“Your Highness, stay back and don’t move from there,” Aqui pleaded as she put herself between the Syers and the princess.

  “I can help too,” said the princess. “I’m not some helpless damsel. I know a few handy spells.”

  “I don’t doubt you do but knowing a few spells amounts to nothing against enemies of this calibre. So please, stay out of this. One wrong move and everything will all be for nought.”

  “I-I… I understand,” Lucianna relented. While it was true that she did indeed know a few spells, she was no warrior or fighter. She might be able to cast a fireball that could level a vilge but against foes such as the Dark Syers, they would easily outmanoeuvre her and overwhelm her with their skills alone.

  That said, Aqui herself was not that confident either. While she had not fought a Dark Syer before, she had seen one in action and that was enough for her to know she was inadequate in facing off against six of them. She tightened her grip on her blood-moulded sword as two Syers lunged at her. The other four were still approaching her at a pace that couldn’t be said to be slow or fast. A strange formation and tactic, but Aqui didn’t have the capacity to wonder about the Syers’ scheme.

  A Syer thrust its arm at Aqui, which extended into a nce that reached up to five meters in length. Aqui parried the thrust with her thin bde but the strength behind the blow was enough to make her stumble. The other Syer moved in on her as she stumbled. Aqui tutted and twisted her body out of the way as the Syer pounced at her with its cws bared. She twirled her body some more and smmed her foot into the head of the Syer that missed its pounce.

  There was an audible crack. The Syer went bouncing across the ground with that kick. The moment Aqui nded on her feet, the other Syer was upon her. Its arm had returned to its original form but its other arm had taken the form of a battle axe. All she had was her sword. It would not fare well against an axe but it was not the time to be picky. She swung her sword into the axe that was swinging into her. The two edges met and as one would expect, the sword snapped, though the axe veered off in its path. Aqui seized the moment to drive her foot into the Syer’s torso. She felt tremendous resistance in her kick but not enough to stop her strength. The Syer exploded into pieces.

  It was a relief, Aqui felt. The Dark Syers weren’t as invincible as she thought, though they were still a force to be reckoned with. But with the Dragon and his brides here, the battle was not lost. Her sole concern was getting the princess to her Mistress without being hindered by the dragon. But that was something she would think about after all the current threat had been eliminated. There were still four Dark Syers.

  One of the four Dark Syers sprouted wings from its back. The wings were composed of metallic feathers. Aqui didn’t know how that was possible but it wasn’t her pce to question these possibilities. Her job was to eliminate the threats to the mission and escort the princess to Verugo. Without hesitation, she drew blood from her palm by cutting herself. She then flicked the blood at the Dark Syer that tried to fly past her. The Syer tried dodging the blood but it still ended up with a few smudges on its wings. Aqui snapped her fingers and the blood that she spttered exploded.

  The Dark Syer crashed into the ground after having its wings blown apart. Considerable damages were also dealt to its back but it showed no sign of stopping. It immediately climbed back to its feet and charged at the princess.

  “Persistent!” Aqui grunted and chased after the Syer. However, she stopped and dove to the ground as a bde swerved past above her. Before she could turn around, she felt another bout of danger rapidly approaching. She threw herself out of the way as a giant bell fell onto the pce where she had been. The Syer was stalling her.

  Meanwhile, the Syer with the broken wings was within reach of the princess. As the Syer outstretched its arm to grasp the princess, a figure appeared before it. It was Ani. She blocked the Syer’s grasp with her sword. With her strength augmented by her intimate connection with Henry, she was able to match the Syer’s strength, but not for long. The Dark Syer was an inorganic entity, a machine. In a battle of attrition, it would always be the loss of flesh and blood.

  With a huff, Ani pushed the Syer back and its outreached hand away, before sshing down her sword. If it had been a normal Syer, a single ssh would have been enough but these ones were imbued with darkness down to the very fibre of their being. Ani’s ssh left only an imprint of her attempt.

  “Damn it,” Ani cursed.

  The Syer seemed to smirk at her vain attempt before shrugging off the attack and lunging at her.

  Ani received the Syer’s attack with her sword. She couldn’t cut it down but she could still deflect its attacks.

  The Syer paused for a second and stared at Ani. It seemed not to have expected its attempt to be thwarted twice in a row. An error in its judgment. Once it had readjusted its assessment, the Syer morphed its arms into bdes.

  Ani widened her eyes.

  The Syer rushed at her, flourishing its arm bdes.

  Ani could only manage to parry a few blows before her sword broke apart from all those heavy strains.

  The Syer lurched forward with its cws after disarming its opponent.

  Instead of panicking, Ani remained calm. She dodged the first thrust and grabbed the second thrust. Before the Syer could register its surprise, Ani twisted the Syer’s arm and pulled it towards her. She pced her palm on the Syer’s torso as her hand glowed an intense blue. The moment she exhaled her breath, her palm exploded with the blue glow and the Syer was sent flying and tumbling backwards.

  “Impressive.”

  Ani turned around, startled by the sudden praise. “Henry. You were watching?”

  “I was.”

  “And you didn’t help?”

