Since they couldn't stay on the cliffside and just hope not to be attacked by another feathered serpent, they'd entered the guardian's arena. Flashes of wyvern wings reminded them all that there wasn't much time to adjust their plans for this fight. Astrid turned to her allies and began snapping out commands.
"Muti, give me Felix. I can keep him safe better than you can, and we need you to be more mobile than we need me to be fast. Take a mana potion and a draught to make sure you have at least one Shadow Leap available. Ideally, you'll have more mana on top of that to deliver a deadly blow. Your place is still to deal crippling and killing blows while the rest of us keep its attention. Skandr, you should still have enough mana to bring this bastard to the ground. You better do it, because I'm ready to vent some emotions. Benedict, do your usual mix of Vindication and Rebuke. Felix, how well can you hold onto my back without me tying one of my arms up with holding you?"
"I've only got my right arm," he answered with an even tone that belied his suffering, "and no mana. I'll hold on as best as I can, but I'm feeling pretty weak."
"All of us failed you," Skandr answered as he extended a comforting hand. "I'm glad we were able to keep you alive. Don't you dare get yourself killed at the damned finish line."
"This is no finish line. Merely a failed attack from an enemy," Muti refuted as she stepped closer to Astrid.
"Right," Astrid agreed. "Just a hiccup, nothing to worry about."
Felix grimaced an approximation of a smile as Astrid and Muti transferred him onto the Warrior's back. She tried to settle his single good arm under her chin to add another point of security, but every one of her movements made Felix wince in pain, especially as her helmet's buckles dug into his bruised flesh. He tried to hide it, but Astrid knew how battered he was, and even with Benedict doing his best to heal him, his wounds were so severe that even a true Healer would struggle to recover him back to top form any time soon.
"I'm sorry," Astrid apologized. "I'll try my best to be gentle—"
"Don't," he commanded. "It's my fault I overexposed myself and got injured. I'm not letting you get yourself hurt trying to help me after I already paid the price for my stupidity. I can deal with pain. It's a good teacher."
Despite knowing what that statement meant in terms of suffering for Felix, Astrid couldn't help but smile at her frontliner's strength. Even potentially permanently crippled, the man had a steadfast heart. As the wyvern flew around the island and made itself known, Astrid pulled a section of rope out of her spatial pouch, threw it over her back, and fashioned a quick knot, tying Felix to herself. He groaned as the rope held him tight to her body, but he didn't utter a complaint. Astrid dismissed her shield while she made sure to better secure the knot around Felix's legs to make sure they weren't flopping all around while she dodged. There wasn't time for any more preparations, and she looked up as the wyvern finally showed itself completely.
It flapped in place as it roared a challenge, and Astrid, long since accustomed to massive monsters having Skills that would allow them to cause fear, pushed mana through her helmet as she took in the sight of this latest monstrous enemy.
The wyvern swooped down to the ground, its jaws stretching open towards Skandr. Its wingspan was well over fifteen meters, and its long tail thrashed as it seemed to decide on attacking the Wizard first. With two wings and two legs, the wyvern was more limited in avenues of attack than a dragon would be, but it still had the venomous tail, massive mouth, and meter-long claws to tear its enemies apart. The light underbelly, contrasted by its dark scales and wings, served as a stark reminder of its presence contrasted against the dark, stormy sky. The face, snub nosed and with tiny eyes, unhinged its jaw like a snake as it snapped forward, but Skandr was prepared and dodged to the side as the monster flew past.
"How many more passes do you need to prepare your smell?" Astrid asked as she repositioned herself closer to Skandr. She still had all four uses of Body, and she wouldn't hesitate to use them as wastefully as possible, so long as it would ensure her party was safe.
Skandr flashed a single finger at Astrid as he continued flicking his fingers through the sigils as he chanted. Astrid couldn't help but grin. Such a short time for a specialized spell? Just what could be expected of her party's Wizard.
The wyvern came back around for another attack, its shrieks filling the air with a reverberating, painful sound. With this being the only other attack that the party needed to avoid, Astrid called out, "Don't even try to attack it, no need to make it change."
