Author's note: well had my car towed and in turn I have to work a few hours later than usual this week... Which in turn caused this chapter to be shorter.

Note 2: I don't know how many of you have already seen it but I had another idea for a story which you can find here: Za Lorgan. If there's enough interest I will bring out a chapter of that weekly along with the usual updates for this.

Hope you enjoy it.

_______________________________________

The two ravens' wings started to become shrouded by a dark grey light while they slowly circled around the griffon. The moment their wings were completely engulfed by this dark grey light the ravens speed doubled. The griffon roared in anger upon seeing this as it thought the ravens hadn't been taking him seriously until now. Instantly the oppressing aura which the griffon emitted became several times more ferocious. Still, this did not effect the ravens anymore and instead of slowing down they increased their speed even more.

The ravens cawed to one another and turned to attack the griffon. This time however they did not attack at the same time and at the same angle but on a asynchronous timing and at 2 completely different points. The griffon prepared to intercept the first raven with its claws, which turned a poisonous dark green. A mere second before impact the first raven suddenly diverted its course causing the griffon to miss the timing for an attack. The other raven sped up even more, causing the griffon to be unable to react in time to its attack. The griffon roared in pain as blood started to pour from the two claw marks upon its body.

Both ravens now took turns in attacking and feinting, giving the griffon a great amount of trouble. Whenever it was expecting an attack from one raven and tried to counter it, the raven stopped its attack and the other raven delivered a powerful blow to it. Even more both ravens were continuously attacking from angles that he couldn't defend at the same time. With each attack another large claw wound appeared on the griffon's body.

Yet after countless attacks the griffon didn't give any signs of an impending defeat. Instead it was the raven that took a hit earlier in the battle that was starting to slow down to a degree that the griffon could easily deal with it. The raven had been slowly bleeding out over the course of the fight and with its blood its strength has dissipated accordingly.

Zaran who had been watching the fight attentively shook his head upon seeing this. He had already figured out what was going on in the fight. The griffon had a highly regenerative ability and even if the raven's left a wound the blood would quickly stop pouring from it and close up to some degree. Even if the ravens kept fighting for another day, unless the griffon's regenerative speed disappeared, he saw no way for the ravens to beat the griffon. Even still he did not bother to join the fight as they had clearly said that it was their fight. Only if one of the ravens fell would he step in.

Suddenly the wounded raven fell to the ground from mid flight and crashed in front of Zaran's group. The griffon growled in pleasure as it could now deal with the other raven easily.

A weak croaking voice entered Zaran's head. "Please... help my husband... I beg of you!"

Zaran couldn't let the opportunity go and immediately took out his longbow and quickly shouted some commands to Cindarrah and Kirin. "We're fighting! Cindarrah your job is to keep its movement obstructed with 'Web shot' as much as possible! Kirin attack its eyes with dark flame to obstruct its vision! Both of you remember to stay out of the reach of its claws and not hit the raven!"

Zaran advanced until he was within a hundred meters of the griffon. It was only at this point that he realized how massive it actually was. It was eight meters tall and its wings spanned sixteen meters. The ravens were huge too as their body was four meters long with a wingspan of six meters.

He fired an arrow at the griffon to see how effective it was against it. The arrow left his bow with great speed but as soon as it entered the oppressive aura its speed slowed down tremendously and almost all of its penetrative power was lost instantly. Only a low 'thud' was heard as the arrow hit the griffon, only penetrating the upper layer of its skin. "

DAMN!" Zaran muttered furiously. On the side both Kirin's and Cindarrah's spells passed through the aura at their normal speed, seemingly unaffected by it. Zaran's face turned ugly to behold as he realized that he had forgotten to create a long range spell or a long range crowd control spell. Now that the situation required him to be using long range spells he didn't really have anything that could be up for the task.

The best he had was flash fire but even then he still needed to be in a relatively short range of his opponent. He wasn't willing to get within close combat range with the griffon as Zaran was sure it had a few more surprises up its sleeve. For now all he could do was rely on Kirin and Cindarrah to drag out all the griffon's surprises. Moreover he really wanted to check upon the female raven's condition.

---------------------

The battle entered a stalemate as Kirin and Cindarrah entered the fight as the griffon couldn't figure out a way to deal with his pesky new opponents. Zaran figured out now was the perfect moment to check on the female raven's condition.

As he examined the raven's injury he noticed that there was a fierce battle going on inside the wound. Pieces of flesh would slowly heal but at the same time other spots were devoured by the poison. For now the battle was at a stalemate but Zaran knew the raven's strength was slowly chipped away. Carefully thinking about what he could do to help the raven Zaran switched his longbow for his longsword and took of his shirt. He ripped his shirt in shreds and quickly lit a fire with a few fallen branches. He held his sword over the fire until its color started to change before turning to the raven again.

"This is going to hurt... A LOT, but if it works you will be able to live... otherwise the poison will kill you, so please endure."

The raven gave a weak nod to Zaran who knelt next to the wound and slowly used his sword to cut out the infected flesh. The raven already no longer had the strength to scream in pain nor struggle.

Because of the sword's heat it easily passed through the raven's flesh and seared the wound at the same time. After he was done he took out a field flask and poured it empty over the rags of his shirt. He then cleaned the wound and inspected it. The wound was absolutely clean with no poison present any longer. While there was now a quite significant hole in the raven at least her life was prolonged.

"It's done..."

Zaran let the raven rest and went of to slay the griffon.

--------------

The griffon roared in anger as it saw the two legged one treat the raven's wounds. It was beyond furious that his prey would now be able to escape if the current battle situation kept going on. It still had an ace up its sleeve but with the current battle it couldn't display it as it left itself wide open afterwards.

After treating the raven Zaran ran over while brandishing his longsword. While the griffon had 4000 hp at the start of the fight it had been slowly dwindled away even with his highly regenerative strength. Zaran had carefully examined how the healing works and noticed that whatever happened 75% of the damage done would automatically regenerate unless it was a hit with Kirin's dark flames.

Zaran ordered Kirin and Cindarrah to continue pestering the griffon as he struck a series of 'Flutter', 'Rise and Fall' and 'Velocity'. The griffon's health started to rapidly plummet with the new challenger. With another damage source the battle turned around instantly. While it was previously a fight of stamina now it had shifted enormously into Zaran's favor.

The teamwork between the four of them however wasn't as great. While Kirin and Cindarrah had a well defined job and stayed out of the raven's way, Zaran and the raven's miscoordination not only messed up their battle rhythm but the rhythm of Kirin and Cindarrah as well.

Slowly but surely the mistakes added up and allowed the griffon to use its special skill 'Feather storm!'. The feathers on its body that served as defense all left it's body and attacked all enemies within a large area. The feathers swirled about close to the griffon and ripped everything near it to shreds, before rapidly expanding its area of effect. Zaran ordered Kirin to run and ran over to the injured raven while picking up Zaran in the progress. Just barely before the skill would hit the three of them Zaran used 'Gravity' along with 'Earth Lance' to deflect all the feathers onto the 'Earth lance' just barely saving the wounded raven's life.

The other raven had through it's speed easily been able to avoid the griffon's skill. For a special skill the wind up simply had been too long and with swift opponents there was no way they would be harmed. However in a closed environment that skill would've been certain death for all enemies nearby. With a loud caw the raven attacked the griffon as its wings turned an ominous black colour.