“Nexus, switch Beginner Mind Palace title to Lord Slayer.” He spoke in Draconic for convenience, but switched back to Baranot for the humans with him. “Is everyone ready? This is the best chance we’ll get for years, so I want it to end here.” They all more or less understood his desire for revenge at this moment, and in truth were excited themselves for the opportunity.

Never before had they even considered fighting a gold tier. The concept was ludicrous, even with Raccelline, they only barely fought one off, their weapons failing to pierce thick hide or scales in most cases.

But now, with skills and weapons which somehow doubled or tripled their power and damage output… Nothing stopped them!

Everyone immediately knew what to do, and they quietly charged through the heavy storm around the two injured beasts. With such damage, and low mana, their senses weakened considerably. Even the wyvern’s heightened senses in the storm only noticed an oddity moments too late, as a white flash glinted across the wet, slushy ground.

It hit his wing, and instantly cut through a section of the hide as though it were paper. However, the slight mana this attack gave off immediately alerted both gold tiers, and the roc immediately flapped its mottled wings to escape the ground, hoping to use height to its advantage against the grounded enemy. However… Few could anticipate what came next.

The wyvern turned to look at the growingly apparent disturbance nearby, a group of five humans, and a wolf? No! Its face scrunched up with just a few moments of thought, especially as it came to a simple conclusion.

Without a doubt, that was the dragon!

It refused to believe any other circumstance, and immediately prepared the breath attack of red, blue, and yellow-tipped lightning to strike down the group. As the charge in its mouth built up, great arcs from above smashed into the wyvern’s back, and it was about to let loose a devastating spray to put an end to this opponent.

But then the biggest human threw a child on his back towards him. Why was a young girl with them? He didn’t really think about it though, at this moment he resented the dragon even more for attempting to use a child as a way to stop his attack!

It was too late anyway, he would kill! He’d gladly kill a child if it meant this dreadful opponent never returned.

But then, in mid-air, a large blade with no handle appeared in the hands of the girl. It was a magnificent sword, and was almost as tall as herself, but she held it securely. Sure, there were children of her age who learnt to fight… But what could a child possibly do to a gold tier wyvern?

She sliced down with the weapon, everything already aligned perfectly to strike the thick bone which connected his wing to his body. The bone which connected to a protrusion that wyverns used for balance, sitting… and attacking.

He didn’t think much of the distraction at first, but a pain in his left wing said otherwise. In a second he could only watch in shock as the blade sliced through the bone like butter, but it did not stop there as she clearly swung the sword further down to slice through his whole wing!

On instinct, his tail swatted forward. It reflexively sought to remove the danger, pushing it away as blood gushed from the wing which fell into the wet snow, dying the ground with a stream of red. Almost immediately, the ground around them had become a crimson battlefield, and he felt his tail connect with the small child, thinking it would knock her back.

Hopefully, just kill her outright.

A naive thought.

The adult wyvern tail, as thick as her head, slammed into her body. She fell backwards, landing on the wet snow, but from that entire move… Only stepped back once.

No bruising, no broken bones… No danger averted.

With only one wing he lost his only escape, and immediately fired the accumulation of lightning within his throat as a defence mechanism. The roc above looked down at the group, especially towards the young girl in fright, but before it made any moves, the wolf looked upwards and said, “Unless you’d like to be included. Just leave and pretend you saw nothing.”

The injured roc flew in place for a few seconds, watching what came next before coming to a decision.

A flourishing lightning erupted, instantly spreading out like a tidal wave attempting to crush its victims. A verifiably thick sea of arcs smothered and sizzled anything caught in its path, but before it could even reach Raccelline, someone already stepped forward. Korridan, with a greatshield as tall as himself, took his ground, and stood firmly against the onslaught of lightning.

The wave smashed into him, and his whole body spasmed from the powerful shocks, it hurt every inch, and muscles seared from the arcs running through him…

But this is what he chose. To become a wall which blocked the devastation, and it fulfilled what he sought most.

The wave of lightning parted as though split in two, spreading outwards where none were harmed. However, it was clear that the warrior took great damage in the attack, and the wyvern’s other wing already lifted up to stab downwards onto him, prepared to end the fight’s middling opponent.

