Even with the presence of Long Wang and Xiao Huo Long, the Round Owlets, Arrow Owls and Grim Owl were still horribly outmatched by the fleet of Raiders, the Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns. To make matters worse, something roared thunderously, causing a hurricane-like gale to sweep across the already ravaged forest that formed the canopy atop Yggdrasil.
We all looked up in awe as a Wind Dragon swooped down, breaking through the clouds to crash against Long Wang. To his credit, the Deep Sea Dragon swiftly reacted, twisting his serpentine body aside to avoid the Wind Dragon's claws and charge, but he was forced to halt his momentum and forego his pursuit of the fleeing Raiders.
Yeah, the dark elves were fleeing like the cowards they were. The monolith had been destroyed, and their schemes lay in ruins. Their trump cards had been defeated, whether it was the now liberated Ardena or the deceased Ricowen. I felt frustrated, but there was nothing I could do at the moment. instead, I was more worried about the Owls, who appeared to be charging straight into certain death as a wall of Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns soared to meet them.
Running across the scorched wasteland, I prepared my bow and began firing a volley of arrows into the horde of enemies. Barrage of arrows punched through the thick fur of Growling Griffons and armored scales of the Wind Wyverns, perforating their bodies and sending them in a downward spin, surrounded by mists of blood. But I was just one person, and there were too many of them.
Lightning bolts and spirit swords joined my hail of azure arrows, and without looking, I could tell that Sylvie and Silvia had stepped up to assist me, casting their spells almost frantically to save the Round Owlets, Arrow Owls and Grim Owl. Xiao Huo Long was doing fine, dueling three Wind Wyverns and unleashing torrents of fire that seared away the gales that they attempted to blow at him, but Sylvie, Silvia and I were keeping the others away from him, discouraging their advance with our spells or techniques.
The surviving elves were pulling together, emerging from everywhere in the forest, many of them accompanied by ragged remnants of the human parties who had allied to save Yggdrasil. They vengefully launched spells or arrows or other projectiles at the escaping Raiders, unable to suppress their fury at having their homeland (or home tree in this case) desecrated by the foul invaders. More than a score of black barbed ships sank, their prows burst apart or their hulls ruptured by the relentless bombardment.
Even so, they were focusing their attention on the dark elves' vessels, as opposed to the Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns. The spirit beasts were now tearing into the flock of Round Owlets and Arrow Owls, causing them to scatter and break off in desperate flights of survival, despite my best attempts to shoot as many of the enemy down as possible.
"Damn it…is there nothing I can do?"
"There's still hope," Sylvie said next to me, her voice lowered in awe. I glanced at her, shocked, and she turned to me with a brilliant smile. "They have answered our calls for aid."
"Huh? They?" I repeated incredulously.
"The spirits you came here for. They are finally here." Sylvie paused and closed her eyes, as if listening to something. "The moment you destroyed the corruptive monolith, they are finally free to emerge. They have been hiding because they feared being tainted by the demonic energies generated by that accursed artifact, but now that the blight is gone, they are coming out in their masses, eager to lend their aid."
"Over there!" Silvia pointed enthusiastically. I followed her finger and saw glittering dust in the air. No, not dust. Mana. With the Eye of Odin, I could filter out the esoteric energies and perceive their flow, as well as the way they coalesced to form spells. Not only that, I could also see the source of the glittering mana, each of them resembling wings.
Even though they were invisible to the naked eye, the Eye of Odin could see the tiny but numerous existences of the almost transparent spirits that soared over the brightening skies over Yggdrasil. At first, I thought they were tiny versions of fairies, but despite their humanoid forms, they didn't really resemble Sylvie and Silvia much. Rather, they were a cross between birds and humans, sprouting feathers.
Harpies came to mind, but they looked a lot more human than those terrifying monsters with wickedly curved talons. They also had arms, as opposed to just wings. Like I said, almost like fairies like Sylvie and Silvia, but at the same time very distinct from them.
