Wyvern Knights

It was the common view that wyverns could not be tamed because of their unique ferocity and violence.

However, under the mighty imperial authority, mages made the radical choice to cast aside pride and stubbornness and worked with trainers, and wyverns began to change into ‘mounts.’

It was when the empire’s special unit, the ‘Flying Dragon Knights,’ was formed that wyverns truly transformed into formidable mounts.

When knights who had mastered charging with long spears while freely gliding through the air atop wyverns, as well as throwing attacks and even imbuing their weapons with divine power, took to the field, they came to reign as terror on the battlefield.

The Flying Dragon Knights, a symbol of imperial authority, ironically had a huge influence in bringing down the ancient empire’s last emperor, the tyrant.

—From a paper on the rise and fall of the ancient empire.

Undead drifting lazily in the air. They were a sort of special forces unit.

There were about 500 of them, but it was easy to read the members’ troubled expressions.

500 wyverns.

And on top of them, Death Knights holding long spears while riding the wyverns’ backs without any gear, as if they were one with them.

And then 200 liches appeared behind them.

They all had one thing in common: they were floating in the air.

“Ugh…….”

The first to let out a groan with a troubled face was Froi. For Froi, ‘for now’ there were not many ways to deal with beings gliding in the air.

The other representatives were no different.

The ones who had been blankly staring at the newly appeared enemies one by one turned their gazes to look at me.

“…Why?”

But even at my question, they did not turn their gazes away.

On closer inspection, the place their gazes were headed was not me. It was Ja-ryong, yawning above my head.

“Gya, gyaa?”

Ja-ryong let out a flustered cry at the group’s desperate gazes suddenly fixed on it. But I shook my head.

“You didn’t forget what I said, did you? Try handling them yourselves.”

“…Yes.”

“Focus!!”

Lee Hyo-ju’s firm voice cut off Arun’s drained voice. At that, the group’s somewhat playful atmosphere changed completely.

The members’ momentum was honed sharp like a master sword, and they glared at the undead Flying Dragon Knights looking down on us arrogantly from the sky.

Ja-ryong refused to help, but they were definitely a tough opponent.

The Rebound Legion had more warriors than mages. From the standpoint of the members who were now growing into strong fighters, the undead wyvern riders who could fly freely through the sky would be troublesome.

Still, I held on to a sliver of hope.

“Everyone, disperse into teams of four. Search and attack are the priority.”

At Lee Hyo-ju’s cold, decisive order, Rebound hurriedly paired up in fours and left their positions.

Among Rebound’s formations, the dispersal patterns based on two, three, four, and ten people each had different meanings.

If two- and three-person units were meant to induce chaotic melee, four- and ten-person dispersals had several meanings.

In cases like this, they were also used for scouting.

Each group spreads out widely with at least one mage attached. And nearby, that is, if you group them in eights, there is always one priest included.

Attacks are carried out at the same time as the dispersal.

This time, Lee Hyo-ju actively entered the fight. It was partly because once the dispersal was ordered, no further orders were needed, but also because even with mages included, Lee Hyo-ju’s attacks likely had the best synergy.

The battle in earnest began with the flame attack of Naruan’s weapon, ‘True Flame.’

Mages including Arun targeted the liches that had appeared alongside them, while warrior types either launched ranged attacks in their own ways or prepared to defend in front of their comrades.

A dark projectile with a blue head and a white tail flies, and blood-red flames explode in the air.

Sword aura and fist aura fly toward the wings of the wyverns, and various kinds of magic fly toward the liches.

Divine power surges, and killing intent and hostility fly out and collide.

The undead wyvern riders, who had kept formation like a flock of migratory birds flying together in the sky and prepared for battle, initially allowed the attack with a flustered look, and some even fell downward.

But only for a moment.

If the records written in the history books are true, those beings also hunt dragons. A battle like this could never end so easily.

The undead wyvern riders, split into groups much like our dispersed party. Their counterattack began.

If anyone asks what difference there is between a knight riding a wyvern and a knight riding a horse, wouldn’t this sight be the answer?

The wyvern riders, divided into roughly twenty groups from five hundred, flew gracefully through the sky, evading all sorts of attacks as they swept over the Rebound members.

A charge using a long spear while gliding on a wyvern from high in the sky was not something that could be compared with cavalry charges.

Worse still, they dodged every attack with infuriating ease, and their descending speed did not slow at all.

Everywhere, the sounds of Rebound members and undead wyvern riders colliding in a charge came like explosions.

BANG—BANG BANG—! BANG!!

“Guhk!”

“…Ugh.”

As the huge crashing sounds made clear, members who had blocked the charge head-on to protect the others suffered damage in droves.

Above all, the damage among the warriors, who were not defense-oriented to begin with, was severe.

“Ten!”

Lee Hyo-ju also checked the damage and immediately changed the order. As if they had been waiting for Lee Hyo-ju’s command to drop, they hurriedly changed formation.

The attack resumed. However, by then casualties were already piling up. On top of that, for some reason even Shumix, who had been everyone’s hope, was flustered.

“Shumix?!”

At Lee Hyo-ju’s call, the restless Shumix hesitated and then spoke.

“…Ms. Hyo-ju, what should we do? It looks like the effect of Spirit Untying Ritual is being halved because they’re all off the ground. There are fewer beings it catches.”

“Just do it!”

Was she sensing something from the cloth she had spread out to perform Spirit Untying Ritual? At Shumix’s worried voice, Lee Hyo-ju barked as if angered.

Shumix, with a helpless expression, activated her power, Spirit Untying Ritual.

Maybe preparations were already finished, because it did not take long, and sacred light rose from all over the battlefield.

