Release that Witch

”Ashes, the demons aren’t blind!” Iffy quickly refuted Ashes’ suggestion. ”As soon as you see Taquila by the setting sun you’ll be immediately spotted! There’s no place to hide in the sky. Do you want to expose yourself with no way to fight back?”

”Iffy is right, it’s too risky of a move.” Lotus added. ”Lady Tilly told us that the Stone of Flight only lets you fly up and down and not laterally. Once you’re discovered by them, you can’t escape. Can’t we at least do this at night?”

Ashes felt incrediblytouched by all their comments, especially the one coming from Iffy. Just a year ago, she was at her neck when she was with the Bloodfang association and the leader of the association, Heidi Morgan, had been plotting to kill her and Tilly. If Tilly had not insisted on tolerating the Bloodfang Association, she would have waged war against them long before. Ashes had never expected Iffy to start showing concern for her since she thought that rift between Sleeping Island and Bloodfang Association would never be completely healed.

Ashes suddenly felt that she and Iffy were on the same team now.

She was happy to see these changes happening. Ashes understood that teamwork was what was needed to go forward.

”But I can’t see anything in the darkness of the night. Taquila must be covered in vines by now and I also can’t find the ruins if there’s no light around. I think early dusk is the best time,” Ashes insisted. ” And maybe we didn’t go astray and the ruins are just behind some big tree or by a low hill. All I have to do is to fly up and crush the Magic Stone in my hand.”

”But what if some flying demon nearby spots you?” Lotus knitted her eyebrows. ”You’ll only be able to use, at most, 10% of your strength in the air right?”

”Don’t worry. I’ve already figured out a strategy to handle these problems,” Ashes calmly explained while holding three fingers up. ”Depending on the situation, I’ll use one of three different plans.”

”Oh?” Orbit came closer curiously. ”You sound like Lady Tilly now.”

”Really? How do these plans of your work?” Lotus also appeared to be intrigued.

”Listen to me carefully, the only enemies who can discover me must be some Mad Demons riding flying Devilbeasts, so I came up with three different situations. A different plan if one, two or more than that come to attack me.”

”Oh my...” Lotus felt helpless and covered her forehead.

”Bahaha, you really plan to get caught?” Iffy broke into a chuckle.

”Hey, don’t interrupt. Let me finish talking about my strategy and then you can comment.”

”If I were Maggie, I would raise both flags in favor for you.” Orbit said with seriousness. ”Now I know why she enjoys taking part in your plans now.”

...

In the end, Ashes managed to get everyone to hear her out.

After hearing Ashes’ strategy, the witches agreed on her plan since none of them could think of a better one. In Lotus’ view, although the three situations Ashes talked about in the beginning sounded a little absurd, her countermeasures were unexpectedly good. In Iffy’s eyes, Ashes’ plan was just based on her animalistic intuition and accumulated fighting experience.

After another day of traveling underground, the light coming through the vent began to dim. At first, the white clouds seemed to be hazed with a fiery red and then they gradually melted into the evening sky. Obviously, the sun was now going down over the Fertile Plains and it was the time for them to act.

Orbit patted Ashes’ back and gave her a Magic Mark. It was a light blue spot above her head and looked like a shimmering puddle which made the witches feel as if they were standing underwater and looking up at the blue sky through the intermittent ripples.

Ashes knew that this was not the real scene outside, but just how the magic corridor looked.

After confirming that there was no demon patrol team around, she nodded to the other three witches and injected her magic power into the ring. An indescribable feeling came over her afterward. She felt as if an extra arm or leg was growing out on her body. Tilly described this process as getting invisible wings.

It was difficult for a person who was born with no flying ability to suddenly control these wings like how birds soar through the sky. Among the Sleeping Island witches, Tilly was the only one who uses the Stone of Flight with ease.

Ashes closed her eyes, imagined herself flapping the wings, and jumped!

After a moment, the absolute silence of the underground space was replaced by a variety of sounds. She felt the fresh air blowing across her face and heard a rustle of leaves ringing beside her ears. She also heard birds tweeting, buzzing insects, and the whistling sound of the evening breeze which caressed her cheeks.

