Odyssey of the Guardian Emperor

It perched inside the largest nest Alaric had ever seen in his life. Bright yellow beak, snowy white feathers tinged with gold, and a radiant rainbow crest, boasting a size large enough to frighten a bear. The Heaven-Crested Eagle was a sight to behold, but difficult to judge from a distance.

Alaric had only seen a part of its head and gargantuan chest, leaving him to make most of his judgements himself. He almost wondered how the beast could fit in a nest that high when he saw the nest itself, which made him swallow his pride…

'Big bird.' He chided.

Its nest was made from powerful branches thicker than Alaric's limbs, the nest was a sight to behold.

These branches masterfully weaved into each other, curving unnaturally as though they were made for the purpose of building ginormous nests. To bend nature this much to one's will and weave a nest out of rigid branches was unheard of… and yet, the nest sat high above for Alaric to behold.

The circular nest sat on top of logs plunged into the very walls of the Barren Mountains. The logs were large enough for a human to step on… and weren't on the same level.

[ They look like stairs, ] his guardian observed.

[ With a few taken out, yes. Whether it was by coincidence or intentional doesn't matter. Part of that nest is man-made. ] Alia specified.

The nest itself was made of unnaturally curved branches, interwoven to make a crude basket large enough to hold two lions the size of Aslan. Because of how big the nest was, a large part of it extended beyond the wooden beams holding it.

One last detail that caught Alaric's eye was sparks of light shimmering inside the nest. Several blue pellets rested inside the nest, glowing softly.

Sariah tugged Alaric back, breaking his trance. "Enough sightseeing," she whispered, pressing three vials into his hand, "This is the part where you play decoy. I don't know how you intend to pull it off… but take these."

As the boy looked at the curious bottles in his hand, blue liquids swirling inside them, he asked, "What are these?"

Sariah was checking through her ring for anything else that could help the boy, but turned up empty-handed.

"Fatigue Banishers," she said, "For when you run out of the energy to keep running."

Alaric's hands coiled around the vials before he sent them into his trusty bracelet. He took a deep breath and glanced back at the claw marks they'd just passed.

[ Don't tell me you're now afraid… ] Alia chuckled in his mind.

[ No way… ] the boy replied, [ I've battled demons, mudhounds, jade foxes… This is nothing… ]

Alaric took a deep breath and turned around.

It was now or never.

And that's when it hit Alaric. He wasn't nervous because these creatures could potentially gut him and put an end to his mission to defeat the Demon King. He was nervous because this whole battle was new to him.

There were no trees out here… and despite his best efforts, his vines had failed to sprout in the barren grey rock of the Barren Mountains. It was almost like the mountains rejected any form of plant life, thriving on the very barrenness that gave them their name. All his vines had withered the instant they grew, leaving him without Thomper's Ability and, for once, without the luxury of spying on all his enemies.

He was going in blind.

He wanted to cast a cloaking spell on his party but knowing how sensitive Aether Beasts were to aether, he decided against it.

He braced himself for what was to come and walked out into the open, keeping his footsteps as light as possible. For this part of his act, he even employed a bit of SwiftWind's abilities to defy gravity. It was important that he made noise only after he'd put some distance between himself and the party of adventurers.

[ It's quieter than I expected,] his guardian mused.

Alaric hummed in response but had no comment. 'What's she expecting? A swarm of death-dealing talon-wielding maniacs with wings?'

[ Exactly! As a decoy, your only success is in accomplishing the achievement: Chased Down by Swarm in every job you pull. ]

Alaric shook his head at the thought and tried to steal his beating heart. Did she even see the depth of the grooves their talons made? He didn't know how many Heaven-Crested Eagles there were or worse, the layout of this part of the Barren Mountains—not like he knew the layout of any part of it.

Bottom line, the odds of running himself into a corner were very high… and yet he was still proceeding with this plan.

Upon reaching the first nest, he noticed another one deeper into the valley. Unlike the first one, this next sat on an outcropping of rock built more lavishly with much more wood and room.

The third one he saw was shaped differently, made to look more like a basket hanging from a branch than the other two. Considering only one giant beam of wood protruded out of this part of the steep wall, the Eagles had gotten creative with it.

