Chapter 91: Fight...
As soon as they heard the screeching, they prepared to fight. The flashes of white light closed in on them rapidly.
Eve immediately charged her metallic hands with electricity and slammed them together. A massive electric burst spread outward from her, crashing toward the angry birds...
But the wave did nothing to slow them down.
The birds simply shrugged off the paralyzing attack and reached them with renewed fierceness.
Not knowing what else to do, Death frantically summoned her Skeleton Ice Bear. But just as the massive undead came into contact with the birds white light, it sizzled and disintegrated into ash, as if it had met its natural enemy.
Still, these two desperate counterattacks delayed the flock just enough to give the others precious time to prepare. In the very next moment, Night and Sage were ready for the onslaught.
Despite flying in a crowded flock, the birds were adept at dodging. Unlike the first one, these ones were more cunning; they seamlessly dodged and targeted the weaker members in the back.
When a bird reached Eve, she tried to block by parrying the strike with her kunai charged in electric energy. But the bird simply bulldozed right through the defensive attack and reached her with the intention of finishing her off.
Night despaired when he saw this. But just as Eve was about to be hit, the bird was cut in two.
He quickly looked at the others and saw that every single bird that had managed to bypass their defenses was similarly cut down. He instantly understood it was Blade.
During the peaceful time they had spent together, Night had forgotten that Blade didn’t just look cool; she was strong and was good at controlling the entire battlefield like she was doing right now.
Knowing the others were safe, he decided to focus on the birds attacking him.
Instead of wildly waving his heavy axe at them, he stood still and switched his weapon from one big axe to two small axes. Since the opponents were small and agile, smaller and faster weapons would easily suffice.
Just then, three birds charged at him simultaneously from three different sides: left, right, and from above. He took a deep breath, tightened his grip and swung at the birds attacking from the left and right, entirely ignoring the one diving from the top.
As he swung the axes, he activated [Wind Overdrive] and coated the stone weapons in Nightmare Mist.
But just as they reached him, right before the birds could agilely dodge, he abruptly dispersed the axes entirely and willingly let the birds hit his body.
Just as their talons reached him, a burst of Nightmare Mist was expelled directly from him, covering him entirely. Because the three birds were far too close, they were completely enveloped in it as well.
They didn’t even get to scream before they were sent straight into the reincarnation cycle by the treacherous kid.
[Ding!]
[You have slain a Lvl 45 Ice Light Eagle | +450 EXP]
Level: 20 (EXP: 1590/21,000)
...
[Ding!]
[You have slain a Lvl 42 Ice Light Eagle (x2) | +840 EXP]
Level: 20 (EXP: 2430/21,000)
...
The others looked at him in admiration; while they struggled with just one, Night had already killed three.
Even Sage was not able to properly connect her attacks to the birds. Her staff strikes were dodged quite effortlessly by the agile creatures.
Night looked down. Not a single speck of dust of the three birds remained.
He shook his head with a sigh.
While this was an efficient killing method, this area-of-effect attack completely dissolved them, leaving nothing behind for him to devour nor for Death to raise as an undead.
He looked around and saw Sage currently being toyed with by a fast bird. Since the eagle didn’t show any desire to kill her, Blade ignored it, not bothering to target it.
Just then, Death reached the mangled remains of the first bird they had killed.
She looked over at Night with glowing eyes, silently asking for permission. Night saw this and nodded his head, understanding exactly what she wanted to do.
With a wave of her bone scepter, the bird’s muscles, tissues and cells were rapidly absorbed directly into its bones. Soon, only a pristine white skeleton bird remained.
She immediately directed the skeleton bird toward Sage.
The eagle that was currently toying with the tiny monkey was not expecting to be ambushed by a skeletal copy of its own kind.
It easily dodged the initial strike, since the skeleton bird was unable to use the peculiar white light that seemed to work as a speed boost for the living ones.
But because of this intrusion, it failed to dodge the next attack from Sage.
Thud!
[Ding!]
[You have slain a Lvl 41 Ice Light Eagle | +410 EXP]
Level: 20 (EXP: 2840/21,000)
And just like that, another bird fell prey to Sage’s staff, making the rest of the flock significantly warier.
Many of the surviving birds were now circling high in the cold air above them, patiently waiting for the perfect opening to attack. It seemed Night’s group was being treated as mere fish waiting to be eaten for dinner, despite the deadly circumstances.
Death quickly reached the fresh remains of Sage’s kill and looked at Night again, who was currently engaged in a fierce fight with two more birds.
She waved her scepter, and just like that, another skeleton bird joined her growing army. Now armed with two aerial minions, she moved closer to support Night.
