Chapter 64:Hunting The Warbeasts

The small army traveled some distance into the wyvern valley before finding a wyvern.

The wyvern was alone in the valley and its scales were corroded with a pitch-black color coating them. it was a corrupted wyvern. Corrupted animals were not uncommon, especially in the oasis but the wyvern had suffered some tragedy and had mostly become corrupted creatures. There were only a few uncorrupted wyverns left in the entire oasis. Most of the wyvern had actually been killed by the godless, the wyvern had lost over sixty percent of their population to the godless while the godless had only suffered a five percent decrease in population, though they were heavily injured. After the wyvern war, the other territories further cemented the idea in their minds that, “we shouldn’t mess with the godless” in truth the godless were incredibly weak and ripe for the picking but that was only in a unified territory but the godless territory was the only territory with a unified power, all other territories had small factions and different species that didn’t necessarily get along, coupled with the fact that the godless were located near several dead zones allowed the godless to remain safe until they recovered a few months afterward.

The wyvern snarled as its saliva dripped and burned the grass beneath it. "get in formation." The soldiers quickly got into several formations. A defensive formation led the army it was comprised mostly of shield knights with some spartan knights with spears. Behind the first formation was an attack formation; formed of mostly spartan knights with some, moon knights, shield knights, and the entirety of the Ash knight core. Behind that formation was an auxiliary formation mostly made up of the star knights with some moon knights and the entirety of the assassin knights. In a direct confrontation, the assassin knights were not that powerful but they could still be used in groups against humanoid enemies. The assassin knights could hide in weaker groups like the star knights and take the enemy by surprise they could also be used to flank enemies and trick enemies into believing there was a larger force. The assassin knights during the hunt would not take a big role but they would be practicing how to camouflage themselves within other units. Their mission at the time was to appear like star knights and to pretend to use bows in their hands. The assassin knights at that time were studying how the star knights moved and how they held their bows to mimic their actions, of course, part of their mission was to focus on their surroundings and protect the star knights from any sudden attacks. The sudden attacks would be orchestrated by Sia who would hast weak earth golems to flank the star knights. These attacks would only happen in-between travel and never while wyverns were attacking, to prevent accidental causalities.

The first formation, about a hundred strong, moved towards the wyvern and goading the creature to attack. Sia and Scitus were vigilantly watching and were prepared to save any soldier at any moment. The wyvern weakly coughed as its pitch-black eyes turned to face the army. Its wings spread wide and the creature jumped high up into the earth as if to warn the encroaching army to back off. Noticing that its intimidation tactic didn't work, the wyvern quickly lowered its body and made itself as small as possible as it prepared its legs for a leap.

"earth wall!!!" Thomas shouted to his soldiers as he quickly cast [earth shell] on his shield. His wooden shield glowed as its color turned from its wood brown into a more earth color even its smell had changed and then it solidified into compact dirt without a single air pocket in sight. Although it was only compacted dirt, the shield's appearance was almost like marble. The other soldiers quickly cast the same spell and although their shields gained the earth appearance, they were unable to create the marble shield like Thomas could.

The wyvern leaped, using its powerful hind legs, and raised its black and half rotted claws to attacks the shield knights, "KAW!!!" the wyvern screeched as its sharp claws met the marble shields. Several shield knights were tossed high into the sky before landing hard on the ground, many breaking several bones in their bodies. The magic shields, however, stood firm and unbroken after the shields were made from foundation magic and although foundation magic's mana cost was high, its effects were outstanding. Fallen Knights regained there bearings in a matter of seconds with the help of the moon knights who quickly cast their healing spells. The second formation quickly shuffled around the shield knights and spread themselves out some distance in an attempt to encircle the wyvern. The wyvern's eyes shifted from place to place, noticing the encroaching armies motives. Perhaps if the wyvern was still of sound mind it would have run away after noticing Sia and Scitus but the wyvern was only half aware and thought it could easily deal with the weaker life forms. The wyvern sharpened its tail with some magic essence and attacked the formation behind him, injuring several goblins in the process however, it unable to stop their momentum. After only a few seconds the wyvern was completely encircled, and the shield knight formation also spread its forces as it blocked the wyverns path of retreat. The shield knights cast several earth spells to create small earth barriers that only allowed spears to pierce through. The spartan knights commenced their spear attacks as the wyvern slashed with its grotesque claws.

Each strike from the mighty beast destroyed the barriers and injured several soldiers. the spartan knights cast small auxiliary spells on themselves and shot out their spears all at once as they shouted, “HA!!!” created an intimidating force that would chill any normal soldier to the bone. The wyvern flapped its rotted wings trying to shield itself from dozens of spears but was only able to stop a few while the others penetrated its hard scales. The spears were coated in mana essence however the overall penetrating power wasn’t much since the weapons weren’t specially created to contained mana.