'They have different styles of…' Alaric gasped, '…weaving.'

His eyes had caught a glimpse of something peculiar inside the hanging nest. Deep inside it, he saw something unlike the sparkling gemstones littered in the nests. This one was a much larger crystal, round and smooth, yet embedded into what looked like fragmented rock.

With a direct line of sight, Alaric could feel the aether pulsing from it. Strong aether. 'That must be it.'

It was time…

Alaric stood between the three nests, taking note of several others deeper into the mountains. Those nests weren't his concern yet, though. He would be running in that direction with many at his back and many more to follow but that was a problem for future Alaric.

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The boy let go of the slight hover, keeping his feet from making noise and kicked a few stones intentionally. In this silence, the noise made by the stones sounded like the gongs of a city clock.

The boy looked up and placed his will into his voice, speaking in the Old Tongue, "***"

No sound escaped his lips—like the words resisted form, waiting to be remembered, not invented.

[ What do we call Heaven-Crested Eagles in the Old Tongue? ]

Alia sighed, [ You know their names. They… sing in your blood, like you said. You might even be able to get a few Storm Orbs if you ask nicely. ]

The boy furrowed his eyebrows. He hadn't even had time to think about the things he'd said to the Naiad… but that was because there wasn't much to think about. When he spoke the Old Tongue, only truth came out of his mouth… However, sometimes he was taken over by something… primal, forcing him to utter truths of the world even he had never heard of… and thus, couldn't quite interpret.

The boy looked up again and summoned his courage. He didn't need to overthink it. The truth was a lot easier to speak than lies, for it was made to be spoken. His voice came deep, raw and primal—like the call of an ancient spirit.

"Hear me, Sentinels of the Stone Gate, I come not to cause harm but with the intention to collect the Orbs that rest in your dwellings."

'Dwellings?' The boy furrowed his eyebrows.

His guardian sighed at the back of his mind, a troubled emotion rippling through the boy's being, [ You're progressing faster than I expected. ]

The boy wanted to ask what she meant by this, but in that moment, the constant breeze Alaric had gotten used to went completely still.

It wasn't the kind of stillness that happened naturally, either. Alaric was still tapping into SwiftWind's abilities to compensate for the lack of spatial awareness he got from trees, so he could tell when the wind was being tampered with.

He looked up and locked eyes with a yellow-beaked bird. Its head was at least three times the size of his own and an intelligent gaze stared back. Its feathers were a criminal shade of white while atop its head sat a rainbow coloured crest.

'Heaven-Crested… Of course,' the boy wanted to cover his face with his palm so badly, 'Such an obvious name!'

[ I don't think humans put much thought into naming some of these creatures. ] Alia pitched in.

The gigantic bird's head, after staring from the hanging nest, started to emerge, revealing the white coat of feathers protecting its body from the cold… and trumping Alaric's initial thoughts on the beast's size.

A pair of powerful wings peeked from the cover of the nest before the whole abode shuddered from the weight of the bird lifting off. It soared gracefully in the air before it was joined by two others, each banking to take a closer look at the human who'd come to take their Storm Orbs.

A single wingbeat sent torrents of wind shooting past Alaric, forcing him to squint his eyes and bar the wind with his hand. It didn't matter how far the birds were, either. The wind reached him with the power of a small twister, threatening to lift him off the ground.

He took a step forward and opened his mouth when a voice boomed in the Old Tongue, "Stay right there, human. We'll be right with you."

…

"…huh."

One of the eagles broke from their circle of rotation and soared deeper into the mountains, leaving these two watching Alaric like… hawks. Alaric looked up at the circling gargantuan beasts, 'What happened to the part where I get gutted mercilessly? What happened to the big fight? What happened to the Storm Orbs they protect?'

"So, you're going to just… give us the Storm Orbs?" Alaric asked in the Old Tongue.

One of the eagles gave him a cold look. It was a look that said, 'Mind your own business, human.'

The other one spoke instead, its voice resonating with the very mountains, "That is not for us to decide."

