Chapter 563- Tales of a Gutsy Knight (2)
Chapter 563: Chapter 563- Tales of a Gutsy Knight (2)
The next second, the Storm Sovereign flapped its wings, causing the winds to become violent. Add that to the natural environment of the place it made the winds here extremely powerful.
"Finally willing to face me, huh. Let me show you the power of a knight of the Temple of Light."
Vangeance made his move. Though the next second, he tripped on nothing and almost fell over the bridge.
"What are you doing?" Silvia questioned, puzzled by his clumsiness.
"It’s not me, I felt something blocking my foot earlier. It’s definitely that bastard’s doing."
As requested, she stood by the side and simply observed Vangeance confront the Storm Sovereign. Seeing him trip and fall and make a fool of himself these past few days, she came to understand one thing.
This beast, it was not just intelligent but highly intelligent with a cunning that could make even humans eat a loss.
These past few days of failed attempts, losing sense of direction, and falling into constant traps, it was not because of Vangeance’s clumsiness but because it was the Storm Sovereign’s ploy.
It was deliberately leading them into traps and dangers. And since it appeared before them again, it must be trying to trick Vangeance again.
Silvia sighed, for a simple minded fool like him, an enemy that uses schemes and tricks was the worst matchup.
On the bridge.
"Why is the air slanted?!" Vangeance yelled, holding the ropes of the bridge.
He was about to attack when a sudden draft came from almost blowing him off the bridge.
Silvia looked around the makeup of the surroundings and the abyss below, causing the extreme wind to batter the mountain walls, creating constant change in the wind direction.
What’s more, the numerous caves, big and small, over the cliff’s edge gave Silvia a bad feeling. She was just about to instruct Vangeance to give up confronting the Storm Sovereign here and pick a different battleground, when the beast attacked.
The thunderhawk wyvern hybrid screeched, its eyes glowing with electric fury as it locked onto the clumsy knight.
The next second, it dove. Numerous lightning bolts erupted from its wings, tearing through the rope bridge.
Vangeance brandished his sword, easily cleaving through the storm, slashing the lightning itself. For a highly trained knight such as himself, who had gone through numerous life and death battles and seen much worse, this was nothing.
"Is this all you can do?" Vangeance smirked. Just then, it noticed the beast grinning back.
The Storm Sovereign flapped its wings and attacked again. Though this time, instead of lightning, razor sharp winds erupted from its wings. Moreover, instead of targeting Vangeance, it ignored him and aimed at the far end of the rope bridge.
!!!
"Move."
Silvia hurriedly cautioned. However, it was too late.
Snap... the sharp wind blades easily tore through the ropes.
The ancient rope bridge, already worn by time and weather, snapped like brittle threads, and the entire thing fell down into the abyss below. Needless to say, Vangeance was not an exception.
"YOU... BASTAAAAAAARD!!!"
A curse echoed through the valley.
Bridge debris and a screaming knight plummeted into the abyss below. The roar of wind swallowed everything.
The Storm Sovereign flying above the rope bridge observed the knight fall to his death with satisfaction. It then snorted and cast a wary glance at Silvia before turning away and soaring back into the storm clouds.
Once it left, Silvia moved from her place. A rope could be seen tied to a tree behind her and stretched to the cliff below.
A few moments later, Vangeance, who had seemingly fallen into the abyss, was pulled up. Still bound tightly around the waist.
His face was covered with dirt, probably because he got slammed face first and dragged across the cliff’s wall. His hair was windblown, and his eyes filled with bitterness and frustration.
"You overgrown sky-pissing pigeon! I’ll pluck every last one of your mangy hatchlings until they’re as bald as a monk’s pate, then roast the lot of ’em over a slow spit!"
He slammed his fist on the ground and cursed.
He then stole glances at Silvia, standing nearby, too embarrassed to even look at her directly.
Before the fight, he told her confidently that he didn’t need her help, yet the next moment, he needed her help. Worse, being rescued by her and being subjected to her judgmental eyes was unbearable for him.