It took all his body strength to remain standing in front of this seemingly endless wave, and now his whole body refused to move due to the remnant lightning. On his own, this might have been Korridan’s death.

But there was a team he’d fought through life and death with.

A pulse of golden light appeared around him, instantly removing some wounds, and healing body parts in the blink of an eye. However, the remaining lightning made movement near impossible. A Force Mine appeared in front of him and knocked even someone of his size backwards several feet. Meanwhile, the wyvern felt its remaining wing slightly inhibited, as though the air itself restricted it…

Then the dragon jumped closer, or at least what he suspected the wolf to be, but didn’t speak. Instead, from its throat, a spray of brown erupted, and coated his body wholly. It stuck worse than any glue the wyvern encountered, and he soon found that it could only be removed through mana.

Mana, being the thing he sorely lacked at the moment, and even wasted with an attack just blocked by that human! Immediately, it uncovered its one working eye, to recover sight, and could only look towards the roc in mid-air. With its help, killing the group of humans, except that girl, would be a breeze.

But the roc came to realise something simple. Seeing the wyvern covered in that overpoweringly strong vanilla-scented fluid, with a wing completely cut off and with no more mana than itself.

Why should it save it? And even worse, if it had to choose between the wyvern’s word and that dragon’s… Why would it ever pick the being who sought to betray its own subordinate?

The wyvern set up the whole trap.

Without another moment of thought, the roc took that advice and flew off, on the way killing off some of the steel tier crabs giving its subordinates ample issues. However, never killing the crabs which fought with the wyvern's. This way he quietly bolstered its own forces a bit more, and unintentionally helped the dragon as the wyvern would not get any help. It was the most the roc willingly did, but that alone was still more than enough.

However, the wyvern looked in despair as it saw his potentially only chance of survival leave. Immediately following, it grew mad, raging internally at the flying roc who left him to die.

Wait. Die?

No! At least, not to a group of damn steel tiers! Only that girl was truly dangerous, and she clearly knew next to nothing about fighting, so her danger could be mostly ignored now. It was also no secret that while he was a lord, the Nexus stated a decrease in his status at the battle’s start.

A mediocre reduction, in the end, his strength was still great by gold tier standards!

Unable to kill the whole group with Adept true spells, the wyvern reluctantly began casting low-cost Apprentice true spells to catch members off guard whilst his body went in for attacks. His attached wing tried to stab into figures several times, but in most cases a sudden force quickly helped them move away, or an annoying attack aimed to stab out his intact eye at the same time!

It made movement impossible. Not to mention, the dragon and that nasty human in the shadows constantly attacked its legs to the point where one no longer even felt pain!

He even looked to make sure they hadn’t somehow cut it off, but no, they simply completely cut off all his nerves connected to it. A brutal display as it drenched that foot in blood entirely.

With every moment, his mind weakened, the palace he previously remained so sure of remained descended yet didn’t actually cause any problem for the group. Although, everyone saw Raccelline waver for a moment in front of it, but then she shrugged it off as though it were just a bad smell right after.

His tail with a sharp spike at the end tried to stab towards them all several times, even slamming into the bodies of several. He felt the bodies of that tanky human and their rogue creak and snap under the force, but just as quickly did they escape and receive a bountiful healing from that priest in the back.

From some hope that he could crush them, the wyvern felt that confidence born from childhood begin to fade. However, it wasn’t fear that took its place, but a far more dangerous emotion.

He thought to himself, who the hell were these humans? And they actually had a priest in their group?

It just made no sense, they just appeared without any notice and decided to team up with the dragon? Why?

Why that ice-cream twerp! A youngling who was a ‘curiosity’ at best! What about it was so special that it deserved to win anything?!

He ignored his frighteningly low mana and charged up another lightning breath, his most mana-efficient gold tier attack available to him at the moment, and condensed the massive accumulation of red, green, blue, purple, and yellow lightning into a single multi-coloured ball. Even if he killed these humans, that girl could easily end his life right now, so…

If he was going down, then so could that fucking dragon!

