Perched on a tree branch, Kei observed the Stormbringer Fellhorn from above.
Aether surged around the massive beast, its silver-blue wool crackling with arcs of electricity, turning the very air around it into a charged battlefield. Static energy pulsed through the wind, distorting the atmosphere, causing the ground to hum with residual charge.
Kei narrowed his eyes.
A gust of wind whipped past him, carrying an ominous scent of ozone. He could feel it in his bones—the way the air trembled before a strike, the way the storm called to itself.
This thing wasn’t just dangerous—it was untouchable.
The moment someone stepped within its storm’s domain, they’d be struck down before they could even land a hit. Unrelenting. Unforgiving.
It lived up to its name.
Stormbringer.
His grip tightened around a sharpened bone projectile, orange aether flickering along its surface.
“Alright, let’s see just how untouchable you really are,” Kei murmured, then vanished—folding into the wind.
Owen led the charge, his Bastion Force surging around him like an unbreakable wall of energy. Aether gathered to his form, reinforcing his body as he braced himself for impact.
His blade gleamed, slicing toward the Stormbringer Fellhorn while it was still reeling from Kei’s onslaught.
But the Stormbringer was not so easily staggered.
Electricity coursed through its wool, and in a split second, the air snapped and cracked with volatile energy. The moment Owen’s blade connected, a violent discharge erupted, sending jolts of static force racing up his sword, lashing at his arms and chest.
“Argh!” Owen gritted his teeth, his movements sluggish as arcs of lightning coiled around his body, seeping into his muscles like chains of pure energy, slowing his reactions.
From the backline, Reese fired off a volley of arrows.
But the charged air fought against him.
His Vector Force, usually precise, struggled against the shifting electrical currents. The moment his arrows entered the storm’s range, they twisted off course, veering wildly—some missing entirely, others striking harmlessly against the ground.
His quiver was running low.
He could not afford to waste another shot.
Owen was taking the brunt of the Stormbringer’s power, each clash forcing him further onto the defensive, his body racked with intermittent shocks.
Reese clenched his jaw. His mind raced. He needed to adapt.
Then—
A whisper.
The wind shifted, curling around him in ways he had never noticed before. It was as if the air itself was guiding him.
His instincts screamed at him to trust it.
He drew an arrow.
He released.
The arrow cut through the air, and this time—it did not stray. The wind carried it.
A precise, piercing strike.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn staggered, bleating in rage, the arrow embedding deep into the soft space behind its front leg—a perfectly placed hit.
Owen took the opening, regaining his stance.
Kai and Talia rushed in, weapons flashing—the real battle had just begun.
The battlefield raged on, a storm of movement and deadly precision.
Kai spun through the chaos, weaving in and out of Owen’s defensive stance. His Adrenaline Force burned hot, driving his reflexes past their limits. Each pulse of electricity in the air only pushed his body harder, his movements sharpening with every beat of his racing heart.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn lashed out, its horns sparking with crackling arcs of lightning. But Kai’s spear intercepted, to redirect—a deft twist of his weapon sent the force of the attack skidding past him instead of meeting it head-on.
The moment Kai disengaged, Owen surged forward. He gritted his teeth, shaking off the lingering static clinging to his limbs. Bastion Force rooted him to the earth, solid as an immovable wall. He slammed his shield into the Fellhorn’s side with a brutal crack, forcing the beast to stagger.
Talia became a phantom.
Her Mirage Force blurred, illusions flickering across the battlefield. The Stormbringer lashed out again and again—each time striking nothing but air.
She struck. Quick. Efficient. But her daggers barely bit into its electrified wool.
Reese stayed at range, bowstring taut, arrows firing rapidly. But the storm was against him.
His Vector Force struggled. The air was thick with static, currents surging unpredictably. His arrows veered off course—but just as they seemed lost, the wind itself shifted.
It guided his shots.
The gusts didn’t fight him. They carried his arrows forward, leading them not where he aimed, but where they needed to go. He didn’t understand why—but he trusted it.
And so, he fired.
The Stormbringer bleated in fury, staggering as an arrow struck cleanly between its ribs.
It had enough.
With an enraged stomp, the Fellhorn unleashed a violent pulse of wind, sending everyone skidding back.
Sparks arced. The air hummed with crackling energy.
Its horns glowed ominously—charging up a devastating lightning blast.
They were staggered. Exposed.
The storm was about to crash down on them.
Then—from above.
A shadow dropped from the sky.
Kei.
His foot slammed down, burying itself into the Stormbringer’s skull.
Crack.
The Stormbringer’s body lurched, the charge in its horns flickering wildly, its control over the Aether disrupted.
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But Kei wasn’t finished.