In the end, he could only direct his bottled anger towards the Storm Sovereign, whose whole generation was being roasted right now.
Seeing his antics, Silvia sighed and spoke calmly. "Your usual method won’t work."
Vengeance blinked.
"What? It’s just a beast..."
Before he could complete his sentence, he saw her pointing towards the cliff edge.
Vangeance followed her finger and... froze.
The cliff face below was riddled with holes. Small ones, large ones, there were thousands of them. They dotted the rock wall like a grotesque honeycomb stretching deep into the abyss.
"What?!!"
He only just noticed it now. Previously, the abyss was covered by fog and ever shifting wind. Furthermore, once the Storm Sovereign appeared, his entire attention was on that bird, leading him to ignore the other details.
"A colony nest. Likely abyss burrowers. They are carnivorous and extremely territorial." Silvia’s voice was cold.
"The Storm Sovereign didn’t attack you directly because it knew you could endure its strikes. Instead, it destroyed the bridge and tried to throw you into the abyss. Had you fallen, even if you survived the impact, you would’ve been severely injured. And then besieged by thousands of monsters and eaten alive."
Vangeance swallowed his stomach twisted. In his mind, he replayed a scene... his body crashing down, bones shattering, blood spilling, only to be swallowed by endless crawling horrors.
A chill ran down his spine.
"That thing planned all of that?"
"Yes."
Vangeance fell silent.
For the first time since their journey began, his usual exaggerated bravado disappeared completely.
No matter how clumsy he was, he understood that the bird was playing him, and he was falling right into its traps from the beginning of their arrival.
He never got to have a fair battle with it.
"So what do we do?"
Although he was a prideful individual, he knew when to be flexible.
Silvia, who had a better head on her shoulder than his was much more suitable for a situation like this.
"We don’t engage the Storm Sovereign yet." Saying that, Silvia turned away and began walking deeper into the storm-lashed mountain path.
Vangeance hurried after her. "What? Why not? If we don’t take it down, it’ll just keep harassing us!"
"Because right now it holds the advantage."
She did not slow down.
"Then what’s the plan?"
"I intend to make it impossible for it to flee."
"You can do that?"
Silvia’s lips curved into a small, dangerous smile. "Don’t worry. Once the setup is complete, there is a very high chance it won’t escape like before. For now, we continue to explore this place. Until I say to fight it, don’t engage the Storm Sovereign."
Though Vangeance had his doubts, even with his simple mind, he could tell that Silvia was planning something.
To complete the trial given to him by the Altar, he decided to go with it. In any case, following Silvia’s instruction was nothing new to him.
.
And so days passed by.
During this time, the two made their way across shattered ridges wind-scarred plateaus, ravenous jungles, and floating stone paths, each obstacle more daunting than the other.
Through this experience, they also finally understood why this place was designated as a Class S forbidden zone.
The storm never truly calmed. Thunder rolled endlessly overhead, and violent gusts battered their bodies like invisible hammers.
Had they been ordinary knights, the trail would have taken a toll on them. However, they were knights of the Temple of Light, they had undergone Reinhardt’s spartan training that left them on the brink of death many times.
Compared to that, this was nothing.
Moreover, during these days, they encountered the Storm Sovereign several more times. Yet every single time Silvia ordered retreat.
Vangeance clenched his fists tightly. No matter how loudly his instincts screamed to fight, he followed her instructions.
At first, he nearly exploded from the bird’s taunt that was blatantly obvious.
But after the third encounter, even the dunce himself started noticing something strange.
"It’s only showing up where it can screw us over."
Silvia looked at Vengeance with surprise and nodded her head. This was mainly the reason why she chose to ignore its taunts and continued with their exploration.
It was because every time it challenged them, it happened to be near environmental death zones where it possessed absolute superiority.
What’s more, it always avoided direct combat.
By the fifth encounter, Vangeance had completely abandoned the idea of charging recklessly. Instead, he began watching, analyzing, and using his head.
When the Storm Sovereign appeared, he ignored it and continued exploring.
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