It didn’t take a genius for everyone to see what was approaching, and both Korridan and Mala were already prepared to counter it. The former more or less reached his peak state once more following numerous recovery spells from Darak, meanwhile, their mage already understood how to counter the lightning somewhat, reducing the damage the leader ended up taking. However, none of them realised this wasn’t a wave, but instead a bolt of lightning.

Of course, the dragon saw the difference, but he hadn’t put two and two together. If that was the case, then why did his spirit scream of danger, something it so rarely ever did?

Without much waiting, he cast an Entrapment shield around the wyvern as fast as possible, throwing almost 40% of his MP into his scales as well to activate their innate ability, it was the single ability he so rarely used.

At first, a grey coating which amply reflected light appeared, but that coating seemed to deepen. In fact, the wafter scales no longer appeared like biscuits, but carefully forced and engraved metal scales which formed a thick armour all around him. However, the spirit still felt danger for some reason…

He pulled back his mental space to focus entirely on defending his mind, and whilst everyone else saw this, it was Korridan who took action first as he made a guess on what the dragon was doing.

Whilst the five usually shouted commands in battle, it simply didn’t fly when going up against an opponent that understood what they’d say. And whilst some signals allowed them to communicate, they never actually taught the dragon any of these. Mostly because adaptation still had to be done…

But intent isn’t too hard to guess. He took a place in front of the dragon, and readjusted his shield. He didn’t believe that there was the slightest chance either blocked this attack alone, and said, “Move me away when I can’t stand up.” A simple command, which the dragon knew how to follow.

He immediately began to cast a Force Mine at Korridan’s feet, and at the same time, the wyvern’s attack came for them…

Came for him.

The multi-coloured blast of lightning didn’t aim for him through Korridan, that’d have been too easy! The wyvern veered it off to the side, and then he was caught off guard for a moment as it curved around, he barely had time to react and instinctively curled up into a ball for defence, that lightning struck the side of the Entrapment Barrier square on.

Moments before though, his Mind palace released a wave of gold, and once more weakened the power of an attack from the wyvern. This was nothing new, and it was how they shrugged off most of the other spells so far.

The barrier shattered as well, completely unable to hold off the ball of lightning, but slowing it down significantly to the point where others also had the chance to react. And whilst the lightning itself dimmed slightly, that didn’t stop its power still equalling an Adept true spell.

But even after this reduction, everyone felt the power of that colourful blast from a distance, their hair standing on ends.

Except Raccelline that is, who rather casually had moved back in the battlefield and wasn’t really sure how to help. The snow restricted her movement to a small platform of earth created by Mala. However, one thing was uniform in the situation, they all frowned at the realisation of what came next…

Darak immediately used all his mana to invoke his strongest healing spell, however it would still take a few seconds to cast.

Mala did her best to modify the set of spell rings in front of her on the fly to change the target from Korridan to Icy, but time was simply not on her side, leaving her to grimace along with everyone else. However, of the group, the one who grew the most concerned was Raccelline. Who treated the dragon best despite knowing him the least.

She wasn’t mad… No, not mad. Just angry. Angry that her friend had been hurt. Or was going to be hurt, and she just didn’t know what to do.

And in turn, that also hurt.

Jarad, Korridan, and Rebecca all took advantage of the mana wasting expenditure to lay fatal blows on the wyvern which knocked them away previously. An arrow pierced its remaining eye, an arm-long dagger stabbed into its damaged neck, slipping between some scales to create a gaping wound.

And holding a sword which appeared tiny given his stature, Korridan thrusted with all his strength into the wyvern’s body. Roughly where its heart ought to be by Icy’s description. However, it didn’t wail or scream in pain, but simply laughed whilst staring at the dragon, even as its throat had been slit open and a blade just barely penetrated into its heart.

The ball of lightning finally smashed into the side of the youngling, immediately knocking him to the side. It wasn’t the shocks coursing through his body that left a problem, nor the searing blow as an entire chunk of his scales had been blown out, but his mind which felt the true blow.

That red lightning collided with the wall of his Mind palace, specifically his newer building, and instantly detonated without any further attempts. He felt the walls instantly collapse and blow to pieces as a remaining portion of the lightning passed through, forcing him down onto the ground, and losing almost all his senses entirely.

He was literally defenceless now. Even just a single move from the wyvern would’ve killed him… There had to be a way out.

