Chp.30: Battle between legendary levels

Gorsh was furious as he flew towards where he had left the hydra. In fact, suddenly the creature had moved, clearly attracted by something.

The lionman couldn't understand what could have happened. For all that time the hydra had never moved: it had remained in the center of its territory, and it had been its minions that brought it food or dragged other animals from it that it could contaminate with its lethal breath. Apparently, the powers of his god that Gorsh had given it had made the hydra not only much stronger, but smarter and more devious as well. It had acquired a strange control of its deadly breath and thanks to this it had avoided turning the wood into a wasteland, since it understood that by doing so living creatures wouldn't keep away from it and it would be easier to obtain the food; it had also moved as little as possible to avoid attracting attention, leaving the work to its minions. This denoted a certain strategic ability, even if primitive and inaccurate.

The only time the hydra had left its shelter was when a basilisk had entered its territory; realizing that its minions couldn't deal with it, the hydra decided to fight it personally and quickly killed and devoured it. It was likely that a similar situation had now occurred: a new predator had entered its territory and its minions hadn't been able to deal with it, so the hydra had decided to intervene.

The situation wouldn't have been so strange... if it weren't for two important factors. The first one was that the hydra normally ended its fights within seconds, since its lethal breath killed everything, while this time its furious hisses and the noise of destroying trees had been going on for several minutes. The second one was that the beastmen mounted on their wyverns or other flying animals had continuously patrolled the area to prevent humans from reaching the hydra, and they had noticed nothing; no animal, at least not a large one, had come close to the wood. To go unnoticed, it would have to be completely invisible.

Gorsh suspected humans had a hand in all this, though he didn't understand how. Perhaps the humans had used illusory magic to enter the woods unnoticed… but his soldiers were equipped with powerful spells that prevented the illusions from working on them. Perhaps humans had gained stronger magic? Or maybe they had used some other trick?

Gorsh didn't know. All he understood at the moment was that he absolutely had to check what was going on. If there really were humans behind this situation, then most likely they would have taken advantage of the hydra's distraction to…

Another wyvern suddenly appeared out of the clouds, charging at his at full speed. Gorsh was unable to swerve in time and his wyvern was struck in the side by the opponent's claws. The blow was so strong that the wyvern was thrown to the side and only after a few moments was it able to regain its stability and fly straight again.

Gorsh reined in and readied to face his opponent. On the back of the other wyvern was a woman he had already seen: it was one of the legendary levels of the Jurao Kingdom! As he had expected, the humans wanted to take advantage of the situation!

"Attack!" he roared with all his strength, and his wyvern hurled itself against his adversary; behind him, all the other beastmen followed suit. But from the clouds emerged more wyverns and flying beasts riding humans. As the two groups clashed, the sky became a battlefield.

Gorsh and the human legendary level hurled countless spells at them, which generated so many shockwaves that their soldiers had to walk away, leaving them to fight alone. Their wyverns weren't thrown away just because they were themselves protected by the mana of the two contenders. Gorsh had the physical advantage and because of this he kept trying to close the gap between the two, but his opponent was otherwise good at ranged magic and kept away. Their wyverns in turn continuously exchanged claws or belched fires from their mouths, trying to bite each other's wings to tear them off and make the other fall.

As he fought, Gorsh didn't lose his focus. He knew this fight was just a way to keep him occupied and prevent him from reaching the hydra. And as he looked down, he noticed the two armies, the human and the beastmen, and realized that the human was clearly moving. "Do you really want to end this now?" he yelled at his opponent. "Now, and alone? Do you really think you can beat me one-on-one?"

With that said, the lionman jumped; the force it exerted was so strong that his own wyvern sank a few meters due to the recoil. Gorsh lunged at the opposing wyvern, and the latter opened its jaws and tried to hit him with its fire, but Gorsh brought the blade down violently, deflecting the flames without any effort. He landed on the head of his opponent's wyvern so hard that the animal seemed stunned for a few moments, and his wyvern, which had recovered in the meantime, took the opportunity to attack it and bite it on the neck.

Now Gorsh was in front of the human woman, and he lunged at her with all his strength. His every step was like a small earthquake that made the poor wyvern under him tremble, which consequently suffered even more from the other's attacks. The human woman summoned several protection spells, forming concentric shields in front of her. But not only that: more magical shields appeared behind Gorsh, and at his sides, and above him. The lionman understood that the woman's intent was to crush him from multiple directions to prevent him from moving. The plan wasn't a bad one, but Gorsh wasn't about to let her carry it out: the sword empowered with his mana slammed into the shields. They initially resisted, demonstrating that his opponent was also quite strong: normally, in fact, a magical shield wouldn't have held up even for an instant against the violence of the lionman. But after several hits, even the human legendary level's magic shields also started to shatter one by one.

Gorsh roared in triumph as the last barrier fell and lunged at the human, but she was already ready and her scepter was raised against him. A tremendous amount of power emerged from it and was hurled at the lionman. Gorsh instinctively sensed divine power and quickly used his god's power in turn to protect himself. As the two forces collided, it was as if a small sun appeared in the night sky.

