Solstice, in his dragon form, took a deep breath and unleashed a torrent of sunfire that descended on the stag monsters, burning them into nothing upon contact.
His golden scales glowed brightly as he soared higher and spat flames with greater intensity while flapping his wings to keep himself steady.
Godfrey drew his warbow to the limit and released the arrow. It split into three arrows, which were further divided into nine, then twelve.
As his arrows struck their targets, countless arrows from the Bow Archers flew out, flooding the sky with their numbers. Their numbers kept increasing as the arrows multiplied mid-air before raining down on the stampede.
The earth trembled as the stags that were struck collapsed suddenly, causing others behind them to stumble. Almost ninety thousand stag monsters died, but some still kept running with arrows stuck in their bodies, especially the four demigods.
Isaac was still ahead, his breathing growing fainter by the minute. Behind the stampede, the rest of Isolde’s dragons flew low, breathing out a tsunami of fire that ate up the numbers of the stag monsters.
Isolde crept back onto Aion’s back with one hand. The gleam of her draconic eyes was no different from an enraged, wounded apex predator.
Her emotions fueled her dragons. Ghost dived down, picked one stag monster up by its horns, and threw it into the air. He shot a lightning blast, roasting the beast.
With a huge burst from his wings, he went up and tore off a huge portion as his entire body crackled with red lightning. He shot a blast that exploded, killing a few hundred. Those that died caused others to stumble on their corpses, resulting in the deaths of more stag monsters.
Grace’s breath left a trail of ice that looked like she was creating a wall of frozen corpses, while Luthor’s scales gained an ominous gleam under the glow of his flames.
Because of the nature of his fire, it could be traced back to where he first breathed dragonfire, and the reason was that his fire couldn’t be put out.
It was the Undying Flame. The amount of flames that came out of his mouth was three times that of Aion, a four-hundred-foot-long dragon!
’The rocks,’ Isolde thought as she looked around. Her dragons could finally perform at their best because the rocks had stopped, and even the sand tsunami in the distance had collapsed.
There were not more than fifty thousand stag monsters left.
Had the desert given up?
Godfrey nocked his bow and aimed. Ballista’s Goliath grunted and fired right as Godfrey released his arrow.
The Goliath’s arrow flew into the sky and became a bright, exploding light. In the next moment, several massive arrows the length of spears fell, forming a wall made up of impaled corpses and huge arrows.
This forced the others to scatter. Without the sand tsunami forcing them in one direction, the stags could go anywhere they wanted. They split into three directions, each led by a demigod.
Godfrey aimed for one of these demigods but slowly lowered his bow when he noticed there was no interference from the desert at all.
Had they won?
He scanned the desert and saw a spot. The activity there could be ignored, but when he looked closer, his eyes widened.
The sand was being stirred. It looked insignificant, but he could count over ten, and if such a—
Godfrey’s thoughts halted when those insignificant movements erupted into sandstorms. Instantly, a fierce storm swallowed everyone, with sand flying at a speed so high it made dents in armour and tore off the flesh of some stag monsters.
They were in a grinder.
And as if that wasn’t enough, the wind became so fierce that his entire army found themselves in the air, being tossed around by the wind.
Not even the dragons could control themselves. The wings of two weaker ones snapped as they tried flapping against the wicked gale.
Their cries made Isolde try to send them back to her domain. When she tried twice and nothing happened, her eyes widened.
"Kyla!! Reign!!" she screamed as both dragons vanished into the storm, their cries to their mother lingering for a moment before all she could hear was the howling of the wind and the sound of sand hitting her helmet.
"Isolde!! Don’t e down!!" She heard Godfrey’s faint voice. He must have been shouting at the top of his lungs, yet his voice could barely reach her ears.
But what was happening on the ground?
Her question was Godfrey’s reality. He also couldn’t retrieve his knights, and the sand was sinking inward, so those that fell were buried despite their struggles.
Godfrey heard a loud explosion, forcing him to turn his head, and he saw stones shattering and Solstice in his dragon form falling headfirst.
Solstice was struck. He was the target.
Tendril wings burst out of Godfrey’s back as he flew against the storm. Dirge and Tempest were able to manage this storm. Toria was struggling, but Tempest went to aid her and Mountain.
Dirge, on the other hand, sacrificed her shadow wraiths to the sinking sand to make sure they kept some golden knights afloat.
Some would struggle until they were eventually covered by the sand, but before then, they would be able to push the knight to another.
As Godfrey flew toward Solstice, he saw Isaac. The demigod stag he rode on could still run just fine on the sand, and the sandstorm didn’t affect it at all. He had retrieved Dax because a single spell from the mage would run him dry.
On the other hand, Isaac couldn’t hold on any longer and fell off, and the sand that was just durable began to collapse. Isaac sank quickly.
Torn between two options, Godfrey almost went mad in that split moment.
’I’ll get him. Go for your knight,’ Immortal Armour said. ’But once I leave...’
"Go!!"
Godfrey roared.
The Immortal Armour broke off his body and fell downward, while Godfrey manifested a golden armour. But the moment it appeared, sand began to dent the metal.
Tendril wings crackling with all their might, Godfrey flew down. Only Solstice’s tail remained.
He quickly grabbed it and pulled upward.
At that moment, a massive stone slammed into him, seemingly from nowhere.
It smashed off his armour, forcing blood out of Godfrey’s mouth. His ears rang.
BOOM!
BOOM!!
BOOM!!!
More stones slammed into him, cracking his bones, ripping off his flesh after the armour was mangled, yet he pulled, teeth clenched hard, eyes staring at the sky he couldn’t see.
From every direction, stones came, shattering upon contact. Using Tempest’s Self-Heal, Godfrey slowly repaired his damaged body only to be hit once more.
Was this how much the mana tree wanted to test humanity? How did it expect people to survive this kind of test?
This was—
BOOM!
His jaw loosened, blood dripping from his torn lips.
This was heartless.
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