The creature, no larger than a lizard, dashed across the snowfield like a grey-black shadow. It remembered the command it had received and was driven by the singular, burning purpose etched into its soul: to fulfill it.
"Oh? You've made it back! It must have been exhausting, traveling such a long distance."
After running toward the pull of its master for an unknown amount of time, a pair of warm hands gently scooped the little creature up. Jeanne peered down at the tiny thing, holding it close to examine it. Indeed, this was the very messenger she had personally handed to Talulah before they departed.
This was her chosen method of communication. Since she couldn't be certain if the enemy possessed eavesdropping equipment, she had opted not to carry a heavy, cumbersome radio.
After feeding the little guy some food, Jeanne unsummoned it, letting it dissolve into points of starlight as it returned to its place of origin. With the messenger gone, Jeanne raised her flag. The mana within her began to surge violently.
Simultaneously, the processed Originium shards in her bag began to rapidly deplete. The fluctuations in mana around her became so intense that they mimicked the onset of a Catastrophe. From a distance, observers might have dismissed the energy spike as a minor aftershock of a recent Catastrophe—something quite common in these parts—and so they paid it little mind once the initial reading passed.
But as soon as their attention wavered, Jeanne was surrounded by twenty-five Wyverns. Fire flickered in their maws, and their cold, draconic eyes swept over the world. The moment they appeared, the wildlife in the surrounding woods fled in terror; Jeanne even saw several hibernating bears wake up and abandon their dens in a desperate scramble for survival.
Inside the Ursus camp, the soldiers noticed the disturbance in the distance. With the threat of an Infected attack looming, they wondered if the enemy was hiding in those woods.
"Sir, should we send a squad to investigate? If the Infected are hiding there, we can adjust our defenses accordingly," a subordinate suggested to the commander.
The commanding officer stared at the sky for a long time without answering. His gut told him it wasn't that simple. He didn't believe a veteran like Patriot would make such a rookie mistake as revealing his position so easily.
But... what if?
"Send a few of the fast and sharp ones. Tell them to make it quick."
He didn't trust his intuition entirely, so he sent scouts. If they didn't return, it would confirm his suspicions. However, he was mistaken; Reunion wasn't hiding in those woods. In fact, they were positioned in the opposite direction. Charging from those woods would have left them exposed for kilometers.
"Forward, my kin! Let our enemies feel our strength!"
In the middle of the empty valley, Jeanne mounted the back of a Wyvern and brandished her flag. At her command, the dragons took to the sky like projectiles.
Jeanne closed her eyes against the sudden pressure of the wind. When the flight stabilized, she and her Wyverns were soaring high above the clouds. Braving the biting wind, she guided the swarm toward the enemy fortifications. Due to their extreme altitude and the distance, sentries on the watchtowers initially dismissed them as a flock of birds.
"It looks like Jeanne has moved! Everyone, get ready! We charge soon!"
Seeing the unusual activity in the forest, Talulah immediately ordered the squads to prepare. The face-to-face confrontation was imminent.
As the order went out, everyone grabbed their weapons, though some had a conflicted look in their eyes. They were secretly weighing their options—was it really wise to charge into a battle against regular army troops? While they went through the motions of preparing, their minds were already drifting toward thoughts of desertion.
"The sky! There's something in the sky! Alert the others, prepare for battle!"
As Jeanne's Wyverns began their dive toward the camp, a sentry finally noticed something was wrong. These "birds" were moving far too fast. And their size... something was definitely off. The alarm blared, drawing everyone's gaze to the mysterious shapes descending from above.
Inside the camp, soldiers scrambled to man the specialized ballistae. They had been trained for aerial interception and were confident; some could even pick off small birds in flight.
"Are those the 'beasts' they mentioned? How did the Infected do it? To fly that high... aren't they afraid of dying from accelerated Orepathy?"
One officer, knowledgeable about the disease, stared at the beasts in confusion. It was common knowledge that Terra's high altitudes were saturated with Originium particles. Inhaling them at that concentration was lethal for almost any living thing. No creature was known to be immune to Orepathy. Birds, in fact, had some of the highest infection rates among wildlife because of their frequent high-altitude flights.
"Who knows? Have you ever heard of such creatures? I've lived in Ursus my whole life and never even heard a rumor. Maybe they're escapees from some research lab."
His colleague joined him, squinting at the soaring shapes. From this distance, he couldn't quite tell what they were. Wait, why do they have Vouivre tails?
As they spoke, the camp's marksmen opened fire. Bolts infused with Arts streaked toward the sky. The soldiers held their breath, wondering if their weapons could pierce the hides of such creatures.
"Here it comes! Evasive maneuvers!"
Jeanne spotted the massive bolts rising toward them. It was a testament to the equipment's quality that they could reach such heights, though about half the bolts lost momentum and began to fall back to earth before reaching the swarm.
But her Wyverns weren't sitting ducks. Under Jeanne's command, they darted and dove like swallows, effortlessly weaving through the projectile fire. Not a single scale was clipped in the first volley. At the Wyverns' speed, the bolts seemed almost sluggish.
A second wave of bolts followed. The Wyverns seemed to find the game amusing, playing with the projectiles for a while. Eventually, however, they grew bored. One Wyvern, slightly slower to react, had a scale grazed and chipped by a bolt.
That was the soldiers' greatest achievement thus far—and perhaps the greatest they would ever achieve.
Losing patience, the Wyverns began to gather fire in their throats and dove straight toward the ground. They moved with such terrifying speed that the soldiers below couldn't even react. One moment they were looking up, and the next, fire erupted before their eyes, incinerating them before they could even turn to run.
The soldiers and officers watching from safety felt their relaxed expressions turn to stone as the battlefield turned into an inferno.