The instant he landed, he bent at the waist and grabbed onto the Stormbringer’s horns—not to restrain it, but to pull something from it.
Aether surged toward him, draining directly from the Fellhorn’s core. The electricity in the air weakened. The looming storm fizzled—its destructive force severely diminished.
The Stormbringer’s half-formed lightning blast fired—
But it was weak. Unstable.
It crackled harmlessly through the air, mere sparks compared to the devastation it could’ve unleashed.
Kei somersaulted backward, landing lightly on his feet. His hands moved in a blur—
Arrows.
Not his.
Reese’s.
Snatched from the ground mid-motion.
Aether surged through them—orange veins of energy crackling along their shafts.
And then—he threw.
They whistled through the air, cutting through the static-charged wind as if they belonged there.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn shrieked in rage as the arrows struck true, embedding deep into its thick wool, piercing its neck.
Its fury was instant. The air shifted. The winds howled.
Owen was the first to suffer.
A storm erupted, breaking his connection to the ground. His Bastion Force faltered, severed from the stability of the earth.
Before he could react—before his footing could be reclaimed—
A bolt of living lightning crashed into him.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn rammed forward, horns crackling, colliding with Owen midair.
His sword never even reached its target.
The impact was devastating—his body was hurled backward, limbs weightless, flung through the air like a ragdoll.
Then—gravity took hold.
He crashed hard, slamming into the dungeon floor, pain exploding through his ribs. The ground embraced him once more—but not in the way he had hoped.
His head spun. His body screamed in protest.
But the Stormbringer wasn’t finished.
It leaped, muscles tensing, hooves gathering beneath it. It aimed to slam down on him—crush him completely.
Its mistake?
For a fraction of a second—it took its eyes off the battlefield.
And that was all Kei needed.
In an instant, he was there.
Owen barely had time to process the blur that appeared beside him before his entire world shifted.
The wind folded.
Kei wrapped them both into the current, vanishing.
BASH!
The Stormbringer Fellhorn’s hooves struck nothing but stone.
It bleated triumphantly, electricity crackling through the air, its Aether flaring in victory.
Only—there was no body beneath it.
No crushed enemy. No broken warrior.
Its triumph meant nothing.
Further away, Kei reappeared, already kneeling beside Owen, moving with practiced efficiency.
His hands worked fast—
Aether-infused healing salves spread over Owen’s bruised ribs, onto the worst of the bleeding wounds.
Hidden in the shadows, Kei kept his presence suppressed, knowing they only had a few seconds before the battle resumed.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn shrieked, its rage surging like a tempest, its gaze locking onto the remaining two.
Kai was next.
His Adrenaline Force had carried him well, fueling his speed, his reaction time, his instincts—but momentum was everything.
And momentum was what he lost.
Watching Owen nearly get crushed had thrown him off balance, even mentally. His mind stalled. His body hesitated.
And in that instant—the Fellhorn struck.
A crackling blur of storm-infused fury, the beast surged forward, horns sparking with devastating intent.
Kai barely reacted in time—or rather, he didn’t.
Reese did.
An arrow loosed.
Then another.
Then two became four.
Four became eight.
A skill activation—his Vector Force igniting, enhancing each shot’s trajectory, increasing their velocity, their piercing power.
The arrows ripped through the electric winds, tearing through the distortion, bypassing the resistance that had once thrown them off course.
Each impact sent jolts of pain through the Stormbringer Fellhorn.
Baaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!
It staggered.
Kai snapped out of it.
Aether surged through his body, his Adrenaline Force reigniting.
His spear blurred, extending mid-strike, its attack potency increasing. He lunged—his blade carving through thick wool, shaving blood as he passed.
The beast shrieked, eyes flashing—but it was already too late.
Talia had already moved.
Her Aether pulsed, distorting the air around her, her daggers glowing ominously.
Then—she disappeared.
At least, from the creature’s perspective.
To the Stormbringer Fellhorn, it was alone.
The battlefield had emptied.
Its enemies—gone.
It turned its head wildly, searching for its attackers—only for sharp slashes to tear through its hide.
It bleated in shock, spinning—but there was nothing.
Another strike. A gash on its flank.
A dagger sliced through its side.
Then another.
Then another.
Reality distorted.
Its enemies were ghosts, shadows, phantoms slashing it apart, never where they seemed to be.
In truth—Talia was right there.
But to the Stormbringer Fellhorn, she might as well have been an illusion.
The relentless assault had lasted no more than two minutes.
Reese, Kai, and Talia had pushed themselves to the limit, striking, dodging, adapting, pressing the Stormbringer Fellhorn into a corner.
But a cornered beast—is the most dangerous kind.
And this one had had enough.