I immediately recognized them.
"Sylphs?"
"That's correct," Sylvie breathed deeply beside me, her eyes still closed as she took in the amazing sight through a sixth sense. As a fairy, she probably had a much keener mana perception than humans, and she relied on that now to perceive the Sylphs. "The queen of wind spirits herself is making an appearance."
"The Sylph Queen?"
"You can call her that, I suppose, but she's something more complex than that. The Sylphs are actually an existence more advanced than simple wind spirits. They are not just the strongest wind spirits on Earth, but they are…a collective. Their queen is more of an agglomeration of their individual wills, something that exists yet doesn't exist at the same time. She is…an entity that emerges from the merged consciousnesses of all the Sylphs, yet each individual Sylphs continue to maintain their separate identity from each other."
"What is this, quantum mechanics?" I tried not to roll my eyes. I sort of comprehended what Sylvie was trying to explain, even if I didn't really understand the details.
"Don't worry about the trivialities, big bro!" Silvia laughed and waved her hand. "All you need to know is that with the Sylphs on our side, we will win!"
I watched in awe as the Sylphs swept up and surrounded the fleeing Raiders in tornadoes that brutally ripped the black ships apart and seized the hapless passengers in their grasp. Dark elves screamed as shrieked as they were lifted away in vengeful winds that tore them to shreds from the sheer pressure, or suffocated them by crushing the very breaths out of their pulverized lungs.
The Sylphs were truly an elemental force to be reckoned with…a natural disaster made manifest and consciously directed toward the dark elves that had threatened their home. They didn't just target the dark elves and mastermind, though. Hurricanes buffeted the Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns, tossing them about on aggressive gales that slammed them into each other with bone breaking force. Otherwise, tornadoes swallowed the haplessly spinning airborne spirit beasts into dark maws, tearing them into pieces. The heavens above Yggdrasil were now engulfed in titanic tempests that had a will of their own, striking out with windy tendrils to grab Growling Griffons, curl around Wind Wyverns or crush Raiders and dark elves.
Buoyed by the unexpected yet clearly discriminatory assistance, the Round Owlets, Arrow Owls and Grim Owl renewed their assault, sweeping upon the vulnerable and pinned Growling Griffons and Wind Wyverns with wings of ghostly energies. Arrows punched through them with uncanny precision, while phantom forces smashed the insides of the writhing spirit beasts through supernatural means. Even Xiao Huo Long joined in, making use of the violent wind currents to intensify his torrents of fire, unleashing flamethrowers on the Wind Wyverns with impunity.
It was a slaughter.
Far away, at the head of the now annihilated fleet, a single Raider attempted to limp away to safety, only to be caught by the maw of a spinning tornado. The whirlwind shattered the prow from the aft and sent the pieces of the once majestic black ship crashing back to the canopy of Yggdrasil before it could slide away into the shadows. Even as the debris tumbled haplessly down, dragged down by gravity or swept into the ravenous gullet of the tornado, figures could be seen nimbly leaping from piece to piece as they attempted to circumvent death.
Not all of them succeeded, the majority of them swept away by the violent winds and dragged screaming into a lethal vortex.
One, though, was wily enough to escape the death and destruction that surrounded her. She had survived for centuries…almost a millennium, by outfoxing her enemies and killing her way to the top through schemes and skill alike. That had allowed her to attain Earth rank eventually, though a lot of her efforts consisted of plundering and leeching off her victims.
The dark elves were a race that fed on the pain, suffering and despair of others. It was the only way they knew how to survive, for it would stave off eternal condemnation at the hands of She Who Thirsts…whoops, wrong universe.
Well, the point was that the dark elves were a sadistic bunch, and even among the edgy torturers that made up the majority of her indulgent race, Lelith Maledictx was the worst. But she hadn't risen to the top by being careless. She was a survivor, and even though she had just suffered a massive setback, she knew she would just retreat, hold out, survive and make a comeback in the future. After all, who among the dark elves hadn't suffered failure throughout their long centuries of life? She would just learn from her mistakes this time around and ensure success next time.
