As soon as the Wanderers made their way into what the Warden outside called the wyvern's nest, it was obvious why the Verdant Walkers disliked clearing the branch and struggled to fight here. The Wanderers hadn't seen how Cresche and the other Groves had dealt with the more extreme environments in the Trials, but they'd mentioned that it was difficult, and it took a long time for them to recover from extended walking periods, to say nothing of walking through a volcano or getting branches ripped off.
The first floor of the wyvern's nest Dungeon branch looked like the wyverns, wherever they were right now, enjoyed destroying whatever trees they came across. Splintered remains of trunks covered the hilly terrain they walked out into, the remnants of trees scattered everywhere. The trunks typically were no more than fifteen to twenty centimeters across, and a few stood tall, but for the most part, every tree had been destroyed. Astrid has no way to know how exactly the Dungeon created the environment that surrounded them, but evidently the wyverns enjoyed crashing through the environment like supersized toddlers.
"One approaches," Muti said as she stepped forward. Her blades both glinted in her hands, but Felix walked in front of her, hefting his shield.
"These are Steel tier," Astrid said as she watched in the direction that Muti'd sensed the monster's approach from. "I don't know just how strong they'll be, or what new Skills they might have. Since there's just the one approaching, we'll take our time and familiarize ourselves with everything that we can do, so focus on crippling, not killing blows."
Nobody complained, or commented, they all just fell into position. Astrid continued, "Focus on locking it down more than killing it at first. I want to be able to understand about how strong it is, how fast it is, and what it can do before we push ourselves deeper and potentially fight against multiple of the wyverns at the same time."
Again, nobody commented on her commands, but Astrid didn't mind. Instead, she readied herself, and before she forgot, activated her newest aura. Unconquerable Aura reduced all damage that everybody took within range, and as it was strengthened by Boon of the Hero, all incoming damage was reduced by 15%. As a further preparation, she activated Heroic Aura to protect their minds from any Skills that the wyvern might possess.
As she did that, Benedict's own auras both washed over the entire party. With this being the first time that he'd used both updated Skills, Song of Victory and Voice of Liberation, on the party, Astrid felt herself bounce where she stood as the additional effects of the Skills applied themselves. Liberation was focused on the party's Alacrity while Victory on hurting whatever came close. The rest of the party also went through their own preparations, but Astrid paid less attention to them than she did the approaching wyvern. She trusted them to be as competent as they always were, so she was just left nervous about facing the lesser dragon-like monster.
In appearances, the approaching wyvern looked much the same as the one that she remembered fighting with Felix on her back. Two legs with eagle-like feet, each one large enough to pick her up and throw her without difficulty. A long, thick tail, with barbed hooks at the tip, then a snakelike neck and a snub-nosed mouth that could be unhinged like a snake's were the other two primary weapons it would use. Two bat-like wings spread out, flapping through the air so hard that she could feel the air movement in her chest, even as it approached slowly from a kilometer away
Just by looking at it, with her experience, Astrid could tell that the elevation in tier for the wyvern brought several qualitative changes. First was its size. From afar, she thought it was the same size, but as it flew closer, with an almost lackadaisical pace communicating its pride, she realized that instead of the fifteen meter wingspan of the Iron tier one, this one's wings were at least twenty meters across, and its scales glinted with a hidden density of compressed mana. Instead of having a complexion to let it blend in, this wyvern was a dark red, its belly fading to a tan color, but it was very visible. The final difference she could spot just looking at it, was the presence of some sort of mana constantly flickering on its talons.
"Muti, Skandr, can you tell what's going on with those claws?"
"Magic," Muti answered.
"A combination of wind and lightning magic," Skandr gave a better report. "It works together to stun whatever it catches and to hold it in place with the wind. You get caught, it'll be bad."
"And it's bigger than the last one we fought so it'll be stronger," Astrid said, as the wyvern seemed to stop trying to show off its presence. Skandr stopped talking as his words thundered with a power they hadn't had before his evolution, preparing a spell. "Don't get caught."
There wasn't any opportunity to say anything else as the wyvern screeched and taught Astrid what Boon of the Hero's Heroic Aura's description meant when it said, "gain near immunity" to terror. Astrid's shoulders stiffened with involuntary fear as the wyvern, flying high above, corkscrewed in the air, and began to dive down. Fortunately, that was all that the terror was able to inflict on her, and she whipped her sling around twice before throwing a frostburst stone into its face, then another.
