern mountains. Raw muscle was visible where several clumps of dull scales had fallen off.


    The third was a different story. Unlike therger creatures Leif had spotted in his somewhat naive quest to climb up a mountain, this drake was long, lithe and remarkably slender. It was likeparing a rapier to a pair of battleaxes.


    The unevolved drake''s approach was inelegant and clumsypared to the deadly poise of their evolved kin. To make matters worse, within the fanged maw of the evolved drake were the flicker of baleful green mes.


    “They’re blocking our way.” Sieg said, his voice low. “And they’re not mindlessly attacking. This is bad.”


    “The undead will being up behind us shortly.” Marcus whispered, purple energy crackling. “I can keep them off us but only if the drakes don’t get to me.”


    Leif stepped forward, rolling his shoulders as his conjured golden limbs flexed and readied for battle. He’d dealt with drakes, both alive and reanimated. The first of the bulkier drake’s leapt forward, the roof’s tiles spraying behind it from the force of its jump. A burst of vibrating airbined with a wave of frost to knock the creature off course.


    The second lowered itself then made a running jump straight for Leif. He grappled the horse sized undead as the sheer force of itsnding forced the spriggan to take several steps back. Before he could tear it limb from limb green mes billowed down towards him from the evolved drake.


    The crackling, death attuned fire sizzled and popped under the ever worsening rainfall. He threw up a shield but the emerald mes quickly began to melt it away, the skill’s construct oozing away in golden droplets before dispersing into essence.


    mespped at his arms and upper body, scorching the ivory wood and singeing the nt fibre beneath. Leif grunted and focused on [Might], he grabbed the undead beast with multiple golden arms then twisted and brought the drake, still growling and wing while trying to tear him to pieces, between him and the mes.


    Rotting scales melted and flesh sizzled and was erased by the intense heat. Despite this, the drake seemed more than ready to continue the fight, its lifeless eyes now aze with flickering viridescent light. The drake’s strength redoubled, forcing the spriggan to take another step back.


    Leif punctured the monster’s side with a spear tipped arm. Then he drained the reanimating energy from its form, to his surprise the malevolent fire seeped into his body along with the death energies he had been expecting.


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    The mes were doused and converted by [Blight’s Bounty], but not before dealing significant internal damage as the internal structure of his physical arms were made nearly useless. Leif’s vision flickered and his monstrous body grew numb, his form seeming to weigh twice what that had before. The conjured amber limbs began to crack and fall apart. He fell, the drake biting into his shoulder and splitting wood with its finger length fangs.


    A burst of ice cut off the continuous st of mes, a pair of daggers struck the side of the evolved drake but bounced off ineffectually. Behind Leif purple light shed, a sure sign that the swarm of undead chasing them was drawing closer.


    <em>We don’t have time for this. </em>Leif snarled internally. He triggered [Healing Palm], the restorative energies of the skill shooting up his arm, only to be diverted into his own injuries before it could reach his hand. He activated the skill again, this time for his other arm.


    Leif dug into his reserves of strength and grabbed the drake’s throat with a four fingered hand, his wed tips digging into the beast''s scaled hide. Then, half by instinct and half by hope, he triggered [Healing Palm] for a third time.


    “<strong>Heal.</strong>” He hissed, themand echoing off the nearby buildings, stilling the falling rain, drawing the attention of something unseen. Healing light pulsed through the drake’s body, it rippled through its head, then down the spine and limbs.


    All at once the deadly spark of emerald that suffused the drake’s form flickered, then fled before his healing magic. The drake stiffened, then copsed to the ground, unmoving, like a puppet with its strings cut.


    <em>Huh, that was remarkably effective. </em>Leif mused, rolling the drake’s corpse off of him and stumbling to his feet. Several of his conjured arms fell apart as he used them to hoist himself upright. He remade them with a brief effort of will.


    The other unevolved drake had been split in half by what Leif assumed was a devastating strike from Sieg’s axe. Frost still clung to the bisected corpse and red streaked ice coated a nearby wall.


    The evolved drake let out a low hiss from its position still atop a nearby roof, a stream of green mes spraying towards therge man who cursed and dodged to the side. The drake turned its angr head, tracking his movement, the mespping at his side, burning the man’s already filthy academy uniform.


    A golden barrier red into life, giving Sieg just enough time to break line of sight before being turned into ash. Leif winced, the sudden, manic use of so many skills was beginning to take its toll.


    The final drake roared, letting out another cone of mes, then leapt from the roof. Not towards Leif or Sieg, but Linus and Adriana. The younger students backed away, Adriana seeming to be concentrating while Linus looked to be totally unarmed.


    Panic bloomed in Leif’s chest. He was already moving as the drake fell, the worlding into slow motion. He wouldn’t be there in time, and he doubted his shield would be able to protect either student for more than an instant.


    “Now!” Linus yelled, the man raising his hand to the sky. Adriana grabbed his shoulder as a st of wind blew them both back. They tumbled head over heels, kicking up dirt and impacting the side of a dpidated house with a crack.


