The two titanic beasts roared at each other loudly enough that the trees and ground shook from the force, and Blas and his men couldn’t help but cover their ears in pain.

The younger Sunset Wyvern, despite being larger, looked very nervous in the face of the older leucistic Rock Crest Wyvern. He stomped his feet and dug at the ground with his massive claws, not taking his fiery eyes away from the white wyvern’s blue ones. There was a tense pause where no one wanted to make the first move, but the sunset’s youthful impatience showed through and he charged forward.

The Rock Crest leapt over the Sunset’s attack, using the Sunset’s back as a launch pad as it turned around midair. Extremely fine sand-like dust spewed out of the Rock Crest’s mouth in a cloudy cone, covering the Sunset’s back with it in an instant. The Rock Crest clicked its teeth together, creating a spark, which ignited the dust cloud in a massive blast. Blas could only liken it to a granary explosion.

With a woomph, the Sunset barely managed to tuck its wings away once it felt the abrasive breath upon them, already tearing a small hole in one. As painful as it was, the young Sunset showed not a hint of it, deadly focused even as its frame was rocked by an explosion. This left the Sunset dazed, but not out of the game, its tail swiping out. The Rock Crest didn’t get enough distance to escape the extensive reach of the younger wyvern, its hip slapped hard by the blow.

The duke and his team managed to avoid this blast, barely scrambling out of its range. Shit, that was close! This was not a fight they wanted to be caught in the middle of. There was naught they could do as of yet… but they could plan. “Everyone, follow me! We’re relocating the pillars!”

As the humans set about their work, the wyverns kept a laser focus on each other. The older wyvern winced at the damage to its hip, but only pulled a little further away. Once the dust from the blast cleared enough to see, both beasts began what could only be called a breath struggle; their individual breath attacks met in midair, the acid dissolving the powder and the powder shoving back the acid.

But the older beast was beginning to lose ground in its attack, the ferocity of desperation giving the acid breath an edge. The elder wyvern, not wanting to see how strong that acid was, began a trick; if it couldn’t win through sheer force, it wouldn’t try to. They allowed some of their breath to begin to cascade from the bottom of their mouth as they fought, swamping the ground below in the fine earth particles.

The young wyvern didn’t notice, emboldened by the seeming impending victory. It wasn’t until the earthen material was half-way up the height of their foot that they noticed. But by then it was too late, even as the acid was only a few feet away from the older wyvern.

The young wyvern panicked, realizing the implication and attempting to hop out of the newly formed pile and path of the same breath attack both, but knew it was too late. So he braced, angling himself forward.

The blast absolutely launched the young Sunset forward as the explosion met a painful downstroke of the wings, firing them like a cannonball. But it seemed like the older wyvern saw through this plan, as it had just continued its breath, focusing on the rapidly approaching youth. The blast was fierce and harsh, eating a fair amount of momentum and stripping what feathers remained wheresoever it touched. The tiny scales under the feathers offered paltry protection, ripped away to expose muscle.

More importantly, the Rock Crest fell onto its rear, shoving upwards with its tails and wings as it caught the Sunset in its claws. They dug in deep as the older wyvern let out a discomforted growl at the pain in its wounded haunch, but managed to launch itself upwards all the same. At the same time, the younger wyvern was positively buried in breath attack.

One click was all it took to end the fight as the Sunset realized it had nowhere it could go in time.

The Sunset wyvern was covered by the blast, the only sign they were there in the cloud being a roar of agony.

When the cloud settled, Blas could see that it was now totally bereft of those beautiful feathers, all stripped away with blast after blast. Much of the small scales underneath were gone as well, as though someone had skinned the beast. But it was still alive… and something told Blas that it still had plenty of fight left. Enough fight to get it killed, he feared.

Animals often weren’t attempting to kill in these sorts of disputes, but when one party refused to yield, fatalities were inevitable.

