Chapter 624 — The Fallen Dragon

The dragon's situation was plainly bad. Though its strength exceeded that of the crystal giants, it was now hopelessly outnumbered; it fought the ceaselessly surging enemy with fang and claw, and now and then could still breathe out a jet of flame, but crystal giants always found dead angles from which to attack, adding yet another wound to the dragon that had fallen to the earth.

"Is that a dragon?" one of the escorting griffin knights exclaimed. "I've only ever heard of them in stories!"

"Why would a creature out of legend show up on this battlefield too?"

"Lady Frostleaf, what do we do? Do we rescue it?"

Soyu Frostleaf thought swiftly—on a battlefield one could not simply assume that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," yet a black dragon besieged by crystal giants was still far too striking to ignore. Why was this dragon under siege? Why had it appeared here? What did he or she know, what had he or she seen? These questions made the high courier realize she could not stand by and let that black dragon die here.

In any case, compared with the crystal giants, who were unmistakably enemies, the dragons recorded by the elves were at least neutral toward the continent.

But a single reconnaissance squad was hardly enough to deal with so many crystal giants.

"Report to headquarters first. Lady Jinna, find a way to draw those giants' attention and relieve the pressure on the black dragon. I'll go guide that dragon out of the encirclement—"

As she spoke, Soyu had already used the courier's powerful transmission spell to contact headquarters far to the rear—she concisely reported the incredible event she had encountered, called for support, and agreed on a rough direction for the breakout, then followed behind the escorting griffin knights and once again dropped her altitude.

...

Maggie could feel those wounds—searing, painful, growing harder and harder to endure. Even a dragon could not endure it.

She knew her strength was draining fast, and yet she could see less and less hope of breaking out.

Perhaps in that instant when the arcane lightning struck her and she fell, her fate had already been sealed.

Deformed, feeble wings were doomed never to fly very high—but Maggie still could not for the life of her understand how those crystal monsters, transformed from commoners and mediocre noble troops, could have such strong anti-air awareness and anti-air capability!

How had they ever trained their aim to this level!

Yet no amount of vexation was of any use. As the situation grew steadily worse, Maggie knew her time was running short.

In the end, she had still failed Victoria.

An ugly crystal-cluster giant launched a sneak attack from the left—an exceptionally powerful brawler that came at her like a gale. Maggie swept her strong, powerful tail across to block the blow, then a sheet of flame reduced the enemy to ash—but a searing pain shot through the right side of her body, where a despicable spellcaster had loosed an arcane lightning bolt into a gap in her defenses.

"You deformed monsters!" Maggie roared, shouting the very word she most hated to hear: "Deformed! Deformed! Deformed!"

But the crystal clusters paid no heed at all; once again they surged forward.

Maggie tightened her guard, preparing to welcome death with a thunderous counterattack—and then, all at once, a voice sounded beside her ear: "Hold on! We're here to help you!"

That seemed to be the elves' Wind Whisper?

Maggie was briefly stunned, and then she heard two thunderous explosions in quick succession from the distance—boom! boom!

The blasts had landed far away, almost entirely missing the crystal-cluster giants, yet the mutated monsters were instantly distracted, every one of them turning in unison toward the direction of the explosions and the nearby sky—and, unless it was an illusion, Maggie even felt their reaction bordered on a "startle."

Then she saw the dark shapes rapidly closing in from the sky.

A giant eagle of the elves, and three human griffins.

What kind of strange combination was this?

Wind Whisper came again: "Dragon on the ground, can you still fly?"

By now many of the crystal-cluster giants had been distracted; Maggie, fending off the remaining enemies, answered with dragon-language magic: "I cannot take flight."

"Understood. I'll point the way—break out with me. We are the vanguard reconnaissance squad of the Cecil Legion."

In an instant, Maggie was plunged into enormous astonishment: Cecil? The army of the Cecilians?!

Why was the Cecil army in this place? When had they arrived here? This was already a thoroughly fallen contamination zone—how had those Cecilians gotten in?!

Yet for all her inner shock, Maggie's physical response did not falter in the slightest. She responded to the stranger elf's help almost immediately, beginning to attempt a breakout in the direction indicated, while saying anxiously: "Giant Stone City needs reinforcements! The Duke of the North and the last of the Mountain Legion are still holding out! But they cannot last much longer!"

Encountering a Cecil army here was a tremendous surprise, but that surprise made Maggie realize one thing: if the main force of these Southerners had already reached this area, if they could fight their way here with such strength, then perhaps Giant Stone City could still be saved!

The stranger elf replied quickly, and the reply set Maggie somewhat at ease: "Received. I will report it at once—but you had best survive, and explain the situation to the Duke of Cecil in person."

"I will survive."

More attacks fell from the sky—bright arcane missiles, and something else that produced enormous explosions.

A great many crystal-cluster giants were drawn by this assault from the sky; the pressure on Maggie abruptly eased, and at the same time she saw those crystal-cluster giants launch a counterattack against the griffins in the air—spreading out swiftly as they raked the sky with dense, crisscrossing arcane lightning, ceaselessly trying to seal off the griffin knights' flight paths, while those griffin knights, with astonishing skill, wove continually between the arcane bolts and launched wave after wave of attacks—

This sort of thing seemed to be the norm.

Guided by the stranger elf, Maggie charged toward the southern part of the battlefield, while a question rose unbidden in her mind:

In the thirty-odd days since Giant Stone City was besieged, just how much had changed on this battlefield?

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