Elevation of Mana Chapter 205 Angry Birds

“This bastard is persistent boss,” Chien complained, not for the first time.

“Indeed he is, are we ready?” I asked.

“Ready as we can be. Think they'll bite?”

“If they don't I don't know what we do. I was hoping the cold or injuries would at least slow it down, but we can't really head to Icehome if it's following us. I won't do them wrong like that.”

“Pretty sure they'd do you wrong like that if they needed to, but I see your point.”

Our unwanted hanger on trudged along the sheets of ice behind us, and while I might not like him, I did have to admire his stick-to-it attitude. The creature seemed to not even need to sleep or eat, just going and going. At some point it would have to give out, worn down by the effort, but who knew how long that would take. At least the occurrence of fireballs had decreased.

Once my companion had been able to take the wheel I'd slept, not quite as long as he had, but long enough that I almost felt bad about leaving him, almost. We were both tired, having not had a good chance to really rest properly for days, the chase wearing on, the stress from the battle, and the fact that we didn't have too terribly much food left. Water at least wasn't a problem, as in a pinch either of us could summon it from the air.

The sun rose, and though it was far I could see what we were looking for. The crevice in the ice was massive, having taken us quite some time to pass the last time either of us had been up this way. I doubted the dino could jump it, or make a bridge, so without anything further it would serve to stop him. There were of course other complications, potentially for all of us.

We saw the first one right as we neared the crevice. A bird, one that looked as if it had been carved from ice itself soared near our craft, seemingly very confused at what in the world we were. It didn't attack, though that could change, just observed, coming closer and closer.

By the time we'd reached the middle of the large crack in the glacial shelf a dozen or more had joined the first, seeing that we weren't doing anything about them they got closer and closer. One eventually landed on a windowsill, and seeing that there was something clear and hard before it began to peck.

These things ate ice, that much I knew, and went after anything they thought might be ice, like my windows. That was no good for me, as I really wanted those, but I knew better than to attack or push it away. It might see that as an assault, leading to the whole flock deciding to do something about us.

I'd been thinking of potential solutions for awhile now, and tried one. I reached out with my magic gently and began to form a small, icicle near where the bird was, pristine, shining in the light better than my windows did.

Happily the little ice bird turned, looking at the new addition, and accepting the gift for what it was, munching away at the bit of frozen water happily. Then it started trying to break into my cabin again. This led to me making more and more of the chunks, attracting increasing amounts of the birds, and repeating.

“Boss, there's a lot of them, how long can you keep that up?” Chien asked worriedly.

“Long enough,” I told him with a smile.

Small alterations to where the ice was didn't seem to bother the birds, like making it a little off the edge of the ship. They cawwed and snapped the little bits from the air, swallowing them down. That was good, what was better was when I started making trails, leading down and away, a trail of raining ice shards our old friends seemed ecstatic to go after. They fell right to the far edge of the crevice, right into the path of our enemy.

The first few cold curious corvids made their way near the white-skinned monster, but other than making some noise seemed content not to fight it, at least not until the beast decided it wanted to metaphorically throw hands. It snapped at the birds, and seeing us getting away threw a fireball in our direction. The dinosaur was really obscenely angry at this point, and its attack blasted straight into the flock that was following along below us.

“Oh you messed up there friend,” Chien said with a smile as he looked down.

“Indeed he did.”

I'd never actually seen anyone do something like smack a beehive with a baseball bat, but I couldn't imagine the result would be too dissimilar. There were countless of those birds around and in the crack in the ice, and upon being so blatantly attacked they all took serious offense.

A cloud rose from the crevice with a cawing scream sending a rain of ice at the flaming monster. They circled like crows after a hawk, dodging and moving like a single organism, one intent on showing just whose house this was, and who was really in charge here. I of course had no desire to dispute their dominance in this particular domicile of theirs, and so was fleeing.

Unfortunately they didn't know that, and a few of them decided that our little balloon was as well a foe and began to bombard us. It wasn't many, no more than a couple dozen honestly, but there didn't need to be many. Coordinated attacks slapped against our sides, not something we could dodge from far away, but fast, pursuing enemies launching rapid strikes.

By some instinct or pure luck they managed to start ripping into the coverings on the gas sacks themselves, releasing clouds from above us as hole after hole began to appear.

“We're losing altitude!” I shouted as we lurched, slowly, but surely feeling the pull of gravity bringing what had gone up right back down.

“Can we land?” Chien asked, scared.

“Hold on, we just need to slow ourselves enough to survive. Make it as far from here as we can and we'll run for it once we're down. I don't fancy coming between that,” I nodded out one of the windows.

The birds were falling in waves, but as they did other things began to join the fray. Long ago I'd learned that these monsters had an odd reaction to fire. They didn't die, but those who were broken and injured had their pieces pulled together like some kind of magnet and into amalgams. A few of these were showing up now, small for the moment, but with each fallen avian growing, cawing monsters ready to rip into any enemy they could find.

As the ground neared I wondered what the odds on either side was. It couldn't be too good for anyone.