Muti and Benedict agreed, and as the wyvern wheeled around to strike back a second time, it came after Skandr once again. This time, Muti stepped forward and carried him out of the way to make sure that he wasn't in danger at any point while also focusing on his casting. The wyvern cried out again, its wings beating faster as it seemed to already be getting angry with its lack of success. Any such rage didn't matter, though.
As the floor guardian began its third strafe, Skandr sent his cloud companion into the air, where it began twisting in on itself, the moisture that made up its form stretching into a pillar of screaming wind. The wyvern looked above itself, quickly realizing the danger that this wind posed, but it was too late. A sudden tornado smashed into the wyvern's back between its wings and crushed it into the ground. Stone splintered as its body fell. It screamed, pushing itself up onto its four limbs as it screamed a challenge.
Without Felix's assistance, keeping the monster on the ground would be difficult, and fell entirely on Astrid. She rushed forward while keeping a close eye on the monster's tail. The entirety of the monster posed a threat, but its tail was deadlier by far than its other weapons, even for her. After all, a front liner had been struck and deemed impossible to save by a Healer right in front of her.
The wyvern was off-balance as it struggled back to its four limbs, and Astrid stepped forward while activating Gravity Surge. She grunted as Felix's weight on her back tripled, having forgotten that he wasn't something she was equipping. Fortunately, for her, she didn't have a tornado trying to rip her off of her feet and she'd somewhat known it was coming, so she hustled forward and released a Spectre Burst on the wyvern.
Something she'd been warned about, but still was surprised by, was the monster's innate defense. Even through her hammer blow, Spectre Burst failed to penetrate into its flesh. Every scale of the wyvern's body was built to repel foreign mana, which was part of what made them so formidable. That was why Skandr had been forced to take so long to prepare the tornado; the monster's body was built to resist a mage from a distance while its tail was made to kill any warrior who approached.
Astrid continued to rain blows on the wyvern, her hammer falling on its neck as its tail lashed forward. She dodged to the side, making sure to keep her feet on the ground to react as quickly as possible to any attacks that came her way. Though the tail remained the greatest threat, the monster's claws and jaws could still deal death. As the wyvern's attention slipped away from Astrid and towards Skandr, Muti flashed forward, not using any of her mana but relying only on her Alacrity to close the distance. Before the wyvern could recover itself fully, Muti plunged both of her swords into the thin flesh of the wyvern's right wing. She used her weight to drag the magically sharp blades through the webbing, shredding the wings all the way down until a four meter pair of parallel slashes remained in her wake.
The wyvern turned with an animalistic rage, both wings thrashing, jaws gnashing, and tail lashing to try to strike the Ambusher down. Unfortunately for it, Muti lived up to her Class's title. With one of its wings sporting new, bloody decorations, the wyvern fought like mad, but it lost its focus on Astrid in that moment.
Instead of doing anything fancy, Astrid pushed an immense amount of Power-aligned mana into her hammer through her gloves and smashed it into the wyvern's left shoulder. The beast didn't care as much about her attack as it did about Muti, and flapped a wing dismissively at her. Astrid deliberately opened herself to the hit to the chest, grunting as she felt, even through her immense Fortitude and high quality armor, several of her ribs crack. Stronger than she expected.
Even so, that pain didn't even register as she spent a charge of Body and again pushed nearly a quarter of her mana into the next attack. This time, when the hammer crunched into bone, the wyvern slumped to the side as ligaments tore and bone crumpled. Its tail lashed out, and Astrid parried it to the side with her shield.
"Let me help," Felix groaned through the pain.
"Tell me what you wanna do," Astrid answered as she was forced to step back by the floor guardian. Now that it was permanently grounded and a tornado kept its limbs from moving as agilely as it wanted, the wyvern abandoned the blind, bestial rage. Instead, it struck out with mostly its mouth and tail, cutting off Muti and Astrid's avenue for easy attacks.
Once Felix explained his plan to Astrid, she demanded they test it before jumping in. With that in mind, she stepped forward, shield at the ready and reinforced with mana, as she presented a small opening to the wyvern's tail. It didn't hesitate to seek a deadly blow, the barbed hook at the end of its tail seeking to bury itself in her gut. Astrid held herself at the ready, prepared to protect herself but waiting for Felix. He grunted in effort, and both of them flashed back two meters, outside of the range of the wyvern. In response, its attention fixated on Felix on Astrid's back, and the Guardian patted Astrid's chest to say he was ready whenever she was.
