Xaphan watched as the Black Eagle descended into the maelstrom, each beat of its mighty wings hurling its magic into the air, seizing control of the storm around it. The serpent may have conjured the storm—or, perhaps more accurately, the powers that backed the serpent—but with every wingbeat, the Black Eagle was seizing control.

The demon of flame was a goodly distance from the surface of the ocean, and the Eagle by extension, but even from where he hovered in the sky, he could feel waves of killing intent radiating from the Eagle. So wrathful was it, so intent on slaughtering that serpent, that such intent was overpowering even its stupendous aura.

This winged form of Leon Xaphan estimated to be in the ninth-tier, or equivalent to it, after absorbing so much lightning. This sent a shiver of fear running down the demon’s spine—not fear of that bird turning its power upon him, but rather what that kind of growth might do to Leon. Already, Xaphan could see this shapeshift or whatever had happened to Leon having a dreadful effect upon the young boy’s mind, but combined with a soul realm that had been irreparably damaged by dangerously-rapid growth…

Xaphan once more told himself that his concern was merely for his safe haven, and that his concern for Leon was more akin to that of a human’s concern for a pet rat, but regardless of what he told himself, he soon found himself rocketing after the Eagle. The demon could feel the response of the serpent resonating throughout the maelstrom, and he knew that it wasn’t going to back down from this fight; the demon wasn’t going to sit this fight out, either.

The Black Eagle dove into the maelstrom, the ocean spinning all about it for miles, forming a great depression thousands of feet deep. It was deep enough that Xaphan could sense the attention of other things from the watery abyss, but they didn’t seem intent on getting in the way of the fight, so he put them out of mind and focused on the serpent as it swam around the edge of the maelstrom.

Xaphan’s ever-burning fires stretched and whipped about as he entered the maelstrom’s downdraft. The wind took ahold of him and sucked him deeper into the great oceanic vortex.

Below him, he watched as the Eagle beat its wings and sent streams of lightning into the walls of the maelstrom. The lightning spread out ineffectually across the water’s surface, but the demon could see at least a few arcs reaching the serpent within.

The serpent contorted in pain, a delightful expression from the perspective of the demon, who’d barely managed to scratch its scaled hide during his bout with the monster. However, with the water in the way, it didn’t seem like the Eagle would be able to do much appreciable damage.

Fortunately, it seemed the serpent wasn’t going to just swim about within the maelstrom’s walls and let the Eagle slowly whittle it down.

With a furious roar, the serpent erupted from the maelstrom’s walls, its jaws wide, its many teeth glittering in the intense light of the Eagle’s silver-blue lightning and Xaphan’s more distant orange fires. It moved far quicker than a being of its size should’ve, and the Eagle was forced to rapidly climb with a few quick wingbeats to avoid the serpent’s mammoth jaws, every tooth within its maw bigger than the Eagle’s entire body.

The Eagle responded with a hail of lightning bolts from its wings. The serpent’s scales were scorched black where it was hit, but Xaphan didn’t see the bolts penetrate its hide.

A moment later, the serpent contorted itself, and flung its head backward and upward, aiming to impale the Eagle upon its great curved horn, which was honed to a tip fine enough to stab even something as small as a human.

The Eagle tucked in its wings and rolled through the air, effortlessly dodging the monster. Then the Eagle gave a thunderous cry of war and instead of using its lightning, it dove in at the serpent’s exposed body, raking the monster with its fearsome talons. Unlike its previous lightning strike that had to fight through the water to reach its foe, the Eagle’s claws tore clean through the serpent’s scales and ripped through its flesh. Unfortunately, the serpent was huge and powerful, and so even as large as the injury was, it was next to nothing compared to the enormity of its body; worse, only a few drops of blood were spilled before the injury began to rapidly close.

The Eagle peeled off as the serpent began to shake and bend back toward the maelstrom’s wall. As it dove back into the safety of the ocean, the serpent continued to shake and send ominous vibrations through the sea, detectable even through the storm ravaging the water.

