The two remaining scouts were in a sorry state. So much so that some of the first years averted their eyes while others trembled in horror so much that they dropped their weapons.
One of them was bleeding from his right shoulder, a stump left where his arm should have been while the other shivered in one place, overtaken by fear.
Arthur gripped his lance so tight that his knuckles turned white with frustration. Of the five scouts that had been sent out, these two were the only ones to make it back… and even then, he couldn't say they were in one piece.
"FIRE!!!" Carol screamed at the top of her voice.
A rain of arrows ascended into the sky heading for the head of the behemoth towering above the thick canopies.
Easily towering thirty feet above them was the obsidian scaly head of the Behemoth with two horns pointing forwards on both sides of its menacing maw.
The arrows rose high into the air, commanding the attention of the first years as they all went straight for their target.
The steel projectiles struck the behemoth's hide with useless clangs of metal as they uselessly bounced off, leaving the beast unharmed.
The Behemoth tilted its head to the left and let out a low rumble as though saying, 'Was that an effort?'
"Magic arrows, now!!! Any and all that you have," Carol ordered as the archers got ready for the next volley.
Arthur turned his attention away from the archers' assault and rushed over to the scouts that had just returned, "Hey, are you okay?"
The one that seemed uninjured stared at him with almost lifeless eyes, "Do we look… okay?"
The other gripped his bloodied shoulder in pain, "It hurts so much. Make it stop. Make it stop."
Arthur scanned the crowd in search of Darius. When his eyes landed on his best friend, he found them staring in a completely different direction.
Upward…
A new volley of arrows had taken to the sky. This one hummed and sang with a myriad of colours and a wave of mana.
The time, however, the arrows had some measure of effect. The prince witnessed some of the arrows explode upon making contact while others performed a variety of chaotic actions.
Arthur saw one of the arrows sprout vines that attempted to wrap around the Behemoth's neck. Another arrow dug into the behemoth and continued to insert itself deeper into its flesh.
Another arrow spread some sort of blackening decay about its area of contact. Arthur watched another arrow spread a wave of ice around as well. Unlike the first volley, the Behemoth seemed affected by this attempt at injuring it.
In fact, the beast now looked agitated. Despite the powerful magical effects of the second volley of arrows, there seemed to be next to no serious damage.
The Behemoth shook the arrows off in one violent shake before letting out a loud head-splitting roar, revealing a frightening set of razor-sharp teeth that seemed to grow longer the more ferocious its roar grew, giving it an even more demonic appearance.
The Vanguard took a step back from the wall as the behemoth charged in through the wall they'd built. The strong reinforced wood cracked and groaned on impact but held.
As if not noticing the barrier, the Behemoth reeled its head back and inhaled a gust of wind, "FIRE BREATH!!!" Cade yelled at the top of his voice.
The vanguard's formation instantly shattered, everyone, moving with one goal in mind.
"Well, White… This is your time to…"
"EVERYONE, GET BEHIND ME AS MUCH AS YOU CAN," Arthur screamed at the top of his voice, inserting as much authority into his voice as he could. Using a tone he'd been taught a long time ago by his father, the king of phoenixes.
A long time ago…
When even he, among his people, was considered a candidate that could end up becoming king of the phoenixes instead of his brother.
Now, that all felt like a dream.
Still, that didn't mean he'd abandon those teachings. The students moved faster and more diligently when they heard the order, falling back into a crowded group behind the prince who advanced forward to give them as much space behind him while still keeping the Behemoth in sight.
The archers broke formation and assembled behind the prince, everyone looking to Arthur to solve the one problem they couldn't.
Arthur held his spear in one hand and spun it in a half circle, allowing it to fall into his other hand which spun in another half circle to complete the rotation before letting it fall back into the other.
The lance spun slowly at first but with each rotation, Arthur spun the spear faster and faster until it was a blur of spinning steel.
The prince looked as though he was wielding a circular shield in his hands. The neck of the behemoth now shone with a bright orange as it brought its head down and opened its glowing maw.
Arthur braced himself, spinning the lance even faster and putting one leg behind the other for stability as the behemoth brought its maw down and let out a torrent of flame.
