The Phoenix's Maiden

Fire Crystal (Part Four)

Pyro and the flying dark commander Grinch are now facing off, as they fire at each other, like two fighter jets in the middle of a war. Their speed is incomprehensible very suitable with their power, across the battle field where the soldiers of the underworld are swarming the field, explosions happened thanks to Pyro’s fire power. This is the time where Kamandag and Crink is still fighting each other.

Grinch is the hive mind of all flying units, he is one of the cursed creatures of Cain, that didn’t suit the power because of their body. Cain is continuously expanding his army’s strength by giving the chosen ones the power that they needed, in order to carry his wishes.

Among the creatures that he has chosen only a few fully accepted the power that he gave. Befitting for them to be his dark general, such as Borjr. Those are the ones who contains hatred and a lot of negative feelings that turned his power into a curse that they can use. The others are just naturally evil that’s why the power didn’t manifested completely, resulting to a back lash to their own body.

In Grinch’s case, his mind control ability can make his ears, eyes, and nose bleed if over used. He always brings a certain number of individual creatures with him. This unfortunate dark commander faces off a guardian that has a fairly similar ability to him. Since this is Pyro’s territory, he can command all the creatures in this area without hi-jacking their mind and as of moment he called all the creatures to go here and help them defend them.

Fortunately for Grinch he is agile enough to avoid the powerful fire of the entity and he just plans to run away while using his mind-controlled soldier to attack the enemy. But he is always hearing explosions behind him. His gut senses are telling him that he should continue to run away.

He tried to hi-jack the mind of multiple ground troops to fire at Pyro but they miserably failed. Pyro is an experienced fighter, through the history he faced off powerful foes that this coward that he faces right now. He can maneuver in midair with complete ease, using the trajectory of his hands and his fire power.

Grinch avoided Kamandag and Crink that time as he does not want to get caught up with them. He turned on a sharp angle, surprising Pyro but he caught up immediately. This whole time Pyro is not experiencing any danger from this creature that is why he is very confident that he can face him without any worries.

But Pyro has a plan in mind and he dive in completely avoiding the fleeing enemy’s line of sight and the ground soldiers swarmed him. He intended to do this as he knows what cowards think. The ground soldiers attacked him, stabbed him in the chest. The others used their club to bash him but...

Grinch noticed the commotion that is happening from afar and he breathed loosely as he cautiously went to check them out.

“Is he defeated?” he asked one of the ground soldiers that has its own consciousness.

“Yes sire, the enemy is defeated,” the soldier answered confidently as if he is very sure that they captured the enemy already. Grinch laughed and Pyro heard that, he smiled and he lets the coward to celebrate. Grinch flew above him...

“How you like that?” Grinch said very confident of the situation, the other soldiers around them shouted their battle cry and the flying commander continues to laugh. He felt his head ache because of his continuous controlling others.

A sudden explosion happened throwing the enemies from afar and surprising the dark commander.

“How you like this, Prometheus Wrath,” he then bursts out of flames, like a volcano erupting unleashing its wrath towards the enemies. Grinch was caught in that explosion and he’s been roasted until he turned into ashes.

After that attack Pyro heard the marches of the creatures that pledged loyalty to him. Unfortunately to the enemy, all the creatures big or small pledged loyalty to him. Multiple colonies of salamanders appeared from far away, tribes of fire minotaurs, santelmos, and many other creatures.

The fire entity felt relieved as he saw his creatures marching towards them and he launches through the sky, unwounded. He is made of fire so any physical attacks without infused aura cannot affect him. He flew towards Arthur and from below he used his two hands to produce two fire beams enough to completely eradicate the enemy from below.

“Master,” he called to Arthur and after he slay the last enemy that attempts to enter that cave, he turned around to see Pyro. “We have allies now,” he informed the knight and looks around to see the swarms of enemy at a distance continue to appear.

