I became a legion lich

205 Air battle

‘We need to make the wyvern stop, or at least slow it down enough for Simogo to reach it.’ Athos spoke through the mind link. since it was almost impossible to talk at the speed they were at.

‘It’s almost impossible to hit him with a spell at the speed we’re at.’ Malta replied. His lightning arrows might be able to hit, but it wouldn’t even tickle a wyvern.

‘Let’s use Simogo’s roar. It should destabilize the dragon enough for us to be able to.’ Astrus spoke and prepared to avoid falling.

“ROARR!” Simogo did as ordered, using the skill roar influx. The stricken skeletons felt the darkness in their bodies weaken because of the foreign mana invading their bones, but they didn’t lose consciousness this time.

The similarity between their mana was enough to allow them to retain consciousness, they just felt a sense of temporary weakness.

Malic, on the other hand, was hit by the roar and lost control of the wind spells, the corruption sapping her strength. The float spell was also undone and the sudden weight of the eggs caused Malic to drop them by accident.

“Not!” The yellow wyvern screamed in the demihuman language and turned to try to grab the eggs, but Simogo lunged at her. He bit down on her hind leg and spread his wings to slow himself down, using his claws to tear at the wyvern’s hind leg.

Malic clenched her teeth to hold back the pain and kicked him with her free paw, releasing lightning bolts to electrocute him and free herself to fly to the eggs, but two skeletons jumped out of Simogo’s body to stop her from fleeing.

Athos was the first, using lightning impulse with his mind and magic organ to propel himself further. He flew in a straight line, activating the meteor charge enchantment and slamming bonesaw into the wyvern’s back.

.....

The sudden explosion threw the wyvern off balance and crushed several scales, at the same time sending Athos flying through the ricochet, but he only conjured a platform of air from under his feet and returned to Simogo’s back.

Astrus attacked soon after, summoning the sword of judgment and taking aim at the wyvern’s right wing. The original spell would use light and air to conjure a huge sword made of light surrounded by lightning, but the new spell replaced the light with darkness and black lightning.

The darkness rotted the leather of the wings and the black rays burned their joints, rendering the wing useless.

Malti attacked without leaving Simogo’s back, firing a lightning bolt charged to the limit along with his blade tornado spell, destroying the left wing.

“Filthy things, let go of me now!” Malic unleashed a lightning storm to try to get rid of Simogo and the skeletons, but the dragon didn’t suffer from seizures and pure electricity did little damage. Simogo wasted no time sinking his fangs even deeper into Malic’s hind paw, while gripping the other paw with his front claws.

Astrus wasn’t so lucky and even activating his armor’s barrier, the electricity still destroyed the barrier and electrocuted him, making him fall while releasing black smoke. He wasn’t dead, but his bone and armor had suffered severe damage and was in dire need of healing.

‘The ground is approaching, watch out!’ Malti’s voice rang in the skeletons’ heads, making everyone look to the ground and realize it was true. They hadn’t gained much altitude as they flew, so they weren’t high when they started to fall.

‘Let the wyvern fall and use wind magic to float. We can continue the fight on the ground.’ Athos ordered and all the skeletons cast float on themselves to break the fall, but Simogo kept attacking instead of retreating.

He pulled the wyvern’s body closer to him and bit down on the long neck, digging his front claws into the wyvern’s back and bringing her beneath him.

Malic fell to the ground as he kicked up a cloud of dust, several of his bones breaking on impact and internal organs nearly exploding. The only thing that saved her was a wind barrier conjured beneath her and mana being circulated to the max to bolster their body.

“You freaks…” Malic muttered as he spat out a mouthful of blood, his eyes focused on two wrecked eggs on the ground a little way off. The eggs had fallen a few seconds before and exploded, unable to bear the fall.

Malic tried to roar in rage and attack Simogo in a last stand, but Athos landed on her head with dragontusk in hand and pierced her through the skull, killing her instantly.