As it slowly struggled to its feet, the last pillar was put in place. “Now! The smaller one!” Blas ordered as he ran in range of the younger Sunset wyvern. The pillars lit up with energy, the intricate runic shapes beneath mostly lost to the brightness of the light. They began to hum as well as the knights beside them began to chant, growing louder and louder. As it grew in volume, the older wyvern was beginning to calm, just holding position in the air as an enchanted look filled its eyes. It seemed the Ambrosial Bliss spell had worked.

What it didn’t do, however, was anything at all for the younger wyvern. It was a single target spell; more than enough for what they originally planned on managing, but the arrival of the second… complicated things.

Time for a test, then. A spell he’d made, but hadn’t had the means to properly use yet. It was lethal for anything too small. But in this case…

“DOMINATION! CHAINS OF EARTH! REVEAL AND BIND!”

The spell hit like a charging rhino, just as he expected. Both on him and the target. Chains erupted from the earth, around ten feet in diameter. First one, then two, then five, then twelve. They wrapped around the young wyvern who was struggling to their feet, desperate to win the fight and seeing a chance. It was in such pain, though, that it didn’t anticipate the chains coming after it, and by the time it realized, it was too late. The wounded creature thrashed and struggled, but there was naught to be done; with the kind of damage it had already taken from the fight, it was too weak to actually break the chains.

Blas was hit with an intense wave of exhaustion, wobbling on his feet as the remaining knights who weren’t chanting came running. “Calm them…” he told the rangers, voice shaky. The chains themselves weren’t that hard, truth be told, but the massive flat anchors under the earth, as to provide the resistance needed, really took it out of him.

Everyone was staring in awe at the display of power, even as Blas fell face first onto the ground. Thankfully, it was a Manifestation type spell, so it didn’t matter if he took a little nap…

_________________________________________________________

Blas let out a happy sigh as he finished the tale. “That’s all I was awake for. The rest went well due to the help of those I’d brought with me. By the time I awoke, I was already in the base camp with two drugged wyverns carried in tow. One of them, the Rock Crest, was gifted to the royal family. It was the fourth in their repertoire… but the only one delivered to them post-hatching. I still have the medal they gave me in response,” he boasted proudly.

Morgan calmly and quietly waited for him to stop talking before letting out a slight squeal and clapping. “Ah! I love that story. You’re so cool, Uncle Blas!” She said, eyes glittering. “I plan on trying to capture a wyvern of my own some day, you know. You definitely inspired me to shed the…” a brief look at the duchess showed a clear last minute rewording, “tapestries of wealth in favor of the rough and tumble. I heard that story from my father, in much lesser terms, and I just knew that my path wasn’t to be found in a ballroom or wedding band.”

Likewise, Alister and Wisteria were enthralled the whole time, eyes wide. “Woah, it’s hard to imagine Salvator getting taken down so hard,” Alister said, in awe.

Wisteria nodded enthusiastically, grinning wide. “Yeah! I only saw them when they flew overhead that one time, but they were so big!!! Why didn’t you keep the stronger wyvern, though?” She asked, perplexed by that detail.

This just got a smile from the duke, ever happy to tell his adventurous stories. “It was those last moments. You should have seen it… it was more beaten up than I could adequately explain with words. His skin was worn off, and he had these big nasty gashes…” he began, but his gory explanation was met with a tap from the duchess, who had rolled her eyes many times during the telling.

“Anyway. He was pretty poor off, but he didn’t give up. Even if it meant the end. He had his home and he’d defend to the end, as far as he was concerned, and I wanted that kind of spirit defending my duchy. I could tell from the look in his eye, he never even considered surrender,” Blas said with a proud sigh.

This finally got a smile from the duchess. “Nor has he since. I can’t say I quite approve of everything to do with the wyvern, but I daresay it’s nearly as stubborn as you are. Perhaps you were recognizing a kindred spirit?” She asked with a chuckle. “Goodness knows you never gave an inch when you were courting me, despite my… ah, poor attitude at the start.” As Wisteria opened her mouth to speak, eyes alight with curiosity, Alliana tsk’d. “But that is a tale for another time, I think. I’m in no mood now, but I’d much rather be the one to tell it… my dear husband does better with… mm. Savagery,” she teased. “Such is unfitting for the tale of our courting.”