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Chapter 211

The mountain was a cacophony of chaos, the air thick with the scent of sulfur and the acrid tang of smoke. The Fiery Apex Eagle soared overhead, its wings casting an eerie, fiery shadow over the battlefield below. According to Fate, she could no longer sense any creatures approaching from underground. With a hole now in the side of the mountain, everyone still fighting was heading down this path of least resistance.

As for the burrowing creatures, they had all either fled under the oppressive might of the Fiery Apex Eagle or were crushed in the ensuing tunnel collapses caused by its unexpected attack. Fate told me that most burrowing sage beasts were timid by nature, so it wasn’t surprising that they abandoned their attacks shortly after a powerful sage beast appeared.

I couldn’t help but look at the squashed remains of the vicious beasts that had almost overwhelmed us and thought that this wasn’t my definition of timid, but I would take any victory we could get. With all the sage beasts outside focused on this one entrance, we only needed to protect this one spot and keep any sage beasts from entering the cavern beyond until the wyvern was finished laying its eggs.

“We should alert my family. They can help us hold the line.” Fate offered.

I shook my head. “If we alert the Lou family that we’re up here, it will notify the rest. They might attack them in retaliation. Even if they knew we were here, they wouldn’t be able to climb this mountain any faster.”

Fate thought about it for a moment and then nodded in acceptance. “What do we do then? Are we just going to wait for them to reach this point?”

Down below, some sagebeasts were racing up the mountain at full tilt. By my best estimate, we had maybe five minutes before a dozen sage beasts would be trying to fight their way in. I also couldn’t seal this hole. The way it was situated, collapsing it would collapse the cavern and crush the wyvern too.

After thinking about it for a moment, I reached into my Luminal Space and pulled out Felix’s bow and quiver. Fate’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw it appear, but she knew enough that this wasn’t the situation to ask questions like how I had recovered his bow. In her mind, he had stayed behind to fight off the howl demon, so his equipment would have been left behind as well.

It wasn’t like I had ended up with the equipment through some nefarious means anyway. Lucky had wanted to recover Felix’s equipment and bring it back to the family. It was all a bit heavy and difficult for Lucky to carry by himself, so I elected to store the items in my Luminal Space. Of course, I didn’t mention I had such a space, but thankfully, Lucky was too distracted worrying about his family to notice the bow and quiver disappear from my back.

Since then, I had not had a chance to return it. I had never imagined I’d end up depending on his equipment, but it seemed like Felix was going to help me one last time. I almost forgave him completely for attempting to murder me.

“I hear this equipment is a bit special,” I said, “I can probably take out a few with it.”

Fate looked at the bow and arrows, her expression dubious. “Do you even know how to shoot?”

I admitted that I didn’t, but I didn’t have to. I had coated the arrows in a few of my cells. With Detached Automatism and Externalized Control, I could influence the trajectory of the arrow. That, along with my Dexterous Movement, heightened senses, and high position, gave me confidence that I could hit my enemies.

“They are coated with poison. All I need to do is hit one, and even if it’s not dead, it will be out of the fight.” I explained.

She looked at the arrows like a nest of snakes, taking a step back. “How many?”

“Eight,” I responded, glancing over at her. “I’ll make them count.”

Fate nodded, understanding my plan. “There’s no point in targeting the Fiery Apex Eagle. Even this weapon can’t get through its feathers. But any of the others are vulnerable.”

I glanced up at the eagle, its fiery form a beacon in the sky. “What is it doing up there anyway?”

Fate followed my gaze, her expression thoughtful. “It’s likely waiting for the other enemies to tire themselves out.”

“Clever…” I muttered, thinking that even with its superior evolutionary strength, it still chose to hold back, just like me. “In that case, tell which targets to pick.”

“Me?” She looked a bit taken aback, and then narrowed her eyes. “Are you still trying to flirt with me by making me feel included?”

“No…” I chuckled as I pulled out the first arrow from my quiver. “You know the sage beasts better than I do. You’ve studied them. You probably can guess better who’s going to give us the most problems. We can only take down eight, so pick out the eight that would be hardest to handle up close.”

“I-I see…” Fate blushed slightly at my words, but she nodded, her focus shifting to the battlefield below. “Alright, let’s see… We’ll avoid those in combat with the humans. With luck, they’ll injure each other.”

She began to point out the enemies, her voice steady and sure. “That one, the Stonehide Boar. Its hide is nearly impenetrable, and it can trample anything in its path. Ah, but your arrow wouldn’t be able to get through it.”

“Good enough.” I nocked the arrow, pulled, and shot without hesitation.

Fate let out a cry of surprise, but the arrow was already gone. Rather than draw another, I concentrated on the arrow, making sure that its flight path was accurate. Down below, the Stonehide board was charging through a group of smaller sage beasts as it ran up at a full charge. If it kept charging, it would blow right through use without stopping. No matter how strong I was, I wasn’t a stone wall. It would have been impossible to stop it.

The arrow continued. Either from hubris or inattentiveness, the stonehide boar didn’t even react before the arrow was already in its eye. It ran forward another few steps and then lost its footing, slamming to the ground and doing a fifteen-meter skid up the mountain before gravity took over and it started rolling back down. The beasts chasing after it, a pack of wolf-like creatures, scattered to keep from being rolled over like a boulder.

I turned to Fate. “Got it. Anything else?”

She looked at me with shock. “A-are you not an archer?”

“It’s my first time,” I responded. “Be happy you’ve had another one of my firsts.”

“Vulgar!” She turned away, blushing, but she also scanned the battlefield, knowing it wasn’t a good time to play too much. “There’s a Flamewing Bat. It can breathe fire and is nearly impossible to pin down.”

As soon as I saw what she saw, I pulled out the next arrow. This one’s movements were more sporadic, but a bat was a flying creature, which already made it difficult to manage on the ground. Caves were also a bat’s friends, so I didn’t want it to enter this spot. I spent a bit more time on this one, but still released it.

The bat saw the arrow and skittered out of the way. It would have avoided it, too, but it never would have guessed the arrow would suddenly turn ninety degrees and slam into it. The bat fell out of the sky soundlessly.

“That’s an archery skill!” Fate’s eyes widened. “You must have archery genes in your bloodline!”

“Do I?” I answered vaguely, knowing there was no way she’d guess a skill like Detached Automatism. “What’s next?”

“Right… The Venomspitter Frog! In close quarters, its toxins would be enough to even give you trouble.”

“We’ll see about that!” I shot the next arrow, hitting the frog just as it hopped.

By the time it hit the ground, it was already dead. It turned out it couldn’t take what it ditched out. Fate continued to direct me, and I continued to fire arrows. She grew more excited with each one, as they were all successful strikes. Even the worst one only struck the foot of a Thunderstrike Rhino. It wasn’t known by that name because it had any electrical powers, but because it sounded like thunder as it ran. It continued to move even after its foot was struck, but the toxins seemed to cause it to become disorientated.

It began to thrash around wildly, attacking every sage beast near it. Its death came at the hands of several other sage beasts a few minutes later.  By that point, I was out of arrows, and yet there were still dozens of targets. We didn’t have time anyway, as they had finally reached the mouth of the cave. I put the bow away and drew my sword, as Fate drew hers. It was time to fight up close.