Night had fallen.
Darkness draped itself over the peaks of the mountainous region, thick and heavy. The sharp edges of the stone formations around them offered just enough coverage. Shelter where the team now crouched in silence, hidden and waiting to execute the plan they’d prepared all day.
The moon had yet to rise high. The night was deep, and with the thick clouds above, shadows swallowed everything. Visibility was low, and that worked in their favor. It concealed them.
Only Tave and Panpan stood apart, at a higher vantage point, concealed behind three tall trees with wide trunks that shielded their forms. They stood near the edge, eyes locked on the sky, their stealth skills fully active.
Far in the distance, the flying reptilian monsters, those sa ones Tave had scouted the day before, had begun to appear again. They twisted and circled wildly in the night sky, like predators sensing the air for sothing to crush. Anything. They responded to the faintest motion, the lightest sound.
In a situation like this, any mistake, any movent, any noise, could draw them in.
And that would be a disaster.
Panpan had already drawn her bow, a glowing energy arrow notched and ready. She held her aim steady, eyes narrowed as she tracked one of the creatures in the distance.
"Make sure to hit just one," Tave whispered, voice barely more than breath. "No sound."
The monsters weren’t flying close to each other, not exactly. There was a distance between them. Enough to isolate one if they were careful.
Only, the distance between them and the monsters was vast. Far beyond what most would consider an ideal range. Firing an arrow from this far wasn’t just difficult. It bordered on impossible.
Panpan had to predict their movent patterns with precision, reading the rhythm of their flight, the subtle shifts in their wingbeats. And more than that. Her shot had to be perfect.
Even a single miscalculation could send the arrow glancing off course, disturbing the air enough to alert the others. One mistake, one wrong deflection from the wind, and they’d be facing more than just a single target.
Panpan focused. Her breathing slowed. Her body stilled.
Then, she released.
The energy arrow flashed forward, silent as death, slicing through the air like a phantom.
Tave’s eyes tracked it with perfect clarity. The shot was long. Very long. And the fact that Panpan had made the call with such confidence... It was stunning. She knew her range. Knew what she was capable of.
And then. It struck.
The arrow pierced clean into one of the creatures.
"That was truly... incredible, Pan," Tave said softly, a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"Maybe a bit too soon to thank , don’t you think, Tave?"
He let out a quiet breath, eyes still fixed on the distant sky.
"Let’s wait and see. Hopefully only one of them responds."
The monster flinched, spinning in the air, snarling. It twisted its head violently, searching, sniffing for the direction of the attack.
Then, two of the other monsters broke formation, wings slicing the night, veering toward their location.
"Tave?" Panpan whispered.
"We stay," he murmured back. "Let them pass. No more shots. Don’t bait them again."
Tave and Panpan pressed themselves tightly against the tree trunks, lting into the bark as much as their stealth skills would allow. Not a sound. Not a twitch. Nothing.
The three monsters streaked toward them with terrifying speed, wings slicing through the air like blades. Their roars ripped through the night. Deep, guttural, vibrating through the stones and trees around them. And these...
These were bigger than what Tave had seen the day before.
One of them, in particular, had wings tinted with a glowing yellow hue. An unnatural sheen that shimred like molten tal under moonlight.
The trio hovered above them for a tense, agonizing mont, circling the air just above the canopy, their heads twisting as if tasting the wind for traces of threat.
Then. Thud.
One landed on the peak with a ground-shaking crash. The impact rattled the stone, cracking into the stillness.
"Tave?" Panpan’s voice was barely audible.
"Tell the others to stay completely still. No movent. Not a single step until they’re gone," he whispered back.
On the ground, the monster thrashed in frustration. Its claws scraping stone, wings unfurling violently, smashing against nearby boulders. It roared again, the sound tearing through the dark as it crashed into rock after rock, as if trying to draw out whatever had struck it.
Above, the two flying beasts shrieked in response. One suddenly turned and flew off, disappearing into the distance. A mont later, the other followed, its wings cutting a hard arc before vanishing beyond the ridge.
Only one remained.
The one on the ground.
Finally. They had their isolated target.
The monster was still thrashing. Roaring furiously as it slamd into boulders, wings flaring out in wide, violent sweeps. It was enraged, blindly searching for whatever had dared to wound it.
Then. Flash.
From another direction, a small magic ball shot forward, striking the beast squarely in the shoulder. The impact wasn’t lethal. But it was enough.
The monster roared again, louder this ti, its fury redirected. With a guttural scream, it charged toward the rocky formation ahead. Toward the shadowed center that waited like a mouth ready to swallow it.
"Let’s go, Pan," Tave hissed.
They took off, following the beast’s path closely but silently, weaving between trees and sliding along the edge of the terrain.
The monster, consud by rage, didn’t even notice them trailing behind.
And then. As it crossed into the dark center of the stone formation, a massive magic shield erupted around it.
An isolated air domain. It wrapped the creature in a cocoon of silence and pressure. Its roar was instantly cut off from the world. No sound would escape.
Tave and Panpan slipped in just behind it, entering the do an instant before it sealed completely.
From every side, the rest of the team burst from hiding.
Weapons were drawn. They had one target. And this ti. They had it trapped.
Blades slashed. Spells erupted. Waves of magic hamred into the beast one after another as the team fell into perfect motion.
Defenders moved in first. Shields raised, intercepting every reckless charge the creature made. Their goal was clear: keep the monster grounded. No matter what, it could not be allowed to take flight.
The rest of the team split like clockwork, striking from both flanks. They focused on the wings, carving at the joints, forcing the creature to stay pinned to the earth.
Unfortunately, this particular monster had very few weak spots.
So they didn’t look for shortcuts. They committed, step by step. Holding the line, suppressing its movent, piling on strike after strike until fatigue began to show in its movents.
And then. The final blow.
The creature staggered before it dropped to the ground with a heavy, earth-shaking thud.
Tave didn’t wait.
He moved in with deadly precision, his finger already alight with Soul Fire. With one final push, he drove it directly into the creature’s eye.
The monster scread. Its body thrashing one last ti before a violent whip of its tail slamd Tave into the stone wall with a bone-rattling crack.
But that was it.
The monster collapsed, twitching once, then going completely still.
Silence fell.
Everyone froze. No one spoke, no one moved.
And only then, after the echo of the final impact faded, did the full weight of what they’d done hit them.
That was one.
One monster.
One of many.
And it had taken everything they had just to bring it down.
A grim, choking dread began to spread through the group. Because now they understood. Truly, deeply understood.
What kind of nightmare they were up against.
"Damn, this guy is so tough," Darian muttered, straightening himself despite the bruises clearly marking his face.
"Yeah..." Elowen chid in. The short-haired forest elf, her golden strands tousled from the battle.
"Seriously annoying. And Tave and Panpan managed to take one of these down, just the two of them?" She turned, eyebrows raised in disbelief.
"Panpan, you’re incredible," she said with a warm grin, then looked to Tave. "And you... Tave, you’re so brave." She giggled.
Only then did Tave truly notice, amid all the grim faces and tension-hardened expressions, Elowen’s energy stood out like firelight in a cold cave. Cheerful. Maybe too cheerful.
Was it a good thing?
Well... it was sothing. Sothing that helped pull them back from the edge, if only for a second.
"Let’s go! Another wave!" she declared, spinning slightly as if the last battle hadn’t just nearly killed them all.
"Yes," Velion replied, his voice steady. "We move on."
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