III.

The Cel'Row swarm quickly dispersed, as if there was an invisible hand guiding them all. Fear's giant hand, she thought wryly as she watched the brown blobs bump into each other. Their thoughts were all single minded, as usual, but even the ones who were harassing the adventurers on the ground began to take off. The sphere, or wyvern, was blinding to look at, so Madoka glanced at Audrey instead. She was quite mesmerized by its illustrious appearance, clearly unable to hide the greed that sparkled in her eyes whenever she came across shiny things. It was not until it roared again when the both of them snapped out of their thoughts. Should she just shoot it down? There were a lot of adventurers around, after all. Distant shouts and commotion broke out under the monster's movements.

"Silver rankers and below, get out of here! Avoid the Cel'Row as best you can!"

Madoka was able to pick out Drezgor's voice booming out commands amidst the chaos. The crowds began to separate and drag their injured back to the camps set up. Right, there were still some bumbling creatures attempting to flee to the mountains left within sword distance. Based on Audrey's unhurried expression, Madoka guessed the Guild's affairs were probably none of their business, even if they were Silver ranked.

"Can I explode that?" Audrey asked innocently. Madoka groaned, then touched the storage talisman. Any alternative to that would do, but the sharp images of dead Cel'Row and even the Goblin King's head distracted her. The laser rifle came to her mind, so she traded Magnolia, bolts quiver and the crossbow for it. "Oh, you're gonna shoot it. That works too."

"You guys better get out of here," a hulking figure spoke to them. It was Juujee! Familiar bone armor clung to the big man. Madoka ignored him and aimed the rifle at the sky, peering through its sights. The gun was quite heavy, but not as heavy as Magnolia. "An Artifact cannot pierce its skin. We have to hurry—"

As he was ranting and before she could ask him how he knew that, a loud clanging noise resounded in the air. Madoka watched as the shadow of a massive bolt made by Knotting strands bounced harmlessly off its wing, shattering into pieces. It let out an even more angrier roar, scaring the remaining Cel'Row out of its way. It seemed to be observing the people below, or, perhaps…? A bad feeling crept over Madoka's skin like the slick morning mist.

"Excuse me," Audrey interrupted Juujee's warnings. "Do you know how to kill it, then?"

The man was about to protest again, but the sky lost the golden sphere's blinding light and fell gloomy above them as if the sun tucked behind a storm cloud. Both of them looked up and Madoka immediately scanned the sky with her guard up. She suddenly felt a rising killing intent fall upon her like rain, instantly making the hairs on her skin raise.

"Move it!" Madoka roared and grabbed the rebellious princess, then dashed away from Juujee. Immediately the earth split apart behind her, like it was letting out a last hurling breath as the shattered dirt spread like pieces of broken glass. A purple haze…? Audrey's startled screaming stopped when Madoka landed gracefully a distance away. She placed Her Highness on her feet from her shoulder on a clear patch of grass. The crater was dissolving, sinking into itself. "Audrey, got some bad news. Poison...!"

"Huh," Audrey's squinted, then she nodded. It was evident that the princess could also sense. "That golden ball might be the Eye that the Witch has sent, maybe?"

"Yeah," Madoka propped the laser rifle up, scanning the sky. The bleating Cel'Row swarms had mostly cleared out, revealing the vast grey sky. No presence of the Golden Wyvern or the Uracksheegal. How did something so bright simply vanish? A thought-shard clinked on the ground near the blast zone. Others scattered on the pieces of destroyed land, but none of the Adventurers on the other side of the crater seemed to pay attention to them. Madoka could only pray to the kind gods that no one got swept up in the blast as she scooped the thought-shard up.

Immediately, the vision of the plains instantly growing tinier and a rush of air blasted in her stomach as the beast ascended with blinding speed. Metallic groaning followed by jagged breath pounded in her ears, making her release the purple crystal.

"It's using the sky to cloak itself," Madoka warned the princess. Audrey nodded, her blue eyes becoming cloudy and indigo as magic swirled around in them. It was serious if she was channeling magic this powerful. Then, the two stood back to back among the wreckage of Cel'Row remains and thought-shards, seearching for any disturbance in the atmosphere above.

"Block!" Audrey shouted. A ripple streaked blue like a curtain being pulled, and a golden maw exposed itself out of the blinding light. They both had a tacit understanding that it was aiming directly at them, no longer focused on their other fleeing Guild members. Madoka growled, tore the Crystal out her chest and summoned the barrier, her heart pounding as she ripped it out. A bright beam of gold and purple energy blasted right at their position.

"Hold your breath!" Madoka hollered. The auric barrier hummed violently and her arms rattled as if her bones were trying to escape out her body. The blast was far more intense than the lightning spells or a strike from the crystal lizard. Though the sky felt like it was falling right on top of her, a familiar energetic arced from the shield to her skin. Knotting magic…? The beam dissipated into billowing smoke as more purple gas and mighty golden energy threatened to overwhelm her barrier. "Audrey…!"

