To start the fight, Hera flung a few poison needles at the Sky Ruler. She wasn't expecting the spell to do much, but that was just her opening move. Most griffons tried to avoid the attack, but the giant creature just flapped its wings, blocking the projectiles. Doing that proved that the monster had high control over mana. There was no way that this control was something that came naturally, so the griffon must have spent a long time practicing spells. Hera had no idea how old the Sky Ruler actually was. Her first thought was that it was a title passed down from generation to generation, but now, in front of the beast, that felt wrong. Something in the creature's face gave her the feeling of looking at a being that had survived for a very long time. As unlikely as it sounded, the griffon might actually be the same one that made the dwarves lock themselves inside the mountain thousands of years ago.

Large cloud feathers appeared in the air and started flying with the smaller griffons. It was almost a dance between them and the flying beasts. Then, just as quickly as they were created, the feathers flew towards Hera and Blue. They did their best to dodge, but the spell was much faster than the ones they saw during the Wooly Plains hard mode. It was only when the shaped clouds got closer that she noticed how large they actually were. A single cloud feather was the size of a shopping cart, being bigger than the griffons. Unfortunately, even with all the buffs, their reflexes weren't sharp enough to completely avoid the attack. The orbiting stones blocked two of the feathers that went for Hera, destroying the spell and themselves with the impact.

Along with each clash came a massive burst of wind that made the explorer struggle to keep her footing. That slight delay was enough for a third cloud feather to hit her arm and send Hera flying backward. Luckily, the attack itself didn't hurt as much as she expected, but the gust pushed her far away and towards the edge of the plateau. More feathers followed, all coming from the same direction. The griffons inside the dungeon would try to hit her by sending their spells flying all over the place, forcing Hera to cover any blind spots she might have. But this was different. Each feather seemed deliberately to push her closer to the edge. The Sky Ruler wasn't simply trying to hit her, but trying to make her fall down the mountain.

There were several discussions about how smart the griffons actually were when coming up with the plans for the fight. Most said that they should've been brilliant and on the same level of intelligent life. Others that they should be mindless beasts guided only by their instincts. Because of that, they came up with plans for both scenarios.

"Blue, the Sky Ruler is smart! Don't think we are fighting an animal, and move to the other side! Don't stay with your back by the edge," Hera took a page from Lija's book and created a path surrounded by rock walls using her spells. The mage had come up with a formation that could weaken the wind before it hit the actual stone.

Blue glanced back. She was using a cloud barrier to protect herself against the feathers. Thanks to that, she wasn't pushed back. On the contrary, Blue was getting closer and closer to the Sky Ruler, already setting up her next attack. Despite having a legacy, it was still incomplete. Aside from the barrier and the blank cloud, every different spell that Blue created had to be made from scratch. It was even more complicated since she couldn't use a formula for that. For Blue, who was working hard to learn the code used to create different magic effects, this wasn't the most straightforward transition. Hera helped her somewhat, but without knowing how the legacy functioned, it was tough to give Blue any useful advice.

Still, she was able to come up with several spells that would aid the fight. Among them, a way to stop the griffons from moving around in the sky. Using the Solid Air spell that Totrak created as a base, Blue mixed it with a blank cloud and stretched the spell enough to make a misty area. She didn't know why, but this combo was much stronger than the others. Even with her version of the spell, which was much weaker than Tortak's, she could make it almost impossible for the griffons to flap their wings. The main difference was that the monsters could still move around on the ground with no issues, but Blue could essentially create a no-flight zone.

The griffons and even the cloud feathers fell to the ground, unable to move around in the air. That gave Hera enough breathing room to run towards the other side of the plateau. While running, she activated a Flaming Poison Rain covering the entire Sky Ruler. With the amount of mana she had now, the spell could take a huge scale. Unfortunately, because the spell was a mix of fire and poison, her Poison Mastery wouldn't affect the initial damage. The other griffons started jumping, trying to cover the Sky Ruler with their own bodies. Instead, the elder griffon opened its wings and covered the smaller ones so the fire wouldn't hit them.

Blue created another Solid Air mist, trying to push the Sky Ruler's wings down to make the smaller ones also be affected by Hera's spell. The monster stared at Blue and, with a flap of its wings, tried to push the mist away, but it didn't work. So it tried again, and the result was just the same. The spell seemed to be unresponsive towards the Sky Ruler's power over mana.

Hera took advantage of the distraction and started aiming her spells to pick off the smaller griffons. The Sky Ruler noticed that and grew angrier. It was doing its best not to move around a lot since its old bones were already hurting, and the more it moved around, the more they ached. Finally, it got up on its hind legs and stomped the ground while flapping its wings, creating a burst of wind that pushed all the snow away. Not just that, but Blue and Hera were tossed in the air.

Luckily, Hera's back was facing the mountain, and she slammed against the rock. The impact barely hurt, but it was enough to take the wind out of her lungs. She looked up and saw a few griffons running towards her. There were no more orbiting stones, which meant she could now use her chakram to deal with the smaller monsters more easily. Blue, on the other hand, was tossed much higher and farther away. Unlike Hera, she was closer to the Sky Ruler and took the brunt of the attack. Still, she managed to land on one of the smaller peaks, just above the entrance to the tunnel.

"What? Where?" Blue asked before even getting up. She looked around, and her eyes went to her left before she broke into a big smile, "Hera, stall them for a while. I found the thing!"