"Muti! Take care of its tail for two seconds," Astrid commanded. The Barbarian whooped in answer and jumped forward with swords flashing. As soon as she approached the tail, instead of dodging as early as before, she provoked the beast, stabbing and cutting at everything that she could reach while dancing ever closer to the precipice of deadly danger. When the wyvern was presented with a juicier target, it engaged readily, shrieking.
Astrid didn't delay, rushing forward as she spent another charge of Body, and then the majority of that mana again in a single attack. The wyvern considered turning and engaging with her, but Muti presented enough of a threat that it seemed to prioritize her over Astrid. Its more deadly tail continued to try to kill the golden haired woman, and as its mouth snapped at Astrid, she jumped into the air.
An aerial predator, the wyvern almost seemed to smirk as it sought to end Astrid's life. Instead, she flashed forward impossibly, Felix's Guardian's Wrath repositioning her out of its trajectory. Its long neck moved to follow her, but the movement was so unexpected that, with all of this additional momentum, Astrid's hammer, propelled by her whole body weight, smashed into the monster's spine between its wings.
Already weakened from her previous blow, scales and bone splintered, and the monster's limbs lost all feeling. It slumped to the ground, now more serpent than dragon, only its legs able to move. It tried to raise itself on its back legs, but in the end only looked like a chicken. A deadly chicken with a deadly venomous tail, but Muti and Astrid both turned their attention to the tail. Once the beast could no longer stand on all fours, it couldn't balance itself and use its tail effectively, and before long, Astrid ducked a blow and smashed the tail to the ground before Muti hacked it off with two swift strikes.
The creature's fate was determined in that moment, and the party steadily dispatched it with heavy blows to the head. Astrid softened the ridiculously protective scales with heavy blows before Muti finally severed the beast's spine, and it was killed.
Somehow, with all that energy expended, Astrid still felt restless, only barely keeping herself from pacing back and forth in the center of the arena. When her attention was no longer so totally consumed with the wyvern, she saw that at the edge of the arena, on the passage that neither her party nor Caelum's had come from, the Barbarian party waited.
Different from before, when the Barbarians had seemed rather ambivalent towards everyone except for Muti, and only their leader cared about her, all of them bared their teeth in approval as Astrid wiped the blood and gore from her hammer's head. No sound could pass through the transparent barrier, but Kalta gestured for Astrid to remove her helmet. When she turned to Muti to see what she could explain, she gestured for Astrid to do so. When Muti met Kalta's eyes, he gestured for her to do the same. Astrid could feel her friend stiffen beside her, but the rest of the Barbarian party seemed to agree with the sentiment, even the surly woman.
Astrid dismissed her helmet with a thought, and Muti did the same. Then, Kalta pulled the blade from his belt and cut a tiny, less than half a centimeter, line just below the corner of his left eye. Muti pulled her knife out and did the same before pulling something out of her pouch and rubbing it into the fresh wound. Then, she turned to Astrid.
"I'm gonna need a little bit of information here before I cut my face," Astrid said.
"It is a sign that you've been acknowledged by another warrior. Any member of the Hordes will see it for what it is and, depending on how much honor those who have acknowledged you obtain, it will serve as a greater deterrent to those who would harm you."
"And what did you just rub in it?"
"Salt."
Astrid groaned, but she understood the reason for it. If not, Muti's Fortitude would quickly make the wound disappear without leaving a mark. Then, not wanting to think about it any longer, she gestured for Muti to do the cut on her own face. Muti bowed her head in acceptance and did the deed. The burn of the salt when it was applied to her face made Astrid's eye water, though just for a second. How strange that such a mundane injury could get a reaction out of her after suffering through so much worse. Maybe it was the lack of adrenaline from a fight.
Instead of continuing to converse with the Barbarians through the impenetrable wall, Astrid waved goodbye and walked down into the entrance to the path between floors. Felix's weight still pressed heavily on her back, and what they were about to be forced to decide in this passage more than troubled her. In fact, it made her stomach twist in anticipation and fear, but it was something that she would need to confront.
The rest of the Wanderers followed her, and once they all stood in the soft light of the stairway, Felix spoke.
"Put me down. Decisions need to be made, and I would prefer that we make them fast."