The small group of seven walked through the winding streets of the dark city, remaining vigilant of everything that was happening around them.
Since they were going to hunt a tyrant, being discovered by the minions was something they really wanted to avoid. A surprise attack always had better chances, after all.
Nevertheless, while all of them still walked in a rather tight formation, most of the others still kept a bit of distance from Gunlaug. Though, this could just as well, be due to his armor's enchantments.
Their formation was relatively similar to how they had ventured through the dark city months ago; Sunny scouted ahead with his shadow, Kai sometimes went a few meters into the air, to give them information from a vantage point, while the vanguard and pathfinder, remained Effie.
Behind Effie, there was Nephis, closely followed by Sunny, then came Cassie and Kai, and the rearguard was made up of Ray and Gunlaug.
"We are about to enter their territory." Effie spoke from the front.
Her voice was rather quiet, but still reached each member, and made them concentrate even more.
They had already been on the way for nearly an hour, by now, which must've also been the reason, why no one had noticed anything about these particular nightmare creatures, before he made that extra control visit, the day before they returned to the castle.
Now, inside of their prey's territory, the group quickly found the first signs of them; claw marks, or lost fangs could be found on the ground, from time to time.
As they slowly made their way through the streets, Sunny, Effie, as well as Cassie managed to keep them away from any stray groups of raptors, making the trip a lot easier.
Then, finally, when he recognized a specific, collapsed Building, Ray made the group stop, and redirected them to another one, close by.
Once inside, with Sunny's shadow keeping guard, outside, he wanted to go over the plan.
"Okay, listen up, for a second. Quite frankly, it is possible that it has already evolved to the fallen rank, but that would make it just so much more dangerous to keep alive. Those gathered here today, are some of the strongest sleepers on the forgotten shore, and maybe even in all of history.
If we don't deal with this thing now, there is a good chance that it will bring only more problems to our plans, of leaving this damned hell behind.
Now, for the plan. At all times, there should be roughly three to four dozens of raptors around the tyrant. That was how it was, when I looked for it, roughly two weeks ago. It could've been, due to the ongoing evolution, or maybe just that this tyrant is a coward by nature.
Regardless, the tyrant, and his raptors should be behind that collapsed building. They generally live on a giant plaza, where there is little chance for actual surprise attacks. But, there comes the building in play.
If someone here," Ray paused for a second, while looking at Kai, before resuming, "if someone were to get inside of there, they should have a good look, over the entire camp of those reptiles. From there, it would depend on their aim."
Merely a second after Ray had spoken, Kai had already nodded, and agreed to his role, though, not without a partly anxious look on his face.
"Good, thank you. As for us, I'd want Cassie to go with Kai, since she can keep his rear safe, if there are any stray raptors wandering in that ruin. Everyone else will remain as low as possible, close to the ruin, until the first arrow gets set loose.
That will be the sign, to start for us. In the case that it still evolving, then I only need you guys to deal with the minions, while we two," Ray paused again, while pointing at Gunlaug, "will deal with the tyrant.
If it has finished… well, lets just hope it hasn't."
After having finished speaking, Ray received a few weird looks, due to his incomplete plan, but only Effie actually sighed out loud.
"Guess, we're gonna fight a fallen one, then…" Following her sigh, she simply voiced what most of them were thinking.
"Regardless, has everyone understood their roles?" Ray changed the topic again, to make sure about, at least that.
After receiving nods in response, they got out of the ruined building, and went their ways, with Kai, once again, carrying Cassie in a princess-carry, and flying up, to find a good position.
On the ground, the remaining five members were sneaking towards the ground floor of the collapsed structure, and waited in the shadows, where they were still able to see the plaza.
And what they saw, amounted to definitely a few dozen raptors, with one particular large reptile laying in the middle of the pack.
A couple minutes later, the signal finally came. A sole, red arrow was let loose, and headed straight for the raptor, in the center of the pack.
