Elevation of Mana Chapter 206 Fire and Ice

As I watched the ground getting closer and closer it was Chien who pulled me from my attempts to slow our descent.

“Boss, we should bail.”

I wanted to smack myself, I was stupid, stuck in the thoughts of someone who couldn't fly.

“Grab the bedding and we go!” I shouted as soon as I processed it properly. We'd seriously need those blankets.

The two of us leapt from the stuttering airship, icy wind screaming in our ears as we fell towards the earth like a stone. As we did I felt relieved too, as our pursuer tossed an attack at it. We could perhaps have dodged before it struck, but now we would be well away.

Chien and I held onto one another as I threw up a shield and tried to arrest our fall, we'd seen just how strong those fireballs were well enough by now. It passed hundreds of feet away, but I still wanted nothing to do with it.

Deep within I felt a pain as the attack finally connected, , after all our time of dodging the monster's attempt to destroy our airship had finally worked, the flames rolling over the whole structure, reducing the cloth to ash and cinder and ripping apart the cabin like cotton candy in water. It ended with an explosion, further buffeting us as we continued to fall.

Chien at this point took over the slowing as I tried to get a fix on what was happening. We decided without even speaking, no words needed as we'd been around each other so long we just knew. What I saw brought a smile to my face.

The white-skinned dino may have wrecked one of my favorite creations, but he wasn't enjoying himself at all. The birds were still harrying him, but more effective were the amalgam-monsters. Around them was a cloud of shards, and though it was strong, quantity had a quality all its own, and the white flesh of the beast was streaked with red, and only getting worse.

As it roared in victory over the flying pest it looked at us though, and I saw recognition of what we were.

“Fuck.” My words were ripped away by the wind, but Chien felt me stiffen and looked, having brought us down to just feet above the snow and ice.

Having found a new target, and quite frustrated with its avian irritants the creature roared again, releasing a wide wave of fire. That was new, and quite unwelcome, as the flock seemed to fall, almost all of the birds and amalgams dropping to the melting ice. Then the creature turned and ran from the crevice.

“It's running?” Chien asked, we had made it to the other side, so got a good view of the retreating beast.

“Why did you have to say it?” I asked as the beast turned around, bolting back towards us. This thing really might be as smart as a person.

The leap from the monster sent the whole section it had been battling the birds on tumbling into the darkness of the fissure, the remaining ice birds screeching and cawing as they fell. My heart lurched as the creature sailed through the air, legs extended and teeth bared.

Then it fell, missing the cliff by feet and slamming into the side as it disappeared below the edge.

“Is it gone?” Chien asked.

There was a roar as the beast's head flashed briefly over the edge, and a scraping of claws on ice.

“COULD YOU STOP SAYING THOSE THINGS!” I roared as I gathered mana for an attack.

As soon as I got a clear shot I loosed a bolt at the monster's face, hitting the eye squarely and sending a fountain of blood and humors out. It screamed again as it climbed trying to make it up. Chien and I were hitting it as hard as we could though, pummeling away at the weakened beast, doing everything we could to try and hurt the monster that seemed bound and determined to kill everything it could, though absolutely starting with us.

The creature was weakened, heavy injuries, days and days of running without rest. It was strong, stronger than us, but if there was a chance it was now. This thing could take on Ancients at its prime, but it was nowhere near that at this point. The cold and the monsters had done their job, injuries it had suffered helping weaken the potent monster to this moment, when it was tired, spent, and still striving to go, but flagging fast, if we could just keep up the pressure a bit longer I knew there was at least one last chance.

However our enemy had ideas too, and enough strength left for what it was doing. Even under our assault it clamored up, closing its remaining eye as it pulled its beaten body up the edge of the crevice, its one good arm grabbing at all it could to pull it forward.

We'd used so much of our mana too, that as it rose and stood on the cliff's edge I paled. Perhaps we could flee now, run, but I heard something that brought me hope. The sound of many wings, and cries of anguish and anger, mixed in was the crackling of ice and incessant, interminable caws.

“CAWWWCAWCAHCAHCAWCAW!!”

Half the flock had to have been integrated into this creature that rose behind our shared opponent. It was something from a nightmare, a mass of shimmering ice wings, all beating, with oddly-shaped, deformed arms formed of birds, four of them, stretching out at strange angles and differing lengths. Sunlight formed rainbows as it arced off the almost Lovecraftian nightmare beast formed of the half melted body of the ice birds.

For the dino's part, it looked almost scared, something new and unexpected, at the thing it had wrought. Taking a hesitant step away from the edge as the new monstrosity made it into the air above the rift its constituent parts had dwelt in, still screaming bloody murder in hundreds of voices.

“Shouldn't have used fire bud,” I laughed to myself.

The bird monster had no compunctions at all though and without a moment of hesitation swung with one of the many arms, the first blow taking the dino off its feet and tossing it easily fifty feet through the air.

“Should we?” Chien asked as the two began to go at each other, fireballs and blood mixing with angry beatings and a rain of ice.

“Absolutely not,” I replied. “We should get well back from this, or do you think you could survive getting between that?” As I spoke a fireball broke against a limb that just continued and raked down the side of the dino, ripping away chunks of flesh.

I'd set them up to fight, knowing that the enemy's propensity for fire magic would mix like oil and water with these birds, and was happy to let them figure out who was better. Personally I was betting on the bird amalgam, since it didn't seem to be suffering much while its opponent was half-blind, one armed, and bleeding profusely.

“Also,” I added. “I don't want the winner to think about us at all.”