Ice crackled over its piggy eyes and snub nose face, but the velocity of its descent seemed to wipe much of that frost off, though the stone itself had hit solidly enough to knock its head to the side. Its performative fury became a more animalistic, real rage as it lay its eyes on her specifically. She mentally noted that the ammunition prepared with Iron-tier enchantments wouldn't work as well against something that was strong for its tier, like these wyverns, but there were more pressing issues at hand.
"Felix!" Astrid commanded, knowing that he understood what she wanted him to do. She ran as far away from the rest of the party as she could in the last split second, trying to draw away the monster's attention away from the rest. She was successful, and it adjusted its course to follow her; talons outstretched to catch her. If she was caught, she would be, at best, in for a world of pain, and Astrid sprinted further, just as Felix activated Raging Guardian and Defender's Mandate to ensure that the wyvern had to focus on him.
It screeched in anger as its head twisted unnaturally towards the Guardian. Its momentum shifted towards him at the last possible second, and as its body was wrenched in two different directions, half by inertia and half by a hostile Skill, Astrid saw as it activated a Skill of its own. It was too late for whatever it wanted to do to take effect though, and the wyvern's body smashed into the ground just behind her with bone-shattering force that shook the ground.
The monster screamed in anger as tons of its weight slammed into the ground, but the wyvern that evidently passed time by crashing through fully grown trees was only minorly injured by plummeting to the ground. When it rose, it was obvious what the Skill it'd activated had done, as it looked at Astrid with hatred, but then decided to refocus on Felix, the one who had forced it to the ground. Its tail lashed threateningly towards the other Wanderers, but Felix had its attention for now and Benedict and Skandr backed up just enough to be somewhat safe.
Astrid saw as the wyvern flared open its wings and prepared to take back off into the air, but she spent a charge of Body—Physique, she reminded herself—to replenish her mana after activating her two auras. Then, she created two Spectral Gravitons just below the wyvern's chest. The gray energy in the center of each clawed greedily at its scales, the tan color there leaching away as it squealed in indignation and pain.
Whatever anger she fed inside it wasn't enough to keep it there, the beast knew it was a skybound creature and it didn't want to be on the ground, so its wings flapped heavily several times. Astrid witnessed the first stress test for the gravity part of her Skill, and the wyvern rose, though it looked side to side with confusion as it struggled to lift off. Astrid grinned, remembering that the Skill stated she could use more or less mana and stamina to change the effects. That was a baseline of about 15% of each, so there was plenty more she could give it to create a nearly unescapable area.
For now, that wasn't her concern as the rest of the party didn't hesitate to get to work as well, Benedict shifting to doubly using Voice of Liberation to slow the monster further while Skandr planted his feet and spoke with earth shaking words as a cloud billowed into existence not more than two meters overhead. Muti needed no preparation, her body bursting into shadow as she launched herself onto the wyvern's back, just between its wings.
As a dozen attacks fell on it in the space of one second, the monster flapped ever harder to escape, but Muti's blades sliced into the flesh of wings, tearing the relatively thin membranes to ribbons. The meter or two of lift that the wyvern had gotten off of the ground disappeared as its wing faltered, and it fell to the ground under the effect of the Spectral Gravitons. The wyvern lashed its tail towards Muti, who continued cutting its wing even more as the venomous, whipcrack tail flashed forward. Before it made contact, she puffed with black shadow from one of her tattoos and reappeared on the monster's other wing.
Its face started to turn around towards the Lethal Shadow on its back, but Astrid heard as Felix roared a challenge from somewhere she couldn't see on the other side of the beast. The wyvern's attention snapped back towards him as Astrid activated Body Surge and jumped forward to land on its back.
Just like the first time she'd used it, she underestimated just how much stronger and faster she was, and Astrid, instead of jumping onto the scaly back, jumped over and landed on the other side.
"Maybe hit the monster," Benedict snarked at her as he winked, but Astrid didn't respond, instead adjusting her expectations with a supernaturally quick understanding of what she could do now. This time, she lowered her shield against her shoulder, aimed, and jumped again as she flooded the shield with enough mana to ensure it wouldn't be reduced to scrap.
