Chapter 769 Unyielding Will
“By the Three Gods! That’s… a Four-Winged Eagle!”
“This beast dares to intrude into the Scorching Fire Holy Land!”
“S-save me!”
“Guards, where are the guards?”
A wave of panicked and incredulous exclamations arose from the crowd. Some Sand folk drew their weapons, climbing the high platform to save Lorgar, while others tried to flee, causing chaos to erupt on the scene.
Ash, however, saw it clearly. The great bird emerging from the smoke was a giant demonic beast. It resembled a hybrid of an eagle and a beetle, with its back, lower abdomen, and head covered in striped carapace. Its claws numbered six, visibly segmented, with the foremost pair being the thickest, clamping Lorgar firmly to the ground like iron pincers. What should have been four pairs of wings as thin as cicada wings had become thick, feathered wings, its most striking feature.
Such an ugly monster could never be bred in a natural environment.
The demonic beast pressed down on the wolf girl while pecking fiercely at her head. The latter's claws were completely unable to block the attacks, forcing her to rely on swinging her head from side to side to dodge. Her immobilized body limited her dodging range, and within mere moments, the wolf girl had taken several hits to the face, the gushing blood staining her fur red. At this rate, she wouldn’t last long before being killed alive by the demonic beast.
Ash naturally wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen.
Assisting Iron Axe in the desert campaign was for Tilly’s sake; resolving the matter with a holy duel was due to the other party’s choice, as well as Leaf’s herbs and Nana Wa’s healing. She would respond seriously to their expectations. But Lorgar was still a witch, and unless she was as evil as a Pure One, she couldn’t sit idly by and watch a fellow kind die at the hands of a demonic beast.
“Echo!”
Ash shouted, then lunged at the hybrid, seizing its hooked beak just as it pecked down again.
The sharp corners of its beak tore her arm, and blood dripped onto the wolf girl's face, but she remained motionless.
The wolf girl weakly looked up, gazing at her with her remaining eye, a complex expression emerging in her dark pupils.
At the same time, Echo's soothing melody rang out at just the right moment, the lively music gradually dispelling the panic of the crowd, and the stampeding flow of people subsided.
Once the interference from the surrounding crowd was gone, a series of gunshots quickly came from the direction where Andrea stood.
Unlike the First Army, who were concerned about accidentally injuring the witch, her precise shooting ability ensured that she could perfectly hit the target as long as there was a sliver of an opening.
Ash clearly saw the claw holding Lorgar jerk violently. Several bullets hit the same joint, directly shattering two sections of the Four-Winged Eagle's insect leg.
Losing its grip, Lorgar flipped over and kicked the demonic beast in the abdomen, sending it flying. The latter flapped its wings and took to the air again—it was only at this point that the First Army squad opened fire with a dense barrage. Unfortunately, hitting a flying target that could nimbly circle or rise and fall was not an easy task. Rather than flying like a bird, it was more like an erratic insect.
“Are you alright?” Ash took off her black coat and covered the giant wolf's rapidly shrinking body.
“Temporarily… cough, cough, can’t die…” Lorgar, having reverted to human form, coughed up two mouthfuls of bloody phlegm, struggling to sit up, but failing several times.
“Don't move, it will aggravate your wounds.” Ash felt along her body. One side of her chest was sunken inward, and she could feel protruding bones. Clearly, several ribs had been broken in the previous violent impact. It was fortunate that the giant wolf form was more resistant to blows; in human form, that hit would probably have killed her.
The warriors of the Fiery Blaze clan also surrounded them, drawing their short bows and aiming arrows at the demonic beast circling in the sky, but the distance was beyond the effective range of the guns, let alone the arrows.
“Be careful! It’s coming again!” Echo's warning sounded again.
“Everyone, get out of the way!”
Ash rolled on the ground with Lorgar in her arms, dodging the demonic beast's ground-skimming attack.
, while several clan warriors who didn’t have time to evade were sent flying, a large chunk of their chests caved in, showing that they wouldn’t survive.
The Four-Winged Eagle clearly possessed considerable intelligence. It seemed to realize that the only thing that could harm it was the long gun in Andrea’s hand, and it tried to face the blonde witch with its abdominal carapace as much as possible when swooping to attack Lorgar, and swerved left and right, its flight path tracing a broken line. And when Andrea reloaded, the demonic beast would use the captured people to throw at Hummingbird and Echo beside her, to hinder her reloading action, while turning to attack her.
Andrea narrowly avoided danger several times, after all, in addition to paying attention to the demonic beast's movements, she also had to take care of the other two partners. If it hadn’t been for her mastery of new evolution skills, which allowed her to unleash a strong current of air at close range, the demonic beast would have already pounced on her.
Ash couldn't help but frown. This Four-Winged Eagle seemed to be specifically targeting the witches.
If it were simply hunting for food, there were people everywhere on the high platform, and no one could stop it from grabbing one or two and taking them away. But it repeatedly pulled up and swooped down, either attacking Lorgar or staring at Andrea and her group, practically ignoring ordinary people, an attitude that didn't match the rumored cruelty and bloodthirst at all.
Only fifty members of the First Army had entered the Scorching Fire Land, and they had no way to deal with a nimble target in the air. Ash thought that she had to lure it over the main force and use a denser barrage of fire to have a chance of shooting it down.
But… how exactly to do it?
At this moment, Lorgar grabbed her hand.
“Throw me,” the wolf girl gasped for breath, saying each word clearly.
“What?”
“Cough, cough… throw me!” She repeated, “When it comes at us, it's the only… the only chance to catch it. I can’t act under my own power, so I can only ask you!”
“If it doesn’t work, you might die here,” Ash said in a deep voice.
“The best fate for a warrior has always been to die on the battlefield,” Lorgar’s ears drooped. “In that way, I have at least held on until the last moment. You are the strongest warrior I have ever met… cough, cough… Thank you for allowing me to experience such a wonderful duel.”
Ash saw the firm will in her expression, and after a moment of silence, nodded. “I understand. But you are wrong about one thing, this is not our last battle.”
“Even if I… even if I survive, I won't be able to stand like a normal person again, you don’t need to comfort me,” she smiled self-deprecatingly.
Injured to this extent, even if she recovered, she would be disabled. For her, perhaps dying would be even more comfortable.
“In Neverwinter City of Graycastle, there is a witch named Nana Wa,” Ash slightly parted her lips into a smile. “She has the ability to heal any injury, even if there is only a breath left, or if all the limbs are broken, she can restore the injured to their original state.”
The wolf ears perked up in an instant.
“What you said… is it true?”
“Of course, I've experienced no less than a hundred battles like this, and there are even more powerful enemies entrenched there. If you want to hone your skills, you can find opportunities at any time. So, as long as you survive…” Ash paused here, the second half of the sentence was unnecessary, she saw the remaining eye of the other party blossoming with a new brilliance.
“I will survive, definitely.”
“Well, then let's do it.”
Ash no longer hesitated, grabbing one of Lorgar’s feet with one hand, and as the Four-Winged Eagle swooped towards the center of the high platform, she spun around twice, centering on herself, and then threw her out with force—
The Third Princess of the Fiery Blaze clan, draped in a black coat, flew straight towards the falling monster like an arrow released from a bow.