Alaric stood still. He could only imagine what the others were discussing now that he wasn't running like he'd planned to. Their plan was clear… They needed a distraction to draw the birds away from the nests so they could get the Storm Orbs, and he was to be that distraction.

None of them had planned for there to be some sort of civilised conversation between the Heaven-Crested Eagles and himself.

Odds were that the bird that had just gone was most likely bringing backup… And if that was the case, did that mean they were going to be killed… or that they knew of the party Alaric was trying to protect?

His heart started pounding in his chest as he took a step forward, "Oi… We said Stand still, human."

Alaric looked up with a smirk, "Make me."

"You're courting death, human…" the Heaven-Crested Eagle thundered before dipping into a nose-dive.

Alaric didn't need a signal to know it was time to run. The aether in his body roared to life, and his legs took off running. The chase was on.

Alaric took off sprinting like his life depended on it. The eagle behind him shot for his body like an arrow, beak ready to skewer the life out of him. He could feel the rage rolling off its body into the wind.

There wasn't a moment that Alaric doubted the beast's power over the air around them. It moved unnaturally, pushing the boy back whilst allowing the Eagle to shoot forward even faster. Alaric's senses were on high alert as the Eagle approached. Its large claws sprang out to grab him.

At the last moment, he veered to the side.

He did so with so much force that for a brief moment, he jumped to the steep edge of the cliff wall and ran along it, wearing down the force with which he'd side-stepped the bird's attack.

The Eagle, unfazed, flapped its wings and shot for the wall. Its reaction was impeccable, catching up with Alaric before he had the time to praise himself for running along a wall.

The boy bunched his legs and jumped off the wall. The eagle's beak opened and clamped down on a strand of his hair.

It missed.

The boy landed in a roll, then shot forward, hearing the vibrations in the ground and the screeching sound of the eagle crashing against the wall.

[ Close one… ] his guardian observed.

Alaric, however, was already moving on to the next part of his master plan: "I invoke the name of the Constellation of Fire: Incendio."

[ What are you doing? ] Alia asked the boy.

[ I'm going to make some noise… duh! ] The boy replied, summoning a mass of fireballs. He launched the fireballs at the stone walls to his sides and made sure they blew up as loudly as he could make them.

The mountain shuddered, and the Eagle in the air screeched, "What is wrong with this human?"

More Heaven-Crested eagles popped their heads out of their nests to see what the commotion was all about, only to see a boy running at top speed right past their nests, fireballs whistling above him. Moments later, an eagle would shoot by, screaming a long string of malformed insults at the annoying boy.

Most of the eagles jumped from their nests and joined their comrade in the chase. Further ahead, a particularly large Heaven-Crested Eagle floated high up before flapping its wings so hard that Alaric was certain it should have shot into the sky with that kind of power.

Alaric could feel the power within its wings, the vibrations that echoed through the air and the aether that pulsed from it. Compared to the other birds, this one was covered in more gold. It was still mostly white… but the gold flecks in its feathers were the most Alaric had seen on one of these Eagles.

Despite the powerful wing flaps, the large Heaven-Crested Eagle remained in one place, channelling the wind to its will with immense vigour.

Alaric's ears turned blew and the irises of his green eyes narrowed to slits, tapping deeper into the rebellious powers of an azure stingray he once knew, as he came barrelling straight for the large Eagle. The Eagle chasing him soared higher, but not to get away from the boy.

Alaric knew enough about wind physics from SwiftWind's treasure trove of knowledge to know that the beast was positioning itself to catch him when the tempests knocked him back.

The wind did not disappoint. The Eagle's tempest hit like a boulder, threatening to knock the wind right out of his lungs, shatter his bones, rip his tendons and carry what was left of him away with it.

Alaric had never felt his body be slammed by the wind so hard before. It felt like landing face-first on the surface of a water body… only this time, he was feeling that pain because he chose to fight.

He knew what he needed to do to overcome the wind… and yet, it still hit hard.

There was a second during which Alaric stopped running and planted his feet into the ground only for his skin to grow an even deeper shade of azure before he pushed straight into the tempest and continued his mad dash, seemingly unaffected by the calamitous winds…