In that moment, Astrid made herself, with all of the weight that she was carrying, into a 250 kilo missile that smashed into the joint of the wyvern's wing. In that moment, Astrid was forced to remember that while Body Surge did double her Power and Alacrity, it did not in any way affect her Fortitude. She was tough, tougher than most things she'd ever seen, but with that much strength behind her jump, making contact was agony. Her collarbone snapped like a twig, her ribs creaked, grown, and broke to puncture her lungs. Her hip, where her shield hit it, nearly snapped as well. Her arm, especially her wrist where she held her shield, was reduced to powder, and she fell to the ground in a limp pile, groaning in surprised agony.
Although there was no small amount of damage that she managed to do to herself, Astrid had managed an effective attack. She hit the wyvern in its center of mass and it topped over as it tried to hold itself up with its other wing, and the left wing she'd smashed into was out of commission. Muti had already done plenty of damage to the right wing, and it fell, prone.
Fortunately, a charge of Physique was enough to get her back into fighting condition, and as she hefted her hammer, she spent another charge just to ensure this next attack was as amplified as possible. After all, the blunt weapon that was her body was amplified by her equipment Skill, the hammer'd better do a lot more.
Just as she rushed forward, though, the wyvern was suddenly covered in a raging tornado that pushed herself, Muti, and Felix away. Fortunately, her eyes were completely protected through the faceless visor of her helmet, but stones the size of a fist were thrown everywhere, making Benedict grunt in pain as he was struck several times.
Then, the cloud above made its opinion known. Skandr spoke a single word and the tornado was snuffed from existence. Where a howling gale had been was nothing, and the wyvern, which had evidently hoped for its Skill to save its life, was left crippled on the ground. It snapped at Felix, who still forced its attention on him, while Astrid, still boosted by Body Surge, threw herself at the monster's head. Her hammer, amplified by all of the damage that she had just taken, fell and crunched through the thick bones on the top of the wyvern's head. It swayed, eyes blinking rapidly as Astrid raised her hammer again, infused a Spectral Graviton into the head of the hammer with the same amount of energy as both of the others she'd made earlier, and dropped it again.
Fortunately, her Skill didn't want to hurt her. The life devouring energy that filled the head of her weapon all stretched towards the monster that was drizzly trying to strike back at her. Spectral Graviton pulled her hammer down faster at the wyvern's head, and smashed the creature into the ground as the tendrils burst out inside of its skull and destroyed everything they touched. Astrid didn't need it, but she welcomed the kill notification that flashed in her vision at that.
Gale Wyvern slain. 1,800 experience gained, split among party.
"Level 56, then," Astrid said, rolling her neck and groaning. "A lot tougher than I expected it to be. Then it had that purge Skill, right?"
"I don't know what kinds of Skills it had, Astrid," Skandr replied dryly. "Maybe if we hadn't killed it within the first fifteen seconds of first contact, I could have learned a little bit more. Maybe if there had been a plan about how to keep it alive and focus on crippling instead of killing the beast, we could've learned some more. Just maybe."
Each word he said dripped with sarcasm, and Astrid felt her face flush in embarrassment at the reminder that she herself had said that they should take their time and learn more about the monsters in this first engagement instead of focusing on killing it. Seeing how she reacted, even through her armor and helmet, Skandr laughed and shook his head.
"Honestly, I don't know how much longer I could have held myself back either," he shrugged. "The feeling of stealing its Skill and destroying it with a single command? Exhilarating."
Astrid nodded in agreement, but couldn't help but apologize to the rest of the party. "I didn't do what I said. I'm sorry. Moving forward, maybe there should be a better plan. Any ideas?"
"Maybe we can do that in a while," Skandr shrugged, "but if people want to take another fight or two to let loose, then we can do that too."
Looking around, Benedict and Felix didn't seem to care as much, but Muti?
"I shall cripple it," Muti declared, her eyes challenging Astrid.
"I'll help you if you need it," Astrid said back by way of accepting the challenge. She smiled, welcoming the environment that surrounded them.With that, the party made the decision to move onto the next fight. After all, there was plenty they still needed to learn and to clear out for their assignment. Why couldn't they have some fun first?