“That’s good,” he replied. “Then you will stay here now?” he asked and the guardian nodded at him.

“I still have strength to spare and I can feel that you are getting weary,” Pyro remarked and Arthur cannot deny that, because of their battle with the dark generals, many enemies passed through them only leaving Arthur to defeat them all.

“Yes, I can feel that,” he said.

“We must do that,” Pyro suggested referring to a move that they tried during the training. In one of Arthur’s training place, where he continues to unravel the secrets of his sword and practicing infusing multiple elements, Pyro noticed that his sword the Excalibur is draining his energy fast, that’s why he suggested that Pyro and him should fuse together. At first Arthur is confused about the concept of what Pyro said, and a bit skeptic about the entity’s plan, but later on he was convinced to do that.

Pyro can completely manipulate his form and he infused with the sword, granting powerful fire aspects within his sword without consuming his aura. Compared to his two-element fusion he is consuming a great amount of energy and with Pyro granting him element without sacrificing his energy he can perform combos that just consumes little energy. It’s like two reservoirs being used at the same time.

“Let’s go,” he said and Pyro possessed his sword resulting it to burn bright blue and emitting a hot temperature around him. “Where life depends upon, grant me your stillness and rage, Aqua Excalibur,” the scriptures on his sword changed.

Two elements that contradicts each other how will Arthur use this? 

A loud roar can be heard from afar and then they saw a shadow, all who saw it feared it, as they already know what it is, but they did not expect it to be here. They started to scatter as they flee, the three are clueless on what it is.

“Just on time,” Pyro said. “That’s what I am sensing all this time, an it will bring us extreme danger,” he said. “We must be coordinated with each other to defeat that monstrosity,” and soon the shadows of a dragon can be seen through the sky.

As reveals itself from the thick clouds, the first thing that Arthur noticed that its body is rotten and he can see the bones of it and flesh decaying. But it moves like it was not dead, it’s the pet of Cain, Jogundar (Yo-gan-dar), the undead dragon that’s been hidden from the rest of the world.

Raising life back from the dead is a major sin and one of the f*******n techniques by God and that’s why the underworld is sealed tight from outside.

“That’s a real monster,” Arthur mumbled and the creatures that Pyro called started clashing with the enemy forces and Kamandag used the free time to go to Arthur’s side.

“Hey,” she called to the knight that is staring at the dragon.

“Oh, you can also see that too,” she said.

“Yes, and that is a real problem for our plans,” he said.

“Then we must work together,” she suggested.

“That’s what I am thinking,” Pyro said. “Then let’s attack it first before it comes nearer to the cave,” he said.

“But what about guarding the cave’s entrance?” Kamandag and Arthur asked in unison. That is their duty in the first place, that’s to prevent them from getting inside and backing the enemy inside.

“No problem,” Pyro answered and he whistled for a couple of seconds and moments later two fire minotaur chiefs with their guards came, to their aid. “Guard this entrance,” he said and the two creatures nodded at them. “Any worries?” he asked and the two is speechless.

The chiefs of the fire minotaurs tribe are ruthless and powerful when it comes to brute strength and with their numbers in here Kamandag and Arthur, trusted that they can guard the cave.

“Let’s go,” Kamandag expanded her wings and flew towards Jogundar to attack it.

“I can’t fly,” Arthur said to Pyro.

“Then run,” he said.

“Then we will be stalled by the enemies below,” he said.

“Improvise master,” he suggested. Arthur sighed as he can’t do anything, he just puts his faith that Kamandag alone can hold the undead dragon before he arrives. He jumped through the cliff and with the gravity pulling him down, he prepared an attack that will disrupt the enemy so he can use this to avoid combat that will just stall him.

“Smoke screen,” by releasing an ample amount of water and with Pyro’s fire, the evaporated water created a thick smoke that spreads that will block their vision. When Arthur landed, he started running, slashing through the unwary enemies.

-The Phoenix’s Maiden-