At the same time, he was rather lucky. The damage to his mind wasn’t fatal, merely extreme. Meanwhile, the lightning only really damaged his scales as his ice cream innards naturally resisted lightning from the Stormbringer evolution. Whilst not a massive natural resistance, a steel tier bolt of lightning wouldn’t kill him.

It really did hurt though, and he came up with one possible solution when thinking about all his abilities.

Space around him quickly stretched, and it only took a few seconds for him to completely hide, vanishing in front of everyone’s eyes just like that. That alone was intriguing, but the wyvern’s Draconic took everyone aback as he said, “Impossible! You’ve had innate teleportation this whole time as well!” Without any real thought, it accepted the first reasonable idea as fact, and simply assumed the completely vanished dragon had teleported away.

Not only had it hidden physically, but all of its mana, elemental fluctuations, or even just aura completely vanished from that spot!

Immediately the wyvern looked around to find it, and slammed his tail into a nearby human who just stabbed it. Whilst dangerous, those were not technically fatal wounds. As its eyes brushed over the same spot, it was instantly reminded of a strange ability that he’d seen personally, a way for the dragon to perfectly hide even from his senses!

He couldn’t give the beast any more time, the tail stopped toying with Korridan and immediately reeled back to spear the spot where that dragon hid. Whilst he couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t a defensive ability, testing is always better than just assumptions… At the same time, the Dragon didn’t hesitate to activate several Jump seals on his body and flew backwards, tumbling on the ground but regaining partial body control by now.

As his head regained full mobility first, Icy said “Unmerge, reinforce the spell.”

He used the best spell he currently had access to, Plasma Arc. And when improved by aura, there was no mistake in its power compared to weaker Adept true spells…

Then given the power boost of his Stormbringer bloodline as well?

He finished the casting, and stood up to face his enemy. Disoriented, weak, almost out of mana, and completely unable to walk with legs slashed open, the wyvern failed to even consciously react as that searing hot attack slashed right through its neck, doubling down on the attack from that rogue to the point of cutting to bone.

With the blood loss it already experienced, this attack simply formed the final nail in the coffin. However, the dragon did not end it there as he said, “Merge.” Once more, and slowly moved back towards the wyvern whose own Mind palace barely managed to stay descended.

His claw grabbed the sword jammed into the wyvern’s chest, tightening its grip with his weak ice cream body. “Do it then. Do what you’ve been waiting for.”

“My lantern,” a simple reply in turn, but the wyvern merely weakly snorted.

“I handed it to the clan. Who is that girl?” No one else understood the conversation, but for some reason they still felt the contempt in the wyvern’s voice. However, it was Icy who understood why that was said. His overly cautious and paranoid opponent knew well enough that such a thing was a timebomb if the Sage truly cared about such an item…

So why not give it to the clan for some favorability, and wipe your hands of the matter?

A win-win for this wyvern.

The two looked over to Raccelline in the back, who still frowned from the damage he incurred by the wyvern’s final attack. Both huffed, but still, he replied, “Raccelline Manus.”

“Ah, the divine blood,” the wyvern spoke his final words as the dragon’s claws were engulfed with aura and began to push harder. He did not beg for his life, such a thing went against how every wyvern was brought up, but he did make a statement. One final one as the dragon cast Telekinesis. “Remember my name. Kalkuthan!” The Draconic reverberated across the storm clouds, as though they carried the name of the wyvern within. A final sentiment to the beast with an affinity to it.

Jammed down to the hilt, the sword stabbed deep into the wyvern’s heart, and stopped its beating nearly instantly. It did not scream in pain, nor roar, not wail, but its head fell, and body no longer moved.

This was it. He somehow achieved it. His foes laid dead around him, and he actually achieved such a major goal.

The wyvern was dead, and so was his time in the Evelard range.

Korridan picked him up, and whilst Jaren held Raccelline, the group rushed off, escaping the group of crabs and beasts who continued to fight with no choice. Even if no longer loyal, the crabs desired revenge at all costs! But the perpetrator of this all, ironically the one who wanted no role in this final battle…

Escaped to see another day. He lived on and would see where his next step outside the tiny mountain range lay.