Broken Lands

Light pulsed through Jaycen's sword as he ran across the sky, followed by streaks of light. Bai could now see that they were individual footprints …no, bootprints. Each one thinned and trailed backwards like a streamer as he moved forward. It was an odd method of movement, but combined with the glowing sword and shield it was quickly becoming obvious that Jaycen had some sort of Light and Item focus; likely Item for his Anchor, with Light as a mana affinity.

Bai couldn't tell exactly what Jaycen's Signature was; something like Equipped in Light, maybe? That sort of combination of Anchor and mana affinity could make a Signature. It was a good combination, as well, easy to develop into a Grand Talent.

Jaycen lifted his sword. The point seemed to gather at its tip, then shot towards the purple skyeagle as another series of lightning strikes fell. The light hit as the lightning dissipated on more feathers, making the skyeagle glow as its Shield blocked most of the lightbeam. A little made its way through, but there wasn't even a minor scorch mark left by it.

Bai nodded in appreciation. That was a Shield-draining attack; it traded away its capacity to harm the enemy to remove their Shield. It was a fairly powerful one, as well, since it seemed to have taken out the skyeagle's full Shield in a single assault. Doing that from a distance made it as impressive as Dav's opener, where he threw himself across the Arena and killed a skyeagle in what looked like a single blow.

Bai suspected there was more to that; it usually only happened when someone was at a much higher level than their opponent, because it needed a significant Body or Core advantage, depending on the attack. There were a number of Abilities that could mimic that; the fact that Dav used one as an opening attack meant that either he was showing everything he could do, or he had more tricks up his sleeve.

Although there was also that odd stillness when Dav attacked …

Bai's gaze drifted around the Arena until it settled on the owl. The most famous type of owl was a Night Owl, and it was just possible that Amy, the Doom Owl, was a Night Owl. If she was and she'd focused on learning invisible visual assaults, it would definitely explain the skyeagle's momentary hesitation and might also explain how Dav got through the skyeagle's Shield. It was strange to see a Night Owl in a team that otherwise didn't match any of the famous builds, but in a way it made sense. The team was from the Skylands, and all Night Owls Bai had ever seen came through the Skylands.

A bright blue aura flashed around Xin'ri, the War Crow, as she held up something that looked like a melting icicle. She threw it at the purple skyeagle; the aura seemed to condense around the ice spike as it flew upwards. It hit the skyeagle solidly in the head, as if the Shield was indeed completely gone. It didn't penetrate, but the skyeagle stopped moving and started falling. That was well within Bai's expectations.

Five skyeagles remained. None of the Flying Stars had even lost any Shield yet, but it looked like that was about to change. The three remaining blue skyeagles had moved near the red one, as if they were protecting it or more likely performing some sort of joint attack. The green skyeagle was a more immediate issue, as it dove towards what it thought was an unsuspecting target: the owl.

Moments before it hit, the owl seemed to somehow realize that something was coming for it and entered a steep dive of its own. At almost the same time, several of the glowing feathers lit up with coruscating light, then turned to ash as bolts that glowed like pure mana to Bai's eyes flashed towards the green skyeagle.

Bai chortled as the third skyeagle fell out of the sky. Now that was a way to kill a skyeagle straight through its Shield: hit it enough times that it died. There had to be a cost to it. The most likely one was mana, which meant that unless Sophia, the Feathered Serpent, had an unusually high Core, she couldn't do that many times. It was entirely possible that she could only do that once without time to rest.

So far, Xin'ri looked like the mage of the group, with her aura and ability to spontaneously generate an icicle. Throwing it was a little odd, but it was no stranger than other things Bai had seen over the years. Jaycen was Equipped in Light, Amy was a Night Owl, and Sophia was something like Bright Feathers. That was two people with light-themed Abilities and one with dark; an interesting combination. Dav was hard to pin down, but his movement Ability left temporary streaks of light in the air. It was a weird set of colors, two dark and one bright, so he wasn't sure what to think.

What he was certain of was that, other than the Night Owl, the Flying Stars were an extremely noticeable group. If they were as competent as they were flashy, he expected some amazing fights out of them over the next few years, until they entered the Maze.

After that, well, he had to hope they'd go in with Arena groups, even though they were Hallowed. Flashy people who went into the Maze without Arena backing tended to die fairly quickly. Bai wasn't sure how the Blade's people deterred whatever it was that killed them, but it was definitely true that they did.

He didn't know for certain that it was any single thing. After all, he didn't learn anything if people just didn't return; someone had to make it back for him to know what killed a team. That meant that he could only warn people about the common dangers, not the most dangerous things.

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Bai was certain that people forgot that.

Fire flashed across the Arena. It was enough to pull Bai out of the spiral that thinking about all the deaths in the Maze sometimes sent him into. The people in front of him weren't dead; they wouldn't die in the Maze for years. They were only second upgrade, and fairly low in the upgrade at that. The fire wasn't much for a third upgrade team, but it might be significant at the second upgrade.