A green web wrapped within the Crystal barrier, intertwining the golden light like green vines. Substance magic? Madoka did not have time to understand it, other than she suddenly could let the barrier sit in front of her as the blast poured down upon them. Its assault must have lasted a minute her surroundings turned into darkness like they were in the eye of a storm. Ash and smoke clung to her barrier from the outside, but the pressure from the wyvern's breath attack subsided. A quiet voice spoke to her, seemingly coming from inside her. The Crystal must be charging!

The enemy has moved! I am with you. Don't breathe. Save her.

Audrey must have had to breathe if she used the talisman. Madoka whirled around and sure enough, the princess's face was pale. You bastard of a beast, she cursed as she scooped the gasping girl into her arms and jumped through a gap in the smog. The barrier she summoned still had powerful Substance magic reinforcing it, surrounding her in a bubble that followed her.

Watch out! It dives to strike!

As soon as Madoka's boots crushed a dead Cel'Row's tentacle, the light above her instantly grew intense and a shimmering shadow descended upon her. She dropped Audrey on the blubbery corpse and whirled around just in time to see the sphere falling upon her like a comet. The ball unfurled slightly, exposing massive hooked talons ready to seize her.

"Too slow!" Madoka whirled around, aiming the laser rifle at the golden wyvern and pulling the trigger. This time, it was her turn to unleash some energy back at the beast. The butt of the weapon kicked uselessly against her shoulder as the crimson light ripped through the air, concentrating directly at the wyvern's swooping path.

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Despite it being a ball, the creature fully unfurled and revealed its true form— a slender, scaled body with two legs and a pair of oddly shaped wings. At the last moment, the beast swerved out of the way but not without losing one of its legs in the laser's wake. Crunching and sizzling hissed through the air as the limb erupted into a molten stump, leaking purple thought-shards like a shattered window. Blackened clumps of bloody flesh flung in all direction like spilled tomato sauce as the laser beam cleaved through into the sky. The wyvern squealed in apparent agony, before folding into a sphere again and vanishing again.

How did it disappear like that? Madoka tried to search for its thoughts and found nothing. She swore in frustration, but remembered the princess was suffocating behind her from the poisonous smog it breathed at them. Dammit, she knew it was dangerous letting her guard down, but she had to rely on the Crystal's assurance. It told her the barrier could protect her while she quickly addressed her downed friend, so she stuffed a hand in the portal and retrieved the only things she could think of to heal her— one of the last two remaining fruits from the Forest Goddess.

Before she knew it, a blue palm sized berry landed in her hand as she dropped everything else. Audrey's pained eyes struggled as she looked at her, but Madoka simply plugged the blue fruit into her mouth. The girl sputtered, but her face was regaining color quickly. Still no sign of the wyvern, though she knew it was waiting to attack again. The sky was still grey, with nothing flashing within its underbelly.

"Blegh!" Audrey was standing up, spitting out blue chunks of the berry and perhaps something else more dubious. She wiped her face with her sleeve, but that seemed to make her situation worse. Her face twisted as the bad taste in her mouth swelled. "Ugh, that happy berry you gave to me tasted the worst!"

"Happy berry?" Madoka's focus momentarily suspended as she shifted her gaze back to a furious Audrey. She believed that the berries revealed calming memories, but could not help but feel a little guilty from seeing how upset she was. The princess shook the dirt off herself, then glared up at the sky. "Can you see it?"

The question was rhetorical, since Her Highness's fierce eyes were obviously tracking the golden sphere's movements while nothing but a cold grey blanket stretched above Madoka's view. Others were shouting in the distance, but once again, the maid and her princess found themselves on the opposite side of the divide created by the wyvern's air strike. Silence settled between them with the muddy wind and the intent rose again. It was on the hunt for them again!

Instead of the cloud of gold and purple energy, the breath escaping its exposed maw rang like swords clashing all around her ears. It was changing its breath attack into metal spears! Madoka and Audrey glanced at each other then dodged just in time before the earth became pulverized into a plume of green dust and dirt. A shard splintered off from one of the beast's missiles collided into her Crystal's aura, dissolving, but making her feel dizzy. Of course, Madoka groaned as she skidded to a halt. The metal rods were also poisonous to her somehow. Another screech annoyed her ears and the glimpse of the golden wyvern flashed like lightning before vanishing again. Audrey caught up to her, her mouth still smudged with the remnants of that blue berry she forced her to eat.

"Sneaky bastard," Madoka sighed. The smog was not enough to hurt her seriously, and there still was work to do.,There were no signs of the adventurers or dead Cel'Row anywhere around them either, meaning they were far away from the Guild event's designated areas. "Still has the energy to play tricks and hunt, huh."

