All of them went back into their separate rooms to rest again. With their guard fully up, it would not be an extremely restful night. Only a couple of hours pa.s.sed by before Greyson"s ears twitched towards movement coming towards the inn. Snow was also easily awakened and hopped onto his shoulder. Knowing he was not the only one who heard, he quickly got up and went downstairs. The rest of the group was also either coming down the stairs or already downstairs on the main floor. Looking around, they saw the other customers and inn workers sprawled over the tables and chairs after being knocked out. They knew that they should lead the approaching group away from here. Nodding wordlessly to each other in agreement, Cerul left first and transformed into his dragon form as the rest quickly hopped onto his back. With a single flap of his wings, they were already outside of the town limits. For a second, Greyson thought they might be able to escape the group, but he soon realized this was a naive hope. Glancing over his shoulder, he could detect a bunch of shadows tracking them. Shockingly, they were keeping pace with Cerul who was well-known for his flight speed. Although they were not catching up, the group all knew that they were not going to get away at this rate. It was also not to the point where they believed running was the only option available.Cerul spotted the nearest vacant s.p.a.ce and started to descend towards the gra.s.sy field. At this point, the group could finally turn around and take a clear look at their pursuers. At this point, the sky was slightly brightening signifying the sun would rise soon. There were four flying magic beasts with around two bodies on each so eight enemies in all if the magic beasts were not included. The magic beasts were actually Lightning Ravens which explained their speed, however, their actual power seemed relatively weak. When they landed on the ground as well, the group scanned over their opponents carefully. To their surprise, the scent given off by the enemies was human.
"They are all human?" Fervis spoke in confusion. He could not be blamed, since humans were an extremely unwelcome sight in the Beast Empire. They were legitimately a rare sight because it was hard for them to travel throughout the Empire without getting randomly targeted as a common enemy.
"Human?" Both Greyson and Rosalie looked over in surprise. They could not tell with their sense of smell the difference between the races like the dragons.
"Yes... How odd." Aeos nodded in confirmation while trying to gleam any hints off the approaching 8 opponents. They were styled head to toe in black garments and had metal masks that covered their faces. No insignia or obvious tell-tale sign of their affiliations was apparent. Not trying to conceal their aura at all, Greyson and the rest could tell that they were all great magister level magicians. Their expression grew grim knowing they were outnumbered and overpowered. They were technically equal in number, however both Greyson and Rosalie had yet to break through to the great magister level. It was more like eight against six in this situation.
"Rosie and Grey, you both take care of one. I can fight off two of them. They are all stage one great magisters, so this arrangement should be manageable. Don"t hold anything back; they don"t look like the talking sort so I doubt we will be able to gleam too much information from them even if we captured them alive. We"ll leave that to luck if one of them ends up alive in the end. The rest of you just choose one depending on the strengths that they show." Aeos, being the strongest, decisively took the lead and gave them all instructions. Everyone nodded in understanding. Rosalie and Grey actually moved first because their abilities were the most diverse so it would not matter as much who they chose. The rest moved subsequently sending an initial attack. Turns out that all of them were different elements. The seven elements of Greyson plus the s.p.a.ce element were all represented through the eight of them. The opponent that Greyson and Rosalie chose was the earth element enemy.
He had a st.u.r.dy build that gave off the distinct feeling of a defensive specialist. Greyson and Rosalie moved with tacit understanding as Greyson attacked first as Rosalie stayed back and began summoning her Fey. Starting off strong, he flipped his palm and brought out Genesis before slas.h.i.+ng with his fire and water combined attack first. The man responded only with a hard earth armor and crossed his arms to block Greyson"s attack. The attack exploded upon contact, however, Greyson saw that the rocks were only slightly cracked. Frowning, he realized that his attacks would not be able to easily break apart this man"s defense just like those Earth Creatures. Plus, this man was not some unintelligent being waiting to be hit. A heavy fist came swinging towards Greyson, who quickly dodged away with his wind element. Hearing the sound of that fist almost ripping through the air, Greyson slightly paled in shock. It would most definitely almost incapacitate him with just one direct hit from this man. The only upside was that the man was obviously slower so he definitely be dodged as long as Greyson maintained his guard. At this point, Rosalie already finished summoning Ira as the surrounding temperature dropped to freezing. The earth armor around the man started to freeze up as the ice easily slipped through the defenses. His movements even slower than before, Greyson did not hesitate to send another aggressive attack. This time using lightning and fire and a direct fist attack. White scales grew over his hand and forearm to increase his brute strength and defense. His opponent grunted with effort as he brought up his arms to block once more while Greyson"s fist easily made contact. Another explosion of energy and this time the earth shattered apart like ice and the man was sent backwards. Feet digging into the ground, the man did not go far before he stopped himself. One of his arms dangled oddly looking broken while the other one was relatively fine.
Greyson looked back at Rosalie and noticed her pale complexion as Ira slowly disappeared. Looking at the Fey, a random thought pa.s.sed through his mind. He wondered if he would also be able to make a contract with a Fey... Shaking his head quickly, Greyson did not continue down this line of thinking. They were in the middle of a fight, and he could not be distracted.
"Could you summon one of your Fey one more time?"