It was also their first obvious mistake. They'd clearly concentrated on the skyeagles that were separated from the others and ignored the ones that were grouped together. That gave the blue and red skyeagles the time they needed to whip the winds into a fury and fill them with flame.

The flame-bath should seriously damage the team's Shields and would certainly destroy all those feathers that glowed around the Arena's sky that the Feathered Serpent was scattering as she flew. Just as importantly, it would hide whatever the skyeagles meant to do next. That was the true danger.

Bai leaned forward in his seat. The sounds of renewed betting couldn't pull him away from the fight this time.

The firestorm started to fade even sooner than Bai expected. It wasn't natural dissipation, either; entire swathes of it were wiped out, almost like they were being pulled out of the air and into something else. Someone on the team had an impressive counterspelling Ability.

No, wait. They were all being pulled towards a bird? That didn't make sense; a second upgrade skyeagle couldn't pull flames to itself. That didn't happen until the third upgrade, even for red skyeagles. It also didn't look quite like a skyeagle; it was multicolored and the crest was wrong. A lot of the feathers also seemed to actually be on fire, which wasn't right, and the fiery feathers glowed in red, yellow, and green. A Firestorm Skyeagle didn't burn its own feathers and it never created green fire.

The flames cleared quickly enough for Bai to see that there were one too many birds and one too few people. A quick check on who was there told him that the missing person was Dav, the swordsman whose sword appeared out of nowhere.

Bai grinned. The Wise Guardian, indeed! He should have guessed that the person with the ability to dispel a full firestorm was the one called a guardian. He didn't know why Dav chose to do it in the shape of a bird, much less one that was on fire like the attack, but it was clear what he'd done. Corralling the fire seemed to be all he could manage, but that was enough; disrupting a large attack like that was plenty to justify his spot on the team, even without the skyeagle he'd killed early on.

The War Crow, Xin'ri, held up a staff shaped like a burnt branch. Lightning flickered across the sky from it to the four remaining skyeagles. It danced across their bodies mostly harmlessly, but it broke the rhythm of their flight. All four skyeagles skidded across the sky like damaged toys, not quite falling but also not truly flying.

The Doom Owl focused on one of the three blue skyeagles. It seemed to freeze, then fall and turn just enough that the Dawn Herald could strike it with his glowing blade. The first strike didn't penetrate its shield; the second did, but the bird was out of position. The Dawn Herald had to nearly run in a circle around the skyeagle to stay in the air and still manage the strike that finally took the skyeagle's head.

It was honestly pretty funny to watch.

A moment later, the Feathered Serpent's wings brightened with magic. It was clearly the same mass spell casting as the first time she'd attacked a skyeagle, but this time she was using her wings. Mana shot towards the red skyeagle and Sophia fell out of the sky as her winds burned away.

Out of nowhere, a very strange looking bird with wings that looked like a softer version of the Feathered Serpent's appeared below her and caught her as she fell. It was an incredible acrobatic feat, even without the instant summoning; with it, the Arena crowd began to yell.

Bai simply took in the summon; it was pale and birdlike, but it had four legs instead of two, a long head and tail like a snake's, and glowing horns instead of a proper feathered crest. It clearly explained the name Feathered Serpent; she wasn't named that because she could borrow her summon's wings; she was named the Feathered Serpent because that was what she could summon!

There were a number of options for Anchor and Signature that could match what he'd seen. If she was a true summoner, that might be her Anchor; pulling power from summons as her Signature was a natural extension of a summoning Anchor. Everything she did was feathered, including her summon, so that was likely her Signature. It would limit her to feathered summons, but Bai had no doubt the feathered serpent could fight.

There were other possibilities for her Anchor, of course. Those floating feathers looked an awful lot like an Aura or even a Domain, but both Anchors were rare. He'd keep an open mind, but Anchoring to a particular favored summon was more likely than either an Aura or a Domain.

Blood fell from the sky as the last two eagles turned on the nearly stationary Jaycen as the War Crow's lightning failed. The Dawn Herald was simply too close to fully defend himself against their wind-carried feathers. His Shield was clearly still present, but the skyeagles' feathers were vicious; they couldn't cut to the bone the way they would with no Shield at all, but they could leave smaller freely bleeding injuries.

After the initial assault, Jaycen managed to interpose his shield between himself and the birds as he ran towards them. It wasn't complete coverage, but it was enough that he took only a few more slices before the War Crow managed to throw another ice spike and the Doom Owl caught the gaze of the last skyeagle.

Jaycen removed its head and that was the end of the fight. The Arena erupted in cheers.

Bai could only smile as he went to collect his winnings. That was an exciting fight, exactly what was needed to make his bet pay off.