  “You didn’t need any help.” Henry smiled. “Seems like those lessons from Rayne had paid off.”

  “It was a fluke. My opponent underestimated me.”

  “That is your opponent’s fault and if you weren’t strong enough, that small window of opportunity wouldn’t have meant much.”

  “Regardless, it’s not enough. Look, it’s already getting up.”

  The Syer rose to its feet unsteadily. There was a rge crack on its torso. There was a slight tremor in every move it made. The damage was severe. It walked instead of running. Before it could take another step, multiple blood-moulded bdes pierced its body from behind. In the next instance, it exploded in a grand fashion that turned it into thousands of tiny scraps.

  “Well, that would be enough,” Henry remarked. Looking over to the rest, the other Dark Syers had also been taken care of by Yu. They hit harder and faster than the normal ones. They were also more tenacious but they couldn’t be compared to the demons that he had fought. The Dark Syers were machines in the end. They had set parameters and they could never exceed them of their own accord.

  “Your brides fought well,” Aqui praised. She was covered in blood and her breathing was ragged. Though her wounds were all healed, the blood that was lost couldn’t be recovered just as fast.

  “Better than you?” Henry retorted.

  “For their sake, they had better be.”

  “That takes care of that,” Yu sighed. “Now, shall we get back to our discussion?” she asked cheerfully.

  Henry smiled warmly but it turned wry in the next second. “It’s not over yet.” His gaze turned to the Syer lying on the ground some distance away from them. It was the Syer that had been kicked in the head by Aqui. It had stayed unmoving as the battle went on, but now that all the attention was on it, it began to stir.

  “It still functions,” Aqui muttered. “I did not kick hard enough.”

  “Kicking harder won’t help,” Henry said. “It can still move without half its body. I doubt losing a head would cease its function.”

  “Then, burn it down until there’s nothing left.”

  For some reason, Henry hesitated. He didn’t know why but it was a feeling, an eerie one. Still, he fought past the feeling and unleashed his Firebreath onto the Dark Syer. Once an opponent was enveloped in his fmes, there was usually a feeling of relief, a resolution to a battle. Yet, he felt none of those. The battle was not over; that was what he felt. And from the raging bze, the Dark Syer walked out of it, unharmed and unburnt.

  “Oh, dear,” Yu muttered. “It’s not even singed by your fmes. This can’t be good.”

  “It’s not,” Henry grumbled. “My fmes could easily melt steel and it didn’t even faze it.”

  “This one’s clearly different,” Aqui observed. “I thought it felt… strange when I kicked its head earlier. I didn’t even kick it that hard but it went flying away. Now I know why. Because this one is made of different materials. A high heat-resistant alloy, I gather.”

  “Henry, this is… specific,” Ani said.

  “It is… to me. The enemy knows.”

  “What do we do?”

  “What we have always done,” Henry said and unleashed Jetstream Breath.

  The Dark Syer ducked under the vacuum beam of high-pressure air and rushed towards Henry.

  “It’s faster too,” Aqui mused. She threw blood darts at the Syer but it weaved through the projectiles with ease.

  It was Yu’s turn to stop the Syer. Her shadows charged at the Syer in an onsught, but she sheared through the shadows with impeccable precision.

  “How the fuck is it doing all that?”

  “This one’s truly different! Be careful!” Henry shouted. Now he was looking closely at the Syer, he realised the Syer’s body frame had a red tinge to its surface and there were rune-like engravings all over its body. He understood nothing about the rune engraving but he felt nothing good from them. They were bad news.

  The Syer deftly navigated through all the attacks that were bombarding it. It moved with precise agility. The decisions it made were swift. It spared barely a second in its reaction. When Aqui tried to sptter blood on it, it responded by kicking up the dirt under its feet. It was extremely resourceful. However, it was not perfect. Henry saw how it was grazed by Yu’s barbed shadows and the damage it suffered was greater than what a meagre scratch would have done to any Syer.

  “A trade-off,” Henry concluded. The Syer’s exceptional agility and resistance to their firepower were obtained at the cost of their tenacity and durability. But what about its offensive capabilities? Henry wondered.

  “It’s close!” Yu shouted.

  Henry snapped out of his thoughts just as the Syer got within a few feet of him. He activated Gravity. But then, he was struck with a ghastly, chilly, and crushing sensation. It was… death.

  Instead of being smmed to the ground, the Syer continued in its advance, completely unaffected by Gravity.

  “Shit,” Henry muttered. It was too te. He had allowed the enemy to get too close to him. As to why he allowed that, the answer was simple. Hubris. He expected Gravity to incapacitate his enemy but it didn’t. Even if that failed, he always had his reliable defence to negate his blunders. However, it didn’t feel that way this time. As the Syer morphed its arm into a giant, he felt a chill creeping down his spine. His skin would not help him and it would not save him.

  “Get yourself together, idiot!”

  Someone screamed at him and he immediately shook himself out of his daze. He ducked under the bde that nearly took his head. It grazed his cheek and blood was drawn.

  “Too close,” he muttered.

  Before he could retaliate, a pair of feet sank into the Syer’s crumpled head, further distorting it into a ft pile of metal.