She opened her eyes and saw everything clearly. Everything on the ground quickly shrunk and the exit of the magic corridor was now just a tiny spot of light.

She had to admit that it was quite an experience worth trying once in a while.

Ashes controlled her excitement and gazed to the north, where Taquila should be, however Ashes’ heart quickly sank.

As Ashes looked at everything ahead of her, she did not find anything that looked like a ruin let alone the skeleton monster mentioned by the Wolf Girl. She found nothing except some shrubs and meadows crimsoned by the setting sun.

Did we head in a completely wrong direction?

She wanted to find the Impassable Mountain Range to help determine her location. However, when she turned around, she was stunned by the sight of massive monsters that crouched among the jungle in the southeast a few hundred meters away. Those huge things were obviously manufactured by demons and the broken walls of the Taquila ruins stood right below them!

The witches had thought that they had not yet arrived at the ruins, but now Ashes realized that they had already passed the ruins due to their accumulated deviations!

If the witches drew a line from where they had started their journey to Taquila and where they were now, it would only be a few degrees between. However, in reality, such a small deviation could determine whether their location was in the front of or behind the Taquila ruins when they arrived.

Ashes hesitated. If I go back now and ask the team to turn around and head south, it’ll take us at least two or three days to arrive at Taquila . However, If I flew towards the ruins at the same speed as I flew up, I’d only need less than half a day to fly to the ruins to locate the place and return to the team. The only problem is that I’m only able to fly vertically. I’ve never tried to fly horizontally.

What should I do?

Before Ashes made a decision, a burst of dull horn sounds blared from Taquila.

A dozen Devilbeast on the back of a skeleton monster leaped up and flew toward her! Meanwhile, numerous Mad Demons emerged out of the earth around the ruins and closely surrounded the Holy City of Taquila.

”Well, it seems they’re quite vigilant and there’s obviously more than three of them. This is much worse than I imagined” Ashes thought.

She took out the Five-Colored Stone and crushed it without any hesitation and flew directly towards the ground.

For any warrior, the most important ability was to act appropriately according to the situation. She intended to capture the enemy alive if there was only one Devilbeast, eliminate all of them if there were two and retreat if the number of enemies numbered higher. She was never afraid to fight that many demons however she wouldn’t be able to defeat them all before more reinforcements came and endanger her whole team.

As for the current situation, it was way too risky to fly to the Taquila ruins. She had to crumble the stone now even though she did not get to an ideal position.

She was not as talented as Tilly who could control the invisible wings like using her own arms, but she had her own way of making flight faster.

Ashes needed to inject more magic power into the Magic Stone.

As the magic power grew in the stone, Ashes felt that the invisible wings on her back gradually swelled to the limit and each imaginary flapping of them could cause a howling gale. She descended sharply from the sky at a speed which was almost three or four times faster than when she flew up.

Under such circumstances, even the precise spear throwers of the Mad Demons couldn’t hit her.

The only problem was that inertia was too great to overcome at such extremely fast speeds. Because of the limited depth of the Magic Corridor, Lotus could only create an empty hole, which was at most as deep as five or six meters. Within such a short distance, she could hardly stop the downward momentum by herself.

All Ashes could do was to put some faith in her teammates.

After several seconds of falling, Ashes saw a small blue light appearing on the ground. That’s the Magic Corridor.

She folded her hands and put them on her head while tightening the muscles all over her body.

The moment she penetrated straight into the magic corridor, she saw several purple lights emerge out of the air and firmly grasp her. It was Iffy’s Magic Cage!

In an instant, the cage stopped her from falling rapidly, and when she completely stopped, she found that there was just an arm’s length between her head and the bottom of the hole.

”You’re really heavy,” said Iffy, her hands clutching the cage. She shrugged and added, ”Now, do you know where we are?”

”Of course, but let’s not discuss about this right now.” Ashes looked at Orbit. ”Retreat to the Misty Forest right now. The demons are coming!”