“Very well.” Derek glanced upward, flourishing his golden blade. “Shall we begin?”
In reply, the creature dove straight down.
Derek jumped, landing a glancing strike against its neck. The sword failed to cut through the creature’s scales. It responded with a strike from its viciously barbed tail.
The swordsman battered the tail aside, but one of the spines along the edge ripped across his chest, drawing blood. He hissed as he fell, clutching at the wound.
“Poison,” he spat, clenching his fists as he landed. “I hate poison.”
Sera was not standing idle. She had been finishing an incantation as Derek fought in the air.
“Winds, carry upon you blades of ice!”
A handful of icy daggers appeared behind her, firing forward. It resembled a weaker version of her Permafrost Cascade.
If she was using it, that meant she was probably too low on mana for her more powerful spell. Not a good sign for fighting something as powerful as the wyvern.
The icy knives struck the wyvern’s left wing, burrowing holes into the sinews between bones. The monster roared, but remained afloat. The damage wasn’t significant enough to render it incapable of flight.
Sera’s right hand was shaking heavily. Definitely not a good sign.
Derek swung his blade in the air, sending a golden crescent at the creature’s wounded wing. It twisted sideways, avoiding the attack, but Derek repeated the gesture and struck it in the opposite side.
The wyvern hissed and dove.
Derek ran.
The wyvern hit the stage, breaking boards where it landed, smashing a path as it surged toward Derek with open jaws.
Sera raised the gauntlet and sent a blast into its side.
The visual difference between a burst of gray mana and a blast of transference mana wasn’t very obvious.
The effect, however, was quite distinct.
The wyvern must have weighed twenty times more than a man, but the burst of mana was still sufficient to knock it off course. Its jaws closed around the empty air just to Derek’s side.
And Derek, never to miss such a perfect window of opportunity, thrust his sword into its neck.
“Hah!” He slammed the palm of his other hand into the pommel of his sword, driving it deeper into the creature’s throat. It thrashed wildly as his hand began to glow, sending a surge of golden mana across the blade and blasting a deep hole into the wyvern’s neck.
Derek grinned, pulling away. “You see that, Elora?”
The wyvern’s tail smashed into him a moment later, leaving a bloody smear across the stage.
The motion carried him all the way out of the ring.
And then, it rose, roaring.
Sera was alone.
The wyvern turned, coughing blood onto the ruined stage. Standing on its two legs, it raised its tail like a scorpion, poised to strike.
“Run, Sera!” I shouted.
I knew there was no chance she could hear me from my position in the stands.
The tail shot downward like the thrust of a spear, and Sera spoke.
“Ogre, I summon you.”
The ogre’s hands caught the wyvern’s tail.
And suddenly, I understood.
Those “Binding” spells she’d been using weren’t to slow the monsters down.
She’d been marking the monsters for her later use.
The wyvern hissed, pulling its tail free from the ogre’s grasp. As strong as the ogre was, it was nowhere near as large or powerful as the wyvern.
That didn’t stop it from charging the wyvern with fists flailing, though.
Sera fell to a knee, shaking. She looked pale. Too pale.
The ogre smashed a fist into the wyvern’s jaw. The wyvern recoiled at the blow, but quickly retorted, snapping its fangs around the ogre’s arm.
Sera dropped the crimson sword, wiping her forehead. “One more,” she mumbled. “Just one more.”
The ogre howled in agony, slamming its free arm into the wyvern’s face, but it was doing minimal damage. The wyvern snapped down again, tearing the ogre’s injured arm off entirely.
The ogre fell to its knees.
“Karvensi...” Sera mumbled, raising both hands. “I summon you.”
The winged man appeared at her side as she slumped against the floor.
“Really? You’re summoning me now?” He sighed, turning toward the wyvern. “And I suppose you want me to handle this for you?”
Sera twitched her head in what could barely pass for a nod.
“Well, I suppose it’s something to do.”
The wyvern’s tail descended, spearing the ogre through the chest. The ogre twitched once, then vanished into nothing.
The karvensi shook its head, gathering flames in its hands. “I was hoping the brute would have lasted a moment longer, but I suppose this will have to do.”
The wyvern turned its head toward Sera.
The karvensi’s hand shot out. “Tell me, wyvern. What’s your opinion on fire?”
The stage, with the exception of a small patch around Sera, turned red.
And the wyvern, as powerful as it was, was not intelligent enough to see the danger.
Flames rippled upward from the stage, and the wyvern’s bulky form was bombarded with dozens of blasts. It howled into the air, its wings flapping to carry it above the danger.
The karvensi shook its head, lifting the burning sword that Sera had discarded. “Now, how does this thing work? Do I just throw it like so?”
He hurled the sword at the wyvern’s already injured wing, and it embedded deeply. Fire began to spread across the surface where it impacted.
The karvensi frowned. “Hrm. No flame person this time.” He glanced down at Sera’s shivering form. “Did I do something wrong? I must have done something wrong.”
“Finish...it...,” Sera mumbled.
“Right, right. You know, you really look quite unwell. You probably should see a healer or something. You humans are so fond of those.”
The karvensi took to the air, flying high above the writhing wyvern. “You really are quite a disappointment, wyvern. I expected better from one of the serpent’s children. But alas, few can match my own splendor.”
It gestured to the air above it. “This should put an end to your struggles, I think.”