Hera slammed her handaxe against a griffon while tossing her chakram at another. A third one came from above, but she took a step back to avoid it and, with a kick, sent it towards the incoming group of monsters. Finally, having a small moment to breathe, she replied, "Do it fast. I don't know when the Sky Ruler is going to do something again."

Hera saw another set of five griffons trying to surround her. All of them already had some wind spell floating around their heads and were about to attack her. Hera swapped weapons and slammed her old handaxe in the ground, creating a stone barrier in the form of a semi-circle using its skill. The spells crashed against the rock, seemingly with no effect, but the griffons started to sneeze in a few seconds. There were tiny yellow particles spread all around the area. They were concentrated on the barrier, but after the wind hit the stone wall, the remaining impact carried the pollen all over the place.

The greatest weakness of Hera's pollen field was the amount of mana she had to use to make it cover a large area, but the wind easily carried the particles. Since she was already behind some protection, Hera quickly followed it up with a Solar Flare. The spell would give some very light sunburns to the monsters, but that was just a way to trigger her [Ailment Mastery]. For the first time, she thanked the spell for having a small delay before activating, "Blue, look away!"

Despite not being something like the blinding flash spell, the light it created was enough to cause problems. It was close to looking straight at a camera's flash when taking a picture and in the middle of a fight that wasn't ideal. As soon as the spell went off, a notification appeared showing that the skill had triggered and 12 Juvenile Sky Rulers got affected by both spells. It was more than Hera had seen, meaning that either some hid, or the pollen went farther away than she expected.

As the notification showed up, Hera ran out of her cover and started swinging at the griffons. They were sneezing like crazy while having trouble moving around because of the sunburn, allowing Hera to deal with them with ease. While she attacked, Blue's voice came through her communicator. They still wore them, but since most of their plans had to involve the dwarves, it was rare for them to actually be used.

"Try to distract the Sky Ruler. I need to get closer to the barrier to break it."

The voice startled Hera, but not enough to break her flow. She decapitated another griffon before asking, "For how long? And what do you actually need?"

"I'm not sure about the time, but I'm using the whistle. If things go south, we might need to flee."

"Are you sure?" Hera tossed her chakram towards another griffon, who was a bit farther away.

"It's the best plan I have."

"Ok," Hera started moving away from Blue. For that to work not only did she have to get the Sky Ruler's attention, but she had to, somehow, make enough noise so the whistle wouldn't be noticed.

The path she walked became littered with corpses. The juvenile sky rulers were, at most, level 8. With the buffs, Hera's attributes would be easily two times higher than her prey. Adding that to the level of her skills and the passive [Hunt] buff, the monsters were little more than fodder. The Sky Ruler was watching her every move. It didn't move too much, but its head was following Hera around, which made her anxious. Everything the monster did was flashy and powerful. If that moment of delay was actually a way to charge up a skill, she would be toast the moment whatever it was preparing went off.

The flaming poison rain was still there, but the ancient creature didn't seem to mind. Without anyone noticing, the Sky Ruler had shifted the precipitation to miss its body. Only a few projectiles ended up hitting the target. Still, she could feel small strands of poison mana already inside the creature. However, she knew that a creature's size would affect how much poison was necessary to harm it. Something like the Sky Ruler should be able to withstand gallons of poison before anything happened. Hera considered using her poison control spell to increase the damage, but it was better to wait. The spell would only work a single time in each monster. Actually, she wasn't entirely sure about that, but no creature ever survived long enough to allow for a second cast.

As she got behind the Sky Ruler, the monster shifted to stare at her. Its eyes burned with rage, watching the one who was killing its children. Blue was on a small peak on the other side of the giant griffon, waiting for her chance to use the whistle. Seeing her friend, Hera used the stone shape spell to create two very tall pillars at an angle. She made the rocks thin enough to break down as they reached the maximum height and aimed them at the Sky Ruler, hoping to hit its wings. Instead, the creature blocked the spell, and the rocks crumbled under it.

That created enough noise for Blue to call Sunny and mount it. She glided to the side and made another solid air cloud, placing it under her wind griffon. That slowed her fall considerably, since it became harder for Sunny to go through that cloud, and she moved away from the plateau. There was a small whirling in the barrier that surrounded the nest. Now that she was this close, she could feel that this was more like a fishbowl and not a perfect sphere. There was an opening above it to show the sky, but the sides were completely protected. So she created another cloud and made it spin in the opposite direction that the whirling was moving, following Stormcloud's instructions. The more mana she placed in the spell, the faster she would destroy the barrier. About half of her remaining mana was used to create the cloud, but the whirlwind lost speed very slowly. Blue looked back and saw Hera having to jump around and dodge several spells. There was also a large current that seemed to push her away.

Yet Blue didn't stop. She had to break the barrier.

A minute went by, then two. Then, almost five minutes after she created the spinning cloud, the whirlwind finally stopped, and the entire spinning cloud dispersed. When that happened, Blue received a notification that she had gained another legacy piece.

Blue told Sunny to move away from the edge and back to the tunnel. In just a few moments, she arrived at the place where the dwarves were waiting.

"Is it done?" Naka asked as soon as she saw Blue.

"No, but you can join us. C'mon, Hera needs help," Blue called the dwarves and rushed back towards the Sky Ruler.

She was halfway through the plateau when she looked back and saw Naka, Lija, and Telanz standing outside the tunnel. However, instead of going towards the Sky Ruler, all three dwarves turned around and fled towards the entrance.