    A longsword fell from the sky, it prated the charging drake slightly off centre, carving away a chunk of its face and skull. The undead copsed to the ground, skidding several metres through the muddy dirt. Its momentum gone, the drakey twitching and struggling to move, fortunately it was unable to regain its footing before an arc of purple energy fried what remaining fight it had left.


    The drake ceased moving, and Leif let out a breath of relief. He looked between the evolved drake and where the two students were picking themselves up from the muddy ground.


    “That.” Marcus said, jogging into the aftermath of the fight. “That was pretty damn cool. Also I levelled up, sorry for stealing that kill.”


    Adriana mumbled something about it being fine while Linus just raised a thumb in acknowledgement. He wiped mud from his face, only to leave more filth than before.


    “I’m still forty nine.” Sieg sighed, grunting as Leif helped him get to his feet while healing his wounds with a trickle of vitality. “One off the next milestone. I haven''t even been able to promote mybat ss. The first group of evacuees were most of the crafters and nonbat officials, and they apparently took the promotion items.”


    “Cheer up big guy!” Marcusughed. “You wouldn’t have time to do the advancement trial even if you did reach fifty! Also, as fun as this is, we really should get going.”


    ===


    Fighting powerful monsters from a distance had been Hera’s go to strategy for several years. It had been wildly effective, being able to defeat foes who were significantly stronger than you was one of, if not the quickest ways to level up. Albeit far from the safest.


    It had served her as an adventurer, it had served her in the crucible, and up until this point it had served her while she worked as a de of the Academy.


    A cracklingnce of dark blue energy ripped through the air she had been standing in but a moment prior. She ran, manifesting tforms of light with every step only to let them dissipate into essence. Maintaining more than a few barriers was well beyond her ability without dedicating a significant portion of her focus to the task, and she needed all of her power, wits and concentration to not be obliterated.


    Another beam of gravity energy shot from where the humanoid enver flew a hundred metres away. Hera manifested a barrier of light above her and twisted, kicking off the pane of light, shattering it in the process, andunching herself downwards.


    She felt her hair rise and her clothes tug against her body, pulled back by the near passing of the ant’s deadly attack. Another pane of light appeared as she fell, Hera twisted the skills construct with a minor effort of will, altering it to let the barrier not be tied to the point she had cast it.


    Hera hit the tform feet first and felt it partially fracture under her downward momentum. Fortunately it held, she rode the pane of light downwards, ever so slightly tugging on the skills construct to reassert its default state of being stationary.


    It was a trick she had learnt years ago, back when the skill had an entirely different name. Hera stabilised her footing and summoned a bow thanks to her [Armoury of Light] skill, a core skill that she had created thanks to multiple fusions, all from different sses. The created weapons were an all but perfect conduit for her other powers.


    She twisted, the tform spinning, and returned fire on the enver. The creature was forced to dodge, flying inelegantly to the side, its insectile wings a blur of motion even to Hera’s enhanced vision. Then it was forced to retreat further as a geyser of white and blue mes raked across the sky.


    “Shiny Human!” The feathered serpent hissed, coiling through the rain and rising to Hera’s own elevation.


    “Coatl.” She replied, not entirely sure how tomunicate withmander Kaan’s bond.


    “Father says to drive the antdy away, he will bring the big fly boat!” Pocht roared, then it dove to avoid ance of blue light.


    “Tell him to hurry up!” She yelled back, running in the opposite direction to not give their opponent an easy target.


    For minutes more they battled in the sky, and though they fought to force the enver away from the outpost and the desperately retreating humans below, the oddly human shaped ant was more than capable of weathering their assault, never straying far.


    <em>It’s trying to protect the undead queen. </em>Hera realised, cursing under her breath. <em>While that thing is in y it won’t allow us to shepherd it away. And while it''s over Far-reach everyone is in danger. </em>


    She peered through the low, burning red cloud cover and scanned the ground. The closer to the battle Kaan drew the more wild and unruly the skies became, as high as she was the very air was thick with both rain and soot.


    If she could eliminate the undead enver queen maybe this whole ordeal would end. From the report Marcus, Sieg and Leif had given her about the events within the mythhold, Hera doubted the ant queen was the entity in control of the horde.


    <em>It won’t hurt to try. </em>She thought. Firing off a quick volley to keep the enver woman busy before retreating up into the clouds with a sequence of bounding leaps.


    [Prismatic Sight] activated, and the cloud cover thinned, retreating into the background as her perception skill bled away all excessive visual stimuli and helped her vision prate any non solid obstacles.


    She sighted the ant queen far below and began charging up an arrow of light. Hera doubted she would get another chance as good as this one. <em>Best to make it count. </em>


    Her previous attack on the enver hadn’t killed it outright, though surely the monster had been wounded. She would need to put everything she could into a single, deadly attack. Power built, light shining in the arrow’s pointed head like a beacon.


    The clouds around her shone with a dazzling radiance, the heating off the skill made steam rise in a continuous pir as the very air screamed like a kettle. She took aim, years of training and far more life and death experience than most her age steadying her arms, calming her breathing.


    Then an obsidian d fist crashed into her side. As the Academy de was sent flying, the impact cking out her vision and pulverising her ribs, the almost fully charged skill destabilised, then detonated.


    Everything went white.