The flames came down on the entire clearing like liquid fire, engulfing everything in sight and bathing it all in one brilliant shower of flame.
...........
"Behemoths are lesser elemental beasts, aren't they?" Sullivan asked Black.
"Yeah, standing at the top of the Fire Elemental beast are dragons and phoenixes… Well, 'were' the dragons and phoenixes but the phoenixes are said to have gone extinct in the Great War of Fire a hundred years ago," Cade explained, "So that just leaves the dragons."
"Yeah, I remember something like that in 'Elemental Beasts and Where to Find Them,'" Arthur pitched in.
"That's a fictional novel. Totally different from what we're facing today," Sullivan snapped at the white-haired boy. Before the wall was done, Sullivan had insisted they hold a meeting.
Arthur cracked up and laughed out loud, "You forget that we're in a simulation. This could be fiction too."
"He has a point there," Cade shook his head and facepalmed, chuckling.
"I'm being serious though. While the Behemoth is a lesser Fire Elemental Beast, its flames are powerful. What happens if…"
"Oh come on, Sully. I've already asked you to leave that to me. Have I ever let you down before?" Arthur asked with that look of glee in his eye.
"Do not let this be the first time… because it will definitely be the last, White."
"Fair enough! Just leave the flames to me. I'll handle that and you deal with the rest."
.........…..
Arthur stood at the front of the group of First Years, spinning the spear in his hand at an incomprehensible velocity. The spear was moving so fast between his hands that a constant humming sound was now coming loudly from it.
'It took me years to master something like this,' the prince gritted his teeth as the memories of his years of training came reeling back into his mind.
Training every single day to master the lance. When you have so much time to live, it normally meant you also had all the time in the world to train.
That said, knowing it would take him years, at least, to master the use of a weapon was frustrating in and of itself… but he'd persevered and trained with the lance for several months… spanning a few years…
'This is nothing… nothing at all,' he mentally screamed, increasing the speed of his spinning lance even faster.
The torrent of flame was approaching them, spreading far and wide.
The students closed their eyes and hurdled close as the immolating flames got closer and closer. Some of them screamed while others cursed.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
'Didn't that white-haired boy say he'd handle the flames?' 'He'll be the first to be fried at least.' 'We're all going to get fried?' 'We should have run while we had the chance.'
At this suggestion, a section of the student abandoned the plan and made a break for an opening between the wall and the flames. Cade turned just in time to see them and send his deep commanding voice booming, "DON'T YOU DARE MOVE A MUSCLE!!!"
A few of the students stopped at Cade's command and rejoined the group. However, the rest that didn't listen angrily dashed toward the closing gap, aiming at escaping before the flames reached the wall.
Just as they were reaching the wall, the small sliver of hope they had slammed against the wall, quickly lit their bodies aflame.
The students screamed out in agony before exploding into a swirl of ash and runes.
The orange wall of flame completely covered the students in a dome of flame, getting hungrily closer to them. From what the students had already seen, they shuffled even closer to each other, trying to escape the hungry flames.
Cade stared ahead at the spear-wielding leader to complain but what he witnessed stopped his words in his throat.
The spear in Arthur's hands had turned to a blur of motion resembling a disk of silver in front of him. Arthur skilfully kept it spinning ahead of him. To Cade's surprise, the flames beyond the spinning disk had stopped moving and started to swirl in a circle in the same direction as the lance before entering the spear at the centre.
The prince let out a battle cry and increased the velocity of the spinning spear making the spinning disk hum even louder.
The dome of flame stopped in its tracks and began to swirl violently around the group of first years but never got closer to them. Arthur's hand screamed in agony at the effort he was placing into spinning the lance but the prince wouldn't stop or even bother to slow down.
The spinning dome of flame was slowly receding into the spinning disk in the hands of the White Haired boy at the front.
In the next few seconds, everyone froze in awe and watched as the flames of the Behemoth were sucked into the Flame Spear clearing the sky and exposing them once more to the ferocious monster waiting for them outside the wall.
Arthur dropped to one knee, holding a glowing white spear in his hands that pulsed with a furious wave of heat and mana. The prince turned to his fellow Leaders and flashed a toothy grin, "Told you I'd handle it."