Chapter 165: Finally Had a Reason to Reveal My Rifle GT B1/3: I

The Wyvern was a distant shape again.

Two attacks had already caused enough damage to change the situation: one wagon disabled, one watchtower destroyed, and two men injured.

The contract was still active.

But this was no longer a simple escort.

By midmorning, the Wyvern stopped attacking.

That didn’t mean it left.

Instead, it landed on the western ridge.

Everyone at South Relay could see it.

That was worse.

The rock formation stood roughly eight hundred meters from the station and considerably higher. The Wyvern settled on a broad ledge with its wings partially spread, watching the relay from a position where nothing below could realistically threaten it.

The archers had a perfect view.

They could do absolutely nothing with it.

One of the guards fired anyway.

His arrow didn’t even cover half the distance.

Roland didn’t bother trying.

"Useless."

Valeria stood beside Raven on the low stone wall.

"I could reach part of that distance if I used enough blood."

"But not with enough force left when it arrived."

"Not against an Elite."

Raven watched the creature.

FORGE kept the information visible.

[Skygrave Wyvern.]

[Estimated Level: 39.]

[Existence Rank: ELITE.]

It didn’t need another Skill.

It didn’t need fire breath, lightning, poison, or anything more spectacular.

Altitude was enough.

The Wind Mantle was enough.

It could descend whenever it wanted, strike once, climb beyond their reach, and wait until another opportunity appeared.

South Relay couldn’t operate under those conditions.

No serious caravan was going to stop at a roadside station while a Level Thirty-Nine Elite watched from the ridge above it.

Taren approached with dust in his hair and exhaustion written across his face.

"Can it stay there all day?"

Maelor probably would have answered with something sarcastic.

Raven wasn’t in the mood.

"Probably."

"If it does, nobody will use the road."

"Yes."

"Then the relay isn’t reopened."

Raven looked at him.

There it was.

The sentence that changed the calculation.

This was no longer about protecting three wagons overnight.

If the Wyvern prevented South Relay from functioning, the remaining portion of Raven’s payment could disappear.

It also meant the route Raven had chosen for traveling south might temporarily close, forcing them onto the longer detour they had already rejected.

Kharad would lose one of its trade connections until someone dealt with the problem.

Raven looked toward the Wyvern.

The creature scratched at one of the scales along its neck with a rear claw.

Comfortable.

Far too comfortable.

Roland joined them.

"We could leave after collecting the seventy percent."

Taren looked at him.

"The relay would still be closed."

Roland lifted one hand.

"I didn’t say it would be nice. I said we could."

Valeria looked at Raven.

"We could also take the detour."

Raven already knew what that would cost them.

"Almost another day."

"Yes."

"And we have a wagon running on an emergency repair."

"Also yes."

Raven considered the options.

It wasn’t altruism.

Not entirely.

The Wyvern had turned a local inconvenience into Raven’s logistical problem.

That was enough.

There was still the question of how to remove it.

Raven couldn’t reach the ridge with any of his current Traits. Valeria could threaten the creature if it came substantially closer, but she couldn’t deliver enough force across eight hundred meters to kill a Level Thirty-Nine Elite.

Roland might as well have been throwing stones while it remained that high.

They could lure it down.

Livestock.

Meat.

A carcass.

Some kind of bait positioned where they wanted it.

Raven dismissed the idea almost immediately.

That would turn the problem into another prepared hunt.

He had no interest in spending another day studying an animal’s habits so he could kill it for some organ or Trait he didn’t even need.

He wanted the Wyvern to stop interfering with the contract.

Nothing more.

They could wait for it to attack again. Once it descended, Valeria and the others could at least interact with it.

Except Raven had something specifically designed to solve problems at distances everyone else considered unreasonable.

And he still didn’t want twenty witnesses seeing it.

Valeria followed his gaze toward the main building.

The rifle case was inside.

"After all that effort to keep it hidden..."

Raven didn’t answer.

The Wyvern extended its wings.

A translucent arc of mana formed around them.

Then it stepped from the ledge.

Roland raised his bow.

"It’s coming back."

Raven watched the descent begin slowly before gravity and the Wind Mantle started accelerating it.

"Positions."

This time, nobody needed detailed instructions.

The wagons were already protected.

The horses were inside the reinforced corral.

Workers moved under stone roofing.

The two guards who could still fight took covered positions, Roland moved toward the eastern edge of the relay, and Valeria remained near the courtyard where she had room to cast.

Raven still didn’t retrieve the rifle.

Not yet.

The Wyvern descended.

