Conner stumbled back before rushing out of the study, abandoning his books on the table. Grabbing a sword from one of the many racks his father kept in the home, he raced to the front. Bursting through the door, the villagers' screams and clashing of steel jolted his senses. The streets ran red with blood as panicked civilians fled their homes.

  His eyes followed the wave of frightened people as they barrelled down the ichor-slick street in one direction. Although he knew he couldn't amount to much, he tightened his grip around his sword and hardened his features as much as his fear would allow.

  As the rushing crowd cleared, he scanned the area for the looming threat, steeling himself in preparation to protect the villagers. That's when he felt the earth shake beneath him. He stumbled forward and back as the force grew stronger with each passing second, his fragile courage crumbling. Then, a shadow gradually swallowed him and the ruined buildings whole from behind accompanied by a deep guttural snarl.

  Mustering the little shreds of courage he had left, he forced his head to turn back and his eyes widened with terror. A towering winged beast loomed over him, its gleaming obsidian scales reflecting the arcing lightning from its jaws with a malevolent glint. Its reptilian eyes glowed with intelligence, sending a chill down Conner's spine.

  The beast, the wyvern, tore through homes and shops, its jaws striking at villagers who were unfortunate enough to be caught in its sights. As it continued leaving destruction in its wake, its topaz eyes locked onto Conner, its gaze boring down on him with insatiable hunger.

  He tried to lift his blade but his body wouldn't respond to his commands. His sword rattled in his trembling hand and his lip quivered as doubt slithered into his mind and seized his thoughts. His breaths turned ragged under its immense pressure, fear shackling him in place as the beast approached.

  He slammed his eyes shut. All of the time he'd spent honing his swordsmanship, the effort he poured into solving his condition. It seemed it was feeble after all. He could only pray it'd be a painless demise.

  However, instead of his end as he was expecting, he flinched to a fizzling crash resounding through the air. He peeked through an eyelid to find Stark and the others making their stand before him and the wyvern stumbling back, smoke dissipating from its cheek.

  "You're in the way, cripple," Stark snapped, not bothering to look back at Conner.

  Although he knew he'd be a hindrance, his morale had been restored with their arrival. As he'd seen many times before, the village's warriors exploded into battle against the wyvern. With the beast's sheer size, they needed a way to bring it down to scale. The wyvern swung its tail towards them, its armored mass ripping through buildings as it passed.

  Orfal slammed his hand on the soil as thick walls erected from the earth at an angle, deflecting the blow with a resounding thud and shaving off layers of reinforced rock. As the beast sheared his defenses, Liyon waved his hands and streams of blue spiraled around the wyvern.

  The rushing waters took form, binding the creature in thick chains. Liyon's hands trembled under the beast's strength but summoning every ounce of will, he managed to wrench his hands back. The chains tightened around the wyvern's neck and wings, yanking its lumbering form downward and drilling it into the ground, the earth shuddering under its weight.

  With strained effort, Liyon held it in place as Stark infused his arms in gauntlets of raging flames and Weirs imbued his rapier with a gale of wind. As the wyvern struggled to free itself, Stark and Weirs burst forward at blistering speeds.

  The world around them blurred as the air whipped their faces. With combined effort, they unleashed a maelstrom of slashes and scorching strikes across its body. The wyvern let out an irritated groan, barely reacting as it continued to twist and heave.

  Eventually, Liyon's focus waned and the beast managed to wrench its right wing free from its shackles. Weirs veered violently as its razor talon slashed a gash into his chest. A shriek tore from his throat as he tumbled off the wyvern's form.

  Liyon acted decisively, releasing his spell to conjure a slide of blue to cushion Weirs and sweep him to safety behind a newly formed earthen wall.

  "Liyon, take care of him!" Stark ordered as his teammate responded with a reassuring nod.

  The wyvern shot its wings out to their full length, their monstrous size casting a shadow over Acclar's warriors and Conner, even as he stood a distance away. It began to beat its wings, the sheer force of their strength sending powerful squalls that shredded nearby homes, reducing them to heaps of debris.

  As Liyon tended to his unconscious ally, Orfal swept his palms along the earth with urgency before the beast could take to the skies. The earth bent to his will, tendrils of dirt and stone rocketing up into the night sky. Their form twisted, hastily interlocking with one another before closing above the wyvern to form a dome-shaped earthen cage.

  The beast slammed into the top of the cage, the stone cracking and quivering from the force as Orfal fought to keep its shape.

  "Do it now!" He shouted with desperation.

  Racing up the side of the hexagonal dome, Stark poured more mana into his gauntlets. He leaped to the top and clasped his hands together. With a roar, he rammed his gauntlets into the dome as the shockwave ripped through the air. Flames ran across the dome, consuming it in a raging inferno.

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  Orfal let his concentration fall and the cage's form distorted, the sweltering heat liquefying the stone tendrils as molten rock gushed onto the screeching wyvern. The sounds of sizzling scales clashed with its cries of pain as a cloud of smoke began to billow.

  Stark landed on solid ground with labored breaths, watching the cloud shroud the rampaging beast. Eventually, its cries quieted until they were left with an unsettling silence. Stark remained on guard but after long seconds of nothing, he dismissed his gauntlets and turned to his teammates with a victorious smirk who had similar expressions.

  "Good work, everyone. Now let's—"

  The ground quaked once more as Stark's eyes shot open in realization. He whipped his head back, the wyvern's silhouette lifting itself from the rubble. Even after hitting it with everything they had, their years of arduous training had failed.