This was their sign. Without even seeing, if the arrow hit the target, the five of them jumped out of their hiding spot, and rushed towards the gathered reptiles.
It did not take long, until the first raptors noticed them, and screeched in alarm, notifying others of the pack.
But, by the time they fully reacted to the approaching group of sleepers, three raptors were already taken out, by arrows, while the others were already on them.
They had bridged the gap, of about a hundred meters, in merely 6 seconds, and were now crashing into the wall of flesh, barring their way.
Every single one of them fought differently, yet mowed the reptiles down, with relative ease.
Nephis was cutting down any raptor that was barely within range, leaving them all somewhat burnt in the process.
Sunny had summoned his Stone Saint, and was equally ferocious in cutting down the reptiles, alongside her.
Effie was like a siege-ram, nearly pulverizing any creature that was hit, by her bronze spear, or her round-shield.
Gunlaug acted like a lumberjack on steroids, cutting down anything close, with his golden battleaxe, while paving himself a way through the horde, to get into the center of it.
And, Ray, he was practically dancing through the masses of reptiles, cutting down any that came to close to him, with his trusted halberd.
The Duskclaw Raptor, as they were called, were quickly cut down, their dark feathers not giving their reinforced weapon memories any resistance.
"Rooaar"
Though, when Ray and Gunlaug were nearly through the first wave, the raptors finally caught on again, after a single roar from their tyrant, which seemed to wake up the previously dazed nightmare creatures.
And from there, the fight grew increasingly difficult for the sleepers, since they weren't able to cut the creatures down, as easy as before. It wasn't that they suddenly became more resistant, or anything, but that they simply attacked nearly at the same time, all at once.
To bridge the last few meters, Ray simple activated his aspect ability once, before flapping his wings, boosting himself forward, with great speed.
He still did not like to use them, a lot, but they were still useful, regardless of his feeling about them.
Thanks to them, he was only mere meters away from the tyrant, which was probably twice the size of his minions, standing at more or less three meters. Though, this time, Ray also noticed the finer details of the creature, the black, armor-like scales, the sharper, dark feathers, as well as the nearly steel-like beak.
Then, before he even touched the ground again, Puppet already appeared directly below him, though, if anyone looked at it, they wouldn't see the usual red-haired young man, but instead saw something straight out of a nightmare.
A being that looked like it came from the deepest abyss, to devour anything in its path. That was the memory he had received from the octopus-like creature that wanted to drag him down with it, back on the colossus.
He hadn't even noticed the memory for a while, and then there was the inability to even access his runes.
But, all of that didn't matter. The important part was; the memory's rank was transcended.
With Puppet, clad in the abyssal armor, and him coming from the sky, he immediately managed to catch the tyrant off-guard, and hit it with a juicy blow to its spine, as it defended against Puppet.
The attack drew blood, but did not go as deep, as Ray would've liked it to go. Nevertheless, Puppet was positioned near the front of the creature, while he was near its whip-like tail. Gunlaug, also finally pushed through, and would join them in a mere moment.
It was then that something unexpected happened.
Raaaaahhhhggg
The tyrant released an entirely different scream, compared to before, though, ...nothing happened.
No, something did happen.
Everyone had already jumped into action again, after that scream. Since nothing happened, it could've just as well served as a taunt, or bluff.
Sunny, Saint, Nephis, and Effie were busy enough already, holding off, and killing as many of the Duskclaw Raptors, as they could, with the support provided by Kai, from above.
Ray was currently trying to gather a sufficient load on his halberd, to deal a real hit, while Gunlaug and Puppet were busy too, either tanking any blow for the sleepers, in Puppet's case, or drawing as much blood as he could, in the golden warrior's case.
The fight in the middle of the chaos, against the tyrant itself, seemed awfully easy, though, compared to the task of the others.
There was a relatively simple reason for it, though, as these creatures were pack animals, and the fallen creature was unable to really hurt any one of the ones, actually fighting it.
