*tik tak tik tak tap tap tap tik tik tak*

“Muuuumm…” Kina groaned in a long drawn out half yawn. “It’s so boring… Dad’s been on that computer for the past 2 hours. Can’t we go do something else?”

“Just be patient baby,” Isana reassured her, hugging Kina tighter while seated on the sofa watching Kiefer hammer away at the keys to the main computer on board the mega carrier. Kina kept silent, knowing she wouldn’t be able to struggle out of her mother’s smothering embrace, sitting still on her mother’s lap.

“Why did you even have this old relic anyway mum?” Kina asked. “It doesn’t even have an autonomous AI construct to control it. Even Uncle Rashael’s office is more high tech than this piece of junk.”

“That’s a long story darling. You have to understand that this thing was at the peak of its era a millennia ago when we first started using it. It’s just technology’s been advancing so quickly that you think this ship is useless,” Isana explained, watching as Kiefer finish up the final touches.

“Okay, sorry for the long wait. Everything is set,” Kiefer called out as he finally let go of the keyboard and looked at something other than the screen. “All that’s left is to reconfigure the ship’s 12 engines, 48 generators and energy system of the remaining 80 Harrier jets and we should be set to go. I’ve already calibrated the mass spectrometers on the system to detect the specific wavelength and frequency of the soul flower’s mana particles.”

Walking over to where Isana and Kina were seated, Kiefer took out two pieces of paper with a rune pattern drawn on it. As he handed the papers to Kina and Isana, they both stared at the papers with a blank face. Isana was the first to understand what he needed, nodding before getting up after placing Kina on the sofa seat next to her. Kina seemed a bit confused, looking at her mother before finally understanding what Kiefer wanted.

She studied the rune drawn on the paper and understood that it was a simple repulsion rune. Being top of the class meant she knew most of the uses of most of the runes in existence. A quick inference told her that Kiefer had just given a very tedious chore – inscribe the runes on the pistons of the generators on the mega carrier. Luckily for her, just as she was about to sulk, the bright red bracelet on her left wrist came undone, floating back into Kiefer’s hands.

“It’s going back on once you’re – wait, where did she go…” Kiefer looked around the control cabin with the door gaping open. Kina was gone even before he could finish his sentence. Sighing, he smiled at Isana and proceeded to make alterations to the energy storage and delivery system to the harriers.

Kina was done within 10 minutes while Kiefer only finished with his portion 3 hours later. Nonetheless, the megacarrier and its remaining undamaged harriers were fully operational in no time. The sun was approaching the horizon as dusk approached. Against the soft orange glow of the setting sun was a horde of flying metallic monstrosities. Each and every single one roaring as if afraid the world would not know of their coming. Then, with a single command, the swarm of Harrier jets scattered with purpose in a seemingly random direction.

“Well, all we have to do now is to wait. Any positive feedback will be alerted on this tablet,” Kiefer announced, waving the touchscreen tablet in his hand.

“Ahaha Dad! That thing is so ancient! I’ve only ever seen pictures of them in our history class.” Kina laughed, looking at the tablet. Kiefer could only smile meekly. Now he finally knew how his foster parents must have felt being not as tech savvy as him. While he did not laugh at his parents for not keeping up with time, his daughter was doing that right this moment.

The trio spent the rest of the night sleeping comfortably on the deck under the bathe of the soft red moon light and the thousands of stars. Kiefer did not sleep long, strolling along the edge of the carrier as it floated stationary in the dark waters. He would chuckle at the occasional curious ships that strayed closer to inspect the metal behemoth. They never did stay too long; deciding to leave before they got too close to what could possibly be their immediate demise.

As morning came around, Kina was rudely awoken by the blaring of the alarm on the tablet even before the sun rose. Kiefer was the first to reach the tablet as Kina struggled to get out of bed while Isana was busy watching her daughter sleep. Looking at the alarming report on the tablet, Kiefer’s face changed from an uncaring frown to a devious smile.

“What’s wrong Kii?” Isana asked. “Did the harriers find a soul flower already?”

“Yea you could say that,” Kiefer replied, tapping some buttons on the screen before flipping the tablet to show Isana a video feed from the harrier. “Apparently, its spectrometer detected a soul flower and moved closer to confirm the coordinates. Then, these bird things brought it down. Guess where it is now?”

“That’s a…” Isana exclaimed in surprise, looking at the video feed.

