And (N)one Shall Remain

One look at the gargantuan figure in the distance, somehow hanging from the cavern’s ceiling like a grotesque, fleshy stalactite, told Alissa that the fight would likely not be like the one where they fought the [Winged Scavenger Patriarch] at all. While there was only a slight difference in their names, the [Winged Scavenger Matriarch] was clearly a different beast altogether.

 

For one, [Analysis] immediately returned [Winged Scavenger Alpha Matriarch Lvl45] when they used it to check the beast. The beast’s level was at the very upper limit of Sir Inolet’s estimation, but the addition of the “Alpha” to its [Analysis] result was a greater cause for worry. Any additional moniker in a beast’s name meant that the beast was beyond what it normally was in some way, and seeing it on a boss monster was the worst possible scenario.

 

Even Sir Inolet frowned when he noticed the unexpected result, and he ordered half of the guards to accompany the [Heroes] to tackle the beast, while the other half was to hold out against the other monsters in the area. The Matriarch wasn’t alone, as there were around another dozen or so [Dire Winged Scavenger] and [Winged Scavenger Reaper] in the vicinity.

 

One look at the Matriarch itself, however, made it clear just which of the monsters would be the main threat in the large cavernous space. The beast was massive, easily twice as tall as the Patriarch that the [Heroes] faced before, and nearly as broad as the Patriarch was tall even with its wing-arms folded around it. 

 

Making things worse was the open terrain of the cavernous space it called its lair. The ceiling was high, and there was plenty of room for the bat-like monsters to fly in. It was a potential trouble that gave the party some pause as they planned their strategy for the fight. Fortunately the monsters seemed to pay no attention to their presence so long as they remained outside the lair.

 

Sir Inolet merely watched from the side as they murmured amongst themselves. In the end, everyone agreed that the Matriarch was the main threat they would need to get under control first, and they planned around taking it down as soon as possible while half the guards held the rest of the monsters back. After the party – all twenty-three of them – exchanged nods of agreement, they slowly inched to the monster’s lair, taking extreme care to keep their footsteps quiet as they advanced.

 

All the guards hefted some form of ranged weapon as they moved as close to the [Winged Scavenger Alpha Matriarch] as they could, intending to damage its wings to the point where it could no longer fly in the first strike. Once they reached close enough – around ten meters away from the beast, not counting the height it was perched up – everyone readied their weapons.

 

Those who had bows and crossbows aimed at the slumbering form of the great beast above them, while those with throwing weapons reared back with one arm fully extended behind them, preparing for a powerful throw. None of the beasts had yet to react to their presence, so they took the time to synchronize the shot as best they could.

 

“On three, ready?” said Alissa in a quiet voice to the party. Her words were answered by dozens of nods as everyone signaled their readiness. Even the quiet and taciturn Joshua looked serious as he eyed the beast above and ahead of them with his eyes looking down the crude sights on his crossbow. “Ready up… One… Two… Three!”

 

At her call, a barrage of arrows and bolts were loosed, followed closely by the various thrown projectiles from the group. The yell alerted the beasts, but they were slow to react, as they had just awoken from their slumber. The same applied to the Matriarch, which had just started to rouse itself when the projectiles landed on the membranous wings that enveloped its slumbering form.

 

And that was when their eager looks turned into a dumbfounded one, followed by surprise and despair.

 

The bolts and arrows bounced off the [Winged Scavenger Alpha Matriarch]’s membranous wings, leaving only small nicks behind. The heavier thrown weapons managed to pierce through the membrane, but failed to go deeper, leaving only shallow wounds and small holes on the wings even as they fell out as the beast moved.

 

Then the beast unfolded itself from its curled-up sleeping posture and revealed its full size, half again as large as what they had assumed, with a grotesque appearance that looked like it came straight out of a horror movie. It screeched so loudly that everyone was forced to clutch their throbbing and bleeding ears, its four mandible-like outer jaws wide open to display the rows of needle-like teeth behind.

 

With the Matriarch’s screech, the rest of the colony inside the cavern roused themselves and took to the air as they flew towards the intruders. Fortunately, the Matriarch itself had not budged from its spot yet, as it seemed content to just deafen them with its loud, ear-piercing screeches. The sight of a dozen or so of the monsters headed their way forced Alissa to come to a quick decision, as she was appointed the leader of the group.

 

“Retreat! Retreat towards the entrance!” she yelled at the top of her voice, while also using her spear to gesture her command to everyone else. At that moment she was most grateful that Sir Inolet had insisted that they learn to pass commands through silent gestures, for situations where making sounds were either impossible or unpreferable.

 

The party could take on a dozen of the monsters, even though they were all advanced variants in the level 30s, but the presence of the Matriarch nearby made that a dicey proposition. As such, Alissa chose to enact a fighting withdrawal with the hopes of thinning the number of the monsters a bit, escaping if the Matriarch chose to make its move prematurely. 