Then, after half a minute of simple attacks with his halberd, and many evades from the tail, Ray had gathered a substantial load, and was ready.
Once more, he used his wings, in combination to his aspect ability, to rise into the air, leaving Gunlaug and Puppet down below, though, not before giving a command to Puppet; that it should keep it in place for just a moment, in a few seconds.
Being completely ignored, Ray easily rose into the sky, and positioned himself, to dive right down onto the tyrant. Just as he was about to do it, he noticed dust cloud that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere, from all around, and a very bad feeling made itself known in his mind.
'That scream was a call!'
With the apparently biggest part of the pack getting closer by the second, he had no more time to hesitate, and dove down immediately. His wings carried him with extreme speeds towards the ground, and exactly where the tyrant currently was being held, by none other than Puppet.
The enchantments of the transcended armor were as strong as they needed to be. Even, if the raptor was still trying to escape the vice-grip, with which Puppet was holding it, Gunlaug had also made multiple daggers with his golden echo, which pinned down the hind-legs of it.
'Sturdiness!' Ray commanded inside of his mind, as he one again used the strongest technique of his Aspect, he currently could wield, piercing right through the neck of the feathered creature, and decapitating it, in the process.
[You have killed a fallen Tyrant, Duskclaw Alpha]
[You have received a memory, …]
Still, there was no time to celebrate.
"Everyone! RUN!" Ray shouted, confusing Gunlaug standing next to him.
Before the man in gold could ask, though, he suddenly felt the vibrations on the ground, and also finally noticed the dust clouds, all around.
The moment, everything was pieced together in his mind, he was already lifted into the air, by Ray, while Puppet, following its command, made its way through the horde of raptors still attacking the others.
It took Ray a few seconds, but he soon reached the height, where Kai, and Cassie had been stationed before. He simply threw Gunlaug over to the platform, before directing his attention to Kai.
"Kai! We need to get the others! More are incoming!"
His friend did not disappoint, and immediately jumped into action, as well. He had seen some of the dust clouds, from his perspective, but they seemed to be in a capacity they would've managed to hunt.
Sadly, the adrenaline had made him forget that there were streets he could not fully see, from his perspective, where even more were coming from.
Therefore, both of them dove down again, heading for the others, who were trying to get out of the horde of creatures, after the shout of Ray, but with little success, until now. Not even Puppet, which acted not only as a shield, but also a debuff to all the raptors, made too much of a difference.
They were completely locked in.
Fortunately, for them, there were two people with the ability to fly, among their cohort.
Ray and Kai quickly reached their positions, and Kai scooped up Nephis without hesitation, while Ray went for Effie. Not wanting to be left behind, Sunny threw his leaf-shaped kunai towards Ray, which the latter caught, and then proceeded to pull the other one along.
Saint was also dismissed, the instant Sunny was lifted of the ground, leaving only Puppet behind, which was now being completely buried by a wave of flesh.
[Your Servant has killed...]
[Your Servant…]
It was holding on, mostly though, because the raptors were simply unable to actually wound it, behind the transcended, abyssal armor.
Shortly after, everyone was safe, on the elevated position, all hell broke loose. From nearly every single street, dozens of reptiles swarmed into the plaza, and then… began attacking each other.
By this point, Puppet was already completely immobilized with nearly half a dozen raptors basically sitting on it, while trying to bite his limbs off.
Still, that position was probably the calmest, among all the others on the plaza. Packs of these creatures were trying to rip each other to shreds.
The members of the cohort could only look on in silence, as they witnessed this… scene.
It took nearly ten minutes, of non-stop fighting, until the first few packs finally began their retreat, all of which likely had already lost quite a few numbers.
When the first retreated, many quickly followed suit, and soon, the plaza was practically empty…
If one didn't count the dozens, if not nearly a hundred corpses of these creatures…
-x-
I know the actual fight may seem very unclimatic, but it makes sense, if you think about it.