As the shield knights and the spartan knights entrapped the wyvern and the moon knights healed the growing injured population, the star knights aimed their bows and attacked the wyvern whenever it tried to jump and use its wings to propels its body higher. The arrows mostly bounced off the weakened creature but every now an again an arrow would dig into a weaker scale and penetrate the wyverns flesh.

Noticing that the small army was too troublesome to deal with, the wyvern began to flap its wings and began to fly away but just is it got its entire body of the ground magical chains made of flame brought it back down to earth. Sia would not allow the wyvern to escape and ruin the soldiers training and hunting session.

"HA!!" dozens of spears coordinated with one another to pierce the wyverns scales, arrows would constantly pester the wyverns and no matter how many soldiers the wyvern attacked, the fallen would eventually get back up and begin attacking again. Whenever the wyvern wanted to end the life of a group of soldiers a powerful shield would prevent it from finishing the job.

As its injuries grew worse, its desperation also grew. Its attacks became more wild, hurting several dozen soldiers with single strikes. The wyverns cough up black sludge and spit this repugnant ooze at the soldiers. The shields knights blocked the sludge with their shields and noticed as their magic was slowly being undone; if their shields were made from mind magic the shields would have been undone but fortunately, they were only half made from mind magic, the other half was from foundation magic

The wyvern screeched as it used its steel-like tail to whip several dozen goblins away. "moon core down!!!" Juliet shouted as she sent a telepathic message to the other core leaders. Moon core down was a phrase to know that the moon core was low on mana or even completely out.

“ash core ready!!!” William who was covered in sweat as he felt his bones ache from the constant injury sent message to the ash core. “ready!!!” the ash core was similar to artillery, although their power was strong, their attack speed was lower than everyone else, especially for the ash core members who were still learning the basics of attack magic.

"FIRE BRIGHT!!!" the two knights cast this spell on themselves for the second time, the blood shook as they felt mana enter their fingertips and condense tightly in their hands as if ready to explode at any moment. Fire bright was an auxiliary spell and was also mind magic and therefore, if cast incorrectly, could explode but the ash knights had taken several seconds to cast these spells and were completely sure of themselves. After a long minute of preparation, they were finally ready to cast spitfire.

"spite fire!!!" the two soldiers shouted as energy condensed at their fingertips glowing fire red and then expanding to the size of large marbles before exploding forwards at incredible velocity. These small marbles expanded on impact and slowly spread their fiery wrath upon the wyvern who screeched in agony. The spartan knights continued their attacks as the shield knights stamped out any wild flames encroaching on the army.

Seeing the wyvern was beginning to suffer heavy injuries, the shield knights moved into action and grabbed hold of the hemp ropes at their sides. At the end of these ropes were stones that were tightly tied down. The shield knights began throwing the stones on the doused areas of the wyvern's body. the wyvern raised its claw but soon enough several ropes entangled its arm and then its other arm, then its neck. The dozens of ropes were thick and even though the wyvern on any other occasion could of easily cut the ropes, it was distracted by the dancing flames on its back and before it could properly react, it felt dozen people pull its legs apart forcing it into a belly position. The wyvern pulled with all its might but the shield knights had planted their shields onto the ground forming miniature earth pillars and used these pillars as leverage to prevent the wyvern from escaping. Although it could break these small pillars, in the face of several dozen, it couldn't must up all its strength after all its injuries.

As the wyvern furrily struggled to escape, the spartan knights prepared to launch forward and began to attack to singular points from opposite sides. Spear after spear penetrated the beast's flesh until finally, its scales began to leak black blood.

William lifted his spear and thrust forward penetrating the wyverns head and finally ending its miserable life.

As soon as the battle ended the soldier fell on their buts and desperately gasped for air after the intense battle. They had fought for fifteen minutes and had only barely killed the wyvern if not for Sia’s and Scitus’s interference on a few occasions, their small force would have been wiped out.

While the soldiers were given time to rest, Sia purified the wyvern's corrupted state until all of its impurities vanished. The wyverns were large and meaty, they could feed a few hundred goblins and kobolds for several days.

“you know I’ve noticed some massive creatures that in my world would never be able to sustain themselves and yet here it seems they are almost never hungry.” Sia smiled and answered Scitus, " some massive creatures don't actually need a lot of food, some creatures and monsters can use mana as a food source, this is especially true for the fey. Fey can entirely exist with only ever consuming mana, similar to a vampire, monsters can do the same to a lesser degree and mortal creatures can only barely do it unless they practice some magic art that allows them to convert mana into internal energy."

After Scitus thought about it, he thought it made perfect sense, living things required energy to live, usually that involved eating other living things to obtain the energy inside them but with the existence of mana, some creatures especially large ones could supplement their ordinary meals with mana, thus allowing them to grow to massive sizes without wiping out entire species of smaller animals.

All living things created mana but not all living things could use mana as food, it was similar to how herbivores would be wasting their time eating meat, it simply wasn’t efficient to do so and may even burn more energy than it provided.

Scitus internally smiled and said aloud, “I guess that would be called Arcanasynthesis ”