“I think we’re getting closer now.” Browsing the rudimentary map of Vultures Byte via his Digital Feather, Gnihzur identified that he and Kwaserah were closing in on the borders of the Final Stage. “Just a little bit further and…”

“Gnihzur watch out!” Kwaserah dashed ahead quickly to assist Gnihzur in evading a deadly Krowqui Blast that suddenly came out of nowhere and attacked him. He was almost barbecued.

“What the heck was that thing?”

Looking in the direction from where the deadly blast came from, Gnihzur saw a robust swine abound with popping muscular advantage. It towered over 18-metres in height, even its dirty tusks protruded very far. Whenever it took a step forward, the muddy ground would occasionally shake with a rumbling sensation. The tattered clothing which partially covered its robust physique boosted its malignant complex, not to mention its perniciously beady eyes. Resting atop the huge creature's hide was a sleeping vulture. He didn’t bother waking up to assist his indignant mount with the invasive fledglings for he was deep in slumber.

“Huh, I know what that is.” It didn’t take Kwaserah long to recognise the malefic obstacle that stood ahead of them. “It’s an overgrown Pigatroll!”

“A piggy what?” While Gnihzur was distracted trying to assimilate the creature’s name, Kwaserah saw certain threatening movements ahead and warned him.

“It’s going to attack again. Let’s us go!”

“Kwaserah wait!” As they flew above to avoid a possible onslaught, Gnihzur spotted the vulture lying atop the Pigatroll’s hide. “Look there. That is our target.”

“Hm? What is that vulture doing up there, is it sleeping?”

“He’s probably faking it to lure us in.” Surmised Gnihzur.

“Well, either way, we have to go get those ribbons.” Kwaserah started advancing toward the mighty looking Pigatroll.

Gnihzur tried to stop her, “Kwaserah wait!”

She ignored his warning and continued flying downward. As she got within range of the humungous Pigatroll, she began unleashing her dancing series of entangled feathers.

“Humming Feather Whip!” Kwaserah aimed her unleashed technique at the sleeping vulture instead of the Pigatroll directly, however, an invisible protective barrier which surrounded the gigantic Pigatroll activated all of a sudden and instantaneously blew her backwards.

“Kwaserah!” Gnihzur came along and caught her before she could hit her head in a wide tree trunk. Observing her body for injuries, he inquired, “Are you ok? I was trying to warn you earlier that there is a protective framework surrounding the creature. The vulture must have erected it before he dozed off to sleep.”

Unshackling herself from Gnihzur’s caring embrace, Kwaserah spoke resolutely, “Then we just have to destroy the barrier and the Pigatroll won’t stand a chance against me.”

Hearing her arrogant response, Gnihzur voiced his opinion. “I don’t think that it will be that easy. That Pigatroll looks very intimidating.”

“Don’t you know that looks can be deceiving?”

“I am aware of that.”

“Regardless of how ugly that monster looks, I’m sure I can take it down.”

“Don’t be so hasty, Kwaserah.”

Trying to heed Gnihzur’s advice, she asked him, “Do you have any bright ideas?”

Gnihzur pondered for a moment. “For now I think we should attack at random to weaken the superimposed barrier. Maybe we’ll find a weak spot while we’re at it.”

“Ok, I’ll take the rear, you attack its flanks.” Saying this, Kwaserah impatiently flew towards the Pigatroll’s oversize posterior and began her random assault which included her restrictive humming feathers.

“Be careful. This beast is strong.” Gnihzur also commenced his random assault against the mighty Pigatroll while dodging its counterattacks occasionally.

No matter what they were doing, the Pigatroll wasn’t being majorly affected by them. Aside from being more annoyed by the crows’ continuous shifting and evasiveness via air transport, it was maintaining a solid balance of tactics and observation. If it had wings and could fly then it would have swiftly taken care of their slippery feathers by now.

Close by below, hidden behind some rustling bushes were 4 pairs of eyes watching Kwaserah and Gnihzur observingly. The middle pair of eyes that seemed the cruellest emanated this concealed laughter, “Cru-ha-ha-ha! This show should be interesting to watch, right boys and girl?”

“Indeed.”

“Yes.”

“Certainly.”

The other 3 pairs of eyes that illuminated bits of the darkness answered simultaneously.

Landing a couple of paces away from the malefic Pigatroll’s front centre, Gnihzur spread his white wings very wide and subsequently began flapping them extremely fast. The gust both of his wings were producing vastly disturbed the surrounding leaves that were once peacefully lying on the ground amongst their flat companions; now due to Gnihzur’s wings’ velocity they were fluttering continuously in the air.