  An obsidian tail burst through the smoke to strike its nearest target. With quick reflexes, Orfal erected a thick wall packed with layers of debris and reinforced with brick and stone to protect Stark. Although he didn't have enough time to calculate how to angle it, its density should've absorbed the blow. However...

  The obsidian battering ram tore through the wall, sending splintered wood and fractured stone flying. Smashing into Stark, his arm snapped at an impossible angle and his ribs caved before he soared through the torrid air and crashed through a barely standing building. The sudden force toppled over the wall, burying Stark in a heap of rubble.

  Orfal and Liyon stared wide-eyed at where Stark's body had been entombed. Conner looked on in horror, attempting to process whether what he'd just seen was real. One of Acclar's strongest had just been defeated right before his eyes.

  He looked back at the wyvern, which had now been freed once again, this time from the magma that trapped it. Its dark scales barely had a scratch on them as it casually shrugged off its body from their mana-based attacks.

  Growing tired of their futile efforts, its chest cavity glowed with golden luminosity, briefly exposing the silhouette of its ribs. The glow swept into its throat as it unlocked its maw, an intense radiance pouring out as golden arcs of jagged light flickered around its dagger-like teeth.

  Liyon sprang into action, water weaving through his fingers before he shot them forward. Tendrils of water wrapped themselves around the beast's maw, slamming it shut with a hollow thud. The wyvern tugged instinctively but Liyon held firm.

  "Orfal, I can't do this alone! We can still slay it."

  Orfal, snapping out of his trance and pushing away his doubt for failing his teammate, began hastily preparing another spell. But before he could finish, the wyvern managed to pry its mouth open just enough to cleverly leak a fraction of its lightning.

  The arcing energy immediately latched onto the tendrils of water, racing down their length with impossible speed. Before Liyon could react, chaotic whips of gold seized control of his nerves, scorching his flesh and burrowing through his bones as a primal scream ripped at his throat.

  Conner was certain that their years of grueling training and preparation would prevail, but the wyvern's might and resilience had overwhelmed them and shattered their synergy.

  Orfal, desperate to do anything, fired javelins from the earth only for its scales to harmlessly deflect the damage. Despite having no effect, he recklessly fired more earthen spikes into the beast, roaring in anger as he drained his mana.

  Annoyed, the wyvern aimed its open mouth at the warrior, the back of its throat illuminating the devastation in a radiant glow. With little mana reserves to spare, Orfal conjured a wall barely thick enough to keep from toppling over.

  Conner watched in terror as the last of Acclar's defenders was consumed in a flash of gold. The crater its lightning-infused breath left behind crackled with arcing remnants.

  By now, Conner's fear had loosened its grip on him. He stumbled back as the wyvern stomped to where Weirs' unconscious form lay to continue its feast. Using its meal as a distraction, Conner spun on his heel and fled.

  He lost his sense of direction as the landmarks he'd once used to navigate had been reduced to smoldering ruins. The only thing he could do was keep running, allowing fear to take him into the surrounding woods.

  With his heart pounding and breaths ragged, he kept straight even after the thick greenery had blocked out the billowing smoke behind him. The moonlight trickling through the trees illuminated the rough path as he ran. Stumbling and panting, he refused to stop, the cool air whipping his face and stray branches battering his forearms as he shielded himself.

  His adrenaline wore off but he didn't stop. He didn't care where his legs would take him as long as it was away from the echoing roars behind him.

  Time lost meaning as he continued his sprint through the wilderness until the ground underneath him disappeared and he was sent tumbling into a small ravine with a sharp yelp. He tumbled helplessly until smashing into a stream. Lifting himself weakly from the water, he staggered to a jutting boulder and pushed himself atop its relatively flat surface.

  The night air suddenly became more frigid as his soaking shirt clung to his skin. He trembled violently, squeezing water from his shirt but it did nothing to relieve him of the freezing temperatures.

  With his raging heart calming, the blood rushing in his ears subsided. Distant chirping crickets melded with the meandering waters before him. As he wiped the mud from his face, he realized that his frightened state had taken him off the path. And it wasn't until his clouded mind had cleared enough that he noticed his sword was missing.

  He briefly scanned the area, hoping to find its glint in the moonlight but to no luck. Eventually, he had to accept that he'd dropped it somewhere along the way in his panic.

  Fiercely rubbing his arms to ward away the cold, he grew frustrated with himself. He thought training relentlessly would grant him even a sliver of his village's warriors' strength and confidence. But even if he'd reached their unattainable power, it wouldn't be enough.

  The thick tar of doubt began to consume his thoughts once again, whispering nagging questions about his own self-worth and capabilities. Inadequacy gnawed at him as he now understood he could never face such formidable odds even if he was as gifted as the strong.

  "It seems I was too stubborn to notice my lack of strength," he trembled, the reality-crushing events finally smothering his hope.

  Curling up in the fetal position on his side, he allowed himself to drown in worthlessness. Tapping into his Keensight, white motes greeted him with a still calmness, the familiarity of their static nature strangely comforting. Reflecting on his own life, he found that nothing had changed, no matter the effort he put in. Fixed. Stagnant.

  Dismissing Keensight, he curled up tighter and closed his eyes, succumbing to exhaustion. Soon, the ambient sounds of the woods faded as he let his consciousness slip.