It had watched its mates beheaded. Its twin elder offspring, who would have left the den in a few moons, were killed before they could even fight back. Its younglings were skewered by countless spears of earth before they ever had the chance to spread their wings.

  And now it was looking at the two humans responsible for their deaths, chatting with each other and not even giving it the slightest shred of attention, and that was the final insult the alpha wyvern needed for its sanity to snap as it doubled the speed of its charge – closing the gap between its jaws and the two humanoids.

  Just as less than twenty meters remained between them and Deacon and Jass braced themselves to meet the wyvern head-on, the Earth Wall Jass had created to seal the wyverns inside the den to keep them from escaping detonated in a deafening blast.

  A roiling cloud of dust and shattered stone tore into the cavern, rushing forward like the collapse of a mine shaft.

  The force of the blast knocked the alpha’s entire head downward into the stone with a loud crack, the wind funnelling off the shockwave folding its wings backwards at awkward angles and kicking up enough dust that the rays of the sun struggled to breach through the sea of dust that filled the den.

  Meanwhile, Deacon and Jass were hurled past opposite sides of the wyvern’s snapping jaws — so fast and so suddenly that Deacon only briefly felt the edge of its wind armor nick his cheek before both of them slammed into the ground and skidded for several meters.

  They were bouncing over crushed and skewered bones from earlier kills, brittle Earth Spikes no longer reinforced by mana, and patches of dried wyvern shit, sending clumps of it flying as their bodies scraped across the cave floor.

  A shrill, almost metallic screech ripped through the chamber as something barreled through the ragged hole where the Earth Wall used to be.

  Before Deacon could even gather his bearings, he and Jass rolled onto their shoulders and dropped into crouches to halt their skidding and see just what had blasted them backwards.

  A high-pitched, birdlike screech sliced through the dust cloud an instant later as something enormous forced its way through the shattered entrance—talons gouging the stone with enough weight to shake dust from the ceiling, chunks of rock cracking off its body as it shoved its way inside.

  Deacon thought seconds before he narrowed his eyes as the alpha wyvern let out a gust of air that banished the thick smog of dust that filled its den.

  [Roc – Elite Lv 21]

  Deacon thought to himself in confusion.

  “I’ve got the Roc!” Jass yelled the moment she and Deacon Identified their newest attacker, letting out a battle-roar as she dashed forward. “Mama wants that core!”

  “Don’t mince it too hard – I want to see if we can find Daryl and get him to make us Roc Fried Chicken!” Deacon barked at her, already sprinting toward the recovering alpha wyvern.

  As he weaved between twin blasts of air shot at him by the alpha wyvern, he let out a shrill, two-beat whistle – the Ravenlight signal for “Plan’s fucked! Come out!” for Bonehead, Esmerelda, and Sam to get their asses up and help them wrap up quickly before more guests would arrive.

  Not a second later, the alpha wyvern lunged at him as Deacon reached into its range.

  Deacon ducked low, sliding under the strike while his blade grinded against the wind armor that protected the wyvern’s body as he attempted to slice its underbelly as he slid.

  The wyvern whipped around as he rolled out of his slide and immediately reached into his Spatial Sling Bag as he caught sight of its tail scything through the air in a blur.

  With barely a second or two before its tail would strike him, Deacon managed to firmly plant his feet while raising his Bearclaw Heater Shield and bracing himself.

  BOOM!

  As though he’d been struck by a cannonball, he couldn’t help but briefly compare it to one of his uncle’s strikes. The impact shuddered through his bones, cracked the stone beneath his boots, and shoved him half a meter backwards.

  With his gaze still locked onto the wyvern’s, Deacon couldn’t help but give a brief smirk and shrug as its attack neither damaged him nor his shield.

  Sensing the mocking attitude from the humanoid in front of him, the alpha wyvern lashed again, this time its doubled in size as it pumped more mana into its claws.

  Tanking the strike head-on with his shield, Deacon then immediately followed up by slipping inside the wyvern’s reach, pivoting his hips, and puncturing the wyvern’s forearm with the edge of Echoform Reliquary, carving a deep diagonal wound that sprayed hot blood across his chest.

  The wyvern let out a sharp, cutting shriek as it leapt backwards to avoid Deacon’s following strike, the air around its neck beginning to twist and pull inward.

  Wind gathered in a tight spiral, the mana thickening from its collarbone up toward its jaw. Its maw snapped open, and the swirling air compressed into a tight, whistling sphere that vibrated against its teeth like a pressure bomb waiting to burst.

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  Tensing his legs to leap out of the way just before the spiralling wind blast would leave the wyvern’s mouth, a jagged spear of frozen air shot up from beside the wyvern, ripping through its ribs and erupting out its sternum in a spray of blood and shards of ice. The wyvern’s jaw flinched, the gathered wind collapsing into a useless sputter as its body jerked sideways from the sudden hit.

  It whipped around instinctively, searching for the source of his new attacker, leaving itself open for Deacon.

  Lunging with still cast along his blade, Deacon leapt into the air, just as the alpha wyvern suddenly realised its mistake. However, before he could snap his focus back onto Deacon, a sharp pain pierced his neck microseconds before his world began to turn upside down.

  The alpha’s head hit the ground with a heavy, echoing thud before beginning to roll across the floor with blood trailing behind it, tumbling into the pile of bones and bat guano.

  The alpha’s body fell a second later, legs twitching, tail smacking against the floor in hard, involuntary spasms before finally going still.

  Wyvern blood spread across the stone in a slow, thick sheet that mixed with old stains and debris, forming a darkened pool that steamed faintly from the heat still radiating from its fresh corpse.