A moment later, huge tendrils of water whipped out of the maelstrom’s walls, forcing the Eagle to dodge and weave through the air, but not so quickly that it wasn’t able to blast a few apart with lightning.

After escaping the watery tendrils, the Eagle climbed higher, rising to about the top quarter of the maelstrom, where the water was at its widest. Once there, it spared Xaphan only a single almost dismissive glance before turning its attention back downward.

Xaphan didn’t detect event the faintest of recognition within its gaze, but he decided to try and connect with the Eagle again anyway. However, his attempts fell on deaf ears, for no matter how hard he shouted through the binding power of their contract, the Eagle continued to ignore him in favor of whatever it was doing.

Soon getting the message, Xaphan stopped and turned his attention back downward, where the serpent was still swimming through the maelstrom, its power reaching throughout the seas. Above the demon, the Eagle flew about, its power soaring through the skies. Within just a minute or two, the rain had ceased to fall, while the ocean calmed.

Xaphan knew neither of these to mean either the Black Eagle or the Great Horned Serpent was going to back down—if anything, this seeming calm only struck the demon as building pressure, with both preparing for the next round, and when that began, everything would kick off once more.

He was about to fly over to the Eagle and try to reason with it—whatever had transpired to turn Leon into that thing had clearly affected his mind, but Xaphan still felt like he could get through to the young man and they could coordinate a better strategy to bring an end to that serpent. However, before he could start making his way over, he sensed another presence piercing through the cloudy wall that separated this place from the rest of the ocean. A moment later, he watched as, flying out of the deep black clouds, came the shining white form of Leon’s griffin, and riding upon his back was the familiar figure of his fish girl.

The two were flying a little cautiously, and Xaphan could see the griffin hesitate a moment as the true scope of what was happening within the storm was revealed to their eyes. Without needing much more, Xaphan took off in their direction instead of the Eagle’s.

The two saw him coming, and the fish girl reached into the seas with her magic and conjured a powerful water dragon from the rain to fly beside her that he knew could give him a run for his money if they came to blows. So, he halted his approach and reached toward the fish girl with his magic power, focusing his abilities to connect with her mentally.

[You, Leon’s mate!] Xaphan sternly said to her, his voice radiating confidence and power.

[Who are you?!] she shouted back, her tone matching his.

[I am an ally of Leon Raime!] Xaphan declared. [That black bird is what Leon has somehow become! It’s preparing to battle that horned serpent, but I fear he may not win this without assistance! We are the only ones here with the power to aid him! We must work together!]

Xaphan could feel doubt and suspicion radiate from the fish girl almost as strongly as her aura and killing intent.

‘She’ll attack me without a moment’s hesitation if she felt it necessary…’ Xaphan realized as a smile briefly graced his obsidian lips. ‘But she won’t.’

Xaphan’s belief proved prophetic when the fish girl retracted her aura slightly, and her water dragon assumed a more defensive form. The griffin was still staring at Xaphan with suspicion, and he wasn’t moving forward, instead using his wind magic to hover. However, he relaxed when the fish girl ran her fingers through the feathers of his neck.

[Do you have a plan?] she asked.

[I think I do,] Xaphan said. [As he is now, Leon had some difficulties dealing with the serpent when it was in the water. So we need to get it out of the water. Leon’s strong enough to cause it appreciable damage, which we were unable to do.]

The fish girl slowly nodded, and with a signal from her, the griffin began to slowly fly in Xaphan’s direction, and the maelstrom behind him. Xaphan turned around and began to fly back that way as well, hoping that in showing the two his back, they might realize that he truly wasn’t their enemy.

When he reached the lip of the maelstrom and found himself above the great pit of the sea, he saw that little had changed in the few minutes he’d been gone. The Eagle was still circling in the top quarter, its brilliantly-shining red-orange eyes tracking the serpent as it swam around the edge, while the serpent kept one of its sea-green eyes on the Eagle at all times. He could feel the tension between the two, and knew that it wouldn’t take much for that tension to burst.

That moment came less than a minute after Xaphan and the fish girl arrived above the maelstrom.

