Again, as they had yesterday, the Hill Giants created barriers of Earth Magic as they retreated, and left the human defenders to be tended to by the clerics.
The actual losses on the human side were very low, though the number of wounded was straining the abilities of the healers assigned to some of the sections of the line. On Karl’s end, it was light, but just beside them, there had been a few Hill Giants who managed to break the pike line and get into the mages before they were taken out.
They were doing their best to take down the shields over the line, as without that, the boulder artillery would devastate the students, but the line had managed to prevent enough of them from getting through to accomplish their goal.
It would surely be the topic of their next few lessons, as that was the worst possible outcome for the defenders, but the students near Karl were in high spirits, still buoyed by the lingering effect of [Inspiration].
“Good work Seamus. That’s what we need out of our bard. Now, we just need to work on your song selections, so you don’t have to pick one at random at the last second. Like the bedroom, the battlefield benefits from a bit of mood music, and if I left it up to the beasts, Remi would be singing baby snake.” Karl joked.
Seamus choked on his laughter, and played the first few notes, which made everyone else laugh as well, as they realized what Karl was referring to.
“World Dragon, NO! Not that song!” One of the older clerics shouted.
“Oh, I take it you are up at seven in the morning more than you would like?” Karl called back.
The man turned around, and Karl noticed the red robes, which made him laugh
“Oh, you’re from the Orphanages? That makes sense. I bet that any of the orphanage supervisors view the creator of that show as their personal nemesis by now.” He added.
The Red Dragon Priest nodded. “Exactly. That song is evil, and it gets stuck in your head.”
Tessa and Lotus had already run off to help heal, and Doug was with a group of older clerics near a stack of bodies under blood stained white sheets.
Karl was certain that they had at least one healing specialist who could resurrect the fallen instead of reincarnating them, so it took him a few seconds to realize what they were doing. They had two clerics who could resurrect, and the other High Priests were granting them mana and energy so that they could get to as many casualties as possible before they were exhausted.
If it worked out perfectly, everyone would be back on their feet by that time, and if not, they would do the reincarnation ritual and notify the church to watch out for more returned Elites. With the number of recent incidents of them returning with skills, it was obvious that they needed to be cautious, as some of them would reincarnate in a daze and think that they were still under attack.
Karl watched the hills in the distance, getting updates from Hawk, who had gone up into the clouds to avoid attracting the attention of flying stones, and waited for news, or the stand down order that the Hill Giants had retreated far enough that those not on duty could return to their days.
[Shit, shit, shit. Angry birds inbound.] Hawk screeched, then dive bombed Karl and vanished into his spot.
Karl was confused for a second, then he saw a group of giant winged forms incoming from the clouds.
“Everyone, heads up! We have incoming. Bring the barriers up!” He shouted.
The mages who could hear him did just that, and the radio operators spread the order down the line.
For a moment, they had no idea what Karl had alerted them about, and they were beginning to relax, prepared to call it a false alarm, when the rocks and fireballs began to rain down on them from above.
Karl focused on the incoming giant birds and let loose an arrow, using [Chain Lightning] to lend speed and distance to the attack.
The Rocs naturally dodged the long-distance projectile, but what they didn’t realize was that simply not being hit wasn’t enough, and the Lightning arced to them anyhow as the arrow passed by.
It didn’t seem to do much to the enormous feathered monsters.
Karl had heard that Dragons were the greatest threat among all monsters, but from what he could see, they might not be the largest.
Any of those flying monsters could easily grab and carry away a bus, and while they were only Commander Rank, Hawk was utterly terrified of them.
It was most likely an intimidation skill, but that didn’t change Hawk’s opinion of going back outside before those things were gone.
Even Thor instinctively pressed closer to the crowd, recognizing them as a dangerous predator. Even if their magic couldn’t easily damage a Lightning Cerro, if they dropped him from a thousand metres in the air, it would not be pleasant, to say the least.
Flying monsters were the most terrifying of threats to most Elites, and these ones seemed happy to hold at high altitude, hurling magic at the Elites from a distance that most of the mages couldn’t reach.
Karl considered the options, and then put [Blizzard] on the next arrow. If he couldn’t hit them, he could just use a larger area of effect.
With his [Brutality] enhanced strength, the arrows flew faster than any of the other spells except Lightning Bolts. It made them more difficult for the Rocs to get sufficient distance from, though they were far from being a competitor to the barrage of artillery shells coming from the flak guns.
Those were being pulled into action for the first time since Karl had arrived on the border, and the rapid-fire shells were now filling the sky with exploding shrapnel.
It wouldn’t do much damage to a Commander Rank beast, but they had feathers. In theory, if they damaged the wings enough, the beasts would be forced to fly away or crash.
The [Blizzard] formed on the way up, making the attacking formation vanish in a cloud of white as the birds shrieked in rage, and Remi laughed in Karl’s mid.
[Serves them right, throwing rocks at people.] The snake giggled.
The ice crystals of the Blizzard were a slashing attack, and the [Sharpness] passive boosted their damage forty percent when the skill was used by the Commander Rank Karl.
It was enough that the flight of birds began to reconsider their approach.
But Karl wasn’t done firing, and he launched more [Chain Lightning] arrows as the blizzard stalled and began to come back to the ground, only to be replaced with another [Blizzard] enhanced arrow.
That sent them scattering, and they parted ways so that Karl couldn’t hit them all with one spell, but that put them in the range of more mages with long-distance skills, while the dispersed formation spread out the effects of their attacks.
The birds were becoming frustrated with their inability to get their attacks through the barriers, as from such an altitude the mages had plenty of time to intercept them and nullify most of the power behind them.
Karl also wasn’t the only archer with the ability to fire that high, and the flight of Rocs was slowly taking enough damage that Karl could see the blood dripping and their feathers becoming tattered. Soon, they would have to retreat, so Karl just focused on spreading [Blizzard] across as much area as he could, keeping them in the damage range.
Then a lucky shot hit one in the throat, fired blind through another [Blizzard] and an enormous bird plummeted from the sky, coated in ice and leaking snow out of its mouth from the tip of the arrow.
That enraged the others, and Karl smiled as four enormous forms raced down from the sky in his direction.
[Hey Rae, how high do you think you can summon those Spider Golems?] Karl asked.
Rae laughed and vanished into her space as the birds plummeted at terminal velocity towards the ground, all headed for Karl.
They were almost on him when Rae reappeared a hundred metres in the air and summoned her Golems straight onto the backs of the diving monsters.
Their legs speared deep into the tender flesh of the birds, and Rae laughed as she vanished into her nest, avoiding falling to the ground from that height.
Karl was still firing, and when the first bird was fifty metres from him, a spear thrown from somewhere on his left cleanly pierced an eyeball, killing the bird instantly, and leaving only one to finish that attack flight.
It was being pummelled by spells and attacks, but the bird was determined as it closed on Karl.
[Jump NOW!] Hawk instructed.
Karl leapt into the air, twisting to keep the Roc in his vision, and the bird passed between him and the other Elites.
[NECK!] Hawk instructed.
Rend slammed into the back of the bird’s neck, shattering it, and the last Roc skidded to a stop, carving a deep furrow in the soft dirt.
[Good work, buddy.] Karl congratulated him.
[I know all the ways not to get eaten, but those things are scary.] Hawk replied happily.
Karl couldn’t fault Hawk for that one. Bird to bird, they were a hundred times his size, and they likely had a number of nasty tricks for dealing with other flying predators that they hadn’t used against the humans.