Gorsh grit his teeth and felt his fur burn slightly as the wave of divine power passed over him. Though several days had passed, he was still recovering from the birth of the calamity: sharing half his power with the hydra had severely debilitated him, and while his strength hadn't diminished, his energy had. And in fact the divine power of the human exceeded his, even if only slightly, just enough to slightly overcome his defenses and cause him some damage.

However, he still had the edge. Their difference in power wasn't that great and the human woman in front of him didn't seem to be able to hold up in a close combat: Gorsh could play defensive as long as the powers given to them by the gods collided, but sooner or later the human would have to stop and that would be when Gorsh would have attacked her with his full force. At that point, it would have been easy for him to kill her.

Although the situation had not gone as he had hoped, perhaps he could turn the tables on the table. Once that human legendary level was killed, he would be very tired, and he would need days to recover; which would put him at a disadvantage when the other human legendary level arrived. However, he still had the hydra: whoever was distracting her wouldn't last long. Sooner or later the hydra would calm down, and consequently as soon as the other part of the human host arrived Gorsh could order his underlings to draw it against it with their winged mounts. At that point the hydra would have taken care of eliminating all its enemies. This time he would make no more mistakes: he would monitor the hydra much more carefully than before, and not allow it to be distracted again at such a crucial moment.

Of course, since the battle would only be between the hydra and the legendary level human, the beast was likely to win, contrary to what he had originally planned… but Gorsh was confident he could handle it. The hydra just wanted to be left alone in its own territory after all. It would have been enough for Gorsh to create patrols that continuously monitored it and checked that it didn't come out of the woods, and that provided it with food if it started to run out. This could even be an advantage in the future: Gorsh could use that very powerful hydra against other opponents as well...

Yes, the situation could still be resolved with his victory. He just had to eliminate the human woman in front of him!

As he'd expected, his opponent was soon forced to stop: after all, even though Gorsh was debilitated in terms of divine power, he was using it to defend herself while she was using it to attack. A protection required much less energy than an attack, especially one as strong as his opponent's one. As soon as the woman stopped, Gorsh wasted no time in lunging at her with his sword, ready to plunge it into her belly and rip her body in half.

But the sword never reached its target. The woman blanched and for a moment her eyes were full of panic, but then something came between her and the sword. There was a clanging sound and Gorsh was hurled backwards by the force of the recoil. The lionman was shocked: what protection could hold against his direct attack?

He looked up and his heart skipped a beat. A man clad in red and gold armor had appeared in front of him, clutching a huge sword in his hands, which was still vibrating from the blow he had just received. Gorsh had seen it before… it was one of the legendary levels he had faced in the last battle! "You!?" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been here for several days, actually" the man replied, then looked at the woman. "Can you still fight, Hara?"

"Don't worry, Carrion" the woman replied, swinging her scepter. "You took too long, anyway"

"Sorry, I flew here as fast as I could" Carrion replied, then looked at the lionman. "Now let's get this over with"

Gorsh grit his teeth in fury. Looking down, he clearly saw a second army appearing in the distance. "How could I? I had my scouts monitor the area!"

"We know. That's why we used an illusion spell to hide" Carrion replied.

"My scouts had spells of their own! They would have definitely noticed an illusion spell!" Gorsh snapped.

"Rhey would, sure… that's why I used my divine power to empower the mages in my army" Carrion said. "It was quite debilitating, and I had to proceed with extreme caution... but in doing so, I was able to hide my army even from your scouts"

"Did you use your divine power? But I would have...". Gorsh froze as the pieces began to connect in his head. He, as a legendary level, would sense right away if another legendary level's divine power was being used nearby... unless something was distracting him. And in the last few days there had been an unusual emanation of divine power in the human camp… divine power that Gorsh knew was emanating from the legendary level woman…

"I see you understand" Hara said. "You would have sensed Carrion's presence immeidately… if something else hadn't caught your attention. I've spent the last few days exuding a great deal of divine power. I've used it to upgrade my soldiers, but mostly to distract you. With me beaming energy like a beacon, it was not possible for you to notice Carrion. Of course, this forced him to stop a few kilometers from here, since if he got too close you would have noticed him anyway… but thanks to this method, I managed to distract you enough to prevent you from realizing that the second part of our army had already arrived"

"If you had known, you would have unleashed your monster upon us" Carrion continued, referring to the hydra. "That's why I stayed hidden while we prepared a battle plan. All we needed to face you was something to distract the hydra and prevent you from using it... but unfortunately you had good defenses, and we couldn't use our divine power to increase illusory spells or you would have known something was wrong. But now, it seems that someone has attracted the attention of your monster, so... we can say that we are exploiting the opportunity"

Despite his anger, Gorsh was able to wonder: "Wait... weren't you the ones who distracted the hydra?"

"We have no idea who's doing this" Hara replied. "But he's certainly doing us a favor. Carrion and I will worry about finding out what it is later. Now, prepare yourself to meet your god!"

Gorsh knew he was in a bad spot. He was alone against two legendary levels. But despite this, he certainly wouldn't have backed down. "Come on, then!" he roared, lunging at his opponents again.