Angel Monarch

In the air they sat in silence since the wind was too loud for talking, they had been travelling for about 3 hours. The Sun was already right above their heads and heading towards the western horizon.

Below them the vast wild landscape stretched as far as their eye could see. Sometimes they saw monsters moving around on the ground, from this height they seemed more like ants than anything, but they knew those shapes were much larger up close.

After another half an hour or so the first of their problem rose to the sky. When they planned this excursion, they knew flying for long periods of time will be dangerous. There are a lot of other flying beasts how would want to make dinner out of them.

One of those was currently heading in their direction. It wasn\'t as large as the butterfly, but it had very sharp looking claws and a maw full of dreadful teeth. The problem was that the butterfly\'s wings were kind of brittle, which meant that after one good slash of claws they could be shred.

The monster was a large bird, but something was weird about it. As Sera observed its wings, they looked unnatural, as the sunlight hit it they reflected for some reason. Suddenly there was a shout from behind her, Lucy was screaming, "DIVE!"

Sera looked ahead in confusion and quickly realized why she sounded so distressed. The bird slowed down, then raised its mighty wings and with a strong beat a couple of feathers came off heading directly towards them.

Luckily Lucy noticed it in time and warned them, which made it possible for Pixie to evade the metallic feathers completely.

While still in dive Sera looked back and nodded towards Hellfire and Lucy. The three of them were the only ones able to fight in the air. They noticed her gaze and soon the three of them were flying through the air and beginning to attack the metal winged bird.

In its longest lance form and clad in full white armor Sera flew towards the bird. She even donned her helmet to keep the wind out of her face. Next to her was Hellfire, his halberd in a much larger form as well.

His Heritages other than the halberd was pretty useless here, since one only increased his affinity with fire and the other gave him more physical strength. They were both good, but not the best against this big bird.

Moving its wings again it shot out another barrage of feathers, this time towards the three of them. Lucy dodged the feathers in her eagle form and got close enough to land a hit on the monsters body. The beast screamed as she tore into its flesh, but quickly recovered and with one shake of its large body managed to get Lucy off of itself.

The wound looked very bad it had some kind of black smoke oozing out of it. This was one of her new powers after unlocking all her Heritages. It gave all her attack a decay like effect, similar to the one Deathbringer had. Only hers was much weaker and to affect her opponents it had to be applied multiple times.

Her other two Heritage made her eagle body much more durable and agile, and it also increased her perception even more.

Funnily enough the least agile from the trio currently was Sera. She barely dodged the first barrage of feathers when a second one arrived. One hit her on the breastplate, but the force of the attack dissipated throughout the armor. It didn\'t even slow her down.

Moving her lance she tried to stab at the area where its heart should\'ve been, but it caught it in its beak and threw Sera away using the lance as leverage. She flew through the air for dozens of meters until finally regaining control.

While Sera struggled Hellfire tried to deliver a devastating blow, but the bird using one of its metal wings managed to defend itself. The halberd didn\'t even leave a scratch on its majestic light brown wing.

Lucy on the other hand because of her smaller size and agility, managed to took out another chunk of flesh with her beak.

Because the bird didn\'t pay enough attention, Sera attacked from behind and stabbed one of its legs. Her lance\'s wide point passed through skin and muscle, like a knife through paper. It came out the other side, but before the bird could use it to its advantage, she dismissed it.

The bird started to get overwhelmed. With Sera and Hellfire taking point and attacking from two sides, plus Lucy\'s harassment, its wounds started to accumulate. It also got affected by the decay finally and every wing beat seemed just a little bit weaker.

Suddenly its eyes snapped and it spurred around in the air shooting feathers in every direction. It was impossible to evade for any of them, since Hellfire was closer he used his body to shield Lucy\'s. Her body had the least amount of durability and an attack of this size could seriously injure her.

Hellfire took about a dozen feathers straight, but his armor held. That item Bea gifted to him was really good against physical defense, but unlike Sera\'s armor it didn\'t dissipate the force of the attack, which meant some of his ribs probably broke. Still better than turning into a porcupine.

Sera got hit a lot as well, but she tucked her wings close in time, so they wouldn\'t get damaged and the rest of her body was covered in armor anyway.

What she didn\'t account for was the fact that the bird wouldn\'t wait to see the outcome of its attack. Instead as Sera was still trying to reorient herself, a metal beak that could easily rip her to shreds –– even with the armor on –– was a few meters away from her head.

It was just about to close down when something weird happened. The bird just stopped. Its mad eyes were focused on its prey, then unexpectedly they lost focus entirely, like the soul of the bird disappeared.

\'Damn, she cut it really close. Another second and she would have to find another mother.\'

Indeed the bird\'s soul was destroyed by Vicky. Sadly she can\'t just kill monsters with a thought. They had to attack it and make it weaker to lower its defenses. When it went into a frenzy it gave up all her shielding against soul attacks, so Vicky could infiltrate it and destroy it.

The large bird stayed in the air for a second, then gravity took hold of the corpse and it began its long descent towards the ground. When it finally reached it a large cloud of smoke rose as well.

There were screams of a bunch of different monsters and the sound of fighting.

The group didn\'t care about it though. Sera, Lucy and Hellfire climbed back onto Pixie. He actually had some broken ribs, which Bea quickly healed. The journey was only beginning and their first of many battles was over.

The Sun was on its way towards the horizon, they flew until the sky started to become purple. They made camp at a clearing and quickly scouted the area around them for any monsters. The ones they found were quite weak and they made quick work of them.

There was still some daylight left so they lit a fire and began cooking some monster\'s meat. Luckily unlike the journey towards Castleburg, this time they actually had spices and salt... Also as it turns out Will was an excellent cook.

He managed to make the meat so tasty, that Sarah only chocked on it a couple of times. Since she never really had to survive in the wild, she wasn\'t used to eat anything other than gourmet food. Monster meat was anything but gourmet.

They had a good laugh at her and even Will made a small smile, which also brought a small pout on Sarah\'s face and she even furrowed her eyebrows

Soon they had to put out the fire since the night has arrived. Faith and Lucy already left to find the devil and make their own conclusions about its appearance and abilities.

For first watch Bea volunteered, Sera wanted to stay up with her as well, but after the fight and flight she was dead tired.

They chatted a bit and soon they were all sleeping. Tomorrow its going to be a big day, after weeks of preparation, they will finally slowly start to evolve even further... Starting with Hellfire.

It was exciting and terrifying at the same time.