"Yes, but only once. It can"t be Ira, either. After that, I will be pretty much completely drained and could only conjure up simple spells." Rosalie spoke evenly. Greyson frowned hearing that it could not be Ira. Her ice element seemed to be the most effective against this man"s earth element.
"Hey, hey, don"t underestimate your sister. My other Fey are also powerful. I think Bronx would work better this time instead of Umir. Umir"s attacks are more about speed than power."
"Alright. Let"s go with that, then." Actually, Greyson had seen all of her Fey in action in their several spars, but he was not sure that Bronx"s ability would work against this opponent.
Their opponent actually moved first this time. While the siblings were speaking, he reset the bone that broke and formed his armor once again to keep it in place. No sounds of pain broke from him as if he could not feel what was occurring. Kicking off with power, he shot towards the siblings. His good arm punched out towards Rosalie as a sharp metal point formed at the end of his fist. Greyson instantly appeared in front of Rosalie to provide her enough time. Earth Walls instantly formed, however, they were all smashed apart as if they were not there in the first place. They did slow down the man"s momentum and gave Greyson and Rosalie enough time to dodge out of the way. The man"s punch ended up stabbing into the ground which split and cracked apart underneath the power. Pulling out from the ground, he rapidly turned towards the siblings and shot towards them once more. Greyson could tell that he was aiming for close combat and continually attacked Rosalie since he knew that he could easily overpower them and Rosalie was distracted. Gritting his teeth, Greyson knew that he had to directly resist the man in order to give his sister s.p.a.ce to act. Releasing a deep roar, his entire body was covered in white scales. This time, he allowed the man to approach him and blocked the punch with both of his hands. A thunderous boom sounded off from their contact just from the sheer amount of strength behind the punch. Greyson could feel the scales crack underneath the pressure but he still held firm and sent a vicious kick towards the man"s stomach. Both of them were sent backwards from the kick. Unable to keep from rolling his eyes, Greyson was speechless at his opponent"s rock solid body. His leg was slightly shaking from the impact as if Greyson kicked a metal wall instead of a person"s body.
However, he was able to buy his sister enough time and a large tree formed behind her. This willow tree was rather creepy looking, but it exuded an undeniable power. Its branches shot out and gripped onto the man and held down his body. Sharp metal thorns grew from the branches and stabbed into the man everywhere. The man could not move, but Greyson could tell that the branches were not going to be able to hold him for long. Taking advantage of the situation, Greyson actually flew up into the sky holding Genesis tightly into his hand. Utilizing his earth element, he reinforced and sharpened the metal blade and lightning crackled around his sword. Dismissing his wind element, his body began to free fall towards the ground. Cutting through the air, he allowed his momentum to grow as he shot down towards his opponent. Right before his sword could stab through the man"s torso, another of the enemies used the wind element to force the man slightly off center. Greyson"s sword ended up cutting the man"s arm clean off instead. Not capable of completely stopping himself, Greyson turned his body bracing for impact and his back slammed into the ground. Since he was prepared, he merely suffered minor damage, but his mana stores were running low.
Getting up hastily, he ran towards Rosalie once more who was sitting on the ground with labored breathing.
"Try to grasp this chance to restore some of your mana. Although I did not kill him, he probably will not be able to attack right away."
Rosalie nodded as she quickly got into her meditative state to absorb mana. Greyson looked towards the opponent once again and saw the man was still bleeding quite profusely from his wound. However, the man quickly pulled out a cream from a storage pouch and spread it over the wound which quickly stopped the bleeding. Greyson wanted to take advantage of this moment to attack, however, he did not have much energy left himself. He did not want to recklessly attack when Rosalie could not back him up. The man actually sat down and brought out a needle and string that he used to st.i.tch up his wound. Such endurance was on one hand impressive, while on the other fairly unsettling. From the beginning, Greyson could tell that this man did not feel pain like a normal human.
Since this was an unspoken break, he took this chance to look over at the other battles. Most of the group was winning their fights while Aeos was slightly struggling against his two opponents. But this was to be expected in a two versus one situation. The uses of the time element became evident to Greyson, though, during this fight. Aeos was constantly slowing down or speeding up his opponents and himself which completely messed with his opponents" sense of rhythm. Only, Aeos actual attack power was relatively low. He could only utilize his dragon body"s strength with some mana reinforcement, but the time element did not have many direct attack spells. Greyson could tell he was stalling for time so that the rest of the group could defeat their opponents then help him with the last two. The strategy was working, and Greyson could tell they would all defeat their opponents soon. There was just one thing bothering Greyson. He could not recognize what it was, but something about this battlefield looked wrong to him. Glancing around at everyone, he ran through a bunch of thoughts in his mind as he tried to figure out what this thought tugging at the back of his mind was. Suddenly, Greyson finally thought of something. He whipped his head around to look for his opponent again only to see the man had moved slightly from where he was trying to heal himself before. Looking at that man, Greyson glanced at the other seven opponents.
"Oh no!"
"Aeos, everyone, you need to-" Greyson tried to warn everyone but was cut short by the opponent"s voice.
"FORMATION!"
All the eight enemies created a circle as each of them brought out a symbol engraved onto a piece of paper. Eight colors rose into the sky and lines drew around the group connecting the eight men. The color drained from Greyson"s face as his friends also finally recognized their carelessness.