System Change

Edgar winced as he saw the small dot that was Derek leave a dust trail as he was smashed into the ground and surrounding broken buildings. He didn’t know if he would even be able to take one of those hits. But that was no less than the second time he saw a cloud of dust form from the battle Derek was having. At least it seemed like Edgar was having a bit more luck than the tank.

He flew in front of the fire based wyvern with his wings of lightning. His first attack was well planned, and was able to wound the wing of the beast, which had slowed its speed greatly. Still, he had to keep the pressure up, as the hole in the wyvern’s wing continued to regenerate at a speed visible to his eyes.

But Edgar was faster than the dragonkin, which meant he had a chance, even if the wyvern out statted him in every other aspect. He even suspected he would be slightly faster with his enhancements against the creature, even if he hadn’t wounded it with a surprise ambush.

Was his plan to tame a wyvern insane? Yes, yes it was. The only companion close to a wyvern he had ever heard about was someone taming a drake, and compared to the three legendary beasts they were now fighting, the drake was like a puppy. Yet, in the annuls of history, the man and drake were feared for their strength.

So, this was an opportunity he would be a fool to pass up. Once the raid was finished, it would go inactive for an unknown amount of time. Who knows if he would ever get another chance? Luckily, he had brought multiple beast contracts with him. In fact, he always carried them on his person. He had been looking for the perfect companion ever since he received his legendary class. Now, he had finally found one.

His choice of the red wyvern wasn’t random. He planned to not only tame the beast, but form a bond with it as well. The wind wyvern may be a more suitable match for his lightning, but he wasn’t sure he had the speed to deal with it, and he wasn’t sure what type of wyvern the black one was. Besides, once the soul bond was finished, the wyvern would evolve based on his own legendary class.

Edgar strafed around to the side, dodging the breath of fire with no problem. In his mind, he had already formed a plan of how to ground, then tame the dragon. He just needed to watch its attack patterns and movement to make sure it was viable.

With a flash, he disappeared while the dragonkin was occupied spitting fire. He appeared under the belly of the beast and released a striking slash from his sword. He needed to test the durability of the scales. With his lightning enhanced strike, his sword bit into the beast… and left a light white scratch and no real damage.

He quickly dodged the spiked tail as it swung down. He moved back out front, and uncorked a stamina and mana potion, downing them both at once. The battle was going to wreak havoc on his reserves, but it would be more than worth it.

Avery clicked his tongue as another arrow failed to penetrate the wyvern. His attacks were nothing more than a nuisance to the wind wyvern. At least he hadn’t become a human arrow like Derek had. It served him right for sending the support mage away just as Avery was making his way over to be buffed. Though, that may have been a little bit his own fault as well for leaving the way he did.

If he had to classify his current battle, he would use the word ‘boring.’ The wyvern was fast, most likely faster than the other two, but so was he. And, because he had no way to fly like Edgar or conveniently stay in the air like Derek, he was forced to stay on the ground. His only skill that would allow him to get close enough to make the battle a melee consumed way too much stamina, and he didn’t know how long the battle was going to last.

He also didn’t have any grand plans like Edgar. Was it possible for him to tame one of the wyverns? Yes, it was technically possible. But the odds of being successful with only an epic class compared to the legendary status of the beast were so small that it wasn’t worth considering.

That’s not saying he didn’t carry any beast contract scrolls with him. So self respecting adventurer would venture into a max level unknown raid without one unless they already had a companion. But using his scrolls here would most likely just waste them. The raid had already shown that it had legendary beasts, so the chances of one of the next trials providing an epic trial were high.

Maybe he could get a roc, or a drake. Flying was definitely high on the list of companions. Maybe a wind elemental or sylph would work. He’d just have to hope it kept most of its form during the bond evolution. Since he didn’t use any magical element, it shouldn’t affect the final form all too much.

While deep in his thoughts, Avery kicked off the ground, avoiding multiple wind blades coming from above. In response, he nocked and loosed another flurry of arrows, each of which crashed into the near indestructible scales of the wyvern, leaving nothing more than a scratch.

If he poured everything he had into it, he believed he could do some damage to the beast, especially if he targeted the wings. And if he needed to, that’s what he would do. If he could ground the creature, it would give him the best chance of beating it solo. He wasn’t delusional, but he believed he had a chance.

But that would take a lot of effort and resources, and for now, he wanted to wait and see how everyone else was doing. He was in no harm as it was, and it seemed like Derek could get back up no matter how hard he was hit, so Avery would wait for one of the others to finish their fight and come help. He could keep up his current rate for hours, maybe even days, as long as he didn’t activate all his enhancements at once.

