Chapter 721: 3 Flags And Lily's Lost Opportunity - 3

"That flame! It has properties of the sun… how did he obtain it?" he asked.

Louis looked at him with a simple, bored turn of his head.

"If you are finding an excuse to talk, then talk about something that makes sense. Don't forget I was the one to personally authorise the female dragon named Zerathra to accompany her nephews in the Ember Family Secret Realm."

Aurex grew quiet, because he indeed already knew the information about how Leo must have gained the [Sunblood Infernal Physique] with the Infernal Serpent's [Sunblood Pearl] through Zerathra's intel.

Cyrandel chuckled quietly, which made Aurex's expression grim.

In the end, he indeed got made fun of.

Outside in the stadium, humans were going mad over the display that Leo and Lily were putting on.

But there was another interesting fight going on, and the screens switched back almost instantly to that after the fight in Leo's location.

It was between Valencrest Royal Academy and Azirith Grand Academy at a flag region.

And from the looks of it, both of the academies already had tons of their men missing even before they started fighting amongst themselves.

Azirith students were defeated by Aurelius Beast Academy, and behind the scenes, Valencrest students had been defeated by Sunborn Royal Academy during the skirmish of capturing a flag in another region.

Since Valencrest Stronghold was unfortunately established in the South-East of the central mountain, they came right in the middle of two major dragon academies, becoming sandwiched between them.

Towards the East was Sunborn, and towards the South was Azirith. Them being in the middle resulted in a disastrous outcome when the first flag they went to capture was being captured by people led by Vulcarion, who belonged to Sunborn Royal Academy.

His rage once again soared after seeing Vulcan among the Valencrest team, and he charged furiously at them.

Valencrest lost nearly 40% of their force there.

There was another flag in the East that was yet to be captured, but not risking anymore in that direction, they opted to go South with the rest of their fighting force.

Unfortunately, just minutes before they arrived, Azirith had finished capturing the flag, which then made the already furious—from the loss of his men—leader of Azirith chase them down and hunt them after seeing their force was weak.

Evelyn, Dale and the other students of Valencrest gave a good fight to the leader. Evelyn used lightning to trouble him to a great degree and even managed to defeat almost all the remaining capable fighting forces of Azirith that had accompanied the leader.

But in the end, she was defeated, and right now, the leader dragon was heading towards their stronghold alone in order to destroy them for good and get whatever points he could secure.

The leader knew even his academy was done, with only him remaining as the main fighting person from their side. But the dragon pride would not allow him to go down while sitting idle.

If the loss was imminent, he would lose while giving his best.

Leo and Lily were actually heading in the same direction, curious to see the uncaptured flag in the East, when, on Agni's hint, they spotted the Azirith leader flying towards a stronghold beacon.

Red-Flame Dragon [Zyrak] (High 4-star) - Super Bloodline [Intelligence - Adolescent]

Leo raised his brow after seeing the system prompt.

"Red flame? Didn't we defeat five of them?"

Leo realised that the dragon must be the leader with that strength. Looks like he hadn't accompanied Pyrotrax and Ignivorax in their hunting campaign at the end of Phase 1 and had remained in the territory to defend. In other words, the leader was in a dire position.

He also noted that Zyrak was heading toward a stronghold rapidly and figured it must be the Azirith Academy's stronghold. Or at least, that was what he thought, given what lay before him.

But when he took reference from Fruder's speculations, Uraan and Kaelion, who were scouting the southern region at the end of Phase 1 and ended up being chased by Azirith students, made it a high probability that Azirith Stronghold was in the southern direction, near the central mountain rather than the South-East, in which Zyrak was heading.

And sure enough, there was indeed a stronghold beacon in the southern part of the central mountain still intact.

"Is he attacking a stronghold alone?" Leo wondered, not sure whose academy's stronghold or any particular ranked academy was located in the South-East since it overlapped with the Eastern stronghold of Sunborn and there was no concrete clue.

"Leo… if that stronghold is indeed not of this dragon's, then from the way he is flying towards them, it seems he is going to attack alone," Lily reasoned.

"In other words, we have a chance to take out two academies at once and end Phase 2!"

Lily's head was already working on how to eliminate the academies.

Since Azirith was already weak, taking it out was no problem. Meaning, if, by rare chance, Zyrak was heading back to his stronghold, they could at least eliminate 1 academy.

And if he was heading to attack another stronghold, Azirith Stronghold was defenceless, meaning after defeating Zyrak here, Aurelius Stronghold could get both fruits!

"And 3 flags are yet to be captured! If we eliminate 2 academies before that, it will prevent other academies from getting point multipliers and also the flag artefact!" Lily said.

Though technically, it would also cause their loss, having two was already enough. And if their hesitation caused the Sunborn Stronghold to have three artefacts, it would get troublesome.

And so they moved.

They set their course toward the stronghold Zyrak was heading to; if Zyrak was indeed attacking, they could prevent him from destroying the stronghold beacon and secure Aurelius Stronghold more points.

And later, they could always head to the southern stronghold when it was undefended in Zyrak's absence.

Just so Zyrak wouldn't sense Agnivar and decide otherwise, Leo covered Agni with the stealth skill.

Somehow, he could do that on a body as big as Agnivar, thanks to the added element of void. Earlier, when Shyra used to put others in stealth alongside her, it was because she made them sit on her back—close to her. But this was different.

Wait, isn't it shadow in lower stages? Leo thought, not sure what it was since he was doing things instinctively through the skill pathways built inside his soul.

He planned to study both the elements later.