Audrey frowned, raising her hand. Immediately, Madoka readied her own barrier in front of them to guard her. The Knotting magic in her shield suddenly shattered into untangled lightning, making her gasp in surprise. She was not struck, but before she could thank the kind gods she realized that the strands from her barrier were coursing straight to Audrey's Golden Hand like a raging river. A large bolt of metal lanced its way out of her palm. Madoka was momentarily in awe at the javelin as it soared through the sky much faster than the released bolts from Gladeban's defenses. A scream of pain obliterated the clouds above, revealing nothing but stars twinkling briefly, but they returned like a blanket being pulled up hastily. Where was that bastard? Madoka gritted her teeth.

"Got it! There!" Audrey growled, pointing at a distinct distortion in the sky.

The girl's eyes were terrifying at that moment, so Madoka quickly averted her gaze and aimed. There was not enough time to worry about what she was angry about. The moment the purple shards glittered, she immediately pulled her rifle's trigger. The heat was nearly unbearable as she heard the weapon speak warnings to her in Sixth Form.

"I'm running out of energy, but I give my all!" It told her.

The beam tore the air apart instantly, like a crimson scar changing reality itself. The squealing overtook the energy's gutteral roar, followed by the golden wyvern's once spherical form falling from the sky. It perfect shape was now malformed and writhing as if a hammer was battering its gleaming surface. Its skin glowed white hot, like the forge where metal was changed under pressure and fire. The crimson gore from new holes in its body intertwined with thought-shards and poisonous clouds falling to the earth. For some reason, the sight of its crashing corpse made Madoka's stomach growl.

"It's down, right?" Audrey hesitantly asked. The pair rushed over to the fallen body. The thought-shards only revealed a sense of overwhelming pain all over and eventual darkness.

"Dead," Madoka confirmed after touching more shards that embedded themselves into the earth from the heavens like hailstones. They could see its broken and unmoving form through the dust, but before Audrey could inspect the crash site in celebration Madoka held the girl back from getting too close. She let out a warning. "Poison."

"Hmm," Audrey pondered a moment. "I wonder if…"

Madoka saw the girl's dark, ominous Core glow through her robes and promptly took a step back. It was clear that the princess was appraising the poison, but she was not taking chances when that magical force was out in the open. Audrey flinched when the Core flickered and vanished, evidently not pleased with what she found out.

"No wonder why I nearly choked to death," she turned to the cloud of smog and closed her eyes.

Madoka felt a gust of wind push her from behind, swooping her hair up as it enveloped the area. She should have warned her if she was going to create a storm! When Audrey opened her eyes, which were now green, the winds cleared out the poisonous gas cloud leaving only the wyvern's body behind. Not a single thought came from it. Well, its long neck and unusually thin body were broken in quite few spots, not to mention its once illustrious wings were now shattered and dull. It still looked curved in a way that suggested it curled into a ball, but it lay motionless and unfurled like a crumpled, discarded handkerchief.

"You'd think it be harder to kill," she muttered. Despite the cloud of poison and dust bring whisked away by Audrey, she still saw black blood oozing from its severed legs and sensed that it still had plenty of gross things leftover inside of it. "I guess we can't eat this one either."

"Wha—"

Before Audrey could speak, Madoka opened the storage talisman's portal and they both watched the beast sink unceremoniously into it, leaving nothing but the crater it bruised the earth with. The image of its body floating in a void space next to the Goblin King's head finally put her mind at ease. It was truly dead.

Madoka sighed, standing like a pillar and ignoring the frantic tugging from Audrey for a moment. The Crystal pulsed energy inside of her like a second violently thumping heartbeat. What was she thinking? How was she feeling? Even though the fields were covered in wounds carved by the wyvern's attacks, dirtied by Cel'Row blood and other things, possibly even injured Adventurers were lying in the grass, she realized she felt nothing. Mindless fighting, even a monster wanting to escape or hunt, was simply not fulfilling to her. She wondered if she wanted danger, or more of a challenge, or just to take a bath and sleep. Even the hungry anticipation of eating the wyvern and cooking the Cel'Row meat faded. She stared skyward once again. The real danger, she supposed, was still up there.

As if on cue, the tugging stopped and Audrey immediately stared upward with her. The sky was growing darker and ominous whispers played in her mind or to the both of them. A bright red celestial body flashed across the sky like a shooting star, scarring the blackened surface of a day robbed by night revealing the massive shape of the Uracksheegal. It was heading towards Gladeban. Then she heard the Witch speak again with a grave finality in Her voice.

"You cannot escape Me this time. Your Eyes, their Eyes, and all Your Todays will belong to Tomorrow."

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