“Newpalf, Gale Thunder!” Dashing ahead, Gnihzur started releasing multiple compressed air blasts at his target while flying around it.

The barrier surrounding the Pigatroll was madly being bombarded.

“Triple Humming Feather Sonic Bazooka!” Kwaserah’s shimmering feathers formed an open barrel that produced high pitch vibratory rates enough to create a sonic explosion. Her explosive attacks were mostly aimed at her target’s back end.

“Oink!” The massive Pigatroll started swerving around violently to avoid the fierce attacks being aimed at its protective layers. The vulture sleeping on its hide got moved around a bit, yet the repetitious jerking wasn’t enough to awaken it from its deep slumber.

“Oink!” The Pigatroll’s fierce swerving eventually transitioned into a cyclonic disk that ravished the surrounding forestry like a wild hurricane. Many varieties of trees were uprooted or either sliced to bits!

Due to his speed, Gnihzur managed to evade safely. However, Kwaserah wasn’t so lucky. She got blown through a few trees, moreover, ended up crashing into a large rock below that caused her a lot of damage; even made her semi-unconscious.

“Oink! Oink!” The Pigatroll could see that she was down but she was still breathing soundly. To remedy Kwaserah’s death the Pigatroll barfed up highly concentrated flame Krowqui which transformed into a continuous shooting beam of fire aimed at her wounded complex.

Countless forest vegetation was exploding to cinders as they came into direct contact with the horizontally swerving beam of fire. It even forced the lurking pairs of eyes to retreat to safety.

“Kwaserah look out!” Gnihzur shouted from above upon realizing that she was in danger.

“Uhm…” Kwaserah heard Gnihzur’s worried voice which spurred her awake. As she came too she quickly noticed a fierce infernal blaze heading directly at her.

“Huh? Feathery Shield!” Kwaserah’s shield got blasted into oblivion very quickly. Her eyes were open in shock for she knew it was too late for her to evade the Pigatroll’s destructive blast unscathed. When the infernal bundle of flames crashed into her petite proximity she began screaming in terror.

“KYAAAAAH!”

“Oink! Oink!” The Pigatroll was glad when it heard Kwaserah’s resounding screams making sweet music to its flappy ears. It began jumping up and down in elation which caused the sleeping vulture to be tossed back and forth, yet it was still enjoying its slumber.

“AAAAAh!” Kwaserah continued to holler out in terror for almost another 30 seconds until she realized that she wasn’t getting burnt and stopped. Opening her eyes to assess the situation, she identified the source of her current safety.

“Huh, Gnihzur…?”

“It is me.” Gnihzur was standing 6 feet ahead of Kwaserah with his fast flapping wings keeping the fierce firestorm at bay. She was still concerned about the flame but Gnihzur told her not to sweat it.

“Newpalf, Gale Twister!” Gnihzur began using the swift velocity of his wings to morph the blazing firestorm into a compressed fireball. “Have it back!” He tossed it at his enemy.

“Oink?” The Pigatroll was surprised when it perceived the massive fireball shooting back at him. On collision, the fireball pushed back the Pigatroll a few metres even though it had the protective barrier erected.

“Kwaserah, come here. Lend me your hand for a bit.” Gnihzur pulled Kwaserah into his close embrace. Facing the mighty Pigatroll, he took her hand, placing it onto the outer ring of his Digital Feather.

“Gnihzur, what are you doing at a time like this?” Kwaserah was bewildered. For a moment, she thought that Gnihzur wanted to take advantage of her sensuous body. However, he only needed to borrow a bit of her Krowqui in order to activate the Quantum Array Strain functionality of his Digital Feather due to his excessive lack in that department.

“It is working now.” Using the Quantum Array Strain functionality of his Digital Feather, Gnihzur could now scan the Pigatroll’s body for known weaknesses.

“Found it!” The most vulnerable weak spot was underneath its bouncy belly.

Feeling curious, Kwaserah inquired, “Gnihzur, what did you find?”

“I found the Pigatroll weak point. I know where it is. All we need to do is get rid of that barrier then we can defeat it easily. Do you know of any Krowqui technique that can put a dent in it?”

“I just might. But I need you to distract it for a bit.”

“A distraction, eh? Leave it to me.” Agreeing to be the bait, Gnihzur tapped Kwaserah’s shoulder, giving her added motivation before he flew away.