And she would endure, as always. Survive, and then take revenge on all those who had humiliated her.
So absorbed was she in already laying out a whole new plan of vengeance and torture for her enemies – the ones who had caused her to fail so miserably this time – that she almost didn't notice the person waiting for her when she landed in the forest below.
Lelith Maledictx wasn't stupid. She had orchestrated schemes from the shadows, ploys that would take decades to come to fruition. She had manipulated politicians and leaders, puppeteering them to their own self-destruction before she swooped down to seize what was left. And she had survived whatever brutal retaliation her victims attempted.
This should be no different. The Sylphs were an unexpected factor in her plan, but she wouldn't die from a mere fall. Hopping from debris to debris, she spun around to reduce her momentum before landing gracefully on the ground. To be sure, she wasn't totally unscathed. The impact of the fall had sent shockwaves through her slender and delicate body, and she winced from a few broken bones. Despite her best efforts, one of her ankles were broken.
Not to mention, the Sylphs hadn't left her alone. The sly wind spirits had attacked her, but being an Earth ranked warrioress, she had managed to endure whatever wind blades or violent hurricanes they threw in her direction, and she had made use of her preternatural reflexes and heightened senses to escape the tornado. Even sacrificing one of her subordinates to do so. She didn't feel any guilt at all when she kicked the fumbling Cabal Knight without hesitation, propelling herself away from the hungry tornado while sending her poor subordinate tumbling into its deadly coils.
Lelith Maledictx had always done whatever was necessary for her to survive, and this new crisis changed nothing.
"The shadow portal is just ahead," she murmured, limping toward one of the few spots of darkness that persisted despite the rising sun and the dawn of a new day. As long as she could reach it, she could slip back to Corrumargh without being detected by the bastards who foiled her schemes.
Then she froze when she caught sight of the figure waiting for her.
"Did you think I wouldn't know where you will head to? You were the one who brought me around on a leash when I was enslaved."
Ardena was holding her sword. She was still in an awful condition, her terrible injuries only treated superficially by her brethren's hasty healing spells. Even so, she had recovered enough to walk and fight, and a fraction of her normally considerably mana had been restored.
Thirty minutes earlier, Lelith would have been confident of defeating her. However, with a broken ankle, injuries from the Sylphs' assault, and an expenditure of mana to keep herself alive during the fall from her destroyed Raider, now she wasn't so certain of her victory.
No…why was she even considering battle? Ardena had been enslaved by her. She had sensed the elvish Sword Saint's defeat and believed her dead, especially after the link she had established through the enslavement curse had gone dark, but if Ardena was still alive, then surely the brand should still be there, right?
"Ardena, help me," she ordered. "Assist me back to Corrumargh."
The elvish swordswoman stared at her, astonished, and then shook her head. With a sigh, she stepped forward. Lelith limped toward her impatiently, holding out her hand.
"Hurry up…"
She never finished her sentence. Ardena's glowing Dainsleif pierced her chest, obliterating her heart in one blow. Blood spilled out of Lelith's mouth and she looked up into Ardena's cold face in disbelief, unable to believe what had just happened.
"I'm done being your slave, bitch," Ardena snarled before she yanked her sword up, slicing through the ravaged remains of her chest and splitting Lelith's head into two. As she turned away and flicked the blood off her holy blade, the ruined corpse of the Archoness twitched before toppling over. The elvish Sword Saint spared the carcass one last look of contempt before stalking off.
"Your greatest mistake was enslaving me and revealing to me the secrets of Corrumargh. Did you think I'll never be free of your enslavement curse? That overconfidence was your undoing."
With that, she left Lelith's corpse behind, the rapidly cooling body just a couple of hundred meters away from the shadow portal that would have allowed her to escape back to the home of dark elves.