North Wind Eagle Guard (I)

North Wind Eagle Guard (I)

Boom!

Boom! Boom!

Several enormous boulders fell in succession, striking the ground with thunderous crashes.

Keosius twisted and dodged repeatedly in midair, bursting forth with unimaginable speed. Had they not seen it with their own eyes, few would have believed that he was a Red Dragon, a creature renowned for being strong but clumsy.

Crack!

A sudden sound of breaking came from above.

While flying at high speed, Keosius slightly raised his head and saw that the rock above the exit was collapsing.

The Red Dragon's expression turned grave. He sharply folded his wings and tucked his limbs tightly beneath his body.

Whoosh—

His body shot straight downward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

At the very last moment before the rock pile collapsed, Keosius burst out of the cave entrance. The tip of his tail narrowly brushed past the falling rocks.

Boom—

A deafening crash followed, sending dust billowing into the air.

Then, there was silence.

The tomb was completely buried beneath the rocks, never to be glimpsed by anyone again. Though he had utterly destroyed someone's grave in the process, in a sense, he had fulfilled the Storm Giant elder's wish that had been buried in history.

"Rest in peace."

Keosius gave the entrance, now submerged beneath rock and earth, one last look and spoke softly.

He patted the ancient writing on the stone pillar by the entrance, then turned and left.

The Red Dragon opened his claw. The deep blue Storm King's Eye still lay quietly within it.

"This thing contains too much power. I can't swallow it directly. I need to find a container first."

He was still shaken by the terrifying storm from before.

Storm Highlands, Ember Nest.

There were quite a few Goblin and Kobold corpses atop Stone Fortress's walls, along with even several Ogres. Nearly all had been killed by a single arrow from the sky.

Yet the skies held not only roaring, shrieking Wyverns, but also more than forty enormous giant eagles.

These giant eagles had lustrous feathers, with scales covering their vital areas. Their wingspans stretched over six meters.

A closer look revealed that each giant eagle carried a knight clad in heavy plate armor, with only their eyes exposed.

An eagle-and-sword emblem adorned every one of their chests.

They were the Rackman Dynasty's Eagle Guards!

The Rackman Dynasty was known as the "Eagle of the North Wind" because their ancestor, Telgai Lakeman, had stolen giant eagle eggs from the highest point of Storm Cliff. He had then raised large numbers of giant eagles within his territory, training elite giant eagle riders as his personal guard.

These giant eagle riders could contend against invasions by Frost Giants, Wyverns, and other monsters, and could also serve as lethal weapons when lords waged war against one another.

These knights, known as Eagle Guards, had been passed down through the generations for several centuries.

The battle in the sky continued.

More than forty Eagle Guards either drew their bows or wielded lances, riding their giant eagles as they continually circled the eight Wyverns.

They connected head to tail, forming an enormous encirclement.

They had ample experience contending against Wyverns. They knew they could not confront such massive monsters head-on, and they understood their enemies' disadvantage in making aerial turns due to their size, as well as their own advantage in mobility.

Thus, they adopted the so-called "circle formation."

The Eagle Guards covered one another head to tail, circling until the Wyverns were completely disoriented.

Any Wyvern that lunged at them would be met by a barrage of arrows, and once it missed its strike, lances from behind would be waiting to impale it.

The Goblin troops on the ground had no way to deal with these fast-moving aerial targets and could only fire limp arrows upward.

But after meeting air resistance, those arrows merely bounced harmlessly off the Eagle Guards' plate armor, as if they were scratching an itch.

The Ogres roared and bellowed as they blindly hurled massive stones into the sky.

One Ogre did not even bother aiming, simply tossing a stone skyward by instinct.

Bang!

The stone traced a graceful arc through the air and actually smashed a luckless Eagle Guard from the sky.

"Ooh, ooh, ooh! We hit one!"

"Nice one, Da Tou!"

"Knock those little flies and meat cans out of the sky!"

The Ogres cheered excitedly and swarmed forward, tearing both the giant eagle and its rider to pieces.

Lang Pu, standing at the highest point of the wall, refused to be outdone. He raised his club and pointed it toward the sky.

"Fireball!"

A blazing fireball shot toward a giant eagle in the sky.

Yet under the rider's expert control, the giant eagle forcibly wheeled around and dodged. The fireball grazed its breast, leaving behind only a streak of charred black.

Though it had missed, its intimidation was considerable, and the Eagle Guards immediately grew vigilant.

"It's a spellcaster!"

"Don't go near that section of wall! Damn it, why is there such a thing as an Ogre Mage?"

"Watch out for wherever the spellcaster is!"

Lang Pu's face was clouded. The giant eagle riders were far too mobile. More often than not, before he could even finish forming the structure of his Fireball, they had already flown high into the air and escaped.

And even if they managed to knock down one or two with stones, it was only a matter of luck.

Lang Pu adjusted the tiny spectacles on his face and muttered, "The Goblins are useless, and these brainless Wyverns won't do either. We'll have to rely on that beast... or wait for Master to return and deal with them."

"No. They're only a few dozen humans."

"Master will be disappointed in me."

With that thought, the Ogre Mage bellowed in Draconic toward the cave in the rock wall, "Chimera, if you don't make a move now, are you waiting for Master to come back and tear you to pieces?"

Roar—

An angry roar came from within the cave.

A massive monster with the three heads of a goat, a lion, and a dragon charged out of the dark cave. Flapping its dragon-like wings, it rose into the air.

"It's a Chimera!"

An Eagle Guard cried out in the sky.

"Spread out!"

A steady voice came from the air.

It belonged to Alger Yoman, the Guard Captain of this Eagle Guard unit and an experienced Fighter.

Behind the heavy standard-issue plate armor was a pair of incomparably calm eyes.

Unlike the others, his weapon was neither a lance nor a bow, but a heavy greatsword engraved with openwork patterns of a spreading eagle.

The Chimera flapped its wings and flew straight to the highest point.

Awooo—

It let out a Long Cry.

Then, in the way it knew best, it glided into a dive, spewing scorching Fire Breath from its mouth.

The Eagle Guards immediately abandoned their original formation and scattered, dodging the flames.

But facing the Chimera's high-speed dive, three Eagle Guards still failed to evade in time. They were swallowed by tongues of fire, burned fiercely in midair, then fell to the ground with anguished cries.

Seeing his comrades fall, Alger shouted, "Leave this Chimera to me! Continue surrounding those Wyverns!"

He leaned forward slightly, gently stroking the giant eagle's feathers as he said softly, "Iger, it's time!"

The giant eagle and its rider lived and fought together. Naturally, they understood one another without needing further words.

Screee!

A piercing eagle cry rang out through the sky.