“Phew. Good thing that wyvern was more concerned with trying to save the eggs than fighting.” Athos sighed in relief as he removed the sword from the wyvern’s skull and turned to Simogo. “Are you okay? The fall was pretty bad, despite the wyvern mitigating the attack.”

Simogo showed his paws to Athos whose bones were cracked in several places. Athos quickly began using darkness to heal him, slightly diminishing the black mist across his body.

“Let’s go back quickly and help the others. Astrus, you are the only injured one among us, so stay back to heal and turn the wyvern into a skeleton once you’ve recovered.” Athos ordered and quickly climbed onto Simogo’s back and departed.

Meanwhile, the battle at the camp was reaching its climax.

Despite all the mages’ efforts to cast large-scale spells to hit the red wyvern, he was simply too agile to hit now that he had no reason to stand still and parry the blows.

Restraint spells were also useless, the red wyvern only needed to fly a little higher to get out of the spell’s range.

The red wyvern made use of its high mobility and magic to launch its best spells against the barrier and flee before the mages could reach it. The demihumans also resumed their attack, ignoring their injuries and attacking the barrier with all their might.

Broken bones would never stop orcs and the goblins that weren’t hit also joined the fray. The mages responsible for releasing individual spells conjured a barrage of spells that the hive hawks rained down on the demihumans, killing hundreds of goblins and dozens of orcs with each wave, but they refused to stop.

The fighting demihumans had already resigned themselves to defeat and knew that only death awaited them if they continued fighting, but they continued willingly to buy time for the trolls to rescue the earthquake survivors.

Cracks had built up along the barrier from the continued efforts of the red wyvern and demihumans, making Treevor cluck his tongue.

‘Bearers of shared curses, prepare to retreat as soon as the barrier breaks. Mages, prepare one great barrage of spells to protect the retreating skeletons.’ Treevor ordered and prepared to fight as well.

The red wyvern would have an easy time hitting the skeletons without the barrier and he was the only one with the strength to stop him.

With one last burst of flame conjured by the wyvern, the barrier finally broke and the demihumans roared in victory, but it only lasted a second. The wizards’ spells fell on them once more, the darkness of the spells suffocating the demihumans and further worsening the already open wounds.

The skeleton monsters pounced on the demihumans as they entered, allowing most of the skeletons holding shared curses to safely retreat. The skeleton monsters they were riding defended the skeletons from most attacks, but occasional skeletons were still destroyed by the orcs’ attacks.

The battle on the ground quickly became confusing, with monsters and demihumans tangled in a melee and the occasional spells from mages. The orcs were powerful and surpassed the monsters in terms of brute strength and skill, but the monsters were more numerous and had unique abilities to compensate.

Despite the orcs’ physical superiority, it only takes a moment of distraction or a strike in a blind spot to kill an orc.

“ROAR!” The red wyvern roared as it hurled a pillar of concentrated flame at the nearest hive hawk skeletons, the ones responsible for casting the spells that were killing its servants.

The hawks were unable to dodge the attack, but they didn’t have to. A barrier of ice with an amber glow appeared around them and protected them from the pillar of fire.

Treevor leaps off the ground, using his legs as springs, the spirit impulse ability, and conjuring platforms of corrupted mana to reach the fire wyvern quickly. He whipped the wyvern with the vines at the same time as he cast ice age around him to ward off fire magic.

To her surprise, the wyvern easily dodged her attack. In a single flap of wings the wyvern soared above Treevor and in a second it landed on top of him with claws aimed at Treevor’s exposed back.

Its claws ripped into its back and dug deep into the wood, reaching the base of its neck and hips, while its tail pierced the middle and injected a red liquid. The red wyvern’s flaming venom seared Treevor’s back like boiling oil and burned its way up his spine.

The freezing air lessened the strength of the flaming poison and was the only thing that kept the willow from burning like a torch.