Sage eagerly followed along.
During this chaotic fight, the most miserable person was Lucy. Her shadows kept parting away every single time a bird reached her. The eagles’ white light naturally dispersed her shadows, forcefully reducing her to dodging pathetically across the snow.
So, she cleverly shrunk herself down to her small, plushie size, which made her incredibly agile. She dodged by frantically jumping from shadow to shadow repeatedly.
But the birds were far too fast, always reaching her general location the very next moment, never giving her a single second to rest.
By now, she had completely given up on fighting back and entirely focused on training her dodging and evasion skills.
While it was technically possible for her to gather a wisp of Nightmare Mist on her claws and attack them, the birds were far too cunning, always backing away the second it looked like she was about to counterattack.
Of course, the fact that ten angry birds were relentlessly chasing her made it difficult for her to even attempt a proper strike.
When Death finally reached Night, the two eagles harassing him backed away a little in caution.
"Master, let’s fight them together!" Death called out. "My birds can help you create a opening to land a hit!"
Night, gaining a brief moment of freedom, looked at Death and nodded in agreement.
It was difficult to land a hit on these incredibly fast birds, especially since they were now wary of his Nightmare Mist.
The flock’s actual chances of winning this battle were practically zero with Blade protecting them from the shadows. T
here was also Sara, who hadn’t even participated in the fight yet. Yet despite all of this, the stubborn birds refused to retreat and instead relentlessly kept diving at them.
Either they had a hidden trump card, or they were just completely stupid.
Either way, there was not much he could do except fight them head-on. Also, he quickly realized that Death’s undead army was incredibly useful if they ever wanted some mobile meat shields... no... bone shields in a chaotic fight.
Seeing Night standing calmly, both living birds resumed their rapid dive attack. But just as they closed the distance, they were intercepted by the two skeleton birds.
In response, both of the living eagles activated a skill that made their white glow flare blindingly bright, instantly making the skeleton birds weaken and falter.
These undead summons clearly had a highly obvious weakness: the Light Aspect seemed to be their bane.
But Night was not just going to stand there and watch. He was going to ruthlessly finish these birds off without destroying their valuable corpses completely.
Night jumped high into the air, simultaneously triggering [Wind Dash]. Just as the living birds finished off the weakened skeleton birds, Night was already right upon them.
He swung his stone axe fiercely in mid-air.
Faced with Night’s sudden attack, one bird was caught completely off guard and was cleanly sliced down.
The second bird was barely able to dodge backward.
But just when it smugly thought it had successfully dodged the melee strike, an axe flew through the air toward it, splitting it perfectly in two.
Night had thrown his second hand-axe, barely able to maintain the Nightmare Mist on the projectile. Luckily, it hit its mark flawlessly.
[Ding!]
[You have slain a Lvl 44 Ice Light Eagle | +440 EXP]
Level: 20 (EXP: 3280/21,000)
[Ding!]
[You have slain a Lvl 46 Ice Light Eagle | +460 EXP]
Level: 20 (EXP: 3740/21,000)
He saw Death looking at him, silently asking if she could add these two fresh kills to her army as well.
Night looked up at the remaining flock circling above and quickly nodded in agreement. He needed something to distract them while he one-shot them, after all.
Death acted quickly, dissolving the flesh. She now officially had two more skeleton birds in her growing army.
With a wave of her scepter, the first two skeleton birds, which had already fully recovered, reappeared alongside them.
With four skeleton birds hovering around him, Night resumed his hunt.
After an hour of non-stop fighting, the snowy ground was littered with ice light eagle corpses. Twelve skeleton birds could now be seen flying around Death.
Looking at this display, the surviving Ice Light Eagles finally came to their senses. After losing more than half of their flock to this bizarre group, they turned and flew away with unwilling screeches.
Most of the kills had ultimately been the silent work of Blade, and the vast majority of Night’s personal kills had been turned into skeleton birds by Death. He thought it was a good tactical investment for now.
Level: 20 (EXP: 10740/21,000)
Looking closely at his massive EXP gain, he felt glad that these aggressive birds had shown up and was actually a little sad that the rest of them had run away.
There had been more than enough of them in the flock for him to easily level up, after all.
After they quickly finished cleaning up the battlefield, storing the rest of the corpses in the spatial ring, they continued their snowy journey.
Soon, they encountered another large clearing. But this time, it held no monsters, but a massive gate. It was glowing a blue color, meaning it was still a uncleared new dungeon.
Sara observed the portal. "It is a Level 30 dungeon, with a entry limit of five people per squad."
Night heard this and looked unsure. He did not have good past experiences with dungeons...