A thunderclap rang through the air—sharp, deafening, an explosion of raw energy.
Electricity surged through the battlefield, bolts of lightning cracking through the air, latching onto the winds, dancing like writhing serpents.
It didn’t care what it was attacking anymore.
If it couldn’t see its enemy—
It would attack everything.
Reese had run out of arrows.
His ranged offense—gone.
All he had left was a knife—a last resort, a weapon never meant to face something of this scale.
But instinct flared.
Something was about to go wrong.
Without thinking—he moved.
His legs burned as he surged forward, stepping in front of Talia, knife gripped tight in his hands.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn howled.
The winds turned violent, storm currents twisting and howling in agony.
The horns of the beast gleamed with terrifying radiance, infused with aether—storm energy condensed into raw destruction.
And then—
It bleated.
A sound that rang like a death sentence.
Kai and Talia froze.
Instinct screamed at them—this was it.
Their bodies weren’t moving fast enough.
Their attacks weren’t strong enough.
They had already given all they had.
Reese didn’t hesitate.
He flashed forward, knife in hand, aiming for the Fellhorn’s exposed flank.
If he couldn’t kill it—he could at least buy time.
He lunged.
ZAP.
Lightning erupted.
And Reese was gone.
A blur—flung backwards with terrifying speed, sent flying through the battlefield like a broken doll.
Kai and Talia barely registered what happened.
The storm winds roared around them, electric currents crawling through the air, numbing their limbs.
They were too dazed to process what had happened.
Too stunned to even check on their fallen friend.
Too overwhelmed to realize—
Reese never hit the ground.
A gust of wind—a blur unseen.
A figure caught him mid-air, steady hands moving swiftly.
Hidden within the storm’s chaos, Kei was already treating him.
But the battle was far from over.
The Stormbringer Fellhorn charged forward.
Its horns surged with condensed lightning, the closer they came, the stronger the paralysis creeping into their bodies.
It was coming.
And there was no stopping it.
At least, that was until Kai and Talia saw a figure appear—standing effortlessly atop the Stormbringer Fellhorn’s head.
For a split second, they thought they were hallucinating.
Because who in their right mind could just stand there—on top of a raging, lightning-infused beast—looking like they had all the time in the world?
And yet—Kei did.
One foot forward, hands gripping both horns—as if casually adjusting his footing on a moving platform.
Then—he moved.
Aether surged, muscles coiled, and with a barely-contained grunt—
Kei tore the beast’s momentum away, flipping the massive Fellhorn over, sending it crashing toward a tree.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Mid-air, as it tumbled—a barrage of bone projectiles and a stray arrow struck true, piercing into its body.
Kei pumped his fist, grinning.
“Trick shot!”
He cheered like a kid who just scored the winning point in a game.
Kai and Talia, still standing in shock, were left completely speechless.
They had just watched a massive, storm-infused creature—one that had nearly wiped them out—get physically thrown across the battlefield like it weighed nothing.
Like it wasn’t even a real threat.
Like it was just another obstacle in Kei’s way.
Kai finally snapped out of it, shaking his head. “The hell was that?”
Kei casually dusted himself off. “Oh, that? Just physics. You know, leverage and stuff.”
Talia blinked. “You… threw a giant lightning monster… using leverage?”
Kei nodded sagely. “Yup.”
Kai opened his mouth to argue— then stopped.
Because, honestly? He wasn’t even sure how to process this.
Kei, still grinning, tilted his head at them.
“You know, the way you guys use Aether is really shoddy. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long.”
Kai, still dazed, could only respond with a dumb, “Huh?”
Kei sighed, crossing his arms. “Your Aether usage. It’s like you’re forcing it to obey you instead of actually working with it. Like—no finesse. Just ‘Do what I say, or else’ kinda vibes. If Aether had a judicial system, you’d be in jail for assault and lack of consent.”
Silence.
Kai and Talia stared at him.
Kei, completely unfazed, continued dusting himself off.
They had no idea how to respond to what they had just heard.
Or what they had just seen.
“…By the way,” Kei added casually, jerking his thumb toward the side of the battlefield. “Your friends are over there. I patched them up a bit, but they won’t be able to help us fight that thing anymore.”
Kai and Talia followed his gaze—
And sure enough, Reese and Owen lay there, bandaged, barely conscious, but alive.
Talia exhaled heavily.
Kai ran a hand down his face, still trying to process everything.
“…So,” Talia finally said, turning back to Kei.
“You throwing around lightning monsters, healing our party, and giving us lectures about Aether usage… what else should we be expecting from you?”
Kei grinned.
“I make really good stew.”
“…Right.”
“…Okay.”
“…Let’s just kill the damn thing before I have a stroke.”