“Let us unbind the knot bound in the knot, with the rustling breeze.”

While the members who had been all offense focused on defense, Shumix finished the chant more carefully than usual.

The Rebound Legion watched the situation with expectation, but it was completely different from what they had expected. The only ones turned into light by Shumix’s Spirit Untying Ritual were the liches.

“Why……?”

The being causing trouble now was the Death Knight riding the wyvern, so Arun’s mutter was also voicing the thoughts of the other members.

This wasn’t because they were floating in the air, as Shumix said, nor was it her mistake.

‘That undead wyvern rider is the odd one. That damned fanatic.’

“Arun! Focus!”

At Naruan’s sharp rebuke, Arun continued casting magic with a face that said ‘Oops!’

After that, the battle could be called one-sided.

It wasn’t simply because they were free-moving units in the air. Until now, they had easily hunted liches and specters in battle.

Then why?

Prime wyverns and Death Knights.

Even if they had met 500 living wyvern riders, they would not have escaped a hard fight.

A charge while gliding through the sky, a charge spear imbued with force, plus acrobatic aerial maneuvers and organization like a performance, and even javelin throws from above.

And those undead were even stronger.

Rebound now had two ways to overcome this ordeal.

One was to overcome it with equally outstanding organization. Lee Hyo-ju could find the formation with the best synergy and continue the battle based on that.

That method had already been sufficiently tested by the victory over an army close to twenty thousand just two days earlier.

However, if they used that method, Lee Hyo-ju would be completely pulled out of the fighting force—she was the one best matched to the wyverns flying in the sky.

The other method was to reduce the enemy’s fighting strength with overwhelming power. To completely crush their momentum and reduce their force as well.

And among the members, only a few could exercise that level of power.

But there were only two who could do that to those irritating things practically taunting the group from the sky.

“Sister!”

“The younger one? Or me?”

“…I’ll do it. Defend!”

With that cry, Lee Hyo-ju, trusting Hazel completely, took out the fan ‘Strong Wind Blue Dragon Fan’ in which blue and red were harmoniously blended, and closed her eyes.

Close her eyes in the middle of battle? Lee Hyo-ju, who had been there from the start and spared no advice about combat?

She wasn’t even chanting an incantation like a mage, yet she closed her eyes.

Then there is only one reason.

Lee Hyo-ju was manifesting the technique ‘Gwaneum’ in the middle of this chaotic battlefield.

“Time stop! Limited grant, sequential release. Flower Rain!!”

In an instant, blue flowers bloomed in the sky like the finale of fireworks.

No one knew how the dark projectiles had gone up. Blue flowers of dark projectiles exploded in all directions like a hidden time bomb going off.

The unique destructive power of the skill ‘Flower Rain,’ infused with Lee Hyo-ju’s divine power, made the additional functions and firing speed of ‘Strong Wind Blue Dragon Fan’ far faster. On top of that, even the limited-grant time stop was added.

Unlike the flower metaphor, it pierces both the prime wyverns and the Death Knights riding them at the same time.

There are quite a lot of bodies falling apart into pieces. The storm of dark projectiles in the densely packed space dealt massive damage to the undead wyvern knights.

Attacks from the members followed as if by prior agreement. Their chaining and timing are excellent. Worth praising.

But even though the atmosphere had reversed, as time went on the legion members still couldn’t get their offense together.

Moreover, the warrior-type members who had launched excessive ranged attacks early on were already visibly exhausted.

Shumix never recovered after the Spirit Untying Ritual failure—I don’t think it failed, though.

In short, it was a complete mess, and the battle situation that had briefly become favorable turned unfavorable again in this bewildered state.

Moreover, as the remaining undead wyvern riders reorganized their formation and repeated charges and retreats, the situation became unfavorable again.

‘They weren’t recorded in history as achievements for nothing. Tsk.’

What if they had faced it without being flustered from the start?

Of course, it would have been a startling thing for them. It might have been like handing them sharp swords and long-range bows and telling them to fight airplanes or helicopters.

But if the person holding that blade were not an ordinary being—say, Big Brother MacGyver—and had prepared calmly, maybe they wouldn’t have been pushed back this one-sidedly. That’s why it’s even more regrettable.

I click my tongue once more and try to soothe my regret. By now, there were already people bleeding from puncture wounds after being skewered by spears filled with contaminated divine power.

“Ja-ryong.”

“Gya-gya!!”

“Right, sweep them away.”

“Gya~ah!”

Did Ja-ryong also feel that the situation was anything but normal? It pushed off my resting head and shot up into the sky, and the energy was tremendous.

The speed at which its body grows happens in an instant unlike ever before.

After flying up to the same height as the undead, Ja-ryong first unleashes its fear.

What was the first thing a wyvern rider did in order to hunt a dragon? To become free from the dragon’s fear.

For the rider itself, it was enough to grow force or divine power, but the problem was the wyvern that retained wild energy.

So the mages devised a method of linking the wyvern’s mind with the rider’s mind.

That way, the wyverns were not affected even by a dragon’s fear, and they achieved visible results by flying through the air and killing dragons.

Those wyverns and riders became undead. Could Ja-ryong’s fear really affect them?

It feels like watching a sturdy shield be made even sturdier and a sharp blade be honed even sharper as they clash.

Could it be that they were not affected at all? The movement of the wyvern rider, which had been lively until now, abruptly stops.

Still, given that they are continuing to raise their momentum, should the undead knights be judged as the winners on points?

“Kraaah—!!”

Was it because they disliked the gaze staring straight at them? Ja-ryong’s fear flared even more fiercely. To the point that the members waiting below took one step back each.