And he didn’t have a reason to do that this time, as he wasn’t trying to keep his target from escaping. At first, he thought the trial was going to be extremely difficult, but since it allowed the option to just survive to complete it, that difficulty was greatly lessened. Besides, if the struggle became too much, couldn’t they all just escape into Derek’s space and wait the trial out? That man was a living cheat.

For the fourth time, Derek hit the ground. No matter what he did, he couldn’t make it to the back of the beast. His skills list just didn’t allow it. He went through his skills one by one, looking for something that could work. He certainly couldn’t clean the wyvern to death, and Void Shift had been relegated to dodging. At this point, he had done his best not to get hit by the breath attack of the wyvern, and he really didn’t want to see how well his Magic Resistance would fare against something like that.

At least he knew for sure that his Physical Resistance passive worked well. Hell, it was currently working overtime, along with his Greater Meditation. It seemed like everything he tried ended up with him on his back, staring up at the creature.

Finally, his eyes fell on a skill he hadn’t been able to think about much since his glaive broke and he outgrew any weapons he could find. Sweeping Slash was sitting at level 19. Its cost and cooldown were both minimal, as the skill was almost maxed at level 20. In fact, he only had to wait a short 15 seconds between uses of the skill.

Now that he had a weapon capable of withstanding his power, he could put the skill to use in combination with it instead of just his hands. He also had his Heavy Weapons Mastery at level 18, which would augment the skill even more if used with the halberd. In his head, a new plan started to form. First, he would need the wyvern to use its breath attack again to see how viable it would be.

With a groan, Derek pushed himself back up off the ground and dusted off his pants. He bent his knees, then jumped back up into the air once again, using Void Steps to stay afloat. Soon, he found himself a few hundred feet in front of the black wyvern once again. This time, he gripped his halberd tight and prepared himself.

Sure enough, in the same situation as before, the wyvern opted to blast its breath Derek’s way. The instant the energy appeared in the beast’s gaping maw, Derek shot out a vertical slash with his halberd, using Sweeping Slash along with the movement.

To his expectations, when the arc of energy met the darkness breath, it cleaved right into it, splitting it as it moved forward. That lasted all of a few seconds, as his Sweeping Slash lost energy and dissipated inside the darkness before it could make it the full distance of the attack.

That didn’t worry Derek, as that was only the first experiment. Next, he needed to see how well channeling the void into the attack would affect the outcome. So, he quickly used Void Shift before pulling himself away from the darkness energy and canceling the skill. Soon enough, the 15 second cooldown was up and his skill was once again ready.

For the first time, he didn’t try to go in for an attack on the beast after its darkness breath. He hung back, waiting for another attack, which didn’t take long for the beast to launch. Dragons may be smarter than the average beasts, but they were still beasts. What Derek had found throughout his adventures was that beats didn’t have a ton of skills to rely on.

So, he wouldn’t be surprised if the dragon didn’t have many skills other than its breath and physical attacks. He was sure there was something he hadn’t seen yet, but he doubted there was much.

With his halberd coated in void energy, he slashed out with Sweeping Slash. This time, the arc of energy had a purple tint to it as it sliced into the wyvern’s energy. And, thankfully, the energy from the skill, enhanced with the void, was able to cut through the dark energy all the way until the skill’s natural end. Which still wasn’t even close to the wyvern, but it was a promising start.

Derek hung back once again after dodging the blast from the beast with Void Shift. His next attack would decide whether or not he could do this.

But the wyvern had something else in mind. With a thunderous roar, it flapped its wings and launched itself toward him at a blistering speed. It opened its mouth, which gave Derek a front-row seat to the razor sharp fangs it called teeth.

To the beast, Derek was barely the size of a breath mint, and now its new plan was to eat him. So, he entered Void Shift and played keep away. Keep Derek away from the gaping maw of death, that is.

He’d baited the wyvern to use its breath attack so many times that he now wondered if it was running low on mana. Is that a thing? How long have I been fighting this? he asked himself. After a quick look, he realized that it had been almost an hour. That was reassuring, because he could still occasionally see a flash of blue or an explosion from the sides where the other two were fighting.

It seemed everyone had paced themselves.

Finally, the enraged wyvern stopped in front of him. He could see the fury in its eyes. It was going to release its skill again. Derek gripped his halberd tight in preparation. It was finally time. He was going to put all his skills to use in one kamikaze attack.

The wyvern lifted its head and opened its maw. It took a deep breath. Derek prepared a Void Shift. Then the dragonkin roared. The roar was the loudest he’d heard. The sound from the roar was almost enough to knock him off his perch on the void.

Suddenly, two more roars sounded out. One from each of the other wyverns. Then, in amazement, Derek stared as the wyvern flapped its wings and shot to the sky. The two other following closely behind. Soon, they were nothing but small specks on the clouds.

What’s going on?