“Hey, fat Pigatroll! Over here!” He was distracting the Pigatroll, giving Kwaserah enough time to activate her mysterious technique.

At another locale of Vultures Byte, a group of 6 females were soaring slowly at low altitudes throughout the forest. Their group was led by Nagoo Andrahaz due to the particular visual prowess that enabled her to easily read the vibratory rates of everything within her Eternal Eye spectrum of 3 square kilometres.

Nagoo had an overly elegant yet conservative persona. She was the kind of female that others could confide in without being worried about leak secrets. The alluring feathers she wore were of light emerald variety. They did well to complement her beautiful eyes that had blue frequency lines running through each of them. The number of frequency lines determined the strength of her Aechos Vision.

Just behind Nagoo was another leading figure dressed in silver silk. Her name was, Lyra Jahad, the girl who Mou was infatuated with. The other members of the feminine group were, Okami Cathelow, Adusa Doku, Riuk Rekish and Baiera Metallurge.

Okami was on the petite side of the crew. She had a predatory countenance similar to a wild beast, yet was able to maintain the beautiful balance that gave her peers confidence to have her on their team.

Adusa possessed a rash and outspoken personality. Encasing her voluptuous body was a purple robe of thinly weaved strands. These were special threads woven to support her particular virulent abilities.

Riuk was a nice girl who wanted to outshine her peers in whatever challenges there were but she didn’t like unfair matchups where she felt she couldn’t shine. She was the tallest among them who had rooted legs similar to a tree. Unlike the others, she was at the middle point of the masculine and feminine physique. However, her smooth voice was fully feminine.

The fattest among them was Baiera. Her portly physique was neatly graced with a bunch of stylishly aligned metallic feathers which made her seem larger than she actually was. She was the latest Ai crafted by the Metallurge Family to experience life as a full-fledged crow while collecting data for future adaptations. Though her base constitution was robotic, she had a warm and genuinely caring Core Relay that often expresses unconditional love more so than most biological crows.

As they continued to soar through the forest, Baiera became tired of searching. Resting her feathers briefly, she conversed with the others, “Hey, ladies, how long have we been searching for a lone vulture and still haven’t come across any? The other teams are probably way ahead of us by now in terms of ribbons.”

“At this rate, we might fail this stupid test.” Admitted Adusa in an abrasive manner.

“Why did they have to make us compete against each other to get accepted into some guild?” Riuk couldn’t fathom what the Guild Masters were thinking about.

“Girls be quiet.” Nagoo shushed them all of a sudden.

“What is it, Nagoo, did you find something of interest with your Aechos?” Inquired Lyra.

“A vulture dead ahead.” Responded Nagoo softly.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Baiera dashed ahead but was shortly stopped by Nagoo.

“Wait, Baiera! This one seems very dangerous than the others. Approach with caution.”

Zooming through myriads of fluttering obstacles that populated Vultures Byte with her Aechos Vision, Nagoo landed her Eternal Sight on a feminine vulture who sat cross-legged on her wings while hovering over a pile of fallen leaves.

Lyra asked, “What is she doing, Nagoo. Do you know?”

Nagoo replied, “I think she’s meditating.”

“At a time like this?” Lyra was startled. “She knows that we would be coming to steal her ribbons yet she’s just casually meditating?”

Adusa blurted out, “Tsk, I hate it when I’m being drastically underestimated.”

“What are you going to do, Adusa?”

“I’m going to wake that cocky bitch up, what else?”

“Wait, I have a better idea.” Nagoo’s suggestion prevented Adusa from doing something rash that could easily be resolved with stealth.

When the other ladies asked Nagoo what she had in mind, she told them to trust her instincts and also to spread out. The ladies surrounded the forest clearing where the vulture was currently meditating. They hid their presence behind fallen leaves.

“Nagoo what is your plan now that you have us separated?” Lyra voiced her concerns via their Digital Feather’s connection.

Nagoo communicated her reply to the other ladies who were also tuned in on her Digital Feather’s frequency. “I’m going to steal the vulture’s ribbons without her noticing.”

“And how do you plan to accomplish that?” Asked Okami. She had a curious glint about her beastly eyes.

Nagoo told them, “Reading visual frequencies from afar isn’t the only thing that my Aechos is capable of doing. I also have the ability to mask my presence entirely by briefly entering the Subtle Shadow Realm.”

“Really? That’s so cool!” Shouted Riuk excitedly.

“Shh, not so loud,” Nagoo warned her.

“Sorry… I’ll be quieter.”