  Wiping a smear of wyvern blood off his cheek with the back of his glove, Deacon turned just in time to see Esmerelda braced near the pit’s edge with one knee planted and a hand extended down in Bonehead’s direction.

  “Come on, bone boy,” she says, fingers flexing impatiently.

  Reaching up with both hands, Bonehead’s hands clamped onto her wrist like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline.

  “System, you’re heavy,” Esmerelda grunted as she struggled to drag him up, ignoring the choked noise he made as his ribcage slammed against the stone lip of the pit.

  Chuckling at them both as Esmerelda managed to pull Bonehead out of the pit, and Bonehead pushed himself back onto his feet.

  Just as he was about to comment on their lack of physical stats, a violent lurch in mana behind him made his gaze snap towards the Roc just in time to watch its massive beak crash into a heavily reinforced and multi-layered Manashield Sam had thrown up just in time to provide Jass the opening she needed.

  Upon the recoil of its attack, Jass shot forward, her glaive already slicing through the air. The blade carved a clean crescent of blood as it tore through the Roc’s exposed neck—its stone-patched armor having crumbled the instant she shattered it with , just before Sam threw up the .

  As the Roc’s head and massive body crashed to the floor and blood pooled at her feet, Jass spun on her heel and flashed the Ravenlight Party a wide, toothy grin, throwing up a victorious V-sign.

  *[Wyvern Lv 16] has been slain – XP has been given.*

  ***

  *[Wyvern – Elite Lv 21] has been slain – Partial XP has been given.*

  *Your Class has reached Lv 19 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*

  *Your Race has reached Lv 19 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*

  *Your Class has reached Lv 20 – Points allocated, +1 Free Point*

  For a long, stretched moment after the Roc’s corpse continued to bleed out, the den fell into a heavy pause. Coughing echoed through the chamber as dust scraped down their throats; Roc and wyvern blood pattered down the uneven walls; bones creaked and cracked beneath freshly fallen bodies.

  And in the middle of it, Deacon let out a violent sneeze, trying to force out what little wax still clung inside his nose — fragments stubbornly wedged in place even after most of it had blasted free when the Roc had knocked him and Jass across the den.

  When several long breaths passed without anything exploding, shrieking, or trying to tear out their throats, Deacon caught Jass’s eye across the den—then Sam’s, then Esmerelda’s, and then Bonehead’s.

  One by one, their expressions shifted from being on edge to being somewhat at ease.

  Then, as smirks grew on their faces, Bonehead, still powdered in bone fragments and shit, let out a triumphant whoop that echoed through the cavern and echoed atop the Jagged Spire they stood on.

  Bonehead immediately started rushing towards the slain wyverns and began gutting them and shoving wyvern organs into jars while muttering about furthering his experimentations Sam and Deacon hauled the Roc’s corpse into the largest Spatial Bag, which was Jass’s, as she barely had any items within it.

  After that, Deacon and Jass moved in tandem, dragging wyvern carcasses across the den and stuffing them into every inch of available spatial storage the Party had. Bag after bag filled to capacity until each one thumped against their sides, swollen and looking one shove away from bursting.

  As they cleared the last corpse, a chorus of screeches rolled down the mountain spire — louder than before, with a familiar pitch that made their heads snap towards the entrance of the den.

  Wyverns – a lot of them.

  Barely giving each other anything more than a glance, the Ravenlight Party burst into motion.

  Sam was already sprinting for the cliff’s edge with Esmerelda right beside him. Deacon scooped Bonehead up by the back of his robe before the skeleton could lunge for the spilt wyvern blood he was trying to cram into an open jar.

  Jass didn’t bother checking whether Sam or Esmerelda were ready before she hooked both of them by the backs of their hoods and yanked them forward with impatience born from the very real possibility of them becoming wyvern chow in the next couple of seconds if they stayed long enough to catch the eyes of the wyverns and potentially other creatures that heard the commotion they made.

  Under her grasp, Sam squawked, Esmerelda cheered while Bonehead yelled out explicatives as Deacon shoved him ahead, and all five of them sprinted straight through the mouth of the den just as tens of flying creatures burst from the late afternoon clouds a few kilometres away from them.

  Without much input from either Sam, Esmerelda, or Bonehead, Deacon and Jass grabbed hold of each other – not having enough time to bind themselves together with rope and threw themselves off the edge and into freefall.

  Wind blasted up against them in a freezing column that stripped the dried wyvern blood and clots of shit off their armor as they dropped past jagged stone outcrops. The drafts twisted violently, shoving their bodies sideways while loose rocks rattled free and fell with them. The forest below sharpened too quickly for comfort — from a vibrant green smear into something very capable of turning them into pulp if Sam and Esmerelda didn’t act immediately.

  Both mages lifted their staff and wand, respectively, bracing their arms against the rush of air as mana snapped to life around the tips of their catalysts.

  Near two seconds later, a burst outward in a spiralling shell of compressed wind that wrapped around all five of them before their fall could turn them into a splat.

  Their momentum slammed into the barrier hard enough that Deacon felt his teeth rattle, but the dome held, flexing once before redirecting all that lethal velocity into a sharp sideways glide that gently allowed them to descend down the mountain range.

  Near Deacon’s elbow, Bonehead clung to the inside of the wind barrier like someone could actually fall out of a spell. His jaw clattered from the turbulence, and then, with the tone of a man already exhausted by his own situation, he muttered, “Alright— so how in the fuck are we supposed to get back to the dorms?”

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