The Eagle’s wings constantly sparkled and crackled with lightning, but in just a moment, they stopped, and instead became enveloped in powerful currents of wind. The sucking vortex of the great maelstrom suddenly reversed and began to pull at the water, forcing it to rise, while Xaphan and the white griffin were buffeted hither and thither by the strength of the Eagle’s wind magic, both barely able to prevent themselves from being blown completely clear of the maelstrom.

As powerful as this was, though, the Eagle couldn’t counteract the maelstrom entirely, Xaphan could tell, but that didn’t seem to be its goal. Instead, he felt his power concentrating at the level that the serpent swam at, and he realized that Leon was trying to pull the serpent from the water.

[The bird needs help!] Xaphan shouted at the fish girl.

She didn’t waste a moment, and her water dragon dove into the wall of the maelstrom as the griffin simply concentrated on not being hurled away by the Eagle’s windy tempest.

Within the maelstrom’s wall, the serpent writhed and roared, its distorted voice causing the entire sea to vibrate. But little by little, it was being forced out of the water and into the air.

After half a minute of struggling, the serpent changed tactics, and roared once more, causing the ocean to again form hundreds of watery tentacles that reached high into the sky toward all four of them. Xaphan responded with a storm of fire. He spared not a single spark of magic power, and the maelstrom was covered in a calamitous sea of dark red demonfire.

A moment later, the serpent’s watery tentacles burst through this shield, but they were far less numerous than before. Xaphan only had to dodge three strikes, while the griffin and fish girl only had two to contend with. However, the three of them were mostly afterthoughts, and just above Xaphan’s shield of fire the Eagle dodged and weaved about, wrapping itself in a bubble of pulsing air that kept both the serpent’s tentacles at bay whenever they drew too close, and Xaphan’s demonfire.

The serpent, meanwhile, continued to be sucked out of the maelstrom, and Xaphan could see at least part of the sea pushing against it, forcing it out into the air—the fish girl’s magical influence, he guessed.

The serpent contorted its immense body, and the bird had to beat its powerful wings to dodge out of the way before it could be impaled upon the serpent’s massive ivory horn. It responded with a shriek of fury and raked its talons across the serpent’s body as it flew about, opening objectively large, though relatively inconsequential tears in the serpent’s scaled hide.

Xaphan saw this as his chance; the serpent’s attention was locked upon the Eagle. He dropped like a meteor, the fires of his body growing more intense with every passing millisecond.

The demon of flame hit the side of the serpent where the Eagle had parted its scales with an ocean-rattling explosion of demonfire, and the serpent’s body shuddered in pain. It screeched, and the wall of the maelstrom surged out to envelop Xaphan and his fires, but the demon rocketed back into the air before he could be consumed. His demonfire continued to burn within the serpent’s wound, though.

A moment later, a water dragon more than three hundred feet long erupted from the maelstrom wall and dove many of those very same spots, ripping and tearing into the flesh of the serpent.

The serpent writhed in agony, and the maelstrom began to quake. The demonfire on its body was extinguished in an instant, and the water holding the fish girl’s dragon together lost all cohesiveness as her magic was scattered to the winds.

For a moment, Xaphan and the Eagle made eye contact, and staring into those red-orange eyes nearly had Xaphan lost in a vision of black flame. However, a moment later, the Eagle blew right past him, the wind magic in its wake pulling him like a loose leaf higher into the air.

Not a second later, the wall of the maelstrom blasted apart, and serpents of all shapes and sizes in numbers beyond counting shot toward where Xaphan and the Eagle had just been.

Below them, Xaphan could see another water dragon gnawing at another of the serpent’s relatively small wounds, opening it even further and keeping the serpent from healing, but then the serpent whipped its massive head back, cutting the water dragon in half with its horn, and the fish girl above grimaced in pain.

The serpent dove back into the walls of the maelstrom, though this time it was now streaming blood behind it as it swam.