 

Their withdrawal was one done in a measured, practiced way. The ten Temple Guards took the front, with their long spears held towards the incoming beasts and their large shields covering their bodies. Behind them, the Royal Guards and the three young heroes hurled projectiles at the beasts, in the hopes of slowing them down, maybe even taking some out of the air if possible.

 

Alissa hurled her javelins with steady hands, her skill helping keep her mind calm despite the situation. A couple of the guards, as well as Joshua looked less calm, as they were caught off guard by the unexpected situation, and their shots went wide more often than not. Sometimes they landed on another of the beasts by luck, but it did little to stop the beasts.

 

On the other hand, Alissa’s javelins had more effect. Two of the [Dire Winged Scavengers] crashed to the ground after her throws landed directly on one of their shoulder joints. One of the beasts even had the misfortune to plummet straight onto a stalagmite, the tip of the rock formation skewering it through the gut and out its back. It screeched in horrible pain, unable to extract itself from its predicament even as it slowly died.

 

The rest of the beasts still charged straight at the retreating party, however, even the other beast that Alissa downed from the air. It loped towards them with an odd gait since one of its wing-arms had been rendered useless, but still pursued them furiously nonetheless.

 

A coordinated thrust of the spear from the temple guards in the front drew some blood and forced the remaining [Dire Winged Scavengers] to veer away. The [Winged Scavenger Reapers] came next, their wings had devolved, so they were ground-bound, but they ran towards the group at nearly the same speed as their flying brethren.

 

By sheer coincidence – or maybe some sort of bestial coordination – the half-dozen Reapers struck the shield wall at the same moment the Dire Scavengers swooped back for a second pass. The temple guards were occupied by the six reapers and thus couldn’t drop the Dire Scavengers, so Alissa hurled her last javelin at them, along with various other projectiles from the royal guards next to her.

 

The projectiles caused one of the flying beasts to crash down to the side, where Ethan rushed in and hammered it down before it could rise to its feet. The other three harried the retreating party from the air, however. Even when they tried to strike at the beasts with their polearms and spears, the flying creatures just weaved out of their reach with ease.

 

At least, they did that until Joshua lost his patience.

 

A bolt of lightning extended from his hand and linked him to one of the flying monsters, the lightning branching out from that beast to the other two fliers nearby, lasting for a brief, brilliant moment. The bolt was nowhere near fatal, but it disrupted the beasts enough to send them falling out of the air, where one of them broke its wing-arm on the landing.

 

Alissa didn’t miss out on the chance and rushed towards the healthiest-looking beast that was starting to rise. Before the beast could react in time, she already stabbed its chest with her spear, swiftly withdrawing the weapon for a second thrust aimed at the throat. The beast managed to partly avoid that one, but the spearhead still left a bloody gash at the side of its throat.

 

More importantly, the spear kept its attention fixated on it, which left the creature unprepared when Alissa stepped in close and struck it right on the snout with the top end of her shield’s rim, hard enough to break some bones within. The beast reeled backwards from the blow, and Alissa finished it off with another stab to the center of its throat, followed by stomping on the wound with the heel of her boot for good measure.

 

As she turned and surveyed the rest of the battle, she saw that Ethan had taken out his monster too, and was in the midst of helping some of the royal guards take out the beast that Joshua had scorched the most. The Fifth Princess and the rest of the royal guards tackled the last of the fliers and put it down permanently.

 

Due to the tight formation they adopted, the Fifth Princess had no real room to swing her greatsword freely, so she moved one hand to hold it by the middle of the blade instead, and stabbed with it like a short spear. Between her and the other three guards who stabbed at the [Dire Winged Scavenger] with their weapons, they made relatively short work of it without too much fuss.

 

At the same time, the temple guards still held off the six [Winged Scavenger Reapers] and kept them away from the rest. They were unable to land any serious blows on the monsters, but also kept themselves safe from the scything claws so far, as they sought to buy time for the others to take care of the flying monsters. 

 

The hobbled [Dire Winged Scavenger] reached the shield wall around that time, lending its weight to its more ferocious brethren despite its injuries, but some of the royal guards had already turned and moved to reinforce the shield wall as well. From the looks of it, they would successfully withdraw from the lair while also whittling down the number of the monsters within before long.

 

At least, that was what they thought when another piercing screech reverberated in the cavern, sending waves of pain directly to their ears and minds.

 

A sound of flapping wings and a fast-moving shadow were all the signs they saw, before one of the royal guards rushing towards the front suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground, his head missing from his neck. Blood started pouring out from the stump within moments, as the rest of the party looked warily at the massive figure in the air above them.

 

The [Winged Scavenger Alpha Matriarch] had joined the fray.