Chapter 345 – Rescues Part 1
“What did I ever do to deserve this!” Damion shouted to himself as he fled as fast as he could.
Chasing behind him were five Ferocious Beasts, each a good three meters long and two meters in height, all A Rank. These Ferocious Beasts were manticores. The creatures had the face of a human, the body of a lion with a long tail of a scorpion which possessed a venom toxic enough to instantly kill an A Rank mage. The only reason Damion had not been caught and torn to shreds already, was because the manticores were fighting over which one of them would get to eat him. Anytime one of the five got close to catching him, the other four would knock that one aside.
Phil was flying high overhead, safe, watching its companion flee for his life. Damion had tried to get into the air himself but was smacked down by one of the manticores. To make matters worse, he could not gain the distance he needed to escape by using Blink, since there was a team of adventurers in the area, the same team of adventurers Damion had rescued from the manticore pack.
The team of adventurers consisted of two A Rank mages, Wind and Earth affinities, and three B Rank mages, Light, Wind and Fire affinities. They had been able to hold off the manticores for a short time, but their mana had been running out when Damion arrived.
Not able to leave a group of people to be killed, Damion did the only thing he could think of to help them escape. Attack the manticores and run for his life. The plan mostly worked, the adventurers were able to escape their encirclement, only, Damion found it harder to elude the manticores than he thought.
He started off on the ground, since he did not think the manticores would chase a flying target. The plan was to flee into the air as soon as the other mages were free, unfortunately, that did not happen.
Luckily, it was just one of the large paws the manticore had hit him with and not a tail. Still, the blow had knocked Damion back to the ground and he was now fleeing as fast as he could, with the manticores right on his heals.
Phil was in the air, keeping an eye on the fight and the adventurers he had rescued. As soon as the Blizzard King told him that the adventurers were far enough away that they would not be able to detect or see him use Blink, he would Blink into the air and then cast Ice Sword to fly away.
The problem was getting the adventurers to flee. Having been rescued, only to see their rescuer get smacked back to the ground during his escape had led to the group of mages wanting to rescue Damion in turn. Thankfully, none of the adventurers had attacked one of the manticores, or the manticores might have decided the group would be a more fulfilling meal for all of them instead of the heard to catch Damion.
Seeing how he was not able to put a lot of distance between him and the Ferocious Beasts, Damion decided to try and get away through the air again. This time, he cast Ice Sword and kept the blade in his hand. While holding it, he willed the sword to fly.
The Ice Sword pulled forward, dragging him off his feet, but that was fine, the blade could fly as fast as he could make it, much faster than if he was trying to run. Ice Sword continued to pull him forward and slowly gained altitude, in a few seconds he had put enough distance between him and the manticores that he dared to dart into the sky.
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One of the manticores leapt up towards him, but was hit with a large rock, knocking it off its intending trajectory and missing Damion completely. A second later and the Ice mage was high enough that none of the manticores could jump and reach him.
Damion adjusted his body in the air and was able to get his feet to touch his Ice Sword. Once they made contact he willed his spell to encase his feet like normal when using his flying sword. He was upside down, but at least now he was secure and could let go of the sword with his hand.
The group of manticores had spotted the Earth mage that sent the rock at them and were now heading towards the mages they had originally been targeting.
“Great, back where we started,” Damion muttered as he tried to think of a way to help these mages.
The manticores were all A Rank Ferocious Beasts. He did not have the magic power to cut through their defenses. All he could do would be to annoy the beasts. And as soon as they realized he posed no threat to them, the manticores would focus on the other mages and completely ignore him.
“Split up!” Damion shouted down to the mages who were running in a group from the pack of manticores.
The mages all thought Damion was insane. If they split up, they would not be able to assist one another should one of them get trapped. However, one of the mages, the B Rank Fire mage, split off from the rest and to his surprise, none of the manticores followed.
Damion flew down quickly by the Fire mage who was quite out of breath.
“Get to the Crimson Order outpost,” Damion told him. “It is about ten kilometers in that direction.”
Damion pointed and the B Rank mage nodded and took off towards the outpost. The group had probably sent an urgent request for assistance, but Damion knew there was probably just one A Rank mage in the outpost who could not easily leave and sending any B Rank or C Rank people to battle five A Rank Ferocious Beasts was not an easy call to make. Even if the leader of the outpost went, there was no guarantee of success, so they had no choice but to remain at their post and hope for the best.
While the B Rank mage was on track to saving himself, Damion took back to the sky and started after the other group of mages. Once he had gained some altitude, he spotted them, fleeing in the opposite direction of the Crimson Order outpost. Flying towards them, Damion needed to get them to turn around, or at least not head directly away from their only safe haven.
“The outpost is the other way!” Damion shouted down to them as he flew above them.
“We can’t turn around now!” The A Rank Wind mage shouted.
“One of you B Rankers split off. I can carry one of you at a time well clear so you can head to the outpost.”
“Vasilli, you break off!” The A Rank mage shouted.
A moment later, the A Rank Light mage started a slow change in course that led away from the group and would eventually circle around towards the outpost. Once again, none of the manticores wanted to follow the lone target and Damion briefly wondered how he had managed to get them to follow him in the first place. The only answer he could come up with was the attack he landed on the group, perhaps the Ferocious Beasts had been so mad at him, they forgot the others were a bigger meal.
Once Damion was sure none of the manticores were going to suddenly chase Vasilli, he swooped down behind the Light mage and grabbed hold of him. He then flew as fast as he could for half a minute before dropping the B Rank mage near the Fire mage who had fled before.
“Keep going to the outpost. I’ll get the others,” Damion told them as he took off back towards the three remaining mages.