The Eagle shrieked, and flew even higher, eventually blasting past the fish girl and the griffin, the wind magic in its wake dragging Xaphan along for the ride. Below them, the water shook and the maelstrom tightened, causing it to spin even faster. The surface of the ocean rippled, and then the serpent came erupting out of it, its enormous frame rising into the air and rapidly gaining on the griffin and fish girl as they followed Xaphan and the Eagle higher into the air.

Xaphan pivoted to look downward as he was dragged along by the Eagle and let loose with a thin laser-like stream of demonfire. That fire splashed across the serpent’s face, but the titanic monster didn’t even blink. Its jaws opened as it closed on the griffin, and only with a panicked beat of the griffin’s wings was it and the fish girl not swallowed by the immense reptile.

The serpent glared up at the Eagle, and the Eagle glanced back downward, returning the creature’s glare. Their killing intent clashed in the air above the ocean, dropping the temperature within the cloudy vortex far enough that Xaphan could see the steam of the fish girl’s breath. The demon then felt a charge building in the air as the Eagle’s power gather within the clouds as he relinquished control of the wind within the maelstrom.

The serpent’s eyes flashed with emerald light, and the ocean water around it formed hundreds of spikes that it launched up at them with terrible force. Xaphan, the Eagle, and the griffin all dodged with the best of their ability, but the serpent kept up the barrage, and eventually, one of them took a glancing hit—the griffin cried out in pain as one of the water spears clipped one of its wings. Thanks to its wind magic, it wasn’t knocked out of the sky, but its speed and maneuverability were drastically reduced.

Only a second later, Xaphan was forced to project a shield of fire, as he could feel himself tiring and slowing down, which resulted in a few close encounters with water spears.

The Eagle fared the best of them, weaving in and around the water spears with seeming ease. However, as soon as the griffin cried out, the Eagle shrieked in fury, and the clouds above instantly darkened. Rain began pouring in quantities equal to the storm of the past couple days, and the fish girl took the opportunity to create a dozen small water dragons that she sent plummeting back upon the serpent.

However, it was the Eagle that made the bigger move. It turned into a steep dive, and plunged toward the serpent, which was still sticking its head out of the ocean. Bolts of lightning thicker than Xaphan’s body began to fall from the sky, striking the serpent’s body and opening new gashes on its hide.

The serpent ignored these wounds and matched the Eagle’s shriek with a roar of challenge, and ocean water began to crawl up its scales, then freezing into icy armor. Its wounds were blocked, and the Eagle’s lightning was drastically reduced in effectiveness.

The Eagle itself hit the serpent’s head with all the force of a furious god before the ice could reach its skull. The serpent screamed as its face was bloodied, but its icy armor prevented the Eagle from moving down its body and slashing away with his claws.

However, with a surge of power, hundreds of arcs of silver-blue lightning shot out of the Eagle’s black feathers and even more golden lightning fell from the heavens and danced across the serpent’s body, rending huge holes into that armor.

But a moment later, the serpent’s eyes flashed with power again, and a huge torrent of water exploded out of the ocean, rising like the javelin of an ocean god to meet the thunderbolt of a sky god.

The Eagle had raked its way down the serpent’s body, and so was too close to the surface of the water to dodge soon enough. This massive spear of ocean water hit it, and it vanished within. The spear rose for hundreds of feet, so high it passed into the lowest of the storm clouds, where it was suddenly struck by a dozen bolts of golden lightning, which caused it to evaporate and free the Eagle.

Xaphan could immediately tell that the Eagle had come out the worse in that exchange. Its body was too darkly colored to see any blood, but it flew off-balance, and one of its wings was slightly bent. Its aura, too, flagged slightly as it righted itself within the clouds.

The serpent finally allowed itself to sink back into the ocean, its baleful gaze locked upon the Eagle. Both sides were injured, but as the magic power in the area continued to build up, Xaphan could tell that the final moves were about to be played; the maelstrom had picked up even more, and was spinning with terrific speed, so whatever the serpent was doing by spreading its power throughout the ocean, it looked to be about to be finished.

He hadn’t the slightest of ideas what the serpent was doing, but he sensed that there would only be one more exchange. They had to make this count, or else the serpent was going to finish whatever it was doing, and there would be no stopping it then.