“Yep. A floating continent.” Kiefer answered, nodding his head. Kina was now grinning too, looking at her mother expectantly, the first rays of sunlight reflecting off her restriction bracelet. “It’s not too far north of here - let’s go check it out. The carrier should be autonomous for now. I’ve activated the automated defence systems. The pressurised water jets should deter most intruders.”

[[On the floating continent of Yurza]]

“What do you think this is? It’s definitely not a bird or a wyvern.” (???)

“Could be a new breed of dragon? It’s so heavy that even the guards from the mighty falcon clan could not move it.” (???)

“No.. It can’t be a dragon. Most dragons have a high magical resistance. Our Sparrow Tribe’s scouts took it down with a few lightning and wind spells. Crippled the wings before it crashed.” (???)

*KABOOOM!!!*

“Shit! Is it still alive!?! Was that a flame spell?” (??)

“Go call one of the elders. Maybe he will know what it is and why it came to our homeland.”

As the rest of the bird creatures surrounded the smoking crashed Harrier jet, one of them flew off towards the middle of the large floating island. They had heads of various birds, winged arms, but were bipedal like humans. Their legs seemed human, but quickly became a bird’s scaly legs from shin down, ending in claws that dug into the ground. Human arms with long bird feathers spanning the entire length, possessing human hands and opposable thumbs grew from the sides, some of the birdmen holding long spears and halberds.

In one of the six cities that existed on the floating continent, a messenger bird the size of a child landed in a fluster of movement in the yards of an expansive mansion. The mansion was the largest of its kind, standing in the middle of the border city atop a hill, overlooking the rest of the city. An old looking Birdman with the head of an owl was silently rocking on a wooden chair, enjoying his morning tea when the little sparrow birdman disturbed his breakfast routine.

“What is it?” He asked in an annoyed tone.

“Elder Snow! Our scouts and the guards from the falcon tribe brought down an unknown creature that entered our skies. We have never seen anything of its kind and were hoping you would enlighten us with your wisdom.” The small sparrow birdman reported in a hurry.

“Oh?” the owl’s eyes widened in interest. “It’s been centuries since any foreigner found our continent, much less fly high enough to enter our skies. Come, let’s head there right away. I want to take a look for myself.” With a quick wave, the owl and the sparrow took to the skies, heading for the border of the city.

[[Not too far away, in the skies]]

“Dad….” Kina whined as she gripped the spikes on Kiefer’s back tightly. “Why won’t you take the bracelet off?? I could fly on my own if you let me use my powers…”

“No can do. Learn to cope with your problems instead of complaining.” Kiefer retorted sternly.

“Muuum… It’s hard to breath up here.” Kina turned to Isana, who was flying next to Kiefer, hoping her mother could help her.

“Don’t go to your mother every time you have any difficulty.” Kiefer scolded. “And the oxygen level up here is not so low that you can’t breathe. Stop exaggerating.” Isana looked at her two bickering family members and could only sigh in defeat. As much as she wanted to spoil her darling baby, she knew with Kiefer around; it would not be possible. Not even she could undo the bracelet and if she showed any signs of protest, it would just make Kiefer more reluctant to remove the bracelet.

After flying for a few hours, they finally came in sight to the floating land mass. It seemed so much bigger in real life as Kiefer and Isana rose higher. They were already flying above the cloud line to begin with, but it did not even reach the lowest point of the conical shaped bottom of the massive continent. Kiefer had been expecting this since the Harrier had been flying at an altitude much higher, but it surprised Isana and Kina who did not know that.

As they rose to the level of what looked to be the edge of the continent, Kina, who had been bored, was the first to notice the flock of birdmen heading their way. With her eyesight, she could easily identify what looked to be a small sparrow headed Birdman leading four larger falcon-headed birdmen who had weapons on their back. Then, not too far behind was a single birdman. He, or she, had a face full of blue feathers, a bright orange beak and colourful orange, red and green feathers on his arms. On his back was a single long wooden staff with a stunning jewel affixed to the tip.

“Dad! We have a welcoming party!” Kina exclaimed, pointing at the distant party of Birdman gliding through the air. Kiefer nodded and continued his course, quickly coming in contact with the party. As he hovered in mid-air, the birdmen similarly came to a stop a distance from the two dragons.

“Honourable Dragon, might we ask what your business is at Yurza?” The Sparrow spoke up first, addressing Isana, the larger, more intimidating dragon.

“Does it matter? It’s not like you can stop us from doing whatever we want.” Kina interrupted just as Isana was about to answer. Isana quickly shot Kina a stern stare, making her shut her mouth quickly.