One hundred fifty meters.

One hundred.

Seventy.

The archers opened fire.

The Wind Mantle pushed two arrows aside.

A third came from Roland at a better angle and forced the creature to partially fold its left wing.

That was all they were accomplishing.

Corrections.

Discomfort.

Never genuine danger.

Valeria attacked next.

A fan of Blood Needles shot upward.

The Wyvern banked. Three missed outright, two struck the distorted current around its body, and another scraped scales before losing most of its force.

The Wyvern shrieked and climbed again.

It hadn’t descended enough.

Once more, Raven watched it escape beyond the effective reach of everyone below with almost insulting ease.

Valeria approached while the creature gained altitude.

"This can continue all day."

"Yes."

"And every time it comes down, it gets another chance to break something."

"Yes."

"I dislike it when you agree with me this easily."

Raven kept watching the Wyvern.

"I’m calculating."

The creature banked.

Then came back.

Not toward the horses.

Toward Valeria.

It had learned.

She was the only person at South Relay who could threaten it with any consistency.

Raven recognized the change in trajectory a moment before she did.

"Valeria, right!"

She moved.

The Wyvern folded its wings and dropped.

Valeria formed a blood barrier.

The air struck first.

The Wind Mantle changed.

It wasn’t only defensive.

Mana compressed along the front of the creature’s descent before erupting downward in a concentrated blast.

BOOM.

The pressure slammed into Valeria’s barrier.

She slid backward.

The Wyvern never landed.

It passed overhead, one hind claw clipping the low wall hard enough to explode stone across the courtyard.

A worker who hadn’t reached cover in time went down.

Raven reached him immediately.

Not injured.

Stunned.

Raven caught the man by the back of his clothes and dragged him behind stone cover while the Wyvern climbed again.

Valeria stabilized her barrier.

"I’m fine."

Raven looked at the shattered wall.

Then at the Wyvern’s retreating path.

The animal had started identifying specific threats.

That was enough.

Secrecy had value.

Secrecy also had a cost.

Every minute Raven refused to reveal the rifle increased the chance of another injury, more structural damage, or complete failure of the contract.

The equation had changed.

Raven stood.

"Cover me."

Valeria understood immediately.

Her eyes moved toward the building and then back to him.

"Finally."

Raven headed for the door.

"You don’t sound disappointed."

"I’ve been waiting weeks to see what happens when other people finally see it."

"That is not a useful reason."

"It is to me."

Raven entered the building and retrieved the long case.

When he returned to the courtyard, the Wyvern was climbing again.

Everyone noticed.

Not the creature.

The case.

Raven had carried it around the relay since arriving, but he had never opened it in front of them.

He placed it on a low table and released the straps.

The cover came away.

Conversation stopped.

The Prototype Rifle Mk.I lay exposed beneath it.

Dark Black Mithril formed the primary frame and barrel. Hardened organic structures reinforced sections around the Reservoir and Pressure Chamber, while thin blue filaments ran between components that looked as though metal and preserved anatomy had been forced to agree on becoming the same weapon.

It resembled no sword, bow, crossbow, or artificer’s staff anyone at South Relay had seen.

One of the guards stepped closer.

"Is that a crossbow?"

Raven checked the action.

"No."

"Then what is—"

"Later."

He opened the ammunition case.

Eight slots.

Eight standardized projectiles.

Raven had collected Hadrik’s completed batch before leaving Kharad that morning. Unlike the provisional calibration rounds they had already expended, these eight had been made from the same selected steel, individually measured, hand-finished to the same dimensions, and checked against the Mk.I’s current barrel specification.

They were the first ammunition Raven considered reliable enough to carry for actual combat.

And he had exactly eight.

He wasn’t going to waste one.

There were no separate armor-piercing rounds yet. No enchanted ammunition. No specialized cores or exotic metals.

Every projectile in the case used the same standardized design.

Hardened steel.

Consistent weight.

A slightly elongated profile based on the second live-fire round that had penetrated four centimeters of laminated iron.

Simple.

Repeatable.

Expensive.

Raven removed one.

Seven remained.

He opened the breech and inserted the round.

The mechanism closed with its now-familiar mixture of metal movement and biological contraction.

Several people nearby visibly reconsidered standing too close.

Taren stared at the rifle.

"What does that do?"

Raven raised the Mk.I.

"I’m hoping enough."

FORGE acquired the target.

[Skygrave Wyvern.]

[Estimated Level: 39.]

[Existence Rank: ELITE.]

[Estimated Range: 286 m... increasing.]