“I apologise for my daughter’s rudeness; we are just looking for something on your floating island. I do hope you will not impede our search.” Isana replied, her voice so loud it ruffled the feathers on the birdmen’s heads.

“Unfortunately, it is forbidden for outsiders to step foot into our territory, much less a massive and impressive dragon such as yourself. We simply do not have the facilities to accommodate you. Therefore, if you will, you can tell us what you are here for, we will gladly put forth our utmost effort to find it for you.” The sparrow replied courteously. They were after all, in charge of most diplomatic affairs and civilian issues within all six cities, only answering to the Owl tribe who led the birdmen tribes with their wisdom.

“I see. Since I’m almost certain that you will not be able to get us what we want, then I apologise in advance for our rudeness and our intrusion.” Kiefer replied, signalling to Isana to ignore the birds.

“Wah! Such a pretty bird!” Kina exclaimed as Kiefer soared past the colourful mage bird who was hovering behind the party. She had not been able to see the bird up close earlier, but now that she had a closer look, she could not help but praise the bird.

The sparrow Birdman started to be flustered, knowing full well that he had absolutely no way to stop the dragons. The Falcon guards noticed it straight away and swung around in an instant, circling and forming an arc in front of Kiefer and Isana. Not a warrior of any sort, the sparrow realised his party’s actions a little too late and came chasing after the Falcons, chirping worriedly.

“I’m really sorry, but as my little friend has said, you are not permitted entry into our lands, even if you are a dragon,” the colourful parrot mage said. However, no sooner had he finished his sentence, the entire party of guards were thrown into chaos by a torrent of snow and ice, blinding them and making it difficult for them to fly. Through the chaos, no one knew what happened and struggled desperately not to plunge to their deaths.

[[Back on the outer perimeter or Yurza Continent]]

“Hmm.. this is indeed an odd thing,” Elder Snow commented as he inspected the harrier wreck. “As far as I can tell, it’s ‘wings’ are immovable and it is not a living thing. I still can’t believe something as heavy as this managed to even fly up here. I can’t even tell if it’s the humans and demi-humans who made this, or the demons and dragonewts.”

“Lord Snow,” the sparrow birdman interrupted, much to the owl’s annoyance. “What should we do? What if the makers come to claim it?”

“This is of no concern to us. This metallic abomination has done no harm. Get the rainbow mages from the Lorikeet Tribe to destroy it, or at the very least break it down into movable parts, then ask the falcon and eagle tribes to throw it off the edges. Make sure not one part of it remains on Yurza.” The Owl instructed, to which all the other birds present quickly nodded.

“I’m sorry, but that’s my property. I will be retrieving it now.” A clear voice resounded from the skies just as Snow had turned around to prepare to leave. The birds present all looked towards the source, only to find a luscious woman draped in an elegant blue dress descend from above, behind her were two younger children, a boy and a girl.

However, Snow, as well as every other birdman present, immediately knew that the dangerous entity was not the woman, but the elf child behind her. Attached to him were an entire patrol squad bound tightly in silvery rope onto which he held in his hands and carried them like little pets on leashes.

As the trio landed, the Falcon guards present immediately brandished their weapons, putting on a guarded stance against the intruders. As Elder Snow was about to issue the order to detain the intruders, he felt what he thought to be a flood of deep red blood flow forth from the young elf, washing away everything and burning through the ground they stood on.

The owl birdman immediately stumbled backwards, landing on his bum as his breathing became constricted, knowing full well that what he had just experienced was the bloodlust from the elf. He was not the only one who seemed to suffer from the hallucination induced by the sudden release of bloodlust. The Warriors had too been affected, the most veteran ones taking a few steps back while the newer younger one dropped their weapons on reflex.

“I will only say this once. Do not obstruct my way.” Kiefer demanded, taking a step forwards as he flung the birdmen bound by his mana threads onto the ground.

Well, there you have it, this week's regular release. Now I hate to do this, but it seems this is the only way to spread a word about my fictions. Please leave a rating and a review for my fiction, an advanced one if possible so it shows up on the homepage. I will release a bonus chapter at 20 reviews and another for every 5 reviews going forth. Of course, i can only promise you a total of 3 chapters per week (1 regular plus 2 bonus), but any extra chapters that i owe will be carried forward to next week.

I know it's a hassle but i really do enjoy reading your reviews and comments. At least I'm not requesting money. =P